by Tracy Deebs
Page 66
“I love you,” he said as soon as we made it to the surface.
“I love you too. Thank you for saving me. ”
He laughed. “Thank you for saving me. ” He paused. “I’m not going back to La Jolla, you know. You can’t be trusted to stay out of trouble on your own, so I’m sticking around. ”
I nodded. I knew. “So, you think you’re up to being the first human merKing?” I asked.
“If not, I’m sure you’ll get me in line soon enough. ”
“That sounds about right. ”
It wasn’t going to be easy balancing his humanity with my merness. Our families and friends with our duty. My need for the water with his inability to live away from land. But this last year had been a long one. We’d come a long way from that cloudy La Jolla day when my legs had become a tail and I had nearly drowned. Mark had saved me then, I’d saved him since, and today we had saved each other.
It was enough. More than enough. Because I knew, when he was around, my greatest fear would never come to fruition. Deep inside, Mark was the best person I knew. He made me a better person. Gave me control over my darkest mer instincts, the ones that clamored for power and destruction and revenge. With him by my side, I could fight those instincts off, as well as the seductive lure of my power. I could be the merQueen Coral Straits needed instead of the one my powers would always tempt me to be.
I wrapped my arms around Mark’s neck. Pulled his face close to mine. “Thank you for sticking with me through all the horrible things that have happened. Thank you for taking such good care of me. And thank you for loving me when I wasn’t sure how to love anyone, even myself. ”
“No problem. ” He grinned, that crazy, cocky grin that had wormed its way into my heart all those years ago. “It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. ”
And then he kissed me, and everything that had come before this one perfect moment just disappeared.
Chapter 28
Early-morning sunshine woke me as it came through the skylight over my bed, and I rolled over with a smile, reached for Mark, only to come away empty-handed. Panicked, I sat up and searched the room. When I didn’t see him, I slipped out of bed and padded down the hall, my heart beating like a metronome.
I knew it was stupid, knew that he was perfectly safe here on our private island. Deep in the middle of Coral Straits territory, it was accessible only to my subjects and those who knew about the secret passage. And these days my people were loyal to me, loyal to us. There was no way they would give up the secret and put us in danger.
Not that there was much danger left to speak of, with Tiamat dead and her minions vanquished to the far corners of the Pacific. Without her to unite them, they were all keeping a low profile—even the Leviathan had decided to give it a rest for a while. Thank God. I was ready for peace. I’d had more than my share of war in the last year.
When I got to the kitchen, I found that Mark had been there. The coffeepot was on, my favorite cup sitting next to it just waiting to be filled. So I did, and then wandered over to the bank of windows that stretched across one whole side of my kitchen. And that’s when I saw him, dressed in a wetsuit with a surfboard under his arm.
Not that this was exactly a surprise. Proclaiming the waves as excellent here as they were at home, Mark hadn’t missed a day of surfing since we’d arrived. But what was a surprise were the five merboys that were tagging along behind him, homemade surfboards beneath their arms as well.
The oldest of the boys was probably about fourteen, the youngest maybe eleven, but they listened raptly to Mark’s every word like he had hung the moon and stars and sun. Not that I blamed them. Most days I found myself doing exactly the same thing.
I had a million things to do today. Two Council meetings, a lunch with the Councilor of Education to bring me up to speed on Coral Straits’s school system, a tour of our military base just to make sure everything was in order after the battle, and a thousand other smaller tasks that pretty much guaranteed I wouldn’t be back here until late. Mark was doing the military tour with me, but that didn’t exactly smack of romance, so I had counted on these early-morning hours to do that. To hold him and kiss him and remind myself that we really had made it through to the other side of hell. But watching him with my young clanmates, so patient and big brotherly, made my heart melt for entirely different reasons.
After finishing the last of my coffee, I slipped back into my bedroom and into a purple bikini that matched the plethora of tattoos that decorated most of my upper body these days. Gifts from the sea for vanquishing Tiamat once and for all and warnings of the power I was very careful about wielding.
I brushed my hand over the belly chain at my waist. Mark had added two more beads—one for this island and one for the merCastle under the ocean. They were beautiful, but my favorite was still the one made with La Jolla sand. This was home now, but that would always be Home.
Then I was out the door, grabbing my own surfboard on my way to the water.
Mark was so engrossed in giving surfing lessons to his pupils that he didn’t notice me right away, but they did, their eyes growing wide. It was funny, though he was very obviously with me, Mark was their friend and playmate while I would never be anything but merQueen. Assuming that role, understanding it, had taken time, but I was finally beginning to think that I had gotten the hang of it. I just wished it didn’t mean that I lost my chance to be a playmate too.
But I couldn’t have everything, and I already had more than I’d had any right to expect. Mark with me every day and night. My family visiting a few times a year. Sabrina had disappeared when Tiamat died, slipping out of my father’s life as easily as she had slipped into it. He was dating a nice woman now, one I liked a lot and who took good care of all of them when they were away from me.
My two best friends had recently gotten married, their relationship blossoming after Kona had rescued Mahina from that terrible cage. Their marriage had only cemented ties between Kona’s clan and mine. And our subjects who had finally accepted me, really accepted me, as merQueen.
Yes, life was pretty darn perfect just the way it was. The only one missing was Zarek, I missed him, as I knew Kona did, though we both worked to do him proud.
Taking advantage of the fact that Mark was busy teaching one of the boys how to wax his board, I sneaked up behind him and covered his eyes with my hands. He stopped midswipe, dropping the container of Sex Wax on the sand as he reached over his shoulder and grabbed on to me, twisting me around so that somehow I ended up in his arms.
“I got you!” I said, right before I planted a kiss on his cheek.
“And here I thought I had you. ” He gave me a much more thorough kiss, until I started squirming against him, conscious of our audience. It probably wasn’t proper etiquette for a merQueen to be kissed senseless in front of her subjects, but it was hard to remember that when I was in Mark’s arms.
Very aware of my dilemma, he let me down slowly, making sure to steady me when my feet hit the sand. My ankle was still giving me some problems, and being weak in the knees didn’t help the situation.
“So, what do you have planned for this morning?” he asked as he let me go to finish waxing the surfboard.
“I have a Council meeting in two hours, and then the rest of the day is pretty much booked. ”
