Page 97 of Waves
"I'll be watching you," he muttered under his breath.
"As you should," I replied.
And then we both swam toward our queen, the mer unable to help himself and swimming just a bit faster to reach her first. I allowed it. I was going to count this as two good deeds for the day.
The days passed by,rolling into weeks, and a simple pattern emerged. I'd awaken and eat a tentative breakfast with Avia and her other mates, and then I'd go out on my own—well, sometimes Felipe would grumpily shadow me—and spread joy throughout the kingdom.
My favorite good deed turned out to be helping the fishermen filet their fresh catch. It didn't hurt that many of them were excellent liars and told the most outlandish and amusing stories about terrorizing sailors with sea trash or hiding behind rocks and singing at them in falsetto voices like they were mermaids. According to their braggadocious reports, they'd successfully drowned at least forty men.
One afternoon, bored of gutting, I materialized in my queen's study, my twist of navy smoke trailing off in the water. Avia was sitting at her desk, scrolls scattered around her, that annoying beta of a merman—Mateo—bringing her a glass of bubble as she studied the trade offers rolling in from the surface kingdoms. At a nearby desk, Keelan was doing the same.
As word spread that she'd tamed the unending king, the countries of Kenmare had all fallen over their feet to get into her good graces. Her eyes scanned the latest one.
"You should be thanking me for all those," I told her, leaning back against the door and watching her scrawl her signature across the bottom of a page. "They're scared of you because of me. And Okeanos is going to get rich because of it."
Avia merely brushed aside a curl that had fallen out of a pretentious updo from her maid, sat back, and tried to melt me with the heat of her amethyst eyes.
I don't think I melted the way she intended.
Her indignation was...strangely adorable. And the irritation she had when she realized my reaction just encouraged me further. I enjoyed poking at her. Building her anger and teasing out the darker parts of herself. It was the biggest amusement during my days. That and the strange fluttering that went through my chest when our eyes met.
This game of tug-of-war was more thrilling than anything I'd stumbled across in a thousand years. But there was also something far deeper to our connection than that. Somethingshe had never voiced but I could feel purring contentedly beneath my skin the second we came in close proximity. There was a flush on her cheeks whenever it hit her. It was the sort of blush that also affected her breasts, which she had started baring in the undersea fashion upon her return to the capital.
My eyes dropped down to those delicious globes and I didn't bother to hide the way I stared, mouth-watering, every time her breath caught when she glanced at me.
Like now.
I imagined rushing over to Avia, my legs solidifying right as I shoved her back onto the desk. Mateo would hurry over and I'd slit his throat with her letter opener and then rut her atop her desk as his blood salted the sea around us.
"Eyes off her, brute," Felipe brushed up against my side, the mer appearing out of nowhere. He'd probably been off skulking and pouting again about the fact that she wouldn't let him kill me...because she knew our connection was more primal than whatever she shared with him.
Lust and darkness wove together to bind me and my queen.
My hand rose to my chest at the intensity of the thumping there. The heat rising from my skin was as warm as if I'd just spent a day out on the sands. "She likes it." I tapped my chest deliberately, enjoying the way he pressed his lips together and clenched his jaw.
If Avia weren't attached to him, I'd gut him and strangle him with his own entrails. I knew he felt the same, which is why I stepped forward and gave him my back, taunting him.
“When are you going to tell him about the wedding?” Felipe’s question sliced the nerves in my spine, and I stopped, unable to move.
The tension flooding the room immediately changed—it didn’t lessen—it transmuted into chaos. A spinning energy thatwas as rough and wild as the whirlpool that had whipped through the last event of the tournament.
Avia shot Felipe a cutting glance in reprimand but that didn’t stop the howling possessiveness hurtling through my veins. I gazed down at her and asked, “We’re getting married, darling?”
“No… we aren’t.” Avia’s gaze darted nervously to her other mates. "You'll be with me always, but not..." she trailed off, looking guilty, as an inferno lit up my neck and blazed across my face.
"What?" My head immediately whipped sideways to glare at Felipe, who looked downright guttable at that moment with his arms crossed and brow raised. So smug.
“She can only marry men from the tournament, halfwit.” Felipe grinned widely at me as if he had smugly discovered a loophole and decided to cut me out.
But the words he assumed were a jab only made the moment more delicious as understanding dawned on me. As the heat receded and was replaced by vicious delight.
Avia had asked me so many questions in the weeks since she'd discovered my identity. So many. But there was one she'd forgotten.
Slowly, I turned and swam toward my queen, enjoying the way her eyes widened and an inhale got caught in her chest as I reached for her hand. A blazing smile lit my face as I brought her knuckles to my lips and kissed them gently before I said, “Oh, did I forget to mention I competed?”
As I straightened, I twisted the ring on her finger and said, “Now repeat after me. I wish I could see who you competed as.”
Dumbfounded, Avia whispered the words.
