“I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say.” Bretton’s jaw flexed. He had no desire to speak of Sera. He knew he should cease his relations with her, but what he should do and what he did were two very different things with her. He’d worked hard to perfect himself—as did all merpeople—but with her… He cursed himself for his weakness and her for twisting him into knots.
Cuthbert grunted, working hard to keep pace with Bretton’s longer stride. “You have a duty to your people. You don’t have time to become entangled with someone like her.”
“Like her?” The question ground out between Bretton’s clenched teeth. While he knew he shouldn’t be involved with Sera, it angered him to hear others speak poorly of her. She wasn’t a mermaid, so why did so many try to force her to act like one? But he could never vent his frustrations. In public, he had to act as though he was constantly improving himself. Before Sera, he hadn’t had to act, he had simply been what he should be. And anger and frustration—involvement with an imperfect woman—would cause scrutiny he didn’t want. He was a political figure, constantly under surveillance for any slip in demeanor.
“Emotional. Volatile. She’d make a poor mate for an ambassador. Especially the chief ambassador. You have an example to set. The ambassadorial corps must be cool, logical, and socially adept—she is none of those things. She’s the kind of woman who expects love in a mating.”
Bretton rolled his eyes. “Neptune forbid.”
“This is no jest, Bretton. I’m deadly serious.” His father caught his arm. Rabid intensity shone in his gaze.
Bretton snapped to attention and nodded. He knew what his father said was true. His hands balled into fists at his sides, but he kept his tone respectful. “I understand, sir.”
“Do not confuse physical compatibility with the makings of a suitable mate.” Cuthbert’s voice took on the lecturing tone he’d used when Bretton was a child. It grated to hear it now when he was a grown man.
“Sera is not Mother.” No, his mother had disgraced their family and left his father to live on a sea cow ranch at the very outskirts of merpeople civilization near the lost city of Pacifica. In doing so, she’d exposed them all to scorn for straying from the path of vigilant self-improvement. It had ruined his father’s career. He’d never be elected a senator or make the chancellorship as so many Hahns had before him. Now his father expected Bretton to fill the breach, to be everything Cuthbert could not.
His father gave a derisive snort. “Every woman is like your mother. I refuse to see you make the same mistakes I did.”
Bretton pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew his father was correct. Mating with the wrong woman had all but ended Cuthbert’s political aspirations—and Bretton had no right to dishonor his family like his mother had. He smiled, but it held no amusement. It had taken the Senate very little time to realize that Sera didn’t respond well to authority—and the only one who had any luck garnering her cooperation was Bretton. So she’d become his responsibility. Regardless of his official duties, he had to stop seeing her in a personal manner. Had to stop touching her, lusting after her, dreaming of her.
Starting now.
He heaved a weary sigh and ran a hand across his forehead. The trade ship was the most important function of his position each Turn, and letting Sera distract him was an error he couldn’t allow himself.
Chapter 2
“Doctor Gibbons?”
Sera grabbed the ledge of the counter above her and pulled herself out from under it to see who was talking to her. She frowned, unhappy with the interruption. She was close to being finished recalibrating this contraption. “Yes?”
An enormous young man with a shaved head stood quietly inside her doorway. She’d guess his age at late teens, perhaps early twenties. His gaze swept the room once before settling on her. Interesting. Most people couldn’t wait to peek at her lab. His dark blue irises were rimmed in brilliant, glowing gold, and they never left her face. “The weretiger ship has docked on the landing platform. They bring the Arctic Bear Clan leader and his mate to see you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I know that.”
“Yes, Doctor.” The young man didn’t shift or fidget. He was the stillest person she’d ever seen. And he also showed no indication of leaving.
Sighing, she sat up. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Oeric Fane.”
She tossed aside her tools and wiped her hands on a rag. Grime smeared the front of her jumpsuit. “Whatever they sent you to say, get it said.”
“Ambassador Hahn would like you to meet them when they arrive in Atlantis.” He hesitated briefly before snapping his mouth shut.
“What else?” A feeling of foreboding crept through her. Bretton hadn’t come to her the night before, and she could guess it had something to do with his career, his father, his duty…or some combination thereof. Damn it.
“He asked that you make yourself…presentable.” Oeric winced and focused on a spot over her shoulder, not meeting her eyes.
“He did, did he?” Her eyes narrowed to slits. The too familiar frustration boiled into hot anger. Who was Bretton to dictate what she wore? As everyone here pointed out so often, she wasn’t a mermaid, and she didn’t behave like one. Why should she dress like one? Her work was often dirty, and that helped the citizens of Atlantis more than they’d like to admit.
Bare minutes later, Oeric trailed after her as she stomped into the docking bay wearing her filthy jumpsuit. They wanted to demand her presence? Then they could deal with her less than perfect apparel.
“Doctor Gibbons.”
“Counselor Hahn.” Cuthbert was a shorter, portly version of Bretton. He should have been jolly looking, but he wasn’t. His upper lip curled in disgust as he looked over her attire. She narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin, daring him to say anything.
The one thing she’d never come to understand about these people was why they were so fixated on what others thought. They held themselves in icy reserve, always striving to be perfect. It was especially true for the political families like Bretton’s. So much pressure to be the very best. The oddest thing was, it wasn’t to be more perfect than each other, but to be the best they could be. The ideal was taken too much to the extreme. No person could be flawless, but anyone less than perfect was looked down upon.
So as much as she was prized for what she could do, the upper classes looked down on her for not striving for the perfection they valued so highly. Her hair was always a mess, clothes always stained with grease. She never said or did the right thing.
Cuthbert arched a brow at her, not backing down. “May I remind you that you are a guest on this planet?”
Clenching her jaw, she held on to the frayed edges of her temper. “I don’t need a reminder to know you’ll never accept me as I am, Cuthbert.”
His nostrils flared at her use of his given name. He hated that, the informality…which was why she did it. The skin around his turquoise eyes, so like Bretton’s, tightened. “Perhaps you could consider changing.”
She deliberately misunderstood him and brushed at her jumpsuit. “But I’m already here, Cuthbert. I don’t have time to change before your guests arrive.”
He glowered and glanced at someone over her shoulder. “You deal with her.”
“Must you be so difficult?” Bretton’s heavy sigh sounded behind her. Tingles shivered down her spine as the warmth of his big body embraced her.
She stiffened and forced herself to step away, turning to face him. She lifted a brow. “I’m sorry, have we met? Hi, I’m Sera.”
“I am not amused.” His shoulders drew into a rigid line.
A nasty smile curved her lips. “That’s too bad. I am.”
He folded his arms and stared down at her. “And you’re the only one that matters.”
“Why do you care so much what other people think?” Her fingers clenched into fists, and her temper slipped. “Isn’t it better to be happy with yourself than for everyone else to be happ
y with you?”
“You assume it’s either one or the other. It is possible to be content with yourself and have others feel the same.”
She huffed. “Is it? Or is that just what you tell yourself?”
“Selfish.” His voice cooled to subarctic temperatures.
Resisting the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him, she retorted, “Sacrificial lamb.”
“This isn’t the time or place for this discussion.”
“You brought it up.” Moving backward, she put some distance between them. Physical distance, at least. Her emotions were always in chaos around Bretton. He’d possessed her, body and soul, from the very first moment she saw him. She’d never been able to distance herself from him, and until recently she hadn’t even tried. A year of back and forth had exhausted her.
Sera stood with the mermen in a semicircle around a round hatch. A rumbling precipitated the green light flashing beside the door to indicate the hatch had been engaged. The cargo skimmer had ferried their guests from the landing platform to the docking bay at Atlantis. It would make multiple trips to bring all the trade goods down from the other worlds. After a few weeks of haggling and negotiation with vendors here, Aquatilian goods would go back to the ship, and the route would begin again.
Her heart rate picked up, and anticipation whipped through her. Jain would be on this skimmer. As the only person like her, she would understand a lot about the adjustment to a whole new culture. Sera’s lips curled in a bittersweet smile. Of course, Jain had had a new husband to help her transition.
The hatch popped open with a whoosh, and the small amount of water trapped between the skimmer and the door rushed down into the grated flooring where it would be pumped back out into the sea. It was just one of the systems Sera had had to repair and improve when she’d arrived.
A composed woman with hair so orange-red it would have been unnatural on Earth stepped through the still dripping water. Mermaid. They were the only species to have such intense hair colors. Often the hair shade matched the tail color when the merperson shifted. But not always. Cuthbert had a black tail to match his hair, whereas Bretton’s was turquoise like his eyes. This mermaid must be the Aquatilian ambassador to Harena—the weredragon world. Her name was Elia…something.
“Ambassador Iden.” Bretton reached a hand out to her, and he smiled as they touched. Fierce jealousy ripped through Sera. He’d never shown that much pleasure in seeing her. Especially not in public. Bitterness coated her tongue, and she glanced away. Oeric looked at Elia with something akin to worship in his eyes. Sera’s eyebrows lifted. The woman was at least ten years his senior. Perhaps more.
The young man bowed to the mermaid and offered his arm. “After a Turn on a desert planet, I imagine you wish to swim.”
Intense longing flashed across her face, and she snapped her fingers around Oeric’s forearm to allow him to lead her away. Sera turned to see if Jain would exit the skimmer.
But next came a dark, exotic beauty flanked by two large, equally dark men. Their scales marked them as weredragons. One of the men was tall and broad with silver scales, the other was absolutely enormous with black scales. She’d seen only one dragon in the time she’d been here, an older ambassador who had kept to himself.
The woman’s purple scales formed a crown on her forehead, and she radiated a calm assurance that Sera would never be able to master. Her gaze slid over the crowd before settling on Bretton. She smiled and swept him a small curtsy. “Ambassador Hahn…so nice to see you again.”
He bowed in return. “Lady Katryn. I must say it is a surprise to see you. I’d heard you returned to your home world of Harena to mate.”
“I did.” A small, secret grin curved her lips. She gestured to the two men beside her. “May I introduce my mates, Tarkesh and Nadir? The three of us have taken up my father’s old post among the weretigers as ambassadors to Vesperi.”
Mates? Plural? A million questions ricocheted through Sera’s mind. She wanted to ask them all, to know more about the hidden dragon culture. It was her curse, always wanting to know more. With Bretton, it was just plain always wanting more.
“Congratulations on your new position.” Bretton bowed and spoke to the weredragons but cut Sera a sideways glance—a warning not to say anything, not to embarrass him, not to upset his perfect life. Her polite smile broke, and she looked away to meet Jain’s gaze as Kesuk escorted her off the spaceship. Her appearance jolted through Sera. Contentment shone in the woman’s leaf-green eyes, and her tiny body was swollen with the advanced stages of pregnancy. Sera felt her eyes widen at the sight. How could someone as petite as Jain carry a child from a polar bear shifter? Kesuk was easily the biggest man Sera had ever seen, and every single werebear was huge.
“Jain.” With the exception of Bretton, Sera didn’t touch very many people. She hadn’t been a comfortable child to be around, and her parents had never known what to do with her constant need to learn. They’d sent her away to school as a toddler. Visits home had been awkward for everyone—no hugs were exchanged, very few words were exchanged—but she reached for Jain now.
Some quiet fear exploded in her belly. If Jain were to die in childbirth, that would leave Sera alone in the universe. The last of her kind. Even if they lived on different planets, she had always known Jain was out there somewhere. She existed, and that was enough for Sera to take some odd comfort in.
She wrapped the smaller woman in an embrace for long moments. A little laugh bubbled out of Jain as she pulled back, tears sparkling in her eyes. “It’s so wonderful to see you again, Sera.”
“It is.” The first genuine smile of the day bloomed across her face. Here was a woman who had known her before she was a token human, the last of a dying breed of technologically advanced people.
The unhappy shriek of a child pulled Sera’s gaze to the hatch again. Amir Varad stepped out with a baby in his arms. The child grabbed two handfuls of the weretiger king’s auburn-and-black-striped hair and pulled. He winced and gently disentangled himself from the pudgy little fingers. Stress drew lines around his eyes, but even he looked more content than he had the last time Sera had seen him.
Had everyone suddenly gotten their lives together except her? She snorted at her own self-pitying thoughts. Why was she so restless lately? So discontent? It wasn’t like her. She used to claim that if she had a laboratory, she would be blissfully happy. She now knew that for the lie it was.
“Varad.” A grin curved her mouth.
“Sera Gibbons. Your beauty has only enhanced in the time since I’ve seen you. Aquatilis treats you well.” The thick gold loop flashed in his ear as he inclined his head. The weretiger king was a charming man who’d given her transport to Aquatilis after his trading party had discovered her. Bretton had been with that party—and had been the one who’d convinced the Brown Bear Clan to give her to him. What he’d said to them, she’d never know, but she was eternally grateful not to be living as a Brown slave.
The Alysians’ archaic culture demanded that she serve as a slave because they’d rescued her. Fortunately “slave” was a generic term for any non-clan member who lived in the Den as a servant. She’d made certain the Browns hadn’t enjoyed her time there. They’d all felt a mutual and instantaneous antagonism. She doubted Bretton had had to work very hard for them to allow her to leave with him.
A matching baby’s scream echoed behind Varad, and he turned to offer his free hand to a woman with the most perfect skin Sera had ever seen. It was the color of pure cream, and the natural kohl lining that surrounded her crystalline blue tiger eyes made them seem enormous. Her hair had blond and brunette stripes. A snow tiger? Sera reviewed what she knew about the genetic anomaly of white tigers. Very little. She made a mental note to look it up in the data archives and then she offered the woman a polite smile. “Hello.”
Curiosity lit the woman’s gaze. “You’re the other human. The non-shifter human?”
“Yes.” Sera braced herself for the probing look so
common to those who wanted to see the freak of nature who couldn’t shift into an animal form. It happened less and less often as the merpeople got used to seeing her, though they still goggled when she put on a rebreather, wet suit, and flippers and went swimming. More often than not, she was checking the integrity of the dome structures that made up Atlantis.
“Ahem.” Cuthbert’s throat clearing sounded pompous. Everything about him was pompous—from his heavily embroidered saltwater silk robes to his slicked-back hair to the way he carried himself. In so many ways, he was the antithesis of Bretton. Yet Bretton felt the need to act like his father in public. Aquatilis was all about the public appearance of self-improvement and perfection. It drove her insane. She wanted to rip off her clothes and run naked through the botanical gardens screaming at the top of her lungs, just to break the perfect bubble they all lived in.
On one hand, she respected anyone who would seek to improve themselves throughout their life, but they were in denial about their ability to reach a state of perfection. In her time, people knew it was a good goal, but no one actually thought they’d achieve it.
Cuthbert bowed low to the new arrivals. “May I introduce myself? I am Senior Counselor Cuthbert Hahn, adviser to the Aquatilian Senate. It appears you all know my son, and I look forward to getting better acquainted in the coming weeks.”
She fought the need to roll her eyes. Everyone else took the merman’s ingratiating formality in stride. The tigress managed a graceful curtsy even with a baby in her arms. “I am Mahlia, Amira of Vesperi. These are my children, Crown Prince Razak and Princess Varana.”
“Charming.” Cuthbert smiled at them, and each baby gave a matching wail.
Bretton stepped forward and offered a bow. “I’m sure you’ve all had a long voyage and would like to rest. My assistants will escort you to your quarters.”
Mahlia and Katryn both returned looks of gratitude before moving off with the young mermen Bretton had motioned forward. Their mates followed behind them, leaving Jain and Kesuk standing with Sera. Tilting her head toward the city proper, she led them out of the docking bay.
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