Page 24 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

Rainn smiled blithely as if he hadn’t noticed the wordless exchange.

“That nymph over there is Shay,” Rainn announced, gesturing to the braided man, who lifted a hand in greeting. Rainn opened his mouth to continue, but the large male operating the stove shouldered his way past and shot the selkie a warning glance.

Rainn slanted a look my way as the behemoth of a male dropped a plate of meat in the middle of the table and sauntered back to the stove.

“That’s Cormac.” He lowered his voice just above a whisper. “He grows on you.”

I said nothing, and Rainn studied me as if waiting for something.

“Cormac Illfin.” Every muscle in my body froze. “The mer-king.”

The male in question quirked a brow and looked down his nose at me. “Perhaps we have met if you say my name with such familiarity.” The merman nodded to himself.

Wehadmet, years before when I was a child—moments before his father had been killed in front of the entire combined courts of undine and mer.

Rainn gestured towards the table and pulled a chair for me, moving back to his seat. “Will you bless us with a name?”

“Maeve,” I mumbled, placing my hands on the table.

The nymph leaned over and grabbed a rasher of meat, holding it up to the light as he studied it. “We’re not undine,” Shay informed me without taking his attention away from the meat in his hand. “You can trust us.”

“Of course we’re not undine.” Rainn waved his hand dismissively.

Cormac returned to the stove and slammed the cast iron pot down with such force that the crash shocked the entire room into silence. Whatever Rainn had been about to say died on his lips.

“As much as you all seem to have lost your heads around the pretty female, do I have to remind you that the ceasefire will not last much longer. No one knows how long the migration of the undine lasts. The lake called all of us here. That can’t be a coincidence.”

Tor clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Perhaps that is their plan. Perhaps King Irvine found out about this little meeting and decided to send a spy to distract us.”

I quirked a brow. “If I was a spy, surely I wouldn’t have been beaten and poisoned,” I said dryly.

Tor shrugged. “Undine are ruthless.”

I snorted, but there was no humor in the sound. “Certainly no more so than any other type of fae.”

Cormac’s almond-shaped eyes flicked to Tor’s dark stare as they communicated without words. The other two men made no effort to speak to fill the silence.

They moved so quickly that I didn’t have a moment to react. One second, Cormac stood at the stove; the next, he held a water jug in his hand, dumping the contents on top of my head and soaking me from head to toe.

I stood up as the cold shocked me into action. Any hope of remaining anonymous dissolved as I felt my pearlescent freckles emerge on my face as soon as my skin had gotten wet.

Cormac slammed the jug into the sink with such force that it broke a dirty plate.

I flinched, folding my arms around myself as if I could make myself smaller. I had put on a good show, just as I always had at the castle, to be almost stupidly cocky in the face of sharp tongues. But I was frightened. I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself, but there was a genuine possibility that the four males in front of me would kill me simply for being undine.

Rainn slunk forward, placing a hand on the ’mer-king’s chest. “Let her speak.” He urged.

“Why?” Cormac Illfin sneered. “So that she can fill our heads with gilded lies. She is undine, just as King Irvine is. We fight them; they fight us. We kill them, and they kill us.”

Rainn closed his eyes in pain and inhaled slowly as if the ’mer-king’s words had aged him ten years in a single moment.

“The lake called us here,” Tor said, and when the other men stopped and turned to the kelpie, I assumed it must have been because it was such a rare occurrence. “We can’t kill her.”

“We can’t kill her, but we can send her back to the lake. Back to her kin.” Cormac brushed his hands down his apron and reached to untie the fastening behind his tapered waist.

“Her kin tried to kill her.” Rainn pushed his fingers through his silver hair.

Cormac smiled, but his eyes were cold. “Perhaps they had a good reason. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. No good can come of this.” He paused and tapped his chin. “We’ll walk her to the waters, and Rainn will ensure safe passage past the Skala rocks. But she cannot remain here.”

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