Page 89 of The Noble's Merman

Mo looked back up, meeting Kent’s eyes. “I need to tell you… Do you remember the old surgeon who disappeared, Harris?”

Kent nodded.

Oh, no. He had a feeling of what Mo was going to say before the words even left his mouth.

“I killed him. I used the Siren’s Song and killed Harris so you could board the ship.”

“You…” He couldn’t hold them back—he couldn’t stop his tears. “But he wasn’t even a pirate! He didn’t need to die, we could’ve found another way!”

“I know that now, I know!” Mo cried out, and there—Kent saw tears flow from Mo’s eyes as well. He’d no idea that merfolk could cry like humans until now. It sent a dagger of sorrow plunging into his chest, matching Mo’s own. “I realize now, but… then, I was acting on instincts. At the time, to me, it seemed like the right thing to do. All I was thinking about was how badly I wanted to be with you. I’m sorry…”

He wanted to be with me so desperately, he killed someone else to make it happen.

Such a thought stirred around in Kent’s chest, beckoning the magic again. It was a bizarre sense of longing, of want for Mo, a merman who did something terribly drastic because of how much he wanted Kent near.

But his stomach still churned. He whined out a sob.

“I thought you said the Song doesn’t control you? Instincts? What?—”

“Kent, please…” Mo wiped his eyes, making a curious face as if he was just as surprised as Kent was to see himself crying. “As the moons have gone by, I’ve been learning more about the Song. I’ve learnt more about myself—what the Song does to me and how it affects me.”

“And you thought you could just hide all this from me?” His chest quaked again, he coughed, and it only made his nerves tighten further. Tears ran down his chin as he cried. “This is a whole part of who you are that I had no idea about. A part that kills, a part that murders humans!”

Mo dug his hands into his scalp, pulling at his hair. “I know! I know! But I’ve learnt I can control it now. I don’t have to use it like I used to. Please, Kent, please…”

The pain in Mo’s voice was almost too much for him to bear. Kent wanted it all to stop. He knew he was being unreasonable when everything Mo was saying made sense, when Kent, as ridiculous as it sounded, could understand. But he didn’t want to listen further. No, not at the moment, not when he was still angry at him for hiding such a vital part of who he was from him.

He needed space. He needed to be alone; he couldn’t handle seeing those beautiful blue eyes so desperate for him.

“I’m going to take a look around here,” said Kent, putting a hand on his knee, and he stood up, pebbles grinding into his bare feet. Mo reached out to him, but he took a step back before the merman’s hand could touch. “I want to figure out where we are… see how far away from Portsmouth this is.”

Mo hesitantly put his hand down, and looked up to Kent from where he was sitting, tears trickling down his face. “How long will you be? When… when will you come back?”

His heart ached, magic clutching around and coiling in his chest. Pressure pulsed behind his eyes. A lump clogged his throat. “I don’t know… Oh Mo, I just don’t know.”

He turned on his heels, wincing at the uncomfortable small rocks poking underneath, and walked up the beach, toward the rolling grassy hills, trying his hardest to not look back at the merman.

THIRTY

Mo never took his eyes off Kent as he walked further inland. All Mo could do was sit there and watch, heart clenching and nerves tensing with each step Kent took.

Please, let me come with you. Someway, anyway, even if I can’t walk, I need to still be with you.

But Kent didn’t turn his head and he marched onwards, further and further, until he disappeared behind the hill and Mo could see him no longer.

His gut churned at a very possible fear: what if Kent simply walked away and never returned back to him? He didn’t give Mo a definitive answer, no, all he said was ‘I don’t know’. It frightened Mo terribly, bubbling in his stomach, pressure in his throat, that if Kent didn’t return, there was a real possibility that he might never see him again. After all, it wasn’t like Mo could chase after him on land with only his tail.

Please, don’t go where I cannot follow.

The pressure in his throat burst, and he wept, holding his face in his hands. Water spilled from his eyes and dripped over his fingers. It was just like how Kent cried—water drops trickling down his face. Mo had cried before in his life, of course he had, but he realized then, he’d lived most of his life underwater. This was the first time he’d cried out in the air. Perhaps he’d cried water drops before, but he’d never noticed when below the surface.

But the sentiment, the whole idea of why he was crying on land just made him sob even more. The entire reason he was crying here in the first place was because of a human. Not just any human—the human who enraptured him like a fisherman, and Mo was the fish who was caught, staying willingly in his net. Kent was the human who accepted him, taught him many things, and above all else, was so kind to him. He was the human who he placed higher than any other creature. The human who he had fallen so madly in love with.

And that human walked away.

“Please, Kent, please return to me…” he sobbed again.

He did not believe he could live as he used to if Kent never came back. Thinking about such a prospect—a life without Kent—it pained him to even fathom it. Sob after sob after sob, he knew he couldn’t endure such a sorrowful existence. How he had fallen for the human in such an immense way, it shook his very core.

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