Page 31 of Caged By the Ruthless Thief

I scroll for hours. There are more comments. At some point, Eros makes us food, adjusting the block so I can hold it myself.

In the middle of the night, I wake and I’m in bed. I wander into the bathroom and change my clothes before returning to Eros. He lifts the blankets, and I climb in with him. Crazy dreams fill my head, of being chased and each of my guys being in jeopardy.

* * *

“Who are you?”A female voice cracks.

My eyes fly open, and I hold the sheet to my breast. Eros isn’t in the bed with me. “I could ask the same of you. What are you doing in Eros’s dome?”

“Wow, just wow. You’re being serious?”

I shake my head, and my hair falls behind my shoulders.

She shrieks and charges me, and it’s all I can do to back up to the headboard before she’s lying across my lap. “He mated you!”

I’m tensed up, waiting for her fists to start flying. A male like Eros Herod is going to have a lot of jealous exes around the city, but if she’s in his apartment, she’s not his ex.

It takes me a minute to realize she’s not upset. She’s laughing on the inhale and giggling on the exhale. It sounds almost like the old asthmatic donkey we had on the farm.

“He did it. He mated with someone. Hello, beautiful sister.” She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes. “I love you more than he does. I’m so happy to have you in the family. Oh, Zeus, he has a new last name. What is my brother’s new last name? No offense, but please say it starts with anEand will sound terrible with his name. Like Toast or Host,” she half-yells in my ear.

“Portsmouth.”

“Oh, damn. Eros Portsmouth, that sounds good. Wait! As in Arabel Portsmouth, mate to Nico? The second coming of Poseidon?” She pulls away, holding my shoulders.

“Annabelle.”

“Annabelle,” she repeats.

“You have me at a disadvantage. Who might you be?”

“Oh, right, of course he doesn’t talk about his family to you either. I’m Marina Herod, fifth-born to Nerida Herod and her mates.” She lists them, but I’m not really listening. Holter and Nico didn’t really come with family—they were the family. She’s still going on. Dad, Baba, brother’s names, father’s birth names and what domes they are from, and I’m utterly lost. “...Michio is the oldest. He’s such a blubber head; he won’t listen to a thing Mother or I tell him. He should have mated a mermaid in Diamont two years ago, but he keeps putting it off. I mean, I know she loves him. I just don’t get it. No merman has wanted to court me, because no one in our family is mated. They want to know where our allegiance lies, and you’re basically a Glyden, which is amazing. But now Eros has gone and done it. I can’t wait to tell—”

“Marina, you can’t tell anyone.”

She slides off the bed and stands next to me, glaring. “What are you saying? I can’t tell anyone? The ball is tonight. And Eros has to go. And if he’s going to go, you can’t have other mermaids dancing with him, not when he was just mated. It wouldn’t be right. You have to go too. And then I will get suitors and be able to start my pod.” She falls backwards onto the bed.

“What in the hell?” Eros storms into the room. “Marina, how did you get in here?”

“How do I get in anywhere? I overrode the locks with the code I wrote.” Marina smirks at him.

Eros stares at me and then at his sister.

“What do you have to wear to the ball?” she asks me.

“The ball?”

“The Vividaria Festival. Everyone who is anyone is going to be there.”Thud. Thud.“What was that?” Marina takes off for the living room.

I already know what it is. Mickey. He doesn’t like it when I get upset. I flinch because I don’t like him hitting the glass. He’s going to hurt himself. I’m not sure how he can pick up on my emotions from out in the ocean, but he’s got it right. I’m not upset with Marina; I’m sure she’s a lovely, young, bubbly, talkative girl. No, I’m upset that she’s a talkative mermaid. There’s no way others aren’t going to know that I’m here now.

Eros is at my side as we both head into the living room after his sister.

“Ball?” I ask the one-word question, raising my eyebrows.

“Yes, the ball.” His chin ticks, and if there was ever a honey-pretend-you-know-about-the-ball look, it’s what’s on his face right now.

I smile and look Marina dead in the eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Marina.” I loop my arm over her shoulders. She’s quite a bit shorter than me. I’m guessing she’s a good ten years younger than me too.

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