Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 31279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
Her eyes remain fixed on mine. “I’m serious.”
“I can see that.” I rake a hand through my hair, half laughing, half wondering if the mushrooms I ate last night were the “special” kind. “Okay, so let’s say you were… a mermaid. What happened? Did you get tired of all the singing and shell jewelry?”
Her smile is sad. “I saved you.”
My humor drains as I hear the soft, terrified truth in her voice.
“When you fell from the boat, you were drowning. We’re not supposed to interfere with humans. It’s one of our oldest laws. But I heard you calling in the water. I felt you, and I couldn’t let you die. So I pulled you up and breathed for you.”
I suck in a breath as a hazy recollection from that day teases my memory. A flash of red hair sliding over the gunwale, a swirl of water, and a ripple that could be a tail if tails on humans were a thing and I wasn’t concussed.
“Shit,” I breathe as realization hits me. It all makes sense now—her wonder at all the gadgets and devices that make our world human. How she didn’t know her own body when we made love. Damn. I’m in love with a mermaid. Ex-mermaid. Whatever. I don’t care if she’s a former seahorse, she’ll always be my little water nymph. Mine. And I’m hers. That’s all that matters.
“The Council found out,” Ariel continues. “My father… he’s the king of Starfall Lake. He had to enforce the law. If he hadn’t, they’d have accused him of favoritism, of putting blood before duty. He loves me, Everett. I know he does. But he had to banish me to prove no one is above the rules.”
I stare at her, the absurdity and heartbreak tangling in my chest until the only thing that comes out is, “So you got grounded for saving me?”
She laughs, a watery sound. “More like permanently grounded. The tail-to-legs upgrade was not optional.”
I shake my head in equal parts awe and fury. “So let me get this straight. You risked everything to save my life, and your dad punished you for it. Looks like we both have daddy issues.”
Her snort punches a hole in the tension between us.
“And the degree thing?”
Color floods her cheeks. “That part was… not entirely untrue. We don’t call it a degree, but I was being trained. Water health, current mapping, toxin recognition, invasive blooms, migration patterns. I was supposed to inherit responsibility for watching the lake. Making sure it stayed alive. Making sure humans didn’t”—her mouth twists—“ruin it.”
I blink. “So you were, what, environmental royalty?”
Her nose wrinkles. “That sounds pretentious.”
“It sounds accurate.”
Her shoulders lift and fall in a tiny shrug. “Fine. I was being prepared to protect the lake. And I was good at it.” Her voice goes quiet, proud and hurting all at once. “I know her moods. I know where she’s shallow and where she drops off into cold black that humans can’t reach. I can taste when runoff is wrong. I could tell if a bloom was natural or poisoned by how it moved in the current.” She swallows. “That was supposed to be my whole life.”
“And then you saved a man in a storm.”
Her lips curve. “Yes. And then that.”
I drag a hand down my face, exhaling hard. “Ariel. You should’ve told me.”
She looks up fast, eyes wide and wounded. “Would you have believed me?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Replay the last week in my head like evidence in a trial. Her awe of blenders. Her complete comfort around water and nature. The way she can point to a patch of algae and tell me, ‘That’s wrong.’
“Yeah,” I say roughly. “Maybe not in the first five minutes. But after that? After what we’ve shared? Yeah. I would’ve.”
Her breath hitches. “Everett…”
“But it doesn’t matter,” I add, cupping her jaw so she can’t look away, so she can’t spin off into guilt. “Because I believe you now. All of it. Every impossible word. You were a mermaid. Your father is a king. You broke a sacred law to save me, and they ripped you out of your world for it. And I don’t care if that sounds insane to anyone else because it’s already the most logical thing in my life.”
Her eyes shine. Her mouth trembles. “You’re not… scared of me?”
“Scared?” I huff out a laugh. “Little one, I’m terrified of a lot of things right now—my father’s deceit, corporate sabotage, climate collapse—but you? You’re the only thing that’s made sense since that storm. You’re it for me. Scales, legs, whatever appendages come with you.”
Her answering sound is half-sob, half-relief. She surges forward, pressing her forehead to mine. “I thought if you knew, you’d feel… tricked,” she whispers. “Or like I wasn’t… real.”
I swallow hard. “You are the most real thing I’ve ever touched.”