Page 17 of Deep Sea Kiss
Embarrassment flooded through her. “I didn’t mean to say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“Of course you did,” he replied, his voice soft. “What mother would want her child to change into a nightmare?”
Lottie shrugged. “Yours, probably?”
He laughed again, a booming sound that filled the car and thawed some of the cold from her. “Yes, my mother is very proud of her sons. Or was. Magnus and I are something of a disappointment to her because we won’t settle down and have kids. And she gave up on Mikkel a long time ago.”
Lottie was torn between wanting to know more about his mother and their family’s dynamic and asking about her babies. But it struck her as deeply sad that any mother would give up on her child, no matter how wild they were.
“So Aksel and Elise,” she began. “What will happen to them?”
Eiric leaned back against his seat. She now saw his face in profile, the straight nose, the thick slash of his auburn eyebrow. He was so handsome, and she didn’t know what to do with that attraction.
“The first time they come in contact with saltwater, they’ll probably change into dragons. It’s instinctual for kids that age.”
“There’s no stopping it?” she asked.
“No.”
He didn’t sweeten the words for her, and she appreciated that. She needed the whole truth and all the information.
“What should I do? Keep them away from the sea?”
Eiric shook his head. “It won’t help. The sea calls us, and unless you move to the Sahara Desert, they’ll always feel it.” He glanced at her sideways. “And moving there isn’t a smart idea. They need to be near the water.”
She pondered this. There was some sort of magic she didn’t understand here. Norway, her adoptive homeland, was much more connected to folklore and tradition than she was used to from the States, but she’d always considered fairytales to be pure fantasy. Now she was faced with the blunt fact that her perspective was wrong. Magic existed, and she’d landed right in the middle of it.
“Do I just plop them into the water, then? To get it over with?”
Eiric’s gaze turned sharp. “No. You need to have an adult dragon present when you do that, or they might swim away to where you won’t be able to catch them. Even as babies, they’ll be faster than you and able to dive much deeper. Promise me you’ll wait.”
Lottie nodded. What else could she do? She wasn’t equipped for any of this. Her teeth chattered, and she suspected she was crashing after that adrenaline high from earlier.
“Can you take me home?”
Eiric switched on the headlights and put the car in gear. “Listen. You can’t tell anyone about this.”
Lottie snorted. “Like anyone would believe me.”
“No, I’m serious.” He put a hand on her knee, his face taut with worry. “There are… Let’s just say there are people out there who would do anything to get their hands on a dragon. And it wouldn’t matter to them if that dragon was very young.”
She stared at him. “You’re saying my babies are in danger?”
He brought his hand back to the steering wheel and drove onto the road. The night closed in around them, the car’s headlights illuminating a narrow section of the road. Lottie felt as though the rest of the world disappeared and only they remained, traveling through the inky darkness.
“They’re not in danger now. Nobody knows about them. And I never would have left you without protection if I thought someone might hurt you.”
His voice was quiet and the words sincere. Lottie instinctively trusted him—whether that was smart or not, she had yet to decide. But Eiric had never lied to her, not once. He’d had to make sure she was trustworthy as well.
“Okay,” she said. “I have a lot to think about, but I won’t tell anyone.”
He inclined his head but kept his attention on the road. Lottie wanted to pepper him with questions, ask about his family anddragon superpowers, for fuck’s sake. But her mind was shutting down from an overload of information, so she stared out at the night and kept her thoughts to herself.
Then Eiric was shaking her.
“Lottie? Hey, wake up.”
She jerked and nearly collided with him. “Oh.”
