Page 106 of Cursed Waters

It wouldn’t work. The size of their bodies and mine… There simply wasn’t enough of me to go around.

“Wait!” I started backpedaling, but Leander was already making his way down the side of the hotel.Oh no. He was heading for the shore already.

“We’re doing thisnow? I—I don’t have my bathing suit!”

“The longer we wait, the more dark spawn are slithering through that portal,” he called back coldly, not caring enough to turn his head.

A hand came back on my shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

So much for being intimidating.

“Thanks for sticking up for me,” Kai said sheepishly, his face drooping like he felt a bit guilty. “But what made you think I’m a warrior?”

“Your hands,” I said absently, stealing glimpses of Leander’s stiff shoulders as he stalked away. He was pissed, and I couldn’t blame him after all I’d said and done. But was now really the time to be heading back into the water?

“My hands?” Kai marveled down at his palms, flexing and turning them at the wrist, trying to find whatever it was I’d seen in them.

“Yeah, uh, right here.” I cupped under one of them and brushed my thumb across the callouses lining his palm. “See? They’re rough. Like you’ve spent a lot of time training.”

I just hoped the training was with a spear or something similar and not with a rope for tug-of-war.

Kai’s laugh turned uncomfortable. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but I probably got those from scrubbing.”

Scrubbing?That must have been code for something.

My head tilted in question, and his lips curled, his head shaking. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but I scrub things, well,a lot.” He did the motion, two hands holding an invisible loofah sliding up and down, and I didn’t know what to say.

“You scrub things. Like, tocleanthem?”

I sent a glance back at Barren for some help, but his phone had distracted him, his thumb tapping like lightning over its screen. He stuffed it in his pocket without a word and started down the path to the shore.

“Exactly!” Kai said brightly as Barren passed.

My shoulders sank. Kai cleaned things. It was a charming skill for a prince, but it wouldn’t be much help if the cecaelia attacked. “You don’t have to come along, really. The way Barren and Lee are acting, I think they’re expecting a fight.”

“That’s why I’m definitely going along,” Kai chuckled, stepping toward the path Barren took and beckoning me to follow. “I might not be a warrior, but I’ve survived my brothers. That has to count for something.”

He ruffled a hand through his short spikes of hair and leaned forward, parting near his hairline to show me a thin white scar where hair didn’t even grow. “And they don’t exactly fight fair.”

I gave his scar an appraising whistle and shook my head while he brushed his hair back into place. “Kinda makes me glad I don’t have any brothers.” From what I’d seen of mermaids, I felt blessed not to have any sisters, either.

“They’re not all bad. Helps to have someone else around to shoulder the blame when you get into mischief,” he said, laughing like he got into his fair share of trouble. His feet kicked through sand as we stepped back onto the beach. “So, they only got pokey sticks for themselves, huh?”

“Afraid so. They didn’t even think about you,” I sighed, pretending to be offended on his behalf. “You’re too intimidating,” I added, trying to keep a straight face.

“Intimidating, yeah?” He stopped walking to pose, chest puffed, arms flexed. The amusement in his smile broke me, and I burst into laughter.

“Okay, okay, the truth is you’re just not cool enough for a harpoon.” I gestured at Barren and Leander’s backs in the distance, all enormous muscles and broody moods. They were the sharks, and we were the minnows. Okay, maybe Kai was alittle bitshark. An adorable mini-shark. But I was definitely a minnow. “And neither am I, so welcome to the club.”

Still laughing, Kai nudged me with his elbow, looking wounded by my assessment of his coolness. “Hey,Ithink you’re cool.”

I nudged him back. “I guess you’re pretty cool, too.”

“Youguess?” He scratched at the back of his neck. “Maybe if I put on those dark glasses Barren uses while he drives. He gave a pair to Laverne, you know.” He huffed. “Like she needs to be any cooler.”

Speaking of Laverne, I looked around the beach until I came across a big gray lump near the shoreline. Laverne was belly-up in the sand, head back, flippers splayed. “Is she…?”

“Looks like she passed out.” Kai chuckled, squinting to catch her stomach rising and falling. “Must have been all those fish she caught.”

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