Harley Merlin 15: Finch Merlin and the Everlasting Vow
Bella Forrest
Contents
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1. Finch
2. Finch
3. Finch
4. Finch
5. Kaya
6. Kaya
7. Finch
8. Finch
9. Finch
10. Kaya
11. Finch
12. Finch
13. Finch
14. Finch
15. Kaya
16. Finch
17. Finch
18. Finch
19. Kaya
20. Kaya
21. Finch
22. Finch
23. Finch
24. Kaya
25. Kaya
26. Finch
27. Finch
28. Kaya
29. Kaya
30. Kaya
31. Finch
32. Finch
33. Finch
34. Finch
35. Kaya
36. Finch
37. Finch
38. Finch
HARLEY MERLIN 16: Finch Merlin and the Blood Tie
Read more by Bella Forrest
Copyright © 2020
Nightlight Press
All rights reserved.
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One
Finch
I stared into the mirror in Kaya’s bedroom. A dead man walking stared back. But he wasn’t done yet. Oh, no. Fire glinted in his eyes. The ghost of old Finch reared up, stretching out those sweet muscles of deceit, which hadn’t been used in a long time.
“At least I’m in a pretty cage,” I muttered to my reflection. Minimalist gray-and-white furniture surrounded me. Not exactly Versailles, with the sparse sleekness only adding to the prison vibes. But right now, with so many people planning to skewer me if I slipped up, this was the safest place I could be—under Kaya’s protection and behind a locked door.
I can’t marry her. I love Ryann. I couldn’t live with myself if I ended up at the end of an aisle, the wrong woman standing in front of me.
I started pacing across the endless floor. The new Muppet Babies were probably still in that fancy room, wondering what had happened. They’d stood between me and Erebus, ready to give everything to save me. That only fueled my fire. I’d return the favor when I could.
As long as I pretended to behave, they’d be okay. I’d already convinced myself of that, while pushing back a tidal wave of worry. Hell, I even spared a worried thought for my gargoyles, who were likely misting around in one of those Bestiary orbs.
Lux wanted me to marry Kaya solely to get revenge on her wayward husband. Kaya wanted to marry me for the same reason, as well as some crap about doing what was best for her people. Ovid wanted me in the suitor race so that his daughter would have more options. And everyone’s okay with that?!
I wished Apollo hadn’t been arrested for attempted murder. But the whole situation stank, fishy and rotten. I didn’t know the guy well, but he hadn’t seemed like the kind of dude who’d arrange a knife in Kaya’s heart. A knife that could easily be traced back to him. Yep, big old salmon stench, there… Maybe it was because we were underwater, or maybe it was just my dubious feelings about supposedly utopian societies, but Atlantis reeked right now.
And if Apollo wasn’t the mastermind behind the assassination attempt, then the killer could still be on the loose—a killer who might gun for the other suitors, now that they’d gotten Apollo out of the picture.
I groaned and paused my pacing. “I swear to Chaos, the last thing I need right now is another person trying to off me. This plate is full!”
I’d just started some lion-esque prowling to get my thoughts in order, when the door opened and my wannabe bride strolled in.
“I thought you would be asleep.” Kaya looked surprised to see me wandering around, for some reason. It was only early evening.
I gave her my best withering stare. “What, you thought I’d just snuggle up in your bed with all this going on? Or did you think I’d doze off and wake up with a total change of heart? Tell me, did you drug the pillows?”
“You seemed tired, that is all. There is no need for unnecessary snark.” She rolled her eyes and gestured for a scurrying little servant to come in.
“Who said it was unnecessary?” I shot back. Just because she’d snared me in a courtship trap I couldn’t immediately wriggle out of didn’t mean she would get a softer, more amenable Finch.
She ignored me and crossed the room. There, she stepped out onto the expansive balcony and sat at a table on the terrace, where the servant hurried to set a tray of food and a pewter pitcher. The poor guy looked like he was trying to beat his personal record. With everything laid out, he almost cracked his back in an attempt to make the deepest bow in history, before rushing from the room. The door clicked shut with a quiet, yet threatening, lock.
“Come. Eat.” It wasn’t a request. So, like the “Belle” I’d apparently morphed into, I went out to join Kaya in the balmy Atlantean glow of evening. Only a few hours had gone by since she’d brought me to her room, but it felt like weeks.
“Shouldn’t you turn a key or something, so I can at least feel like a hostage?” I sat opposite her and eyed the tasty smorgasbord. As it turned out, all this stress had made me insanely hungry.
She chuckled as she gazed out over the city. “There is no need.”
“Ah, yes, the multitude of hexes you’ve slathered on this place.” I sank back, knowing it’d be bad form to start chowing down before the princess did.
“They are necessary,” she replied.
“You know, since you keep saying that, I feel like I should buy you a thesaurus. It might give you another word for ‘necessary.’” I faked a smile, trying to walk the tightrope between irreverent and rude.
She shook her head with a hint of a smile. “Then, I should say, it is for your benefit. The hexes will keep you safe and prevent any of the suitors, or those who wish you harm, from entering or trying to toy with the door or windows.”
Including Davin and Erebus… A security measure that should’ve comforted me but instead left a sour taste in my mouth. The tang of incarceration, gussied up to look like hospitality.
Kaya had really done a number on her quarters since bringing me here, installing all kinds of magical reinforcements. Of course, I hadn’t been given any kind of key to exit at my leisure. And the windows had been additionally secured and locked, again with no spare key for little old me.
But I was nowhere near defeated. I had an ace up my sleeve. Who needed a key, when you could Shapeshift the way I could? But to use that honed skill, which Kaya knew nothing about, I needed outside help. My friends. Which begged the question of how to get them here, so that I could put a plan into action.
“Any sign of my two biggest fans? I thought they’d be scratching at the door, desperate for an autograph.” I took a slice of an Atlantean favorite—gray-toned laver bread—just as Kaya popped a green berry into her mouth. The bread glistened with their version of salted butter, all
thick and creamy and delicious. It had a subtle hint of the sea, but so did everything else down here. I devoured the whole thing as if I hadn’t eaten in a month, before going back for seconds.
Kaya ate another swollen green berry, somewhere between a grape and a gooseberry. “They are prowling around, as I expected.” She laughed sharply. “It is rather amusing, in truth, how desperate they are to find you. I have never seen Erebus so incensed.”
“I bet you’re just loving that, aren’t you?” I mumbled with my mouth full, spitting crumbs. She wasn’t about to get any table manners from me.
“Pardon?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Well, that’s the crux of all this, isn’t it?” I swallowed the bread, the chunk almost lodging in my throat. “You get to sit back and enjoy your old flame getting jealous and angry, at my expense. Frankly, it’s ridiculous. And selfish. You’ve already shanghaied me into being your suitor, and now you’re using me to make jabs at Erebus, even though it’s putting my life on the line. You clearly still have feelings for him.”
“You can be rather intolerable at times; do you know that?” Kaya asked stiffly.
I picked up another slice of the tasty, umami-tingling bread. “I’m aware.”
“How many times must I reiterate the point, Finch?” She sighed in exasperation. What could I say? I had that effect on women. “There is more to my decision than inciting Erebus’s jealousy. A great deal more. Chaos brought you to my city for a reason.”
“Have you convinced yourself yet?” I cast her a knowing look.
“I need not convince myself when I am already certain.” She didn’t take the bait. “If, at first, I was tempted to consider Erebus, I can no longer justify prioritizing my own feelings. The greatness, and continued greatness, of Atlantis is much too important. And you are a vital part of seeing it persist in its excellence. A Merlin sharing my throne will be a miracle if ever I have heard of one.”
Since a plain “NO” hadn’t worked, maybe she’d respond better to a more subtle approach. Though subtlety had never been my strong suit.
“Okay, fine—say I agree to marry you, so Atlantis’s greatness and all my juicy Merlin blood can prevail. Will you keep me locked up here forever, not letting me see anyone?” I added a touch of sadness to my tone. “This imprisonment thing doesn’t work for me. Been there, done that, almost drove myself nuts. I need freedom, or I’ll shrivel up like a potato, forgotten in the back of a cupboard. It’s not right, and it’s definitely not good for me to be locked up.”
Kaya rolled one of the berries around in the palm of her hand. “Until our engagement is announced, you will not leave this room. For your own safety.” She met my eyes with a steely regality. “Only once vows and rings have been exchanged will you regain your freedom to move around the palace and city however you please.”
“Because of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber?”
She frowned. “Who?”
“Erebus and Davin.”
She nodded in vague understanding. “At a minimum, yes.”
“You think other people might be after me?” I pried a little, hoping to strike gold.
“Apollo is in prison. A man I trusted more than… most people, in truth. If he sought my death, there is no telling who else may be working against the crown. If you are to, potentially, be the crown, then you may be under more threat than is currently evident,” she replied, crushing the berry between her thumb and forefinger. An odd look crossed her face—an expression of doubt. But doubt about what?
“Come on, you don’t actually think Apollo did that, do you? You’re a smart woman, and if you trust him as much as you say, then you can’t really believe he’d be capable of murdering you. I mean, if nothing else, he’s smart—why would he use a weapon that could be traced directly back to him? It doesn’t make any sense.” I decided to throw the cat among the pigeons, as the old saying went.
She sighed and set her squished berry down. “I do not know what to believe, Finch. The weapon belonged to Apollo’s father, that is true, but perhaps he hoped to double-bluff his way through any ensuing investigation, using the exact reasoning you have just given—that it makes no sense to use a weapon with family ties.”
“Or, you know, he’s innocent and being framed,” I replied bluntly.
“Innocent men do not run.” Her voice carried a cold edge.
“They do if they’re being chased.” I’d never bought that assumption. Anyone would run if they felt their life was at stake.
She tilted her head from side to side until a bone clicked. “Innocent or guilty, it does not matter. I have more pressing concerns. Namely, my father.”
“Why? What’s he done now? Wrangled some more strays into your suitor convention?”
She shot me a warning look, letting me know that I was nearing the edge of that irreverent-rude tightrope. “My father still favors Davin, and I must ensure he comes to favor you.”
“I thought it was your decision. I mean, it sure as hell isn’t mine,” I returned.
“It is my decision.” She poured herself a glass of water and gulped a few mouthfuls. “But I want him to understand my reasons and gain his full support. His opinion matters to me, more than anyone’s, now that my mother is… no longer able to give me her guidance.”
I picked at another slice of bread. “It was your father that suggested this in the first place. I’d say that’s opinion enough.”
“He did that out of pride, so that I would have more suitors to choose from. It does not mean you are his preferred choice.” She pushed a hand through her hair, a strand catching in her silver circlet. A little tuft, like a protruding antenna. I decided not to point it out, for my own amusement. “At present, you are a substitute, nothing more. In his eyes, at least. I must endeavor to change that.”
“Well, if you’re going to keep me locked up here while you try to convince Daddio that I’m crown material, can I make a request?” The cogs were turning now.
She shrugged. “You can, but that does not mean I will acquiesce.”
“Can I at least get some kind of visitation rights for my friends? I meant it when I said I go mad in enclosed spaces. Unless you want a crazed lunatic for a suitor, I need something to stop me from spiraling. Plus, a bit of goodwill would be nice, since you’re making me do this against my will.” I paused and managed a smile. “Call it an early wedding gift.”
Kaya pursed her lips.
Quick! Don’t you lose this shot! I leaned forward and put my hand flat on the table, millimeters from hers. “My friends know the score. They’ll comply with your rules and regulations, but don’t keep them from me. I need to let them know what’s going on, and… I just want to see them, Princess. At least give me that.”
“And what am I to do about Miss Smith?” She took her hand away. “Is she going to cause problems for me?”
“No!” I blurted, way too quickly. “No, there won’t be any problems. Don’t do anything to her. Let me explain this to her. You’ve made it clear I don’t get a choice, but I know you’re not cruel. Keep her out of this, and I’ll behave.” I was lying through my teeth. “Just let me speak to her. She might not even want to talk to me. If that’s the case, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Kaya sighed. “Very well. I suppose I ought to offer you something in return for your acceptance, even though most men would find the prospect of marrying a princess reward enough. But you are not like most men, are you?” She eyed me curiously, as though observing me with a fresh perspective. “You may have a few arranged, short visits. After all, I have grown fond of your friends. Especially Miss Winchester. But you are not to leave this room.”
“Thank you.” I meant that, at least. Once I had my friends here, the games could begin. My games, this time.
“I mean what I say, Finch. You may only be a suitor now, but I intend to choose you.” She paused, and the air grew still. “I thought Chaos had brought Erebus back to me, but I was mistaken. It was you. You were the gift
, but I was too blind to see it. Now my vision has cleared. Chaos wants this, and Chaos shall have it.”
If Chaos thinks so, then Chaos is in for a colossal disappointment. Now, if only I could shake this deeply unsettled feeling in my stomach. Her certainty scared me. Throughout history, that kind of holier-than-thou imagined calling from a higher entity had caused wars and razed cities to the ground on the surface, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d be added to the list of casualties.
Seriously, why did the nutcases always gravitate toward me?
Two
Finch
Alone again after eating my fill of early evening goodies, I did a bit more pacing to try and work off the thick butter. Creamed calories, in their purest form. So rich I could feel my arteries clogging. I probably didn’t want to know where they got their dairy. Sea cows? Manatee milk? Nope, it was definitely best to just enjoy the taste and not ask questions. For all I knew, it could’ve been squeezed out of a sea cucumber.
Kaya had skedaddled, having had her fill of my sass. But not without leaving a promise behind—that my friends would be sent up as soon as possible. I’d been waiting ever since. Evening had slowly turned to night, the fake sunlight orbs dimming as the pretend constellations came out to play. Apparently, ASAP didn’t mean the same thing here that it meant up top.
Harley Merlin 15: Finch Merlin and the Everlasting Vow Page 1
