Soren swam alongside the sphere-shaped submersible.

From a distance, he looked like a human scuba diver. His long legs kicked and two flat, wide scuba fins scooped the water.

But he carried no tank. His lungs pulled in water and released it out the gills in his lower back. He wore no wet suit—or any clothing at all. And his “scuba” fins were actually his feet, accordioned so the skin between the bones stretched thin.

Soren was furious.

A fish eye window curved over the front of the submersible. Small lights flattened the ocean around it. Inside, a black-souled man worked the controls.

This evil male had attacked Soren’s home city, Atlantis, and severed their holy Life Tree. Right now, the Life Tree was scissored in a metal claw attached to the front of the submersible. And worse than the Life Tree, which gave life to his city, was the crushed, injured human female, Aya.

She had swum down hundreds of feet from the surface to warn Soren about this attack. Then, she’d tried to stop the submersible herself. But the submersible hadn’t stopped. She’d been pinched against the Life Tree, causing a mortal injury.

Soren could hear her moans and see her fading soul light. She did not have long. The Life Tree still shimmered pure, white light, spreading its life-giving radiance to all mer warriors of the city. But it would soon die, too. And with it, all Atlantis.

What was this human male’s name? Blake?

Soren pounded on the thick glass.

Blake jumped. His mouth opened in a scream. It barely crossed the glass and penetrated the water.

Soren pounded harder. “Open your metal claw. Release our Life Tree and face my wrath!”

The glass held.

Blake’s shoulders relaxed. He laughed and shouted. His words were muffled but his sneer and gestures passed the barriers just fine.

This invader dared to taunt Soren? First Lieutenant of the renegade city Atlantis, demon warrior without honor?

Soren rested both fists on the glass, summoned his rage, and roared. The thick submersible glass vibrated. Tiny cracks raced from his fists to the edge of the metal frames.

Blake stopped laughing.

Soren scratched at the cracks. He would peel open this metal monster and drag the human out, shake the dark-souled Blake until he realized his mistake, and deter all other invaders.

In the metal claw, Aya whimpered and pitched over.

His heart stopped.

Soren transformed his fins to human feet and pushed off the glass. Flicking back to fins, he kicked over the unbreakable metal joints to the front of the claw. Aya hung limp as a prey being carried in the mouth of a metal predator. Soren gripped the two pincers, gathered his strength, and pulled with all his might.

This machine was stronger.

Aya shifted. Tiny bubbles escaped the hose clenched in her mouth. Behind her glass diving mask, agony pinched her features.

Soren released the claw again. “Aya. You should not have come.”

He spoke in the mer way – as a wordless vibration deep in his chest. Humans couldn’t understand it. But sometimes people with compatible souls could sense the meaning.

Soren and Aya should not have compatible souls.

He had refused to claim Aya at her company’s bride pageant in Miami even though every fiber of his being reached out to her, craving her like sunlight. He would fight his attraction. She deserved a worthier warrior.

Now, it was almost too late. Her inner sun was going out.

“Aya,” he said again, in his chest.

Her long, curved lashes fluttered. “Hnn?”

“Your injuries are too severe. You must transform into a mermaid to survive.”

She shivered.

He searched through the pure, white branches of the severed Life Tree behind her. One blossom would hold the nectar she needed to transform.

Transforming for the first time would heal her critical injuries.

The nectar would zip through her veins, transforming her from human into mer. Gills would form in her lower back, enabling her to take off the cracked, leaking air tanks. She would no longer be cold, and could swim naked like him. Someday, she’d be able to form scuba-like mer fins.

But there was no blossom.

An alarm on her wrist beeped shrilly. What was its meaning? He brought the small machine to his eyes. It flashed unrecognizable symbols.

Aya’s blue eyes clouded with pain. Her chest caved in as though she were gasping.

His belly twisted sickly.

The Life Tree had to produce a blossom. It had to react to the presence of a bride with such a bright soul. It had to give him something…

This beautiful, captivating, determined female would not die in front of him. She would live. Somehow.

Curse that Queen Elyssa had broken off a Life Tree blossom weeks ago. Usually blossoms died immediately, but she’d used her queenly powers to bring the blossom back to life several times. She’d worn it in her hair until she’d taken it to the surface and given it to Aya.

There was no way a mere human could keep a Life Tree blossom alive on the surface.

What was that twinkle at Aya’s collar? He pulled open the ripped, black suit.

Around Aya’s neck floated a glimmering glass necklace. He captured it. It was a vial of seawater. Inside, danced a tiny blossom of the Life Tree.

How?

Soren clasped the glass. He would not question this miracle. Mermaid queens had a unique connection to the Life Tree and they gained mystical powers written about in the ancient texts. Back when queens were as common as warriors today. Before the great catastrophe that destroyed the harmony of mer and human, and mer queens died out, and only warriors were born.

“Open?” Aya spoke weakly into the air hose she clenched in her teeth. “Turn clock—”

He clenched his hand. The glass burst. Sharp stings pierced his palm. He opened his hand. The tiny blossom fluttered.

“—wise.” She picked a shard out of his hand. “Soren.”

Forget his bloodied hand.

He ushered the tiny blossom to her mouth. “Drink.”

She picked out another glass sliver.

He tugged the air hose going into her mouth. “Aya.”

She froze. Her brows entwined in worry. “Drink? No.”

“Yes.”

Tears filled her eyes inside the bubble of air pressed tight by the mask against her face. She shook her head. “We tested. I failed. Won’t… work.”

“It will work. Put the blossom in your mouth and swallow.”

Aya lifted one gloved hand to cup his jaw. “Did…best.”

Huh? What was that supposed to mean?

She spit out the air tube and breathed out. Bubbles curled around her open lips. The tiny blossom twisted and gleamed, flaring with the Life Tree’s healing energy. He wafted the bloom into Aya’s open, pink mouth and closed her jaw.

Nothing happened.

“Aya?” He shook her. “Swallow, Aya.”

She looked like she was trying.

But it wasn’t working.

Accepting the elixir was an intimate act. She had not asked for this fate. She had competed at the bride pageant to join with a king, not with Soren. His feelings whirled in chaos. She deserved a better male than Soren. A male with honor. A male with a bright soul to match hers. A male she deserved.

She deserved more.

Aya spasmed. Her arm flailed and knocked off her mask. Her wrist smacked his chin. She opened her mouth and coughed the blossom out. Its life force drained into the water.

No!

He forced the limp, darkening flower back in her mouth. “Aya, swallow!”

She pushed him away.

He fought her. She would live.

Her resistance gave way. She went lax in his arms.

Even though the flower was in her mouth, the nectar wasn’t working.

He would force it to work.

Soren gripped her jaw. “I do not wish to claim you. But I must save your life.” He lowered his mouth to her lips. He covered her mouth with his kiss.

Her lips were soft and cool. Sophisticated, like the rest of her, and pert. He had admired her lips since the first moment, when they were covered in the glossy red paint that accentuated their full, clever, capable shape.

Live. I need you to live. He peeled back her black hood and knotted his fingers in her short, ice-blonde hair. Please.

Nothing.

He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. It wasn’t enough. His wish to save her wasn’t enough.

Then…

If she lived, he would claim her as his bride. Even though she did not wish it. Even though his soul was so black it would damn her as much as it would damn him. If, someday, she should claim him back, then maybe the darkness poisoning his soul could be removed. If it was her, maybe it was possible.

Powerful commitment blazed in his chest. You are mine, Aya.

A sparkling, golden, warmth tingled in his chest. Her cool skin warmed. Her mouth softened. Her lips moved beneath his.

She was alive.

Thank you.

He nuzzled her, tasting her sweet warmth.

She jerked, startled.

He eased back.

Aya blinked with new eyes. With her mask knocked away, she looked through the ocean directly at him, no longer separated by air and glass. Her hand moved to her bare face and she touched her lips with her gloved hand. She was surprised he had kissed her.

“I had to save your life,” he said.

Her brows drew together. Confusion. “Save…?”

The word vibrated uncertainly in her chest. Her first word spoken as a mermaid, using not her mouth or lips, but her diaphragm inside her chest.

“Now help me.” He manacled the metal claw and flexed with all his might. His arms shook. His grip slipped and caught. The claw shook. He roared. “Now!”

She put her hands on the claw and pushed.

The Life Tree behind her flashed white. She channeled its power and forced the claw open.

One side of the claw popped out of joint and hung in the water. The motor of the submersible changed tenor. It squealed.

Aya and the Life Tree slipped free.

He released the claw and turned back to the dark-souled pilot. Blake must face Soren’s vengeance so he could never attack again.

Aya cried out. She paddled helplessly on her stubby human feet. While he focused on Blake, she and the Life Tree were sucked into a dangerous, fast current.

Feeling shot into Aya’s limbs like a thousand darts and raked her veins with prickly spines. She folded over with a shriek. It was the worst phantom pins-and-needles of her life.

Soren floated beside her. His wide hand rested on her thick, neoprene-covered back and his face reflected his worry. “Aya?”

His voice sounded funny. Less growly and more rumble-y.

Something had changed.

But she couldn’t focus on what it was. Deep unease filled her.

“Relax. Don’t fight the transformation.”

“Just…give me…a second.”

She had drunk the nectar. Her fins would transform in the future, but she should be able to breathe as a mermaid under water now.

But she couldn’t.

Cold pooled in her lungs, like she’d accidentally swallowed an ice cube and felt it all the way down her throat. Her lungs filled with seawater.

It took iron will not to react in a thrashing panic.

She would not panic. As a company vice president, she was harder and smarter and more disciplined than the average woman. Lucy, the first woman to discover mermen and be transformed, and Aya’s cousin Elyssa, the second modern woman to transform, had panicked. Neither of them knew what to expect. But Aya had researched. She had prepared herself. She could not lose a fight to discipline.

Aya held herself taut as the long second passed and her brain caught up with her body.

Look. She was not suffocating in a world of horrible darkness.

…But she was.

Wasn’t Soren’s kiss enough? Fear zagged in her belly. Maybe it wasn’t possible for Aya to transform. Van Cartier Cosmetics scientists had conducted a hundred tests trying to recreate the magical nectar. She’d drunk gallons as a test guinea pig – and never transformed.

Maybe the missing ingredient wasn’t in the nectar. Maybe it was in her soul. The piece that made others soft, loving, and friendly like Elyssa and Lucy was missing from Aya.

It was too late to go back to breathing from her cracked tanks. The air hoses collapsed and the dive computer beeping on her wrist announced over and over she was out of oxygen.

She gave herself a pep talk. “The first transformation is the hardest.”

Soren rubbed her shoulders. His worry was sweet. Just like his kiss. His presence made her feel safe.

Aya didn’t do “sweet.” She didn’t do helpless, and she definitely didn’t do the welling happiness of remembering how he’s pressed his lips to hers and swept away in his kiss.

“I will never claim you as my bride,” Soren had snarled at her during the company bride pageant she’d organized two months ago. “Not even if you were the last female on the shore.”

Which was saying quite a lot since the recently-discovered mermen were in desperate need of females to repopulate their race.

Aya hadn’t forgotten the hot slice of pain. It wasn’t fair that she was compulsively, almost obsessively drawn to Soren. He made it clear he didn’t like her at all.

And now, of all the mermen in Atlantis, he was the one who had saved her life.

She twitched to get away from him. She didn’t want to face him until she was at her full strength and able to converse like an adult. Under full control.

And right now, it didn’t feel like she would get there. Something was wrong.

He stopped stroking her but he didn’t move away.

The fire-ants-eating-her-limbs sensation changed into a new, desperate, clawing sensation.

She couldn’t breathe.

Aya clawed at her mouth. At her throat. Something awful constricted her. She was trying to breathe through plastic bags. And she was going to panic. In spite of her determination not to.

“Aya?”

“It didn’t work.” Pain localized in her frontal lobe. Her brain, deprived of oxygen. She thrashed. “I’m not transformed.”

“Fins come later.”

She shook her head.

Agony pierced her brain. Her stomach roiled like the water had grown rough, and it bolted for her lips.

Soren gripped her biceps. “What is it?”

“Take me to the surface.”

He looked up. His brow darkened with determination. “Give up the air world. You are a mer now.”

“There’s something wrong with me. I don’t have the right soul to be a mermaid.”

“Lies.”

“I can’t breathe!”

He blinked. Realization dawned. His large fists gripped the neoprene squeezing her body. His pectorals flexed. Fastenings popped. The thick fabric tore in half.

Her chest expanded. Water flushed through her with refreshing relief. The headache faded.

He tugged the garments off, discarding them.

She trembled with weakness.

He pulled her into his arms.

For the first time in possibly her whole life, she didn’t fight. Because it was Soren. Aya gave in and gasped, resting her forehead on his broad shoulders and clinging to his immoveable biceps. Their naked legs brushed and their feet dangled.

Her feet were still small and human. His legs were normal until just past the ankles, where they elongated into the giant, accordioned, scuba-fins of the mer.

They floated in the ocean.

Logic eased into her with the calm.

How silly to panic. She’d been primed for failure because she had made so many mistakes.

First, there was her distraction at the bride pageant two months ago.

The mermen emerged from the ocean desperate for women to repopulate their race. Van Cartier Cosmetics was only too happy to organize a pageant-style selection process – in exchange for the mer’s valuable Sea Opal gemstones. While she’d struggled to control her obsession with Soren, the male in charge who should have been the real target of her interest, King Kadir, had slipped from her grasp.

At least King Kadir had shown excellent judgment by selecting her loyal, kind-hearted cousin Elyssa as his queen.

Second, Aya had been so distracted trying to support Elyssa and outsmart her rivals she had missed key signs of betrayal at home. Furious at Sea Opal shipment delays, Aya’s CEO mother broke Blake Edwards out of jail, armed him with Aya’s scientific research submersible, and set him on Atlantis to take the coveted Sea Opals by force.

The Life Tree of Atlantis was life for the mermen. There was no photosynthesis at these depths. The mermen of the city existed in a symbiotic relationship with their city’s magical plant. Yes, the magical plant also produced Sea Opals, but ripping it out of the ground was the same as killing the golden goose.

Destruction of the Life Tree hurt Aya’s precious cousin Elyssa, turned the vibrant city into dead mulch, and it would outright kill Elyssa’s husband, King Kadir.

Days ago on the surface, when Aya realized how she had made it possible for Blake to pilot straight to the city and execute her mother’s xenocide, she had lost her mind. She’d tried so desperately to save the Life Tree. To save her cousin, and to save Soren.

Of course when she transformed, she would have gills in her back. The tight diving suit constricted the water flowing past her new fish-lungs and she had confused being unable to breathe through her mouth with the real issue.

She was a mer now.

Wonder tingled into her body.

In fact, the ocean was not dark at all.

It was bright as day. She could see approximately how many miles? Elyssa had reported she could see “forever” and Aya had warned her not to water down the report with hyperbole, but now it seemed like Elyssa had been right. Bright colorless “sky” stretched for miles in every direction. Like standing at the top of the Grand Canyon. The sea was vast.

How amazing that she could see hundreds of feet without her glasses or contacts. The mermaid elixir must have healed more than the life-threatening internal injuries during her transformation.

Schools of fish voyaged across the depths like flocks of birds in an endless sky. Predators swooped like hawks. The hidden world she could barely penetrate with a flashlight was exposed with a crescendo.

A crescendo of music.

The silvery fish sang a peculiar, haunting tune. Swordfish boomed a bass line. Even the bare rocks far beneath her thumped with an audible beat. Her senses had crossed and things that should only be visual took on strangely beautiful auditory quality.

She was transformed.

Well, except her hands and feet were still normal. But, like Soren said, they would emerge later, after she mastered her new form.

She would set her mind to mastering it.

What was Soren thinking about her hanging out, clinging to him? She lifted her head.

His face set in cold fury.

That she did not expect.

His gaze flicked to her. It did not soften. “You can breathe.”

“Yes.” She reached for poise. Their naked bodies were touching, rubbing, and she was suddenly far too aware of him. She let go and paddled back. “Thank you.”

“Stay here.” He focused on something over her shoulder and kicked.

Stay here?

With two strokes, Soren was already half a soccer field away. He focused on the fleeing, growling…submersible? Yes, that shuddering, whining metal machine was the submersible. It looked so different with her new eyes. Instead of being this barely visible monstrous thing, it was now just an ordinary, brightly lit scientific probing vessel churning across the oceanic sky.

Soren closed on it with deadly intent.

Why? The Life Tree was no longer pinched in its claw. It had fallen free at the same time she had. So what did he want with…

Oh.

She tried to paddle after him. “Soren, stop!”

“Stay there!”

“Please wait.” He was so much faster than her it was as if she were stuck in one place. “I borrowed that submersible. It’s worth half a million dollars.”

“I will rend it into pieces and it will never attack Atlantis again.”

She knew it.

Aya had taken out insurance policies, but “destroyed by enraged merman” was likely not covered.

“It’s not going to attack again,” she promised. Her chest vibrated loudly to cover the distance. “When it reaches its port, authorities are waiting to take Blake into custody. I’ve set it all up.”

“It will never reach port.”

She floated helplessly as the warrior grew further and further away. She had no skills for this. Watching men walk away from her was a too-familiar sight. And this time, it was Soren.

Her gut clenched.

“Soren?” She left the edge of panic in her cry. “Soren!”

He checked. “What?”

It worked.

She swiftly calculated which response would most likely end with a partial return of the submersible’s security deposit. “Don’t leave me.”

He looked at the submersible over his shoulder, then back at her. “I will remain within your sight the whole time.”

“I’m frightened. This is new. Don’t leave me all alone.”

He growled and kicked. Faster than it seemed possible, he returned to her side.

And she saw him with her new eyes.

His chest loomed even wider and more powerful than before. Even sliced with new injuries from the recent battle, he was magnificent naked. His body was broad like a Maori warrior, all muscle covered in intricate black tattoos, and the sharp vee lead from his tapered waist to a proud, thick cock.

She wanted to reach out and touch.

That was dangerous.

Aya rested her hands on her bare thighs. What did he see when he looked at her? A slender woman without any curves, who worked hard and starved herself to fit into a size six, and no one appreciated it?

His dark gaze focused on her eyes, not on her body. “You are not frightened.”

True. Frightened wasn’t the correct feeling. But her words still held a kernel of her inner emotions.

“It’s dangerous.” She flexed her too-human ankles. “I’m afraid.”

He scanned the ocean. “You will see predators.”

Well, that was true. Right now, she could see impossibly far in all directions. He focused on a distant creature that looked like a prehistoric alligator with fins instead of feet, but it was far away, and he clearly didn’t consider it an immediate threat.

He focused on her again. His eyes narrowed. “Twice now you have forced me to let my enemies go. They will use our weakness to strike again.”

Aya didn’t know what first time he had let his enemy go, but she knew Blake was done. “If the submersible doesn’t crack and implode from the pressure, Blake will be grateful to land in the hands of authorities.”

Soren turned away.

“Please wait.”

He barely hesitated.

She needed a distraction. Logic didn’t work on him. Didn’t she remember their doomed interactions after the bride pageant? She had tried to politely gather information about where her cousin would be going as a new queen. Soren nearly threw a table through the window. Only when Aya lost her temper back and snapped at him to sit down had he calmed.

He was always getting under her skin.

She had to reach him. “I think something is wrong with me again. I feel strange.”

He turned and his gaze raked her for the problem. “You can breathe.”

“It’s not that.”

She paddled forward and linked her hands around the back of his neck. His short, dark hair teased her fingertips. She rested her forearms on the hard cords of muscle tightening along his neck. A deep cut was pale and healing on his shoulder, and she took care to rest her forearm next to it, away from the jagged edge.

“I’m feeling strange urges I can’t control.”

He focused on her with his full, heart-stopping intensity. A woman could get lost in his burning gaze. Those hardened cheeks. That inflexible mouth.

Down lower, toward his—

“Aya.” His growl drew her attention up where it belonged. On his suddenly smoldering gaze. “Urges like what?”

Urges to save her company a half-million dollar repair fee.

Urges to taste the male who had teased her with a soft brush of his lips, and now teased her to do so very much more.

Urges to give into the temptations she ordinarily denied herself.

This was how mistakes got made. This was how people got hurt and projects got destroyed. This was how she convinced herself to go home alone night after night. Always alone.

She was different now. Transformed.

Aya could be anyone she wanted.

“Urges like this.” She lifted her lips to his hard mouth.

Aya kissed him.

She’d looked Soren in the face. Her blue eyes reflected hidden secrets. And she closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his.

This kiss was not to save her life. She kissed him because…because…

Why did she kiss him?

Her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist. She clung to him.

Was she frightened? This was a delayed reaction to the transformation and his stupidity for forgetting to peel back the suffocating human clothes.

There was no way she chose him.

He held her gently, soothing her. The transition, the first time, was rough. He would hold her until—

Her lips parted.

His world cracked open.

She tasted fiery. Dangerous. Addictive.

Liquid heat flowed into his cock. No matter how his mind fought, his body recognized her as his ideal female. He groaned.

Her tongue flicked against his. Cautious, curious. Its touch injected his veins with sizzling lava.

He chased her devilish tongue, filling her mouth with his powerful thrust.

She startled. Would she run?

No, she embraced him.

Him. She embraced him, Soren, the demon.

His feelings flowed into her like a fire tsunami.

Their mouths meshed and tongues warred. Her tongue stroked his fearlessly. She yielded to his overwhelming force only to surprise him with her own thrusts. His hunger — or was it her hunger? — flared, undeniable.

Pleasure flowed into his cock and pulsed with readiness. This was only the beginning.

With a sweet, desperate cry, she let go of her caution. Her arms tightened around his neck. Her soft breasts flattened against his hard pectorals and her shapely thighs squeezed his waist.

His cock flooded with heat. Did she know what she was doing to him?

She rubbed her feminine bud against his hard abdomen and murmured sweet sounds of aching, sweet demands for satisfaction.

A male would do anything for those sounds.

He cupped her ass and ground her against his cock.

She moved. “Mmm. Soren? What are you doing?”

He went cold. The question. The doubt. What was he doing?

Exactly what did this dishonorable warrior with a mud-black soul think he was doing to his Aya?

He shoved her back.

She jerked. Her eyelids flew wide. “What?”

“There. You are free.” He struggled to control his intense reaction to her nearness.

She brought her hands to her mouth. Her face was white.

Uh oh. “Aya?”

She lifted one finger.

“Are you going to be ill?”

She emphasized the one finger. Wait. But he could not wait. His skin jumped. He needed action. Rending, tearing. Destroying. Better that than facing the bride he had claimed, his bride, asked what he was doing. She rejected him.

“If you are well, I must finish taking revenge on the human, Blake.”

She covered her eyes and massaged her temples. “Just let me think.”

“I will return after—”

“It’s too late!” She dropped her hands and glared at him with dark malevolence. Her soul light burned with her beautiful, regal fire. “Blake’s gone. Give it up.”

“But—”

“Ugh.” She closed her eyes and rubbed two fingers against the center of her forehead again. “I do feel ill.”

Because of what he had done to her.

His belly twinged again. What was the limit of his dishonor? How deeply could he fall from his ideals?

I will so fight with honor! he had shouted at his childhood tormenters; other youths who feared his overly large size and whined to the trainers that they could not spar with him. I will always be honorable! Everywhere!

The youth version of Soren would look on his adult self with unspeakable shame.

That memory forced him to speak. He ground out the words. “I apologize.”

“Hm?”

“I will not touch you again.”

She stared at him for one long moment. Her soul light darkened to a dull sheen and then flared back twice as bright. She was infuriated. As well she should be.

“No,” she said slowly. “I apologize for kissing you so suddenly.”

Yes. That was right. He had forgotten. She was the one who had started it. Not him.

But why had she kissed him? She wished to join with a warrior like Kadir. Not Soren.

Suddenly, the trident and dagger scars crossing his body, from his last battle, stung and ached.

Aya dropped her hand. “Take me to the dive platform. I must go to the surface immediately.”

Of course she wanted to get away.

Although he did not blame her for wishing to escape him, it was impossible. Their city was in shambles. Atlantis needed her.

The attack against them had been sudden and vicious, but not unexpected.

Atlantis broke the covenant requiring mermen keep their existence secret from humans and to only select brides from hidden, sacred islands. Once a year, a sacred island bride accepted a merman’s mating jewel – which humans called a Sea Opal – and drank elixir to transform into a mermaid. She descended to his underwater castle, bore him a young fry, and returned to the surface alone.

But the sacred islands had emptied. Instead of multiple islands’ brides descending to each mer city every year, some had stopped receiving brides altogether. For years. Decades.

Kadir was the only warrior visionary enough to declare the truth: The old sacred covenant was killing their race. They must reveal their existence and select modern brides. Brides who wished to join with them for longer than a year. Brides who would stay on and rule as queens.

For that blasphemy, Kadir had been imprisoned in the All-Council’s impenetrable prison in the deepest trench.

But while imprisoned, the mer’s existence had been revealed. Support swelled in the cities, and Soren led an army that broke Kadir free. They founded the new city by planting Kadir’s Life Tree seed in the shadow of ancient Atlantis, and Kadir chose the first modern bride, Queen Elyssa, to join with him as his queen. Their hardy city had survived raiders and angry other cities that wanted their defected warriors back, and new Atlantis was almost recognized by the All-Council as a true mer city. Then, the human Blake attacked in the submersible.

Instead of helping fend off the unexpected human attack, their mer enemies used the distraction to wage their own war on Atlantis. Soren had fought a too-familiar foe – his former First Lieutenant, Elan, of his old city, Dragaon Azul – and, defeated him. But in the moment of his triumph, Soren had seen Aya being dragged away by the submersible. He had been forced to leave Elan alive to rescue Aya.

Elan’s eyes had bugged. His hand had gone to his suddenly released throat. His diaphragm had expanded and contracted in shock. “Mercy? You?”

“Collect your warriors. Leave now. Never show yourself here again.” Soren had swum after the submersible. His whole being had focused on the last location he had seen Aya.

“Soren!” Elan had shouted after him. “I will return and kill you!”

For Aya, he had let Elan go. Now, she wanted to leave him.

He did not know what he would find in Atlantis when he returned. He had defeated Elan in trident-to-dagger combat, but what losses had they suffered? Did the remaining stump of the Life Tree thrive? Had Kadir or other senior warriors survived?

Kadir would not trick or blackmail a warrior into joining Atlantis’s ranks, but Soren would.

“You are a mer now,” he told Aya. “Your destiny is to protect Atlantis.”

Her blue eyes flashed with defiance. “No, my ‘destiny’ is to protect our lucrative trade agreement. Trade isn’t possible if one of the trade partners is destroyed.”

“You gave your life to protect the Life Tree.”

She hardened. “I failed.”

“Even a powerful warrior can be surprised.”

“You’re better off with a real warrior. This was protection of an investment. Nothing more.”

“The Life Tree nectar runs through your veins. In your blood.” He forced her gaze to his by will. “You are one of us. Feel the connection.”

“I don’t.” She frowned and flexed her human foot as though seeking to make her fins already. “Admit it, Soren. I’m the last person you would have chosen to transform. Aren’t I?”

Accept this pain. Endure it. She was right not to want him. She was fiercely beautiful and so desirable it made him ache.

“Yes,” he said.

Her brows drew together. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Thank you for your honesty. Why did you?”

“I had no choice. You would have died.”

“I’ll try not to burden you.” She straightened. “So, logically speaking, it’s best if we part. The sooner the better.”

The pain sliced in. “You will not burden me. Another male in Atlantis will join with you.”

She whitened. “What? No.”

“I will take you to the other warriors now.”

She squirmed out of his grasp. “This is why I should go to the surface. Let go!”

“Do not fight, Aya.”

“Seriously, Soren. I’m going to stab you.”

“Do you hate me so much for transforming you?”

A true warrior would stand by his actions, right or wrong. But Soren had always been weak. He wanted Aya to approve him desperately, and that disgusted him.

She blinked. Her brows folded together and then she shook her head. “I must be losing my mind. You know what? Yes. Right now, I can’t stand you. Let go.”

He growled and tightened his grip. “Calm.”

“Let go!”

“No.”

She elbowed him in the jaw.

It didn’t hurt. It surprised him. She fought with real strength. He loosened his grip.

She shoved him back and glared at him. “Anything is better than being stuck here with you!”

Her words stabbed him like a sharp trident.

Her chest moved. A swallowed sob. Like she was in pain. Her chin wrinkled and smoothed again. She started kicking, aiming straight up for the deadly open ocean.

No.

He grabbed her ankle. “Aya.”

She kicked at his hands. “Stop it!”

“You are in danger.”

“I don’t care!”

“Respect your surroundings!” He yanked her down and entrapped her in his arms.

She writhed, refusing to meet his gaze. “Leave me alone!”

“I will not.”

“Why do you even care?” She shone as brightly as the first day he’d seen her in Miami. “You’re just delivering me to some other guy. Forget it! He can find me on the surface.”

“How?” he demanded. “You cannot survive the open ocean.”

“I made it to Atlantis on my own. I can make it back now, especially since I can see.”

“You see nothing!”

Her heartbeat thudded against his breastplate. He heard it and felt it. Like the determined flaring of her soul light, she shone. Her fingers curled around his hard forearm.

He could never let her go.

“You came wrapped in foreign plastic and a bubble of air making strange noises and frightening off all but the hungriest predators. Now, you are one with the ocean. You look like prey, you sound like prey, you taste like prey.”

“I’ll be careful.”

He wasn’t reaching her.

“Say you find the surface. The middle of the Atlantic. Your people will not know you are there. Surface predators swim thick and deadly. You will become easy prey.”

Fear flashed in her eyes.

He hated to bind her this way. But so long as she understood and stayed with him now, he would hobble her with fear.

“Only I can protect you. Understand?”

“But…” She broke off and frowned. “Isn’t it the best? You’ll get back to Atlantis faster. I’ll solve my problems the way I always do. Alone.”

“Queen Elyssa will be sad if you were to die.”

“That’s why you care?” She renewed her struggle with double the effort. “Elyssa would understand and let. Me. Go!”

She would not stop. They locked in combat. He tried hard not to hurt her. But she writhed with all her might.

He grabbed her wrists, locking them together in one hand. The other arm he pressed around the curve of her back, just above her gills, forcing her soft abdomen to his. She bucked.

“You are a brave and uncompromising warrior,” he growled. “You dared the impossible to come this far. The fight is not over. There are still enemies to vanquish.”

She stopped struggling and glared at him. Defiance burned in her core.

At least she was listening.

“I’m a helpless weight,” she said. “I’ll drag you down. What can I do on the bottom of the ocean?”

“Fight our enemies. Awaken your powers.” And then, because his soul pushed him to speak, he added the one thing he needed most deeply. “Become my queen.”

Become my queen.

Soren’s demand heated the water between them, a tantalizing promise. He gazed at her with dominant magnificence. Gorgeous arrogance. The kind that made her want to lick his jaw and listen to him growl as he lost control.

But there were a lot more factors than just the desire thudding in her suddenly awakened heart.

Aya wasn’t the kind of woman who attracted men. On the surface, at the bride pageant, Soren had said to her face he would never select her as his bride. And if she allowed herself to believe him now—and then he realized he was wrong, changed his mind about wanting her for his queen, and sent her away — that rejection would destroy her.

Just like his rejection a few moments ago, when her innocent moan, asking why his delicious kiss overpowered her reason, resulted in him thrusting her away and vowing not to touch her again. For the second time in the space of a few hours, she lost her mind.

She would have done anything, literally anything, to get away from him. I apologize. I will not touch you again. His rejection still hurt.

It would be hard not to touch her if she was his queen. Right?

And he’d also said he wanted to deliver her to another merman in Atlantis. So why pretend to want her for his queen? Was he just trying to convince her to stop fighting him?

No. Soren wouldn’t make an offer he didn’t mean. He wasn’t so cruel.

But he might be mistaken. He might think he could marry her and have her as his queen, and then get to know her better and realize he was wrong. She was cold and unlovable. He’d stand by his offer with regret – or give in, face reality, and shove her away forever.

Imagining it made her itch to go to the surface again. No matter how suicidal that might be. Get away. Soren’s nearness was dangerous. It screwed up everything in her head.

Soren awaited her answer in the middle of the ocean. They drifted on a slow current away from the direction Blake had disappeared.

Distracting him with conversation was good. Fiscally responsible.

“I don’t think you really want me as your queen,” she said finally.

His expression blackened.

“And let’s be realistic. What’s left to protect in Atlantis? The Life Tree got chopped in half. The top is flying farther along on the same current we’ve drifted into. If it dies, so does the king—and the city.”

Frustration tightened his jaw. “Yes, the Life Tree was mortally injured. But I am not in agony. Some part survives.”

“Sure, some part survives. I was smooshed up against that part for the last few hours.”

“A fragment cannot survive. Like a plucked flower, it will die in moments.”

“The blossom in my necklace lived for a month.”

He blinked.

Elyssa had given Aya the blossom on her first check-up on the surface platform. She’d told Aya all about life in Atlantis and her various mistakes and learning experiences, and how nice all the warriors were, and how she hardly noticed she was naked after the initial adjustment.

Then Elyssa had put the wilted blossom — which had dried out in her hair while she wasn’t paying attention—in a cup of seawater. It had been stone dead. Elyssa had put her hands around the cup, closed her eyes, and the blossom had startled to glow. Twinkling like a tiny star, and suddenly, very much alive. She’d smiled with satisfaction and given it to Aya to keep.

Aya had kept it. Obsessively. Not because she was expecting it to later save her life. Just because it was beautiful and she felt a deep tug in her heart to keep it alive.

Now, she felt the same tug for the Atlantis Life Tree.

The fragment was still alive. She had drunk its nectar and was connected to it now in her blood.

Maybe she had the power to revive plants like Elyssa. Maybe she could reverse Blake’s damage, restore the Life Tree, and save King Kadir. Save the castle and warriors. Save Atlantis.

It was the whole reason she came down here.

Soren spoke heavily. “You believe the severed fragment is keeping the city alive.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

He looked like he really wanted to.

She also really wanted him to. Maybe the stump left in Atlantis was still alive. Maybe chasing after the severed fragment was unnecessary. Tell me it is unnecessary, Soren.

He frowned hard.

Aya was tired. The panic from being unable to breathe had exhausted her, the confusion of her too-intense reactions to Soren messed with her head, and she was heart-sick from failing to protect the Life Tree. Having Soren drag her back to the city, even to dump her with another merman, meant she could rest, recover her self-control, and convince Elyssa to send her to the surface.

She didn’t want to swim across the open ocean on a crazy, risky quest with the one male who made her heart beat out of rhythm.

Soren released Aya, kicked a few strokes along the current, and returned with a deeper frown. “That is a bad direction. It passes over a deep trench — an entrance to the nightmare Blacknight Sea. You would die. I might also.”

Aya had no intention of dying.

He held out his hand. “We return to Atlantis. I will collect a group of warriors.”

A group of qualified warriors sounded much more reasonable than a newly transformed mermaid and an injured warrior. Logical, even. She accepted his hand.

He kicked hard into the current, fighting to get them out of its claws, and propelled them through the blue ocean sky toward Atlantis.

They passed the haunting fish schools. A few fish with big, staring eyes darted toward them, curious. Their arias sounded like a melancholy opera singer, beautiful and sad. Soren growled. They scattered.

Like the thoughts scattering in her head. Second-guesses and doubts stared her in the face.

Was abandoning the Life Tree fragment the best course of action? Really?

She had to ask. “Will the Life Tree fragment be okay?”

“I do not know.”

That was hardly reassuring. “Your warriors just defended themselves in a battle. Will they be able to leave right away to rescue the Life Tree fragment?”

“I will learn this when we reach Atlantis.”

Of course he had plenty of healthy, well-rested warriors. Of course the Life Tree fragment could wait. There was no need for her to risk death twice in the same day. He wasn’t saying that. Why wasn’t he saying that?

The logical planner inside her wouldn’t let Aya rest easy. She’d never been able to let go of “someone else’s problem.” If it was important, she had to resolve it. And this problem was life or death to thirty plus mermen – and her cousin.

She gritted her teeth. “What happens if we return to Atlantis and everybody’s injured? And you’re the only one who can go?”

He rubbed a long, jagged gash on his shoulder. “Then I will return alone.”

“Wait. You’d dump me in Atlantis just to turn around and come back all alone?” Ignoring the fact that he was already injured from his last battle. “That’s no good, Soren. You’re a warrior, not a miracle worker.”

He set his jaw. “Attempting to retrieve the Life Tree fragment ourselves is madness.”

On the surface, Aya’s greatest daily excitement was reading the stock report and plotting which investment group to approach. Her scare with the submersible proved she wasn’t as careful as she thought. She never wanted to fear for her life again. Action was not her strong point.

But neither was failure.

“If we hurry, can we catch the Life Tree fragment before it goes into the trench?”

He shook his head.

Relief mixed with disappointment. If something was impossible, it was impossible. She would find another way to—

“We must make the couple-swimming form. It is most aerodynamic.” Soren shook his head again. “This is madness. But we may catch the Life Tree fragment if we leave now.”

Oh. He wasn’t shaking his head because this plan was impossible. He was shaking his head because it was possible—and also crazy.

Sometimes, Aya hated being right all the time.

Soren flicked his fin and was suddenly right in her face, his powerful arms sliding around her waist and his hard thigh pushing between hers. “You must obey me immediately without question.”

“Uh…”

His hard body pressed against her, knocking her heart off balance.

She stammered. “I don’t know if I can do that. I perform best when I know the factors of my environment.” She pushed against his iron biceps. “Wait, Soren.”

“Relax.”

“I’m not prepared. I changed my mind.”

“To make the fastest shape, you must relax.”

“This isn’t natural.”

“It is very natural.” His wide palm pressed her head into his shoulder. She nestled against him, warm and snug. “Melt against me. Feel the right position.”

He kicked. His thigh rubbed against her soft cleft. A throbbing ache awakened her desire.

Oh. Wow. Yum.

No, not yum. This was so not going to work. Soren made her forget everything and lose her mind. And her mind was her only useful possession.

She pushed away. “This is a bad idea.”

“This is your idea.” He kicked steadily. The ocean whipped by, passing with his powerful strides. “You are a strong, brilliant bride whose intelligence and dedication will save the Life Tree.”

Her heart thumped out of rhythm.

Soren really thought that about her? Even after her accidental betrayal?

She would give anything to repair the beautiful plant that her mistakes had helped to destroy.

What helped him swim faster? Relaxing?

Normally she couldn’t relax even if she went under hypnosis. If someone hugged her like Soren, her brain wouldn’t shut off. She zigged and zagged the whole time wondering if the other person was getting bored, if she was, and if it wasn’t better not to have friends since she was so awkward.

The only person it was easy to accept a hug from was Elyssa. Her enthusiastic hugs were given freely and for almost no reason.

Aya didn’t push her luck. She always politely extricated herself before Elyssa got bored and let go. Elyssa didn’t have to waste her time comforting Aya. Aya was just grateful for Elyssa’s smiles and kindness and companionship.

But maybe Aya hadn’t ever tried hard enough to relax.

Maybe she didn’t want to give herself to the powerful warrior that stole her senses, overwhelming her reason and filling her with impossible desires.

Because it was Soren, she was willing to try.

Aya concentrated on her muscles to let go with a huge, watery sigh. If Soren needed it, she could force herself. She could trick herself not to feel the delicious rubbing between her legs. Okay, so maybe she didn’t want to stop feeling it. This was for the Life Tree and Atlantis. Relax.

Soren kicked. They zoomed through the water.

“If we are attacked, you must use your power to protect us,” he said.

Figuring out her mermaid super power, like figuring out how to flex her feet into fins, was on her to-do list. “You’re the warrior.”

“You have the power of the Life Tree. I have seen Queen Elyssa use it. You will be stronger.”

She snorted. “Most guys are intimidated by a strong woman.”

“They are foolish. Strength is beauty.”

Her chest warmed. She was in danger of falling in love with Soren.

Which was really, really dangerous.

Sure, he said he liked a strong woman, and he wanted her for his queen, but what would happen when they returned to Atlantis?

Her clear-sighted, logical, cool side surfaced. Finally.

Soren would say he wanted her until he was faced with her super power. Or until she out-thought him, or won at arm-wrestling, or did something that challenged his masculinity. Then, the light would die in his eyes and he’d turn away dully, suddenly uninterested in her.

Sure, he said he wanted her to succeed. They all said that.

But every man she’d ever known — from her dad to her boyfriends — they all stopped loving her the moment she out-shone them. If they’d ever loved her at all.

She focused on a safe answer. “I don’t know how to use this power.”

“You already used it to free yourself from the submersible.”

“But I don’t know how. I also don’t know what animals are dangerous.”

“Keep your eyes open. I will tell you.”

She stared into the endless depths, cataloging a vast musical tapestry of singing marine life. Massive tunas and tiny lanternfish, familiar swordfish and mysterious eel-shaped fish. When Soren held her like this, she felt safe.

Her mind drifted.

She shouldn’t get too comfortable with Soren because she still had responsibilities elsewhere.

After they rescued the Life Tree and saved Atlantis for Elyssa, Aya had to return to the surface. Fast. Or else Van Cartier Cosmetics would be no more.

Discovering her mother had sprung their ex-employee Blake from prison had caused Aya to snap.

Blake had single-handedly destroyed mer-human relations in the Gulf of Mexico. He was in prison for trying to murder his ex-wife Lucy and the mermen Lucy had befriended. The Gulf of Mexico merman city, Sireno, had Sea Opals the size of boulders! But now, they were forever beyond Van Cartier Cosmetics’ reach. Aya still couldn’t get anyone to answer her underwater broadcasts in that ocean. Blake had destroyed their goodwill.

She’d lucked into a second chance with the Atlantis mermen. With Elyssa as her ambassador, she would have secured an exclusive supply chain of Atlantis Sea Opals and made Van Cartier Cosmetics a household name. So what if the city was too young and it would take a few years for the Life Tree to mature? The contract would have been hers.

To find out her mother had set Blake loose, given him all of Aya’s resources, and instructed him to destroy relations again infuriated her beyond reason.

Aya never acted on her emotions. She was always cool, calm, and composed.

Until then.

This nice family company, started by Aya’s great grandmother, had rot in its heart. Aya had poured her life into making it a success. But that was clearly a mistake. With a few targeted emails and actions, she pressed a self-destruct button. If investors weren’t calling for its dismantlement, the federal government would step in.

Not right away. The emails and actions were on timers. Even acting on rage and adrenaline, Aya wasn’t indecisive. She knew she was making a rare emotional decision. Emotional decisions led to regret. They made people stupid and weak. They landed her in a metal claw, the life pinched out of her, while her enemy laughed inside a submersible.

But she couldn’t let her mother and Blake cause—

Soren spoke. “Why did you?”

She jerked to the present. “Huh? Why did I what?”

“Kiss me.”

Oh god. Aya froze.

He grunted. “Do not slow us. Relax.”

She tried to force herself, but the harder she tried, the stiffer she felt.

There was no good answer to his question that didn’t involve her obsessive, passionate, helpless fascination with him.

He kicked steadily, but it was clear he was waiting.

“Um.” She shifted her gaze to his pectorals, trying out answers to see which one he would let her get away with. “I just wanted to.”

“Why?”

Oh. Kay.

Obsessive fascination. Aching hunger for his furious strength. Desire to hold him close and stroke his frown-wrinkled forehead and beg him to love her as fiercely as he loved his city. A wish to hold the fire in his gaze no matter how it burned.

“Urges. Desire.”

He lowered his head and focused that fire on her.

She wanted to hide. “It didn’t mean what you think it meant.”

“What do I think it meant?”

Why was he asking questions with no safe answer? She scrubbed her face. “I don’t know. I just transformed into a mythical creature and was pressed naked against a man. It’s been a really long time for me. I went with the flow. You understand.”

“I do not understand.”

Did she have to spell it out? “Sex. It’s been a long time since I’ve had sex. It has nothing to do with you. I’d react to any good-looking guy who held me.”

“React means kiss me.” He frowned. “You think I look good?”

Oh god. “You know what? Forget it.”

He growled to argue.

“I have an important question.” She tapped her hand on his chest to get his attention. “I know from Elyssa’s and Lucy’s reports that time passes differently under the water. A week on the surface will pass in an hour under the sea. How long have we been here?”

His dark gaze told her the argument was not over, but he allowed her to divert the conversation. “We drifted only a few miles on the Est-Atalica current. We could return to Atlantis in a few hours. Half a day, over-land.”

Right. Because drifting on the gentle gusts was much different from swimming head-down into a blasting current.

Half a day plus… “How long does it take to reach the surface?”

He eyed her warily. “Not long.”

“One hour? Ten?”

“You are a mer now. Consider your loyalties.”

“If I return to the surface, I’m far better positioned to gather additional brides for your mermen,” she pointed out practically. “So answer the question. Please.”

“To reach your surface platform from Atlantis, it takes over a day. Usually two.”

“So long? Do you swim the whole time?”

“We avoid dangerous regions. Safety in the open ocean, even with a full flight of five warriors, is no simple matter. Throwing ourselves into a predator’s hunting ground is the same as suiciding on an enemy’s trident. Both are without honor.”

Three days.

She’d left on a Sunday, flying to the oceanographic institute’s surface rig to answer the emergency. The descent to the undersea platform finished in less than an hour. Then, suiting up. The reiteration of all the experienced oceanographers that she was pushing human limits. That it was dangerous and she might die.

She should wait for a military technical diver. She should have waited for a pressurized exosuit. She should’ve waited for a hero.

But there was only Aya.

And she had died. But with Soren’s magic and the Life Tree, she had been reborn. And the Aya who was reborn still had things to do with her great grandmother’s company.

Soren said she was powerful.

Could she really be powerful?

No. Right? Because of her soul light. He was getting tricked. She’d had this mysterious “soul light,” which mermen could see but humans could not, evaluated by a highly reputable source. Her soul light was bright but cold.

“It is unattractive,” her source had said regretfully.

She twitched.

“Relax,” Soren growled and crushed her near.

She forced herself to relax. “How long does it take to go back to the undersea platform where I staged this dive?”

“Where is that location?”

“I thought you knew everything nearby.”

“Perhaps Lotar knows. Or another patrol. How long has your undersea platform been stationed in its current location?”

“It moves around.”

“That is why I do not know. Did you not count your strokes, currents, and fish migrations?”

Strangely enough, she had not. The ocean had been pitch black and her huge flashlight had barely penetrated it. The dive to the city was dark, lonely, and terrifying.

“I had it programmed into my dive computer.” Her wrist, like the rest of her, was bare. The dive computer had been torn off with her tanks and dry suit.

And now her bare body nestled intimately against Soren. A powerful, tattooed, deliciously ripped warrior.

She twitched again as if she could jolt herself into thinking something less dangerous.

He growled. “Do not tense.”

“I’m just thinking about our strategy,” she lied. “The open ocean is dangerous. What happens if we have to go home?.”

“That is a waste.” He pumped steadily. “Think about your power.”

“I am thinking.”

“Think harder.”

“Has it occurred to you I might not have any powers?” she snapped, shifting and jolting the both of them. “That the submersible opened because of your strength, and I might be a dud?”

“Yes,” he said.

Wait. He had?

Ugh. “Then why are we still here?”

“Because you are not a dud,” he said simply. “Believe. It is the only way we will survive.”

“Believe?” Aya made a flubbing noise with her lips. “Belief is for people who don’t plan.”

Soren kicked steadily with all his might. Each powerful stroke propelled them through the dangerous swift-water of the Est-Atalica current. “So, plan.”

“It would be easier if I knew what I was up against.” She picked at a hard ridge of scar tissue on his chest. “Planning used to be so easy.”

He liked hearing her voice. The soft vibration of her breasts pressing against his chest filled him with warmth and purpose. He could cross the whole open ocean and return with this sound.

He wanted more of it. “Then what happened?”

“Mythical creatures became real.” She pulled out an embedded chip of metal. A bit of Elan’s trident? She let go and smoothed the skin.

He grunted. “Mermen interfered with your thinking.”

“In a way.” She stroked his skin. “My great grandmother’s dream was to make a skincare company of natural beauty products. My mother gave up everything to pursue the same dream. But it means giving up unnecessary things like relationships. Maybe the cost is in our souls.”

Her light dimmed.

No. His Aya could never dim. Dimming her soul with doubts was dangerous. “Your soul is pure.”

“And cold.”

“Refreshing.”

She dropped silent for a few minutes. Then, she finally relaxed. “You are one heck of a liar.”

“I do not lie.”

She didn’t reply.

Her soft hip pressed against his hard waist like it belonged. Her thighs rubbed against his. She was the definition of femininity and the urge to claim her pounded once more through his blood.

Why did she accuse him of lying? Strange. He would never understand females.

And he did not understand what she meant by “it had been a long time” since she had been held. Did that mean once a person was held, then they had a weakness to being held again?

Soren had never been held by a woman. His own mother had left after the birth, as per the covenant. According to his father, his birth had been difficult and she had been grateful to leave her overly large young fry behind.

Seeing Queen Elyssa with Kadir and knowing what happiness they brought to each other made Soren hunger for something he had never experienced. Queen Elyssa stated from the beginning she wanted to always stay with Kadir. And she had fulfilled that vow through sickness and health.

But Aya did not wish this with Soren. She’d already asked to go to the surface. A worthier male might have tempted her to remain. But Soren was not a worthy enough male.

Even though she said he looked good. Which also made no sense. His body was hulking and scarred. He frightened kings and generals. Even now he was slashed with injuries from the battle for Atlantis. Good was not how he looked.

“Teach me about being underwater.” Aya flexed her ankles, testing but unable to make her fins yet. “What’s dangerous? What are you looking out for? How do you know the way back to Atlantis?”

Protective urges overwhelmed him. “Do not split from me.”

“I’m not,” she protested, and her soul light remained steady, a promise of truth. “I’m trying to learn my surroundings so I can better adapt and be more useful.”

“You would be most useful if you could use your power to protect us.”

“I would love to use my power,” she said patiently, glowing ever brighter but still refusing to channel it. “The instant I have figured out the magic words to unleash a godlike underwater sonic boom, then abracadabra, you’ll be the first to know.”

“It is not words. Queen Elyssa said it was a feeling.”

“Right.” Aya bit her lip, and her soul light dipped again. “I’m working on it.”

“Now you are less bright again.”

“Hmm.” Pointing it out had the opposite effect of what he desired. She grew darker yet, as though bothered to know she was darkening.

It was infuriating.

But he would not cripple her. He began with the knowledge a father would pass on to his young fry. Mermen always had sons, never daughters, and they passed on the knowledge of the sea from one generation to the next. And their babies could always make their fins right away. They had to be taught how to walk.

Once he had thought he would have a young fry. But then came his dishonor.

Aya denied him. He would never claim another bride.

“The currents have a flavor. The Est-Atalica is chalkier than the surrounding water. This current, an off-shoot, has a hint of chalk and more tangy salt.”

She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue.

It was adorable. “Do you taste it?”

She vibrated her answer in her chest, with her tongue still stuck out. “Perhaps.”

“We judge distance by cave guardian songs. You call them giant octopuses. They spread evenly throughout the ocean. Once you have heard a cave guardian, you will not forget it. The unique sounds are memorable.”

“I believe Elyssa described the noise of Octopus Kong as ‘a garbage truck backing over an accordion.’”

He grunted. He was unfamiliar with those surface objects.

“But which fish are dangerous?” she pressed. “How do I know if I’m about to get eaten?”

“Size.”

“Whales are huge and they don’t eat people.”

“Most fish have teeth. If they are fighting or mating, even a small fish can slice off a finger.”

She dug hers into his shoulder. “I like my fingers.”

“That is why it is better to have a dagger, a trident, and a team of five warriors. That is the minimum for safely crossing the open ocean.”

“How many for a trench?”

He flexed for his trident. His arms hugged her against him more tightly. “There is no safe number.”

“Ah.”

He looked up from his dark musings. “What?”

“That silver thing.” She pointed. “I think that’s my dive computer.”

Soren took in their location with surprise. They were much closer to the end of their journey than he’d realized. The crack of a trench split the ocean floor like a black scar. No glow of the Life Tree was visible.

Curse it. They had not been fast enough. The Life Tree must have gone over the side. In the trench, there was no hope.

He tightened his grip on her.

“Is that it?”

Oh, her question. He dove for the metal box.

“That’s definitely it.” She reached for it. “Get closer.”

He veered away. “We must turn back.”

“The Life Tree is probably only a little farther ahead. I’m sure it fell into the current a few minutes before my dive computer did.”

“It cannot have survived the crushing currents of the trench.”

She absorbed that information with cold sadness. He had already accepted the Life Tree’s death in the submersible’s claw. Aya’s steadfast refusal to abandon it warmed his heart. She had a warrior’s dedication to protect the city. But even she must face the end of all hope.

“Fine. Let me grab the dive computer. I’ll use the coordinates in it to return to the undersea platform.”

His belly turned cold. “We must return to Atlantis.”

“You’ll go faster without me. And the undersea platform is closer than Atlantis. I won’t be in danger like going to the surface.”

“Splitting up is too dangerous.”

“It’s the most efficient use of our limited resources.” She stretched. “A little closer...”

The currents near a trench were unpredictable. The trench itself breathed, and the intermix could dash them against the bottom or shoot them into the jaws of a lurking predator.

“You are a mer now.” He put more distance between them and the computer. They remained in the safe current and the computer bounced in the rough, unpredictable riptide. “We need your power. Atlantis needs your power.”

“I don’t have any power.”

“You—”

“Splitting up makes the most sense, Soren. Be reasonable.”

She begged him to let her go. She did not wish to be his queen and she begged him for the quickest way to leave him.

He studied the currents.

Up ahead, froth revealed a deadly whirlpool over the trench. One branch sucked unwary travelers into the trench itself. Another branch pushed travelers into a gentle current far above the trench.

She kicked toward the trench-bound current.

Predators inched along the rim already — trench fish and crustacean scavengers — and they would be attracted to the unusual treat of two mer.

“Hurry.” She pushed against him. “I can get it.”

“No.” He crushed her to his chest. “It is too dangerous.”

The dive computer flashed like a jewel.

His rage snapped. “Stop this mad quest! Your duty is to the mer. Do not pursue a surface life. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“Do not argue with me!”

“Okay, then I won’t.” She slipped away as if she were covered in oil and flew to the deadly riptide.

Aya’s dive computer was right there. Just a few more strokes.

“Aya!” Soren shouted.

He was furious. But he’d be grateful once she had it. He didn’t want to be with her. Not really. She’d go to the surface and take care of the company. He’d take care of Atlantis. No more distractions or temptations.

Relationships never lasted. If she hadn’t gotten injured to the point of death, then Soren would have ensured theirs never started.

She kicked harder. Her fingers closed on the ragged strap.

The boxy computer bounced off something in the water and tugged the strap from her fingers.

Huh?

Two layers of water moved against each other. The computer skipped across the top layer like a stone across the surface of a lake.

Just a little bit closer. She strained.

Soren grabbed her ankle.

Her fingers closed on nothing. The computer bounced just out of reach. Argh. She kicked and writhed. “Let me go!”

“No! Aya—”

The computer dipped below the surface and sucked away as if it had been caught in a jet engine. It was suddenly hundreds of feet down the cliff.

The shimmering layer approached her face.

Soren grunted. He was trying to yank her away.

Oh. It must be dangerous.

Her fingers skimmed along the top. It felt strangely gummy. The surface tension between the two layers made it cloudy.

“Do not touch the riptide!”

Riptide? Riptides usually flowed in the opposite direction. A wave crashing onto the shore would have a riptide that dragged unsuspecting waders out into the middle of the bay. But the dive computer was going the same direction-ish. Just a lot faster, and down into the trench.

She lifted her hands to keep them out of the riptide but that motion just brought her face closer. She arched her back. Her breasts skimmed along the top. Uh oh.

With a growl, Soren forced them both up and away from the cloudy layer.

Whew.

He dragged her against him. He was hard as iron. His mouth set in a thin, kissable line. His thick palm dragged her head to his shoulder and he curled his body around her. “Hold on.”

The water they were in vibrated.

Huh?

“Use your power to keep us together. Do not let go.”

The vibrations grew harder. She clamped her teeth together. They were going to shake loose her fillings. A deep groan grew into a roar like a waterfall. They were falling over the top!

“Use your power!”

How? How did she use her power?

Pressure crushed her in its fist and wrenched her and Soren apart.

“Aya!”

She tumbled over and over in the water. Terror lodged her heart in her throat. There he was! He cried and strained for her. She willed him to catch up.

Invisible claws raked her.

She fought to reach Soren and cartwheeled. A moment of stillness popped her up almost within arm’s reach of him.

She reached out.

He shouted. Behind her? She looked over her shoulder. He was behind her, struggling free of invisible manacles. So what was she reaching out for? She looked forward again. It was some strange reflection. The two layers of water made a mirror. Her fingers penetrated. His reflection disappeared.

Something gripped her hard enough to dislocate her fingers and yanked her in.

She couldn’t scream.

The water crushed her and squeezed away her breath.

The trench cliff loomed. At the top, tiny crabs and squids grew to a huge size as she rushed toward them. One mammoth tarantula-crab poked her layer with its claw. The layer resisted and Aya flew over the Lexus-sized crustacean.

Her wet suit had snagged on the cliff’s edge. It hung horizontal like a shadow, stretched taut by the current. She grabbed for it. Her fingers snagged the arm. Yes!

It tore like thin paper.

She tumbled over the edge of the cliff and into the black trench. Soren hurtled behind her.

They fell as fast as skydiving from an airplane without a parachute. She scrambled for the rocky ledges, for the normal water. Everything slicked away from her fingers like scrabbling against glass.

Someone grabbed her ankle.

Soren!

He dragged her against his chest with one arm. “Hold!”

She clung with all her might.

Ledges flew past. Far ahead, her dive computer twisted. It was still in one piece. She could reach it if she let go of Soren and—

What was that at the bottom? A roiling bubble like a pot left on the stove. She clenched Soren tighter. Her dive computer disappeared into the boil.

Pieces of twisted metal floated up like dust from a grave. The pieces were sucked back in.

RIP dive computer.

“Hold on!”

She clung.

Soren shifted his fins to human feet and kicked off the wall. He smashed them against the side of the current. Its wall warped to hold them in like a skin.

No!

They broke through.

The roar quieted. They floated sideways across the cliff on a swift, but much slower, current than before. The walls were bathed in dim purple.

She gasped for breath — or, her lungs moved and sweet energy revitalized her as if she were taking a real breath.

Soren also struggled. He clenched her hard. His muscles shuddered.

The distant lip of the trench beckoned.

She extended her legs to kick. He must be exhausted. She was also shaky, but she would try to help him.

He tightened.

Oh. “I’m not trying to get away.”

He ignored her words and held her hard.

Warmth wrapped around her for the first time since she’d entered the ocean at the dive platform. She nestled in his sheltering arms. This embrace wasn’t where she belonged, but she would take the temporary shelter as if it were hers.

The thin tattoos covering his skin were so intricate. Dots and swirls passed over the mountains and valleys of his thick muscles. Scars crossed them, a basket-weave of battles and decorations. She wanted to kiss the scars better. Or maybe she just wanted to lick the hard muscle and taste the male who had, once again, saved her life.

He had a subtle flavor, like black licorice, and she could almost smell him —except her nose was filled with seawater, so it wasn’t smell. More like a flavor on the back of her tongue. She wanted to give him a good bite, listen to him growl, and lose herself in anise-flavored passion.

Her heart, so recently slowed to calm, started to beat faster in her chest.

He kicked for the rim of the trench. “Do not disobey me again.”

Her irritated snap almost surfaced. He hadn’t told her what was dangerous, only that something was. How was she supposed to know what he meant?

But she was in his domain now. Only an idiot would ignore her guide. Which meant she was the idiot.

“I apologize. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

He stiffened to a board. “Do not dim your soul light. It lessens your power and makes this harder.”

“I apologize,” she mouthed again.

He growled.

No, she really was sorry. She focused on being honest. “Please warn me what, precisely, the dangers are. I don’t usually act with incomplete information. Some specificity would make me a more useful partner.”

“The open ocean is dangerous.”

“Yes, but, the riptide was the real danger. You didn’t tell me about that.”

He didn’t say anything.

She wanted to huff in irritation, but she deliberately did not. “We aren’t in any special danger. Are we?”

“We are.”

A twinge of coldness flushed through her. “What do you mean?”

“Be quiet for now.”

Incomplete information drove her crazy. She wanted to shout at him. But he might have a good reason for not speaking, and she didn’t want to be an idiot again. She shut up.

It took a long time to kick up from the trench. The open ocean was like a mouth and they moved up the gullet past strange, bubbling fissures and hissing holes.

Soren remained silent.

She tried to relax. But the longer it took, the more irritated she grew.

Normally it was easy to turn her attention to a new distraction. Work was crushing. There was always something to do. But right now she had nothing to do but be pressed up against Soren. Feel his muscles clench and release rhythmically. His chest move out and in, flushing oxygenated water through his gills. She focused on it and relaxed.

He labored.

She whispered, “I relaxed. Why are we going so slow?”

He made a choking noise. “You did not use your power.”

So he was angry.

Should she apologize again? “I told you. I don’t know how.”

“How can you not know how?” He gritted his teeth. “You feel your power and you use it. But you would not. You want to get away from me so badly you nearly caused our deaths.”

Ah. He had a point. She did want to get away from him.

It would be far better to split up now, as soon as possible. Before she trusted in the kind things he said. Before she craved his strong thighs between hers. Before she began to believe he really did want her as his queen.

“I don’t know what feeling you’re talking about. Can you be more specific? How do you feel it?”

“I do not ‘feel’ it,” he said. “Only queens can use the power of the Life Tree.”

She was losing her patience. “Then I’m not a queen. Or the Life Tree’s dead, like you said. Either way, arguing about this isn’t helping us. It’s not personal, Soren. I don’t feel this power you speak of.”

“Very well. When we return to Atlantis, you will join with another male. Then, you will feel the power.”

See, he did want to get rid of her. His offer to have her as his queen was a lie. She knew it.

“Relax,” he growled. “Now you are the one slowing us.”

She concentrated on relaxing, even though what she most wanted to do was work her fingers around his thick neck and strangle him. First he begged her to like him. Then he pushed her to go with some other guy. He said whatever he felt like, without thinking it through at all.

Whereas she thought through everything before opening her mouth. It caused people to call her cold. Well, it was one of the many things.

Liking someone was a weakness. Telling them gave them power over her. Silent contemplation was safe.

Feelings — giving voice to her feelings—was the most dangerous of all.

But what if Soren was right? What if verbalizing her feelings was the thing she needed to do to use the power Soren described? Lucy and Elyssa had powers. It stood to reason Aya did too.

Well, she’d just get right in touch with those feelings. She’d spout them off like the most sensitive woman who ever lived. She’d be a speak-and-spell of emotions. She’d be an emotional whirlwind.

Making this plan calmed her. She knew the relaxation worked because Soren kicked harder, propelling them toward the exit of the trench. It was good. The trench was creepy.

“The trench is creepy,” she said, giving voice to her feelings.

He grunted. “The currents are misleading and the tight enclosure interferes with our senses. It hides caves and cloaks deadly predators.”

Yikes. She did not feel any more powerful and, in fact, she only felt more creeped out. Was this really the way to unlock her power? She was sorry she’d said anything.

Aya scanned the trench wall for hidden caves and invisible predators.

Something glowed in a crevasse.

Glowed?

Hey. “Something’s glowing down there.”

“Where?” Soren pivoted, twirling to scan below them. The trench disappeared into infinite blackness. It was almost plausible it was a mouth to hell and could lead to another ocean beneath the known one. “Was it moving?”

“No. You can’t see it from this angle. It was behind a rock.”

“I see only smooth wall.”

She did too from this angle. “Back up.”

He hesitated. “The longer we linger, the more we are a target of rim-dwelling predators like trench fish.”

Over his shoulder, on the cliff, something caught her eye. What was it? Blurred shadows?

“What are trench fish?” she asked.

“They are large, wedge-shaped fish with oversized lower jaws and a small, dangling piece in front that glows.”

“We call those angler fish,” she said.

“Angler fish are small cousins,” he said. “Trench fish are as large as your SUV.”

A massive, round, tooth-filled mouth emerged from the smooth cliff face behind him.

She pointed. “Like that one?”

He jerked to look. The shadow of the mouth closed over his shoulder. He dove.

The teeth snapped inches from her nose.

Her heart froze in her throat.

Soren scrambled across the cliff.

A giant, gray, wedge-shaped fish flew after them. Its triangular mouth dropped open like a trapped door. The teeth glistened, massive carpenter’s nails, to impale and drag them in.

Another fish darted faster than the first. Its teeth snapped shut on the tips of his fins.

He gritted his teeth. “Use your powers!”

She couldn’t catch her breath. Her hands felt greasy with fear. “How?”

Soren thumped against a jutting rock, shifted to human feet, and kicked off the cliff wall. They flew into the center of the trench.

Three fish flew after them.

“Now!” He dragged her down, barrel-rolled, and flew up again. One missed, the other swerved, and two more dove after them. “Aya!”

“I don’t know how!” she screamed.

Soren kicked up the vertical curve of the cliff.

Another shadow appeared in a hidden cave.

Her scream of fear lodged in her throat.

Soren dove. He sprang across ledges. The fish bumped into each other and grew distracted fighting among themselves. Soren reached the trench’s mouth.

The fish refocused on their escaping prey and flew after them. They gained.

Soren popped out of the trench, into open water.

At the edge, a gigantic crab waved a serrated cleaver-like claw in warning. Kraken-sized squids entangled Soren with thick, ropy arms. An arm slammed across Aya’s back and suckers squeezed with sharp nips.

She arched her back and gasped in cold water.

Soren grabbed the suckers and ripped them off.

Trench fish flew above the edge after them.

The crab hunched flat like a rock against the ground. The squid released her and Soren and scattered. Soren darted sideways, hugging the ground.

The trench fish abandoned them and chased the squid. Cartilage crunched.

Soren pumped hard, kicking them to open water where the currents were visible and she could see predators miles away with plenty of warning.

The ocean was open and clear.

They had survived.

Aya’s hands shook. Her stomach rolled. She collapsed on Soren, closed her eyes, and focused on not being ill.

Soren kicked across the ocean floor. The trench turned into a distant line. The giant, wedge-shaped trench fish shrank to the size of their angler fish cousins.

She raised her head. “Where are we going?”

“Atlantis.”

“What about the glow I saw?”

“I will return with warriors who know the dangers without questioning me.”

Ugh.

Unlike when an investor meeting went sideways, a mistake underwater had nearly cost her life. Again. She gripped onto Soren’s powerful, unyielding arms. He had saved her. Again.

And what she done in return?

Nothing.

She was out of her element, unable to help in any way. Dead weight.

Fine. Let him dump her in Atlantis. She would not argue or scheme. She would obey like he asked. Until he wasn’t there anymore. Then, she would leave.

The sooner she got to the surface, the better off they’d all be.

Aya grew heavier and more despondent the longer he kicked. And the way over-land was already taxing. The current pushed against him. Not as hard as the Est-Atalica, but every stroke counted.

He growled. “Do not dim your light. It makes you heavier.”

“Sorry.”

His admonishment had the opposite effect of his wish. Her soul light faded even darker.

“Aya. Stop.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You are dim.”

She snorted. A brief flare of her soul light gave him a matching burst of energy. “It’s been a few years since anyone’s accused me of that.”

She ought to be happy that they were finally heading in the direction to get away from him. She did not want him and refused to be his queen. She ought to be happy to go to Atlantis and choose another warrior.

He kicked viciously.

She would, of course, choose a worthy warrior. Such a warrior would always increase her light, never dim it as Soren did. And she would activate her power for that warrior. Not argue and question and try to escape him.

Her light faded again, causing Soren to work extra hard to cover the same distance. Cramps ghosted down his legs. His old injuries from the battle to save Atlantis throbbed with pain.

“Someone accused you of being dim?” he said, just to press her to speak.

She lightened again. It was the correct choice. “My final year at Harvard. I was dim actually. I took a dead language class, completely unnecessary for my major, because I had a crush on the teacher’s assistant. It wrecked my GPA and I lost the chance to be valedictorian.”

“That is an important honor?”

“The most important.”

She traced the scrollwork across his left pectoral. Swirls recognized his performance at the Battle of Swordfish Cliffs, when he had rescued six warriors from cannibalistic raiders.

“The professor hated me. He called me a distraction in the class. There was nothing technically wrong with my translations, but he gave me a B because he said there was no way the heir to a lipstick company would ever do anything important in the field.”

“What field?”

“The field of ancient world languages. Actually, this is small comfort, but he was wrong.” She brightened. “The fragments of the mer language we’ve brought up appear to be based on Phoenician. They have similar enough markings I could follow most of the guest lecture I attended last month. So who knows. This lipstick company executive might yet do something important in the field.”

Her soul glowed with a bright, fierce energy.

His strokes elongated. It became easier to cross the distance.

Her feelings made such a difference. She must know this was the feeling he meant. Too bad humans couldn’t see their own soul lights. But she must feel her power now.

She was silent for a long time. Her soul light fluctuated as thoughts crossed her mind.

He didn’t comment. It seemed best to let her think.

“It was really stupid to go into the trench just the two of us, wasn’t it?” she asked finally.

He stroked her hair. “You did not know.”

“I feel irritated.” Her chest flared brighter with her anger. A bright, strong blaze of furious justice. “I nearly got us killed. And we still didn’t find the Life Tree, except maybe a glow.”

“The fragment was dashed by the same riptide that destroyed your dive computer.”

“We would know for sure.” She rubbed her forehead in frustration. “As it is, going in again would be suicide.”

His pulse beat thickly in his temple.

Could the Life Tree have survived? Queen Elyssa brought blossoms back to life with her powers. Aya could have the same powers. She had pressed up against the Life Tree fragment in the claw. Her special connection could be keeping it alive.

If the fragment was the only reason he hadn’t collapsed — if the fragment was the only thing keeping Kadir alive, and Atlantis floating, and the warriors healthy—and if he ignored Aya’s observation and left it behind…

He’d damn the city to death all over again.

Curse it. “You are certain you saw the Life Tree?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I saw a glow.” Her soul fluctuated radically. “It kills me to act on incomplete information.”

His limbs loosened. His belly swung between illness and hunger.

A terrible idea was dawning in his mind. One that could not be denied. It was so strong, so right, so necessary, it terrified him.

Like the realization he had dishonored himself. Like the knowledge of what he had to do to redeem himself, if redemption of even possible for someone like him. Like the discovery saving Kadir meant storming the unassailable prison in the darkest trench.

He knew.

“There is one possibility to re-enter the trench ourselves,” he said.

She stilled. “Which is?”

“The currents change direction. The change sweeps the predators from their hidden places for a short time.”

“So they’d still be swimming around in the trench, but we’d be able to see them?”

“Yes.”

She shivered. “For how long?”

“Long enough to enter the trench and swim to the place you indicated.”

“And out again?”

He remained silent.

She swallowed. “Okay. When do we have to decide?”

He stopped kicking. The current reversed their progress, pushing them back toward the trench. “Soon.”

“Ah. I see.” She rubbed her forehead with her palm. “What are the odds I saw something other than the Life Tree fragment?”

“You know its glow.”

“I’m not sure.”

For something this important, he trusted her connection. “I would rather stand with you, uncertain, than with a hundred warriors who were sure.”

She dropped her hand to his shoulder. “You say nice things.”

“But true.”

“We’re going back to the trench.” She noted their drift and sighed. “What’s the plan?”

“I will investigate. You wait at the mouth.”

Her chin dropped. “That’s your plan?”

He nodded.

She rubbed her forehead. “May I remind you there are giant squid?”

“No. They were eaten by the trench fish.”

“Right, they were eaten. It’s not the safest place to wait.”

“I will show you the dangers.”

“But I can’t make my fins. You can show me whatever you like, and I’m going to be stuck watching the danger catch up and eat me.”

He had no response.

“This is a terrible plan.”

“It is better than going into the trench without your powers.”

“I’m sorry!” She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped her hair. Her light burned hot. “I don’t understand the feeling you mean. It’s like being told I can wiggle my ears. Some people can do it but I can’t. What muscle is that? I don’t even know where to start.”

He did know where to start.

“Embrace your power,” he urged. “A queen of Atlantis can use the Life Tree’s power. Accept my claim and become mine.”

Her eyes flew open. Her blue eyes searched his face desperately. What was she seeking? Absolute terror transfixed her features.

He dropped to a barren plateau. A rock had recently broken and new life had not had a chance to move in, so he landed on it. The sky of the ocean revealed schools of slender fish and the larger hawks that hunted them, but they were far away. He hunkered down with Aya.

Soren slid his hand around the back of her neck. “Be my bride.”

She jolted and shot up her hand between them. “No! You told me at the surface. You would never choose a bride.”

Aya did not want him.

“I do not do this to claim you for myself. But you glow brilliantly when I touch you.”

She rubbed her chest and grimaced. “I told you. That’s not personal.”

“I know.” But he would exploit it. “Embrace your power, Aya.”

“I can’t! I can’t feel anything!”

“You will. Give in. Your power will blossom inside as desire wraps you in chains.”

Shock flashed across her features.

Yes. He would exploit her weakness. Her body was starved for affection. He would feed her hunger for a male with his own body.

It was not because of any special characteristic of his. He did not have any special skill. Any male who gave her pleasure would be treated to the same brilliance.

The question was whether he was strong enough to give her pleasure without drowning in his own.

He crushed her to him. To guide her to her power, there was only one way to find out.

Soren’s kiss consumed Aya’s bitterness and burned away her sadness in a hot pulse of fire.

His powerful hands cupped her cheeks, holding her head in place for his total domination. His wide lips sucked at hers, his long tongue stroked the inside of her mouth, and his teeth nibbled hot promises.

God, what was he doing? He didn’t even like her.

She pushed against his iron shoulders. Every piece of him was hard and unyielding. He was a rock, a mountain, a holy shrine.

She wanted to wrap her legs around him and cling.

Why did she always want the things she couldn’t have?

He kissed her with the determination of a warrior riding into battle. Her resistance flagged. He pushed the advantage, stroking one rough palm down the curve of her back to claim her hip.

She embraced his fierce possession.

He lifted one thigh and wedged it around his waist. This was what she needed. His form, his hands, his hardening cock under her squeezing-tight thighs. Him.

Soren’s barrel-sized body rolled on the rock like a thick wedge of dynamite. She straddled the corded muscle braiding his sides. Her nub rubbed against his taut belly.

The pleasurable ache intensified.

His hands spanned her hips, allowing her to rise and look down on him. A good, hard, delicious look this time.

His pectorals flexed beneath her hungry palms. She measured the breadth of his six-pack in her small hand-spans. He was magnificent. What about lower? His tapered waist pleased her too. And lowest yet? She found his thick cock head and gripped his long, hard shaft.

A rumble of pleasure emerged from his chest. He liked when she gripped him? She did so harder, and he moaned. Yum.

Her touch inspired his exploration. His rough hands rubbed down her body, cupped her ass, and squeezed. Her throbbing point ground into his shaft. Yes. That was what she needed. She, who had rarely gotten naked with a man before, now rubbed her aching sex over every bit of this hard, virile male.

She wanted to possess him. She wanted to mark him. She wanted everyone to know he belonged to her. He might enslave her, but she wanted more to enslave him.

His fiery, dark eyes snapped open and he jerked her off his shaft. She wriggled with dissatisfaction. No fair. He looked as though he had been about to shove her off, but the sight of her still reaching for him snapped something and his expression changed. The fierceness returned. Her dark demon drew her breasts to his mouth and sucked one pointed nipple into his hot, wet suction. Sweet torture sizzled through her veins.

The ache of need became unmanageable. She writhed against him, giving up her pride to bring his hot cock to her hungry channel. She wanted him to ram into her, fill her to the brim, and make her orgasm so hard she could hear her own pleasure-soaked scream echo from the trench.

He forced her off his hard body and switched his mouth to her other breast, bringing her once more toward shattering orgasm, and then he licked between them, sucking first one, then the other, into his mouth. She dug her nails into his scalp. Her hips bucked for the completion she craved.

He was going to drive her insane.

She couldn’t allow that.

“Why are you doing this?” she moaned.

“Give in.”

“Why?”

“Give in to me, Aya.”

Soren grabbed her waving ass and gripped her femininity. She stopped, recognizing the grip of a master. This male would not be the fumbling, apologizing, tripping-over-himself excuse for her first boyfriend, or the too-selfish-to-care-about-her cold intellectual she had wasted her heart on at Harvard. She tilted her hips to open for him.

He growled, low and pleased, in his chest. His large hands moved carefully, deliberately. He rubbed the needy nub, giving her a small taste of satisfaction. Then, he dipped into her sweet honey and coated her own sex-lips. The liquid oil smeared his large fingers. Her breasts suspended over his mouth.

Oh god. Pleasure throbbed in her body. She gasped and stopped him. “You can’t.”

“Do not fear me.”

“I don’t.”

He blinked. Did that surprise him? He never frightened her. Infuriated, yes. His hard intensity was only dangerous to her heart.

“But this, what you’re doing, you can’t.”

“You hunger for a male’s caress.”

Desperately. Not for any male. For Soren.

“No,” she said. “Don’t force yourself.”

A devilish smile tugged at his lips. “To help you, I will.”

His mouth closed over her pleasure-swelled breast as one long finger speared her channel. He went slow and long and deep, and in the same way, his tongue rolled over her hot nipple nice and methodical and oh-so-sweet.

Dual peaks of pleasure drove her to the edge. She opened herself to him completely.

His other hand found her unattended breast and the pleasure tripled. His finger slid in and out, thrusting into her. The pleasure rose higher and higher. He sustained her rhythm like he saw into her body and played her soul with his hands and tongue.

She reached the top.

He paused.

No. He couldn’t stop. After all he’d promised. She was going to kill—

His finger pressed her hot pleasure spot and she clenched. This was it. The thumb on that hand swiped wet honey across her hot nub.

Pleasure broke over her like a dam collapsing, wringing her body in mind-blowing release. She shuddered. This was everything she had dreamed about in an orgasm. Everything she had dreamed about sex. Everything she had dreamed about a man.

Everything she had dreamed about Soren.

He watched her, holding her steady as the shudders calmed. He disentangled them and rested her against his body. The gaze he turned on her, and the softness of his lips pressed against her forehead, was all she had ever wanted.

Almost.

It was one-sided. She gave in, but he didn’t.

Aya stroked the thick, hard length of his still-turgid cock. He closed his eyes and shuddered.

His length felt good in her hands. She’d never cared much one way or another about the male cock. It gave her pleasure, most of the time, but it had never been something she studied for beauty. Soren’s, swirled as it was with the same black, almost iridescent, tattoos, struck her as beautiful.

She rose and used both hands, gripping him harder. He groaned and his cock trembled. She would own him the way he owned her. The long length slid in and out of her powerful hands. She cupped his balls.

He made a hungry, broken sound. Good. She altered her angle, chasing his pleasure. Soren’s lips twitched, his eyes closed, and his hips thrust his hard cock in and out of her hands. Soon, he would release.

His eyes snapped open. He grabbed her hands to make her stop.

She had done it.

Oh wait, no she hadn’t. He took long, slow seconds to regain his control. She had taken him right up to the precipice of an orgasm, and then he denied her the satisfaction of throwing him over the side.

She felt deflated. And not only because, through what was obviously a sustained effort, he was losing his hardness in her hand.

“No good?” she asked.

“Huh?” He blinked and struggled to focus on her.

“Was it no good?” She squeezed his loosening cock. When the bride pageant idea first started, she had decided two meh boyfriends didn’t prepare a woman to satisfy a king, so she’d boned up on a ton of reading how to pleasure a man. Maybe she should have found a study partner. “The hand job.”

His cock reassuringly hardened.

Oh. Well, if he was still into it, she could—

He gripped her hand to make her motion stop, and when his cock kept growing harder again anyway, he shoved her hand away and pivoted to move his waist out of her reach. “It was good.”

Her empty hand flexed for the missing flesh hardened to sexy rebar. “Then why did you stop?”

“I was going to explode.”

“That was the idea.”

Was she whining?

Well, but, she had exploded. It felt wrong he didn’t. This was the most backward relationship she had ever been in. Usually guys were perfectly happy to get off and forget her. Soren’s refusal to be pleasured by her was different but still a rejection.

“I do not deserve to release.”

He didn’t deserve to come? After the soul-shattering orgasm he gave to her? “Oh, trust me. You do.”

“It is dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“You could carry my — carry a young fry.”

“From a hand job? No way, that’s…” She stopped.

Was she really begging to give a guy a hand job? Apparently she hit a new low in the quest for rock bottom of her self-respect.

“…really unlikely. Usually.”

Soren growled and wrapped his arms around her. She pressed against his hard pectorals.

It would be so easy to lose herself here, against his warmth. Close her eyes and sleep.

But it wasn’t like he’d be here when she woke up. Not if he had any choice about it.

She forced herself stiff. “What are you doing?”

“Rest.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Your heart is tired.”

That was…well, maybe that was true. She tried to rest her head on his shoulder.

But there was no point in getting comfortable. The sooner an embrace ended, the sooner she could stop worrying about when it would end.

She was cold. Not just her personality, but her soul. That’s why everyone left her.

Her dad. Her mom. Her exes. Old friends.

It wasn’t her fault. Their rejection wasn’t because of something she did or said. Her light was cold. Like being diagnosed with glass bones, it wasn’t her fault that normal relationship steps left her shattered. There was no point in even trying.

His growl rumbled. “Is resting against me so hard?”

Again, his voice sounded tender. Different from before. Gentle.

Dangerous.

They rested on the rock pinnacle. The vast sky of the ocean stretched above them. It was like being weightless and yet on a grassy hill at the same time, with a light breeze shivering through the birch, and puffy white clouds rolling past an endless blue afternoon.

She pressed her head into his shoulder. If she was going to tense anyway, might as well tense in his direction. “I’m not used to this.”

His large palm cupped her bicep. He stroked once, twice. “You need a male’s touch. It has been a long time.”

“What about you?”

“This is my first time.”

Right. Because he was a merman on the bottom of the ocean where women didn’t exist. “Not even your mom?”

“She, like all brides, was required to leave as soon as I was born.” A muscle in his jaw tightened.

Aya wanted to reach up and soothe that tenseness.

Instead, she allowed her fingers to trace the scrollwork across his chest. “The men I dated weren’t into cuddling. It’s strange. We’ve come this far and you don’t even like me.”

“I do not like you?” He tilted his head to fix her with his dangerous, hypnotic dark eyes. “I have never said that.”

Aya’s shock almost forced her eyeballs out of her head.

“You did so tell me you didn’t like me.” She rested an elbow on his chest and poked her elegant finger into his nose. “You say it all the time!”

Closeness with Aya undid him.

Her soft body rested against his trustingly. Her bright blue eyes shone down on him with tenderness. Her white blonde hair tickled his bicep.

He curled his grip around her enticing finger. Even now, he wanted to press her soft cleft against him and thrust in his hard cock. “I did not say it.”

“You did! You said I was the last woman you’d ever choose for a bride.”

“You are.”

“See? And you said you’d choose death before making me into yours.”

“I would.”

She stared at him. “That’s the same thing!”

He put her finger into his mouth and teased the tip with his teeth. “No.”

She shuddered. “But you don’t want me as your bride.”

“Your destiny is a worthy male.” Saying that, he clenched her harder and watched the colors flash across her cheeks. When a worthier male appeared, Soren should give her up.

He should.

She blinked and rested both elbows on his chest. “Are you saying you actually like me?”

“Your light is bright.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And cold.”

He tilted his head. “Why do you continue to point out this facet?”

“Because it is.” She chewed on her thumb. “Before the bride pageant, I was evaluated by another merman. He told me that my soul light was bright but cold, which was unattractive.”

Soren clenched his fist. “Who said that?”

She stared at his fist. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“I was relieved though.” She stroked his fist. “It explains why my relationships always failed. No matter how hard I try, I always repel the people I most want to attract.”

“But your light, it is not bad,” he insisted. “The coolness is refreshing. Invigorating. It pumps my blood.”

Her lips curved and warmth filled the current between them. “I almost believe you.”

“Believe.”

“Well, we’ll see what happens in Atlantis.”

When she would be surrounded by worthier warriors.

He stared out at the ocean. The rock was hard against his back. Somewhere above was the surface, where she belonged. He should have given in to her demands and taken her there himself. Surely that would have been less dangerous than this situation.

He tasted her sweet, honey flavor on his tongue. He heard her soft, desperate moaning in his chest. He felt her writhing in his arms, her liquid desire coating his abdomen like hot oil, her bud temptingly near. His cock throbbed.

He was right here. She was right here. Even now, he fought to stop himself from rolling atop her, pinning her to the rock, and thrusting into her tight feminine channel.

She would accept him. The willingness gentled the curve of her bicep, softened her knowing smile, sank into his skin like tendrils of a new root. She would take him in and accept his joining.

And in doing so, damn both of them.

The purpose of his passion was to awaken her to her brilliant light. Unleash her queen powers. But something else had happened. He was now even more her possession than when he met her at the bride pageant in Miami.

He wanted her for his bride. She refused. He would not force her to carry the young fry of a male she didn’t even like, as had happened with his mother.

Sometimes, it was not possible to bind a person’s heart.

Aya rested her chin on one hand. “What are you thinking about?”

He searched his mind for a plausible topic. “Patrols.”

“Patrols?”

“Faier should take over. He has seen much and his heart is twice the size of any other warrior. His second should be Ciran. You met him at the bride pageant.”

She tilted her head, trying to remember.

“He is young, but thorough.” Soren wedged a hand under his head to keep from stroking her curious brow. “Both warriors are calm and thoughtful. In an ordinary city, that would not matter, but in Atlantis, tolerance is critical.”

“Because Atlantis is composed of renegades who have trouble just ‘going along’ without question, and because the new city is still developing its rules and practices.”

“Yes.” How surprising that Aya understood perfectly. “It was arrogant to assume I would always be present to manage.”

“Perhaps.” Her smile returned. “You’re a terrifying warrior.”

“Terrifying?” He eyed her. “Then I do frighten you.”

“Huh?” Her chin slid off her palm. She floated up and faced him. “No. Protecting your city is not frightening. It’s admirable.”

His chest swelled. She was not afraid. Her light shone clear and fierce. He truly did not frighten her.

Danger.

He ripped his gaze away. His chest thumped hard as when the trench fish attacked.

The only reason she did not fear him was because she hadn’t seen his dishonor. She hadn’t witnessed the darkness that blackened his soul.

Once she knew, her bright confidence would fade into disillusionment. He would watch the horror cross her face and his heart would break.

She reached out to touch his cheek. “Soren?”

He gripped her hand, arresting her.

Her light wavered.

He was damaging her. More proof she could not trust him. This binding was only temporary. He would find her a good, strong male in Atlantis and then Soren would not rip that male’s throat out every time he made Aya smile.

Soren rose, pushed off the rock, and scanned the ocean floor and the riptides. “The trench current has changed direction. We must go.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck.

He approached the trench. It made a subtle hiss. On the surface, it would sound like a man sucking in a deep breath.

But they were under the ocean.

Cold fear coiled in his belly.

“What is that sound?” Aya asked. “The change of direction?”

“No.” He kicked hard to the edge of the trench. “It is a noise I have only heard in legend.”

He reached the trench lip. The spider crab on the ledge waved from its territory, giving him a sign that no enemies were in sight. He kicked down the cliffs carefully, using every sense. No trench fish would surprise him this time. It was all normal.

Except the hairs on his arms tingled.

Aya rubbed her fingers across his forearms. “You have goosebumps.”

“Watch for predators.”

She gazed out, into the shadowed trench. The hollows and caves were barren with the shifting tide. “Are you going to tell me what that noise is?”

“The ancient predator of our race.”

“Which is?”

“A merman warrior. The human word is megalodon.”

She stiffened. “You mean like the megalodon shark? Five times the size of the Great White? Thought to be extinct?”

“They are much, much larger. And they are not extinct. They live in the Blacknight Sea.”

“Like this trench?”

“Beneath. This trench may connect. It is an ocean so dark and so vast even the most ancient mer do not know what resides below.”

“An ocean beneath the ocean?”

“What we have seen arise is the stuff of nightmares. Pressure holds their bodies together. The creatures crumble and break apart on our floor.”

She half-strangled him. “Tell me the megalodons break apart too.”

“They live in the upper strata of the abyss. It is easier for them to be lured up to our ocean.”

Her heart skipped against his chest. “Let’s not do that.”

“You and I cannot. Megalodons consume adults immediately. They only follow young trainee warriors. Somehow, they know the trainees will lead them back to a city, while an adult would try to flee away. This was discovered during the Seven Cities War.”

“I learned about this war from Lucy and Torun.” She scanned the bare walls for the glow of the Life Tree fragment while she spoke. “I thought the Seven Cities War was a territorial dispute.”

“Yes. One city sought to resolve it by using a megalodon against its enemies. They nearly succeeded. Seven cities rose against their tyranny. With the assistance of the All-Council, they defeated the megalodon and razed the offending city from the ocean floor.”

She swallowed.

“That is rare, now. In ancient times, a large number of megalodons arose. Not one or two terrorizing unprotected villages, but forty, or a hundred. The records are imprecise.”

“Not enough survivors to record properly?”

“That is my guess also.”

He kicked along the cliffs. They were approaching where he thought she’d seen the Life Tree fragment.

“These large numbers attacked cities, overwhelmed cave guardians, and consumed great numbers of mermen. It decimated our race so greatly the elders banded together and formed the All-Council. The cities warred in unison against the megalodons and emerged victorious.”

Now, the All-Council ruled merman society. They enforced the sacred covenant. And they judged when an upstart village could be considered a true city.

“Today, the few villages established without All-Council protection originate with crazy hermits. They do not last long and fade back to the ocean floor.”

“Are you saying Atlantis is a city of crazy hermits?”

“We are worse.” His lip curled. “We are crazy hermits who will last.”

They reached the region of the Life Tree. Was it gone? No, he felt the warmth at the same time Aya pointed.

“It’s there. See? Still glowing.”

He kicked to it. The outline of the rock obscured it. He dipped over and…there it was.

Aya released him and squeezed into the small crevice. The stalk wedged between two jagged rocks. She stroked it. “It’s so beautiful. Pure white, like snow, and just as silent.”

His skin prickled with warning. “Carefully dislodge it. We must leave.”

“The underside is sealed over with sap. It’s like a giant disk of Sea Opal.” She eased it free and showed him the glowing stump. “This is why it’s still alive. See?”

Upper branches brushed the cliff. Dirt floated away in the reversed current.

It felt like the whole trench was inhaling.

He grabbed her around the waist. “Ready?”

She adjusted her grip on the tree. It stretched taller than her torso and stuck out at odd angles. “Almost.”

Someone was splashing.

He pulled her down. She went quiet.

Thrashing, panting, exhaustion. That was the sound. An injured fish? No. It sounded like—

A mer kicked and gasped.

Aya froze. Her hand gripped his bicep.

The shifter was young. Dirt streaked his skinny body and blood matted his hair. He was so tired he scooped the water with his hands. Thin yellow tattoos identified him as a resident of Dragon Mar, hundreds of songs distant. On the other side of the world, almost.

Why was he here? Had he taken part in the recent attack on Atlantis? What had happened since Soren left?

What was he doing here, swimming into the current? Face down, eyes down, he passed within feet of them without noticing.

Aya frowned and pursed her lips.

Soren held up his hand.

She remained silent.

They waited. And waited. And waited.

The young mer was far enough away they could move without arousing him. Soren needed answers before they moved. He could not afford rash action with Aya and the Life Tree relying on his tattered strength. They would wait.

A shadow fell across the cliffs.

An eerie, inhuman hiss filled the trench. The hiss of a thousand water snakes curling around his torso and sinking in their sharp, curved, poison-bearing fangs.

He gripped Aya’s arm. Not because he thought she would move. But to prove she was still there.

The noise slithered up his spine and lodged at the base of his skull.

A shadow crawled up the trench walls. It filled the whole trench. A mammoth creature moved forward. Foot by foot, inexorable as the wind. As the end. As death.

A megalodon.

Gray skin stretched taut around a circular, tooth-filled maw. Kadir’s entire castle could fit inside its barrel body; no need to chew or swallow. The hiss was its breath inhaling, never exhaling. It controlled the current of the entire trench.

Teeth passed their hidden crag, and taut skin, and then a vortex-like eye. A cavern marked its ear. More gray skin. It kept moving. The length shattered his mind. It kept coming.

Aya shifted. She wanted to bolt for the surface of the trench? He rested his hand atop hers. They would wait for it to pass just like they had waited for the youth.

Her eyes widened a fraction. She had forgotten the youth. She squeezed his arm. They had to rescue the youth!

No. He communicated with his glare.

She squeezed harder. Her silent gaze communicated right back. He was a youth.

But Soren had to safeguard her and the Life Tree.

Her gaze insisted. Soren.

He frowned with his full self. Chasing after the youth was irresponsible. Impossible. They faced the mythical enemy of his race. How could Soren dare fate? He would be lucky to escape with his own life. His honor would not allow him to escape with less than hers and the Life Tree’s. The youth had bad luck.

The megalodon’s tail tapered. Soon it would pass. They would creep to the surface and escape.

Aya’s eyes lidded to half. This plan, which she somehow understood without a single word passing in vibration between them, was not one she agreed with.

We are going to save that young man. NOW.

Although the words did not vibrate in her chest, he could almost hear them anyway. And when she reached the end of the sentence, the light in her soul burned bright as a match.

The Life Tree reflected her determination and glowed brightly, a sudden flash as loud as a firecracker.

Her expression blanked in shock. She hadn’t intended to do that.

The megalodon stopped.

Oh no.

The tail hung suspended in front of their hole. So close. Would it go on?

It reversed.

Soren grabbed Aya and bolted.

The monster filled the trench. It moved quickly for its size and could crush them against the rugged cliff, but it didn’t do so. The body flew backward, dragging them toward the teeth.

He kicked harder.

The megalodon sensed his flight. It reversed faster.

Aya clutched the Life Tree with both hands. Her pale face whitened.

The trench narrowed. An overhang offered protection. He aimed for it. This was his only chance.

The monster stopped.

Did it realize his aim? That didn’t matter. Soren kicked hard for the safety of the rock.

The monster rotated in the trench like the spoke of a wheel. Its tail pointed down. Its nose rotated up. Teeth passed them. It smashed the skinny overhang without seeming to notice.

Great boulders broke off and careened down on them.

Soren dodged.

Its mammoth teeth leveled with them. Giant circular marks, the sucker-scars of fighting a cave guardian, marred its jaw. This was not its first trip above the Blacknight Sea or its first taste of mermen.

It inhaled the eerie inhuman wheeze.

He kicked with all his might. Aya and the Life Tree folded over his shoulder. They were going into its maw!

At its lip, the water bubbled as it was sucked over the edge of the cliff. Super-accelerated current! Soren kicked for it with all his might. The megalodon’s inhale assisted them. He strained to touch. Almost…

The current sucked them in and shot them for the trench floor.

The Life Tree shrieked. Or was it echoing the scream of Soren’s heart?

They flew down the monstrous body. Its wake disturbed the vortex at the base. A riptide pulled Soren backward and upside down through the corridor along the jagged base of the trench.

The megalodon was still vertical, inhaling, unaware they were long gone.

Aya pointed over his shoulder. “There’s the boy!”

He readied himself. “Hold on.”

She tensed.

He shifted to human feet and smashed the passing floor to kick free.

The glass walls held.

She made a noise. The Life Tree pulsed. Glass shattered and knocked them free.

He threw out an arm and slammed into the youth.

The youth jolted in shock and emitted a death scream.

“Silence!” He rotated and scooped the youth around his skinny waist. Aya echoed his response with an edge of fear.

The eerie hissing paused.

Their commotion had reached the megalodon. The youth’s exhausted, dark eyes gazed over Soren’s shoulder with new horror. He struggled.

“Hold.” With the youth in one arm and Aya holding the Life Tree in the other, he changed to human feet again and kicked off the ground. Once more, the Life Tree flashed. He zoomed upward through the water with a new burst of speed.

It was what he needed.

He shifted to fins and flew.

“You can’t make it.” Aya sounded faint with terror.

His leg muscles twitched at the end stages of exhaustion. There was the lip of the trench. Right there. “I will make it.”

“It’s rotating to horizontal. The jaws will close over us in five, four, three, two—” She sucked in with fear. The shadow fell over them. “—one—”

They couldn’t make it.

He kicked into the cliff cave, diving under a rocky underhang. It was a shallow cavern where the first trench fish had hidden to attack them.

The displacement of the falling monster whooshed them against the far wall and then sucked them right out. He scrambled for the cave and anchored them behind boulders. The entrance was too small for the monster.

The megalodon’s disk-eye peered into the depths, noting each of them with bloodless hunger. It rotated and waved a fin.

Massive waves smashed them against the wall and tried to flush them out.

The Life Tree fell out of Aya’s grip. She snatched it and flew out of the cave.

Soren caught her ankle and yanked her in. The youth cowered against the deepest rock. Soren fixed Aya behind an underhang and locked his arm.

The megalodon smashed into the wall.

The underhang broke off and thunked to the ground. Debris hazed the water with choking thickness.

Good. Now they were more obscured.

They would survive this encounter. Soren would be the first in almost a generation to face down their ancient enemy and survive.

The megalodon rotated its mouth so the teeth scraped the entrance. The eerie sound started again. The sucking power was horrifying. It was inhaling.

“Go away!” Aya screamed. “Leave us alone!”

Soren held her to the boulder with both arms. The suction pulled harder than a super-accelerated current. Rock, dirt, everything flew into its maw. The youth lifted from the ground. He lost one hand’s grip on the pinching rock and cried out, hanging over the maw by one pinch. His fins thrashed helplessly, smacking Soren’s shoulder.

Soren grabbed his ankle and pushed him back to his rock. The youth wedged in with shaking determination.

Soren’s human feet slid across the bare floor. He scrambled back. The boulder he and Aya braced against shifted.

Her head lifted. Yes, she felt it. It shifted across the rock a foot. Her scared eyes fixed on him.

He gripped her bicep. What was fixed? There was no room by the youth. Where could he lodge her that would be safe?

The Life Tree slipped in her grip. She hugged it fiercely.

The boulder shifted another foot toward the entrance.

Where?

Their boulder shook and a crack appeared between them. It fractured! Her side toppled over and wedged solid.

His side dislodged and tumbled into the maw.

He scrambled. The floor itself rose in mucky pieces. He lifted entirely off the ground. His feet transformed into fins and he struggled to kick.

The Life Tree flew past him.

He crossed the megalodon’s thick lip, scraped against jagged teeth, and entered murky blackness.

Aya’s horrified eyes were his last sight.

“Go away!” she shrieked.

Light flashed. A shockwave smacked his back and pushed him forward, out of the maw, into the cliff.

The sucking stopped.

He kicked furiously to Aya. Her arms reached out and he tackled her to the cave ground. Fiery agony raked his back, like during the battle at Atlantis when Blake’s submersible severed the Life Tree, and then faded.

Was he bleeding?

The jaws hadn’t closed on him, and he didn’t smell blood in the water. He also didn’t check thoroughly. They lay still.

Water currents shifted. The monster turned to look at them again.

Soren covered Aya. A thick layer of dirt and rock buried them. The youth huddled against his rock, a shivering, dirt-crusted lump.

A trench fish swam out of the megalodon’s gaping mouth.

Water currents shifted again. The monster chased after the escaped trench fish. Its eerie inhaling started again and grew distant. Shadows lightened. The megalodon moved down the trench. It was leaving.

Soren collapsed on Aya, careful of her small, shivering body, but needing her crushed against him to prove they were both still alive. She was unhurt. He rolled her over, cupped her pale face, and kissed her cheeks. They were whole. He kissed her forehead and her chin. Both whole, unblemished, without scar.

What was this trembling? Was she so badly frightened? No. The trembling was him.

She put her small hands over his and sought his lips. They united in one hot, gritty, soul-affirming kiss.

Soren kissed Aya like he was suffocating and she was oxygen.

His tongue united to her mouth. His wide palms spanned the back of her head and cupped her carefully to keep her off the hard rock. He kissed her senseless. Until the shaking stopped. Until all that was left was him.

When he finally pulled back, he peeled off a little piece of her soul.

Fear still reflected in his dark eyes.

She soothed him with a long stroke of his cheek.

He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to her index finger. Her knuckle. Her palm. His eyes closed and he struggled to control himself.

He cared for her so much he couldn’t stand it.

The connection she felt for him was real. He didn’t dislike her. Nearly dying together moved it into sharp focus. He would have sacrificed himself to save her. He would do it now, in an instant. She made him vulnerable in ways he couldn’t control and that was something he couldn’t allow.

And neither could she.

She patted his broad shoulder. I’m sorry I made you reveal that.

He resisted, holding onto her with such tenderness it broke her heart.

A wormy creature popped up at the edge of the ledge. Other fish swam past. Now that the alpha predator had moved on, regular predators of the trench returned.

Soren forced himself up and pulled her to her feet.

Aya bounced to the edge of the ledge. Below, a broken pile of sticks was all that remained of the Life Tree.

Its glow was gone. That cut deep into her heart.

Soren rubbed his lower back and grimaced.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Was he about to die because the Life Tree had been destroyed?

“This pain is not mortal. The Life Tree portion in Atlantis must still live.”

Oh, thank goodness.

Wait. That meant saving this fragment of the Life Tree had been unnecessary.

They had faced down a megalodon and nearly died several times because of a mistake.

A waste.

For the second time, it was starkly obvious how she was not fit for mermaid life. Kadir’s rejection at the bride pageant months ago had been a blessing, and Soren’s at the diner the day after had been what she deserved. They couldn’t afford any more of her misjudgments.

The young merman cowered against a rock, eyes closed, shivering. Soren gathered the youth under one arm and extended his other to her.

He had no recriminations. Only somber acceptance.

Aya stepped into his embrace.

He bunched his powerful muscles and leaped. His fins extended like black pirate sails and he kicked, flying through the water. The last resting place of the Life Tree disappeared over the trench lip. She buried her face in his hard shoulder.

He gave her solid comfort as she fought the memories.

Soren’s rock had dislodged and his body had flown out. She reached for him with a cry. That’s when her grip must have loosened. The Life Tree fragment had tumbled past Soren, into the megalodon’s mouth, and popped like a firecracker. The suction had stopped. Soren had scrambled free. The Life Tree fragment had hung suspended in the jaws. Then, the teeth had closed, mashing it to pieces.

She hadn’t even realized what had happened at first. Only that—

The youth began to struggle. “Who are you? Where are you taking me?”

“Easy.” Soren set him down on a jagged rock. “Calm.”

The youth stumbled away and landed on his hands and knees. Rather than grateful, he looked discouraged, tired, and angry.

Aya called from Soren’s other side. “Are you okay?”

He looked up. His eyes widened in shock and then darkened in accusation. “Anathema.”

Aya flinched. The youth’s hatred burned like acid.

Because she wasn’t a bride from one of the secret, sacred islands. Because Soren didn’t lock her in his undersea castle until she gave him a son. Because she had opinions and choice and maybe, just maybe, super powers.

To traditionalist mermen, Aya was anathema.

Soren moved in front of her, protective. “Careful.”

“The Demon Fighter!” The youth shifted to human feet and crawled back. “Stay away. Both of you.”

Soren’s face closed.

“Hey.” Aya snapped. The kid might be shaken up, but calling Soren a demon was going too far. “Soren saved your life. You were nearly fish food for a megalodon.”

“Because of you! I was fine until you interfered.”

“If by ‘fine’ you mean ‘a few strokes from being eaten,’ then sorry for the misunderstanding.”

“No, you misunderstand! I will not be eaten. You will be!”

Understanding crossed Soren’s face. “You think to lure a megalodon to destroy Atlantis? Dragon Mar breaks the Seven Cities Treaty.”

“No they don’t. Atlantis is no city.” His thin chest was dotted with a few small lines of yellow, but he lifted it proudly. “I will earn my citizenship and become a great warrior.”

“So, you are not even a citizen of Dragon Mar.” He regarded the youth with disgust. “Does your father know you have traded your life for a meaningless honor?”

“My father will celebrate my bravery.” His black gaze shifted to Aya and his lip curled. “You are honorless and must be destroyed. Your anathema false bride could not even protect your Life Tree.”

Ouch.

Aya rubbed her chest. He was right, after all. She was no one’s bride, and also—

Soren swooped down faster than a blink. He grabbed the youth by the throat and smashed him into the rock. “Respect your enemy.”

The kid’s eyes flew wide in his pale face. He clawed at Soren’s strangling hand.

“Tell your ‘honorable city’ when they attack Atlantis, I will return the fight to Dragon Mar. My rage will multiply a hundred fold. I will show no mercy.”

“You will all be dead!”

Soren thumped him into the rock again.

The kid squirmed. “The merman warrior will eat you. As it should. You broke the sacred covenant. You chose modern brides!”

Soren blackened to deadly intent.

Clearly this wasn’t the kind of argument that could be won by reasonable conversation. And there was no point to saving this youth’s life in the trench only to choke the life out of him outside it.

Aya put her hand on Soren’s shoulder.

He glanced back at her, then, his growl changed tenor. He stood and threw the kid off the rock.

The kid tumbled, switched to fins, and scrambled to right himself.

Soren shouted after him. “Tell them!”

He rubbed his neck and glared. “Death first, Demon Fighter. False bride. Breaker of covenants!” He swam away.

Soren stared after him. His empty hand clenched and released, clenched and released. He clearly wanted to catch up and shake sense into the young male.

Great. Just great.

Not only did Aya’s action nearly kill them all and destroy the Life Tree, but the kid didn’t even want to be rescued. She rubbed her forehead.

Soren’s wide hand closed on her shoulder. “Do not grieve.”

Oh, if she grieved, it was only for her lost illusions. She used to think she was smart. Ha ha. “Just give me a minute.”

He drew her roughly against his shoulder. “I should have ended him.”

“He’s just a stupid kid.”

He growled disagreement. “He knew enough.”

She curled her arms around his massive back. Were his lats allowed to flex this hugely? Mr. Universe had never seen the tight, hot bodies of the Atlantis mermen.

And if these “traditional” mermen had their way, the Mr. Universe pageant never would, either.

She took a deep breath — expanding her diaphragm and pulling in cold water — and exhaled it again in a hard whoosh. She straightened. “I’m sorry breaking the ‘sacred island bride’ covenant causes your people so much angst.”

His lips twisted to the side and he stared after the disappearing kid. “Ironic. He is likely the product of just such an incident.”

“His mother was not a sacred bride?”

“Correct.” Soren secured her against him, kicked off the rock the opposite direction from the youth, and began the overland journey again back to Atlantis.

“If others have broken the covenant, why is Atlantis targeted as a rebel city?”

“We are the first to choose modern brides as a founding principle.”

So, all this time, random women had been swimming headlong into mermen.

“It is more common in cities close to the surface. When your fated one is in front of you, it is difficult for even a strong merman to turn away.”

Soren had turned away from Aya a number of times. She’d already guessed she wasn’t his fated one. No matter how she felt about—

No. Aya was not swimming down that road. This was a time for listening, for learning, for correcting her mistakes.

“So, that kid’s father probably broke the covenant.”

“Violators have always been dealt with harshly. That is another reason our choice angers the other mermen.” He set his jaw. “They have exiled brothers, fathers, warriors. Good mermen. How dare Atlantis not do the same? Oh, the dishonor.”

A harsh laugh snarled his chest.

She stroked the thickly inked, carefully wrought tattoos scrolling across his pectorals. For a strict, honorable male like Soren, betraying others must be the worst form of self-harm.

“Did you have to exile someone?”

“No. That is not how I lost my honor.”

“Then how—”

“It is done.”

His tone was not harsh. It was calm. Even. And closed with finality.

Right. Okay.

She drooped.

Soren said he liked strong women. He said her cold light was brisk and refreshing. He’d only transformed her to save her life, but now he stood by that decision and asked her to become his queen.

When he wasn’t planning to get rid of her on another guy.

But he wouldn’t share his dishonor. He wouldn’t share his orgasms. He didn’t want to “bind” her as the mother of his children.

He felt something for her. Some vulnerability he could not control. He was trying to keep her in a safe little box where their real feelings didn’t touch.

Fair enough.

She was keeping him at arm’s length too. So much as was possible, when wrapped around him completely.

“So that youth we saved will go back into the trench, find the megalodon, and lead it to Atlantis,” she said.

“Yes.” Soren’s long strokes ate the distance.

“What defense does Atlantis have against a megalodon?”

“What defense does any city have?” he growled, pulling the water to go faster. “To evacuate. Swim for your lives and pray you do not have pregnant females or vulnerable young fry.”

“That’s it?”

“That is all we have found.”

This sobering challenge seemed much worse than what she had worried about on the surface. Her next budget proposal? The board report on Sea Opal acquisition strategies? Had she really once spent two hours adjusting margins to make her report summary fit on the front and back side of a single page?

“The Atlantis Life Tree put forth a seed,” he said. “If Kadir grows a new tree before the old is destroyed, there is a chance he will survive.”

But where would King Kadir plant this new tree? If he founded a new city, wouldn’t his enemies just use the megalodon on the new city and destroy it, too?

Aya had to defeat the megalodon now. Somehow. Evacuation would be the backup.

Okay, then. Project Save Atlantis From Blake had failed. Project Save The Life Tree From The Trench had also failed. Now she had Project Defend Atlantis Against A Megalodon.

The budget was zero, time line was immediate, and the consequences for failure were dire.

And this one, she absolutely could not fail.

That gave Aya something to consider on the long, long journey back to the city she had already failed to rescue.

They crossed the vast ocean floor to Atlantis.

As before, Soren hunted food and ensured Aya remained safe and rested. They avoided a few deadly predators, and encountered nothing so terrifying as a megalodon.

On the long journey, Aya asked a large number of pointed questions about how the warriors of the past defeated megalodons.

“They didn’t,” he finally said shortly, skirting the ridge of a vast, deadly undersea methane lake. “They evacuated the city, and the megalodon eventually flew back to its trench.”

“But you know, you’re no longer in this alone. You have human partners. We have to fight back.”

“You think your human submersible will stand against the megalodon? It would have been swallowed whole in one bite.”

“That was a scientific research vessel. We have nuclear submarines. Bombs. Depth charges.”

“Their weapons would do as much harm to us as they would to the megalodon. In ancient times there were stories of warriors carrying poisoned water for the megalodon to inhale. Many warriors died, and the megalodon was barely affected.”

“We must have something.”

“Humans have nothing.”

“You don’t know.”

“I do know. You forget, Aya. We know what humans put into the water. Which submarine will journey down to us? And what payment will they require to do so?”

She crossed her arms, changing their shape and slowing him. “Van Cartier Cosmetics can pay. And they will pay. At least, for a few more months.”

“Megalodons are fast. The trench to Atlantis is closer than we wish. By the time you crossed the ocean to Miami, Atlantis might already be destroyed.”

That said, he would prefer she be far from the attack. The surface was not a bad place. He had wanted her to join the city when their only foes were mer invaders. The threat of the megalodon changed everything.

She melted against him, creating the aerodynamic shape again, and sighed. “My head is going in circles. Once I see Atlantis, maybe, I’ll have a new perspective.”

Then her perspective would change soon. He flew across the barren rock that marked the edge of the plateau holding the ancient city.

“Thanks for listening to my fruitless brainstorming,” she said quietly. “And not getting mad.”

“Why would I become mad? You are thinking of how to save my city. That is honorable as any warrior.”

She traced the Honored Defender of Dragao Azul tattoos marking his upper pectoral. Thanks to his scars, new lines had formed, transforming it from Honored Defender to Black Demon.

Appropriate.

Elan had complimented Soren on his fervent defense during routine trainings and had recommended him for promotion. Soren will serve justice without fail, he had told the hesitant elders. Your prejudice about his size and background is misplaced. He shelters weaker warriors and places the needs of the city above his own. I want him as my Second.

How wrong Elan had been. As he had discovered, to his fury.

As they all had.

Aya spoke. “Honor is important to warriors.”

“Honor is all we have.”

They crossed the plateau to the border of the ancient city.

She lifted her head with a gasp. “Are we too late?”

“This is ancient Atlantis.”

“Are you sure?”

“Humans build with stone and metal. If our new city was destroyed, only bare ocean would remain.”

The stone wreckage spilled across a vast distance. Broken towers, jutting beams, and crushed habitations looked as though a giant fist had smashed the city into the ocean floor. At this depth, current swept it bare, and it was too far from the sunlight or another source of energy to hold much marine life.

In ancient times, old Atlantis was a meeting place for mer and humans. They lived in harmony. With the flip of a lever, the city could rise to the surface or sink beneath the waves.

A thousand years ago, an unknown catastrophe had wrecked the city and mer-human relations. Humans began hunting the mer. The mer closed in on themselves, hiding their existence. And their queens died out, damning their race. Only a secret covenant formed with brides on sacred islands scattered across the ocean allowed their race to survive.

Until now. Modern times had emptied the islands, and the covenant had started to do more harm than good.

That was the principle Kadir had founded the new Atlantis upon. It was time to reveal their existence to the modern world and join with brides who came to them of their own wish. Brides who wanted to stay on longer than the birth of their young fry. Brides who wished to become queens.

Except Soren had transformed Aya without her wish. She had wanted to join with Kadir, not him. And he had refused her request to go to the surface or to return her to her undersea dive platform.

These were all crimes in Atlantis.

Once more, Soren betrayed those who most trusted in him.

And now, with the risk of a megalodon, he feared the wreckage of the old city foretold the future for the new city, too.

Soren crossed the wreckage cautiously. They were so near to their goal. Distraction now invited disaster to strike.

Aya squinted. “What’s that pinprick of light?”

His chest relaxed. “That is the Life Tree.”

“Oh.” She collapsed against him. “Then it’s okay. Blake didn’t destroy the base when he ripped off the top. The new city is still alive.”

Yes. Even though Soren had abandoned his warriors in the middle of a battle to rescue Aya, his enemies had lost. Kadir and Queen Elyssa had prevailed.

He kicked harder, revitalized by the distant, twinkling light of home.

Directly beneath him, four warriors flew up from the wreck.

Curse it. He had been distracted.

Soren jack-knifed to meet them. His patrols? No. He knew the aquamarine tattoos blazing across the leader’s bitter snarl.

“Elan!” He spit the name of the enemy warlord who had led the battle against Atlantis, distracting Soren while the human submersible attacked their Life Tree and injured Aya. “I gave you mercy and you dare to linger? You break all the rules of honorable combat.”

Elan sneered from beneath him. “The Demon of Dragao Azul dares to lecture me about honor.”

His insult cut deep. Soren had betrayed Elan in the worst way on the night he lost his honor. Elan was right to be angry.

Confronted with his rightful enemy, the heart cords in Soren’s chest squeezed.

He roared to attack.

Aya squeaked.

Soren kicked his fins, pulling back. He couldn’t attack with Aya in his arms.

Elan’s raiders surrounded them. Their long tridents shone with deadly precision. Daggers gleamed at the straps on their biceps and thighs.

Elan bared his teeth. “I have long fantasized about what I would do to you on the battlefield. You escaped me last time. You will not do so now.”

Soren growled. “Do not threaten a warrior and his bride.”

The other raiders shifted uncomfortably. They were warriors Soren didn’t know. But it was a huge breach to threaten a bride. A bride could be carrying a young fry. Brides and young fry were always to be treasured, no matter their origin.

Elan’s eyes widened. His teeth glinted. “Ah! This is your bride? Excuse me for speaking so roughly. Shall I take her to the surface for you once you are dead?”

His heart throbbed again. But his muscles clenched on Aya protectively. “Do not touch her.”

“No, no, no. I would never touch another male’s bride.” Elan lowered his trident at Soren. “I will only touch you.”

He charged.

Soren dove backward, kicking hard and twisting to keep Aya protected. The trident slashed his back. Fire seared him. He groaned.

Aya stiffened with fear.

Soren kicked to face Elan again. His lower back throbbed.

“General Elan.” One of the raiders grimaced. “You should not attack a bride.”

“I am not attacking the bride.” The male laughed without mirth. His eyes were flat with fury. “Soren is using her as a shield. All he must do is toss her to you. She will be returned to the surface where she belongs. Right, Second Lieutenant Soren?”

Curse Elan.

His former First Lieutenant, now promoted to General of the invading army, kicked to Soren with deadly intent.

Soren dove sideways, again twirling Aya. The trident pierced his side and ripped. New fire splashed up to his armpit and down to his thigh. He trembled, struggling to hold Aya, and panted.

Aya made a noise. She touched his bloodied side. “You’re hurt.”

“I am fine.” He gathered himself to face the enemy. He had to unnerve Elan and get his trident away — with Aya still in his arms.

Distraction…

Soren snarled. “Do you teach your son this dishonor?”

Elan’s face blanked.

The taunt hit the mark.

Blind fury poured into Elan’s body, shaking him beyond reason. He raised his trident. “Die screaming, betrayer!” He kicked.

“General Elan!” the other raiders cried and flew to stop him.

But they were too late.

Soren braced.

The attack went wild. The trident wobbled crazily. Which way to dodge? Elan was so out of control he no longer seemed conscious that Soren held Aya.

No choice. No time.

Soren darted to the right —into the path of Elan’s trident.

Elan’s mouth twisted in furious triumph.

The trident centered to pierce Soren’s chest.

Aya screamed and held out her hands. “No!”

White light erupted from her fingers.

The trident flew backward. Elan’s jaw dropped in shock. Then, the light zoomed outward in a circle, radiating like a shockwave. It caught Elan in the chest and smashed him back. It thumped the other raiders, knocking them sideways and off their fins.

It flew a little farther, then dissipated.

Elan’s trident fell out of his hands and dropped for the city.

The raiders laid still.

Aya lowered her shoulders. She checked Soren’s chest. The trident hadn’t pierced. She rubbed little scratches. “Are you okay?”

He also released his fears. “Better now.”

Aya was a powerful queen. She had the ancient abilities written about in legend, just like Queen Elyssa. He had been right all along.

She had to feel her power and believe.

Elan coughed and struggled to suck in water. His chest moved but his gills on his lower back fluttered as though he couldn’t draw in water. The other raiders moaned and righted themselves. They regarded Soren with new anger and fear.

“Leave us,” Soren growled at them. “I show you mercy. If you have any respect for my bride or for the rules of combat, do not return.”

“Respect?” Elan coughed again and stared at them. “That is no bride to respect. That is a monster.”

Aya stiffened.

Soren roared. “She is a powerful warrior! That is why we will beat you, Elan. All of you. Even if you destroy your honor by attacking us. Even if you dare to lure out a megalodon!”

In the distance, more warriors emerged from the surrounding sea. The bright lights of their souls glowed with the resonance of the Atlantis Life Tree. His warriors, hearing their battle, came now to their assistance.

Elan saw the newcomers as well. He snarled.

“We will return. I will have my vengeance!”

He dove for his trident, capturing it before it lodged in the wreckage, and flew after his other raiders, disappearing into the open sea.

“Am I a monster?” Aya asked softly.

“No. You are magnificent.”

She held him tightly. “I was so scared.”

“I know.”

He turned to his warriors and kicked. The Life Tree twinkled like a promise. Trust in Aya. His side and back burned, but the fire in his heart brightened.

He was unworthy. His dishonor could not be forgiven. He had hurt too many to be absolved.

But dwelling on it was like poking a scar until it bled.

Soren would stop poking that scar. He laid his honor to rest and buried it. The stitched over wound would glow with his bride’s light.

Yes. His bride.

He would convince her to accept him. He would convince her to join with him. He would convince her to marry him.

Aya had power.

She would protect the city. He would protect her.

There was hope.

It was hopeless.

Aya clung to Soren. He was bleeding everywhere, red tangy liquid gushing from his side and on his back, and he had almost died. That trident had aimed for his heart.

And like when the megalodon’s teeth closed on him, there had been nothing Aya could do.

Nothing but scream from the bottom of her heart, “No!”

And then, without any control on her part, lightning jolted out her fingertips and flew in a disk around her, shoving the trident and the attackers back.

Somehow.

The leader, Elan, called her a monster.

It was not the first time in her life someone looked at her like that.

“What’s wrong with you?” the opposing team leader had demanded when she beat them at ten straight challenges in the Math Olympiad in elementary school. Elan’s same horror had transfixed that girl. “Is your brain damaged?”

After elementary school, people grew subtler in how they judged her. Her project partners stared when she nailed a presentation she’d been practicing for weeks and they stumbled over reading their notes. Her coworkers snorted when she scored a major investor she’d been stalking. Their cheer was tinged by disbelief.

There was something wrong with her.

That’s why they went out to celebrate the new investment and she went home alone to her dark apartment to sleep.

Soren called her a powerful warrior.

Her blood hummed.

She quieted it.

He hadn’t been horrified at all. He’d been glorious. Her talent excited him. He said he liked strong women and she almost believed him. He was so powerful in his faith. Redeemed.

But that was his mistake.

For the first time in her life, she couldn’t reproduce the magic. How had she done it? Could she really just hold out her hand and scream?

No, she couldn’t. She’d tried that technique silently a hundred times on the flight back to Atlantis. It didn’t work once.

“Calm, Aya.” Soren stroked her back. “You fought well. You are a powerful warrior.”

“It was an accident,” she emphasized.

“No accident.” He laughed. “You channeled the power of the Life Tree. Queens do this. You are a queen. This power could defeat the megalodon.”

Her gut churned.

His faith was misplaced. She wasn’t powerful. She was scared, confused, and out of control.

This underwater world was violent. She’d never had to face physical violence before. It was frightening and strange. And she didn’t want to hurt anyone! Not on purpose or by mistake. She wanted to run away.

Now, Soren limped through the water, charging a second group of naked warriors. Friends or foes? Their tridents clenched at their sides looked just as sharp. They had daggers strapped to biceps and thighs. And, just like the enemies, the only stitch of clothes on their bodies were the markings of differently colored tattoos.

“Who are they?” she asked, clinging onto him tighter.

“That is Lotar,” he said, indicating the approaching leader. “Do you not remember him from the bride pageant?”

Yes, she remembered him. Back then, he’d been wearing jeans and flip-flops.

Now, he had a lot more on display. All of them did.

The quiet warrior reached them. He saluted by pinching his fingers together in loops and touching them in the center of his chest. His timberwolf gray tattoos matched his eyes. He focused on Soren. “It is good to see you.”

“And you, Lotar,” Soren replied. “Kadir is well?”

Lotar nodded and his gaze fixed on Aya. He made the salute at her also. His eyes did not leave her face.

It was like he didn’t even notice she was naked.

The other two warriors treated her the same way.

She recognized them from the bride pageant also. Their names were Iyen, the soldier with maroon tattoos who even now gazed beyond them as though intending to pursue the raiders, and Ciran, the warrior with forest green and coffee brown tattoos, who always appeared to be taking notes in his head, tapping his fingers together and calculating.

Funny, but after the first shock of the transformation, when Soren ripped her dry suit off, she’d never thought of her nakedness again. Yet, here she was, surrounded by guys with thick, tattooed cocks swinging in the current.

None of them were excited by seeing her bare skin. Maybe they didn’t find her attributes to be worth getting excited about.

Lotar studied Soren’s wounds. They had looked so bad before, but they were already bleeding less. On the surface, that would mean someone was running out of blood, but Soren didn’t look like he was about to pass out. Elyssa said the Life Tree made the mer hardier and heal easier. It looked like that was true.

Lotar turned toward the twinkling Life Tree and kicked slowly. The other warriors fell in behind them, guarding them. “We heard your struggle. Our enemy is persistent.”

“He attacks without honor,” Ciran piped up. “We cannot use your old patrol patterns. He guesses every one.”

“He would,” Soren muttered. “Elan was my First Lieutenant in Dragao Azul. His vendetta is personal.”

The warriors dropped silent.

“But do not fear.” His lips curved. “Aya wields the power of the Life Tree. She is the most powerful queen Atlantis has ever seen.”

The warriors all stared at Aya.

Her stomach twisted.

“I haven’t mastered control yet,” she snapped, more harshly than she meant. “Don’t expect me to use it on command.”

“You will.” Her harshness didn’t affect him. He stroked her back, sensitizing her to him. “Believe.”

Her stomach twisted harder. She wanted to believe. She wanted to have these powers. But Soren was so wrong. Her light was cold. She was dangerous.

The last thing she needed was this city relying on her to be some sort of savior.

Because she was not.

Just look at the city they were swimming into. She’d failed to save it once already.

Well…at first glance, it was hard to see a battle had been fought here. Actually, at first glance, it looked nothing like what she remembered.

When she braved the frigid darkness to reach Atlantis, she’d only been able to see as far as her flashlight. Which was not far. Warriors had emerged out of the darkness like bats flying across the pitch black sky, crossing in front of her high-powered beam and disappearing again.

The Life Tree had been this floating, off-white bulb. Blake’s submersible had knocked in the protective covering. Inside, the Life Tree had looked like an ugly, dull pile of sticks.

The only familiar face in the blackness was Elyssa. She’d emerged in the brighter lights of the submersible. An invading merman was strangling her. She’d silently pleaded for help.

Aya had lifted her spear gun and shot that evil invader right in the thick, fleshy, tattooed bicep.

He’d let go of Elyssa and dropped away. Elyssa had hugged her in gratitude, and then flew off, probably to rejoin the battle. The event had ended with Aya crushed in Blake’s claw, half the Life Tree scissored against her back.

Now, she was crossing a brilliantly lit field. And the light glowed from the resonant, holy white Life Tree.

It was reborn.

Beneath her, barren rock transformed into lush, green kelp forests and spiraling coral. Silvery fish fluttered and multi-hued jellies bounded along the top. Life teemed within the dense carpet. This life was possible because of the glimmering energy of the Life Tree.

It anchored to the mossy ocean floor on a thick stalk. The Life Tree bulb, she now saw, was shaped like petals around the inner white tree. Chunks of broken petals littered the anchor, mute testimony to Blake’s destruction and Aya’s failure to stop him.

Beyond the broken petals, the Life Tree was visible. White branches lifted hopefully to the ocean. Seeking warriors. Seeking her.

Staring straight into the light was like breathing incense in a cathedral while a deity sprinkled her with holy water. It was purifying, strengthening, and it made her heart swell with hope.

She had failed the Life Tree twice. She would not fail it again.

Beyond the Life Tree, two other orbs were anchored. According to her research, these “castles” connected underground to the Life Tree. They were significantly larger, at least five or six times, like planets orbiting an underwater sun.

“Where are patrols?” Soren growled at Lotar. “This is why Elan penetrated so far.”

“Queen Elyssa summoned us for an announcement,” Lotar replied.

Queen Elyssa. Aya’s stomach twinged.

Elyssa had trusted her. She’d relied on Aya to manage the bride pageant and keep her safe. And Aya hadn’t.

How could Elyssa ever trust her again?

Soren continued his conversation with Lotar. “Not you?”

The gray-eyed warrior glanced at Soren sideways. “I was on my way.”

Soren snorted, then grimaced and held his side. “I cannot tell if you are loyal or disrespectful.”

“I learned it from my commander.”

Again, Soren eyed him. The warrior didn’t elaborate, leaving them to ponder his answer.

Soren flew Aya to an opening in the middle of the castle. It looked like a pinprick from a distance, but was actually a huge tunnel that could fit all four muscular mermen across with extra room.

Inside the castle, Aya craned her neck to take in the amazing space.

Elyssa had described it, but seeing it in person was all new.

The inner walls of the courtyard were punctured with doors and windows. It was like being inside a villa, except the rooms went to the top of the dome. Cultivated gardens filled the courtyard floor.

Floating above the fields, a group of thirty warriors passed food containers, cut hunks of meat and vegetables inside with long daggers, and speared the chunks like a shish kebab. Small bits floated down beneath them on microcurrents to fertilize the fields.

This was the entire population of Atlantis. A tiny band of renegades not even big enough for All-Council city recognition.

They were all tattooed, proud, muscular, and completely naked.

The warriors noticed Soren’s arrival and crowded him with joy. Soren placed himself in front of her protectively.

“Let me through.”

A warrior with heartblood red tattoos pushed to the front and inspected Soren’s wounds. His mouth puckered as he tested the new scar tissue. His musings vibrated in his chest, just like all the other mermen speaking.

“Mmm. Fewer teeth embedded in your skull this time. You have all your limbs, and you are angry as usual… For being alone in the open ocean so long, you look remarkably well, Soren.”

“I would be more well, Balim, if I had been stopped at several entry check points by patrols.”

Balim paddled back, deflecting the responsibility. “There was an important announcement.”

King Kadir emerged from the crowd of mermen. “Soren, Aya. Welcome.”

Soren softened. “Kadir.”

The king looked better than he had at the bride pageant months ago. Then, he had been recovering from his imprisonment. Now, his cheeks were fuller, his ribs were less obtrusive, and his silver-tattooed skin glowed with health. He had survived the attack on Atlantis and Blake’s destruction of the Life Tree with a refreshed, revitalized appearance. His voice was firm and rich with command.

“You have returned at a good time, First Lieutenant.”

Soren shook his head. “Have you not given that title to an honorable warrior who deserves it?”

King Kadir’s smile broadened. “I have.”

He clearly meant that Soren was that honorable, deserving warrior. Soren seemed poised to argue, but instead, he clasped King Kadir’s arm in a gesture of close friendship. “I am heartened to see you so well.”

“It came at a dear cost. But I, too, am grateful for Elyssa’s powerful healing.”

Speaking of it, where was Elyssa?

“Aya!”

Elyssa’s voice jolted Aya like a bolt of electricity. Her cousin pushed through an opening between King Kadir and the merman next to him.

“You’re here.”

Her cousin’s voice was enough of a reminder of the surface world, where they had last spoken to each other, it forced her to face stark reality.

She linked her fingers in front of her. “Hi, Elyssa.”

Elyssa hesitated. “I thought you might not make it.”

Thought? Or wished?

Aya swallowed. The raw fear was painful in her throat. “Sorry.”

“Me too.” Elyssa barreled into Aya and hugged her fiercely, tumbling backwards. “I’m so happy you’ve come!”

Relief washed through Aya. Thank goodness. How had she ever doubted Elyssa? Aya had problems connecting, but Elyssa was universally forgiving.

They floated, rotating upside down. Aya wanted to close her eyes and rest on Elyssa’s shoulder, soaking in her cousin’s healing welcome the way she had been forced to accept Soren’s powerful embrace.

But to do that would be to take advantage of Elyssa’s kindness and obligate her to hug Aya when she most likely had better things to do. Aya stiffened and patted her shoulder.

Elyssa released her, proving she did have better things to do than to hang out hugging Aya all day, and smiled. Her kind face glowed.

“You came at the best time.” She grabbed Aya’s hand. “Can you transform your feet into fins yet? It took me forever to learn the first time. Today we’re celebrating! Sit by me and eat sea bream.”

Elyssa tugged her past the staring warriors to the abandoned feast.

Aya’s stomach rumbled. When was the last time she’d eaten real food? The small bites Soren had hunted for her, had staved off starvation. Before then, she’d eaten, what? A quick granola bar and coffee on the underground dive platform?

“That would be—”

A small, orange octopus shot to Aya’s face.

She pulled up short. “Oh.”

The house guardian gave her the side-eye, then trailed curious suckers along her face and tangled in her hair.

“Ow.”

“Benji, that’s Aya. Let go.” Elyssa tried to untangle the arms. “Sorry. She’s normally not so grabby.”

She was grabby. Grabby as the squid that attacked near the trench. Could octopi smell fear? Dogs could.

“It’s fine,” Aya said tightly. Never insult someone’s pets or children.

“Come on, Benji.” Elyssa tried to tease it away from Aya. “Give her a little room.”

Soren grabbed the small octopus and yanked it off, tearing a chunk of hair with it. “Off.”

What a relief.

“Ooh, Soren, Benji doesn’t like that.” Elyssa tried to make peace between them.

The small octopus thumped him in the chest. He rubbed the bruise with a grimace.

“See?”

Benji nestled in Elyssa’s hair.

Aya rubbed her scalp.

Elyssa patted her small octopus, grabbed Aya’s hand and led her to the place she had been floating before — right smack in the middle of the feast.

“Oh my god, you’re a mermaid now! Who could’ve guessed that back in elementary school when you started the Unicorn Mermaid Girls club?”

Wow, there was something Aya hadn’t thought about in a long time. “You know, there wasn’t actually a club until you joined our school.”

“You’re so sweet!”

But Aya hadn’t said it to be sweet. She’d said it to be literal.

When Elyssa had turned up at the private elementary school shortly after her dad married Aya’s aunt, Aya had talked up her “club” so much that Elyssa had begged to join. And Aya had deigned to allow her in with haughty superiority. Never minding there was only one other member —Aya—at the time.

Elyssa’s friendliness swelled their ranks to four members, then ten, then most of the class. All because Elyssa had that positive, friendly warmth that attracted people.

Like now, as she brought Aya to the place of honor beside herself and King Kadir.

Elyssa handed Aya her own skewer. “You must be starved. There’s so much to tell you.”

Aya took the skewer and bit into the top chunk of rich, flavorful meat. It was smoky like honey mesquite with a tasty kick. Heaven.

With her mouth full, her voice vibrated in her chest. “We have something to tell you too.”

Soren caught her eye. On King Kadir’s other side, he was clearly trying to talk about the megalodon privately, but it was impossible because of the other warriors fawning around and the healer stitching up his new injuries with a tsk.

“I’ll go first.” Elyssa put both hands on Aya’s knee and wiggled with news. “The most important thing is I’m pregnant!”

Oh. Wow.

Emotions slammed into Aya in quick succession.

Elyssa was pregnant? She would be a wonderful mother! Except Atlantis was under constant attack. Wouldn’t it be dangerous to raise kids here? Oh, and there was a megalodon.

“Congratulations,” she said unsteadily.

Elyssa’s smile wavered. “Thanks! I think.”

On King Kadir’s other side, Soren’s eyes widened. Pure horror crossed his face. “Your queen carries a young fry?”

King Kadir grinned. Pride crinkled the skin around his silver-flecked eyes and his white teeth gleamed. “Congratulate us, Soren. It is the dream.”

Soren swallowed hard. Apparently, congratulations were not on the top of his mind.

Was there some special danger to children, or was he worried about their young, weak vulnerabilities against the megalodon? Aya would make a note to ask.

“We found out when I went home for Thanksgiving,” Elyssa continued. “Blake’s in prison again. Kadir and I started a lawsuit against Van Cartier Cosmetics for breach of contract and attempted murder. And we decided: You’ll be our baby’s godmother!”

Aya choked. “I don’t have the best track record with children. Or any track record. I don’t want to screw yours up. I’d never forgive myself.”

Elyssa laughed and hugged her. “You’ll be fine! You’ll have Lucy’s to practice on first. She’s coming here to have her babies any day now.”

Another pregnant woman. Who Aya didn’t even know was pregnant. Coming to this city. Any day now.

Soren turned black with suppressed anger. He was about to burst.

Snarling about a megalodon threat would be bad. Starting a panic was the last thing anyone wanted.

Aya unwrapped Elyssa’s arms to face her cousin. “There’s something you really need to know. Coming here now isn’t safe. You’re still fighting raiders, and you’re not recognized as a city by the All-Council yet, and… other reasons.”

“Oh, I told Lucy all that.” Elyssa waved Aya’s objections away. “She’s determined.”

“Maybe you should talk again.”

“It’s probably too late. She left Oregon to sail here a week ago. We already received their last message through the echo points.”

This was a problem. A serious problem. Aya wracked her brain for how to reach Elyssa without outright saying, Stop Lucy and run for your lives because you’re about to be inhaled by a prehistoric shark.

“Anyway, I’ll be grateful to see her, too. We need all the extra help we can get.” Elyssa smiled sadly and twined her fingers with her husband’s long, silver-swirled ones. “I know you’ll help us figure out how to fight off the impending attack of a megalodon.”

Aya gasped. “You know?”

Shocks rocked through Soren in quick succession.

Queen Elyssa nodded. “You can hear it breathing sometimes. Lotar identified it. It’s creepy.”

“And you’re still here?” Aya squeaked.

“Blake killed Kadir’s Life Tree. I had to use the only seed to bring it—and Kadir—back from the dead. Luckily that’s my mermaid power! That’s why I’m so glad to see you.”

Queen Elyssa carried Kadir’s young fry. Another female was coming here to birth her young fry. Blake had killed the Life Tree when his submersible severed it but Queen Elyssa had brought it – and Kadir—back to life using up the power of the only seed. If the Atlantis Life Tree died again, Kadir would die with it.

They had to fight.

Kadir patted Soren’s leg. His smile was as melancholy as his wife’s. “It is heartening you have returned. We need more friends.”

“And you allow the other warrior and queen to come?” Soren snarled, stuck on the easy fact — that more brides and young fry were coming — than the hard fact that Kadir couldn’t evacuate. “In the face of this threat?”

Kadir grimaced. “It is their choice. I will not force anyone to leave or restrict anyone from entering.”

It was not his desire to damn anyone. Soren regretted his outburst.

“The megalodon has not attacked?” Soren pressed.

Queen Elyssa shook her head. “We sometimes feel this ugly wind blowing through the middle of the city.”

Aya pinched the bridge of her nose. “And you want to stay?”

“Well, not want to. But Kadir doesn’t have a choice.”

“You do.”

Queen Elyssa lifted her chin. “My baby is going to know his father and his mother.”

Her announcement rang across the courtyard. The warriors straightened, invigorated by her declaration. Most warriors never knew their mothers. To know both parents was a dream.

They would all help her wish come true.

“Anyway, it’s okay,” Queen Elyssa continued. “We have a foolproof plan. Now that you’re here, we’ll figure out an even fool-proofer plan. Fooler-proof. You know what I mean.”

Aya crossed her arms. “This isn’t elementary school.”

“Are you sure? We’re both kind of mermaids.” Queen Elyssa rubbed Aya’s forehead. “I think I can feel a horn growing right here.”

Aya’s serious brow lightened.

Queen Elyssa giggled.

Aya smiled. “You’re a nut.”

“One of us has to be.”

Their lights combined to a tinkling brilliance that silenced the castle like the holy shine of the Life Tree. Two women, their pure love and friendship, shining for all to see.

This was why the city had been founded. This was the dream behind Atlantis. Brides wanted to come, and queens stayed.

The rest of it — the queens’ healing connection to the Life Tree, their unusual ability to keep pieces of it alive that would otherwise wither, and their activation of its power to protect and defend — those were not what the mer had expected. Such powers had been recorded, but the history was so ancient it was easier to believe it was an exaggeration or a lie.

Now Soren knew the truth.

The queens would save them.

Even though every instinct fought against it, he would keep Aya in Atlantis. He would keep Queen Elyssa near Kadir. And he would welcome this newcomer, Lucy.

Lucy had been the first modern bride to join with a merman. Her acceptance of Warlord Torun even after his exile had started the groundswell of support in the other underwater cities that broke loose and formed an army. Together, they joined Soren and freed Kadir from the All-Council’s impenetrable prison. Many stayed on to found Atlantis.

And now, many were staring at him with the same faith, determination, and heart.

They would fight the megalodon.

Atlantis would survive. Somehow.

“Okay.” Queen Elyssa made a fist, the universal insult to start a fight.

Kadir caught her fist and flattened her hand. She smiled up at him, knowing she’d made a mistake and that he’d helped her — and his warriors were so inured to her accident they barely blinked.

“Well, we should do introductions. Then Aya can choose her guards, do the ceremony, and get some rest.”

Ceremony?

“You don’t want to work on our plan?” Aya pushed.

“You and Soren both look exhausted. And we already have one plan. You should rest while you can.” Queen Elyssa waved her forward. “Stand and make a welcome speech.”

Aya straightened her shoulders like a proud warrior and launched into a stirring speech.

“Thank you for your warm welcome during this difficult time. I will do my best to serve as your queen. Let this mark the beginning of a beautiful future between human and mer. Thank you.”

Her light shone with stunning brilliance.

Queen Elyssa cheered.

The other warriors listened respectfully. Soren swelled with pride. No warrior could doubt the strength of his Aya.

Queen Elyssa straightened again. “Now, we’ll do introductions. Then, Aya, you can choose which two warriors will serve as your personal guards.”

“Personal guards?”

“I hate to say this, but Atlantis isn’t perfectly safe just yet.”

Queen Elyssa had chosen Gailen and Tial for her personal guards after they defended her from raiders.

Aya looked out over the warriors. “I already know who I would like.”

The warriors shifted with surprise.

What? She had gotten to know them during the feast? Or the bride pageant?

Queen Elyssa also looked curious. “Already? Are you sure you don’t want to meet everyone formally?”

“I would like to, but it will not alter my choice. Would you like me to announce them now or wait until after the introductions?”

“You can announce them now.” Queen Elyssa smiled with mischievousness. “No need to keep them in suspense. They can turn you down, though.”

“That’s fine.” Aya turned to the gathered warriors.

They all straightened and puffed out their chests.

Soren understood the burning wish, the yearning to be selected. This was a different promotion, one that never happened in the old cities. There, the highest honor was First Lieutenant within the city, or possibly General outside of its borders.

Whose service would be noticed and honored?

Aya spoke clearly. “For my personal guard, I select Faier and Ciran.”

The two warriors startled. Across the courtyard, they looked at the others as though to confirm they’d been chosen, then, with a nod to each other, they kicked forward to stand in front of Aya and Soren.

What united these two? Why had Aya chosen them? They both clearly wondered, as did everyone else. Ciran had escorted Kadir to the bride pageant, and them into the Atlantis today. But she had never spoken to Faier.

Ciran arrived first. His brown and evergreen tattoos intertwined, and he formally made the salute of Atlantis. “I would be honored to accept this position, bride Aya.” His words were precise. Careful and thoughtful.

She nodded.

Faier moved more slowly. He had sustained injuries from the last battle. Not only was his face slashed with wicked scars, but the fin on his uninjured leg was now split. No doubt he still conducted his patrols, working three times as hard.

“I am honored.” He smiled quietly and also made the two-circles-adjoining salute.

“I hope guarding me will not interfere with your duties.” She looked to Soren for confirmation.

Ah! Could it be that she had chosen them because he wanted them for patrols? Tingles popped in Soren’s chest like tiny bubbles. She had listened at the trench. She valued his opinions. And, she wished to bring these warriors to him so that his work could continue even when they were guarding her.

“We will discuss the new duties,” Soren said. “After introductions. Line up.”

Her two promoted guards joined him, ranging behind Aya. Queen Elyssa organized the warriors. Aya shook hands with all, repeating their names and inquiring details.

“Zoan.” She shook hands with the last warrior. “Your twin brother is the one I shot with a harpoon gun during the last battle, am I correct? How will I know if he impersonates you and breaks into the city once again?”

The peach-tattooed warrior’s eyes gleamed and his lips quirked, sharing a private joke. “Do not trust the ‘me’ with a harpoon scar on his arm.”

Her eyes narrowed as though trying to tell whether he was being serious.

He kept his smile in place.

“I will have more questions for you later,” she said coolly, finishing with the introduction.

“I will have more answers for you later.” He flashed a white grin in his tanned face and flicked his fins, returning to the jostling warrior crowd.

Aya shifted to address Soren and her guards. “Are all warriors from Siyokoy so cheerful?”

“Many, yes,” Faier said swiftly, seeking to answer her actual question. “The warriors of the different cities do have tendencies. It is rare so many gathered in one place can exist in harmony.”

She nodded. “No one has fought a megalodon.”

A sobering thought.

With a sigh, she turned to Soren and lifted her arms. “It’s time to rest?”

He pulled her against him. “You are tired.”

“The sooner we sleep, the sooner we can discuss strategy.”

He nodded to Ciran and Faier to swim with them. They kicked to the tunnel entrance.

Queen Elyssa stopped him. “You still have to do the ceremony.”

Aya lifted her head. “I just did the welcome ceremony.”

“No, silly.” A smile broke over Elyssa’s face. “The marriage ceremony. To Soren. We’re going to have it right now.”

Marriage ceremony. To Soren. Right now.

Soren didn’t protest. No, he held Aya proudly. Ready and certain, just like when she had fought off the raiders. He wanted to marry her.

Warm bubbles fizzed in her chest.

A man wanted to be with her. Forever.

“No,” she said clearly.

Shock and swift hurt closed his face. He looked away, frowning, as though reminding himself rejection was what he expected.

Elyssa’s mouth dropped open. Even though her words vibrated in her chest. “No?”

Aya tightened her grip on Soren. She didn’t want him to misunderstand. “This is too sudden. Soren and I haven’t worked everything out. We’re both exhausted. If planning to fight a megalodon can wait for the morning, marriage can wait too.”

“Okay, but…” Elyssa worried her hands. “If you aren’t married, you can’t open your castle’s heart chamber, and raiders are a problem.”

“That’s why I have three guards.”

Ciran, Faier, and even Soren straightened.

She rested her head against Soren’s shoulder. “They’ll protect me from any threats.”

Elyssa relented.

Soren took Aya to her new castle. She nestled against him instinctively finding the bulges and hollows of his body where she fit. He kicked, sailing down the long tunnel out of Elyssa’s castle to the rest of the city. Faier and Ciran flanked them a few kicks behind.

He demanded she become his bride. Now he affirmed he wanted to marry her. Did he understand why she delayed?

Once, she would have accepted without a moment’s hesitation. If he’d asked her on the surface, during the bride pageant or right after.

Their relationship was completely different now.

She cared about him as a person. Not as a merman. Not as a warrior or as a trade partner. She wanted more.

She wanted everything.

Bright, holy light shone from the Life Tree, bathing the surrounding ocean. Its light was pure and calming. They flew to the new castle, a smaller bulb that glowed with an iridescent light. Soren followed the curve to a pucker in the wall.

“Press your hand here,” he said.

She touched the wall. It was cool and smooth like marble. The dent twisted to let her in. The portal widened and grew cavernous, almost as large as the main castle behind them.

“It has fingerprint recognition?” she asked.

“The castle has been imprinted with your energy.” Soren swam her inside.

The long entrance hallway opened into another vast courtyard. No tended gardens or dirt covered the floor. It had the new car, new apartment smell — if she could smell anything—and the hallways, doorways, and windows looked rough.

“No plants,” she noted.

“This is the first time it has opened,” he said, confirming her intuition. “I will organize a work crew to gather soil. Gailen is good at planting. You will have a harvest before long.”

So this was hers now.

It was huge. Like suddenly owning a lodge, or five hundred head of cattle, or a really big yacht. She had things she was responsible for. Things to take care of. Things to learn.

Aya released Soren and paddled around, exploring the features that called to her. Sharp, modern angles revealed storage pockets in the walls. One main hallway twisted down, leading to a dead end.

“That goes to the heart chamber,” Soren said.

The most sheltered chamber in the castle. Aya studied the dead end. The first warlord marriage caused the chamber to open, and then all subsequent residents could use its protection.

Aya rested on the floor of the hall, feeling the texture of the plant with her bare feet. Funny how she’d been underwater for months and her toes were smooth. Wrinkle-free. She wasn’t even a little pruney.

There appeared to be a small pucker on the dead end, like on the outside of the castle. She put her hand against it. Nothing happened.

He stood right behind her. “That is not how you open the heart chamber the first time.”

Her mouth went dry. Even though she was underwater.

Soren was the first warlord. He wanted to marry her. Would he try to convince her to marry him with his body? She rubbed her palms on her thighs. Would she let him?

She swallowed. Her chest vibrated. “I know.”

He moved closer. The hallway suddenly seemed far too small.

She turned. “Soren—”

Something exploded next to her hand.

She jerked away from the motion. “Ah!”

Soren made a startled noise and pulled her close. He palmed her head protectively, holding her against his chest with his other arm out in a defensive motion.

A small creature flew out of the hallway and disappeared in the courtyard. Faier and Ciran shouted.

“What was that?” she asked, muffled against Soren’s taut chest.

His heart thundered in her ear. “I do not know.” He flew them out of the narrow hall.

“I thought this was the first time the castle was opened.”

“It was.”

They reached the courtyard. Faier and Ciran peered in a jagged window.

Soren kicked to them. “What manner of creature is it?”

Faier answered. “It might be the house guardian.”

Soren grunted.

Ciran pointed. “There it is.”

The tiny creature exploded again. Soren released her and kicked once, hard. He caught the fleeing animal like a baseball, clapped in his large palms, and brought the squirming creature close to Aya.

“It is the house guardian,” he confirmed.

A tiny purple octopus pooled in his fists, ebbing first one way and then the other, like liquid mercury seeking the tiniest escape. It disappeared and he juggled it, grabbing onto the last bit of tentacle as it nearly got away.

“How did it get in?” she asked.

“They have their ways.”

Clearly these castles were not air-tight.

Faier and Ciran watched its antics. Faier said, “I have never seen one so skittish before.”

“You are right. Normally they are aggressive like Queen Elyssa’s.” He grabbed it again. “Ow. It is biting me.”

Oh. “Let it go.”

Soren released the tiny octopus. It flew laps around the courtyard as though looking for a superior hiding place and then disappeared down the dead end heart chamber hallway.

Huh. “Any more surprise guests?”

The warriors checked the rooms and halls of the castle, communicating their findings quietly.

Aya waited in the middle of the courtyard, free-floating. Her three big guards returned.

“We found no one, Queen Aya,” Faier said.

Queen? Her heart thudded. That was what Atlantis wanted. That was what Soren wanted to marry. Her, a super-powered queen.

She really hoped that Elyssa’s fool-proof plan didn’t hinge on Aya’s undeveloped — or was it anti-developed? — super powers.

“Very good.” She nodded at him and Ciran. “Thank you.”

They glanced at Soren.

His jaw tightened as though he were fighting with them about something. Soren turned to Aya formally. “Queen Aya. Faier and Ciran are rested. They should go to work crews and patrols while we rest.”

“Who will guard us?” Aya asked.

His teeth clenched. A flash of the hurt snapped across his face again. “I will guard you.”

“Then who will guard you?” she demanded. “I’m going to pass out like the dead. Your ex-boss is constantly sneaking past the city guards, and his vendetta against you is personal.”

His brows lifted in surprise. “You wish me to stay?”

“Of course I do. You’re my fiancé.” She nodded at her guards. “You two stay close. Don’t let anyone enter that tunnel.”

They both straightened and saluted using the fingers-looped-in-front-of-their-chests gesture.

She returned the salute. It was easy to do and clearly this was how the warrior culture greeted each other. “Thank you again for your hard work.”

They departed.

Soren gazed at her through dark brows. Tingles walked up her arms. The water grew heavy between them.

Like a coward, her heart raced behind her chest and hid like a little rabbit.

She made a show of stretching. “Well, I’m really tired. I’m just going to stretch out here on this bare patch of floor.” She lay down and closed her eyes.

Microcurrents brushed her body with the hot sensation of Soren. The taste of his skin. The rich anise flavor of his energy.

His quiet voice rumbled too near her sensitive earlobe. “Fiancé?”

She jumped. “It means we agree to marry but not yet. We have to set a date.”

He floated closer. She could feel him on her cheek, on her chest, on her shoulder. “The Life Tree is right outside. Come with me and speak the vows to join us.”

“Us?” Her eyes snapped open. He floated right there, gorgeous, and all she had to do was reach out and capture his mouth for her kiss. She rolled onto her back to face him head-on. “Us, Aya and Soren, or ‘Us,’ Aya-the-super-powerful-queen and Soren-the-dishonored-warrior-who-won’t-say-why’?”

He looked away, then firmed and cupped the back of her neck in his wide palm. “Aya. You are a powerful queen.”

“No, I’m just—”

“Believe.” He nuzzled her. Awareness simmered in her blood. “When you use your power, your soul light is so bright. There is only one other time it is that brightness.”

“When’s that?”

His hot gaze flicked across her body like a caress.

She swallowed. “Not that long ago you said you’d dump me off with some other guy in Atlantis.”

Possession flamed in his eyes. He looped her hand with his fingers, drawing her into his body. “I will never give you up again.”

His fire consumed her.

She clenched his scarred shoulders.

He rolled and pulled her onto him, straddling his taut abdomen. They floated on the bare, curved floor of the castle. He rested on his back, bobbing a few inches off the ground. Her knees kissed the smooth marble.

This was a powerful position. Desire uncoiled between her thighs and she throbbed. “What are you going to do?”

His hands skimmed her thighs, molding her nakedness. Rough, powerful hunger burned in his black gaze. “Make you mine.”

Her breasts swelled and her nipples tightened. How could looking at her, barely touching her, cause this intense reaction? She was love-starved and he really had enslaved her.

Well, okay then. She didn’t want to think any more. About the raiders, about the megalodon, about the things Elyssa thought Aya could do, about anything.

Right now, all she wanted was to fall further under his commanding spell.

His Aya was looking down on him with partially lidded hunger. Her pink tongue touched her full bottom lip in teasing invitation. She shifted, rubbing her soft, feminine folds against his trembling abdomen.

She would be his undoing.

Soren stroked her long, silken thighs. She was gorgeous and no longer running from him.

Yes, she delayed their marriage. But she considered him. She accepted his claim.

And she feared her power. She couldn’t analyze it, couldn’t direct it, couldn’t control it. She was uncomfortable with feelings. With closeness. He’d seen how she pulled away from Queen Elyssa. How she used to pull away from him.

She did not pull away any more.

He wanted to thrust into her now and empty his cock in her feminine heat. Make her his so she would never get away again.

He skirted her smooth buttocks and traced the soft planes of her body up her back. She closed her eyes and hummed. The sound vibrated in her chest, and her position highlighted her small, pert breasts. “That feels so good.”

His cock hardened.

He slid around her soft belly to her front. Her lashes fluttered. She allowed him to map her body, tasting and owning her adorable belly button, her flat belly, and the valley between her breasts.

Her lids parted and she gazed down on him. Her heart was beating loud enough he could feel her heat. Would she run from him if he made demands? Her soul light burned hot, urging him on. She was beautiful. Achingly desirable.

His cock throbbed. He slid his hand up to her neck, stroking the fine vertebrae with his thumb. She sighed with pleasure. He tightened on the back of her neck and dragged her down to his kiss.

She collapsed like a wave, rushing against him. Their mouths meshed and her lips parted, yielding to him before he could demand entrance. Her tongue met his, thrust for thrust, parrying. She tasted like purity and heat. He couldn’t get enough.

He worshiped the ivory luminance of her satiny-smooth skin. Her determined jaw, the elegant curve of her neck, the glimmering brilliance lighting her twin globes. She was more than he deserved. Smart and focused, determined and strong.

She braced her hands against his cheeks and rubbed her breasts against his chest. “Mmm.”

It lit him on fire.

He grabbed delicious handfuls of her buttocks and crushed her against him. Her little moans increased. Hunger, desire, need. She wanted him. He wanted her. He wanted to drag her back and spear her on his throbbing, hot cock.

She tore her mouth free and pressed kisses to his jaw. “Mmm, Soren.”

His name in her hungry voice sent shudders through him.

He was going to lose it.

“Marry me.” He growled in her ear and bit the lobe. She moaned. “Now. In front of the Life Tree. Become my bride.”

“I…” She gasped and kissed his neck down to his chest. Swirling his hard nipple with her delicate tongue, she brought another lance of desire to his throbbing cock. Her soft folds shifted down, to the edge of his shaft.

He gripped her. Her hip bones made a perfect handle. If she got any closer, he was going to take her like this. “Accept.”

“I want you.”

Her response shot fire through him.

He released her hips and arched with a groan. “Aya.”

She wiggled. The tip of his cock nudged her soft folds. “Take me.”

He forced her off, shifted to human feet, and tensed to push off the floor.

She stiffened and stopped him. “Where are you going?”

“The Life Tree.”

She blinked, frowned, and began trying to smooth her non-existent clothes, to get control of herself. “No.”

Hadn’t she just instructed him to take her to the Life Tree to be married because she also wanted him? He fought his instant reaction of pain. “You want me to take you.”

“Here.” She rested her hand on his knee and pleaded. She could see his pain and struggled to alleviate it. “Take me here. I want to feel you against me. Inside.”

“You want me,” he repeated. His heart slammed hard against his breastbone. “But not to marry?”

“Isn’t being engaged enough?”

No. It wasn’t enough. Not at all.

She begged him.

“Yes.”

She gave in with relief. Her kisses were just as sweet and desperate as moments ago. She was so relieved not to marry him.

He couldn’t do this.

But he needed to. He needed to go at her pace, to love her deeply when she was ready to be loved. At least she still wanted the pleasure she wrung from his body.

He couldn’t kiss her. He was going to break — or break down.

Soren thrust her away.

The shock in her face, followed so swiftly by rejection, showed him why he was going to continue. Soren stitched over the ridges of new scar tissue forming on his heart, yanked her close, and turned her. He locked her soft derriere against his hard cock.

She moaned. “Soren?”

He blew her hair out of his way and kissed her neck, savage in his need to possess her. She gasped and moaned. He kissed down her shoulder, curved his arms around, and cupped her breasts. Squeezing the soft mounds, he teased and pinched the pearly nipples.

She moaned again. “What are you doing?”

This time, he did not shy away. “Pleasuring you.”

Her soul light glowed red hot.

He licked her neck and kissed her again. Burning to have her. Truly have her. Forcing himself to be satisfied with only this.

She wiggled. “I want you. Pressed against me. Your cock. Please Soren.”

It was dangerous. Impossible.

He had to do it.

Letting go of one breast, he gripped his cock and threaded it between her legs. Her thighs slicked with her own juices. Being squeezed between them felt like a prayer. He pushed. His cock slid through and emerged on the other side, sliding against her hot nub.

She gasped and shivered.

This was torture.

Laying her soft body bare to him, she staked her love. Her truth shone with her beauty.

He held her in place so he didn’t accidentally slip and thrust inside her. He would not bind her with a young fry until she became his queen. This was as much as he could give. He held himself against her hot nub and thrust again and again, following the rhythm of her cries. His cock slipped hot and fast between her legs. He gripped her hard.

Aya cried and arched. Her body tensed. Her soul light shone brighter than the Life Tree. Again, just as before, her beauty washed over him. She was all he ever wanted. As a warrior, she was the fire he longed to rest near.

His balls clenched.

Curse it.

He shot backward, free of her luscious release, and clamped down on his own. He would not explode. He would not explode. He would not explode.

The unstoppable urge faded. His will prevailed. He contained himself and did not explode.

Aya rested in front of him on her elbows and knees, her buttocks still thrust beautifully up, revealing herself to him. She rose and stretched, curving her back sinuously. Her gills flared with a sigh.

She was so beautiful.

He nearly lost his control again.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. A lazy, powerful expression transformed her face into confidence. An orgasm did not make his Aya feel small or vulnerable. It made her invincible, shining brilliant as the sun, which was how she should always be.

“Again. I got all the good stuff and you got nothing.” She pushed off the bare floor and tackled him, pressing his shoulders into the bare castle floor. “I could at least finish you off.”

He did not need finishing. But he accepted her nearness and tugged her against his shoulder where she had fit against him. “Rest.”

She traced the tattoo swirls on his pectorals. “These are so intricate.”

“Honor markings.” He stroked her head and shifted to a more comfortable angle against the subtle curve of the floor. “All honorable warriors have them.”

“Oh?” Her tone teased him. “Why do you?”

He snorted. “I was honorable once.”

“Very honorable, if all of these tattoos stand for different accomplishments.” She trailed down to his ticklish belly.

He clasped her hand to stop her. “They are arranged in groups. Some are accomplishments. Some are battles. Some are deaths.” He regretted those.

She seemed to sense his sadness. Her voice lowered. “There is no choice on the battlefield.”

“Yes, it is rare to kill on the battlefield. Warriors who invade my city and attack my young fry or injure my elders, ask for death. So, I answer.”

She tapped the ink over his heart. “Soren. Why do you call yourself dishonorable now?”

He kept his eyes closed. He did not want to see her expression when she knew.

She waited.

He could not tell her this.

“I betrayed my city,” he said roughly, settling on a true but easier answer. “They put their faith in me and I abandoned them to join Atlantis. And I failed Kadir.”

Soren had been battling in another sea when Kadir was imprisoned. Kadir was one of the few who had never seen him as a monster, but always as a loyal friend. And Soren had done nothing to help him. Not until he had been recalled from the battlefront. While home, he had committed his dishonor, and only then had he sought to assist Kadir. Only then, when it was nearly too late.

“Failed?” Aya frowned. “Didn’t you raise an army and break him out of the impenetrable prison of the All-Council?”

“He almost died of starvation. And under my protection, the Atlantis Life Tree was severed. I betray everyone I serve. Atlantis is no different.”

She stroked him softly. His chest, clenched tighter than a fist, released under her quiet soothing. With her, he could relax.

Her soft voice nearly startled him awake; apparently he had soothed to the point of falling asleep. “Is that why you don’t want to sleep with me?”

Huh? He frowned. “I want to sleep with you very much.”

“No, I mean.” She swallowed and lifted on an elbow so he could see up into her blue eyes. She couldn’t hold his gaze, and kept skating away to study his forehead or cheeks. Anywhere but his eyes. “Sleep together like have sex.”

Ah. His heart thudded in his chest. Why was she asking? Did she wish for it too? “I want sex together very much.”

Her swift question framed her face. “But?”

“Until you choose me for your husband, I will not risk binding you with a young fry.”

“Risk binding…” She tilted her head, tracing his tattoos. “Is that what happened? You bound a bride who did not wish for you?”

“What? No!” How could she imagine such a thing? “Humans are fickle and take more than one lover. Mermen do not.”

Her face blanked in surprise. “Oh. That’s right. No, I was thinking in Dragao Azul maybe you had a bride.”

“Never.” There was only Aya. They were bound, for him, forever. “My mother did not wish for me. She did not love my father.”

“That’s not your fault.” She stared over his shoulder as though picturing the events of this past, and then she focused on him again. “You’re honorable.”

Ah, she was still trying to heal him.

“I don’t have any memories of my mom at home,” Aya continued. “She was always working. My dad left when I was three.”

“I had my father,” he said. “He raised me in the ways of honor.”

“At least you had one parent.” She stared out at the castle with a frown. “It’s one of the reasons I’m stuck. All my life I’ve been missing the special ‘thing’ that makes me able to connect with people. If you skip out on the critical attachment-forming step in childhood, it’s impossible to make it up later. And I worry about kids. Elyssa wants me as godmother to hers? Who knows how I’ll screw them up?”

He cupped her cheek. “You will be a great godmother.”

She softened, then stiffened. Her skepticism, natural self-preservation, refused to let her accept a compliment. “What makes you say that?”

He did not mind giving his reasons. “You have a fierce soul. You protect what you love. You are careful. When you meet Queen Elyssa’s young fry, you will protect him also.”

She swallowed hard. Her eyes reddened with emotion. “I don’t know.”

“Believe, Aya. And when you believe, your power will grow and you will become the queen Atlantis needs.”

Soren wanted a queen. Not Aya. A powerful warrior capable of clearing the battlefield with a sonic boom. The burning faith in his dark eyes singed her with sharp promise.

How ironic. The one time she found a man who loved her high achievements — instead of being emasculated by them — was the one time she couldn’t achieve anything.

If she could only figure out which muscle to flex, she would spend all her time becoming Soren’s powerful queen. And then, when she mastered her power, she’d marry him.

But if he rejected her…

Aya closed her eyes and turned away. Soren’s strong arm locked around her belly. His steady warmth guarded her back. Holding her loosely, comforting her but giving her room to breathe.

His love brought tears to her eyes.

Probably because she’d started thinking about parents, her mind drifted back to the last time she’d seen her dad.

He left when she was three and started a new family in the suburbs. No Christmas present, birthday card, or anything was sent her way. After he was gone, it was like he died. Or she did.

Until high school.

In her last year of the underage division of swimming, her name was published in the news as a competitor in the state meet. And for some reason, her dad had come. She saw him in the stands watching, and she knew it was him because she’d looked him up a few times.

It was hard to hide in the modern world. Everyone was findable online. Employee photos, directories, alumni reports. She’d wanted to know more about this man who’d dropped out of her life.

Apparently he’d wanted to know about her too. She resolved to show him her best. And so she swam her heart out and won first place.

After the meet, high with the congratulations of her coaches and teammates, she passed him outside the building and stopped. He was standing by himself, a loner like her, smoking a cigarette pinched between his middle finger and his thumb. She didn’t realize he smoked. He looked up and caught her eye, and she took that as a sign to approach.

He jerked his chin at her medal. “You won.”

She clenched the gold disk tightly.

His gaze shifted beyond her. “Your mom here?”

Aya shook her head.

His gaze narrowed. “Guess you’re just like her. Don’t need anyone. You’re fine without me.”

Her heart stopped.

He tossed the cigarette on the ground, crushed it out with the heel of his scuffed brown loafers, and headed to the parking lot. Dead smoke curled from the smashed wreck of paper. It looked the approximate size and shape of her heart.

That was the last time they talked.

She threw her first place medal in the bottom of a winter ski clothes box and shoved it under the bed. She quit swimming a month later to concentrate on her studies.

What was happening on the surface? To her company? To her old life?

Did her dad know she was gone, or care? Did her mom? Did anyone?

Here, beneath the waves, she mattered.

Unless she failed. And then Soren would throw her away just like everyone else.

The memory faded with a shudder.

Aya opened her eyes.

An empty green sky spread above her.

She was not in bed.

But she was lying on her back, meaning she had also not slumped over her desk. Had she fallen off her chair and was staring up at the plastic underside? She closed her eyes again and rubbed her forehead.

On crunch weeks, she tried to schedule sleep on an ergonomic pallet she had installed in a private room off her main office. Fewer embarrassing markings on her forehead when she awoke in whatever position she found herself.

It was strangely silent. The air conditioner ran most hours to cool the Miami offices, and even her apartment had a constant electrical hum. This was silent like the power had gone out. No computers humming, no phones vibrating, no distant lawn mowing company manicuring the lawns. No nothing.

She opened her eyes again. Cavernous empty green canvas. She rolled over.

A huge, black tattooed warrior lay face-down beside her.

Her location and everything about her situation slammed back into her. She rose and hugged her knees.

She was on the bottom of the ocean, on the bare floor of her own empty castle in Atlantis, attracted to a powerful warrior who took pleasure in sending mixed messages. What else would she call a man who wanted her but refused to sleep with her, promised marriage but refused to tell her the most important details of the past?

Soren slept in a funny way. Chest down, neck cricked at an odd angle, face mashed into the bare floor. How did he breathe? Slits on his back showed the location of his gills. She touched the skin next to them and they closed up, seamless on his back as if they didn’t exist. It was how he could walk around on land breathing air like a human. A few moments later, they opened again, flaring with a deep sigh.

Like her, he was leery of letting down his guard. Declaring his desire was one step. But he was still about as emotionally available to her as a mannequin.

A hard-bodied, tattooed, bulging mannequin.

How could she trust in him if he couldn’t trust in himself?

Her stomach rumbled.

She bounced to her feet and pushed off the floor, paddling toward the exit. It took a long time to go a little distance. How funny. When she was in Soren’s arms, she zoomed. She’d taken that mobility for granted.

As she neared the tunnel leading to the outside, she saw Faier resting in the middle holding a bag. With two powerful kicks, he crossed the distance to her side. “Queen Aya. How was your rest?”

“Disorienting. It felt like I slept a week.” Then, a thought struck her. “Did I?”

He lifted his eyes up to the left, calculating.

That was proof enough. She slowed. No wonder she was hungry. “Is there anything to eat around here?”

“Queen Elyssa worried about you.” He opened the bag. “She left this.”

It was filled with the foods she remembered from the previous…well, not last night, exactly. The last night she was awake and eating at the main castle.

“Oh, wonderful.”

He led her to a small, hollowed-out room someone had smoothed and set out the foods. Ciran joined them. She went straight for coffee-flavored beans. Mm, tangy decaf.

“Have there been any changes?”

The two warriors looked at each other. Faier shook his head. “Nothing significant.”

“Call Elyssa.” If she’d wasted a week sleeping, they had to work right away. “Let’s start planning.”

Ciran pushed off, unfurling his fins and kicking for the tunnel.

Faier smiled softly.

“What?” She stuffed food into her mouth. It was weird to be able to speak clearly with her mouth full.

He looked up, startled, then considered his response. “You are very different from Queen Elyssa.”

Hmm. With a solid week’s rest and a filling belly, she could analyze his statement without becoming emotional about it. “I bet her light is warm.”

“It is…”

“But?”

“You are different,” he emphasized again, and folded his hands.

How diplomatic.

But there was nothing wrong with diplomacy. It beat loud-mouthed emotions any day of the week. She liked that both Faier and Ciran were calm and thoughtful.

She tested his willingness to answer honestly.

“Why am I and Elyssa both called a queen? Elyssa is married to King Kadir.”

“Because you will stay,” he replied.

“My title is based on residence status? Not on hierarchy?’

He frowned and scratched an old scar at the base of his neck. “In ancient times, many queens ruled each city.”

“And kings?”

“The king is a direct descendant of the first king who planted a city’s Life Tree.”

So, only one. Interesting. “Were there ever any queens who couldn’t use their powers?”

“Before Queen Elyssa used her power, I thought the legends were mythical stories. Now I am pleased to be wrong.” He smiled.

The smile transformed his face. Worry lines at the corners of his soulful, dark eyes smoothed. His forehead relaxed, and his lips quirked endearingly at the edges of his full, expressive mouth. He looked young, charming, and confident.

Then, it faded. He abruptly aged under the weight of several tragic lifetimes. “If a queen had been present at the volcano that consumed Nerissa, perhaps she could have saved the city.”

Nerissa was Faier’s original city. After its destruction, he’d taken refuge in the mer city Rusalka and even earned the right to take his own bride, a rarity for immigrants. But then he was injured while defending the city, and they had rewarded his loyalty by throwing him away. He’d come here, to Atlantis, out of hope to someday have the chance to find love, become a father, and belong to a city that truly wanted him regardless of his scars.

Aya had cataloged those details from Elyssa’s early reports on all the mermen. She’d refreshed her memory briefly at the feast.

She put out one more hard truth. “I hope you’re not relying on Elyssa and me to save the city using our super powers. Because we’re just two people. And I’m not able to control mine. It’s better to leave now and save yourself. Don’t you think?”

His dark eyes flashed. “No.”

“You’ve survived a lot, Faier. You should know how to manage a disaster.” “I will not flee another city, driven before the tridents of my former friends. I will not watch my king screaming in agony as our Life Tree is extinguished along with his life. I will not go even if I am ordered.” He slammed his palm to his chest. “This time, I will not be the last to die. If it comes to the end, I will fight for King Kadir’s Life Tree inside the megalodon’s belly.”

Faier had lost everything twice. He was not going to be a last survivor a third time.

Inside his scarred body, she saw the proud young warrior determined to conquer any odds.

All the warriors of Atlantis had a story like him. Something had happened to make them dare to join this rebel city. Some tragedy or opportunity. Some promise.

What was Aya’s story?

“Well, good,” she said, turning her thoughts away from herself — a dangerous no man’s land right now — and mowing through her breakfast like she hadn’t eaten in a week. “I’ll rely on you as the final line of defense because I’m not sure anyone else would have the courage to keep fighting under those conditions.”

He blinked and then lifted his chin. He understood she was serious. “I will.”

“After Atlantis is recognized as an official city, we’ll quickly re-establish a bride program. I see no reason to delay any longer from introducing an infinite number of brides.”

His eyes bugged.

“I’m so glad to hear you say that.” Elyssa swooped into Aya’s courtyard. Her beautiful fins unfurled in light pink, the color of cherry blossoms “I knew once you heard their stories, you’d get motivated to help. And with you in charge, it will actually get done.”

Aya’s chest squeezed. Elyssa’s faith always made her want to try harder. “First things first.”

“Yes. Who’s that adorable creature?” Elyssa pointed behind Aya.

There, squished into the upper corner of the room, were two big eyes. They blended into the green wall so well she hadn’t noticed. But at Elyssa’s point, as though realizing the game was up, the colors shimmered to purple. It was the tiny purple octopus.

“It’s the house guardian,” Aya said, using the mer identifier.

“What’s her name?”

“She didn’t come with one.”

Elyssa laughed. “You have to give her one. Come here, you adorable, beautiful little girl.”

The tiny octopus puffed up, reacting to the kind warmth in Elyssa’s tone, and crept close. Elyssa held out her hand. Tentatively, the octopus reached out one tentacle and suctioned her fingers.

“Do I taste good?” Elyssa asked.

The tiny octopus jumped at her question and darted to the courtyard.

“Oops! I didn’t mean to frighten her.” Elyssa craned her neck to watch the tiny octopus do one, two, three laps of the courtyard and then disappear into the hallway leading to the heart chamber again.

“She’s not friendly,” Aya said.

“No, she’s cautious. Maybe you can call her Scoobie Do.” Elyssa smiled after the disappeared octopus. “Feed her a Scoobie Snack and she’ll get brave enough to take on the biggest monster.”

“I hope so.” Aya tapped her index finger on her lips. “And I also hope your fool-proof plan isn’t to rely on my mermaid powers.”

“Oh no.” Elyssa laughed. Warriors carried a large 3-D map to help plan. “It’s resting on something way less certain.”

Soren stretched and groaned.

He knew his location instantly upon waking. He was in Aya’s castle, resting on the bare ground, alone.

Warriors gathered above. Their murmurs reached him. They were plotting, strategizing.

Unlike sleeping in the courtyard of Kadir’s castle, which was filled with all variety of warriors talking and joking, only intent conversation filtered down to him.

It was like being back in Dragao Azul at the barracks. He had spent so much time there honing his skills, yearning for the day when he would stand beside Elan as a worthy First Lieutenant, never realizing that he was seeking the wrong goal. A goal that would end in blood, tears, and destruction.

The sensations of the conversation moved across his skin, dark and intricate as his tattoos. Familiar, serious.

Dangerous.

Because if he allowed himself to follow the wrong path again, not only would one warrior such as Elan suffer. All of Atlantis would fall by his dishonor.

He used his human feet to push off the ground, shifted to fins, and kicked. The great space echoed.

It was a war council.

Aya’s guards rested at either side of her, and Queen Elyssa’s guards cheery Gailen and serious Tial floated beside her. The others included Balim, Lotar, and Iyen. They all circled around a carved, three-dimensional map of the city out to its borders.

Queen Elyssa was speaking. “—and the patrols closest to the Blacknight trench heard the megalodon right before Blake’s submersible attack on Atlantis.”

Lotar saw Soren approach and brought his hands together in the salute. Soren returned it.

Gailen spoke aloud first. His cheery smile flashed. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

“Sleepyhead?” Soren rumbled, while he returned the salutes of the other warriors.

“Oh, Gailen, that’s a term of endearment only for close family members,” Elyssa corrected. “Like Aya could say it. Hello, Soren.”

Aya fixed on him. A heat pulse flared across the map, communicating from her to him and back again.

What is your dishonor? It was too late to undo his mistake. There was no reason for her to ever know.

He swam to Aya’s side, acknowledged the others, and rested his hand on her thigh.

The other warriors noted his possessiveness.

“Continue with the conference,” he growled.

Aya looked at his hand on her thigh.

Queen Elyssa gestured at Gailen. “Hand Soren something to eat.”

Gailen tossed him provisions and Soren consumed them one-handed, not removing his other hand from Aya. The others watched as he used his knees and feet to accomplish this feat.

Aya focused on the Atlantis map again. “To summarize, we have no defenses against a megalodon. Correct, Elyssa?”

“Not a one.”

“Their teeth can bite castles in half and make short work of the Life Tree. But King Kadir is stuck here. So, our only choice is to stop the megalodon before it arrives.”

Lotar nodded.

“So the megalodon was frightened by the noise of the submersible.” Aya rubbed her forehead. “One of us should really go to the surface and get another one.”

“There’s no time,” Queen Elyssa said. “It’s literally breathing down our door. Besides, I have a better idea. We’ll raise Atlantis!”

Everyone lifted their chests. Raising the ancient city was the reason for founding the new city in the shadow of the old. One day, they would finish excavating the old city and once more raise it to the surface. Human and mer would mingle. Harmony would return. All warriors would find their brides. The mer race would flourish.

“That’s seriously your fool-proof plan?” Aya asked flatly. “Hasn’t the city been underwater for a thousand years? Do you know how corrosive salt water is? Or coral? And wasn’t it wrecked to begin with? Isn’t it a project for hundreds of people, not thirty-five?”

Queen Elyssa lost a little sparkle. “I know it’s a long shot, but it could work.”

Aya pinched the bridge of her nose. “I think I felt better when I was afraid you were relying on mythical superpowers.”

Queen Elyssa brightened again, filling the conference with warmth and light. “Well, that’s Plan A, of course.”

“How have you progressed at the ruin?” Soren asked Balim.

“I have studied engineering diagrams.” As a healer who knew how the body was engineered, Balim could grasp how the muscles of a city flexed and relaxed. “The ancient city was raised in three stages. King Kadir is with a work crew now, unearthing the first lever at the ruin.”

Aya frowned. “What about the raiders?”

“They are a problem,” Balim acknowledged. “Some warriors watch for them while the rest work.”

“I will assist.” Soren removed his hand from Aya. “Go to your stations.”

With all the options discussed, the group moved. The warriors cleaned up the food and Iyen tucked the map under one arm.

“Wait.” Aya held up her hands. “Just a moment. I have a few more questions.”

“Aya, we have no time.”

She glared up at him. “Okay, then answer me. What happens if we can’t raise the city?”

“You will use your powers to—”

She put her hand on his chest, stopping him. “That’s what I thought. Sit.”

They returned uneasily to their conference.

She rested her hands on the map, spreading her fingers across the raised territory. “We’ve discussed scaring off the megalodon. But is it possible to control the lure instead?”

His stomach turned. The other warriors whitened.

Tial gaped at Aya. “Queen Aya, you wish to violate the Seven Cities Treaty and destroy another city instead? The All-Council will never recognize us.”

“No, I…” She tapped her lips. “The All-Council takes away city recognitions from those who violate the Seven Cities Treaty?”

The warriors nodded.

“I was going to suggest we lure the megalodon back to the trench it came from. But now I’m really wondering.” Aya tilted her head and then the board. “Dragon Mar is risking its city status to attack us.”

“We are not a recognized city yet,” Ciran pointed out.

“But we could be. You had an adviser helping you, right?”

“He turned against us,” Tial said.

Aya frowned.

“And you mean Dragao Azul.”

“The lure is from Dragon Mar.”

An uncomfortable silence followed her statement. Cities so far away, working together to end Atlantis, was worrisome.

“You do mean Dragao Azul,” Ciran finally said. “Dragon Mar may experience some censure because of the lure, but the General leading this attack is from Dragao Azul.”

Heat flared in Soren’s chest. “Elan appears in front of me again and he dies.”

Aya placed her hand on Soren’s. “It’s still a risk. Atlantis isn’t the only city near a trench, and warriors have lost control of megalodons before. Why would Dragao Azul risk losing their recognition to destroy a small, upstart city of roughly thirty-five warriors?”

They were all silent, contemplating that question.

Soren knew one immediate answer. It was personal. Elan hated him so much for what Soren had done, he had left Dragao Azul with the sole mission of destroying him and all he loved — not realizing that Soren was already destroyed, or not caring.

The others tried different answers.

“Dragao Azul needs its warriors back,” Gailen suggested, and jerked his thumb at his fellow guard. “It is why the Newas raiders keep trying to kidnap Tial.”

The dark evergreen warrior nodded.

Soren snorted. “Dragao Azul does not want us. If they destroy Atlantis, they lose Kadir. I will die fighting. They get nothing.”

“Dragao Azul is embarrassed,” Faier offered.

Lotar studied the board silently. He and Iyen had little to say. They were quick observers, effective in battle, not meandering thinkers.

Aya tapped her fingers on the map. “Embarrassment is a small thing in comparison to losing city recognition. “

“I have seen decisions made for worse reasons,” Faier said. “King Kadir encourages all warriors to give their best qualities regardless of rank, and he has forged many rules to empower his warriors. Unlike the kings in other cities, he does not take away their power or crush their souls.”

The other warriors nodded, agreeing with Faier’s assessment.

Soren thought the truth was a little different. Kadir had always been a visionary. He saw ancient Atlantis, the original city of humans and mer living in harmony, as the only way their race could continue. And he saw listening to Queen Elyssa as the only way to thrive.

Queen Elyssa’s perspective had already changed the expectations of how a bride should behave. She had revealed their blindness and stopped their enemies from exploiting it. Now Aya’s perspective was forcing them to examine what they believed and expected from an honorable war. Their enemies did not appear to be honorable. What they were blind to, she forced them to examine.

Aya met Faier’s gaze. “Is the ruling hierarchy so strict that one person’s embarrassment could doom a whole city?”

His lips pressed together in regret.

Soren answered. “In a city like Rusalka, yes.”

Iyen nodded shortly. He had been born in Rusalka. Obedience was ingrained in his bones.

Soren had to add his thought. “Elan could be acting alone.”

Aya glanced up at Soren. He braced himself for her question. Why would he have been so furious that he would act alone?

Instead, she asked, “If a single warrior threatened their entire city, does Dragao Azul have no mechanisms in place to stop him? Force him to return?”

Ah. That wasn’t what Soren expected at all. He stared at his open hands. Of course Elan could not act alone based only on his hatred. “They do.”

Elan was a father. He had begged for his life on behalf of his son. All the Dragao Azul elders had to do was threaten his child and he would have returned immediately.

That meant Dragao Azul had decided to attack Atlantis.

And he was likely to see Elan again.

His guts clenched.

Aya nodded, even though she couldn’t know what was going through Soren’s head. “Can anyone go to Dragao Azul now, find out why they’re willing to risk their city status on destroying us, and convince them to call off their megalodon?”

“No.” Soren answered for all of them. “But there is a faster option. We could go hunting. Find the raiders and capture Elan.”

Lotar and Iyen met his gaze. They were clearly willing to try.

“You do not know where they are,” Ciran pointed out. “And taking a sufficient hunting party out of Atlantis weakens our defenses.”

An excellent point. Soren acknowledged Ciran.

He flushed with the recognition.

Lotar rose and left without a word.

Elyssa squinched her lips to one side. “He’s not going off to find the raiders and steal Elan all by himself, right?”

“He is skilled,” Soren said, because it was obvious to any warrior that Lotar had just decided to do so. “Lotar has the best chance.”

“What? Gah!” She wheeled and swam to the tunnel. “Lotar, come back here!”

Tial made eye contact with her other guard, Gailen, and flew after Elyssa.

The rest stared at the board. Although the odds against them were overwhelming, Soren felt clear-headed for the first time since he’d left Dragao Azul. Instead of fleeing from one defense to the next, he was looking at a larger picture. There was room to move. To think. And to form an effective counter-attack.

He hadn’t had that confidence in a long, long time.

Since just before his dishonor—

No. He would not think of it.

“Now the conference is done?” he asked Aya tightly.

She nodded, frowning. “That’s everything I can think of.”

Soren issued commands. “Iyen. Faier and Ciran. Plan the patrols with Lotar gone. See if it is possible to trick a lower level raider into being captured. Even the lowest ranked enemy may know something useful.”

The trio nodded.

“Balim and I will assist Kadir at the ruins.”

The healer rose with a stretch. “I will collect my trident and meet you at the edge of the city.”

“Gailen, organize a work party to fill Aya’s castle with soil and plants. Someone needs to sand these edges to make it livable.”

Gailen nodded.

Aya held up her hand to stop him. “The castle can wait. Concentrate on our defenses.”

“You will need food.”

“Atlantis needs a plan. I’ll go to Elyssa’s castle at meal times just like everyone else.”

But if Aya did not have that sustenance in her castle, then it would remain barren and unlived in, with sharp edges that never softened.

She touched Soren’s chest. “Decorating and wallpaper can wait until peacetime.”

Very well. If that was her will, he respected it. Even if it felt like another rejection.

She removed her hand and paddled toward the tunnel. “I will assist you at the ruin.”

Soren’s blood pumped hard. “Never!”

Aya pulled up short. Soren’s shout had edged with panic. “Never?”

“You stay here.”

Here? In the empty castle, all alone? She crossed her arms. “I need to see the engineering schematics.”

“It is too dangerous.”

Aya didn’t disagree. Traveling outside the city in the middle of a brewing war was dangerous, and she never wanted to see that terrifying warrior Elan ever again. But what could she do in this empty castle all alone?

“We crossed the open ocean,” she said.

“And nearly died how many times?”

“Oh, Aya won’t make my mistakes.” Elyssa swam behind them. She had apparently given up on catching Lotar. “I thought I ought to have the same ‘shelter’ power as Lucy. I didn’t realize there were different queen powers.”

Right.

“I will not repeat that mistake,” Aya vowed. “Since I currently have no powers whatsoever.”

Soren growled. “Forget it.”

He was so illogical.

But it was also heartwarming.

Soren was trying to protect her. She was the hard-hearted VP. On the surface, nobody worried about her well-being. She wanted to curl up in his arms and stroke his chin. Thank him for caring. Press a kiss to his inflexible lips and tease him into relaxing that hard stance into a more delicious form.

But she couldn’t ignore their need. “I can translate ancient symbols on the ruin.”

“There are no ancient symbols. They were all destroyed.”

Balim checked his stroke and returned to Aya. “Symbols? What kind of symbols?”

“Ancient Phoenician.”

“Which is?”

She pointed at the map tucked under Iyen’s arm. “Like on there.”

Iyen lifted the map.

She pointed at the markings on the three-dimensional terrain. “There are markings for the castle, Life Tree, and fields. I’m guessing there was only one castle when this map was created.”

Balim traced them with his fingers. “Yes, that is correct. How do you know these markings?”

“I studied Phoenician in school. And when the mer race emerged a few months ago — well, longer now — I was not the only one to notice the similarities between Phoenician and the few fragments of your writing system. It makes sense. The Phoenician were a sea-going people about the right time period for when Atlantis was destroyed. They carried their writing system all over the Mediterranean, which is where the legend of Atlantis originated.”

Soren grunted. His respect for her sounded even prouder. “Few warriors learn these symbols. Kadir studied. Elders know them.”

“Adviser Creo made this map,” Gailen offered helpfully. “Back before he turned evil.”

She traced the familiar symbols. “This ‘X’ and backward curved ‘P’ means ‘House.’ This flag with a tiny ‘O’ beside it is ‘Tree’ and these four symbols that look like different forms of ‘Y’ and another tiny ‘O’ means ‘Temple.’ A ‘tree temple’ is the Life Tree. These flat plains over here have the marking of ‘Z’ - triangle - ‘W’ stands for ‘Field’. I’m guessing these are the borders of your land.”

“Were.” Soren thumped the map symbols. “We gave up the sherds field. Too isolated and attractive for raiders.”

They looked at her with awe. Soren, with pride.

So she proved her worth. And rather than looking at her like a freak or monster, these warriors were impressed.

Finally, she had found something she could do. Something useful. Something she could control.

“I can read the symbols like this on the engineering schematics at the ruin.”

Soren disagreed. “You cannot.”

Oh, come on. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Give me one reason.”

“If we get attacked you cannot swim to safety.”

“That’s why I have two guards.”

Faier and Ciran both swelled with conviction.

Soren sobered. “They would give their lives for you. Do not ask them so recklessly. You should at least make your fins and control your power.”

It was frustrating. But Soren had a point.

He was trying to reason with her rather than just getting hurt and demanding she obey, as he had done at the beginning. He was changing for her.

Not enough. But it was a step.

One she couldn’t fault him with.

Balim rubbed his fingers over the symbols the same as she had done. “I will watch for these symbols and transcribe them for you to review.”

“Seeing them in context is the best.” But she wasn’t going to push it any more. She gestured at Soren with irritation. “So you want me to sit around and tend a garden while you figure out how to raise an ancient ruin and fend off a monster?”

He started to answer.

“Of course not! Silly Aya.” Elyssa kicked to her side. “You have to make your fins. Come to the Life Tree with me. We’ll practice.”

Her fins were another frustration. She still didn’t know which muscle to flex. All of them? None?

Ciran and Faier discussed who would go with Iyen to plan patrols and who would stay to guard her. Elyssa headed to the tunnel and waited.

Soren turned on her. His dark gaze captured her wandering thoughts until there was only him.

“This could be our last meeting. Will you not choose me for your husband now?”

Her heart throbbed hard in her chest.

No one was promised tomorrow.

She lost her senses in Soren’s dark hair. His intimate gaze. The firm line of his mouth. They all called to her.

And that was dangerous.

She would face the danger if only he would give the pieces of himself she needed to trust.

Aya lifted her chin. “When you care enough to mean that, I’ll consider it.”

“I mean it.”

He was so powerful, so magnificent, and so gorgeous. Her heart throbbed again. She wanted to say yes. She would have him.

But she wouldn’t have him. She would never have him. Like the ancient languages major. When they were together, the bed never felt so empty.

She might be filled with Soren’s love now. But if she gave her heart to him this way, they would end up the same. Neither satisfied. Both still hungry for something the other person would never, could never give.

He was tempting enough she almost chose the life of heartbreaking emptiness.

Instead, she reached out and placed her palm on his chest. “Would an honorable warrior say that?”

He jolted like her question contained electricity. His gaze flew over her face, her body. A war seemed to be waged inside. He grabbed her hand.

She started to apologize.

His other hand locked around her neck and dragged her to his powerful kiss.

Passion exploded between them like liquid fire.

Aya chased the dangerous anise flavor, coating her tongue in Soren’s sweet liqueur.

He stroked her mouth rhythmically, surging and conquering her. Their naked flesh rubbed together, hot and slick. She wrapped her arms around his massive shoulders and her legs around his hard core.

He was the smartest, most powerful, strongest male she knew. If he yielded to her right now, she would give him everything.

He groaned and pulled back. His pupils dilated and his control seemed dangerously close to the snapping point. “Marry me.”

She was just as hard-headed. “The truth first.”

His intent gaze dropped to her lips. His wide palms spanned her shoulder blades and cupped her buttocks, pressing her against his taut abdomen. Desire warred with a more fragile emotion. The same one that tripped her up.

Fear.

He edged into agony. Whatever he had to tell her, he was so certain it would end their relationship he already felt the loss.

“Fine.” She pulled back and turned to Elyssa…

…and discovered they were alone. The others had cleared out of the castle, leaving her and Soren to make out or fight. Which was very nice of them.

The look on Soren’s face said he would use this sudden alone time for fighting.

Her heart broke.

She pushed away and swam to the room where they’d been planning. Aya padded across it on her human feet. Maybe she could use it somehow to practice her fins.

Soren followed her. “You do not really want me.”

“You don’t want to be honest with me.”

“I am honest.”

“Lies by omission are still lies.”

He frowned so hard his eyebrows threatened to slide off his face. “No. The truth is, you will never want to be my bride.”

They were back to that.

Her body craved him. Possibly because he rejected her so hard. She had never been satisfied with things that came easy. She took them for granted, the way she had with Elyssa’s friendship. She ought to have ditched her cold, mean, loveless mother years ago and entered psychotherapy to learn how to achieve warm, healthy, viable relationships.

So, yes, she wanted Soren more now than she had on that flat rock next to the trench. What did she have to do to prove it? Seduce him?

Hmm.

The water around them already felt hotter, sweeter, more sensual. His anise flavoring teased her tongue and she craved a taste.

In all of her other relationships, she never made the first moves. Even the dead languages major invited her out first and stuck his tongue down her throat in the back seat of his friend’s Beamer. And here, in the water, although she forgot because everybody else also was, she and Soren were already naked.

His swallow sounded loud in the small, hot room. “Aya?”

She pivoted to him. His eyes were dark black with awareness. She touched his ankles, skimmed her hands up the gorgeous, hard, rippling muscles, and moved between his knees.

“Aya. What are you doing?”

She looked up at his fearless face. This was the man she chose. She chose him. His beauty, his terror, his arrogance, his protection. Whether he wanted her or not. This was her man.

“Nothing.” She pressed a kiss to the center of his chest, the place where he could see her light, but where she could only see the looping of his accomplishments, recorded in the shape of so many tattoos.

He rumbled dangerous pleasure. “It is not nothing.”

“I’m finishing what we keep starting.” She kissed down his divots and muscles. His flavor filled her mouth, and need tingled in her feminine places. She clasped his hard, thick shaft and licked the tip. Her hot center clenched.

He groaned and gripped the ledge.

Yes. That was how she needed him. The throbbing ache in her own body demanded it. She bobbed her mouth over his mushroom cock head and licked the long length of him. Her hand stroked his shaft. Her center ached. She gripped her mons to control the need, and touching herself made it spiral even higher. She moaned.

“You cannot do this.” He gritted his teeth. His eyes grew black with hunger. “I must not release.”

She needed him to.

Her hand pumped him while her other hand ensured her dual pleasure. He stared at her with such naked wanting.

She chose him. She chose him. She chose him.

He groaned, clenched, and exploded.

His hot male sauce filled her mouth. She grabbed him with both hands to keep him contained. After all, maybe he was right to worry about pregnancy.

He spent his load and gasped. Her mouth remained around his girth. She pulled back and then she had a mouthful.

This might be the only piece of him she got to keep. She swallowed.

It was salty and creamy and slightly anise-flavored. Like him. It warmed her belly in some indefinable way.

He stared at her blackly.

The day he wanted her to carry his children would come. He would spread her legs and fill her with his thick length and take her to the edge of orgasm and beyond. She imagined the hard, slippery, solid inches of him filling her. She touched her aching, unsatisfied bud. Her lower body throbbed with need.

“You are unsatisfied now,” he said.

“You could do something about that.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on chasing the good feelings he had evoked. It was not hard. She reached out to squeeze his masculine length.

Her knuckles bumped against his face.

She opened her eyes. He was studying the way she slid her fingers across her aching bud.

Full of desire, he also looked uncertain, as if he no longer knew what was right or wrong. “Is this, then, my duty?”

Having a hot male between her legs, kneading her trembling thighs, was definitely good. “It’s polite to reciprocate.”

He nudged her hand away, parted her sex lips with his large, reverent fingers, and latched onto her eager bud.

Pleasure streaked to her center. “Soren.”

He stroked her with his tongue and teased her with his lips. How did he do this? The intensity with which he pursued her orgasm arched her back and slammed the hot, delicious, shivering rainbow of sparkling wonderfulness. She gave in all at once. Fireworks burst in her brain. This one was even better than what he had given her before. It now officially took the spot for best sex of her entire life, and she still hadn’t gotten his gorgeous cock in her.

He kissed her belly and rested his chin against her belly button. “In Dragao Azul, I was the one assigned to return Elan’s bride to the surface. My elders said if I performed this duty honorably, I would be promoted to First Lieutenant and would receive Dragao Azul’s next bride for my own.”

Aya stilled. This was the story. Soren’s dishonor.

“So you disobeyed their orders?” she said, pushing aside the warm, yummy haze and focusing.

“I obeyed them.”

“You completed your assignment?”

“Yes.” He withdrew and rested his back against the wall, his legs extended in front of him. “The covenant requires a bride to be returned to the surface as soon as she has produced a young fry. Elan’s bride wished to remain.”

Aya rose and straightened, sitting straight up with her weight on her legs Japanese-style. It was easy, being virtually weightless underwater.

“Where was Elan?”

“With his newborn young fry. It is rare for a new father to return his bride to the surface. The newborn madness overtakes them.”

“Newborn madness?” Aya repeated.

“Where a father refuses to return his bride to the surface and intends to keep her with him forever. It wears off within a few days.”

The shocking part was where it wore off. There was a reason King Kadir had founded Atlantis on the principle that brides didn’t have to be forced to the surface after they produced a merman’s offspring.

Aya held her poker face. “Go on.”

His brows darkened and his lips pulled back into a battle grimace. “If she had known how to operate her fins and capture her queen power, we would not have been able to contain her. Or, if she had been rested since the birth—”

“Are you saying a group of warriors attacked a woman right after she gave birth?”

“In Dragao Azul, brides have always wanted to return immediately. Some do not wish to look at or hold their young fry. Like my mother.”

Aya could think of a few possible reasons for that.

“When I received charge of Elan’s bride, she had injured several warriors and was trussed tightly to prevent her from damaging anyone more.” His face clenched like a fist. “We took turns dragging her to the surface.”

“We?”

“I and the other two warriors in the barracks that night. Dosan and Uvim. Good warriors. Young, but hardened. The whole journey, they said not a word. She spoke enough to fill the ocean with her anger.”

Yes, Aya could guess about that. If her own newborn baby were ripped out of her arms and then she was bound and dragged for the surface, but her mouth — well, chest — was left free, she would have quite a few things to say.

“I…” His chin wrinkled. He cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. “I did not conduct myself well. I ignored her injuries and her pain. She was a bride who had brought a young fry into our city. I did not honor her the way I should.”

Aya waited.

His chest expanded. He got ahold of himself and removed his hand. His eyes were rimmed black with agony.

“Some of her words upset the warriors, so when we reached the surface and put her on the shore, I told them not to worry. Once she reacclimated to the air world, she would forget us and our ways.”

Surely that went over well. “And?”

“She cursed us.” His expression turned haunted yet noble. Reciting the words. “She said our brides were purchased with blood. The sacred covenant was unnatural. She would go back to Dragao Azul and steal our children. Where was our honor? Such honorable warriors trussing a bride and dumping her on the beach like a dead animal.” He twitched.

Her heart hurt.

He was in so much agony from this one event. Insulting a person he should have venerated.

In a warrior culture, males lived and died by respect. Honor meant everything to them. For Soren, disrespecting a person was a crime. His agony was as intense as Aya’s when she realized how her submersible was going to be used against the city by Blake. And Soren had gone just as crazy as she had once she made the realization. She’d set up her family company for destruction. Soren had raised an army and founded a city that shook the very foundation of mer culture.

Aya’s anger at the company had cooled. Maybe it was because her life had totally changed as a mermaid. The things that had seemed so important once weren’t. She hoped Elyssa’s lawsuit was successful and that the people responsible faced justice.

Soren’s regret, though, was as raw as the day he had made his mistake.

She curled her hands in her lap. Was it best to rub his arm or hug him? She didn’t comfort people. Ever. And she hadn’t been the recipient of much comfort either.

Well, except from Elyssa.

Oh. What would Elyssa do? Aya uncurled her hands and rubbed her palms on her thighs, psyching herself up for it. “That sounds difficult to hear.”

His brows lifted. They were past the hard part for him and now onto the summary. “She was right. Where was the honor in this battle? I had been serving the wrong elders blindly, blackening my soul with every fight, and this was the nadir. I returned the other escort warriors to Dragao Azul, and I left.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“Now you see.” He tipped his head back and rested it against the curved wall. His gaze reached hers, letting go of hope, lighter from his sadness. “What I have done to another male’s bride. You will never want to be mine.”

She bit her lip. “No. I don’t see that, actually.”

He blinked. His sad smile froze.

“I don’t see that at all.”

Aya didn’t see how insulting a new mother, then fighting against the city and elders who had raised him, betrayed the founding principles of an honorable warrior.

“I left Dragao Azul,” Soren emphasized. “The worst betrayal is a warrior disobeying his elders, shunning his king, and abandoning his own city. It is even worse than cowardice.”

“Yes, I get that part.” Aya rubbed her hands on her thighs again. She regarded him seriously. Not with the sadness he feared. Not with the horror and disgust he most worried about. “To summarize, you completed an assignment that caused you a grave moral injury, so you left Dragao Azul and founded Atlantis.”

Ah, that is how she misunderstood. “I was not injured. The bride—”

“Yes, you were.”

“No. The bride was already bound when I escorted her, and she was too exhausted to attack us when we removed the harness on the beach.”

Vivid details assaulted him. The scent of blood on the salty water. The paleness of her face as she cursed him. And later, back in the king’s castle, the way Elan had cried greasy tears and crumpled to the floor. Elan would forget, the Dragao Azul elders promised, as they handed Soren his promotion to First Lieutenant. His bride would too.

But he knew the truth. His promotion, his future bride, everything was purchased with her blood. I will never forget. Neither would Soren.

“I received no physical injury during that assignment,” he said.

“Not a physical injury, a moral injury,” Aya leaned forward and pressed her palm against his chest. “That bride made you realize your actions were not in alignment with your beliefs. You’re still suffering from it.”

He liked her palm there.

She was trying to tell him she wasn’t horrified. She wasn’t afraid to touch him. She wasn’t secretly thinking he would hurt and betray and disrespect her too.

But the bride was only a small portion of his dishonor.

On the swim back to Dragao Azul, Uvim and Dosan had chatted quietly about meaningless things, but Soren had spent the whole swim going insane.

Up was down and wrong was right. All the things he’d wanted were evil and all the honors he’d pursued were a farce. He’d devoted his whole life to obeying the wrong elders, enforcing the wrong rules, defending the wrong city! He should have welcomed invaders and helped them rip the Life Tree out by the roots.

The only one who would understand him was Kadir. His longtime friend, a male obsessed with the ancient golden era of queens and Atlantis. He’d been imprisoned for those beliefs, and to break him out was suicide.

After Soren had reported the completion of the assignment and the elders told, “Good job, here is your honorable promotion,” he was furious enough to charge at death bare-chested.

And he had been that way ever since.

That was the true betrayal. Dishonoring the bride was bad. Questioning his elders was worse.

“I have no rules,” he said. “No elders. I refuse the title of First Lieutenant. No code of honor binds me.”

“Of course one does.” Aya tapped her fingers, one at a time, on his chest as she enumerated his rules. “You protect Atlantis. You protect King Kadir. You protect your fellow warriors. You protect me.”

His throat constricted. She was not right. He was dishonorable. He fought the emotion welling beneath his chest. “I refuse honor. There is none in me. I disrespect everyone!”

“Okay, let me ask you this.” She scooted closer until their knees touched. Proving, again, that he didn’t frighten her. “If you hadn’t taken that woman to the shore, what would have happened?”

“Punishment,” he said. “I would have been disciplined.”

“No, I mean, to her. Would she have been allowed to stay with her husband and child?”

“Someone else would have taken her.”

“Someone else like those two young, hardened warriors, Dosan and Uvim?”

He had to stop a minute and think back. The hard pounding of his heart didn’t help. Why couldn’t he remember who else was on duty that night?

The First Lieutenant was the new father, and his second had been injured in a previous battle. Some warriors were off fighting, others would have had to be recalled from home.

In the barracks were untrained youths and the old trainer, who rarely swam more than a few clicks. He had just returned with news of the battle. Dosan and Uvim were the only ones. And it had been dicey because five were required for an open ocean swim, and they’d left with only three warriors and an injured bride.

“It would have been those other escort warriors,” she guessed. “The ones who were upset by the woman’s harsh words. You tried to protect them by telling them she would be fine.”

“No.” That was not why he had said those words. He had been a bad person. Insolent, arrogant, certain of his duty. “Wrong.”

She arched her brows. “How?”

“I have been unworthy my whole life.” The emotion shuddered in his soul, and only by speaking these truths could he force it down again. Lock it up in his hard chest. “From my birth. I tried hard to be honorable, and everyone could see it was a lie. They were right. They were always right.”

She rested her other hand on his knee. “They?”

“The elders. Peers. My father. My mother refused to look at me or hold me. She knew what the others soon saw too.”

Aya crawled on top of his lap, resting her knees on either side of his waist, and her other hand on his chest. Both hands on his heart. “Isn’t it likely that she was more like me?”

He frowned, gripping her waist to shift her so she rested more securely on his outstretched legs. “In what way?”

“Don’t you think that, knowing she had to give you up, she pushed you away to protect her own heart?”

Could this be?

A painful pop sounded behind his heart. Like a bone, long dislocated, pushed into alignment. Everything shifted and his chest swelled. A dangerous emotion flared. It would not be contained.

Aya slid her hands up to his jaw, cupping his face. His rough skin caught her soft fingertips, but she didn’t shy away or complain. He captured her hand to keep her from hurting herself on him. Her blue eyes seemed to stare through his defenses right into his soul.

What if his mother had wanted him so much she couldn’t stand her grief losing him? Could it be that he had never been bad? At all?

Sharp pain spiked in his nostrils. The prickles raced to his eyes. What was this sensation? It was like biting into a hot pepper. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.

“It is…my fault,” he managed.

“No.” Aya stroked his jaw with her free hand. “It’s not your fault.”

“I…hurt…everyone…”

“You are a protector at your core, Soren. You tried to protect the warriors under you. And when it was too late, you realized you should have protected the other bride, too.”

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t do this. This was too much. It was the reason he never thought of these things. Thinking about it broke him.

“I will hurt you.”

Her soft lips pressed against his.

He lay there, afraid to touch her, afraid not to. His control trembled. If she pushed him right now, he would have her. Lay her down, hold her in his arms, bring her to orgasm writhing under his tongue and groaning his name. He had already become too familiar with the softness of her skin, the taste of her feminine sweetness, the sounds of their lovemaking.

She eased back, perhaps surprised at his passivity, or concerned.

He was just grateful for this. Every moment of this. She would soon realize that she was wrong and everyone else was right. And his past would disgust her, too.

Then, she blurted, “I forgive you.”

Soren’s eyes snapped open and he stared at her in shock.

Aya could have bit her tongue. Was she completely nuts? I forgive you. Where the heck had that come from?

Soren wasn’t asking for her forgiveness. But the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the only thing she could do. She didn’t have a time machine to change the past. Reason and logic only went so far. Soren needed a therapist. Or a support group. Or even a spiritual mentor.

Instead, there was only her.

“I mean it,” she said. “You made a mistake. You’ve shared your regrets. You’re trying to live by principles you agree with now. I forgive you.”

His eyes widened even farther. Bug-eyed, almost. He teetered on the edge of either losing it completely or actually beginning to believe her.

And as if he couldn’t take that thought, he leaped up, pushing her off — but ensuring she was safe and didn’t go flying, which proved that even in the hardest shock he still took care — and bolted.

Well.

This argument wasn’t over.

Aya grabbed the ledge, flung herself out, and kicked off, chasing Soren across her courtyard. “You’re still a good person.”

“I am bad!” he bellowed. His fury reverberated like a heavy bass in her chest and the castle walls shuddered. “A mad, bad, disreputable, terrifying, mindless, battle-lust-filled berserker. A monster!”

Well, sure, he was covered in terrifying tattoos, and technically, mermen were listed as fairytale monsters.

“But a good-hearted one,” she said.

“You worked to exhaustion and have become mentally deficient.” He slammed his index finger at her chest. “And that makes me fear for your safety. You are restricted to your castle. Not the city, not the Life Tree. You may not leave here. Your castle.”

He was trembling.

“Fine then.” She crossed her arms and turned up her nose. “I guess if I can’t leave here, we can’t get married.”

He blinked. Then frowned. Then frowned harder. “You…”

A sudden shaft of fear sliced into her. Shouldn’t he be happy she finally agreed to marry him? Now, he hesitated and seemed conflicted.

Had he changed his mind?

“Merman warrior!” Ciran flew into the courtyard. His eyes were white with panic. “Mer—megalodon. It is coming!”

Her heart stopped.

Ciran rushed to Soren, his salute lost in panic. “Behind me. The noise. You can hear it. It is not turning aside!”

“Get everyone out of the city!” Soren ordered. Ciran wheeled to obey. “Gather around the Life Tree. Make for the old ruin!”

Soren scooped Aya around the waist and flew out of the courtyard after Ciran. The tunnel zoomed by. Her heart raced and she could barely get her breath. Soren burst into the city.

A high-pitched noise, higher than at the trench, seemed to suck the air out of the oceanic sky. An unnatural current floated loose moss and fish in a direction it had never gone before. The castles and the Life Tree shifted on their anchors.

The other castle exploded with panicked mer. Warriors fumbled tridents and strapped on daggers as they swam.

Elyssa and the peach-tattooed warrior Zoan emerged from the Life Tree sanctuary, meeting with the gathering warriors. Soren kicked to the middle and shouted. “Form partners. Swim to the old ruin. Go!”

The warriors saluted and swam.

Zoan floated beside Elyssa, who was otherwise without her guards. Soon it was just the four of them. Soren’s head whipped from side to side, up and down, searching the ocean.

“Where are your guards?” he demanded.

“Faier and Tial are at the old ruin,” Elyssa answered. “Ciran and Gailen have just now gone to see the megalodon.”

“What!”

Aya felt sick. She’d liked both the warriors.

“They hope to learn more about who’s guiding it and why.” Elyssa cupped her elbow and stared to the distant horizon. Under the water, they could see for miles. Nothing was visible now. Only the eerie noise. “In case this is another false alarm.”

He growled. Fear and anger blackened his scowl. His grip on Aya tightened. “They are going to get themselves killed.”

“I think they felt like they had no other way to contribute.” Elyssa smiled. “Everyone wants to feel useful.”

“I would have given them another way! If the megalodon sees them, it may no longer be a false alarm, regardless of what our enemy wants. We must go to the ruin. Now.”

He swam with Aya.

Elyssa didn’t move.

Zoan also remained. Mischief twinkled in his eyes, as though wondering how long it would take Soren to realize he was being disobeyed.

It was not long.

He returned to Elyssa in a new fury. “Leave.”

She patted his bulging bicep. Her smile took in Aya also. “You know I can’t.”

“You cannot fight a megalodon!”

They argued, Soren shouting and Elyssa holding her ground.

Aya understood a little how Ciran and Gailen felt. This problem was insurmountable. There was so much to do and not enough people to do it. She too had been angry to be denied going to the ruin. What else could she do?

The warriors of Atlantis had sacrificed so much already. Leaving behind their cities, forfeiting their futures. She had destroyed her family’s company, but these warriors had already given up their homes, their fathers, and their very heritage.

She had to help them. Not just for Elyssa or Soren. For all of them.

For herself.

She interrupted the helpless argument.

“Elyssa. Your ‘power’ is healing.” Aya considered the monstrous Life Tree, the size of a cathedral below her, and still asked the question. Because someone had to. “Is it possible to uproot the Life Tree and carry it with us to safety?”

Soren jolted.

Zoan also looked white.

Soren answered. “Uprooting the Life Tree is how a monarch is executed and a city is erased.”

But they didn’t have super power-wielding queens in those other cities.

Elyssa looked down, tracing the size of the Life Tree. Her answer was soft over the constant wind tunnel of the megalodon. “Severing a small part of the Life Tree almost killed Kadir. His body turned black and cold beneath my hands. There was nothing I could do.” She looked up at Aya with shining eyes. “I would rather fight the megalodon with my bare hands than go through that again.”

So, no then.

Soren sputtered about Elyssa’s answer. “Bare hands are useless.”

“You should cultivate a more offensive power,” Aya said.

“Maybe that’s your power,” Elyssa replied, ignoring Soren. “I’m surprised, Aya. You were a state champion swimmer, second in your graduating class at Harvard, and you harpooned a merman in the arm during an undersea battle with a submersible. These are not ordinary accomplishments. Yet you’ve been underwater for four times as long as I was and you still can’t make your fins. Are you sure you’re really trying?”

Heat washed over Aya. She struggled against Soren to face Elyssa completely. “I haven’t had time.”

Elyssa shook her head, tsking. “Would the old Aya have said that?”

“I don’t know which muscle to flex! Look, it’s not my fault.”

“Excuses, excuses.”

“I haven’t needed to go anywhere fast.” She turned in the direction of the wind. “Until now.”

Elyssa swam up to her and poked her in the back. “Making your fins is the first step in capturing your power. Because once you feel it in your fins, it’s the same feeling to use your powers. Only stronger.”

But she didn’t know. She was trying to plan a defeat of the megalodon and worry about the city and heal Soren and…

Excuses. After all.

“Well, no time like the present to learn,” Elyssa said.

“Good. You train her,” Soren said, “while we all swim to the old ruin.”

“I’m not going, Soren.”

He snarled to fight with her.

An excruciating shriek, as loud and terrifying as a bomb going off, sliced across the city. The old ruin trembled. Dust puffed. The water darkened.

“They did it,” Zoan said aloud.

Elyssa smiled. “Good job, Kadir.”

The current changed direction and the inhaling noise abated. The megalodon had turned aside. Tinkling stillness, the holy radiance of the Life Tree, blanketed the city like an answered prayer.

Elyssa let out a huge sigh. “I, uh, need to calm my heart. I’m going to meditate with the tree if that’s alright with all of you.” She descended into the Life Tree sanctuary.

Zoan saluted them, relief shivering in his face, and joined Elyssa. He apparently spent most of his time tending to it and guarding it anyway, and did well at both jobs.

No time like the present to learn.

Aya wiggled. “Let go.”

Soren growled. “You are going to your castle.”

“No, I’m going to the Life Tree sanctuary. I’ll meet you at the ruins — with my powers and my fins.”

Soren released her with a growl about staying behind in the city where it was safe.

“Better raise the second stage quickly then,” she called after him.

He kept swimming. From behind, he was all power and muscle and black fins.

She would soon join him.

Aya paddled down, passing the broken petals that had once sheltered the young Life Tree. Blake had broken them, crumbling the marble-hardened petals with the submersible. With half its dome missing, it was wrecked but still beautiful, like the Acropolis.

Inside, she followed the remaining curves down to the tree.

From above, its bare, wintery-white branches radiated out. According to reports, a fully grown Life Tree would drip Sea Opals like white Christmas balls and put forth water lily-style blossoms full of nectar.

When she’d been a human, she hadn’t been able to see or hear anything. She had bumbled around in the cloistered, cave-like, frigid, blinding darkness. The Life Tree had looked like a weird stick. The petals enclosing it had looked like a fragile shell. She’d thought Elyssa had been lying. About everything.

Now, she heard the holy sacredness. The tinkling that shushed the background noise of the ocean, and laid a calming, holy peace over her heart.

As she descended to the white dais where the Life Tree anchored, she noticed all that and more.

Blake’s damage became starkly obvious.

The stump of the old tree had been hacked apart, sawed and splintered by Blake’s ugly submersible claw. The new tree grew from the stump. Although both were holy white, the old tree had a sheen of silver mixed in. The new tree had silver, but also cherry blossom pink undertones. They were mixed, and they were both growing. The stump put forth branches and new sapling stretched radiantly for the sky. It was as though their united energies made them stronger and more resilient. Two trees united and growing as one.

Aya wasn’t sorry to have stood up to Blake and lost her life defending it.

Her human life, anyway.

She bounced on the white dais floor. “It looks great.”

“Thanks.” Elyssa stuck a long pruning knife into the ground.

It was made of a metal they called adamantium and stopped the salt of a cut exposure from leaking into and poisoning the tree. When Blake had ripped the tree in half, Elyssa had cauterized the stump by cutting it off below the poison.

“Even I’m surprised at my green thumb.” Elyssa frowned up at the broken ceiling. “I’m thinking about whether we should try to enclose it again. I’m not sure how, but I want to keep it as safe as possible from what’s coming.”

Apparently when first planted, a Life Tree grew inside a protective petal layer. Then, when it was large enough, the petal layer peeled back and formed an outer base to the dais.

“According to your report before, intact petals aren’t necessary for All-Council city recognition,” Aya said. “If you’re worried about the megalodon, I wouldn’t waste your time.”

“It’s so unprotected.” Elyssa bit her thumb and cast her eyes in the direction of the distant ruin. “I don’t want to pull anyone off the ruin for my paranoia. I keep telling myself that if enemy warriors break in, they’ll chop it down regardless of whether it’s in a protective cave or not. Um, how large would you say the megalodon was?”

“It could easily swallow the largest cruise ship.”

Elyssa dropped her thumb. “Then it won’t matter, I guess.”

She stuck out her still-human feet. “Which muscle controls the fins?”

Elyssa laughed. “Well, for me, it’s not a muscle. I have to believe I’m transforming, and then the fins appear.”

There was that belief Soren was always telling Aya. “Can you break it down into math? And medical science?”

Elyssa smiled at her practically. “When you were in the trench, how did you activate the power of the Life Tree to save Soren?”

“I just wanted the monster to go away.”

“You wanted it. You wanted it really hard.”

Hmm. “As Lucy would say, that’s all a little ‘woo-woo.’”

“You sound exactly like Lucy! It is all a little woo-woo. Close your eyes and let your reason go. Just feel.”

Elyssa closed her eyes, lifted her shoulders, and pushed off the dais. As she was flying up, past the Life Tree branches, her body seemed to vibrate. The Life Tree vibrated in response, a lovely, wind-chime tinkling harmony. Elyssa’s feet unfurled into the cherry blossom pink, lacy fins. Elyssa swam serenely with her eyes closed.

Serenity, faith, happiness. That’s what Elyssa had.

Aya closed her eyes and pictured morning yoga. Yoga was supposed to be twice as effective as similar forms of exercise, and she needed to be efficient with her time. It was the most spiritual-esque activity she did. Aya bounced off the ground, believed, and pretended she was gliding. She opened her eyes and looked down.

Stubby, unpainted, human toes wiggled back at her.

She floated down to the white dais. “Are you sure you’re not flexing something?”

Elyssa joined her. “Don’t feel bad. This is the hardest. Lucy said sometimes she gets so flustered she still can’t do it on her first try.”

The first mermaid queen could be scattered and indecisive. “I can see that.”

Elyssa pinched her. “Okay, I’ll try to go scientific. You have to activate your inner power.”

“That’s a little vague.”

“Resonance, I mean. You have to create a biofeedback loop that strengthens your inner resonance. We can’t sense it vibrating in our chests as light or darkness the way the mermen can, so you have to try something else. My resonance increases when I believe in myself. I have a slight problem with self-doubt. Lucy focuses on Torun. She has trouble believing in true love.”

Well, since Lucy’s first husband had been Blake, Aya wasn’t exactly shocked. “What’s my problem?”

Elyssa broke into a wide grin. “Don’t you know?”

Aya shook her head.

“Then how should I?” She laughed, hard. “I think you’re great at everything! You’ve always been my idol. Ever since we were wearing our swim tails in elementary school. You were a better swimmer. I thought you’d be the better mermaid, too.”

Elyssa’s laughter subsided, and she cleared her eyes. “It’s kind of a shock to see you struggling like this. It’s like, oh yeah, you’re human, too.”

Of course Aya was human. And she had plenty of troubles. Aya wasn’t sure whether to be touched by Elyssa’s hero-worship or irritated that her cousin hadn’t ever seen her clearly.

Elyssa noted her reaction and twirled. “Think about it. What are you bad at?”

“Making my fins.”

“Maybe you struggle with giving up too soon.”

There was no way that was true. If she gave up too soon, she wouldn’t have wasted all those hours in college on Phoenician. “I’m bad at relationships.”

Elyssa nodded encouragingly. “Okay, now make yourself good at them, and jump.”

Make herself good at them? Aya imitated Elyssa, bouncing lightly. Her toes felt every ridge of the pebbled dais. Make herself good at relationships…or feel like she was good at them.

Like, her friendship with Elyssa. They were adults now. Elyssa asked her to stay and help. They shared a meal and planned city-saving security. Aya focused on that friendship, bobbed her feet, and zoomed up.

Nope. Ordinary, stubby human toes. She floated back down.

She tried family. She imagined forgiving her dad. Because she did well at the meet, she lost her one chance at having a relationship. Like she should have toned it down. He wanted a daughter who failed.

It still pissed her off.

Her toes tingled.

Her first boyfriend had wanted her to forget Harvard, stay home, and interior decorate. Was that where she’d gone wrong? Ambition often killed her relationships.

This wasn’t working.

Imagine running into that asshole professor right now. The one who told her point-blank to drop his class because she was a distraction to the serious dead language majors (somehow) and that he was tenured so it was fine for him to base a grade on whether or not he liked her.

“There’s no poetry in your soul,” he’d said to her, when she went to speak with him about her B. “And as the daughter of a lipstick corporation, you can’t possibly do anything useful to mankind with it.”

The perp had destroyed her GPA. Wouldn’t do anything useful with Phoenician? Ooh, if only he were here. She would just love for him to see her save an entire city with it.

A fluttering sensation like butterflies brushed over her toes.

“That’s it!” Elyssa cried. “You’re doing it! Whatever you’re thinking, keep thinking it.”

Keep thinking about that unjust dead languages professor? She opened her eyes. The fluttering sensation was the water caressing her thin skin between her big toe and her second toe, enlarged in a comical way, as though she were a cartoon character who had suffered a sudden drop of a large safe.

She rested on the floor. Although she could keep thinking about the professor, it worried her. “I’m not sure this is the right path. I’m focusing on showing up the people who wronged me. It seems kind of … dark.”

Elyssa shrugged. “Whatever increases your resonance. You’re learning to get in tune with yourself.”

“I’m not exactly turning the other cheek, here.”

“The Life Tree isn’t Buddha. It’s a plant. It reacts to resonance, and that’s triggered by whatever makes you most centered, and powerful, and capable in your heart.”

“So, essentially, you’re saying what makes me powerful is dwelling on narcissistic fantasies of crushing my rivals?”

“It doesn’t have to be right,” Elyssa said. “It just has to be powerful.”

Hmm.

“Well, maybe it is right. Women spend a lot of time being told how wrong we are. How we need to sit quietly, keep our heads down, do our work. Resonance is about standing up and making noise. This is the one time you can let go of what you’re supposed to be and exist as you are.”

Weird.

But Aya went for it. She had fins to grow and a large mer-male to shock.

Focusing on the unfair professor only got her so far. There were a number of other people who had wronged her, and she enjoyed fantasizing about how she would prove each one of them fantastically wrong.

Elyssa encouraged her, and the tingling flutter told her when she was being successful.

When her mind took over and told her not to take everything so personally, to stop outperforming, and to remember what an unlikeable loser she was, the fins went away.

Ah.

No wonder she was so bad at relationships. Her need to be right conflicted with her desire to be liked. Being liked required she be humble and wrong. But she could never give less than her best. So, she gave up on relationships instead.

She didn’t have to force herself to be quiet. She could try. She could excel. She could succeed.

She could just see the shocked, furious expression on Soren’s face at the ruin. She’d kick past him on her fins after he’d told her to stay in her castle…

Her feet unfurled into beautiful, lacy, scarlet-red fins.

Elyssa squealed below. “You did it!”

Aya envisioned it and she did it. Like a professional athlete. Like a top-level performer. Like herself.

It was okay to be right. It was okay to be liked. It was okay to prove Soren wrong.

Aya set her sights on the distant ruin. “I’ve got rivals to crush in my narcissistic fantasies.”

“Sounds fun.” Elyssa flew up beside her. Far across their territory, two stragglers made their way home from the trench direction.

Elyssa waved. “Gailen! Ciran! We’re going to harass Soren and Kadir. Want to come?”

Gailen and Ciran both looked heartened to see Elyssa and Aya with their fins. Like, two queens with fins made them feel better about whatever had happened to them near the megalodon.

Aya would quiz them on the journey.

“Oh, yeah.” Gailen swooped along beneath them, rolling to face up. “Soren has had it easy for too long.”

Aya kicked. She zoomed through the water. Take that, state champion swim team! She could beat all of them! Hah.

She stopped the chuckle from snorting out her mouth. Under water, it wasn’t as cool, and she was living in her own resonant fantasies. “To old Atlantis!"

Aya emerged from the city like a beautiful red star.

Soren watched her approach from a speck in the distance to a shining flower. Her chest glowed with the force of her light. Her fins propelled her forward with grace that left even her expert guards behind. Next to her, Queen Elyssa flew like a pink shadow.

The warriors working on the ruin beside him paused and also watched.

Aya said his honor wasn’t lost. She said he was still a good person. She said he’d suffered an injury by being asked to do something that conflicted with what was right.

Could that be possible? Was he still honorable?

His heart raced as though an army were approaching. His hands trembled. And his guts clenched.

No. He was no honorable warrior. An honorable warrior would serve his king without question. Soren questioned Kadir all the time. An honorable warrior would assume the title of First Lieutenant and execute all orders without argument. An honorable warrior would not feel so churned up and mudblack inside.

An honorable warrior would not stop defending his city to stare in awe at the two approaching queens.

He put his head down and pushed on the stuck lever. Kadir had unearthed and then activated the first layer. Luck was on their side. The structure had shaken loose some of the rubble.

But now something was wrong. Maybe that rubble had fallen into the mechanism.

“This is the lever to activate the second stage.” Balim tapped Soren’s beam. “I have swum all around it. The structure is the same as the first tier. I do not understand why it does not operate. Push harder.”

Soren pressed his human feet against the rock and heaved.

The warriors resumed their places and all shoved.

It did not move.

He released the lever. His whole body shook from exertion. He and the other warriors rested with huffs.

“Perhaps the opposite direction.” Balim frowned. “Push again.”

“Read the diagram again.”

Female voices teased the waves, tickling his chest. Aya was here.

He refused to look, rubbing his face and arms…and then he looked despite his intention not to.

Aya barreled straight toward him.

He shot upright and caught her. “Are you trying to hurt yourself? This is a dangerous area!”

She clung to him. Her lips curved in a secretive smile that plucked his cock like a string. “I landed safely.”

“Yes. Because…” What was he angry about? Her power did something to him, stole his thoughts while heating his blood. He gripped her fiercely. “You must control yourself around me. I may not be here to catch you.”

Something flashed in her eyes. Her fins curled up into human feet again and she floated in front of him. “What does that mean?”

He didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t know what he was trying to say. Only that the tension jumped under his skin again like water fleas, biting with sharp nails.

Soren shook off the unease. “It means this is a work zone.”

“And I’m here to work.” The cool distance returned. She straightened. “Show me the writing.”

He pulled her to the end of the lever. “Do not touch anything.”

She paddled, looked down at her human feet, and frowned. Closing her eyes, a slow smile curved her lips.

Her sweet tongue touched her lower lip. He wanted to nibble. To kiss it.

Soren fought his urges.

Her fins grew unfurled. She opened her eyes, nodded at them in satisfaction, and kicked steadily. “Now I can help you.”

The fire in Aya’s soul, shining as brightly as the Life Tree, flashed in her clear blue eyes. The rise of her soft curves and exciting body, opened to him. The promise of her true self, united to his, made him shake.

No. He refused to succumb to his wishes.

“The writing is around the lowest tier.”

Swimming down the column, the ancient city spread around them. New currents fought chaotically around the revealed rock. Rubble the size of the Life Tree had broken off the wreck and sank, smashing into the sea floor. Even now his shoulders were pelted with small stones.

As they descended, the affronting noises of the cave guardian grew louder and more offensive. It was like a cadre of warriors snoring and retching at the same time. Soren tried to ignore it.

The first lever was flush against the seafloor a few strokes from the giant cave guardian’s home. Aya eyed the gaping hole as she touched down on her human feet. “That’s a cave guardian?”

“Inside. Try not to disturb him. He’s easily angered.”

Her brows rose. She released him, turned to the first lever, and examined what she could. “Can you move these boulders?”

He shifted to his human feet and tried. Grunting, he said, “The force of a falling rock pushed the lever.” He gave up. “I can get more warriors.”

“No, it’s fine.”

She studied the markings she could see. Her focus narrowed. Her fingers traced the lines.

He waited, vigilant in case the excavations unbalanced the wreck.

She straightened. “Where is the other lever?”

“What does it say?”

“Pierce the hand.” She rubbed her palm. “Take me back to the second lever.”

He obeyed, drew her near, and pushed off. His human feet unfurled into fins. Although, she didn’t need his assistance to move. She could move all on her own.

“You made your fins.”

She smiled, nestling into their old embrace. “You noticed.”

“They look good.”

She blinked. Her hand on his shoulder tightened. “Soren. We were talking about marriage.” Her frown deepened and her soul light dimmed. “I think—”

“Here is the second lever.” He stopped abruptly, opening his arms to release her. She landed on her human feet. A wave of uncertainty crossed her face.

He didn’t want to see it. He couldn’t stand for her to deny him. Not now. Not after she knew the truth. Not this way.

She frowned and composed herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Where are the symbols?”

“There are none.”

She opened her eyes and glanced around him. “Oh, look! Here they are.” She touched symbols on the handle he had never noticed. “This is marked with a five.”

“I believe it is the fifth stage,” Balim said, from above them. He paddled on his fins, surveying the site. “Three were controlled under the surface, by the mer. Three were controlled above the surface, by the humans. Truly, a city in harmony.”

“Hmm.” She touched the immobile lever. “And this is the same style of lever as the lower stage? It says here to ‘Pierce Hand Bone.’”

“Push it until your hand breaks,” Balim suggested. “Harder, Soren.”

“I have pushed in every direction. Up, down, left, right.”

“It’s been a thousand years, so I’m not surprised the coils remain compressed.”

“They are not coils,” Balim said. “It is a weighted system. There are four struts counter-balanced with weights. Much of the rubble — aside from destroyed human-style dwellings — is the wreckage of upper tier counter-balance weights.”

“Four struts? Like four fingers?” She reread the markings. “Pierce the hand bone…Soren, did you try pressing in?”

“I pushed in every direction.” But to appease her, he went to the end of the lever, made his human feet, balanced against the opposing rock, and heaved the lever into the structure.

It moved with a grinding shriek.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

The tower shuddered. Debris puffed out former windows and holes. Mermen shouted. The water filled inky black.

“Get back!” he shouted.

The wall containing the lever fell outward. Balim shot out of the way. Aya scrambled back on her human feet…right into the path of a huge swinging beam!

He dove and rolled her out of the beam’s path. It roared through the water and disappeared into the thickening darkness. He kicked hard. The city surged upward, catching him on a broken wall. He curled around Aya, sheltering her.

It roared forever.

Eventually, the shaking stopped. The water pressure lightened and warmed, sliding over his skin more breezily. The dust was still choking. He rose and held Aya, carrying her up and out, trying to free them of the dust cloud.

In the outer area of safety, the other warriors formed a cluster of awe. The cloudy, debris-filled water returned the ordinary sounds of the ocean.

He counted everyone. His work crew was there, and Balim. Kadir sheltered Elyssa. Gailen and Ciran were watching the clouds for them.

Gailen saw Soren and laughed shakily. He rubbed his pepper-orange tattooed head. “The next time you will raise the city, tell us! I almost inked myself. So to speak.”

Ciran kicked to them. His gaze was on Aya, curled around Soren. “You are uninjured?”

She nodded and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t think it would be so sudden. Sorry.”

Kadir laughed and coughed. “The same thing happened the first time. We were struggling and then the ground shifted and we were two clicks higher, choking in dust, and the megalodon had turned away.”

That reminded Soren. He rounded on Ciran and Gailen. “You are reckless! The next time you wish to fly after a megalodon, come to this wreck and work instead.”

They both looked chagrined.

“Did you learn anything useful?”

Their expressions said no.

“We confirmed the attackers are waiting for something,” Ciran said.

“You do not know what?”

“The lure made an effort to entice the megalodon away, but it would not turn aside until the noise of the rising city disturbed it.”

Sobering thoughts. If Balim’s reading was right, they had one more stage to raise.

“At least we know now for sure we can raise or lower the city as an anti-megalodon defense,” Queen Elyssa said. “Great! We can just keep doing that to get rid of the megalodon, withstand raiders, and then wait for the All-Council representative to arrive! He’ll declare us a city, and then no one can attack.”

Balim cleared his throat. “There is a slight problem.”

Everyone looked at him.

“I have reviewed the engineering schematics. Every time a tier rises, it locks into place. I believe the mechanism for releasing the locks was on the human side.”

“The destroyed human side,” Aya clarified.

He nodded.

“Then we only have one more time when we can raise the city and deter the megalodon.”

He nodded again.

“We just wasted one of our three shots. Three tiers, three shots.”

“I was tasked with raising the city, not with lowering it again.” He rolled his lips and shrugged one shoulder. “I did not analyze that portion of the schematic.”

Everyone digested his announcement.

Aya pinched the bridge of her nose. Queen Elyssa hugged Kadir. He stroked her shoulders, wordlessly comforting her. His other hand rested on her belly.

Soren was always going to fight to the end. This changed nothing.

A terrible, off-tone, gargling wail grew louder, rising from the depths as the debris settled.

Ah. They had disturbed the cave guardian.

“Ooh! Aya, come over here.” Queen Elyssa untangled from Kadir with an excited kiss and motioned for Aya to join her.

Aya pushed off of Soren.

He tightened his grip.

She stopped and met his gaze. “Am I in danger?”

“The cave guardian can crush you into paste.”

“Then I won’t get too close.” Her lips twisted in a sardonic smile and she pressed a secret kiss to his hard jaw. “I don’t let too many things hold me like this.”

His belly pinged with awareness and his cock pulsed.

Satisfied, she pushed free and swam to Elyssa. Her fins unfurled like a red lace dress.

He swam to Kadir’s side. They watched the women from an uncomfortable distance as a lurking shadow rose from the dusky depths, emerging from a broken hole in the city. Warriors approaching too close made the mammoth cave guardian nervous.

Across the way, Queen Elyssa was introducing the guardian. “This is Octopus Kong. He lives in the cave below the ruins. He’s probably coming to chastise us for disturbing his peaceful Sunday.”

“Is it Sunday?” Aya asked, holding back at what Soren considered an unsafe, although better than Queen Elyssa, distance.

“Who knows?”

The mammoth cave guardian’s awful song changing to screeches. It coiled one massive tentacle around Queen Elyssa and dragged her close to its huge cross-shaped eyes.

“Whoah. Hello there. You are one giant Pacific Octopus.”

“And we’re not even in the Pacific,” Aya murmured.

“This makes me nervous,” Soren commented.

Kadir huffed a laugh and crossed his arms over his chest. “What can you do?”

“Put a stop to it,” he growled.

The mammoth unleashed another tentacle toward Aya.

She kicked back. “Excuse me.”

It curled around her hands, legs, and hair.

Aya jerked away. “Stop that. Down.”

“Aw, he’s just trying to get to know you,” Queen Elyssa called. “It’s how octopi communicate. They taste you through their suckers.”

“He can look at me and guess.”

“Let him give you a little hug.”

“Absolutely not.” Aya kicked free of another tentacle and stood tall. “I only hug in a professional capacity.”

A tentacle crept around her shoulder from behind.

She jolted and her chest flashed. The tentacle flew away from her. A space appeared around her body, a sphere of light nothing could penetrate. “You will respect me.”

The cave guardian released Queen Elyssa and withdrew its tentacles in surprise.

Had she just used her power against the cave guardian?

Octopus Kong finished its exploration and dropped, uncoiling its tentacles from Aya with gentle grace. It gargled down to the lower depths and receded into the background noise of the ocean.

“Come on.” Queen Elyssa tugged Aya’s arm. “Let’s go apologize.”

“I have nothing to apologize for.”

“Octopi are useful, you know. These guys are formidable against sharks.”

The women headed after the cave guardian.

Ciran and Gailen waited beside Soren, indecisive about going after them. No warrior could catch a cave guardian on the move. Soren thought the women would be back shortly alone.

“How was the health of the lure?” he asked. “The youth from Dragon Mar. Did he seem strong enough to keep the megalodon away?”

Ciran and Gailen both frowned. Ciran shook his head and Gailen answered. “It was no youth from Dragon Mar.”

“Outside Dragon Mar,” he said. “An outsider promised citizenship if he performed the task.”

They shook their heads more firmly.

“That is the wrong region. We were not going to say anything.” Gailen looked uncomfortably at Nilun and Pelan on the work crew. “But the youth was from Zoan’s city.”

Nilun and Pelan shifted closer together. They were friends. Close friends with Zoan.

There were definitely two megalodons.

Kadir caught his eye. His grim expression told Soren he had understood everything.

Megalodon.

It didn’t have the same ring as merman warrior. The same chill. The same eerie, unearthly sucking teeth-studded nightmare. The tense nervousness of water fleas jumped under his skin again. He wished, for a second time, Aya would go to the surface.

“Raiders!” someone shouted.

He jolted. Two distant specks flew down from above, heading toward them.

“Tridents!” Soren shouted. “Defend the Life Tree and the castle!”

Aya and Queen Elyssa emerged from the ruin.

His mer moved.

Soren grabbed Aya and shouted at Kadir. “Take your queen!”

Queen Elyssa was already reaching her hand out to Kadir. Her gaze fixed upward on the specks. “Wait, Kadir. Something’s odd about them.”

Kadir waited beside his wife. “What is it?”

“They’re not raiders. I think it’s Lucy and Torun.”

The warriors of Atlantis held a welcome feast for the new arrivals.

Despite the dangers, it warmed Aya’s heart to see familiar faces.

“I am Torun.” The proud warlord lifted his chin and puffed out his broad, muscular chest. Gold tattoos scrolled across his body and his skin had the bluish sheen of the warriors in the Caribbean. “I have felled trench fish and giant squid. In Sireno, I was a warlord. I trained many youths in combat. Please accept me into your city.”

The warriors regarded him with silence.

He nodded once, a satisfied smile curving his lips, and quietly urged his bride to make her speech. Lucy hid her face behind her hand, communicating with him about something. He tucked a lock of brown hair behind her ear and nuzzled her.

Aya rested between Elyssa and Soren.

Torun should have been the king of Sireno in the Gulf of Mexico. But he had fallen for Lucy, a modern bride, and broken the sacred covenant. Lucy had rescued him from a brutal punishment, and after a series of adventures – including surviving an attack by Blake—they fled to the surface. They had lived with Lucy’s parents until coming to Atlantis so Lucy could have her baby at a Life Tree.

It was nice not to be the newcomer anymore. Eyes were no longer drawn to Aya. Everyone was mesmerized by a sight perhaps none of them had ever seen before, because in the old cities, the brides were always kept locked up in the castles of their husbands — a pregnant woman.

“Thanks for having us.” Lucy glowed, one hand cupping her ginormous belly, and the other hand linked in her husband Torun’s grip. “It’s so nice to be in a city that wants us. Especially since we can’t go back to Sireno. Hi.”

She waved her fingers at Pelan.

He reddened, his skin tone approaching the same color as half his tattoos. Torun also nodded, recognizing the warrior from his former home.

“We’re thrilled to share this joyous time with you. I hope it’s the first of many in this new city. Which, Elyssa tells me, is soon to be recognized by the All-Council. I’m so excited to join you and help make it happen.”

Aya leaned forward and murmured to Elyssa. “They make thirty-seven. Who else are you expecting?”

“Thirty-nine.”

Huh? Oh! Ohhh. “Twins?”

Elyssa nodded.

It still left them short from the number necessary for official All-Council recognition. “Any chance it’s triplets?”

Elyssa grinned and rested her arm over her own belly. King Kadir glanced at her and curved his arm around her shoulders, tipping his head to rest against hers.

They would bring another life into the world too. But not before their enemies attacked. Because their population was too low, there was no point in requesting an emergency All-Council representative review to grant them early city status.

“I hope you’ll all sign up for my new dating site when it’s finished.” Lucy beamed. “Oh! And, we’re returning your Sea Opals.”

A shocked murmur went through the crowd.

Ah. So enough time had passed that that particular bomb of Aya’s had gone off.

Elyssa leaned back and murmured to Aya. “I thought all the company’s assets were frozen from my lawsuit. How did Lucy pull that off?”

Aya bit her lip.

Lucy opened the bag. “Courtesy of Aya…”

Everyone’s gaze swung to her.

Elyssa stared at Aya in shock. “How?”

It had been, complicated, but obviously all the pieces came together because here they were.

Usually mermen gave their Sea Opal jewel to their sacred bride. But to secure the exclusive trade contract and interest investors, Aya had negotiated for a hundred Sea Opals in exchange for each bride. She hadn’t realized that the Atlantis Life Tree was too young. Established cities such as Sireno had ancient Life Trees that had already produced mountains of gems. But the warriors who had escaped their home cities to join Atlantis had only each brought one: the personal gemstone they hoped to give their own bride.

“Considering how we broke our end of the agreement, I thought it wasn’t right for Van Cartier Cosmetics to hold onto the Sea Opals.”

They would only arrive if Aya wasn’t on the surface taking other action to make it right. Such as running another bride pageant.

Lucy continued. “These showed up outside my door a week before we left. I almost didn’t open it. It was this weird, huge, unmarked FedEx box. I thought my parents ordered a new fridge.” Lucy opened the bag and handed it to the closest warrior — Faier—to find his jewel and pass the bag on. “Now you’ll have something to give to the woman you fall in love with. Okay. That’s the end of my speech.”

Lucy smiled anxiously and tucked her hair behind her ear. Torun stood ramrod straight, his gold-tattooed fins hanging beneath him.

King Kadir lifted his hand. “You are both welcome in our city.”

Elyssa waved them over. “Sit here! I have to ask you so many questions.”

Lucy paddled, frowned, and a second later her fins half-unfurled. She shook them, frustrated. They were a creamy, flesh-tone ombre from dark tan to cream. She tugged Torun, and he flew her in harmony over to their location. Elyssa scooted so Lucy could float right next to her, and Torun floated by Aya.

“Hello,” Aya greeted him cheerfully. “How was your trip?”

“Aya. I am glad to see you well.”

“Still cold in my soul light?”

Torun was the one who had evaluated her the week before the bride pageant and declared her light to be cold, off-putting, and unattractive. She’d appreciated his honesty and still did.

He eyed her from the side. “You seem warmer.”

She pressed her hands to her chest. “I don’t feel any different.”

“No? Perhaps I was mistaken before.” He leaned forward. “It is difficult to tell in the air. Underwater, everything is clearer.”

The other warriors caught Torun’s attention to ask about their journey, life on the surface, and other details. Torun greeted the males and they had a low conversation.

Aya rubbed her chest.

She was warmer than before? She had always been warm?

Then…it wasn’t her fault. All the people who abandoned her and rejected her before.

Or being with Soren warmed her so she was easier to get along with. Things had seemed easier since coming to Atlantis. Warriors understood her and gave her the benefit of the doubt. They supported her instead of cutting her down. They were honored to spend time with her.

That was different from the surface.

Aya scooted forward to listen to Elyssa and Lucy. She also had a few questions.

“I know we said March.” Lucy spoke animatedly, hands waving while her brown hair danced around her sparkling brown eyes. “But I keep getting Braxton-Hicks, and we were already at the general coordinates, and I told Torun, let’s get in the water. And then we heard the city rising, and it wasn’t even all that far.”

“Good, good. So Braxton-Hicks are like practice contractions, right? And they could turn into real contractions any time?”

Lucy nodded, accepting a loop of vegetables and biting into the seed. “Mmm. This is delicious. Like fava beans and Greek salad and gyros, all in one.”

Aya chewed hers more slowly. She liked the rich, savory slices of fish steaks, but the crunchy coffee-like beans and creamy seeds were also very palatable.

“You have come at a dangerous time,” King Kadir told Torun. “We are expecting judgment by the All-Council. Our enemies may attack before that can happen. And there is risk of not one, but two megalodons.”

The warriors dropped silent at King Kadir’s statement. Aya had heard the news herself on the swim back from the ruin. She hadn’t thought it possible.

“Why two?” she had demanded of Soren angrily. “Isn’t one enough? Two is overkill.”

“It is a nod to ancient times,” he said grimly. “Kadir is invoking ancient legends of humans and mer in harmony to found Atlantis. Some warriors find the legends compelling. Our enemies seek to wipe us from the bottom of the ocean using these same monsters of legend. One would be a message. Two is an annihilation from which there will be no escape — and no one to repeat our folly.”

It wasn’t fair. But they still had the third tier of the city to raise. That noise could scare off two megalodons the same as it scared off one.

That’s what they were all relying on. Whether on patrols, trying to keep the city safe, or eating a welcome feast for a foreign warlord and his very pregnant wife.

“I want to give birth here.” Lucy rested her hands on Torun’s. “Torun says there’s never been a miscarriage or bride’s death in all of your records. I’m sure that’s because you were so close to the Life Tree. And I want our babies to have every possible chance. So, we agreed that we will risk it all to have our babies here.”

Aya couldn’t help asking. “Did you research whether there’s ever been a bride’s death from a megalodon?”

The warriors stiffened.

It wasn’t meant as an insult. It was important data point given their current situation.

Elyssa frowned at her hands.

Lucy focused on Aya. “I didn’t.”

Then, Lucy should be fully aware of what staying in Atlantis meant. “It’s going to be impossible to med-evac you.”

“I am aware.” Lucy smiled. She was not angry or insulted. “We’re facing impossible odds.”

Why wasn’t she scared? Aya rubbed her palms on her thighs. A pregnant woman in Atlantis right now was the worst. Soren, beside her, tensed like a drum. Aya couldn’t think of any way to save them if something went wrong. Her mind flipped around and around. What if, what if, what if?

Lucy continued. “But Torun and I have always faced impossible odds.”

He nodded.

She pointed at Aya. “You have always faced impossible odds. Atlantis has always faced impossible odds. An idea this powerful,” She indicated herself, Elyssa, and Aya, “is terrifying. To a lot of people. All we can do is stand here, survive those impossible odds, and shine our light. And someday, it will shine so bright, no one will be afraid anymore.”

Her wish rang through the castle. Everyone who heard it lifted their heads.

“And that’s why,” she said softly, “I’m going to stay here and fight.”

She was resolute. And powerful.

And absolutely right. The idea was terrifying. To Aya, right now.

Aya pinched the bridge of her nose. “I just wish we had a more concrete plan. With executables. And action points.”

“Well.” Lucy swung her ring around and chomped on the next fava bean. “That’s something for you to…” Her eyes widened. She turned white and dropped her food. It drifted for the gardens below.

Torun jolted. “Lucy!”

She blinked rapidly and rubbed her belly. “Oh. Ha ha, another Braxton-Hicks.”

He touched her belly. “Are you sure?”

“I’m fine. Sorry for startling you. I’m not having these babies before we renew our vows. I dropped my dinner.”

Faier kicked down, snagged the beans, and flew it back up to her.

“Thanks.”

Torun settled behind her. “I will massage your back. Like we practiced in the classes.”

“Torun, really. I’m … oh. Ohhh, yes, left shoulder. Oh, ahh, mmm.” Lucy’s protests melted into pleasurable moans.

The surprise of a possible sudden birth was the breaking point. Everyone started talking amongst themselves.

Strategy. Plans. Protection.

No one talked about leaving. No one screamed about how they weren’t going to survive.

How could they have such faith it was all going to work out?

The bag reached Elyssa. King Kadir pulled out his Sea Opal — a large white pearl-shaped stone with a silvery sheen — and handed the bag on. He presented his jewel to Elyssa.

She softened and gazed up at him. “I do. Again. And forever.”

“My queen.” He cupped her chin and they kissed.

They both seemed so strong. Powerful because they had each other.

Was that the secret of Elyssa’s power?

Look at how Torun devoted himself to Lucy. He should be king of Sireno. Instead, he was an exile. He had broken all the rules to be with Lucy, and Sireno was still ruled by tradition — although the new king they had left behind was sympathetic enough that Aya thought he would agitate for change one small step at a time.

Now, look at how in sync Lucy was with Torun. She, like Elyssa, had humbleness and warmth that led her to form good relationships. A chip of Torun’s Sea Opal gleamed with a gold sheen in a ring hanging from a silver chain around Lucy’s neck.

Aya wanted that faith.

Fierce protectiveness burned in her chest. She would never let someone like Blake back in. She had failed to protect the Life Tree in the trench, but now she would stand with it and never let go. She swore it.

The problem was how to make her wish a reality.

Soren and Elyssa swore the power was in her. Like her fins, she just had to find the right angle and then her mind would unlock this supernatural protective force. How could she do it?

Was the answer right in front of her all along?

The bag reached Soren. He reached in, pulled out the last Sea Opal, and held it up. A huge sphere filled his hand, so dark it almost seemed black. Like his tattoos.

His jaw clenched. His nostrils flared. He fixed his intent gaze on her.

Was accepting his proposal how she captured her power?

If she accepted and then he rejected her, she would die.

He held out the gemstone to Aya. Resigned to her refusal. Determined to ask again anyway. “Accept my mating jewel and become my bride.”

She placed her hand on top of the stone. It was warm and smooth and exquisite, just like him. Believe.

“Okay.”

He asked Aya to be his bride and she said okay.

“Okay?” Soren repeated stupidly.

She met his gaze with clear, blue eyes. “Okay.”

“Right now?”

She nodded. “Right now.”

Her hand was on his mating jewel, the one he had smuggled from Dragao Azul when he left. The jewel for bestowing upon his beloved. She touched it. Her thumb brushed his. She resonated with power.

She would marry him and join with him. Right now.

The bride he loved, respected, and craved agreed to become his. She had refused for so long. How could she easily agree? She believed he was a good male. She believed he was honorable. She’d heard the worst about him. Now he had her agreement, the acceptance he had always wanted, how could he hesitate?

He hesitated.

She waited.

“Then…”

“Warriors of Atlantis.” Kadir got everyone’s attention. “Queen Lucy and Torun are going to renew their vows in the Life Tree sanctuary.”

Relief coursed through Soren.

“Although it is usual to conduct these ceremonies with everyone present, now it is impossible. Those who are due on patrols, exchange positions with the existing patrols. Balim will lead the next excavation work group to the ruins. Those of us who can will attend the renewal ceremony.”

Aya held the mating jewel in her palm while Soren fled. He assisted everyone put away the festival foods.

Queen Elyssa stopped in front of Aya. “Are you coming?”

“Yes.” Aya frowned. “Ah…if Soren wants…”

Soren returned and pulled Aya to him. “We will watch.”

The other warriors moved toward the tunnel, Queen Elyssa and Kadir in the lead, Queen Lucy and Torun next.

Soren kicked hard for the tunnel.

Aya’s soul light dimmed.

It knifed into his chest. He tightened on her. “What is wrong?”

Her voice was faint. “You don’t want to marry me.”

Ah.

She sensed it.

“I do,” he insisted.

“Then why are you relieved by the delay?”

“I am not.”

He couldn’t believe Aya wanted to unite with him. She knew he was dark, deadly, and dangerous. Loving him would damage her. Joining with him…

They burst free of the tunnel and entered the main city. The Life Tree shone holy radiance on them. The males who’d claimed their brides were fierce and strong, and their brides glowed as brightly as the holy tree.

Aya was noticeably dimmed. “The timing is bad.”

It was bad. “We will marry after Queen Lucy and Torun.”

“Oh. Really?”

His heart thumped. Fear. “Yes. Of course.”

“Okay…” She twitched and spoke all in a rush. “I push people away. It’s notable, right? I have a cold aura. If you say you want me and then I believe you and you change your mind, I’ll… I don’t know. Die inside.”

His hesitation hurt her. It hurt both of them.

He kicked free of the line, darting away from the Life Tree.

She looked up in surprise. “Where are you going?”

“I do want to marry you. I will prove it.”

He flew into her castle. He would prove it to her and to himself. He would join with her as a husband to wife, binding her. Then, she would believe.

Maybe, he also would believe.

Before he could reach their castle, another warrior stopped him.

“First Lieutenant Soren.” Lotar, who had been on his hunt, kicked hard to meet them. His cheeks were hollow with hunger and his eyes were black with exhaustion. But he did not waver. Ensnared in a net was another warrior. “I have captured Elan.”

Aya stiffened.

Soren pulled up. “Good work. Bring him to Kadir’s castle.”

Lotar nodded and flew beyond them to the main castle. Soren signaled for Kadir and several other warriors to stop whatever they had been doing to join them.

Everything hinged on what Elan revealed. Their entire defensive strategy for fighting the megalodons of Dragao Azul and surviving.

Soren turned to drop Aya at the vow renewal ceremony.

She clung on. “Wait. I want to speak with Elan.”

“He frightens you.”

“You’ll be there.” She tightened her grip. “I have questions only he can answer.”

Despite his misgivings, he wheeled and flew with his bride back into Kadir’s castle. He left Aya at a safe distance, collected his trident, and joined Kadir close to the dishonorable General.

Lotar undid the bolas silencing his prisoner while the other warriors ranged around in an intimidating circle.

Elan flexed his still-bound wrists and ankles and glared at the warriors. “Have you come to beg for mercy? Or are you prepared to die like the honorless, scavenging, suckerfish you are?”

Soren growled.

Kadir placed a hand on Soren’s bicep. “Fighting with megalodons is a violation of the Seven Cities Treaty.”

“Atlantis is anathema. There is no violation.”

“We could receive All-Council recognition any time.”

“Never! You will be wiped from the ocean floor.” Elan’s lips curled. His hatred for Soren burned so hot it felt like they were the only two in the castle. “Everything you love will be severed in the megalodon’s teeth and an army will sift through the splinters to crush any seeds.”

“Just like your honor as a warrior,” Soren snarled.

Elan flung back. “So says the Demon of Dragao Azul. You will die by my hands today.”

His blood boiled. Soren clenched his trident to near trembling. “I will make you beg.”

Elan lifted his chin. “End me then. Show your true self. Faithless betrayer of cities. Exile of exiles!”

The warriors twitched. Soren fought his instincts to wipe the arrogance from the male with his blood.

Aya cleared her throat. “Can I ask a question?”

Soren caught Kadir’s eye. Kadir nodded. The warriors shifted back to give her a direct line of sight to Elan.

He glared at his hobbled fins. “Why should I talk to a monster?”

Soren moved between them in warning.

“You don’t have to.” Aya’s voice was light. Unconcerned. “But you might be interested to tell everyone else the answer. Exactly how many megalodons are you raising?”

He huffed a mirthless laugh. “Three.”

Soren’s heart sank.

Around him the other warriors floated uneasily. One megalodon was disastrous. Two was, as Aya stated, overkill. Three was apocalyptic.

“I see.” Aya didn’t seem affected either way. “And how many cities would you say are involved in raising these megalodons?”

“All!” Elan’s teeth flashed, a furious smile directed at Kadir. “Yes, all of the cities are gathered to witness — no, to ensure—your destruction. You think we are disorganized raiders? A vast army is gathering. I am a scout! You have made a mistake in taking me. The army will close around this city like a net. You have only hastened your own destruction.”

Lotar narrowed his eyes. If true, and an army really was gathered to move on command, he had made a serious mistake in observation.

They all had.

“Lies,” Soren snarled. “You say that to make us release you. But the only release you will receive is death.”

Elan threw back his shoulders, baring his chest. “Release me.”

Lotar jiggled Elan’s bindings, a visible sign of his suppressed anger. Elan dropped his shoulders for balance. His lips curved in a true bitter smile.

Kadir muttered to Soren. “The cities would not dare send an army. How could they hide it from the All-Council?”

Yes. The All-Council, after expressing disgruntlement that Soren had broken into the prison to release Kadir, had gone so far as to send a representative to advise them on how to become a recognized city. Although their representative had soured on Kadir’s insistence to give Queen Elyssa freedom and power to rule within the city as an equal, and had finally betrayed them, the All-Council itself was still a neutral party.

Curse that they were not already recognized. Then, these enemies truly would be breaking the Seven Cities Treaty. Atlantis would be able to appeal to the All-Council and receive reinforcements and supplies while the violators received terrible punishments.

That was how the neutral All-Council ensured peace.

Aya cleared her throat. “Another question, if you don’t mind. Exactly how long has the All-Council been organizing this attack?”

What?

Kadir and the other warriors swung to face Aya. Did she dare imply that the All-Council was behind this unlawful, treaty-ending attack? One adviser might be corrupted. But the whole council?

No. Impossible.

Elan snorted. “I wouldn’t know.”

They all relaxed. No, of course the All-Council would not raise the monsters they had been created to defeat.

But Aya wouldn’t let it go. “When did their representatives reach Dragao Azul and issue an ultimatum?”

Elan stared at her hard.

She looked straight back with a bored expression, like he was wasting her time.

“You assume much, bride monster.”

Soren snarled.

Aya raised one palm. “Seriously? You have an army composed of warriors from every city plus three megalodons. Please.” She snorted at Elan. “I’m not an idiot.”

He looked away and shifted his fins back to human feet. They were stubby, useless underwater, but it was something he could do even while bound. He scratched his big toe. “Half a year ago.”

Part of Soren’s soul leaked out.

The other warriors turned deathly still.

It was like finding out the assassins you had been fighting off were sent by your own beloved, respected father. In a way, they had. That was this death sentence.

“I assume they made a compelling case,” Aya said.

Elan’s shoulder shrugged. “It is the fault of Kadir. And Soren.”

“How?” Kadir’s chest vibrated weakly. “I was not even there.”

Half a year ago, Kadir had been recovering from his imprisonment, dangerously close to death.

“They threatened Dragao Azul with annihilation. It was our fault you arose from our city, Kadir, and Soren also. Another city already controlled one megalodon.” Elan stared at his feet bleakly. “If we did not take care of our problem, perhaps Dragao Azul would be next.”

Kadir had pursued All-Council approval out of respect. Respect for the union that safeguarded their treaties and respect for the other cities. But now it seemed that the All-Council males feared the freedom and democratizing values of Atlantis so deeply they traded their founding principles for evil.

Aya tapped her lips. Her brows wrinkled. Her light shone steadily, calm despite the impending catastrophe of betrayal layered upon betrayal. “The army that’s coming. Those warriors. Are they all like you?”

“Like me?”

“Happy to be here?”

His brows lifted. Shock and then hysteria filled his tone with laughter. “Yes, they’re all like me! Happy to be here. Just like me.”

She tsked. “Do you really hate Soren that much for accidentally insulting your wife?”

All mirth dropped from his face. He growled. “You insulted my wife?”

Soren tensed. Elan hadn’t been in any position to speak with Soren after the mission. Dosan and Uvim would have pretended it never happened. Of course Elan did not know about Soren’s disrespect.

Aya held up her hand to forestall the inevitable bloodshed. “Let’s focus. Reasonably speaking, there’s under forty people inside the city. How many warriors would you say are outside the city?”

“Ten times that number.”

She tapped her lip. “Would you consider helping us?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because your culture values children. And there are pregnant women here. Including one who is about to give birth.”

“What?”

“We have young fry,” Kadir said, taking back over the conversation, sympathetic but also firm. “You are a father. Can you not assist us?”

Then, as though becoming aware of another thing he had thought he had already lost, his shoulders dropped. His chin landed on his chest. “No.”

Kadir gritted his teeth. “Lead your army away.”

“In a short time, this will not matter,” he said dully. “None of this will matter. You will be dead. I will be dead. This city will be leveled. The All-Council will rule with an iron fist. Modern brides will be squeezed from the ocean. The idea of Atlantis will end for another thousand years.”

“The mer race will be gone in a hundred.” Kadir gestured behind them, in the direction of the Life Tree and Aya. “These queens are our only hope to survive.”

“Then there is no hope.”

Eerie hissing slithered into the city, tonguing the castles and shuddering in Soren’s bones. The others heard it too. They shuddered.

“See?” Elan straightened. Horrified laughter twisted his face. “It begins! You thought the noise of the ruin was keeping them back? No! We awaited the army. And now they gather to cut off your escape. You are all going to—”

Lotar slammed the base of his trident into Elan’s gut.

Elan crumpled over it.

The other warriors stared at Lotar in shock. He was normally so quiet.

He removed his trident. Elan fell over, hugging his knees and groaning.

Lotar addressed Kadir and Soren. “Will you evacuate the queens?”

Kadir’s jaw tightened. “I will try.”

Lotar nodded. The warriors would stay with Kadir until the end. It was understood. And they respected Queen Elyssa’s desire to remain also. But their preference, like Soren’s, would be for the queens to get to safety beyond the city.

Soren turned to Aya, entwining her and kicking for the tunnel.

She whitened with fear. “Where are we going?”

“You are going to raise the final stage of the city.”

“Elan said the noise didn’t frighten the megalodons.”

“He could be lying.” And it was an excuse to get Aya out of the city. Soren would take it.

They burst from the tunnel into the city. The hissing grew loud like an itch under his skin and a new current pushed them even though the megalodons could not yet be seen. The castles and the Life Tree leaned in the direction of the distant trench.

But worse was the discovery that Elan had spoken the truth. On the horizon, an army of warriors formed a ring around the city. In a short time, they would tighten and separate the new city from the ruin.

Aya kicked free. Her scarlet fins unfurled. “I’ll swim as fast as I can.”

“Wait.” He couldn’t risk her encountering the army alone. In the past, he’d never imagined warriors daring to injure a bride, but now he feared the worst. Soren shouted for Gailen. “Where are Aya’s guards?”

“Ciran went to the ruin. Faier led a patrol.” Gailen grimaced at the army. “They thought since you were with Queen Aya she would remain safe.”

“Recall them.”

Gailen nodded and cried for other warriors standing in a defensive formation over the Life Tree sanctuary. Queen Lucy, Torun, and Queen Elyssa clustered together. Soren aimed for them.

Kadir reached them first. “Elyssa.”

“I’m not going.” Queen Elyssa read his mind, guessed the content, and kissed him firmly. Her soul light was bright and fierce. Nothing like the awkward female at the bride pageant months ago, and everything like a powerful queen. “Don’t ask me. I’m waiting for Aya’s brilliant plan. Go ahead, Aya.”

Everyone stared at his bride.

She studied the army. Her soul light dipped. “I’m working on it.”

Queen Elyssa remained bright and unafraid. “I’ll be ready.”

“Elyssa.” Kadir stroked her cheek. Tenderness folded his silver brow. “Consider our young fry.”

“I am.” She twined her arms around his neck. “It’s too late now anyway. An army surrounded us, you know.”

“Okay.” Aya squeezed her eyes closed, thinking hard. “I’m getting an idea. There’s a huge army out there, and only a tiny number of us in here. If we can convince the megalodons that the city is empty already— if we can lure the megalodons past the Life Tree—then maybe we’ll solve two problems at once.”

Queen Elyssa scrunched her nose. “You mean the megalodons will take out the army.”

“It’s a danger when you unleash a prehistoric shark on a battlefield.”

“Okay.” Queen Elyssa nodded. “I’m willing to try evacuating.”

Kadir’s shoulder’s dropped with relief. “Leave now.”

“But then how can I be the lure?”

“You will not.”

“But—”

Queen Lucy suddenly gasped and grabbed her belly. Her eyes flew wide.

Everyone froze.

She grimaced and then panted. “That was not a Braxton-Hicks.”

“And there’s no way I’m leaving now!” Queen Elyssa released her husband. She and Torun ushered back inside to the Life Tree.

Kadir clenched his trident. His silver-tattooed brow firmed with command. “Soren. Gather the warriors. I will see if I can get Elan to reveal the plans of the army. Perhaps Queen Aya’s strategy can work if we move smartly.”

He was making a last stand.

Soren nodded. Kadir turned and flew to his castle. Soren kicked for the Life Tree sanctuary to deposit Aya.

Light erupted from the broken top of the sanctuary. The Life Tree responded to Queen Lucy’s new life by crackling with cheerful, defiant energy.

Like the flash of the Life Tree fragment that had attracted the megalodon in the trench.

Soren switched course. “Wait for your guards in your castle.”

“Stop, Soren.” Aya clasped his cheeks. Fear and desperation shone in her eyes. “We have to get married.”

He slowed. “Now?”

“It’s the only way.” She looked over his shoulder at the hissing darkness emerging from the trench, bearing down on their city. “I still can’t wield my power. But if we’re married, maybe that will give me the push I need.”

She wanted to marry him to gain her power.

As she told him this desperate plan, her soul light fluctuated wildly. She was not the confident female he had seen at the bride pageant so long ago. She was broken, terrified, and no longer able to summon even a little bit of her former faith.

Being around him had crippled her. Every time he sought to increase her light by seducing her he only made her more dependent on him. Instead of empowering her, he enslaved her. And now she was so bound up she thought she needed him to find her center of power.

“Aya.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. Cupping her hands, he tried to convince her of the truth. “The power is in you.”

“But what if it isn’t?”

He drew her to his chest and stroked her hair. “Believe.”

“I believe I need your help. Lucy and Elyssa are married. That’s the secret! You have to marry me right now.”

He shook his head and drew back. “I cannot give you the power you already possess.”

“You could try.”

Her desperation broke his heart.

“Anyway, we’d be married. Isn’t that what you want?” She begged him. “Us, to be married? Me? As your wife?”

All he wanted to do was protect her. Save her. Believe in her. And his protection had hobbled her. This dishonor was far worse than anything he had committed against Elan’s bride.

Aya waited his response with terror.

He wanted her more than life itself. But he could not hurt her any more.

Soren hardened his heart. “No. I do not.”

Soren didn’t want her.

Aya’s gut clenched.

He stared at her hard. Rejecting her with his full body. He released her at the tunnel entrance to her castle. “Await your guard.”

Then he turned and kicked back to King Kadir’s castle.

Her whole body felt numb.

She swam down the tunnel. It took forever to cross the short distance on her fins. She entered the barren, empty castle.

A flash of purple darted at her face.

She shrieked and threw up her hands. White light flashed. A bubble pulsed outward, slammed into her tiny purple octopus like a car windshield hitting a bug.

Oh!

She dropped her hands. The light faded. Her little octopus floated, dazed.

Oh no, she hadn’t meant to harm it. She’d just been distracted and startled and—

It jolted and flew away. If it were a dog, it would have been yelping with its tail between its legs.

Her heart squeezed. She rubbed her chest. The feeling only increased.

Look at how useless she was. She could use her super power to fend off a tiny octopus, but she couldn’t use it on command to fend off a megalodon.

Aya fell to the barren floor of the empty castle like a chunk of cast off debris. Resting on her palms on her thighs, she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

There was nowhere for her to go. What could she do in an attack? The army came from one direction. The megalodons came from the other. Atlantis was crushed in the middle.

Helplessness shivered like a cold fire in her veins, trembling her hands on her empty lap.

Soren didn’t want her.

For the first time, she had tried. Really tried. She had bared her soul. She had begged him to marry her. He threw it back in her face.

A sharp pain settled in her chest.

It would have been better to have died in Blake’s submersible claw than to face this.

A hint of purple crept along the ledge and crawled down the wall.

She traced the octopus’s movement with her eyes, not moving a muscle.

The castle shuddered. A cold shaft of fear sliced up her spine. The only mystery was why the All-Council had waited so long to unleash the megalodons.

The purple octopus slunk across the floor.

This must be how it kept appearing nearby, startling her. It must always be doing this. Creeping forward, terrified of being discovered, but somehow also compelled to be close.

Elyssa’s octopus Benji was bright, fierce, and loving. Just like her kind, generous, open heart. Aya’s octopus was like her own heart. Frightened, nameless, skittish, and always prepared for the worst.

Her octopus stopped almost within arm’s reach. But outside it. Just to be safe.

Heh.

Well, then, how would she talk to her own heart?

“I’m sorry,” she said. Aloud. Never mind that it was utterly bizarre.

The octopus remained still, as though it believed it were hidden, so she continued.

“I didn’t mean to use my power on you. I don’t have control over it. Soren’s been disgusted about that since he transformed me. I’m supposed to be good at healing and protective barriers, like Elyssa and Lucy. Instead, the only thing I’m any good at is pushing things away.”

Its plus-sign eyes tracked on her.

The octopus was listening. That was kind of nice.

“I’d like to make peace with you, if you don’t mind. I think we got off on the wrong foot. Hiding all the time is unsettling. It makes me question whether I even have a house guardian.”

Her octopus did not move. It was still hiding.

How would she reach out? She was no good at this kind of thing. She tried anyway. “I appreciate your hard work. Watching over the castle all day is a big responsibility and I entrust it to you.”

The color shifted from camouflage green to a ripple of honest purple. It liked her tone, maybe. No way it could understand her words.

“I’m not affectionate like other people are, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like you,” she explained. “Okay? So I’d like to take you with me when I leave here. I think the megalodon will eat this castle and I’d feel terrible if you were inside.”

It shimmered.

She leaned forward until she was flat on the ground next to it. The octopus watched her the whole time, silent and unmoving.

“You know, maybe the problem isn’t that Soren doesn’t like me.” She traced one of his tattoo symbols she’d memorized, a six-pointed swirl over his right pectoral, on the bare ground. “He’s hard headed. Maybe the problem is whether I like him.”

The octopus watched her swirls. Its little tentacles curled curiously. As though all this time, it had only been waiting for Aya to reach out to it. It wanted to reach back. It just needed her to make the first move.

“Desperation isn’t attractive.” She lifted her brows. “Let’s try being exceptional instead.”

She closed her eyes and pressed her hands to the castle floor. Picturing Soren in front of her looking as he had last. Beautiful, dark, and deeply wounded.

Was she using him to unlock her powers? Only because she had been blindly grasping for his hands, believing that if she held onto him tightly the way Elyssa held onto King Kadir and Lucy held onto Torun, she’d mystically get her powers. That was blind faith.

Aya didn’t do blind faith.

She did executables.

Aya pictured Soren being wrong, wrong, wrong and herself right, right, right.

Tentacles curled on her back as though her octopus had taken a chance and gotten on top of her. Hah, was it in for a surprise.

Just like the image of Soren in her fantasies. When it felt satisfying, she imagined shoving Soren away.

Light exploded from her fingers in front of her so bright she saw it through her closed lids. She opened her eyes.

Aya was zooming upward. The floor dropped away like gravity reversed. The octopus startled and grabbed onto her hard. Hooray!

Uh oh, she was flying so hard she was about to slam into the ceiling.

She turned and shifted into human feet, landing hard enough to make her knees crunch and her shins rattle.

Her heart raced so hard it almost leapt out of her throat. “Hah! How’s that for power?”

The octopus trembled.

Maybe the next test could be gentler.

Aya pushed off, shaking out her knees and ankles, and kicked for the tunnel. Her fins unfurled naturally — as they should. She flexed her power to propel her even faster than before, and she flew so fast she skimmed the walls. Aya burst to the outside.

Ciran and Faier were flying toward the castle. They jolted. Tridents out, they raced to her against the hard current.

“Queen Aya! Is everything alright?” Faier shouted over the inhaling noise.

“Is the army here?”

He pointed. The army was the opposite direction from the megalodon. “Units from all major cities. The biggest force since the Seventy Years War.”

This was the definition of overkill. She shook her head. “The All-Council needs to study efficient use of resources.”

Her two faithful guards eyed each other. They probably thought she’d gone nuts with stress.

Well, let them.

Ciran pointed behind him. “Soren wants you to raise the final tier of the old city.”

She removed her octopus and whispered for it to go to the Life Tree with Elyssa. It flew from her hands, fast as a bullet.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They turned, fighting the eerie current.

“Not you, Faier.”

He pulled up short. Hurt and concern darkened his brow.

She kicked to remain even with him. “If we get cut off, you could get stuck outside the city.”

“I am not afraid.”

Of course not. “But who will defend the Life Tree within the very belly of the megalodon?”

His brows lifted. Honor fought with respect. He’d wished to stay behind but his duty was to protect her.

“It’s okay. I found my power.” She lifted her fingers. Crackling like trapped lightning emerged with a satisfying arc.

Both warriors regarded her with new hope.

“I will remain and defend the Life Tree.” Faier rested his trident against his side and saluted.

She returned the salute. “Good. Because I’ll be back. And I expect everything in perfect order.”

Aya kicked for the ruin. Ciran flanked her. They were just going to make it past the edges of the gathering army.

She had a plan.

Soren left Aya in her castle, waiting for Ciran and Faier to escort her to the ancient ruin, and returned to Kadir’s castle with a heavy heart.

The one thing he never wanted to do was hurt Aya. But throughout his life, he hurt the ones he most cared about. By being born. By existing.

His mother rejected him without ever looking at his face. His father grew impatient many times with Soren’s childhood fights. The youths called him a black soul and punished him for being so large. He’d only ever wanted to be worthy of respect.

And now, he dimmed Aya’s brilliance.

Soren slammed into the side of the tunnel, skinning his elbow. She would never forgive him for ruining her. Transforming her against her will. Hobbling her to depend on him. And now, breaking her.

He found Kadir floating over Elan. Lotar and the other warriors stood back, watching. The castle water tasted like blood. Elan’s hobbles had come loose, but he didn’t bother to defend himself. He took Kadir’s threats, Kadir gripping his neck and shaking him, with nothing but a sneer.

“You should have known this would happen.” Elan laughed. His lip was split and bruises ringed his eyes. “No one defies the All-Council and survives.”

“So you are happy to curse us? Our young fry?”

Sadness catapulted across Elan’s face, followed by an attack. “I cannot help you. I cannot!”

Looking at him, Soren felt a deep welling of rage. Not at Elan. At himself.

“Cannot?” he roared, startling Kadir into dropping Elan. “Or are you afraid?”

“I fear nothing, demon!” He turned away and rubbed his neck.

“You value young fry. Yet you refuse to help us. But you know who would have helped us? Your bride!”

Elan jolted as though Soren had stabbed him in the spine. He turned slowly. “What did you say?”

“You are weak and easily led. But one who is ten times your worth would listen and fight. That is your bride.”

He flushed hot red. “Do not speak of Zara!”

Soren would. “Do you know what they did to her? Your elders, who you serve so faithfully. Did you know they trussed her like a prisoner of war?”

Elan’s chest heaved.

“You serve them,” Soren taunted. “Even now. The ones who tied your wife.”

“Lies!”

“They ordered me to drag her to the surface, still fighting and bleeding. And I obeyed.”

He bared his teeth. “I will make you regret that night.”

“I do regret it,” Soren snapped.

Elan blinked.

“Your bride cursed us to the darkest pit of the Blacknight Sea. I thought she would forget after reaching the comfort of the air world.”

Fear flashed in Elan’s eyes. He thought so also. It was what they’d all been taught. What they all believed, even their own elders.

Aya had proved to Soren the mer didn’t know human women at all.

“But now I realize the truth.” Soren spat at him. “I took the wrong warrior to the surface. The one who forgot his duty to his wife and child is you.”

Elan attacked Soren with a scream.

One hand latched around Soren’s neck. His other clawed at Soren’s eyes. Soren fended him off, growling. They tumbled backward across Kadir’s courtyard.

“How dare you!” Elan screamed. “How dare you?”

“How dare you float here and argue?” Soren flared in his chest, vibrating.

Elan thumped him, trying to break his sternum. “Die!”

Soren shoved Elan back. “Your bride would not have obeyed the All-Council. She would not have mindlessly obeyed the ones who took you.”

Elan stared at him. His chest heaved. “I cannot help you, Soren. No matter how much I should wish to.” He wiped his mouth. A trickle of blood dissipated in the water.

What? Elan wished to help them?

He did not hate Soren?

Kadir and the others watched with amazement. Kadir finally spoke. “You do wish to help us?”

“They took my son.” He glared through the wall of the castle, at the gathered army. “Our elders.”

They fell silent. The eerie hissing grew stronger.

“Because I had listened to your words, Kadir. Because Zara convinced me she wanted to stay. Because we had a dream of raising our family together. When she was taken from me, I fought to go to her—and was captured. My son was taken to ensure I remained.”

New shock hit the warriors.

“Has Dragao Azul fallen so far?” Kadir asked.

Elan wiped his mouth of blood again. “You do not know how it is in the cities. Your leaving, Soren, caused a huge rift. No one would take the First Lieutenant position. They forced me back into it. No one would lead this army at the request of the All-Council. Here I am.” He gritted his bloodied teeth. “One word from your old All-Council representative and my son dies.”

Since he stormed out of Dragao Azul, Soren had focused on Atlantis. His warriors. The city under siege. Kadir’s injuries and risks. Atlantis had to fight to survive.

He never considered the plight of males in other cities.

Alone, with no one to help, they were punished or exiled. Elan’s fate was as bleak and hopeless as the ones they faced now in Atlantis.

“You should have killed me when you met me at the ruin.” He glared at Soren. “Then I could have died without knowing my role in ending the lives of other warriors’ young fry.”

So he was giving up.

The warlord Soren had respected and then hated for so long was giving up.

Was that what he had done to Aya? She had begged him to marry her. Rather than help her in any way possible, he had turned her down because he didn’t like the frightened look in her eye.

Wasn’t that just him running away? Seeing disrespect where none was meant? Believing he was unworthy, when what he really needed to do was focus on being worthy for her?

The depth of his idiocy stunned him.

And so did Elan’s.

“You are an honorless coward who deserves to lose your son,” Soren spat.

Elan jolted. The others gaped. He turned on Soren with a fury. “They took him from me! What would you have me do?”

“Take him back.”

“I cannot leave. You heard what they will do once they know I have helped you.”

“Adviser Creo is about to have other things on his mind.” Soren nodded at Kadir.

Kadir jerked his chin at the other warriors.

“You are leaving me?” Elan floated in the middle of the empty courtyard, unbound and unbelieving. “Alive?”

“Go home, Elan,” Soren called over his shoulder.

His former First Lieutenant kicked, shooting up the tunnel after them. “You are mad. All of you. The megalodons have already seen your city. No lure can turn them aside now. And if I leave or fall, another male will lead the army. This attack will not disappear. The All-Council also will not turn aside.”

“We are not turning anyone aside.” Soren burst from the tunnel. “We are bringing them together.”

In the open water, the low, eerie sounds of the megalodons grew louder. In the distance, three shadows emerged from the direction of the trench. The current blew hard as a riptide.

Soren conferenced with the warriors lingering at the Life Tree — learning of Aya’s actions from Faier there — and then he fought to swim in the direction of the army.

They had to lure the megalodons away from the Life Tree. Gailen kicked beside him. Kadir flew in the middle, with the other warriors ranged around him. Behind them, the Life Tree’s lights pulsed white and gold.

Elan pulled up sharply beside them, kicking hard to tread water. “That army is mostly composed of dissidents like me. That is why the All-Council waited so long to attack. They had to gather the dissidents. The All-Council intends to purge the other cities and demonstrate their ruling power in one decisive victory.”

“Then we will not give them a decisive victory.” Soren kicked forward.

Elan shouted after them. “You do not care your city will be destroyed?”

“Our city will not be destroyed.” Kadir called back at him. “Do you not know? We have three queens.”

Elan frowned.

“The light you see is our Life Tree. Queens wield its power. A megalodon has no chance.”

Elan stared at the lights. “Can it be?”

Soren addressed his former First Lieutenant. “This is your only chance. Go now. Save your son.”

He blinked and straightened. The possibility of winning, despite the overwhelming odds of facing down the All-Council and the elders in Dragao Azul, filled him with a new glow.

Everyone knew it was impossible to defy the All-Council — and yet, Elan was looking at the warriors who had broken Kadir out of their impenetrable abyssal prison. It was impossible to fight a megalodon. And yet, the arrival of the large army had caused that action to become possible.

He hesitated, then finally spoke something useful. “These warriors are only supposed to hold you. They have not studied the battles of the past. None have fought a megalodon.”

“Even better.” Soren smacked his chest. “I have fought one. We will survive.”

Elan studied him. Belief filled his features. “You have done well, Soren. If our situation had ended differently one year ago, and my Zara had remained with me to raise our son together, I would not have been sorry to yield my First Lieutenant position to you.”

He flushed. His chest swelled. The tingling feeling of fleas biting him intensified. He wanted to slap it away and twitch or scream. But instead, he held himself still until the feeling seeped into his heart and throbbed there.

“With that thought, you may consider going to collect Zara first,” Kadir said. “You could use a woman of her powers to safeguard your son.”

“Powers?” He frowned at the flashing lights.

“Teach her to make her fins. It is the first step. She is more powerful than either of you know.”

If more brides knew their powers, Atlantis would be unnecessary because none would leave against their will ever again.

“And,” Kadir added, “she deserves to know her child.”

Elan twisted his lips thoughtfully.

The eerie inhaling sound intensified. The ocean floor groaned and shuddered. A chunk of rock the size of Soren’s head detached and flew past them.

Elan kicked hard. “Fight well, lords of Atlantis. The fate of the rest of the cities — of all freedom — rests now on your tridents.”

Elan raised his empty hands and roared in farewell.

Soren and Kadir repeated the gesture. Honorably met, honorable war. Ironic, with the megalodons shadowing their city—the definition of dishonorable war. But in Elan, they had met an honorable opponent after all.

Perhaps they would not win today. Perhaps Atlantis would fall. But Elan might succeed in saving his son. Perhaps he would do so with Zara, and a new queen would awaken.

Hope spread with every new merman they empowered to stand against oppression and choose freedom.

Choose their orders. Choose their bride. Choose love.

Elan swam hard away from the army.

They swam to the half-way point between the city and the army. Hopefully it would be enough of a head start that the megalodons would see and be attracted to them as lures, but not eat them immediately. It was a small hope, but it was all they had.

The old ruin was stationary. Aya, Balim, and Ciran must be working hard.

“King Kadir.” Lotar pointed at the triumvirate of megalodons converging on the castles.

Kadir stopped kicking. The others did as well. They floated back on the swift current toward the megalodons.

Leading the three, like bobbing bait, struggled the young warrior Soren had seen before.

Gailen shouted. “There is the lure!”

Unlike before, this time he was lopsided, his mouth bloody and cheeks puffy with bruises. He drifted toward the Life Tree blindly, beyond any desire to war, only frightened and young and hurt.

“He got chewed on,” Gailen said. The inhalation pulled the warriors toward the Life Tree. “Looks bad. And there is only one. What of the other two?”

Tial made a noise. “I do not see teeth marks.”

No. A mer had worked the youth over. Had he changed his mind and tried to run?

The youth could not outswim the megalodons anymore. Now they converged on the city, they would swallow him down.

Soren clenched his hands. Even flying hard with the current, he could not save the youth a second time.

From the Life Tree entrance, a figure emerged.

“Faier has him,” Soren said.

Faier grabbed the young warrior and dragged him into Queen Elyssa’s castle. The youth collapsed into his arms, exhausted. The castle sealed up behind them, closing its entrance to enemies, hardening into a ball that was impenetrable. It was an effective defense.

But not against megalodons.

The first reached the castle and inhaled.

They were not lured by the sight of Soren, Kadir, and the other warriors!

The castle strained on its ball but did not break.

The megalodon lowered until the castle was inside its mouth. Its teeth crossed the widest point. It closed its jaws. Sharp teeth sliced Kadir’s castle in half.

Kadir grabbed onto a stable boulder in the sea bed. The rest of the warriors stopped beside him. His jaw hardened.

Soren felt ill.

The lower half of Kadir’s castle fell to the sea floor in a broken mess. The megalodon opened its mouth. The upper half fell out, mashed to bits.

Where were Faier and the youth?

The megalodon rolled sideways and eyed the descending structures. Normally, a hundred mer might shelter inside the castle. This time, only a single orange spot flew out.

“Is that a house guardian?” Tial asked, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.

“Yes,” Soren confirmed.

Benji attacked the megalodon’s exposed eye.

The megalodon moved sideways, rolling to escape the infuriated creature. Guardians and sharks were natural enemies. Although the house guardian was a tiny speck against the huge monster, it attacked like a needle, and the megalodon exhaled to change direction, scooting away from Aya’s castle.

Faier and the youth shot out of its mouth.

They had survived!

Faier flew for the Life Tree.

The second megalodon approached the Life Tree. Attracted by the flashing lights, it bypassed Aya’s castle and focused on the broken sanctuary.

Behind Soren, the army condensed into a troubled unit. A single, juicy unit of warriors who did not wish to be here and were probably horrified by what they saw.

The second megalodon moved forward as though contemplating going to the army. Then it backed away and focused on the Life Tree again.

Tial looked at Gailen. “It has been an honor serving with you.”

“And you.” Gailen stared up toward the surface and sighed. “I wanted to open a sushi restaurant.”

“Megalodon is a specialty no one had tried before.”

He smiled faintly. “Shall we?”

Tial and Gailen let go of the sea floor and swam for the second megalodon.

“Hold!” Soren swam after them. “What are you doing?”

“We are the youngest.”

“The megalodons are not responding to us lures. They will eat you in one bite. You will get yourself killed!”

“Do not ruin our strategy. Be inconspicuous.” Gailen shouted back at him. “You must tell Lucy’s young fry about our heroism on the day of their birth.”

“You are crazy!” he shouted, helpless to do more but obey. “I do not ask this of you.”

Gailen’s response was torn away by the sudden return of the eerie wind tunnel. The second megalodon, at the Life Tree, positioned itself over the crackling light.

Gailen and Tial flew at it hard. They waved and shouted.

Even though they were still a great distance away, their noise and activity finally caught the attention of the megalodon.

It obligingly left the Life Tree and floated toward them. Its eerie noise started.

Gailen and Tial hurtled out of control through the water and were sucked directly into its maw.

No!

They both scrambled. Tial kicked hard. Gailen disappeared into the mouth and kicked out of it.

The jaws closed, and then the megalodon realized it did not have them. Unlike the slow, steady pace it used for following the youth, now it sped forward, a fin-flick that crossed half the city in a stroke, and closed again on both mermen. They were going to be sliced in half.

Soren bunched himself to fly.

The first megalodon smashed into the second, jostling it sideways for a bite.

Tial and Gailen split, flying opposite directions.

The megalodons smashed into each other again. Gailen and Tial flew up, aiming for height and distance. The two megalodons passed over Soren and the other warriors hugging the ocean floor. The ground shuddered beneath Soren’s grip and his legs were torn from underneath him, but his grip held. The megalodons passed by.

The current shifted to yank him the opposite direction – away from the city and toward the army.

Behind him, the army shifted nervously. Their giant, ancient enemies sailed toward them like harbingers of doom. Perhaps they realized Elan was no longer in charge. Discipline first failed at the edges, and then the center split into a screaming mass of terror. Warriors dropped their tridents and dove for the sea floor.

The megalodons settled their differences, opened their giant maws, and feasted.

Soren turned away.

If there had been only two megalodons, Aya’s plan to lure them away from the city would have worked.

The third megalodon floated over the city. Tentacle sucker-scars marked its mouth. This was the monster he and Aya had faced in the trench. Its eerie call clawed up his back.

The crack of the Life Tree drew its interest. It hovered over the sanctuary, turned, and studied the inhabitants.

Kadir made a helpless noise and pushed off the ground. He shifted to fins and kicked toward the sanctuary.

“Kadir!” Soren shoved off the ground and flew after him.

They could not arrive in time.

The third megalodon positioned its deadly, teeth-filled mouth above the broken sanctuary and inhaled.

Kadir tumbled at the maw. Soren fought for control.

Elyssa floated up behind a shining white shield. She was not sucked into the jaw, but floated calmly between the megalodon and the Life Tree. A brilliant white avatar, she glowed with energy.

Kadir hurtled backward into the protective shelter.

She grabbed his hand.

He curled around her.

The jaws of the megalodon began to close around them.

Soren lifted his trident with a roar. He flew straight into the black mouth, his trident aimed at the roof for the monster’s inner skull.

Aya sat on the edge of the second tier and watched. The army finally realized the danger of two hungry zeppelins flying over them.

The third hovered over the Life Tree.

It did not bode well.

“The final stage is broken.” Ciran floated beside her. His hands were greasy and his eyes darkened with recrimination. “Balim is examining it but his conclusion is final. It will never rise.”

So, even if the megalodons were scared by the noise of the rising city, they couldn’t make any. She had wasted all this time coming here for nothing.

Soren and the others were battling. They gave everything. She failed them.

Aya had to think.

Plan B was to raise the city, frightening off the megalodons. That had failed, clearly. Plan C was to misdirect the army so they could smuggle out Lucy and everyone undetected. Plan D was to awaken Octopus Kong for this purpose. But it would be impossible to smuggle out Lucy with a megalodon hovering over the Life Tree.

Aya had made a tactical error.

All plans hinged on raising the final stage. Which was impossible.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Can you pry something out the rubble?”

“The beams connecting the final stage have shattered. We would have to carve new beams and counterbalance the load.”

“How big are the beams?”

“The thickness of the castle anchors.”

So, about five people’s arm spans, if they all hugged the beam together, fingertip-to-fingertip. She pinched the bridge of her nose again. “I thought we had one more stage to raise.”

“I am sorry, Queen Aya.”

The ruin was her secret weapon. It was her nuclear sub, her depth charges. It was the thing she relied upon to drive the megalodons away.

“I am so sorry.”

She wasn’t going to say it was okay. She was going to think.

There had to be something she was missing.

Because they had exhausted all of their other resources. Right now, a megalodon was eying the Life Tree. She was out of time.

She needed to send an underwater SWAT team. She needed to send a bomb-laden drone. She needed to send a superhero.

But there was only Aya.

And she was going to have to be enough.

“It is over.” Ciran was white as he stared at the destruction. “You must escape.”

“It is not over.” She stood up. Power pulsed in her chest. He was wrong and she would prove herself right. “And I’m not going anywhere. Come on.”

She dropped down the hole in the ruined city and flew for the ocean floor.

“Queen Aya!” Ciran struggled to keep up with her. She used her power to add propulsion, and he kicked all-out but was falling behind. “First Lieutenant Soren made me vow to take you to the surface if we could not win!”

“Great, I’ll take you up on that if we hit that point.” She poured on the speed, leaving Ciran far behind. The cave of Octopus Kong loomed below. She would fly in and —

The gigantic octopus was already out. It rested on a rock ledge, watching the megalodons attack the army and the city, and warbled mournfully, harmonious as a symphony of bees puking on a drum machine.

Plan D it was.

Octopus Kong turned one eye on her. The other remained focused on the megalodons.

She fluttered to a stop in front of him. “I understand that octopi are the natural enemies of sharks. What are you doing just sitting here?”

He twisted his mammoth tentacles as though making excuses.

The megalodons were over there. He was over here. He’d jump in if they threatened his city, his cave. The mermen had led the prehistoric sharks here themselves. Octopus Kong had no patience for whippersnappers and their pranks. They should conduct themselves more intelligently, like octopi.

“That’s all fine, but that is your city.”

His song shifted to increase the buzz. No one had asked him to intervene.

“I’m asking you.”

He trained both eyes on her.

“Yes, really. I told you, I only hug in a professional capacity.” She raised her arms. “If we are going to work together, go ahead.”

One tentacle reached out and curled around her. It squeezed gently. The massive stub at the end of the tentacle brushed her cheek. Tasting. Getting to know her.

Feeling her determination.

Ciran kicked from a huge distance. His voice just reached her. “Queen Aya!”

“Alright.” She pointed at the megalodon hovering over the Life Tree. “Let’s go save the day.”

Octopus Kong raised his tentacles and changed colors from gray to white to streaked green. His song changed from off-tune gargling to a strangled seagull thrown into a blender. Clearly, the war cry of the battle octopus.

“To war!” she shouted.

Octopus Kong jetted across the ocean.

Behind them, Ciran’s shocked, slack-jaw awe was all the tingling, feel-good reward she needed.

Octopus Kong flew across the distance like a watery dragon of olde. Aya rode in front, coiled in one tentacle. He reached the outer edge of the fleeing army. The fleeing warriors gaped and pointed in shock.

What? Had they never seen a woman riding a giant octopus into battle before?

Before her, the two megalodons loomed like horrifying vacuum cleaners of death, suctioning mermen off the carpet of the ocean bottom. The army of her enemies fled in horror from the beasts they had unleashed.

Octopus Kong aimed for the closest megalodon. It shied away, leaving the warriors to face the giant octopus.

“No! The Life Tree.”

Octopus Kong shifted direction with a huff. His battle urges must be pumping. His war cry increased in volume.

The second megalodon turned warily to follow their progress across the battlefield. The giant sharks respected the giant octopus as an adversary.

Excellent. She chose her partners well.

At the Life Tree, Elyssa rose. She held her arms wide and her head was thrown back like an angel experiencing the rapture. A white energy barrier shielded her.

The third megalodon focused on Elyssa. It lowered its mouth.

Aya knew that monster. She raised her fist. It was not going to destroy another part of the Life Tree.

Kadir flew into the barrier. Elyssa grabbed his hand, holding him safely.

Wait. Were the other warriors nearby? How—

Soren flew past the barrier, purposely missing it. He lofted his trident. Rage filled his war scream.

He was attacking the megalodon? He was crazy!

The megalodon would eat him. Just like in the trench, when there was nothing she could do but scream in horror.

He flew into the mouth.

The jaws closed.

Soren disappeared.

Octopus Kong flew at the megalodon, but it was already too late.

The megalodon closed its jaws. Soren disappeared inside its mouth.

He was gone.

“No!” Aya shrieked.

Her hands glowed. Elyssa’s white barrier glowed also. With Aya’s power added, the barrier flew forward and punched the megalodon in the nose.

The megalodon jerked backward and coughed.

Soren flew out of its mouth.

Kadir swam forward and dragged Soren into safety. The barrier reformed around Elyssa and the two males.

The megalodon thrashed, making a choked, coughing noise. More warriors flew out of its mouth. Friends and enemies, bruised and bloody, were suddenly given a reprieve. They scrambled for escape.

Octopus Kong released Aya and flew at the third megalodon with all arms waving.

The megalodon flew backwards, exhaling hard. More warriors puked out of its mouth. Octopus Kong zigged and zagged, tentacles curling to thrash the prehistoric shark. The sucker-scarred megalodon kept its teeth facing the octopus. Both adversaries thrust and parried for an opening to attack.

Aya swan-dove into the middle of Elyssa’s barrier.

Soren was holding his head. A new, jagged scar ripped down one cheek. He looked up, saw her, and his arms opened.

She crashed into him.

They tumbled.

“You are so reckless,” he growled, holding her tight.

“Says the male who dove into a megalodon’s mouth.” She kissed him hard on the lips. “You are never doing that after we get married.”

He was alive. He was whole. All her fears were put to rest by holding his big, solid body in her arms and squeezing, and in the instant after he melted away his surprise, he kissed her back, hard and solid.

He stroked her hair and pulled back. Concern darkened his eyes. “You were supposed to go to the surface.”

“Not without you.” She gripped his shoulders. “Didn’t you hear? There are predators on the surface. It’s unsafe.”

He snorted, shook his head and squeezed her hard. “You do not need me to protect you.”

“That’s true.” She pulled back and kissed him again. A stamp of her possession. “I don’t need you. I just want you. I hope that’s good enough.”

His dark eyes fired with possession. “You are mine.”

“Same.” She stroked his hard brow. “Okay then. Let’s finish this.”

The megalodon scooted backward into the battlefield. The other two megalodons also flew back, exhaling to evade Octopus Kong. Warriors were regurgitated all over the ocean floor as the giant sharks avoided their wily foe.

In comparison to their size, the megalodons were much larger than the mammoth octopus. He was like a Smart car attacking a semi truck. But he was effective.

One of the megalodons scooted the wrong direction. Octopus Kong wrapped his arms around the megalodon’s middle. The megalodon thrashed, bending to bite the octopus but not flexible enough to do so. The octopus squeezed.

The megalodon dive-bombed the ocean floor.

Octopus Kong shoved off it at the last moment.

The megalodon crashed into floor, scraping its body along the sharp rocks. Great gouges scored its sides and blood stained the water. It flew unsteadily away from the city.

Octopus Kong wheeled to face the other megalodons.

They both backed away.

Octopus Kong selected one and flew at it.

It shot backwards, exhaling full force. The mammoth octopus followed, arms waving furiously. They raced across the ocean floor, the megalodon clearly racing, like the other one, back to the safety of its abyss.

Only the third megalodon remained.

It was the one that had attacked them in the trench. All around it, injured warriors filled the water, scrambling away. It ignored them, instead moving across the debris-clouded field toward the Life Tree. Its mouth opened. The eerie inhaling began.

Soren and Aya were sucked into Elyssa’s barrier.

Elyssa linked hands with King Kadir. “I don’t know how much longer Lucy can make this barrier.”

“Lucy’s making it?”

“It’s her talent. I can amplify it. That’s my talent.” Elyssa looked to Aya. “Tell me you have a plan.”

A plan was forming…

The third megalodon floated over them. Its endless gullet of hunger stretched into a black pit. Jagged teeth jutted from gums scarred with the stabs of desperate, helpless victims. Its eerie inhaling made the Life Tree shudder.

Soren and Kadir kicked forward, placing themselves between the megalodon and the women.

“This one will not turn aside,” Soren growled. His empty hands flexed as though searching for his lost trident. “It will not rest until we are in its gullet.”

“Then that’s exactly where we’re going to be.” Aya slung her arm around Soren. “Come down. Shrink the barrier.”

King Kadir and Soren regarded her with concern.

“Trust me.” Aya descended into the sanctuary, tugging Soren’s fin. “Hurry.”

Elyssa floated down with Kadir. The barrier shrank inward to the edge of the Life Tree petals.

“What are you doing?” Soren dove with Aya to the dais of the Life Tree. The bubble continued to contract and the megalodon’s large teeth followed them. “It will swallow us.”

“Yes.” Aya clung to him as the shadow of the megalodon closed over them and its teeth passed their level. “That’s the idea.”

Lucy rested in Torun’s arms, his back against the Life Tree, focused on her birth. Faier and the beat-up lure braced in the entrance. Faier’s terrified eyes tracked the teeth passing outside, only the slightest light of Lucy’s barrier preventing them all from getting sucked out, into its maw.

Elyssa floated to Aya’s level. Her eyes opened and she reached out and clasped one of Aya’s hands. She laughed, excited and carefree, as though they were planning another Unicorn Mermaid Girl excursion. “Now what?”

“We’re going to wait. Lucy?”

“You’re the boss, Aya.” Lucy kept her eyes closed and raised her hands. Elyssa took one. Aya kicked forward, dragging Soren with her, and released him to take Lucy’s other hand, so the three women united in a triad.

“Is your queen well?” Kadir asked Torun with concern.

The gold-tattooed warrior looked as tired as Lucy. He held her, sloppily satisfied. “Yes. She is having a quiet transition. It is well-earned, too.”

Kadir nodded and then, inspired by Torun’s hug, moved behind Elyssa and nuzzled her. “How can I help?”

She snuggled against him. “Oh, this is good.”

Aya straightened, holding both women’s hands in her own. “Soren, I need you.”

He flew to her and held on tightly.

The Life Tree shuddered.

Faier cried out. “It is closing over us. It will sever the stalk!”

“It will not sever the stalk,” Aya told him.

Lucy and Elyssa repeated her.

The Life Tree stopped shuddering.

Warmth filled her chest. She had proved Faier wrong. She was right. He was wrong. It felt so very, very good to be right.

Overhead, the monster’s gullet created a black night. The Life Tree’s quiet cherry blossom – silver radiance was their only source of light. In the belly of the beast, the warriors hugged their queens.

“Now?” Soren murmured, his chest vibrating against her back. “Your plan?”

“We expand the barrier outward, fast and hard. We’ll pop this fish like a balloon.”

Lucy cracked an eye. “I don’t know if I can expand the barrier so fast. Even with Elyssa’s augmentation.”

“No problem.” Aya grinned. “Pushing things away is my talent.”

Faier looked down the stalk. “It is releasing the stalk.”

“Now!”

White light filled the chamber. The Life Tree tinkled with power. Their iridescent barrier expanded.

Aya imagined the megalodon thinking it would eat them. She imagined proving it wrong. She imagined the satisfaction.

The barrier flew wider and wider. The Life Tree tinkled louder and louder. Warmth filled her chest and crackled along her hands where she linked to Elyssa and Lucy.

And then it stopped.

She cracked an eye.

The megalodon was still hovering over them. Its gullet stretched like a dark pit of hell over the hole in the sanctuary.

Uh oh.

“What’s happening?” Aya asked Faier.

“We are wedged,” he said. “The megalodon’s mouth is open but it cannot spit us out. You must push harder.”

Elyssa floated in King Kadir’s arms, her face peaceful and radiant. Lucy squeezed Aya’s hand so tightly it left a white mark. And Aya was right.

It wasn’t enough.

“How can I support you?” Soren growled. Clearly this was beyond him.

She needed him to tell her she couldn’t do it. Then, she would imagine his face when she proved him wrong, and increase her resonance.

“Do you think I can do it?” she baited him. “Will I fail?”

“Can you use the energy of the Life Tree to expand the barrier until it causes injury to the megalodon?” Soren squeezed her. “Of course you can do this. You are the most powerful queen who has ever lived.”

The others glowed and channeled their energy into expanding out the barrier.

Wait. Did he say she could do it?

It wasn’t even a question. Soren had complete faith in her abilities to use a super mystical power to blow up a giant fish.

Oh. Well, so did she.

Aya flowed her power into the barrier like the superior wizard Soren knew she was.

It was okay to be strong. It was okay to be powerful. It was okay to try her hardest.

Soren would still love her.

She was worthy of love.

The barrier exploded outward with a sudden synthesis of their three energies. It reached the wall of the megalodon’s flesh and tightened. The creature groaned.

And then, again, the barrier stopped.

“A little more,” Faier called.

More? They needed more?

Lucy shuddered. The barrier shrank, unstable. She moaned. “The babies. They’re coming.”

“You are doing well.” Torun stroked her hair with his free hand. “You are a wonderful mother.”

The barrier eased inward again. The megalodon wriggled. It was getting free.

No!

“Soren.” Aya tightened down on her power. “You are an honorable warrior, a caring lover, and you will be a wonderful father.”

He thrummed. “Your faith makes me so.”

“We’re getting married. Right now.”

He pressed his forehead against the back of her head as if she were the trunk of the Life Tree. “I, Soren of Atlantis, present Aya as my chosen bride. Shower your blessing and healing on our union so she may give us a young fry.”

Power flowed into her. “I, Aya of Miami, present Soren as my chosen husband. Shower your blessing and healing on our union so I may give us a young fry.”

The barrier expanded outward.

“Elyssa!” she shouted. “King Kadir! Renew your vows.”

Elyssa grinned radiantly, her eyes closed and her head tipped back to rest on her husband’s broad shoulder. “I, Elyssa of America, present Kadir as my chosen king. Shower your blessing and healing on our union so we have a wonderful baby.”

“I, Kadir of Atlantis, present Elyssa as my chosen queen. Shower your blessing and healing on our union so she may give us a wonderful baby.”

The barrier shoved outward.

It was happening. The Life Tree pulsed with power.

“Lucy. Torun!”

“I, Torun of Sireno, present Lucy as my chosen bride. Shower your blessing and healing on our union so she may give us two young fry.”

The megalodon thrashed, its mouth open, the Life Tree a choking hazard it had made the mistake of trying to eat. Its flesh stretched tight and its bones cracked.

Lucy’s mouth opened. She grimaced.

“Lucy!” Aya shouted.

Instead of vowing, she groaned. “The baby…is here!” She leaned forward and pushed.

The Life Tree glowed so hard it vibrated with a holy white shimmer. The barrier exploded outward.

Pop.

The monster exploded into white, fleshy chum. Fish steaks the size of VW buses tumbled past the entrance and fell to the sea floor. The entire back half of the megalodon slipped backward and disappeared.

Queen Lucy groaned and collapsed against Torun.

Soren thanked the Life Tree that he was present for this amazing miracle. The megalodon was destroyed, the army routed, and the first young fry of Atlantis was born!

Torun lifted his young fry tenderly. The tiny infant wiggled his fists and kicked. His chest vibrated in a newborn cry.

Queen Lucy wiped her face and reached out. Torun pressed her son into her arms. She held him and rocked, and Torun hugged the both of them. Heartbreaking joy and awe flowed between the two new parents.

Warmth glowed in Soren’s chest and a lump formed in his throat. They were so beautiful. This was how it should always be. Husband and wife and young fry. Together. Secure in their love. Happy.

And then Lucy pitched forward again. Torun held their newborn son while the second was born.

“She is a female,” Torun exclaimed. “A queen.”

The warriors gasped.

Kadir caught Soren’s eye. Triumph lit his face. He had foretold this miracle.

No female had been born to the mer in a thousand years. Not since before the great crisis that destroyed old Atlantis. Now, a queen was once more born. The problems were reversing. Their race would survive.

Queen Lucy finished with the birth. Torun hugged her again as the beautiful creamy-blue infants cried and nosed for her breasts. Soon they were suckling contentedly. Queen Lucy stroked them, awe lighting her exhausted features, and they all rested against the sparkling, holy Life Tree.

Everyone moved back, toward the edge of the broken dais, to give them privacy.

Aya swallowed hard several times as she observed them.

“Are you well?” Soren asked, thrumming for her ears alone.

She nodded, finally looking away. “I’ve always wanted kids, but I was worried. I thought I was missing an important gene. But that,” she swallowed again, hard, and her eyes rimmed in red, “was more affecting than I thought it would be. I’m not worried anymore.”

Good. “You will be a fierce mother.”

“Yes.” Aya rested her head on Soren’s shoulder. “I will.”

“So.” Queen Elyssa teased Kadir with sparkling eyes. “I expect our birth story to be just as amazing.”

He blinked several times. “I hope it will be more ordinary. I will have trouble concentrating if we are swallowed by another megalodon.”

“It’s fine. Aya knows how to blow them up.”

Kadir rubbed Queen Elyssa’s head. She giggled.

Soren rumbled softly to Aya. “You roused the cave guardian, defeated the megalodons, and routed the army.”

She patted his hand. “I knew I could do it.”

“How?” Gailen asked frankly, crawling up over a broken chunk of sanctuary petal. His eyes were permanently bugged, and he had terrible bloody bruises and scars as though he had been chewed on and spit out. “What were you thinking?”

“You always wanted to try megalodon sushi,” Aya said.

Gailen paused.

She gestured at the ocean floor, visible behind him. “I did this for you, Gailen.”

He looked down.

“What do you say?” she prompted.

“I have no idea.” He started laughing. “Are all brides like you?”

Soren growled and held her close. “My queen is like no other.”

“Thanks, Queen Aya. We have enough meat to feed an army.”

“It is good you do.” Balim descended through the broken sanctuary roof and checked first Kadir, tsking at a long scratch on his arm, and then Soren, poking at his injury. “You have a whole army out here. Most are injured. Many are seeking asylum.” He left them and moved to the new family.

“Our population problem is solved!” Queen Elyssa threw her arms around Kadir and kissed him with delight. Then, she got quiet. “Oh. Our castle is gone.”

It had been destroyed.

“And I don’t see Benji…”

“Your house guardian is there.” Gailen pointed.

The small orange octopus dangled a few branches away from Aya’s purple house guardian, safely ensconced in the Life Tree. Benji must have been exhausted after attacking the megalodon.

“Aw.” Queen Elyssa relaxed. “Okay. Now we’re back to being homeless.”

“The Life Tree will grow a new castle,” Kadir promised, nuzzling her. “Until then, we will rest elsewhere.”

“And it will not be long. Look, castles!” Gailen hung down the hole in the dais and pointed. “The Life Tree is putting out new castles. You can see them rising between the megalodon chunks. One, two, three…seven, eight…twelve, thirteen, fourteen! It keeps going!”

The others came and crowded around.

The bright, green bulbs of new castles pushed up through the soil in three expanding rings. One bulb even pushed up through the wreckage of Kadir’s castle as though absorbing its nutrients to remake itself. The city expanded with hope and promise.

“It’s like fairy rings,” Aya murmured. “Little puffballs. You can’t see them growing, but you almost can...”

“Incredible.” Faier stared down beside them. “I have never heard of so many in such a young city.”

The warrior’s brows lifted with hope. For the first time since Soren had met him, he looked young and full of vitality.

“Well, we did just super-charge it.” Queen Elyssa stroked her husband’s hand. “And with so many new residents coming in, we’re going to have a huge influx of new brides. Right?”

Faier frowned and rubbed the scars on his arm. New ones had joined the others from where he had rescued the Dragon Mar youth, who was sleeping in a lump, curled up in the entrance.

They would figure out what to do with the youth later. He had a story, like these other warriors. Kadir and Queen Elyssa would have a lot of sorting to do. Soren as well — as the First Lieutenant of Atlantis.

“Well, if we won’t be out of our home for too long...” Queen Elyssa grinned at Aya and Soren. “I guess we’re crashing at your place!”

“Oh.” Aya bit her lip. “I regret not having planted or sanded the ledges.”

“You’re still moving in,” Queen Elyssa said. “We’ll have a move-in party! It will be so much fun. We’ll do a sleepover every night. Starting—”

“Not now.” Soren drew Aya to him. “The heart chamber is open. Aya is mine. The castle is ours this night.”

Aya’s soul glowed red. She accepted his claim. They had done everything out of order, but they were bound now in body, heart, and soul.

Elyssa grinned and held up her hands in surrender. “It’s fine. We’re plenty busy out here. Take your time.”

He pushed off the dais, swimming Aya with him. “To the heart chamber, my bride!”

Soren crossed the warzone that had once been their city. Aya stared. So many things had happened

They were married now.

Elyssa’s castle was gone. Its wreckage made a fertile green lump for new growth, although it crushed the coral forest around it.

Chunks of megalodon, including the tail section, littered the forest floor like fleshy boulders. Mermen kicked between them in a daze searching for their units. The Atlantis warriors were organizing as best they could. Everyone was stunned, many were holding their heads or other body parts injured. Balim would have his work cut out for him.

Most importantly, they had survived. Aya and Soren, Elyssa and King Kadir, Lucy and Torun, their babies, and so many more. Her plan had worked.

She was awesome.

Soren kicked to her castle. New castles sprang up, swelling with the promise of new life.

Her own castle was shut tight, puckered closed. Soren pressed his palm to the pucker. The portal sparkled white and opened.

Anticipation sparkled in her belly.

They had entered together before. But now Soren carried her across the threshold as husband and wife.

He crossed the empty courtyard — Elyssa really was going to have to work hard to get it in shape for habitation— and down the hall. It no longer ended abruptly, but twisted deep, leading them down to a new dead end.

Soren shifted to human feet, stood with both legs apart, and placed his hand on the wall.

“Place your hand with mine.” His voice sounded rough. Her tough warrior, feeling tender?

Her anticipation tightened. She shifted to human feet, stood beside him in front of the wall, and placed her palm above his. Could he feel her thundering heartbeat?

The wall sparkled, shimmering, and then it opened inward.

He looked down at her. His expression turned from gentleness to heat.

She took his hand.

Together, they entered the heart chamber.

It was small for the both of them, especially with Soren so big. But it glowed with health, safety, and protection. Green walls combined a health spa, oxygen bar, and relaxation room. In this deepest core of the castle, they were surrounded by the energy that declared it home.

And she was here with Soren, who no longer pushed her away and declared she would be better off with someone else.

She swayed to him. “Soren.”

He caught her in his arms. She rested her palm against his chest. His heartbeat felt loud.

Soren held her for long moments. They had made it here, finally. After all the times it seemed this would never come.

“I wanted to protect you.” He stroked her curves, waist to hip. “Even now, I feel it is better to protect you from me.”

“I wanted to believe without reason. To stop thinking and feel.”

“I am a terrible male.”

Terrible to his enemies. Terrible to himself.

“But my brain and my heart both love you.”

He crushed her to him. She held him just as tightly.

He lowered his head for a kiss. The kiss of husband and wife.

Their mouths mated and tongues tangled, stroking each other with delicious discovery. She accepted him for all he had been and all he tried to be. Honorable, terrible, beautiful.

Hers.

This was not their first kiss. But it was the first in the heart chamber, together, married.

And this was not her first time pressed naked against Soren.

But this was her first time pressed naked against her husband.

She filled her palms with his bulging biceps, slid her fingers over the hard knots of his shoulders, and caressed the wide planes of his thick pectorals.

He pulled back to watch her. She enjoyed his hard abs, the sharp vee down to his thick cock, the ropey muscle around his waist, and his taut buttocks.

“Why do you like me?” she asked.

A brow rose and a smile curved his thick, kissable lips. “You do not know?”

She shook her head.

“I love to stroke your soft body.” His thick palm slid from her hip up the curve of her waist to her back.

“Your sinuous spine.” He slid his finger down and up again, raising delicious goosebumps on her skin.

“Your flowing hair.” He gripped her hair in a fist and brought her lips under his dominion.

While his tongue stroked her mouth, his words continued to seduce her, vibrating from his chest into hers.

“You are every good and beautiful thing, a light shining as pure and holy, beating in my veins and saturating my blood. With you, I am invincible.”

He lifted his head and glowed his eternal vow of honor into her soul. “With you, I am at peace.”

She heated to a thousand degrees.

His mouth lowered to her neck. He sucked her skin, owning her, and then her powerful warrior squeezed her slippery breasts and brought them to his mouth.

Heat enveloped her sensitive nipple. Sensation streaked to her center and kindled a throbbing fire.

She moaned.

He rumbled deep in his chest, pleased, and cupped her throbbing need, her mons.

She tightened around his hand, rubbing herself on his confident domination. Pleasure squeezed from her bud and the throbbing need turned to an ache.

She found his hard length and stroked him.

He groaned. His cock already pulsed hard and ready for her. He filled her hand and she wanted to be filled all the way with her male.

He was lean and strong, and she stroked his thick cock expertly, lovingly, giving pleasure with the same sweet dedication she devoted to all of her successes.

His eyes rimmed black with hunger. “I intended to savor this time with you.”

She nipped his lips. “Savor the next time.”

“Aya.”

“We have the rest of our lives.”

With a growl, part hunger and part triumph, he crushed her to him. The temperature of the water rose as his full passion unleashed.

She encouraged him, pressing her soft curves against his bulging muscles, and writhing. He palmed her ass cheeks, kneading her desire. She scissored his waist and rubbed her wet, throbbing bud against his hard length.

He groaned.

The head of his cock pressed against her honey-slick entrance. She guided his shaft, penetrating deep into her interior. He eased into her tight entrance and buried himself to the hilt.

They connected in their cores. Heart to heart. Faithful and eternal.

Aya wrapped her legs around his waist. She lost herself in his dark eyes as he pressed his cock deep within.

He kissed her thoroughly. Celebrating their union, cock to channel, tongue to tongue. They were one.

He thrust into her slowly, stroking her senseless with pleasure. She released his face and moved her grip lower, squeezing his taut butt with her hands.

The water tingled around them, electric.

He pushed his throbbing cock again and again into her yielding softness.

She lost her focus. Everything became Soren.

He thrust harder and harder, and she bucked against him. More.

Pleasure rose higher and sweeter. The whole room glowed green. The water turned white between them.

She shattered with orgasm.

Her release drove his. He poured his seed into her with a roar.

The quiet afterward was louder than every other sound in her life.

Her heart beat steadily in her chest. She heard every thud-thud, thud-thud. She stroked his tattoos, tracing secret lines and messages on his cooling skin. The radiance between them bathed her in warm satisfaction.

Soren, too, had a look of peace. Finding his home, finally, after long years of searching in the wilderness of his broken heart.

She held her husband close and kissed his brow. Mer didn’t have wrinkles or pruney fingers, but frown lines scored his forehead, even at rest, and he wasn’t very old. She kissed them gently.

“I realized something.”

He cracked open an eyelid. “Oh?”

“The most important thing isn’t proving someone else wrong. It’s having faith I can be right. I can try my hardest. Love doesn’t have to mean sacrificing my best performance.”

“Not at all.” He raised a brow. “That was an excellent performance.”

Heh. Look. Her furious warrior could tease and relax and just exist. No longer filled only with rage and torment. He could experience the full span of emotions.

And so could she.

She propped herself up on her elbows. “I have a great idea.”

“Of course you do.”

His simple faith, not even teasing, warmed her to her tingling core. “Keep that up and you’ll give me a different great idea.”

“If it is joining with me again,” he squeezed her buttocks, “I agree.”

“It is, but after that, I was thinking. How many cities are represented by the All-Council? Is it roughly equivalent to the number of cities in the army outside?”

He considered it. “The most important cities will be represented.”

“We should forge a new treaty.”

He rose on his elbows. “A new treaty? With the other cities?”

“Now that the Seven Cities Treaty has been broken, we have a unique opportunity to forge a treaty that celebrates the values of Atlantis.”

Because even though using a megalodon against an unrecognized city like Atlantis hadn’t broken the treaty, the All-Council threatening to use one against Dragao Azul – and probably other cities as well – if they didn’t cooperate did break the treaty. And it was so ironic because they were the enforcers of the treaty terms, and they had been created specifically to defend against the very megalodons they themselves unleashed.

“The warriors forced here will not have the power of kings,” Soren cautioned.

“Isn’t that okay? Atlantis is ruled by more than King Kadir. He asks for contributions from all his warriors. Collaboration, freedom, choice — these are all our values and the representatives who are here can carry them back to their own cities.”

Where, hopefully, they would flourish and grow.

“It is like a dream.” He frowned. “The All-Council will be angry. They may try to attack again.”

“What do they have that’s worse than three megalodons?”

His brows lightened. “Nothing.”

“Exactly.

He pulled her to her feet. “We must tell Kadir right away.”

His eagerness heartened her. “You like my idea?”

“It is brilliant, like you.” He flew her out of the corridor and across the bare castle, to the tunnel and bursting to the outside. “You will be our representative.”

“I do know a fair bit about parliamentary procedure.” Robert’s Rules of Order had been a familiar companion on her student government positions.

“You also know the writing. You will be careful and fair. Your sense of justice and your eye for detail will guide us well. And as you said, we will all agree to it. Not only Kadir and Queen Elyssa, but all the warriors, of all the cities, who will be represented.”

They flew across the revitalizing city. Atlantis had been trampled and nearly destroyed, but facing the danger had caused them to find their true inner strength. Now, they would shine that strength like a light across the entire ocean.

Across the entire world.

“What is your idea for the treaty title?” he asked.

She huffed a laugh. “You knew I had a title already.”

He glanced at her with a satisfied smile. Yes, he knew her. Yes, he expected her to fully formulate her plan before she ever opened her mouth.

Very well. She trusted him. He would think it was awesome. Because it was. It embodied the yin and yang of mer and human, male and female, past and future. Hope and dream. Her heart swelled with her love for him. For knowing her so well. For the future they were about to share.

“I think we should call it, ‘The Treaty of Atlantis.’”

Elan darted from rock to rock, hiding under an outcropping as the distant glow of a patrolling warrior crossed overhead. The distant Life Tree of his home, Dragao Azul, twinkled with welcome.

His heart pounded in his throat.

The glow from overhead stopped. Had the warrior sensed him? He waited forever for it to move on, and every instant that passed made his sinews tighten. Of course he knew this patrol pattern. He'd assigned it countless times. As soon as the warrior moved, urgency pushed Elan forward, hugging the rocky ground as it grew lusher and better for hiding.

The Battle of Atlantis would soon be ended. Maybe it had ended already. If the All-Council army had failed, their warriors would come this way and his treachery--that he'd abandoned the army before the attack--would be revealed. 

If they'd succeeded, his fate would be far, far worse.

He reached the base of the king's castle. The light of the Life Tree warmed his forearms. Its peace resonated in his chest and filled him with strength for the final assault. 

Was it quieter than usual? 

A warrior flew inside urgently. A short time later, the king exited with several more warriors. One, two, three...how many guards did the old king keep in his castle now? The group flew toward the echo point. Whatever they heard there would not be good news for Elan.

Now.

Elan swam up the ancient, massive anchoring vine as he'd done thousands of times. Into the entrance, down the thick corridor, he emerged into the castle. Ancient and lush gardens blossomed from the mature walls, enough to feed the entire city at its current size. A shaft of pain vibrated in him. This was his homeland, his birth right. What he had protected for so long always imagining a bright for himself and his future young fry.

Until, of course, that night.

He crossed the empty courtyard, swimming over the watchful house guardian, and into the winding labyrinth of the castle's inner rooms. He scooped up a well-honed trident from the armory and tied on new daggers with tight sheaths. This journey he must be prepared.

His son's cheerful squeals sounded loud in the water. 

Elan moved through the castle, almost normal now. His unease grew. Could they really have left his son unguarded? Impossible. Was this some kind of trap?

He turned the corner.

An older warrior crooned a gentle lullaby, trying unsuccessfully to urge his baby--Elan's son--into sleep. Baby Zain's eyes were starting to close. 

Elan's heart swelled. 

His son saw him and wiggled in the arms of an old warrior, another squeal piercing the silence of the otherwise silent city.

The old warrior turned. He didn't look or sound surprised. "General Elan, you have returned. Were you successful?"

What news had been shared from the echo point? But the old warrior had not asked if the war had been successful. Only if Elan had been. And in this mission, well... "So far, yes."

"Ah." The old warrior held Zain for one moment longer, then released the squirming baby.

Elan opened his arms and his son darted for him, squealing and glowing with the strength and abandon of those whose hearts are young and resilient. Zain clung to his chest like a limpet. He squeezed Zain. This is what matters. Nothing else. He swam to the hall. "Thank you for caring for my son while I was gone. I am going to spend some time with him now."

"Stop. You cannot take him." 

Elan's stomach dropped.

"Here." The old warrior wrapped a travel harness around Zain and fixed it into place on Elan, tying the baby securely so Elan could keep his hands free for the trident. Then he filled a satchel with small fish and a spongy seaweed that babies liked to chew and tied it onto the side. "In case he is hungry." His old soul light faded for a moment in rare sadness, and then he kissed the top of Zain's small head. "He has a strong light. It is even stronger now that you are here. It is right to see a father swim with his son."

He knows. He knows and he is letting us go anyway.

A lump formed in Elan's throat. But he vibrated his response to the elder clearly. "Thank you for caring for him."

"Of course." The old warrior smiled sadly. "A young fry is a treasure beloved by all."

Elan used to believe that was true. Zain's quiet, happy snuggles rekindled the glow in his chest. He kicked with confidence across the empty castle and down the exit tunnel.

Outside, he swam straight into one of his warriors, Dosan.

"General Elan!" Dosan pulled up sharply and gulped. His sapphire tattoos extended to showed new honors he'd received since Elan had been gone. He was truly a warrior trusted by their king, which made him dangerous. "You are still...uh...that is to say...I am glad you have returned. Our patrol coverage is dangerously low near the route with the thickest sea grass. So there are no warriors in that direction. Do you understand?"

His heart swelled again, but there was an undercurrent of bitter in it. "I understand."

"Very well." Dosan glanced at Zain's wrappings, nodded once, and began adjusting his own sheaths. "I must retie these for a few moments. Safe journey. I mean, see you soon."

"Thank you, Dosan."

"There is nothing to thank. But please swim quickly. There is disagreement over...ah...how the patrols should be handled when we are already so low on warriors."

And Elan turned and swam, hard. He passed the Life Tree, then his old family home, the source of so much joy and then so much horror. It hung empty and dark.

Dosan and the old warrior were clearly helping him. Perhaps they were acting alone. Perhaps they had the approval of his king.

Why did you not let me escape with Zain last time I tried? Why, if our city is so low on warriors, did you not let Zara stay?

But he knew why. The old ways required this dissolution, this pain.

Unlike the vibrant, young city of Atlantis, Elan's family castle was simply one more floating dead in the city. Empty. Waiting for new life that might never come.

Perhaps someday that would change.

He had changed. He'd come full circle, from most obedient and honorable first lieutenant to a desperate male stealing his own young fry away from a dying city. 

He hugged Zain to his chest.

And although he was terrified for the journey, he had never felt more right.

He had reclaimed his son.

Now, to reclaim his bride!