He nodded as the Grand Dragon of the Forest entered the room.
Tirvu turned to him and grinned. “We have him back,” she said, unable to hide the complete delight in her voice.
“Really?”
“Yes, my lord,” she replied as she reached out for Eric’s hand.
“Well, then, we should address our people,” the Grand Dragon said to Eric, placing his hand on his shoulder. “The Protectors of the Sky need to know that they have their rightful leader, and we must tell them of the prophecy.”
“Yes,” Tirvu said. “I’ll go ring the bell to signal them to gather.”
Eric had never seen outside of the castle walls, and his breath caught as he stepped out on the balcony that held the Moonstone.
Before him lay a vast wasteland of charred forests and deep, black mud. It contradicted the beautiful lands behind the castle gates. For a brief moment, he became utterly dizzy as images of full, yellow forests played in his mind, and he realized that he must be looking at the destroyed lands of the war.
He tried to imagine fire-breathing dragons attacking ice-breathing dragons from the sky. The trees would burn, and as the ice melted, it would turn the lush soil to a muddy mess.
As he looked down on the people gathered before him, they stared up at him expectantly. Some had limbs missing; others were terribly scarred. The black people stood to his left, while the white people stood to his right. The grey Moonstone was cradled in its rightful place.
Tired and bedraggled, they looked up him with empty or haunted eyes, like survivors of war.
His chest ached knowing that if he had been successful in retrieving the Moonstone all those centuries ago, the war could have been avoided.
The people of this realm had started a war based on nothing but a deep, unspoken distrust of each other. The scrolls said it would be up to the black and the white to bring peace and hope to the people, but he didn’t see how he and the Grand Dragon of the Forest standing up here preaching to them would allow them to heal, to merge to become one society.
He turned around and saw Tirvu smiling and nodding at him from the castle doors.
Then, it hit him.
He motioned her forward, and she shook her head, eyes wide with confusion.
Turning to the Grand Dragon of the Forest, he whispered, “I think Tirvu needs to be up here.”
The man arched his eyebrow and stared at him a moment, but then it was as if a lightbulb had gone off over his head, just like in the cartoons.
“Of course. I understand.”
He also motioned Tirvu forward, and she stood between them, her brows furrowed in confusion.
Eric looked over the people again, then he spoke. “My name is Eorricris. The last time the seams of the universe closed, I failed all of you. I failed your parents, I failed your children, I failed our future. Creatures known as demons took our precious Moonstone, and I chased after them to return it.”
Murmurs went through the crowd, and he raised his hand for silence.
“You have been fighting each other for no reason. No one here was responsible for the Moonstone’s disappearance. Only me.”
He waited for that to sink in. The death and destruction that had rained down on their land for so long had been a useless war, one borne out of rumors and lies.
“I stand before you not only as the rightful heir to the throne of the Grand Dragon of the Sky, but also to ask you for your forgiveness for my inability to bring the Moonstone home all those centuries ago.”
The Grand Dragon of the Forest nodded, as if he forgave Eorricris, and he noticed a few heads nodding in unison in the crowd.
“As a people, we must heal,” he continued, a surge of energy coursing through him. This was the path of life he was supposed to be on. His whole body tingled with the excitement of the prospects of a new future, of what lay ahead.
“Today, we are no longer Protectors of the Sky or Protectors of the Forest. Although we look different, we are the same in here,” he said as he pressed his hand into his chest. “Here, we are all fierce warriors. We are lovers of our land and our skies. We want to be loved, we want our families safe. Our physical differences are not something that should divide us—they are something that we should embrace.”
He turned to Tirvu and took her under his arm. The movement brought gasps from the crowd.
He stared at her a moment, and a grin crept across his face. Yes, he was exactly where he was supposed to be—in front of his people, taking the throne as leader with Tirvu by his side. Together, the two of them would change their world for the better.
He faced the crowd again as love swelled within him for those in front of him, as well as the amazing woman by his side.
“My name is Eorricris, and this is Tirvu. I love her, and she loves me. We are different, but our love has been unbreakable through the centuries, and it will continue to remain strong throughout the rest of our time together.”
Lifting her hand up in his, he glanced at the difference in the color of their skin—his dark, hers white.
“I encourage you to reach across the aisle to those you have been warring with, and take a hand. White hands should grasp black hands. Black hands should wrap their fingers around their white brothers and sisters. Once this is done, the Grand Dragon of the Forest will lead us in a healing prayer to the Moonstone.”
At first, no one moved. They glanced up at Tirvu and him, their hands still intertwined and high in the air.
After a few moments, they began to mingle, to clasp hands with each other.
It became a beautiful sea of black and white. As the Grand Dragon of the Forest began the prayer, they all recited the words together, as one. For a moment, their differences didn’t matter.
Epilogue
Three Years Later
Eorricris heard the pitter-patter of his son’s feet hitting the marble flooring before he saw him. At age three, the child was a rambunctious joy who kept both him and Tirvu on their toes. He had never been so tired in his life.
The little tyke covered from head to toe in mud ran around the corner, laughing hysterically as he looked over his shoulder.
“Paul! Come here right now!” he heard Tirvu yell, and he chuckled as he swept the boy up in his arms.
He’d wanted to remember the brief time in his life where he’d been a human, and had asked Tirvu if they could name the boy after his father. She’d readily agreed.
“Are you running from your mother again?” he asked, placing a kiss on the boy’s cheek.
“Yes, he is,” Tirvu replied as she entered the room. “It’s bath time.”
“I want to go fly, Daddy!”
Eorricris laughed again. He never should have taken the boy out for a flight at such a young age. When Tirvu had found out, she’d about skinned him alive. Since then, the boy had wanted to do nothing but soar above their beautiful lands on his father’s back.
“Maybe some other time,” he answered as Tirvu rolled her eyes.
He looked at his beautiful boy. Since a sky creature had never mated with a forest creature, they’d been unsure what their son would look like. He wasn’t as pale as Tirvu, nor was even close to being as dark as Eorricris. Instead, he was a sort of gray color with Tirvu’s bright, glowing eyes. In fact, he was the exact same color as the Moonstone. They wouldn’t know if he would be able to fly until he hit puberty and began to hone his skill of shifting into a dragon.
“Come, child,” she said, taking him from Eorricris’ grasp. “He’s been taking mud baths in the forest again.”
“I see that.”
She grinned and leaned in to give him a quick kiss. “I’ll get him washed up, then I’ll go back out to the forest to find some berries for our meal.”
“Excellent. Mind your mother, Paul.”
As his small family left him alone once again, he grinned. He’d definitely found his happiness and his place where he belonged.
He walked out onto the overhang where the Moonstone sat.
Where there had once been scorched earth now stood fertile ground with seedlings and the Protectors of the Forest working the land.
The people who had been warring each other for so long had taken some time to get used to their new ways of life. It hadn’t been a smooth process of the dragon shifters becoming one people, but it had happened. They worked together, prayed together, and a couple had even fallen in love with each other. A new generation was being born, one that would bring them all one step closer to becoming one people.
He shifted into his dragon form and spread his wings. Soaring over his lands and sky, he couldn’t imagine his life being more perfect.
The End
For more stories about the Event and Saint’s Grove, please visit CarlyFall.com
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About the Author
Carly Fall is a wife, a mother and a slave to the dog, Nicky.
She loves to laugh, thinks chocolate and wine should be considered their own food group, and wishes Christmas happened twice a year.
She is the author of the award-winning and best-selling series, the Six Saviors. She is also the author of the Supernatural Renegades series, and other paranormal and contemporary romances.
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To find out more about her books, visit CarlyFall.com
Waves And Secrets
Prequel to The Mer World Trilogy
B. Kristin McMichael
WAVES AND SECRETS © copyright 2017 B. Kristin McMichael
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This book is licensed for your personal use only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means without written permission of the author. All names, characters, and places are fiction and any resemblance to real, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Waves and Secrets
Wanting out of the Merworld is impossible, but that doesn’t stop two friends from trying.
Welcome to the Merworld. Hidden from normal humans is an ocean filled with a people known as the mer. While they all have the same goal—to stay hidden from the hunters that kill them without question—that doesn’t mean the clans all get along. A thinly veiled peace agreement hides the growing dissent of the clans.
Leo and his best friend, Sam, want out of the Merworld and are willing to cut ties with everyone they know to do so. Unfortunately, Sam’s father, the Merworld king, isn’t about to let that happen and is ready to punish Leo for thinking of leaving the Merworld.
Despite facing a penalty of death, Leo and Sam are more than willing to go on a dangerous adventure into a lower merclan’s home to look for evidence of disobedience. Their one goal is to find something to keep themselves safe, but Leo happens to find something he never knew he was missing in the first place, and something that might make him want to stay in the Merworld after all.
1
Sam paced his arm strokes perfectly. Though it still felt strange to kick the water with his human feet, Sam was the picture of perfection while he swam by the students sitting on the edge of the pool. He glided across the water like a pro swimmer as he faked needing a breath partway across the pool. Stopping at the wall, Sam pulled himself up onto the edge in one fluid motion.
“And that’s how you do a perfect freestyle,” Mark said from the other end of the pool. The students who had been watching Sam now all turned to Sam’s bleach-blond friend, Mark.
Sam was glad to have all of the eyes off of him. He had been on land posing as a normal human high school student for a couple years, but it was still strange to hide who he really was. It was especially hard to swim and pretend his life wasn’t better in the water. While the chlorine was a constant reminder that the ocean was far healthier, water was water and felt amazing to be in it.
“Leo will show you how we float on our backs with an elementary backstroke,” Mark continued, addressing his attentive audience of freshmen. These were the few incoming students that had never had a single swim lesson in their lives. Since the school was by the ocean and swim classes were required of each student—a regulation that may have been due to some mind persuasion of the Siren attending the school—all students had to take lessons.
Sam’s other friend, Leo, laid on his back flapping his arms and he easily made it across the pool in a couple strokes. Sam was glad Leo was doing that one. It was ridiculous to swim on their backs for the Siren who could breathe underwater, but it was the best way to teach students who feared the water. Sam almost laughed the first time he heard that people on land were afraid of the water. The water wasn’t bad. It was what lived in the water. That’s what they needed to fear.
Mark continued to talk to the students as Leo hopped out of the pool to sit on the edge beside Sam. They would both prefer to be in the ocean, but duty called and that meant their lunch period was spent sitting on the side of the pool. When Mark was done with his lecture, he would divide the students up into groups for each of them. Then one little song would render the new students into a dream world where Sam and his friends could have their fill of blood before sending them on their way.
“Looks like your girl is here,” Leo commented under his breath so he wouldn’t interrupt Mark’s lecture.
Sam looked up at the open gate of the swim pool fence. His childhood friend, Amber, was standing there watching Sam and Leo, and ignoring Mark. She had a crush on Mark at one point, and he turned her down. Now she pretended like he didn’t exist. Sam was acutely aware Amber was turning her attention to him, but he was never going to see her as anything but the brat that followed him all over the island they grew up on. She was like a sister, and there was no way it was ever going further than that.
Standing up, Sam walked over to his waiting friend.
“New recruits?” she asked, eyeing the group of freshmen.
Amber easily found her food on the various beaches she visited after school. There was no shortage of young men who would follow her off into the ocean waters when she worked her charm. Sometimes Sam felt like the female Siren had it much easier. Men were suckers for a good-looking girl in a bikini. She could entice almost anyone into the water with her. But the problem for the male Siren was that most girls would never venture off alone into the ocean with a guy they didn’t know. There was a good reason why they shouldn’t, but it made feeding more difficult for the males of his species. Hence the reason Sam and his friends became swim instructors.
“We have to rotate new ones in since the old ones can swim well enough to pass their gym classes now,” Sam replied. Unfortunately, once his charges learned how to swim, they needed to find new ones.
“I don’t see why you don’t just tell them they can’t swim and leave it at that,” Amber answered, peering over at the girls sitting on the edge of the pool. Mark was in front of one, trying to coax her into the water for a demonstration. If Sam caught it right, there seemed to be a bit of jealousy seeping from his friend.
“Because if they never learn to swim, the school will grow suspicious,” Sam replied.
“Then tell them not to,” Amber replied, like it was that obvious.
While the Siren could persuade any normal human to do what they wanted, Sam was sure if they messed around with too many people it would become dangerous. One slip up and the hunters would be called. Sam had already implemented the rule of no killing humans on land, which helped keep the Siren on shore safe, but he was extra cautious to avoid the one group of people who could kill them. The hunters would make easy work of most of the young Siren in the school, but not of Sam and his friends. Sam had been training, ever since he could walk, on how to protect himself. However, not all Siren had that training. Most relied heavily on their voice. Even though he was confident in his abilities, Sam didn’t feel the need to test it.
“Amber, we’ve been over this before. We need to stay hidden,” Sam replied.
Amber shrugged. “That’s not what Tim says.”
Tim was Sam’s older brother, and everything th
at came out of that Siren’s mouth was about getting higher on the food chain in the Siren world. Tim cared about no one and wasn’t trying to keep anyone safe. He couldn’t care less if the hunters were called to the city they currently called home. That was Sam’s job. Tim only cared about Tim. There was no way that guy’s advice should ever be followed, and Sam saying the opposite was the best thing ever.
“And how many people died while Tim was in charge? Come on, Amber, we both know Tim isn’t the one to be giving orders. My father left me in charge for a reason.”
Amber shrugged. He was pretty sure she wasn’t convinced, but at least they were friends and she would listen to him because of their friendship. She was like most Siren in that they didn’t care about human life. Humans were merely food. Sam really didn’t care much either, but he understood how the game was played. Multiple deaths by draining blood brought hunters to the area. Hunters meant Sam had to keep everyone safe, and he was happier teaching the young Siren to blend in instead.
“When do you head back for your last council meeting before being named heir?” Amber asked, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
Sam sighed. “I’m not going to be the heir,” he replied. Amber had been bugging him for weeks since his father said Sam was to accompany him to the Council of Mer meeting. Normally the old man took one of Sam’s various older brothers, but this year he insisted he return home to go with him.
“Sure, whatever you say,” Amber replied. “You just happened to be the only one free to go with him.”
That had been Sam’s first excuse, but he knew it wasn’t true. He had seven older brothers, and he was pretty sure Tim would drop everything to go if their father asked him to.
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