| |
The Princess of Thalassar was perhaps one of the most daft, spoiled, irritating mer I’d ever known. Or at least, her recordings portrayed her to be that way. After a while, I started nodding off. Maisie had long fallen asleep, resting her head on my shoulder.
I marveled at the ease and trust she was placing in me. Hours ago, I held an ax to her throat. I certainly did not deserve this, but abyss take me if I lied and said I did not want it with every bone in my body. Not just this... but more. I wanted more of her. Her body, curling beneath mine, tails twining together, bodies opening up as I thrust inside her, wringing pleasure from her body, pulling cries of ecstasy from her mouth.
Maisie stretched delicately, tilting her face up, nearly touching her mouth to mine. I groaned at the proximity. If she kept at this, I’d not survive the night or keep the promise I’d made about not touching her again.
I shook her slightly. “Maisie...”
She jerked up, and our heads cracked together.
I flinched slightly. The brief touch was more painful than I’d like to admit because of my bruising.
Captain Saber’s lackeys had given me the beating of a lifetime. He’d locked me up in a dark, dirty cell and had turned away just as they pummeled into me as if they meant to end my life. There had been evil in the captain’s eyes, just moments before; evil and a jealousy I could not fathom.
It wasn’t until I’d pressed the ax to Maisie’s throat that I realized why he’d gone through all the trouble. Who he had done it for.
“Sorry.” Maisie stretched her arms over her head. My pain forgotten, I was captivated by the movement, by the way the delicate curves of her body pressed against the material of her dress. She dropped her arms, and looked around the cavern, rubbing her eyes. She was too cute, with the traces of sleepiness fogging across her vision. “What time is it?” She yawned.
I smirked and couldn’t help but tease her. “Let me just get out my diamond-encrusted timepiece...”
That woke her up quickly. She glared and scoffed out something that sounded like “tadpole.”
“You fell asleep and left me to watch these horrid conches by myself,” I accused with only the slightest bit of chagrin in my tone.
She made a slight mocking noise deep in the back of her throat. “Poor you,” she teased. “Now you know how I’ve felt the past few days.” She peeled herself off of the couch, swimming slowly over to the conch recorder. Her stiff body tilted her sideways. She tried to straighten her posture, but there was a strain in her muscles that made her movements jerky, perhaps the only indication that she was in pain.
I tried not to tighten my fists at her discomfort. I did not want her to see it and think I pitied her. On the contrary, she was strong. Stronger to have survived that vicious ordeal. What sliced through my body was rage. I wanted to murder the bastard that had taken advantage of her innocence. I wanted him to meet his death at the end of my blade.
She pried the conch from the recorder and bent down to pick up another one. She placed it on top, started it up, and swam back to the couch. It was almost instinct to wrap an arm around her shoulders, and pull her towards me. Her presence had a way of calming the shadows that stirred inside me. Things between us had changed. A door to secrets and intimacy had opened, spilling a closeness I doubted either of us had ever shared with anyone else before. She tucked her head into the crook of my neck, and it was like the last piece of a perfect life slipped into place.
The bubble rose up to show the familiar images of the princess in all her finery. Jewels adorned her neck and ears by the dozens, glittering diamonds and sapphires that covered up the entire length of neck, making her skin look bejeweled. An ornate headpiece rested on her head, jangling bells and objects dangling from shining thread to twinkle around her face. She was ostentatious to the point of it being blinding.
At the same time, Maisie and I groaned.
“Me again!” she exclaimed flippantly. I rolled my eyes. It was really rather incomprehensible how no one could tell that Maisie was not the princess. Odele spoke with venom and mischief curling her tongue. “And accompanying me today is none other than the Lizard Prince—oops—I mean, the Dragon Prince, Kai Li of Draconi. Say hi to the conch!” The image turned to reveal Prince Kai.
The Dragon Prince was surrounded by his kinsman, mer who shared similar features; dark eyes, bright tails, and long, dark hair. His personal guards, advisors, and courtiers. They all looked upon Odele with disdain.
Prince Kai frowned in her direction, displeasure evident on his too-beautiful face that he obviously tried to mask. She used the conch to close in on his face, a close up of those intense brown eyes.
“Princess,” he greeted, his voice a wisp of mystery and disdain.
“Hey, Lizard Prince,” Odele said venomously. “How is Thalassar treating you?”
His eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Splendidly.”
“I am so glad you’re finding Eramaea to your liking.”
Beside me, Maisie snorted, and I looked down at her. She was looking at the bubble, and the image of Prince Kai there. Her eyes were wide, and even in the dimness of the cavern, I could make out the flush on her rounded cheeks. Even if I hadn’t been able to see it, the heat of her skin against mine would have been a dead giveaway.
I lifted the end of my tail up to the couch and nudged hers with it. She shot a glance up to me and I smirked, a small twist of my mouth. “I see that gleam in your eyes,” I teased. “Are you in love with Prince Kai?”
She sputtered out a stream of nonsense that I construed as a mixture of truth and embarrassment. “Of course not!”
A chuckle pushed past my lips. “Oh, I think you are.” It was obvious from the way she stared at him, as if she had the moon in her eyes.
She blew out an exasperated breath. “He’s a prince,” she said.
Ah, so no more denial? And her excuse was rather pathetic. My eyebrows pulled together in a frown, though the smile still touched my lips. “And I’m an outlaw.”
“So?”
“So...” I drawled. “If you can kiss an outlaw despite your scruples, you can kiss a prince.”
“First of all, you kissed me.”
I waved her words off with a simple flick of my fingers. “Semantics...”
“And secondly, I can’t kiss a prince. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Something inside of me flared to life. Like a volcano erupting. “But you can kiss me, little fish, is that it? Why? Because I’m on your same wavelength? Because he’s a royal and we are not?” I could not keep the venom from my voice. Maisie scooted away from me, taking away warmth and leaving the cold of ice between us. I turned to glare at her. I shouldn’t have taken offense at the words, but I did. I knew she hadn’t meant it, but she made me feel unworthy. Worse than that, she made herself sound unworthy when it was the royals who should have been bowing down to her. She had the power to command kingdoms and win hearts, she just didn’t realize it yet. And that infuriated me. “You won’t kiss Prince Kai because you think you’re not good enough for him.” An accusation. One that had her looking away from me before turning back, tilting her chin up in the slightest gesture of defiance.
“I’m not the princess,” she reminded me. “It’s not my place to... seduce... a merman who isn’t mine.”
“And yet he looks at you like you’re the only star in the sky. Like you’re his favorite treasure among the hoard. Like he wants to make you his Dragon Queen.” I reached out and grabbed her wrist, she pulled, and I pulled back. “Like, if given the chance, he would devour you, drown you in the ice of his passions like the Dragon Prince that he is.” She pulled, and this time, I let her hand smack back to her chest. Then, I leaned back against the cushions and smiled. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, little fish. He wanted to tear my head from my shoulders for taking what he thought was his.”
She was quiet for so long. And finally, she whispered, “That’s because he thinks I’m the princess.”
I made a disgusted noise in the back of my throat, flicking her words off as what they were. Foolish.
“I’ve no doubt in my mind, little fish, that Prince Kai Li of Draconi knows exactly who you are.” And I didn’t mean her name, her station. I meant something else entirely. A veritable kindness that lived and shone through the cracks of her smile and the orbs of her dark eyes. She opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. “He may not realize it yet, but I’m sure he is questioning why he’s suddenly fallen head over fin in love with a mer he hated weeks ago.”
I settled back onto the couch and watched the image of the princess in the moving bubble. I could practically hear Maisie mulling my words over, the thoughts in her mind spinning through an abyss.
“Sometimes I fear your attention to detail,” she practically cursed me.
Laughter rattled out of me, tugging at my wounds and making me wince. I doubled over, holding my side. When the pain eased, I sat back up, tossing my arm over the back of the couch.
“All in a day’s work, little fish. It’s my job to know things about Thalassar’s finest...” I looked her over, smirked. “And it’s most beautiful.”
She rolled her eyes, snorted then looked at me mischievously. “So you think Prince Kai is beautiful?”
“Yes.”
She blinked when I answered with no hesitation. Her mouth dropped open, then closed again. Clearly, I’d caught her off guard.
“I—you—what?”
I winked. “Not the answer you were expecting, little fish?”
“Well, no, not really. You really think he’s beautiful?”
I shrugged. “Is it so rare for a merman to appreciate the beauty of another merman? I’m comfortable enough in my sexuality to admit it.”
“Wow...” she breathed, falling back to the couch. “That’s... surprising...”
Considering the past few days we’d had, I could name some things that were more surprising than finding out I appreciated the finer aspects of a beautiful mer.
“I enjoy mermaids and mermen in equal measure,” I said coolly, wondering what her reaction would be. If she would be disgusted or... No. That was a blush rising to her cheeks. I wondered if she was suddenly picturing as vividly as I was. Of the prince and I devouring one another’s mouths, tearing at one another’s clothes. And an even better fantasy, with Maisie between the both of us, writhing and gasping against the heat of our bodies as we brought her pleasure in tandem. I could feel myself hardening just thinking about it and adjusted my posture so she wouldn’t notice.
But she wasn’t looking at me at all. Her gaze was fixated on the recorder, but the brightness of her flush was telling. I leaned closer to her, the rub of our bodies hinting at the desire I felt. My own hardness pressed against the cloth of my tunic and onto her. She felt it through the material of our clothes and her breath hitched.
“Can you imagine such a thing?” I whispered, my words fanning across her skin.
“Imagine what?” Her voice was but a whisper.
“Three bodies.” My fingers trailed up the length of her arm. A slow seduction. A promise. “Three mouths.” My thumb swiped against her lower lip. “You, me, and Prince Kai, twisting together between the sheets...” I pulled away, letting the promise dangle between us. And Maisie? She could find no words to question me or point out the fact that Prince Kai despised me. I smiled and for the next few moments relished in the heat of her body and her silence. I knew what she was thinking, dreaming, wishing.
I thought it, too.
I dreamt it, too.
I wished it, too.
More than she could ever know.