Page 48 of Surfaces
My chest crackled with victory and excitement surged through me as Watkins released my hand, picked me up by the waist, and whirled me in a circle. My hands fell onto his firm shoulders and I stared down in awe at my greatest enemy. His eyes were black as ever, pupils dilated as he stared up at me, the single white shock running through his black hair sweeping across his forehead. But unlike the scowls I was used to from the shark shifter, he wore a fierce smile, one that was as dangerous and sharp as any of his shark teeth.
In a moment of need, he’d suddenly become my greatest ally.But why?
The question must have been etched across my face and he pulled me down against him, then whispered in my ear. “Your declaration about the shark shifters. Thank you.”
I nodded slowly as comprehension dawned that he liked the changes that I’d made this morning. “Of course.”
Watkins gently released me from his grip and looked down, almost shyly. “I misjudged you. And I’m sorry.”
I nodded again, like an idiot, completely at a loss for what to say.
“Anyway, Gorgono is an idiot.”
I laughed, finally able to release some of the odd tension building up inside of me at this absolutely unbelievable scenario. Never in a million years had I expected Watkins to change his tune. Especially not over something as small as treating shifters with a bit more empathy.
Suspicion hovered at the edges of my mind. Was there an angle to this? There had to be.
Watkins ran his tongue over his lower lip before saying, “I know it might not be possible, but it would be really nice…I’d like it if we could start over.”
He swam off before I could reply, leaving my thoughts as mangled as the inverted ship still drifting above us.
15
Gorgono might have beena horrid person but his ballroom was a masterpiece—and he knew how to throw a party.
I watched the last of a tittering group of noblemen as they escorted their wife into the building through the skylight in the roof.
Then Felipe and Ugo turned and nodded to me, clearing me for the approach to the tall octagonal tower with no windows and no doors.
On land, it might have looked like a prison, a tower from which no captives could escape, but this tower was in the sea, where anyone could swim right up to the roof. Its tower burst out of a long small building and was decorated with a row of rainbow quartz every few feet.
No one could quite keep their eyes off the flashy crystal, and jaws dropped until Gita leaned forward and whispered into my ear, “Julian told Humberto this morning that they’ve painted gold onto the crystals to give them that iridescent sheen. Wish we could do that with fabrics.”
I nodded. She was right. The effect was unearthly. All the tiny facets of the rough crystal sparkled in the diffused sunlight—bright oranges, deep blues, unnatural greens, and pinks as vivid as an azalea bush. It turned the plain tower into a wonder to behold.
We swam forward but stopped when I was ten feet above the skylight, staring down, though I couldn’t see in. The opening just looked like the top of a water well from my perspective.
Music floated up from the skylight and out into the water as I waited while Felipe and Ugo, in their most formal stamped seashell armor, swam forward and flanked the entrance on either side so that I could safely descend through it.
Once they were in position, I turned to Gita.
“You knew the entrance was in the roof, didn’t you, you minx,” I jokingly accused.
She gave a shrug but her expression was smug. My maid had clearly planned for my descent because she’d wrangled me into a hunter green silk dress with golden lace fringe that hardly covered my nipples. The dress had a train twenty feet long. I’d argued with her when she’d initially suggested it, hoping to find something less ostentatious. But she’d persevered and won that battle because Sahar was in the room the entire time backing her up—I couldn’t win against them both. Nor could I ask the questions I was dying to ask about Gita’s ride over with Humberto.
I fingered the deep green skirt as Gita giggled and she adjusted the precarious train carefully tucked over her arm.
“Now wait here, Your Majesty,” she instructed as she swam down below me. With a flourish, she dropped my massive train through the skylight, the fabric as thick as the opening, clearly blotting out the light and creating a scene below as the music stopped.
She glanced back up, a mischievous expression on her face. “Alright, descend slowly.”
I gave a nod and let my wings tuck back a bit so that I drifted down through the skylight to find every eye in the room upon me, my train already puddling on the marble floor.
My tall golden crown slid inside my tightly woven braids as I nodded softly to the fully packed ballroom. They bowed in unison, which still gave me a tiny thrill, though I probably should have been used to it by then.
When all eyes rose, I found Gorgono’s face instantly, and he did not look happy about my entrance.
Good. I hoped he hated that as much as he hated the crowd’s cheering earlier. Involving the crowd had been Watkins’s stroke of brilliance. I could still hear chatter drifting through the room about it as the music resumed.
