Page 10 of Cruel Tides

It took Barren passing another grape into his mouth for me to notice I was still staring at his lips.What the heck is wrong with me?

Cursing myself, I turned away to walk over to the side of the bed where Kai was still sleeping. At least, I hoped Kai was only asleep. A quick rest, and then he’d be recovered, smiling up at us, awake. He would open his eyes soon, wouldn’t he?

Laverne dozed next to him. Her whiskers twitched, fluttering against his bare shoulder. I took a mental note to offer Kai a shirt as soon as he awoke and drew a hand over Laverne to gently stroke through his hair. I was surprised by how soft the short spikes felt moving through my fingers.

Arms slid over my hips as Leander closed in, pressing up against my back. I thought he might pull my hand away, but he only held me, his chin resting on the top of my head like he was content with watching my fingers brush through Kai’s hair.

His voice came the second my hand retreated, low and serious. “You’re drawn to him. Aren’t you?”

“I—” My heart thundered, my hand closing into a fist. Was I really that obvious?

I tried swallowing the lump forming in my throat, but the more I thought about Leander’s question, the more my emotions grew. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Lee.” My words sounded weak and brittle, just like I was. Damn, I was pathetic.

“My heart, it just…” I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t know the words to say to make him understand. It was like I was suspended between them, my body pulled in different directions as my insides stretched and twisted. Toward Leander, toward Kai, toward?—

Oh goodness.What was I even thinking?

Gritting my teeth, I whipped around to throw my arms around Leander. I needed to feel his embrace, his comfort. My heart hurt—it literallyhurt meseeing Kai injured and not being able to curl around him and hold him close while he recovered. But if I did, what would Leander think? And Barren? He was watching, too, wasn’t he? Would he stare at me, jaw tense, if I crawled in bed next to Kai?

The need to cry nearly choked me, and I buried my face into Leander’s chest as I fought back the urge. His arms came around me easily, wrapping me up in his warmth, and all I could think about was what a curse it was to be born a mermaid. Leander was offering his comfort freely, but it was the same comfort I yearned to give Kai. Butwhy? Why did mermaids have to be like this? It wasn’t fair to them, to me. Why was my heart drawing me in different directions?

“I wish I didn’t feel like this,” I breathed out, pressing my cheek against Leander’s chest as his arms tightened around me.

Leander’s deep voice rumbled against my ear. “Don’t be ashamed of how you feel.” He pulled back, tipping my chin up with a finger, and his expression softened as he looked down at me. “Even when I thought you were dead, I still loved you. I couldn’t help it.” His damp hair shone like spun gold as he slid a hand through it, his lips drawing into an equally bright smirk. “You don’t regret loving me, do you?”

My breath caught as his piercing blue eyes looked right at me, unwavering. “No. Never.”

His smirk broadened. I’d evidently told him exactly what he wanted to hear. “And you feel the same way about Kai?”

The entire room seemed to go silent as I drew in a breath. Even Laverne’s thunderous snoring faded as my pulse kicked up in my ears.

I hadn’t expected him to ask me that. Not straight out like he had. Especially not so calmly, right after he’d given me one of his cocky grins.

“I don’t know.” But as soon as the words left me, I knew I wasn’t being truthful to him or myself. “That’s not true,” I mumbled, my head shaking.

Even if I was still confused, he deserved to know how I was feeling. He’d asked me plainly, and the only way we could work through this was if I told him how I really felt. “It’s different, Lee. Between you and me and me and Kai. No one else can rile me up like you can, and when you’re not around, driving me crazy, I find myself wishing that you were. But Kai, he… feels like an old friend.” I raised my chin to gauge Leander’s reaction. He didn’t look mad or anywhere near as upset as I’d expected. “So yes, I’m drawn to him. But I’m drawn to you, too,” I added, giving him a small, nervous smile, “though I think you already know that.”

“I’ve had my suspicions.” Leander pulled me in closer, and his grin deepened until his eyes flashed over to his arm. Although he’d already said he couldn’t see the black marks there, I could tell he was thinking about the trident. I still had so many questions. Like why he had done it, and what he was planning to do now that he had the trident instead of his father. But before I could ask, he continued, “You don’t need to change how you feel. You’re perfect how you are, Claira.”

“But, this—” I gestured to him, to me, to Kai, and before I even realized, my eyes had landed on Barren. A shiver passed through me when I found his dark eyes were already looking directly at me, and I quickly averted my gaze. Although I tried to swallow down my emotions, my voice still cracked when I said, “Us. Just yesterday, you hated Kai.”

Leander’s body shifted against mine as he looked past my shoulder, down at the bed behind me. All his charms faded as his lips parted, a troubled look coming over his face. “I did. I thought he was a spineless fucking idiot, but it turns out I was wrong.” His throat bobbed in a dry swallow. “Even if we never get along, I’ll always love you more than I hate him, Claira. That’s a promise.”

“When did you become such a romantic?” I breathed out, feeling my face flush. It was like my heart flipped in my chest every time he said he loved me.

“Claira.” His voice dropped lower, its slow cadence wrapping around my ears and drawing me in like a somber melody. “There might be a time when I’m not around. When I can’t protect you anymore, even though I want to.”

And then the words sank in, and it was like the spell of his song had shattered. “What do you mean?” My eyes searched his. “I don’t need you to protect me, Lee.”

“I know you don’t. Trust me, I know.” His grip on me tightened. “I’m trying to say that there is a price to pay for hiding one of Poseidon’s relics away like I did. Like I had to do.”

Barren let out a loud huff from across the room. But when I turned my head, Leander tilted my chin right back toward him. “Believe me, Claira, I only did it because I was out of options. There was no other place to hide it. Nowhere safe, where my father couldn’t have reached it.”

A stool screeched against the floor, and Barren grunted like he’d gotten to his feet, but Leander kept talking, an urgency rising in his voice. “If he’d gotten it, he was going to use its power on you, on me, on anyone or anything that stood between him and the other tridents. He was going to start a war and?—”

“You could have held on to it,” Barren growled from across the room.Holy… With how thick Barren’s accent was, it sounded like he’dactuallygrowled.

Leander’s eyes shut as he drew in a slow, deep breath. “You don’t understand. My father knows all my weaknesses, and if he knew I had it, he would have hurt everyone that mattered. Then he wouldn’t stop, even when he got the trident back.” When his eyes opened again, they were glassy, somehow deadened. Like perhaps he had seen enough horrors through the years to know exactly what his father was capable of. “Now he can’t have it. Ever. He’d have to kill me for it, but I… I—” Horror rounded his eyes as the words formed on his lips. “I finally have the power to hurt him first.”

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