Of Neptune (The Syrena Legacy)

by Anna Banks

  I wonder if he’s thinking about Grom forbidding Mom to go on land all those years ago, and thus starting the fight that separated them for decades. I’d like to think I’ve cured Galen of forbidding me to do things, but there are still times when I can see hesitation lurking in his eyes, a fight he doesn’t quite let bubble to the surface. He doesn’t like when I do certain things, but at least he doesn’t tell me not to.

  But with Neptune, I think Grandfather was right. I think Galen might have put his foot down, had he known what we’d find in city limits. “I’m not upset with you,” I decide as I say it. “I know why you couldn’t warn me beyond what you did.” Our experience in Neptune wasn’t the stuff of my wildest dreams, especially after what happened to Galen while we were there. But learning about the existence of other Half-Breeds, of a town that accepts both species and lives in unity? It gave me hope. A blossoming kind of hope that might be dead-headed after the events of tonight.

  “And how do you feel about the peace Neptune wants with the kingdoms?” He lowers his voice then, probably to avoid the reach of Mom’s hearing.

  “I want it to happen.” Period.

  “Then let’s work on it together, shall we?”

  I’m about to ask him how he proposes to do that, but suddenly Galen and Toraf appear at the edge of the woods, hauling Reed between them, helping him walk. Grom and Rayna materialize behind them, Kennedy thrown over Grom’s shoulder like a sleeping child. His arms sway back and forth like dangling banana peels.

  Galen helps Reed sit at one of the tables and ushers for Mom. “His hand is injured.” There’s a cloth tied tightly around Reed’s palm, and from the looks of Galen’s tattered shirt, he was the donor of it.

  Rayna cheerfully trades places with Mom, who’s been standing guard at the SUV. Tyrden only woke up once, briefly—until Mom knocked him unconscious again with the butt of her handgun like some sort of gangster.

  Mom brings a bottle of water to the table where Galen, Grom, and Reed sit. Toraf joins Rayna at the SUV, helping to bind up Kennedy the same way Tyrden is. I suddenly have an out-of-body experience, taking in the scene out of context.

  If someone were to decide to have a picnic here right now, we’d be screwed.

  I keep my seat next to Grandfather, adjusting on the bench to hide my nervousness. Right now, anything we do seems like a duty. This picnic table feels like my post for now, and I stand aside until I feel useful. This family-friendly picnic area has turned into a basecamp for mermaid gypsies.

  Carefully removing the wrapping, Mom examines Reed’s wound. He’s a good sport, only grimacing here and there, but never verbally relaying the pain he’s in. “You have several broken bones,” she says after a few minutes. “I’ll have to make a run to a drugstore and get some bandages and antibiotic ointment. You’ll need a cast, so the bones can set correctly. You … Does the town of Neptune have a hospital?”

  He shakes his head. “We have a doctor. We try to avoid the hospital. For obvious reasons.”

  Mom nods. I notice that she doesn’t tell him we’ll get him to the doctor right away; apparently we won’t. “This is going to hurt,” she says, holding up the water bottle. Reed looks away as she pours it onto his palm. I look away, too. I don’t have the stomach for open flesh. After she’s done cleaning it, Mom walks back to the SUV and retrieves a clean shirt, tearing it into usable strips, all but ignoring the two men tied up in the back. She rewraps Reed’s wound and gives him some Tylenol. “It’s all I have,” she says.

  Reed accepts it and takes a swig of the bottled water offered to him. He looks at Galen, then at Grom. “Are you going to take me home? Or did I go from one captor to the other?”

  Galen folds his hands behind his head and lets out a breath. “I guess it’s time to talk about our next move. My vote is to let the kings handle it.”

  “Of course they’ll handle it,” Mom says.

  But I know that Galen made the statement for my benefit. He’s letting me know that the world doesn’t rest on my shoulders and that whatever they decide to do about the town of Neptune, it’s not a decision I have to make. It’s meant to bring me relief.

  Or is he telling me I don’t have a say? We’ll see.

  Grom begins to collect sticks and pieces of wood, piling them in one of the charcoal grills for a fire. Toraf helps him, and within minutes, we’ve got something to cook dinner with. Except, we don’t have any dinner unless someone caught more than Kennedy when they went down to the river.

  I notice that Galen doesn’t help with the fire. He stares at it for a long time, as if hypnotized. For the several minutes he stares at it, I stare at him. That’s how I know the exact moment he looks up. And I’m startled by the look in his eyes.

  Abruptly, he strides across the camp and stands before me, his gaze piercing into me. There’s an underlying torment there—and a hint of reserve. Something is bothering him. And it has to do with me. “I would like to speak to you, Emma. Alone.”

  44

  GALEN LEADS her away from the picnic tables and into the woods. They can still see the campfire from here, but it’s far enough away that his words will be for Emma’s ears only. He stops them after a few more feet, glancing back at the camp then to her.

  Her eyes are huge and filled with questions. He doesn’t know where to begin.

  “Galen, you’re making me nervous,” she whispers. Her voice is uneven, like she might be on the verge of tears. Which is exactly what he doesn’t want.

  He runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t bring you out here to upset you. I just … A lot has happened between us—to us—since our disagreement at the hotel. And I think we need to talk about it, before anything else happens.”

  She clears her throat. “When you didn’t come back, I thought you’d left me. I thought it was over.”

  Of course she did. What else was she to think? “Did you want it to be over?” It’s not the question he was going to ask, but it’s the one he wants to know the most.

  “Galen—”

  “If you did, just tell me. I won’t be mad.” He feels himself losing control of his emotions and remembers how that fared last time. Calm down. Talk it out. “I said some things that didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t in a good frame of mind. I was in shock, I guess, from finding Reed and dealing with Reder—no. No excuses.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. But it’s not his physical weight making him feel heavy. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about things. To think about us.”

  “I didn’t want it to be over.”

  He lifts his hand, caressing her cheek with the back of it. She closes her eyes against it. He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. “The reason I wanted you to live in the ocean with me, the reason I wanted to get away from land is because…”

  “You think I’ll live longer. That ocean life will be easier on my body, like it is for Syrena.”

  “Humans are fragile.”

  “You’re talking about Rachel.”

  “I guess I am. Yes, I’m talking about Rachel.”

  “What happened to her was an accident. It was no one’s fault.”

  He shakes his head. They could argue that for several cycles of the moon. “It’s not even that. It’s … That can’t happen to you. Dying, I mean.”

  “It’s going to one day. It’s going to happen to us all. Dying is a part of living.”

  “I try to tell myself that, I swear. I try to appreciate the quality-not-quantity thing. But I keep thinking about how you’re going to die first. Unless … But I want you to be happy. I don’t ever want you to feel like my prisoner.”

  She grimaces. “Oh. That. I was mad when I said that, Galen. I don’t really feel that way. It’s more like the other way around. I feel like I’m keeping you from the ocean. I feel that’s really where you want to be.”

  “I want to be wherever you are.” And he means it.

  A tear slips down her cheek. “Galen, there’s something you need to know. About Reed.”
/>
  He uses his thumb to wipe away the new stream slipping down her face. He knows what she’s going to tell him, and he decides to let her. To put what happened into her own words. To tell him from her point of view. No matter how badly it hurts him. It’s obviously something that she has to get out.

  He would have let her keep it, he never would have forced her to tell him. Because at the end of the day, she chose him and that’s all that matters. “Tell me,” he says softly. “If you want to.”

  “Reed and I were … We were in the woods looking for you. And then suddenly he’s in my face, asking if he could kiss me.”

  Galen’s gut twists. “And you said yes?”

  “I must have, because he kissed me right after that.”

  Wow. He didn’t realize how painful this was going to be, reliving the details he’d worked so hard to banish from his mind. “Why … Why would you give him permission?”

  Her lip quivers. “I don’t know. I mean, you and I were fighting. You were gone. You wouldn’t answer my calls, my texts. And there Reed was, being nice to be me, showing me how great it was to be a Half-Breed in Neptune. And … And…”

  “You thought it might be something that you wanted.”

  “Yes. No! I mean, I knew I didn’t want him, I knew all along that it was you I wanted. I just felt that he was giving me another option. An option that…”

  “That I couldn’t give you.”

  “Couldn’t? Maybe. At the time, it felt more like you weren’t willing to. I’m so sorry, Galen. I never should have let him. I should have pushed him away, stopped it before it happened.”

  “You didn’t know where we stood. You thought I left you all alone in a strange place. I can’t … I can’t imagine what you must have thought of me.”

  “But I still shouldn’t have let someone else kiss me. You and I were going to be mated.”

  Were? His next question burns in his throat, encapsulated by the heat of anxiety rising from his stomach. “Emma. Does that mean … Have I lost you?” He takes her face in his hands. The situation has become beyond urgent. What does she mean we were going to be mated? “Because I swear I’ll make it up to you. All of it. Give me another chance. I’ll give you all of the options. If you want Neptune to unite with the underwater kingdoms, I’ll support that. I’ll try to convince Grom that it’s for the best. What do you want, Emma? Just tell me and it’s yours.”

  She leans against him, sobbing into his chest. He pulls her to him, relishing the feel of her in his arms again. “You’re asking me to give you another chance when it should be the other way around,” she says. “This is so backward. You always do this. Put the blame on yourself.”

  He strokes the length of her hair. “You didn’t kiss him though. He told me that you didn’t, that you pulled away.”

  “Reed told you?”

  “While we were at Kennedy’s.”

  “And what else did Reed tell you?”

  “He said that you chose me. You didn’t have to. Not after how I acted. I was ready to leave Neptune that night, Emma. Ready to take you away from a place that could make you happy. I was being selfish and jealous. You had a right to explore other options.”

  “If you knew I told him that, then why did you ask me if you lost me?”

  “I wanted to hear it from you. I needed to hear it from you. You could have changed your mind, you know.”

  But then she pulls his mouth down to hers. Her lips are an unrelenting frenzy, as if she’s making up for lost time. Her body presses into his, as if she’s seeking to eliminate the space between them altogether. Suddenly, he’s lifting her in his arms, giving himself leverage to kiss her more deeply. She wraps her legs around his waist, holding herself in place so as not to break the kiss for a single moment.

  He leans her against the closest tree, his hands frantic to touch every part of her. Just as he reaches for unexplored territory, Toraf clears his throat behind them. “Ahem,” he says for emphasis.

  I’m going to kill him.

  Galen pulls away immediately, but stands in front of Emma to allow her to gain some composure. She smooths down her sundress and runs quick fingers through her hair. She nods when she’s ready to face Toraf. Her mouth is swollen—and in danger of more kissing from him.

  Galen looks away from her to his friend. “We’ve really got to work on your timing,” he says, nearly breathless. His pulse is thrumming at a faster pace than even he can swim.

  “Hmm,” Toraf says. “From the looks of it, I was almost too late.”

  Before Emma can say all the irate things on the tip of her tongue, Galen covers her mouth with his hand. “What do you want, Toraf?”

  His friend folds his hands in front of him. It’s such a formal, controlled act.… Could Toraf be embarrassed? “It would seem that the two kings have concocted a plan,” Toraf says, clearing his throat again. “They need Emma to call Reder.”

  Here we go.

  45

  “REDER, IT’S Emma.” The words feel tight in my mouth. For some reason, I feel I’ve betrayed Reder, but in reality, I’m doing exactly what we talked about. At least, I hope it will be.

  “Emma, sweet Neptune, are you okay? Where are you? Are you with Tyrden? Frank, he’s—”

  “Is Frank all right?”

  There’s a slight pause on the other end. Reder’s voice changes from worry to suspicion, which hurts a little bit. Wait till he hears all that I have to say. “He’s in rough shape. Emma, what happened? Where is Tyrden? People are telling me that there was an accident at the stoplight in town. That—”

  “We have Tyrden,” I say. “And it wasn’t an accident.” I sound sterner than I’d wanted, but the memory of Tyrden pointing his gun at me doesn’t exactly delight me.

  Another pause. “We?”

  “My family is here. All of them.”

  “And … And you’ve taken Tyrden? Why?”

  “We have Reed, too. And Kennedy.” Anxiety bubbles in my stomach like seltzer. Mom told me to stack up our advantages in the very beginning, but it doesn’t feel right. I don’t have to alarm Reder into being reasonable. He’s already as rational as they come. “I’ve told Grom and Grandfather about your wish for peace between the ocean dwellers and the land dwellers. They’ve agreed to meet with you.”

  Reder sighs. “Unfortunately, I can’t trust your family anymore. They’ve already taken two of my people, including my own son. And look what they did to Frank. How do I know this isn’t a trap, Emma?” In a lower voice, he says, “How do you know this isn’t a trap?”

  “How do I know? I don’t. But I trust my family. And I trust you. I think this is legit. And it was Tyrden who did that to Frank, not us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  And that’s when I explain to Reder that Tyrden is a power-hungry sociopath with a side of torture fetish dipped in crazy sauce. And that Kennedy is his twin brother from another mother and all that. It takes the mayor a while to process all that has happened right under his nose.

  Finally, he says, “I’ve failed you, Emma. I’ve failed my people. My son. I should have been more alert to the danger. I should have known these things were going on.”

  What am I supposed to say to that? Something generic and comforting, I decide. “Blaming yourself doesn’t change anything,” I tell him.

  “And what will change anything? What are your family’s terms for returning my son?”

  “I mean, we’re not holding him hostage or anything.”

  The phone is snatched from my hand. “Reder? This is Nalia, Poseidon princess, daughter of King Antonis. We are holding your son hostage, until such time as you agree to meet with us in a public place. I think we can agree trust is not something either of us can afford right now. As for Kennedy, your cover has been blown. He has contacted outsiders that may be on their way to Neptune. That said, it’s in our best interest to help you clean this mess up. We’re having someone fly in from Florida to assist with this. We’re going to leave Kennedy at a pi
cnic area outside of town, just inside the woods. You’ll need to secure him until our friend, Dr. Milligan, arrives.” She pauses. Apparently Reder would like to speak.

  “I’m sorry, but until our terms are met,” she says, “we’re keeping your son. I assure you, he’s being well-cared for. We are not like the wild animals you have lurking in your own town.” Oooh, low blow, Mom. But in a way, she’s right. We don’t sound like animals.

  We sound like freaking terrorists.

  46

  THE RIDE to the mutually decided-upon restaurant is interrupted only by a brief stop at a drugstore to get Reed some proper bandages and Tyrden some proper sedatives. He keeps waking up, and Rayna keeps punching him unconscious—not that Galen minds all that much.

  What is bothering him though, is the fact that Reed and Toraf seem to get along right away. From the backseat they can be heard playing Slap, which is a game of reflex Rachel taught Rayna.

  “That’s cheating,” Reed says. “Cheaters get slapped harder.”

  “Then I’ll start slapping with a closed hand,” Toraf says, unconcerned.

  Sitting on Galen’s lap, Emma turns around to look at them. Galen had thought she’d fallen asleep—though how she could have, he’s not sure, with two renowned loudmouths cackling in her ear. “Can you guys play a different game? Something that doesn’t involve making noise or being obnoxious?”

  Toraf puts his hands down. “Well, how long until we’re there anyway?”

  “Yeah,” Reed says. “We’ve been driving over an hour.” Reed of all people should know how long it takes to get to Chattanooga from Neptune.

  “Patience is a virtue,” Nalia sings from the driver’s seat. Everyone groans. She raises a brow in the rearview. “We’re almost there, children.” As if on cue, they pass a sign that says, WELCOME TO CHATTANOOGA.

  Galen feels Emma tense up against him. “It will all be okay, angelfish,” he whispers in her ear.

  She eases back. “How do you know?”

  The truth is, he doesn’t. There is no telling what will happen at this meeting with Neptune officials, what the result will be. But the fact that there will be a meeting at all—on neutral ground—should be taken as a positive sign.