Page 56 of Cruel Tides

Nodding, I turned up to Claira’s dad. “We thank you for getting us this close,” I said, taking it upon myself to speak for all of us. Then, remembering all that I owed this human, I added, “Sir.”

Claira’s dad brought a thoughtful hand under his chin. “Hmm, if you’re sure.” He leaned against the railing. “I do have a lot to get done today.”

Then he straightened up, and I swore there was a sheen of moisture in his eyes. “You keep our Claira safe now.” My chest tightened when I realized he was looking at Barren while he said it. Then his glossy gaze was on me, and before I could risk irritating my headache by bowing my head, he’d moved on to Kai. “I mean it.”

Kai cleared his throat, and while I expected a high-pitched sound to emerge, he kept his words steady and calm. “We will.” It was a voice that said he genuinely believed he could protect her.

Good.

Kai needed some toughening up, but I was sure that with proper training, I could trust him to keep her safe. I wasn’t sure if the Pacific cared to train their least valued prince in the art of warfare, but Kai had a warrior’s heart. I’d seen it. And I had to believe he could protect Claira, because now that I had this trident inside me, feeding off my anger and fucking up my insides, I wasn’t sure how much time I had before its magic became too much for me.

“Your room will always be ready for you.” Claira’s human father rubbed his nose, quickly disguising it with a wave of his hand.

Hearing Claira sniffle made me painfully aware that I’d been the reason she was separated from her land family in the first place. “Love you, Dad,” she said, waving the arm she was sharing with Kai. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

He was still watching us when Barren pulled us back under the waves. Claira squirmed in his grip, her arms stretching out to both Kai and me. Her eyes studied our arrangement before a deep, tired sigh escaped her. “I really don’t want to be strung out between you guys again, but how are we supposed to swim like this?”

She had a point. Our bodies brushed against one another, with Claira in the center. The sharp points of Kai’s spike-tail grated against my smooth scales, and my short frills were tangling with Barren’s long ones. Swimming like this was going to be uncomfortable for us all.

“It won’t take long,” Barren said.

I had to agree. A feeling completely unfamiliar to me traveled up my arm, like my flesh was filled with water on the verge of boiling. The trident inside me was twisting and tangling with my insides, pulling me toward something—either the palace or the portal, I wasn’t sure which.

But I knew there wassomethingwaiting for me. Maybe for us. And the longer I floated here, ignoring the pull, the longer I had to deal with all the whaleshit the trident was putting my body through.

“Yeah. Let’s get going,” I said with a measured beat of my tail. Barren and Kai joined in, and I didn’t even care that our fins were uncomfortably thrashing against one another or if Barren taking the lead meant Kai and I had to swim halfway upside down. We needed tomove.

“Come on, pretty girl!” Kai called, and his pet came into view, diving from above.

“Wait.” Just a single word from Claira’s sweet lips was enough to get Barren to cut off our momentum with a twist of his massive tail. She looked at me, and then at Kai. “What if you guys hold hands?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

Kai’s face mirrored my own confusion. Claira’s red hair flared over Barren’s chest as she tilted her head. “You know, like a chain? Maybe if you tried holding Kai’s hand, Lee, my curse breaking would still?—”

“I’m not holding his hand,” I said firmly, using my tail to shove Kai’s away and increase the distance between us. “I’d rather be carried in her mouth.” When I pointed to his pet, she fluttered her lashes.Ugh.

“And while we’re at it,” I growled, irritated that something as stupid as hand holding was keeping us from moving, “keep your fucking dicks to yourself. No one wants your damn spurs rubbing up on them.” I directed that one at Kai.

His face looked like I’d struck him. “Sorry, I—I… they’re just there,” he sputtered, looking scandalized that I’d pointed it out. Unintentional or not, parts of him were still rubbing against the three of us as we moved through the water. “I can’t do anything about them!” He looked at Claira with sad, dolphin-calf eyes.

He went to angle his hips away from the rest of us when Claira pulled him in closer.

I felt her grip tighten, her gaze going defiant as she glared at me. “You really need to get over this thing you have against spike-tailed mers, Leander.” They were practically belly to belly, the bony length of Kai’s tail against the elegant line of her blue scales. Her lips softened as she turned back to Kai. “I don’t mind your tail, Kai. Let’s get going.”

His mouth fell open, and shockingly, no sound came out of it for once. Barren gulped a deep breath of water, then shot off in the direction my arm was tugging me.

The ache in my head flared, my arm burning. The trident inside me somehow knew we were getting closer to where I needed to be.

I tried to focus on that thought as we moved. Not the pain nor the way we were swimming. Now that Claira had Kai underneath her and Barren at her back, I was an afterthought, kept an arm’s length away.

My tail moved erratically in the water, desperate to keep up with Barren’s pace. And it took everything in me to tamp down each wave of sadness that reared up inside me.

I couldn’t ignore it. Being held away from the others. The heartbreak from being disregarded by the one soul in this entire ocean I loved.

From a young age, my father had conditioned me to believe that I needed to be superior to everyone else. He’d taught me weakness was unacceptable for his offspring. For royalty. For the Atlantic. And any weakness he perceived was swiftly beaten out of me.

Or so he thought.

---