by Starla Night
“I could never leave my children,” she said. “She’s amazing. Truly.”
His chest throbbed again. “It is different in each situation.”
“Yeah, but no.” Elyssa dropped her hand and straightened. “You see, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to think about it. I only see my mother once a year too.”
He focused on her completely. She had the love and devotion of her father and stepmother. Two parents. He had assumed the mother died. Did Elyssa mean to say she had a third in her biological mother too?
“She’s this complete free spirit,” Elyssa explained. “My dad thought my birth would tie her down, but that never happened. He’s way better off with my step mom. And Julianne—my biological mom—is always on the move. She’s super fun when she’s around, but at the same time, it’s kind of exhausting. I’ll never do that to my kids. When I settle down, I am settling down.”
She spoke firmly, with a golden fire glowing in her chest and lighting her eyes with sparkles.
A tug of rightness gripped him.
Elyssa was, truly, everything he wanted in a bride. And she spoke so calmly and competently about critical things. She would be an excellent mother.
His cock twitched.
Now. He wanted her in his arms pledging herself to carry his young fry. As his bride.
“You have two mothers and one father,” he repeated, trying on the family for size. “That is an amazing ratio.”
She bit her lip. “Well, actually, the ratio goes the other way. My mother collected husbands like animal sanctuaries collect strays.”
He frowned.
“Don’t get mad,” she instructed. “Our culture has divorce. And it’s totally normal. There’s no, ‘your original husband is justified in murdering any guy who touches you’ thing that mermen have.”
He accepted her words while refusing the concept. It was slowly becoming less shocking that the female cashier touched everyone to give money and coffee, and no humans reacted. But surely it would be different to be intimate. Yes, in merman culture, a male could be punished for touching another warrior’s bride — even to save her life, the husband was justified in calling for her savior’s dismemberment. But if any male attempted to claim Elyssa now in front of Kadir, that male would be asking for death.
“All this is to say that my dads kept me in the divorce. I live with my biological dad and my stepmom — they’re the most stable — and it’s all complicated, but suffice it to say I have three moms and five dads.”
Three mothers and five fathers? Eight parents? For one daughter?
“And that’s how I know I don’t want that. I love all my parents, but I don’t want to make my kids divide their holidays up. My sweet sixteen was held at a community center just so it could accommodate all of my grandparents! I want one husband, two to five children, and a couple of big dogs.”
She said it decisively, giving the truth to how deeply she’d thought of it, and finished her mocha.
Once more, he felt like the conversation had tipped in a direction he hadn’t even fathomed was possible.
“Five children,” he repeated.
She hunched her shoulders. “Is that a problem? I was going to say two or three, but I’m okay with big families, and you have a shortage.”
Five.
Humans had multiple children. But mermen had one.
Because of the old ways. The covenant. That was why the cities atrophied. Why the young mer rebelled and joined him in Atlantis.
He could have more young fry. He could have five.
So could Soren.
Lotar. Ciran. Iyen.
His city could grow and thrive. The mer race could expand to its greatest height. Fill all the empty castles with warmth and all the cities with community. The vision Elyssa unveiled stunned him. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought it possible.
“Are you still hungry? Did you want to go get ice cream?” She reacted to his silence by retreating into her nerves and smoothing her kelp green dress. “Don’t you like the mocha?”
He looked down at his untouched second coffee. “I am drinking it slowly.”
Her smile radiated like the sun. “Oh.”
His distraction from before, when she was revealing her light to him so generously, shamed him. The one who was wasting time was not her. It was him.
He must convince her now to increase her radiance. That responsibility was his. She was his bride. He was her husband.
He picked the coffee up and drained it in one gulp.
She laughed. “You did it again! So, how did you find the coffee?”
“Cold.” He stood. “We must return to the dock.”
Her smile faded. She rubbed her chest. “Already?”
Ah. Did she not feel the resonance? Then he would not force her. Not until she felt what he knew.
“No. I am still hungry.”
She stood also. “Sorry! What can I get you?”
“A favorite food that only you will provide.”
She sucked in a breath. Yes, he had listened carefully. She wished to care for him. For a short time in the air, he would make it so.
Elyssa rewarded him by slipping her arm through the crook of his elbow and tugging him to the exit. “I know just the place.”
The strolled along the promenade, arm in arm, and he strove to increase her resonance as she asked about Atlantis. Did they have coffee shops? Did they have shopping malls? Did they have movie theaters? Did they have ice cream?
No. To all of the questions. He was beginning to worry that the difference in their ways of life might be a larger problem than he originally thought.
She stopped at a stand and purchased him a cone stacked two high.
He consumed the cold, dark chocolate scoops with his usual single-minded approach.
She put a hand on his elbow. “Slow down. Don’t you want a bite of mine? I bet you’ve never had Monkey Chunk before.”
He did not trust a food made out of pulverized jungle creature. “I would not steal the food out of your mouth.”
She laughed again. “When you put it like that, I almost wish you would.”
He stopped.
Her laughter faded. Her lips parted. Her chest burned bright.
A cool drip of melting cream landed on his wrist and traveled.
“You have a drip.” Holding his gaze, she touched his forearm. Her tongue caught the cream and traced a hot, wet trail up the back of his hand to his knuckle. She swallowed and smiled. “Delicious.”
His cock, already alert by their thighs brushing and her enticing nearness, hardened to granite.
“You also have a drip.” He lifted her wrist and nipped the bare skin.
She caught her breath with a little gasp. “I do not.”
“No?” He sucked the fast blood-beat underneath her skin. “I am certain.”
Her soul light flared.
His cock pulsed hot. How was it possible to crave her even more than when his soul claimed her in the auditorium yesterday? But now, after this day, brushing against her sweet, succulent thighs and falling under the spell of her playful, sparkling smiles, he needed her.
He pressed forward.
She smiled, playful, and backed away. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t care. Down the side of the ice cream stand and around the back corner, into a shadowed alley. Her back hit the dead end with a thump. He pressed her against the shop wall.
Her light flared and her gorgeous, clear eyes fixed on him. “Kadir?”
“Elyssa.” He rested his forearms on the wall on either side of her head. “You are mine. I must join with you.”
Her lashes fluttered. Her light flickered radically. “I want that…”
Yes. She wanted that.
He swooped to claim her mouth.
Her eyes widened. She moved, and his lips met her chin. “But are you sure it’s a good idea?”
He kissed her chin.
She giggled and wiggled, resisting with a
laugh.
He pressed her harder into the building and tasted her jaw. Salty and sweet, coffee and cream. He followed the bone to the delicate ear and tugged the hot flesh.
She gasped. Her light glowed.
His cock pulsed. He made her glow. He moved her silken hair away from her neck.
She caught his hand. A question remained in her worried eyes.
He would hold her like an anchor and drown her with passion until all her fears were gone. He cupped her jaw and rubbed his wide thumb across her lips. She parted for him.
He bowed his head. This time, she would not turn away. “It is a very good idea.”
“Um, but, what if I can’t transform?”
He was not leaving this shore without her. Between nips, he ordered. “Feel our resonance.”
“Well, but…” She glanced at the half-melted ice cream in her hand, nearly forgotten against the building.
He plucked the ice cream from her hand and crunched it in three bites. The yellow cream was thick and sweet.
She licked her lips. “If I can’t, you’ll have to give the new blossom to a woman who can. A woman who’s better suited to ruling with you.”
“There will be no more blossoms. The Life Tree needs you, Elyssa.”
“It does?”
“Atlantis needs you.”
She resisted. “Atlantis needs a strong queen.”
“You will become a strong queen.”
“No.”
“Yes. You are what I need.”
His words melted her resistance. Brilliance overflowed her chest, wrapping them in a private blanket of pure hunger. Her lashes fluttered closed and she tilted her lips up.
He took her mouth. The cold cream mixed with her natural sweet flavor. He captured her mouth and plunged in, sealing their bond. She clung to his forearm. He squeezed her curves. The soft breast ripe for palming. The wide hip perfect for gripping. The feminine curve of her thigh.
She sank into his caress.
He gripped her thigh, hiked it higher, and pressed his hard cock against her soft cleft.
She shuddered.
He released her mouth to taste the pulse-beat at her throat. Tease it with his teeth. Mark her as his. He shoved aside the green cloth and bared her skin. She gasped. The intensity of her light increased.
Her small, beautiful breast mound was perfectly shaped, like a scoop of iced cream with a dusky cherry. What was this flavor? He swiped his tongue over the pink peak.
Her fingers stroked his hair. Soft, gentle. Tentative.
He needed her brighter. Much brighter. And harder. Writhing against him.
Kadir lifted his head. She looked at him with soft, parted lips and unfocused, passionate eyes. A powerful wave of domination clenched him. She would not escape.
He ripped the green fabric out of his way and kissed the soft rise of her belly. She trembled.
Somehow, although she was right here, it felt like she was also far away. He hesitated. One hand gripped his forearm. The fingers stroking his head dropped away.
He surged up her body, slamming his forearm into the wall beside her head, making her jump. She was surprised but focused on him.
She focused on him.
And then she didn’t. Her chest rose and fell. She licked her lips and started to straighten her torn dress.
He gripped her hands. “You are mine.”
She did not protest. She also did not draw him closer. She waited.
His chest agitated. She was slipping away again! In desperation, he dropped his palm to her hot cleft. She gasped. There, the thin strip of polka dotted fabric. He moved it aside and cupped her feminine heat. “You are mine.”
She moaned and thrust against his hand. Her light almost blinded him. “Yes.”
“My bride.”
“Oh, yes.”
“My queen.”
Her light dipped.
He released her as though she had burned him.
That was the problem. That was how she escaped him. He demanded she be his queen and her soul light went out cold.
Chapter Nine
Elyssa’s thundering heart skipped and crashed into her chest.
My queen.
Kadir sensed her doubt and stopped his passion, stilled as though she had cried out. With his deep awareness, he always seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.
Now, of all times, she wanted to be his. She wanted to make him happy. She wanted to experience again his incredible passion, which flowed over her like a typhoon so hot and furious all she could do was hold on. He’d ripped her dress nearly in half without even thinking about it. All that hard, hot, masculine power focused on pleasuring her made her swoon. She wanted You are my queen to be true.
But then it struck her that everything depended on her. Everything. She wasn’t Lucy. She wasn’t Aya. How could the entire future of merman-human relations rest on her thin shoulders?
“Elyssa.” The fierce warrior frowned and stroked her cheek. “You vowed.”
Fear stopped her from transforming. It hurt Kadir. It hurt her.
But she couldn’t just think her way to success, or she’d already have displaced Chastity Angel as CEO and promoted Aya. She’d already have transformed. And she’d already be a great ruler in every way.
“Very well.” Hard darkness set his jaw. “I will talk no more about you becoming my queen.”
“No, you have to!” Him giving up on her would be the ultimate failure. Elyssa squeezed her eyes shut so she didn’t have to see Kadir’s disappointed face. “I’m sorry. I just, um—”
He growled. “You are restricted from saying that word.”
“Um?” Of course Kadir was right. A queen should speak confidently, not stutter. “Sorry.”
“That word.”
“Sorry?”
“Stop.” He stroked her cheek, forcing her eyes on his. “It is one of the words that dims your light.”
Oh.
When he studied her with such intensity, she melted a little. “Sorry.”
His intensity increased, and so did the pressure on her cheeks. “Elyssa.”
“What?”
“You said the word again.”
“I know! Sorry. I can’t help myself. I just—sorry.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “You are the most confusing, intriguing, enticing bride who ever joined with a merman.”
That…didn’t sound like a compliment.
“I expected to begin the journey to Atlantis. But instead, I have spent today sitting with my bride. Talking. Connecting. You have shown me a world I did not understand.”
It sounded worse and worse! “I’m so sorry.”
He eyed her intensely. “Use that word again and I will take it from your mouth with my tongue.”
A shocking pulse of heat rolled through her.
He continued speaking. “I have always wanted one young fry. Now, you have taught me to want five. I have always wanted a queen. Now, I want only you.”
Wait. That was the world he didn’t understand? Multiple kids and her as his wife?
She knew she’d been losing him back at the coffee shop. The harder she tried to prove her worth as queen, talking about her qualifications for ruling and that one political science class she almost flunked in high school, the less impressed he’d seemed. Finally, she’d realized it was all over. She had nothing left to lose. And so, she started talking about pointless things. The logo on the coffee cup. Her hopes and dreams.
Now he wanted only her.
Tingles of destiny warred with disbelief.
That was what had touched him? Turned his monotone grunts into full conversations? Lit a fire in his silver-flecked eyes so hot it made him back her down an alley and crash over her in a tsunami of passion?
“Don’t forget the two dogs,” she said faintly, her mouth talking while her brain struggled to catch up. “Oh, I guess you call them ‘house guardians.’”
“Elyssa.” He pulled her lax hand from his
hard bicep and kissed the center of her palm. A naughty edge of teeth made her shiver. “I vow to honor you. Protect our innocents. Join with you. Defend our Life Tree.”
His words stole her voice. She whispered. “Even if I can’t transform?”
“You must.”
“But—”
“You will return to Atlantis with me. Now, or when I have returned with another blossom.”
Her chest warmed like the full sun shone down on her. He’d return even though she’d messed up today. He wanted her. She sucked in a deep breath and threw her arms around Kadir. He caught her and crushed her to his hard pectorals.
With his steady faith, she could overcome anything.
He drew back. His lips nuzzled her, changing the glow into a steady, hot pulse-beat. She melted into the promise of his kiss.
Her phone jangled and vibrated in her torn dress pocket.
Kadir tensed.
She straightened and dug out the phone reluctantly. They were almost connected. She could feel it, finally. A new, powerful strength beat in her heart. With just a little more focus, she could certainly get over her doubts and transform. “It’s Aya.”
He stepped back.
She answered. “Just give us a little—”
“Come back right away! Lucy says you’re already a mermaid. She’ll prove it.”
She couldn’t stop her shocked, “What?” but Aya just tossed meeting instructions at her and hung up.
Could she become a mermaid queen in spite of her doubts? Really? Then everything was on hold. She raced to follow Aya’s directions, tugging Kadir with her.
A driver picked them up and drove them back to the private dock. Butterflies fluttered in Elyssa’s stomach. What would Lucy have to tell her?
At the private marina again, Kadir’s long strides closed on the dock. She hurried to keep up. Everyone was gone now — her parents, the filmmakers, everyone. They reached the wooden slats and Aya met them.
Aya shoved her phone at Elyssa, bright with excitement. “Talk to Lucy.”
Elyssa held it in both hands. This was it. She took a deep breath and answered.
“You’re a mermaid too! I’m so excited.” Lucy was older than Elyssa. She was also much more accomplished, a boat captain and expedition leader who dove for treasure before becoming a mermaid. But on Aya’s phone, the difference between them melted away. She giggled like a teenager. “You’re going to have a blast. And you’re going to a mer city where they want you! We got run out of Sireno. We’re coming to visit.”
