Sheltered by the Sea Lord

If they thought they could break her, they were wrong.

Sabotaged in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, computer security expert Starr is adrift and alone.

But she’s a survivor.

Her defenses are hidden deep inside, protecting her perfectly from all threats.

Except one.

The tattooed warrior who comes to her rescue is her opposite in every way. Eager where she’s cautious. Deliciously hot where she’s a cold-blooded realist. Passionate about saving his fellow warriors, whereas she…well, in some ways they are very much the same, actually. But they have very different ideas of how to save the endangered mer.

He claims she’s his soul mate. That if he’s right, she can transform into a powerful mer queen and embrace a life she’s always desired.

But if he’s wrong?

She will die.

And so will his entire race.

Enjoy the explosive conclusion of the Lords of Atlantis series!

Starr opened her eyes.

Cold gray light from the port window reflected on the slatted ceiling. Her bunk rocked with every swell.

There was no sound of an engine. No captain. No crew. Only the splash of seawater against the hull and clanging from something unsecured sliding across the deck overhead.

Her stomach growled.

She rolled upright and rested her clean tennis shoes on the floor.

It would be so easy to lie down again…

Do this. Get up and eat food before you lose the will. Again.

The voice in her head sounded distant.

Her stomach growled again.

Now, Starr.

She donned her personal protective gear, first putting on the plastic pants and then snapping on the long-sleeved jacket. She slid protective glasses on her face, fit her mask straps over her ears, and pulled the hood tight.

Her warm breath felt moist.

Suffocating.

Now.

She opened her portable medical kit. Antihistamines, antacids, eyewash drops, nasal spray. She sucked in a breath through her mouth. Her nose was always stuffed. She counted the long tubes. EpiPens. One…two…down to two? Not enough. She grabbed both, stuffed them into her jacket pocket, and closed the medical kit.

How could she ration them?

How could she not?

Starr opened the door, crept out of the stateroom, and closed it behind her. The empty captain’s cabin was to her right. The guest cabin to her left was filled with network and security equipment. Tool sets, cables, testers, switches. Neatly stacked. Utterly useless.

Past it was the small bathroom, called the head on a ship, and the door that led to the silent engines. She couldn’t smell anything, but the air had an aftertaste of oil. Sour.

Stairs led to the kitchen, called the galley.

A large wave shoved the floor beneath her shoes.

She grabbed the railing and ascended the steps. Just before the top, she paused.

Seating cushions slid across the polished wood. Rough waves had tossed them off the benches and overturned abandoned coffee mugs. The contents of a cracked mug stained the floor.

Next to it rested one small brown sphere.

Her breath stopped.

A honey-roasted peanut.

More were scattered across the floor. And the counters. They rattled like caltrops across the galley.

Her heart thudded in her chest.

Peanuts couldn’t make her sick just by looking at them, but the dust floating in the sunbeams streaming through the enclosed windows could.

Her throat tingled.

Oh, no.

Go, Starr.

She raced through the galley and burst out onto the deck.

The gray Atlantic stretched in every direction.

She ran to the side, gripped the rail, and tore off her mask, gasping. The wind whipped strands of hair across her face. Her lips tingled and turned numb.

No, no.

Her heart thudded out of control. One hand quested in her pocket. Her fingers closed around the EpiPen. Could she even use it properly? She could barely feel it in her cold, trembling fingers.

A film descended over her. The day seemed to recede. Her vision grew narrow, as though she were looking out through a periscope on the infinite ocean.

None of this matters. You’re not here.

The film wrapped around her chest embracing her in tight plastic. Her breathing slowed, and the tingling of her lips went away.

Panic, not an allergic reaction, had caused the sensation.

She released the EpiPen and followed the railing to the back of the boat. Her movements were mechanical, almost mindless. Her stomach growled. She needed food. Here was the lifeboat. Wherever the captain and crew had gone, they hadn’t taken the lifeboat.

Where had they gone? Why had they left here? Had they washed overboard? Were they all dead? Had they left her to die?

Alone?

Her heartbeat accelerated.

The film thickened. What does it matter? Alive or dead, it’s all the same. None of it affects you. Nothing affects you.

Her thoughts echoed. Nothing affected her.

She undid the clumsy bow ties, pulled back the tarp, and opened the tub of emergency supplies. Unlabeled silver granola bars filled the tub. Starr selected one and a bottle of water, resealed the tub, and retied the tarp. She carried the water bottle and unlabeled silver-wrapped bar to the edge of the ship and knelt.

A rogue wave slapped the hull. Droplets of seawater sprayed her.

She wiped the spray off her face with the back of her hand. Seawater was fine, but the slightest hint of fish, shellfish, or seaweed spelled death. She squeezed the emergency meal bar.

She needed food. She needed to survive.

Please don’t kill me.

This food wasn’t contaminated. It might be safe.

Might.

Unlabeled wrappers ought to be illegal. Of course, even labels could be misleading.

She’d lived her whole life trying so hard to be safe. Trying so hard to isolate herself from dangers. And now, alone on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic, she enjoyed the ultimate isolation, but she was in more danger than ever.

Somewhere, her half sister was worried sick about her. Somewhere, her friends were searching the networks trying to figure out where they’d been betrayed.

Somewhere—in front of her or behind her or to the side—was a giant platform being constructed in the middle of the ocean. It floated over the recently rediscovered city of Atlantis, the city of mermen who had revealed their existence to the modern world, defying the laws of their ancient race, to seek their soul mates. One of those human soul mates had been Starr’s half sister, Bella. And soon this platform would become a meeting place for the two races, human and mer.

But someone did not want the mer to arise.

They would do anything to destroy the platform.

And the mermen.

Bella had asked for Starr’s help. What had started as a project to keep Bella safe had morphed into a quest to bring down the mysterious terrorists threatening the mer. The group, called the Sons of Hercules, was bent on destruction. Even in the middle of the Atlantic, the mermen weren’t safe. A traitor had infiltrated their platform right before the mer held a grand opening.

Starr knew what it was like to fight a hidden adversary. She’d been doing it her whole life. Her traitor was calling from inside the house—inside her body.

But she had underestimated the Sons of Hercules.

She’d been coming to the platform in secret, and her secret must have fallen into the wrong hands. Now she was adrift. Helpless.

The film calmed her panic.

She tore open the plastic.

The bar was brown and mealy. No nuts that she could see, but peanut dust could be on anything, and it wasn’t as if her stuffed nose could smell.

Her stomach growled.

Starvation was a real possibility. She’d always imagined dying from something she ate, not from starving in the middle of the Atlantic.

Starr pressed the bar to her lips. Licked. Food. She was so, so hungry.

She took a big bite. Chewed.

The tingle started in the back of her nose. An itch that she couldn’t scratch.

She choked.

Oh, she wanted to swallow. So bad.

Her throat tightened.

Nuts.

Literally.

She spat the contents over the side of the ship and washed her mouth out with bottled water and spit that over as well. Then she sat, EpiPen resting against the side of her thigh, and waited.

An invisible hand squeezed her throat.

Don’t think. Don’t panic. This is fine.

The invisible hand clenching her throat tightened.

The world faded.

She threw the bar over the side.

Heat suffused her face, and spots of red hives appeared on the backs of her hands.

Hives were not caused by dangerous thoughts in her mind.

She jammed the EpiPen through the side of her thigh, depressed the trigger, and waited.

A sharp pain, and then her body shook as if she’d gone on a race for her life. She gasped. Her throat loosened, opened, and sweat poured down her forehead. Her cold hands turned clammy. She felt sick.

Traitors ruled here, inside and out.

She removed the empty EpiPen and threw it into the water. With trembling hands, she quested in her pocket and drew out her last pen.

She couldn’t keep doing this.

One way or another, she was going to die out here.

The world narrowed and faded as her mind receded.

From a distant vantage point, she saw the allergic reaction fade, thank God. She returned the last pen to her pocket. Her body stood and shuffled to the captain’s chair. Her eyes peered over the control panel. Her hands methodically tested the controls. Radio, satellite navigation, fuse box. If the satellite connection was working, then she could look up how to start or repair a boat. And she would do it in this state. As an automaton. Because this was how she survived.

Nothing turned on. Everything remained dead.

She was a little piece of driftwood, alone in the mid-Atlantic.

No one was looking for her.

Even though days ago, she’d been within hours of reaching the platform.

Starr shuffled downstairs again and back to her cabin. She removed her protective gear, rinsed it, and hung it to dry. She poured a thimbleful of Sea Opal elixir—the concentrated liquid steeped in the mer’s healing Sea Opals—into a cap and swallowed an antihistamine.

Once, her half sister Bella had thought the elixir might cure Starr’s allergies. It had cured her nephew’s leukemia, even though the healing hadn’t appeared at first. Starr had been taking it for much longer. Hope died hard.

Then she got back on the bunk and curled into a fetal position.

The gray light splayed on the ceiling. She stared at it the same way she used to stare at the ceiling in the hospital.

This is fine. It’s not happening. You’re not here.

Her therapist would be so sad for her. She’d spent years trying to tear down the film and become a real person. Three days in isolation, and she powered down like a computer.

But no one was coming.

And this was the only way her mind could survive.