Saved by the Sea Lord (Lords of Atlantis Book 9)

by Starla Night

  He pulled her off and smothered her mouth with his kiss.

  Rough, violent, uncontrolled—bruising in the best ways—he bit her lips, her collarbone, her breast. The wild frenzy made her convulse. Her thighs squeezed. She needed his touch, his tongue, his cock—

  He dropped her to the floor. The shower he’d been blocking cascaded over them, pattering like warm rain. He parted her legs, suctioned her inner thigh, and kissed her pussy.

  “No.” She grabbed his hair.

  He stopped, chest heaving, and rested on an elbow, hovering over her feminine place.

  In her ordinary life, she’d be grateful that a guy was taking the time to repay her favors.

  But with Lotar, she made demands. “I wasn’t done with you yet.”

  He lifted one brow.

  Yes, she would take on his challenge. He would experience a mind-bending blow job or else.

  His lips curved into a smile. He gripped her hips and rotated her in the space, angling her body so he was lying on his back and she was flying over the top of him, sixty-nine. Her knees rested on his shoulders. Her elbows landed astride his waist. He controlled her, muscles flexing from position to position, like iron.

  She wasn’t tiny, but when he held her, she was.

  And she hadn’t been successful until she partnered with him. He made her believe.

  And now she believed she wanted to rock his world.

  She curled her hands around his cock as he kissed up her inner thighs to her quivering, aching, needy center. She plunged his cock into her mouth as he stroked her nub. The aching need intensified, pleasure mixed with want, and she moaned with his cock in her mouth, breaking the seal—but her sounds of pleasure ratcheted up his tension, and his cock tugged in her hand.

  He licked her, suckled her, pleased her stroke for stroke until she was a gooey, throbbing, aching mess. She needed him. She needed him right now, and he had yet to—oh yes. Right there. She forgot his cock and panted, whimpering, as he pulled her out of her concentration and drove her right to the top.

  He intensified his strokes, pounding and insistent, devoted as he was to her.

  He was her perfect partner.

  Her soul mate.

  Her one.

  Pleasure whipped through her, throwing her over the top and making her orgasm so hard, she shook.

  And he flexed as she lost control, striping her and the shower in his release.

  She rested her forehead on his bent thigh. His still-hard cock flexed in front of her like an offer. Did she want another?

  Well, the last one had been amazing, and Lotar was nothing if not exceptional. So, heck yes. Why not?

  Hazel pushed herself upright and wriggled on her knees down his body. She pulled her wet hair out of her face and looked over her shoulder.

  Lotar watched her with predatory fascination, intent but also fully controlled, intrigued.

  “That was great,” she assured him, and a cocky gleam shone in his eyes in response. “Now let me teach you an advanced move.”

  Again, she’d hooked his intense curiosity.

  She faced away from him, straddled his thighs, and fitted his cock to her slick, throbbing entrance.

  He rose on an elbow.

  She lowered herself onto his shaft, sliding him inside until her butt rested on his abdomen. He filled her so deeply. It was wonderful and terrifying how her body adapted to him. She changed the angle until his cock pressed against her most shuddery pleasure spot, and he moaned with a sharp need that matched the hunger in her body.

  Hazel lifted to the tip and sat again, thrusting him in and out of her channel. His moans turned to grunts and growls. Although he was normally so silent, in sex she brought out an inner animal, and his reactions made her clench with throbbing heat. And it was fun.

  He curled forward and gripped her hips, grinding his cock into her.

  A wave of pure pleasure shuddered through her.

  She was supposed to be riding him, but he held her in place and drove in harder, hotter, more perfect pleasure. She wriggled and cried. Each thrust pushed her closer to the edge. Each pulse into her spot sent a matching pulse of fulfillment and need cascading through her body. He slammed his cock into her, utterly out of control, and she arched her back as all the muscles in her body tensed and abruptly released. Pleasure gushed over her, a more intense orgasm than she’d ever experienced in her whole life.

  He surged into her with a final groan, release racking his body, and then he slowly, so slowly, lay back on the shower floor. His chest rose and fell.

  She slid forward so he was no longer pinioning her, then crawled to his front and collapsed.

  And still the shower pattered down.

  His chin trembled. Ever so subtly.

  He was so sweet.

  This was so nice.

  She could lie in his arms like this forever…

  Twinge.

  What was that? She rubbed her belly.

  A ghostly sensation of a cramp?

  Huh.

  Sometimes sex was so good, it was toe-curling, but it wasn’t usually cramp inducing.

  Unless…

  She traced the line of his jaw. “You know, if we keep having this much mind-blowing sex, I’m going to end up pregnant before we finish this road trip.”

  He curled his hand around hers, kissed her fingers, and nailed her with his steady, intent gaze. “I do not fear that at all.”

  Hazel’s gaze softened, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “Good. I just… It’s probably nothing, but I thought you should know.”

  A deep sense of peace filled him.

  He shut off the liquid and carried her from the shower, dried her with the towel, and completed the nightly rituals. She curled against his body—such a different sensation on the surface, her weight pressing him into the bed, her damp hair splayed across his shoulder, and her breathing soft and soothing. He rested his cheek against her forehead.

  The Dragao Azul warriors swam confidently with their young fries nestled against their mates. The queens casually shielded themselves, healed, and pushed as needed without seeming to think about it.

  Hazel was mostly there. She summoned power when she focused. Her fins were smaller and stubbier than other mer, but they still functioned.

  And he had always felt physically capable of caring for his bride and his young fry.

  Most importantly, Hazel had seen he was capable also.

  She had recognized his abilities and celebrated them. She trusted him.

  He would be worthy of that trust.

  And with her by his side, he would face down his father and the other warriors of Syrenka.

  Unease coiled in his belly.

  Hazel would not change her opinion. She would not hear their words, nod slowly, and say, Ah, now I see. Lotar was wrong all this time. He made it sound like you were the unreasonable ones, but now I understand the truth. I no longer want to bear his young fry or join with him.

  The coil vibrated with sickly energy.

  No, Hazel was stronger. She was his soul mate. She would hear their accusations and still take his side.

  She would.

  Surely.

  He held her a little tighter, and even though he was exhausted, he studied the ceiling for a long time, counting her breaths, promising that this would not be the last time he heard them so close or that she trusted in him so completely.

  They both slept well, and in the morning, Hazel arranged their flight to Syrenka.

  The unease simply would not leave him. Hazel asked several times if he was okay. He brushed her cheek and took comfort from her. She went into his arms willingly, and they united bodies with tenderness until finally, he was able to sleep.

  When he awoke again, it was evening. Voices sounded in the main room. He pulled on his damp human coverings and exited.

  Queen Zara sat in a chair facing Hazel. Her powerful soul light burned in her commanding chest.

  Behind her stood her husband, Ela
n. Large, well-muscled, and covered in aquamarine tattoos, the former First Lieutenant of Dragao Azul had been blackmailed into leading an army against Atlantis. Now, he had thrown off all ranks and existed as a father, husband, and simple warrior.

  Elan’s gaze lifted to Lotar. Recognition and cautious respect filled his face.

  Their young trainee, Zain, scratched human letters onto a pressed-fiber book. He concentrated hard, his tongue at the corner of his small mouth while he gripped the long writing stick.

  Queen Zara’s brown gaze crackled with fury. “Lotar. I know you have a history with my husband. Are you going to have a problem?”

  They had once faced each other in battle. Lotar had captured Elan from the enemy camp—stolen the general from beneath his very army—and delivered him to Atlantis for judgment. At the time, Lotar had been so enraged that he’d wished to execute Elan, but King Kadir and First Lieutenant Soren had been wiser. Their decision had led to Dragao Azul rebelling against the All-Council. And today, Elan met him as an ally.

  Lotar dipped his chin to Elan, and the warrior nodded back.

  “Good.” Queen Zara folded her hands. “Hazel, finish what you were saying.”

  Hazel straightened and cleared her throat. “Right, so I was saying that we’ve got RSVPs from warriors in most of the cities we visited, and as soon as I mentioned you were announcing the party to the old brides, they got super excited to see their mothers. I wrote down the names I remember, but Lotar knows the rest. Here, Lotar, tell me so Zara can look up if they’ve agreed to come.”

  He took a breath.

  Zara held up a hand to stop him. “Forget it. After four years, I can confidently tell you that none of them are coming.”

  Hazel’s soul light dimmed. “None? At all?”

  “And they’re going to be angry that I asked. All the brides who want contact have already approached the foundation. So you can call Mel and ask her for the list. Anyone I’ve hunted is angry, furious, to be found.”

  “Why?” Hazel lifted her palms. “The secret’s out. They can meet their grown-up kids, revisit their old husbands—”

  “Revisit their old trauma.” Queen Zara leaned on the armrest, regal and certain. “When the Dragao Azul warriors took my newborn son and forced me to the surface, my last vision was of Elan being beaten nearly to death because he would not stop fighting for me. For us.”

  Hazel lowered her hands.

  “The old sacred islanders had traditions,” Zara continued. “A support system. That’s all gone. And the mer didn’t care. They cry about having lost their sacred brides, but the sacred islanders lost everything. The mer took the few brides who remained, used them to produce an heir, and then forced them to the surface to suffer on, alone.”

  It was hard to hear.

  Hazel tried again. “But now things are different.”

  “How?” Queen Zara’s rage flared. “The All-Council is still in power. Their armies still roam the ocean enforcing their traditions. And even if the All-Council does admit they were wrong and apologize, that won’t unbreak the women who’ve been broken.”

  Zara pressed her hand to her heart.

  “When Elan escaped with Zain a year later, I couldn’t bear to look at them. And so when I found Elan’s mother and she refused to meet him or her grandson—because facing what she’d lost would become too painful—I got it. I understood.”

  Elan gripped the back of the chair. He had lived through it.

  “I’m going to continue tracking down the brides because someone needs to witness for them. Some need me to look them in the face and say, ‘I know you went through that. I see and acknowledge you. I can’t change the past, but I can be here for you now.’”

  Queen Zara gestured at the paper in Hazel’s hand. “So I’ll take your names and I’ll add it to my research stack, but as far as any of them attending, don’t hold your breath.”

  Hazel’s soul light darkened even further. She stared at the list. “I told all those warriors they might see their moms. I thought it was possible. I feel like I lied.”

  “You did.” Queen Zara was unrelenting. “So my advice is to watch what you say. If you think you feel bad, imagine how they feel.”

  Hazel rubbed her chest.

  “These women have been through enough. Don’t set them up for any more disappointment.”

  Twenty-Seven

  “Is there even any point to this?” Hazel vibrated, her chest as dim as it could be and still emit light. “I mean, really?”

  Lotar kicked in the Arctic current, his senses on alert, seeking signs that the All-Council army had come this way—and was lying in wait to ambush them before they reached Syrenka. “We swim as ambassadors of Atlantis. We do not know the future.”

  “But I lied to all those warriors. Like Zara said.” Hazel pressed her forehead to his shoulder and wriggled unhappily. “Ugh. I wish I’d never come up with this idea. Or I wish Dannika would have come instead of me. She wouldn’t have lied. She’d have said something neutral and yet wise so it would convince them to RSVP without lying. Not even an accidental lie. She talks, and everybody listens.” Hazel wriggled again. “This is all my fault.”

  He squeezed her and nuzzled her. Her soul light slowly brightened.

  Good.

  Although, he did not mind comforting her.

  It took his mind off what was coming.

  In Syrenka…

  “And I’m supposed to be supporting you.” She lifted her head. Her soul almost bounced back to normal. She frowned and pointed. “Hey, isn’t that a sign of the kraken?”

  A group of rocks had overturned as they had after the kraken’s wake passed between Aiycaya and Sanctuary Island.

  He slowed. Another cluster of rocks lay piled on bottom-dwelling fish carcasses.

  “I thought she normally stayed in the Atlantic,” Hazel said. “Around Lusca.”

  “Yes, Syrenka has no tradition of the kraken. She did not range so far before her imprisonment.”

  “I guess nobody tells a kraken where to go.” Hazel hummed one of what she called her karaoke songs. “Can we find signs of the All-Council army, or has the kraken already erased them?”

  A good question.

  A honed staff jutted up from one of the rock piles. Lotar rolled out of the current and circled to the staff. It was the carved end of a trident. He rubbed off the fine layer of dirt. Broken tines, but it was a new deposit.

  “Yes,” Hazel said, answering her own question. “Huh. Is one chasing the other? Like the army is chasing the kraken, or vice versa?”

  How interesting.

  He must watch for both.

  And not become distracted.

  The familiar pathways, even altered by the passage of a large undersea creature, filled him with an acute sense of location—and nerves. He was exactly three surface days from the Life Tree. The signs of the army and the kraken faded into the untouched ground, and still he traveled on. Now, two days away. Nerves uncoiled like electric eels squiggling out of their burrows, biting into his joints, making him jolt.

  And yet it was home.

  In this canyon, he’d speared his first ice snakefish. His brother had announced his kill jubilantly, taking care with the jutting fangs, and his father had bound Lotar’s lacerated shoulder, so proud. That field was where he’d collected a long bone to make his first improvised spear, honing it under his father’s watchful eye.

  There was the gaping cavern where his trainer had made him re-race the length over and over because someone had insisted he’d cheated, and his brother—now a prince—had floated, pale and silent, beside their skeptical father.

  Homecoming was a complex feeling.

  “Are you okay?” Hazel asked quietly.

  The nerves vibrated like eels shooting off electricity.

  She splayed her palm across his pectoral. “I’m here.”

  Yes. She was.

  And no one would take her support from him.

  He hoped…


  He flew over the rise to the edge of Syrenka’s territory and slowed. The final echo point sat within Syrenka’s territory, and so he would announce their arrival to the patrols he expected to see—especially if an army and the kraken had passed nearby.

  The empty floor revealed no one.

  Arctic crabs scuttled in a vast migration. The first ridges of coral, sustained by the Syrenka Life Tree, glistening in the impossible distance, proved this was still the territory’s edge.

  “Hey, it’s funny,” she vibrated quietly, “but I’ve been so focused on your dad, I forgot to ask you about the city. What are we going to run into? Is it traditional like Newas, or at war with itself like Sireno?”

  “Independent,” he vibrated back just as quietly. “In other cities, if a king is unfit or there is a problem of succession, the warriors ask the All-Council to mediate, but Syrenka has never let the All-Council take over. Our elders developed their own solutions because Syrenka prefers unfairness over subservience.”

  “An All-Council army so close must make them nervous.”

  “It will be unwelcome.” His father and brother could be conferencing with the elders right now on how to react.

  A zing of nerves electrified his belly.

  He stilled the inner eels using old techniques.

  Hazel also stilled, mirroring him, and even her soul dimmed—not with fear or sadness, but intentionally for stealth. She had learned much in their time together. In any other case, he’d be proud.

  Lotar crept into the territory.

  He had no desire to frighten the patrol. As soon as he saw the guards, he would announce his presence.

  Deeper and deeper into the territory they journeyed.

  Where were the patrols?

  Had something happened?

  An elder rested on a jutting square boulder, staring at him.

  Lotar fought the urge to bolt. He had been spotted.

  The elder’s lips quirked, but he said nothing. His trident rested at his side, and his long fins dangled. The oyster-colored tattoos made a ghostly pattern on his equally pale skin.

  Ah, at least he’d been spotted by a friendly face.