Page 27 of Female Fantasy
I swallow my disappointment at the lack of contact.
“Besides, I hope to keep you close. At the very least, until we learn why you have such a powerful connection to the ancient Conch of Hippios.”
Of course.
That is why he is keeping me at his side.
Not because he has developed an attachment to me.
He needs to study me.
To understand what makes me, a human waif, so special to the horn.
I have been a fool to hope otherwise.
“I do hope you still stay and join our cause,” Ryke says, his voice clipped. “But the choice is yours. I mean it, Merriah. My desire to keep you safe is stronger than my impulse to take my next breath. But I will remain true to my word. You can leave at any time. Say that is what you want, and I will find a way to return you to the shore, by the water’s edge. And I will watchover you from below. But if you do choose to stay and fight, know that you will have a fierce protector in me. No, not a protector. A partner. An ally.”
Bewildered by his words, I take him in.
His obsidian tail is black as ox blood and his kingly stature makes me feel like a member of his court, adjacent to royalty. He holds his posture with honor, readies his locomotion with a kind reverence I admire. But it is his eyes that truly undo me. It’s as though he can see every thought and feeling that moves through my body, and he treats them all with both honor and respect. And I believe what he said. I trust that while he would like for me to work alongside him, to help unravel the true purpose of the conch, he would never pressure me to do so. To give up a life onshore for a life beneath the depths. And regardless of my growing attachment to him, despite the fact that I yearn to match my lips with his, to share one breath of life, I want to make that choice.
To choose him.
To live side by side with him, a child of the tides, fighting for a people I have never known.
I have spent so much of my precious time on this planet thinking of myself as a weak woman. Maybe it is high time I step into my own strength.
“Okay,” I tell him.
“Okay?” he asks.
Hope is a steady spring in his eyes.
“Okay, I will stay and fight with you. But there is one problem.”
In this moment, Ryke almost looks childlike. Youthful and exuberant, giddy with pleasure. He looks down at me fondly, as if I am the most precious gemstone beneath the sea. And for a split second, I am worried my insides might well and truly burst.
“Any problem you might find,” he says, “I am certain we can fix it together.”
“Well, you see, sir…” I drawl. All around us, bubbles rise like stars. “I do not know how. To fight, I mean.”
“Little minnow, your training begins tomorrow.”
Ryke leans in, his lips barely brushing against my cheek.
Beneath my pebbled flesh, a phantom tattoo looms.
“We shall make a mer out of you yet.”
Chapter Seven
I smell the smoke first.
Thick and heavy, wafting into my nostrils like a dark cloud of gasoline.
Then I hear him call my name.
Urgent, panicked.
