Page 73 of Bride of the Sea King

When the game ended and I (somewhat reluctantly) handed the baby back to her mother, we stopped by an office near the throne room before heading to our grotto.

Triton’s spies didn’t have any more news about the selkies’ plans, unfortunately, but they spent some time trying to come up with and prepare for a handful of things that could go wrong in the coming weeks.

After the meeting, Triton ran me through the steps of what would happen if there was an attack. We’d be practicing that process repeatedly over the next few days, and I wasn’t at all against the idea.

There weren’t any other problems to deal with, so when we were done with that, we went to the beach and made our way back into the ocean for more training.

While we were swimming, Triton showed me everything around the castle. He wanted me to have a mental map of the ocean near the island, so I would always know how to get back home if I needed to.

It was strange to think of the castle that way, but it was genuinely starting to feel like it.

And while navigation had never been one of my talents, I started to get a feel as far as which direction was which underwater, and I figured out how to get back even after he took me a long way from the castle.

Days passed quickly,and turned into weeks. My magic started to feel like a part of me, instead of feeling foreign.

We spent a lot of time with the turned humans, and I always ended up holding a baby or two. Or four.

The other ex-humans were not-so-secretly trying to make me catch the fever… and it was kind of working.

Kind of.

A month went by without any problems or drama with the selkies.

Then a second month.

And a third.

I was starting to think the selkies had decided they were fine with not having control over the sea, but Triton was certain that wasn’t the case. He knew them much better than I did, so I didn’t complain against his caution.

He didn’t bring up breeding again, and I obviously didn’t either. I couldn’t get pregnant yet, so it didn’t particularly matter anyway.

But I found myself thinking about it, every time we curled up in bed together.

A baby with my eyes and his smile.

A squishy little pain in the ass to love, dote on, and snuggle with.

There were so many mated couples having children that I wasn’t personally concerned with repopulating merrae society. But the more time I spent with babies, the more I liked them.

And the more I started to think I wanted one, even if I hadn’t admitted it aloud.

Thankfully, I still had time before I had to really make that decision. Hopefully, alotof time.

sixteen

ARIA

After a laid-backmorning filled with slow, lazy sex, reading together in bed, the most delicious pancake breakfast, and a few hours entertaining children, we waded out into the ocean for another afternoon of training.

The castle was a mess of excitement as everyone prepared for a large party they were throwing the next day. It was a yearly holiday that they called Tide Change, because supposedly the underwater tides changed slightly on that day every year.

I was pretty sure they just wanted something to celebrate, because the underwater tides actually changing on such a specific timetable seemed unlikely.

We would be helping set up for the holiday after a few hours of training, but we still didn’t know if the selkies were going to attack us. So, we were still training almost full-time.

“Run your checks,” Triton instructed me, holding my hand as we waded slowly.

Neither of us was in a rush. We were both looking forward to a day off for the holiday, as our lazy morning had proven. I wasgetting pretty damn good with my magic, so there was no need to exhaust myself daily anymore.

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