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When had palace life become so boring?
To be honest, it had always been boring. Such a vast place and I was hardly ever allowed out of it. I’d never visited anywhere beyond the confines of my own kingdom. Being closed in had led me to the royal library in the first place, a place that, against my better nature, had become my sought after sanctuary.
But even now, I couldn’t seem to bring myself to venture there. I’d read and listened to everything, so it didn’t sound appealing.
I sighed, a long suffering sound that was unbidden and unattractive. I was just so bored. This was why I didn’t want the responsibility of being queen. To be shut in the kingdom of Thalassar forever?
I think not.
There were places I wanted to see before I withered away and died an old mer. Sights I’d only heard about but could never dream of.
The kraken sculpture and libraries in the kingdom of Brague.
The lush forestation of Kappur.
The vicious Great Dragon of Draconi—even if I did despise the Lizard Prince, I could still have a fondness for the sights of his kingdom.
The vast abyss of Ventlair.
The orca breeding grounds in Iol.
Even to the dangerous waters of the Uncharted, where vicious, ugly and savage mer dwelled. Where mer were rumored to have ventured and never come back alive.
As “future queen” I was to be locked in a prison of propriety in Thalassarin standards, to never see what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted.
I’d die before I let that happen. I’d die before I became queen. Odalaea would be put on that throne, if it were the last thing I did. Then, I’d finally be free to do as I wished, plunge into the royal coffers, take money and travel. Take money and live richly, anywhere but in this suffocating palace, with its terrible decor and even worse memories...
“Princess!”
Speaking of...
I tried not to cringe as I turned and found Percival, my stepmother’s sluggy-looking advisor, swim hurriedly towards me. It was too late now to pretend as if I hadn’t seen him, though I suppose I could have. I despised the mer, and it was all too obvious he despised me as well, if the way he was glaring at me with disapproval was of any indication.
“Princess, a word.” He stopped before me, appearing slightly out of breath, though composing in his posture.
He disgusted me down to my very core.
“Say your word and be done with it then, as I have a great many things to see to,” I snapped impatiently.
Percival looked at me, appearing to be taken aback momentarily at my words. “I—”
“Really. You have the usage of merely one word and you decide to say ‘I’? How incredibly wasteful.” I looked him over. “And yet so incredibly you.”
He emitted a shocked gasp. “Princess!” Oh, how he sounded perfectly scandalized.
How perfect. Now I could leave.
I started to swim away, and the sleazy mer did something I’d make sure he’d regret later.
He grabbed my arm.
“We must prepare you for the wedding ceremony. You must be schooled on etiquette and customs of both Thalassar and Draconi!”
I yanked my arm away, keeping the perfect demeanor of composure. He would see nothing but the perfect picture of an immaculate princess. Beneath my façade, I was seething, feeling his touch on my arm long after his fingers had vacated the spot, like a burn, a brand.
I’d never show him how much he unnerved me. How much I truly despise him. Percival would never see to what extent my hate went. It was, after all, his fault the backs of my hands were as hard as a workmer’s. How I hardly had any feeling in them anymore because of his constant punishments.
Punishments that he’d been delivering since I was a child.
“No,” I said coolly, confidently. “We will not.”
His fists tightened, likely on the invisible strap of leather.
I could almost feel the pain on my hands. Even if my feeling was gone, I remembered the pain of it. That was terrible enough.
“We must,” he urged. “There is a schedule we must keep.”
I looked around for some sort of escape ploy I could use to get away from him. Leaving my room had been a bad idea, but I’d had no other choice. I hadn’t wanted to be in the middle of whatever sick love games my cousin had going on with Tiberius.
As if being with the Lizard Prince wasn’t bad enough, she went after a commoner, and a stiff one at that. I mean, the Black Blade was even worse than commoner filth, but at least he was a king in his own right, even if it was of ill repute. At least he had money.
But there was no one around to save me from this situation, nothing but a flock of servants averting their cowardly gazes as they swept their sponges across vases and picture frames. And then my gaze landed on a merman swimming leisurely about the halls and winking at the mermaids as he passed.
This merman was obviously of rich make. He was wearing what looked like thick draperies of velvet—rich, of course—lined with thick fur that hung down to hide any evidence of his tail. By the gods, wasn’t he scorching in that get up? Never mind that, I told myself, as I took him in further. He wore a belt and scabbard, from which hung a sword that appeared to have been carved from ice, the pommel bearing the symbol of an orca. Hm, Iolish then. My eyes raked over his face for my final assessment of his usefulness. He was blond, rather, his hair was white-yellow, and wisps of long curls that swept over light brown skin and pale lashes. Lashes that framed eyes as blue as jagged chips of ice.
He would do fine.
The moment he came towards us, he stopped to gift me with a bow that would have been proper had I not sensed the mocking in the way he purred, “Princess.”
“I have plans of my own, you see,” I hurriedly told Percival. “See, I promised our Iolish visitor I’d gift him with a proper tour of the palace.” I made an absentminded yet elegant gesture in the Iolish’s general direction. “So you see, I have my own schedule. Such a shame I’ll have to miss such a stimulating lesson on smelly reptilian mating dances.”
Percival opened his mouth to argue, but before he could say a thing, I grabbed the Iolish stranger by the arm and tugged him away, past Percival and rounding the corner until the merman was out of sight. Even then, I did not stop. Taking various twists and turns about the palace, until I finally deemed it safe, with enough distance between me and the advisor.
I took a breath, releasing the Iolish’s arm. Immediately, he leaned against the nearest wall, propping a shoulder up against it to stare down at me with mocking eyes.
I straightened and glared at him. “Pray tell, what are you still doing here?” I demanded, shooing him away with a wave of fingers. “You’ve served your usefulness. Leave.”
An irritatingly perfect eyebrow rose, and his full lips quirked into a half smile. “I don’t think I will.”
He stared at me challengingly. All it did was make me scoff and tear my gaze away. “Whatever. Loiter around if you must, but I’m leaving.”
“What about the tour you promised me?” he demanded good-naturedly. I despised the good-natured. They always seemed to be hiding something.
My eyes narrowed on him. “As I’m sure even your tiny Iolish brain can comprehend, that was a lie.”
He blinked at my words, and then threw his head back with a bark of laughter. I chastised myself for being momentarily distracted by the arch of his throat, and the way he laughed in a way that seemed so sincere, and according to my treacherous thoughts, pretty. Ugh. I had to leave. Now.
I started to turn away from him, but for the second time within a few minutes, the Iolish grabbed my arm, right over the spot where Percival had touched me. And as if by magic, the warmth of his touch banished the other entirely, leaving no memory of that disgusting creature’s handprint at all.
“Wait,” he pleaded. “Stay, please.”
I yanked my arm away, startled by the command, and unnerved when I felt the need to do what he asked. I glared. “You’re no one to be giving me orders, Iolish.”
His smile didn’t even falter. He took my insults in stride, as if the words just bounded off of his body like a lumpy sea sponge. “I’m ‘Iolish’ now? Please, you can still call me ‘Ytgar.’ Especially since I wanted to apologize to you for my earlier behavior.”
I blinked. Ytgar. Gods. I knew who he was. Recognition of the name hit me like the collision of a hippocampus. Prince Ytgar Neves Isolde of Iol. And he was apologizing for his earlier behavior. I blinked again. What behavior?
He probably meant something offensive he’d said to my cousin.
I recalled then when she she’d come bursting into the room, face flushed.
“Who were you talking to?” I’d asked.
“Just Prince Ytgar of Iol and his whale trainer friend...”
I looked him up and down.
Some prince.
Okay, I’d not lie, he was attractive. But he smiled too much, as if he knew some massive joke no one else did and had no plans to share it. It was unnerving.
“I should have never insinuated we should... begin an affair... and on the eve of your wedding to Prince Kai.”
My gods. He did not.
I startled, staring at him, searching for some sort of lie. There didn’t appear to be any. Gods, he’d propositioned my cousin, the kelp.
I laughed, cold and cruelly, straight to his face.
“You and I?” I gestured back and forth between us. “You insult me by even imagining it, Princeling. As if I would ever stoop so low.” I snorted. Really. The nerve.
He looked briefly offended. “Well, why would this...” He gestured between us. “...be so disgusting?”
I made a point to look at him, from head down to his hidden tail fin with disgust. “Need I give you a list of all your flaws? You live with yourself on a daily basis. Surely you know what you lack by now.”
The hurt left his face quickly, replaced with swagger and arrogance. By gods, his moods seemed as interchangeable as two-legger weather.
“I’ll have you know, I am considered a catch by the mer at home.”
“Oh?” My own eyebrows rose in response. “By who? The blind and the deaf? Or perhaps the homeless.”
Ytgar laughed again, and again my threat had no effect. It was growing quite irksome that nothing I said was absorbed. “By many, many mermaids back in Iol. I am quite popular.”
I snorted. “I can’t see why.” And this bragging about the many, many mer who wanted him did nothing to impress me.
“No?” He took a stroke forward that I was sure he meant with swaggering arrogance and threat. I straightened my back just a bit more as he came impossibly close until I felt his arms brush against mine. Arrogant stick. As if he were entitled to share the same space as me. Yet for some maddening reason, I could not bring myself to move. And when he bent down so our faces were but an inch apart, my breath held. “Possibly,” he whispered, “because I am an excellent kisser.”
My heart thumped so loudly, I feared he’d hear it. Blast my body, being treacherous and infuriating. I swallowed, and glad my voice came out steady. “I doubt that.”
His eyes glowed with the promise of a challenge. “You be the judge of that.”And then Prince Ytgar Neves Isolde of Iol kissed me.
My hands gripped his shoulders, my mind screaming at me to push him away and punch him straight in the jaw. Even as my body melded closer to his, even as I opened my mouth to let him slip his tongue inside to tangle with mine, my fingers curled into his fur-lined coat to hold him tighter.
Treacherous, foolish body.
But, oh, his touch felt so good.
It was like I was drowning on air, and he was the only thing that could supply me with the water I needed to survive. A strange notion, to think of a kiss that way. To feel it so refreshing and down to the marrow in my bones, the blood in my system, the beating of my heart.
And like everything in my life, it lasted too short a time.
We pulled away slowly, and even if I was aware of the flush brightening my cheeks. Slowly, he pulled back from me, a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
Well, we couldn’t have that, could we?
I willed the blush away and snorted.
“Apparently, our definitions of the word ‘excellent’ are quite different, indeed.” That being said, I whirled and swam away.