Page 85 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

I stand, touching his arm. “I’m sorry. I—I forgot.”

He offers me a pained smile that really is more of a grimace than anything. “I would forgive you anything.”

I blush, dip my head to sever contact with his intense eyes, and breathe, “All right. Let’s swim.”

Poseidon doesn’t allow me a moment to change my mind. One moment my feet are in the sand and the next I’m swept up in strong arms. A peal of laughter spills from my lips as Poseidon races into the waves.

When he dives us into the deep, I hold my breath. The light of the nearly full twin moons spills over the glassy water to beam into the surface, igniting the quick transformation from man into merman. His tailfin is enormous and silver with just the faintest hue of blue. It has to be at least triple the length of his legs, thick, and frighteningly powerful.

As I kick my legs in the water to propel myself to the surface, I feel the powerful swipe of his tailfin beneath my feet. The impossible power in that single swipe is jarring, and I crest the surface with a harsh inhale of breath.

Poseidon is already there. His hair, unaffected by the water with some merman magic, is dry and shining silver white under the moons. He is beautiful, while I must look like a drowned kitten.

Scowling at him, I turn onto my back to semi-float. “How doesn’t your hair get wet?”

“It does.” My nose wrinkles in reply and he adds, “It simply dries exceptionally fast. As does my body. It allows me to move in and out of the water with little detection.”

“Well, that’s just not fair.”

“Such is life.”

I harrumph but continue my relaxing wade in the water. Poseidon joins me, his torso floating entirely effortlessly in the water. When my bottom begins to sink, exhaustion beginning to set in, I feel a flicker of fear as my eyes drift to the very far away shore.

How did we get so far out to sea?

The thought is met with a tiny burst of panic, and that panic is met with a firm pressure under my bottom.

My eyes shoot to Poseidon, who is still lounging in the water. But now, his tailfin is positioned under my bottom, holding me up as though I’m sitting on a floaty.

“Easy.”

“How are you just lying there? You’re hardly moving.”

He slides his eyes to me. “Are you honestly asking me, God of the Sea, a merman, how I’m able to swim?”

I blush. “Silly question.”

“Mmm.”

I peer over the side into a bottomless blue that bleeds into black, and shiver. “Aren’t you afraid of being eaten by something—you know—bigger than you?”

He arches a brow. “Are you trying to beat your silly question with another, sillier question?”

“No.”

“There is nothing bigger than me in the sea, Persephone.”

“Surely that’s—I mean—there’s whales.” I whisper in horror, “Orcas.”

He studies me. “You don’t like Orcas?”

“They’re mean.”

“They are the human equivalent of life in the sea.”

I shrug. “Explains why I’m not a fan, then.”

“They are highly intelligent.”

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