Page 44 of Cruel Tides

I jolted upright at the smooth yet uninvited voice.

When I saw it was Leander coming through my bedroom door, I scrunched up my nose. “No one ever did teach you manners, did they?”Damn cocky prince.

12

Claira

“Ever heard of knocking?”

Leander combed his hair back with a hand and shrugged. “I don’t recallyouknocking when you came into my bedchamber.” Chuckling, he cut a glance over to my wall and tipped his chin to the marlin tail in a greeting. “I wanted to see if you’d added to your collection since the last time I was here.”

My eyes rolled, then conveniently landed on my bag sitting next to my bedside table. “Oh, there you are,” I mumbled, snatching it up. Recalling the reason I’d come to my room in the first place, I began rummaging through it. “Not gonna lie, Lee—I did have the urge to flay some tails after your last visit. Do you know how many times I had to shampoo my rug to get your funky fish smell out of it?”

One by one, I took stock of my things. Lip balm, compact mirror, emergency fishing wire… I thumbed through my cash and moved a folded wad of receipts to uncover my phone.Ah ha!

I tried to turn it on, but the black screen told me the battery had drained while I was away. “Figures,” I huffed.

Leander rumbled another laugh, a teasing sound that drew my attention away from my phone. The smirk waiting for me was equal parts flirty and sinful, like he was readying to pounce and spread me out on my bed. “So, you wanted to collect more trophies, but then you realized my tail was the only one worth having, right?”

He moved a step closer, his icy eyes sharpening on me until anticipation hummed in the air around us. My core was afire with his nearness, my body begging to be claimed and pinned by him. Damn, what was wrong with me? Was it thethrallor these mermen that had my libido in overdrive? I shoved those feelings down, way down, and took a steadying breath. Now wasnotthe time.

I shook away the spell of his merman charm by reminding myself that he’d summoned trident magic to get back at a freaking seagull.“Still trying to smooth things over from when you broke your promise and raged on the beach, huh?”

It was hard to accept Leander’s childishness. Especially right after he’d told me he wasn’t ever going to use the magic in the first place.

Sighing, I got to my feet and shouldered past him to get to my phone charger.

As soon as I had my phone plugged in and set on my dresser, Leander’s arms came around me from behind. A second later, his breath was in my ear. “I’ve been waiting to do this all day.” His jaw nuzzled into my hair, and I almost hated how good it felt. How easy it was for him to distract me. To melt away my frustrations.

With a deep breath, I turned in his arms until our gazes locked. “You told me you wouldn’t use any more magic.”

“I really don’t know what happened,” he confessed, his palms planting on either side of me, and suddenly he did have me pinned, right to the dresser. “But it won’t happen again. Well…” His voice trailed, and my eyes narrowed. “I’ll have to use magic. Just one more time.”

“Just one more time,” I echoed, not believing what I was hearing but also not too surprised. Of course he would keep using the trident’s magic despite all the reasons not to. Even though he was putting his verylifeon the line. Barren seemed to be aware of this outcome from the start.

Leander pressed in closer, and I pushed back on his chest. “I think this is going to be a problem, Lee. You, this trident.” An exhausted huff escaped me. “I wish…” I swallowed the words before they escaped, but Leander tensed up like he’d already understood my thoughts.

I wish you had chosen differently.

He drew away like I’d stung him, a shaky hand finding its way back into his hair in a way that made my heart ache. “I did what I—” He stopped with a shake of his head, turning away from me. But not before the sorrow in his eyes had told me he didn’t think I’d ever truly understand. “I’ll need to use the trident’s magic one more time. When we go back down to the portal.”

“Wait, what? Theportal?” Without realizing it, I’d reached for him, using his arm to steady myself.

We couldn’t go back down there, back to the portal. That’s where those—thosethings, the cecaelia, had been. “I don’t know, Lee…”

“I’ve seen my father work it a thousand times,” he assured me, but that wasn’t the issue at all.

“You’re forgetting that the trident wasn’t inside your father like it’s inside you.”

The arm I held tensed as he flexed his wrist. “One quick tap. That’s all the portal needs. And you say you can see it. Right here.” He gestured to his arm and my eyes fell on the dark stain the trident had branded over his skin.

“We… we almost died the last time we went in the water, Lee.” My breathing deepened, my chest feeling heavier with every movement of my lungs. We couldn’t return to the Atlantic, where the sound of our pursuers surely still echoed off the waves and the danger of being torn apart seemed imminent.

He chuckled then, though it was a brittle, joyless sound. “We’re merfolk, Claira,” he said. Not at all the comfort I needed. “Water isn’t dangerous to us. It’s like a human not wanting to stay on land because of the otters.”

I paused to stare at him. “You’ve… never actually seen an otter, have you?”

“Well, I know fish are fucking petrified of them. Come on, you have a boat. We can take that, pop down, and if I can’t get the portal to open, we’ll swim back up.”

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