Shattered by the Sea Lord (Lords of Atlantis Book 8)

by Starla Night

  “I’ll host.” Angie tapped her chin. “Dannika, how many of your girls would be interested in visiting Sanctuary to meet a merman? I must make more place settings.”

  “Ooh, you definitely will.” Meg nudged Dannika’s elbow. “Send as many candidates as you want. The price of lodging is one black forest cheesecake. Tarantula visits are free.”

  Using the island as an interim meeting spot might be perfect. “We’ll work out a safe route from the mainland.”

  King Ankena smiled, then frowned. “Who are you, again?”

  Ciran snugged Dannika to his side. “She is my soul mate.”

  “Ah.” King Ankena’s frown deepened. “And you are?”

  “He is my husband.” Dannika squeezed him, teasing.

  King Ankena tilted his head. “And you both are?”

  “Friends,” Itime said. “Bex will tell you. You must cover three years.”

  “Yeah, and the way Bex rambles on, you’ll get the whole update in five minutes.” Meg grinned at Bex.

  Bex shrugged.

  “You’re concise,” Dannika said. “It’s a rare skill.”

  “Was I missing for three whole years?” King Ankena murmured, drawing his wife into his arms and nestling a kiss on her head, amid her floating hair. “Yes, there is much to learn.”

  “Oh, you will be floored.” Meg cackled. “Cell phones are tiny now. They made a whole TV show about castaways. And everybody knows about mermen.”

  “The surface world knows? Mainland humans learned of the mer? Impossible.”

  The bell knelled again.

  “One of those impossible humans is right now ringing your bell.” Meg raced down to disperse the rising squids, then raced back and snugged up to Itime. “Bex, catch King Ankena up before you ascend in all your royal glory, okay? I’ll be waiting with the chocolate cake and Mom will serve the noodles.”

  “Beef noodles,” Angie intoned, hugging Konomelu. “Ginger noodles. Hand-pulled. Mmm.”

  King Ankena flew with the ascending families to the edge of the destroyed city and waved farewell to their massed, shielded, thriving families.

  It was not a farewell, but a see-you-soon.

  As it should be.

  Itime gathered his family and Konomelu gathered his.

  Dannika hugged Ciran. “Do you have a plan to get us home?”

  “Of course.” His lips quirked and he pressed a kiss to her lips. “Not that anyone would dare attack this envoy, but just in case, you and Angie will shield us, and Meg will prepare her healing for the trainees who stick their arms out of the shield and poke the sea creatures that should not be poked.”

  Yeah, that sounded about right.

  Dannika grinned at Meg and Angie. “Ready?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Angie said.

  “Let’s hit it,” Meg said.

  They flew through the undersea world, free and fulfilled, warriors and families.

  Ciran kicked steadily, his powerful strokes propelling them forward. He tightened his arms around her.

  Once they reached the island, she and Ciran would visit the echo point, put in a call to his warriors, and then continue to the mainland.

  What a different world they swam into.

  Any Luscan warriors would offer help instead of harm.

  She melted against Ciran. His kicks were strong and steady and faster than ever before.

  And possible futures surrounded them. Children darted happily.

  She wanted that future for herself.

  A family, a husband, a child.

  It had been denied her and Eliot. She’d accepted she would never get what she really wanted.

  But Ciran had always been beside her.

  He’d had faith in her. Showed her life wasn’t over. Insisted she deserved true happiness.

  And she’d believed him.

  More than believed him, she’d believed in herself.

  Ciran squeezed her, knowing her thoughts without needing to say anything.

  They rushed for the surface to embrace her second chance at her best, most loving, and most loved-filled life.

  Epilogue: Dannika’s Dinner Party

  Six months later…

  “And so you arrived back at the island, my darling, and you were rescued?” Dannika’s friend Frederik asked as he poured another serving of wine to his dinner guests.

  Dannika sipped sparkling non-alcoholic cranberry juice. Her wine-colored sleeves pooled around her elbows, and the loose silk flowed over her growing curves. “That’s right.”

  Ciran loosened the stiff collar of his formal black suit and leaned forward. “Actually…”

  “Yes, I’m wrong.” She beamed and clinked their glasses. Her eyes sparkled, unlike the similarly named bubbling water in her inaccurately described wine glass, and her chest glowed. “You’re right. Technically, it was another, what, three weeks?”

  “Correct.”

  “Three weeks before we actually headed home. Because…”

  The guests listened to her adventurous recital, spellbound.

  “I have to back up. The morning Val was supposed to ring the bell for us, she woke to red skies.”

  “The sign of the squid.” Frederik sat beside his wife and wiggled his fingers in a spooky gesture.

  “Right, and she’d planned to ring the bell in the afternoon, exactly the time we had left for Lusca. But she was so worried the Luscans might be sinking a ship that she braved the crater early.”

  “And was a ship being sunk?”

  Dannika nodded. “Stevie’s. Her first ring not only summoned the kraken. It also summoned that squid and saved his charter boat.”

  Val’s ringing had been loud enough to reach Stevie’s boat—and many others. Human equipment had pinpointed the island, and in a short time, she’d had more rescuers than she knew what to do with.

  Yes, Val had really saved them.

  Dannika recited her favorite parts of the rescue for her lovely dinner companions.

  The night they surfaced, they’d held a great feast around Bex’s firepit. Val had shared her ordeal.

  “You were right, Meg. That path down was treacherous.” Val stretched out her sprained ankle, now encased in a supportive first aid boot. “It took me so long to get down, and at the bottom, I slipped and almost broke my other ankle.”

  Everyone gasped and shook their heads.

  “And that bell is not easy to ring. Bex made it seem so straight-forward. ‘Push on a stick.’ She neglected to mention the stick was suspended over the middle of the lake.”

  “Bex makes everything sound easier than it is.” Meg patted Val’s uninjured knee. “She’s lovable but weird.”

  “I had to wrap the vines around my waist and lean all the way out with my crutch. It rang softly at first. I wondered if anybody could even hear it.

  “But then I thought, everyone else got to be mer, and I never would be, and that was okay because I am devoted to those kids and you ladies, and I was going to help you the only way I could. I rang that bell so hard the island practically shook down around me. I rang like I was going to tumble into the ocean. I rang it and rang it and rang it.”

  “You did ring it,” Itime agreed calmly.

  “And then the red skies cleared. I took a lunch break, rang it until the sun went down, and somehow I made it out of the crater without breaking my neck. The next morning, red skies again, so I went back up into the crater. Five days of this I battled the red skies, and on the sixth morning, they cleared. And on the seventh day, who hails me on Bex’s broken radio?”

  Stevie raised his hand. He sat on a mat at the firepit. The crew of his chartered boat sat beside him enjoying Angie’s island wine. They’d contributed johnnycake, crisps, and a tub of chocolate ice cream for Meg.

  “It was loud,” Stevie agreed. “And, suddenly, our equipment started working.”

  “What about your anti-squid devices?” Dannika asked.

  “Oh, they got retired. It turns out I’m a videographer, not an
expert in battling megafauna.”

  “And so that was that.” Val brushed her hands together and kissed her lips. “I did something useful without meaning to. The end.”

  The women rushed to thank her.

  “You saved us,” Meg assured her. “You thought you didn’t, but you did.”

  “Your ringing came at the most opportune time,” Ciran affirmed. “I had run out of ways of delay the king. The bell pushed undecided warriors to join our side.”

  “Yeah? Well, all righty then.” She sighed happily.

  Stevie’s pocket rang. He took his cell phone out and handed it to Val. “For you. Again.”

  “Oops, that’s my wife.” She put it to her ear. “Hey there, love. You caught me telling stories around the campfire. Yep, tooting my own horn again.” She grinned at them, staggered to her feet, and limped on her thick metal-lined boot to give herself privacy.

  “But Bex is below ruling the oceans, huh?” Stevie sighed ruefully. “She always was doing something.”

  How unfortunate that his twenty-year search should end so close to his goal. The families talked it over after the crew retired, and Konomelu sent secret word down to Lusca. Dannika and Ciran delayed their departure long enough to receive an answer: Bex was on her way up. And so Stevie waited and finally saw her.

  When she finally saw him and learned about his enduring rescue efforts, Bex was touched and overwhelmed.

  She expressed it in her usual way. “Wow. I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it.” He grinned and took her under his arm. “Here’s a video of my wife. I met her on my second assignment, which I got, by the way, because I’d spent so much time studying the oceans thinking about you. She’s a marine biologist. That, there, is our daughter.”

  Bex had shaken her head. “She looks happy.”

  “She is. We’re a cheerful bunch.” He faced her seriously. “I know you’re surprised I’m here.”

  Bex shrugged. “You were always a good kid.”

  “Right, but I know. You were only married to my dad for a couple of years, and I was already in high school. But you knew my parents. My mom was obsessed with revenge, my dad was obsessed with his image, and all their ‘friends’ were like them. But you didn’t care about any of that. You pursued your own interests, rebuilt your dad’s sailboat, and didn’t care what others thought. You were the only normal person in my life.”

  Meg waved from the shelter to tease Bex. “I’m marking it in the journal. Today someone called you normal.”

  Bex grinned.

  Stevie laughed. “So now you know how messed up my childhood was.”

  They spent the rest of their brief visit catching up on people they’d both known.

  Stevie’s father, who’d once threatened Bex’s life to avoid a messy divorced, had finally gotten his comeuppance. He’d threatened a colleague who outperformed him. Instead of looking the other way, new management had taken the colleague’s side, and he’d finally lost his all-important job.

  And then he’d really lost it.

  He’d never been charged with threatening Bex’s life, but after a year of increasingly maniacal plots to get his job back, they finally arrested him on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. They had captured him trying to flee the country and he’d died in jail.

  “He died of a broken heart,” Bex mused.

  “Broken ego,” Stevie corrected. “The heart died, well, I don’t remember ever seeing it.”

  Meanwhile, Bex’s cat had lived to a ripe old age with her lawyer friend. Hunter S. Thomcat had dined on the finest Meow Chow while Bex had been stuck on the island with more basic fare.

  Bex’s lawyer friend, in addition to caring for her cat, had held her portion of the divorce in trust for Stevie.

  “So, besides being the only normal person in my life and the reason I met my wife and had my daughter, you’re also the reason I made a successful career in film today.” He put his arm around her and focused the camera on them. “Say something meaningful to my wife and daughter.”

  Bex stared into the camera, then tucked a lock of dirty-blonde hair behind her ear. “Um, hi.”

  “Perfect.” He grinned.

  They parted with many tears—on Stevie’s side, as “Bex has the emotional fortitude of a rock” according to Meg—and Dannika and Ciran returned to the mainland in the comfort of Stevie’s chartered boat.

  Meg and Angie stayed with their families on Sanctuary. They issued multiple takeout orders, and Dannika organized a regular delivery of chocolate, cake, and other essentials.

  “Luscan warriors escorted us all the way to the mainland.” Dannika wrapped up the story for the listeners at Frederik’s dinner party. “We delivered a generator on our last trip, along with the first dating candidates, sponsored by MerMatch. We’ve had to institute a lottery system. It turns out that everyone is interested in a free vacation to a tropical island, and we don’t want economic reasons to stop any match.”

  “You are a busy bee.” Frederik raised his glass in admiration.

  “And you are so sweet. Receiving this invitation to dinner delighted me. Especially since I thought you didn’t want to reschedule.” She turned down the long table and found the one listener who’d never smiled. “Senator.”

  The senator kept his hands folded in front of his mouth. Now, he dropped them and crafted a frown. “Don’t you think you’re skipping a part?”

  “Oh? Let’s see.” Dannika searched her memory. “You’re right. As soon as we emerged and saw Stevie, I begged him for the use of his boat’s satellite phone.”

  Hazel had been nearly inconsolable, sobbing incoherently for half the call, and promising to stay extra safe for the other half. Someone had broken into the office to delete files during Dannika’s absence. A clue must exist inside Starr’s backups, but they hadn’t found it yet.

  “A member of the Sons of Hercules had infiltrated the grounds crew at the Bermuda airport,” Dannika offered. “The government arrested three others on charges of terrorism. Unfortunately, they could not trace it to any higher level of leadership.”

  Sometimes the way the Sons of Hercules operated it seemed like there was no higher level. But someone was pulling the strings. Disorganization still had elements of organization.

  And she had a list of the thousands of volunteers and donors from the charity celebration. It would take time, but Dannika continued to meet with them one on one, hoping someone would spark her memory.

  It would happen. She would find the leader, and the violence against the warriors would stop.

  “So we are still waiting on justice for the men who crashed our plane and nearly killed us.” Dannika pressed her hand to her heart. “Thank you so much, senator, for caring about our well-being.”

  His lids dropped to half-closed, and he stared at them, stone-faced. “Not that part.”

  “No?” She sipped her juice. “Hmm. Which part do you mean?”

  “The part where you knowingly released a massive undersea cryptid into the ocean. One that is partial to wrecking our underwater assets.”

  “Mm. Gosh. Well, you know she’s been cooped up for centuries. She used to get out every year. She’s got a lot of energy to expend.”

  “And a lot of our military installations to break.”

  “Certain noises aggravate her.”

  “Yes, and she shrugs off sonar strong enough to break apart a man. Does she even feel it?”

  Ciran tapped his fingertips against the table. “I would guess not, senator.”

  “And that’s your two’s fault. What are you going to do about it?”

  “The kraken will return to her trench when she is ready,” Ciran promised. “As Dannika said, she must reacquaint herself with the modern ocean and tire of its stimulation. Then, she will sleep.”

  “And in the meantime, American servicemen are risking their lives. And losing.”

  “Stop tilting at windmills.” Dannika rested her hand on Ciran’s. “Lieutenant Orike is
leading the warriors of Lusca to follow her and help the ships or ‘installations’ she might have injured. But they can’t help if a sonar will blow them apart. Can they?”

  His gaze narrowed.

  “Well, I think it was a lovely story.” Frederik took his wife’s hands. “Brimming with romance, heroism, and a unique brand of underwater justice. And I also think it’s lovely to see those reformed young men swimming alongside the sloops, returning lost hats and toys.”

  “Or beer bottles,” one of the other guests said.

  The others laughed.

  Yes, the warriors had returned quite a few things to the sailing boats.

  “And,” Frederik sobered, “we have all lost a good friend to the tragedy of drowning. Perhaps these warriors will prevent such a sad loss from darkening our lives ever again.”

  Ciran watched Dannika’s reaction, but the mention of her first soul mate did not cause her pain as it once had. She thanked the host sincerely for his kind words. Her soul glowed steadily.

  And even though some of the guests had earlier looked at Ciran with concern, focusing on the tattoos crossing his cheeks and hands, they all smiled warmly at him now. Even the humans with no affinity to the water kindled a little glow in their dim chests.

  Dannika had been right to attend this party.

  She glowed and sparkled and connected with the other guests. Except for the senator, they glowed in response. Someday, she would turn the tide of public opinion and the United States would offer new visas to the mer. It would be from these small interactions. The connections Dannika made every day just being herself.

  She was a wonder.

  Sometimes, even now, he ached for her.

  He woke in the night thinking she hadn’t become his. Or he had a dream that he was still in Atlantis having given up on wooing her. Or worse, that he had never escaped Undine, and remained silent as their king spouted hatred and lies.