Page 28 of Deep Sea Kiss
The old man cackled and shook her hand enthusiastically. Lottie loved the feeling of community and family that exuded from these people: they all knew each other. She’d wondered what they’d think about her being with Eiric now that she’d had Mikkel’s babies, but nobody remarked on that. They clapped Eiric on the back and greeted Lottie as though theirs was the most natural relationship in the world.
“Is Magnus at the great hall?” Eiric asked after a while.
Grete paused in her conversation with a younger woman and turned to him. “Magnus isn’t here today.”
Eiric stiffened. “Where has he gone?”
“Clan business,” she replied cryptically.
Lottie glanced from one to the other and sensed there was more they weren’t saying. Even in such a closed community, the leaders would have dealings they didn’t want to air in front of the public.
“I’d love to see the great hall,” she said. “If that’s allowed?”
Eiric sent her a grateful look. “Sure, it’s just up that street.”
He led them away, and the crowd dispersed. Only Grete followed them, carrying Aksel. They entered the great building via a side door, and Eiric closed it behind them with a clack. Scents of wood and smoke hung in the air, and Lottie tried to imagine the great hall all lit up. It was dark today. The electric lights she spied in the rafters were switched off, and only two torches, obviously lit for dramatic effect, illuminated the throne.
Eiric rounded on his mother. “Is this why you insisted we come here today? Because Magnus was away? Or did he make himself scarce when he heard you meant to bring Lottie?”
Grete set Aksel, now human-shaped, on a rug in front of the steps that led to the throne. Lottie followed her example, though Elise still hadn’t changed back. Aksel patted his sister’s wings, and they seemed to be communicating in a series of baby gurgles and dragon yips.
Eiric’s mother sighed at the sight of them. “I didn’t want Lottie’s first day on the island to be unpleasant. And your brother has some…issues with this situation.” She waved a hand to encompass Lottie and Eiric.
Heat rushed into Lottie’s cheeks. “What does that mean?”
A muscle twitched in Eiric’s jaw. “It means that he’ll have to get over himself and accept things how they are.”
Lottie chewed her lip. “And if he doesn’t?”
Grete shrugged. “He will. He’s not his father.”
Eiric didn’t seem so sure, but for now, Lottie decided to put the worry out of her mind. There was nothing she could do until she met the king—it wasn’t like she could un-humanize herself. And he was sure to fall in love with his niece and nephew. Nobody could resist the twins, as demonstrated by a whole clan of sea dragons at the harbor.
“We should put a diaper on Aksel before he poops in front of the throne,” she remarked, changing the topic on purpose.
Grete was all business again. She informed Lottie that she’d picked a house for her and the babies, one of the empty ones that had been maintained for visitors.
“Um.” Lottie shuffled her feet, unsure of how to respond. Grete seemed like a no-nonsense, take-charge person, and Lottie didn’t want to get on her bad side. But this was a bit much—an entire house for her?
Eiric lifted a hand and stopped his mother’s flood of words. “They can stay with me.” Then he turned to Lottie and raised his eyebrows. “If you wish?”
Lottie grinned. The man actually thought she was going to refuse him? Oh, that was rich. She couldn’t wait to get him alone. “That would be great.”
Grete’s soft smile stayed with Lottie as she and Eiric picked up the twins and carried them back outside.
“Your mom is great,” she told him. “A bit scary whenever I remember she’s a sea dragon, but super friendly.”
They made their way through the cobbled town streets. The stones beneath her feet were sun-warmed and clean, and green moss covered some of them, adding pops of color to the palette of grays. A light breeze blew off the sea, cooling the bare skin on her legs.
Eiric snorted. “That’s because she’s decided she likes you. If she didn’t, you’d be facing a very different side of her.”
She beamed up at him. “Good thing I’m awesome, then, huh?”
He stopped in the street and faced her. He held Aksel on one hip, the naked boy blinking sleepily, and had Lottie’s navy blue overnight bag slung over the other shoulder. Lottie’s heart melted at the image, and for the first time in a very long while, she felt perfectly, incandescently happy. There were issues she would need to figure out, sure, but on this beautiful summer afternoon, she had no complaints over her life whatsoever.
“You’re amazing,” Eiric said. “You have no idea…” He broke off and shook his head.
Then he leaned in and kissed her, hard, right there in the open, where anyone could walk by and see them. Lottie, still holding Elise, kissed him back, making an embarrassingly desperate sound in her throat.
