Page 52

52

Claira

I should have known. Of course, my grandmother had a portal linking her business on land to the Undersea.

“Surprised she doesn’t swim here herself?” Abyssal asked, his tone dry as he stepped ahead, guiding us into a part of the building I hadn’t seen before.

Sad wallpaper greeted us. The carpet underfoot was so worn it was more like we were walking on concrete than anything even remotely soft. It was almost funny, really, considering how loudly my grandmother bragged about her luxury condominium business.

“I guess I figured she had her pawns carry her back and forth,” I said, then winced, realizing how familiar that sounded.

I kept pace beside him, tugging at the waistband of the underwear I’d hastily thrown on before leaving his office.

If this had been a regular office building, anyone who saw us would think they knew precisely what we’d been up to. Barefoot, messy hair, and a loose white shirt that made the black underwear all the more obvious. Thankfully, the place seemed empty, but that didn’t keep my stomach from flipping every time we passed an open doorway.

Then again, maybe the cecaelia were used to slapping on whatever clothes they could find once they got here.

A hand landed gently on my elbow, stopping me in my barefoot tracks. I hadn’t realized I’d kept walking after he’d paused.

“This way, princess.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, the tension between us tightening.

He was doing his best to appear unbothered, but I could practically hear the irritation in the way his trident tapped down with every step.

Did he really want me to abandon him so badly?

Well, that was too bad. No matter how hard Abyssal tried to push me out of the Undersea’s darkness, I wasn’t stepping into the light without him. How could he not understand that by now?

The door we passed through led to a hallway I recognized, but before I could get caught up in the memory of sticking my hand in its fish tank, Abyssal was already guiding me past it.

The air near my grandmother’s office was hot and sticky with humidity, exactly as I remembered.

“You know, last time we were here, I seriously considered bashing your head in with one of these wall sconces.” I caught him before he could knock, watching the surprise flash across his face.

His eyebrow arched in a way that had me grinning. “Is that right?”

“Yep.” I nodded, meeting his gaze with a casual look. “But you kidnapped me, so. You kind of had it coming.”

I waited for the inevitable retort, for that charm I’d grown so familiar with to surface. Instead, his gaze dropped, and his lips pressed into a line, weighed down by something that looked uncomfortably close to regret.

It nearly threw me.

“But lucky for you,” I said, forcing my tone to stay light, “I decided to be merciful. If you’d refused to take me back to the casino, though, I?—”

The intended words hadn’t even left my lips before he moved again. One moment, I was standing there, baiting him with a grin. The next, he’d hooked me, pulling me right to him.

For a heartbeat, the world stopped. His kiss against my lips was quick, consuming, and completely unexpected to my senses. I was lost to it and so suspended in the shock of his claim that every coherent thought scattered as if he’d deliberately stolen them away.

He pulled back just as abruptly, and I stumbled, my feet catching on the dingy carpet as I gasped for my next breath. Steady arms caught me, but all I could do was blink up at him.

“I’m aware that I’m not showing it well,” he said, his voice a rough scrape against the quiet of the hall, “but… thank you. No one else has ever cared for me as you have.” The sorrow on his face was impossible to ignore, as if he were admitting to a weakness he’d rather not have exposed. “Although, for your sake, I wish you wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?” I stammered, still reeling, my lips tingling where his mouth had just been.

Instead of answering, he called his trident back to his hand. I hadn’t even realized he’d reabsorbed it just to kiss me.

“You should have bashed me with that… what was it?” he asked in a clear attempt to shift the tension.

My breath was still shaky. “A wall sconce.”

His lips twitched, but he didn’t let the smile fully break through. “I undoubtedly deserved it.” With that, he rapped his knuckles against the door to my grandmother’s office.

A massive slosh of water echoed from the other side, followed by a thunk that rattled the door. The entrance swung open, and it shouldn’t have been so surprising that there were tentacles lurking behind it.

A cecaelia with a long braid draped over his shoulder stood in the doorway, eyeing Abyssal with what looked to be more than a casual interest. The man’s gaze slowly traveled up my sea wizard’s body, but the moment it met his face, a scowl set in.

“Oh,” he muttered, clearly disappointed. He turned and glided away, leaving the door wide open as he slipped back into the hot tub.

Abyssal dipped his neck in a bow. “After you, princess.”

I hesitated long enough to peer inside first, and a quiet sigh of relief escaped me as I stepped through. My grandmother’s desk was empty, as was the couch her pawns had been stacked on top of the last time I was here. The only occupant was the cecaelia lounging in the hot tub. Thankfully, he didn't seem to care about us at all.

“This will be the first time I’ve had the privilege of using the queen’s portal,” Abyssal remarked as he stepped in after me, shutting the door softly behind us.

It made sense. Why risk running into my grandmother when he could just teleport between his office and bedchamber on his own? Not that he could now, given how he’d already used up most of his magic saving me.

My gaze darted around, searching for where the portal might be hidden, but the mold stains and clutter of trinkets made it hard to focus on much else.

“This way.” Abyssal moved toward the hot tub, but with his second step— pop. Tentacles shot out underneath him, and the scraps of his boxer briefs fell to the puddles on the floor.

“You must go through a lot of underwear,” I muttered absently, gritting my teeth as I tried to pick out dry spots. Keeping my feet saltwater-free would only delay the inevitable, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to face my tentacles any sooner than absolutely necessary.

The choice was made for me when the man inside the hot tub shifted. His tentacles flicked irritably against the tub’s edge as he turned away from where Abyssal was headed, sending a spray of salt water flying.

Pop.

A wave of movement lurched underneath me. “ Ohhhh, shit. ” It was like a new part of my brain had suddenly clicked on, and that was my only explanation for how I’d remained upright. My tentacles found their balance, but just as I thought I might actually have control, they began to slide.

The man in the hot tub was closest, but Abyssal was the one who caught me. “Easy,” he said.

“Yeah, easy. Right,” I panted. It was like I was on skates, constantly shifting, always adjusting, and never near stable.

I sucked in a breath, trying to force my mind to sync with my body, but the whole thing was so disorienting. And now that Abyssal was holding me, my tentacles were even more unpredictable.

You know what? Screw it. I stopped fighting them and let them move however they pleased, which, of course, meant spiraling around every part of Abyssal they could reach.

“Allow me, princess,” he said, his voice going unexpectedly husky as my tentacles assaulted him. He didn’t flinch or try to move them. Instead, his strength worked underneath them, guiding us into the narrow space between the wall and the hot tub where a dark opening waited.

The portal’s circle bent at an impossible angle, caught halfway between the wall and the floor, looking far too much like an obvious trap.

“Ready?” he asked, not the least bit concerned.

I was already bracing myself when a cold, unsettling sensation crawled up my spine. I turned to see the man in the hot tub watching me, his scowl much nastier than before.

Well, that was a look I immediately recognized—disgust. He hated the way I was clinging to Abyssal, a cecaelia unable to control her own limbs.

It was just as Jagati had said. Cecaelian men didn’t tolerate weakness. Yeah, well, screw him, too. At least I wasn’t stuck in a boiling tub, inhaling damned mold spores.

With a saccharine smile, I shot him the middle finger with one of two limbs I could control, then turned back to the portal. “Any idea where it’s going to spit us out?”

“The throne room,” Abyssal said, his eyes following the hand I’d used to make the gesture, seemingly intrigued.

Throne room. But of course. Why wouldn’t the portal drop us right into the one place where a crowd of cecaelia would be ready to watch me flounder? Bring on the scowls.

But before we left, I called on my magic. “Real quick, how do my eyes look?” I asked, swirling the power under my palm.

“Exquisite.” He hadn’t even needed to think about it.

I narrowed my gaze. “Not what I meant.”

The brush of his thumb up my back made my senses snap to attention. “Exquisitely ordinary, then,” he amended with a smirk. “If ‘ordinary’ means radiant green with a charming little mark on this eye right… here.”

His touch grazed just beneath it, and I fought back a smirk of my own.

“You mean my tattoo, ” I said, releasing the magic . Right . Even though I was returning to the Undersea as a full cecaelia, I wasn’t going back into the darkness alone. That thought gave me the courage to say, “Ready when you are.”

I never knew what to do with my lungs when passing through a portal, and even less so this time, knowing that this one would spit us out at the bottom of the Undersea.

We slipped into that yawning void, but unlike other portals, this one didn’t feel like falling. There was no drop or weightlessness, just a slow descent into shadow.

I felt the drag of seconds, making me wonder if it really had been a trap. Portals weren’t supposed to take this long, were they? Then the air thickened, growing colder and denser, and the dread really started creeping in.

Abyssal didn’t give me the chance to panic. He drew me in closer, pressing our chests together so that the steady rise and fall of his breath in the thickening air might offer me reassurance in the suffocating darkness.

So, I kept on breathing and continued forcing down gulps until the air wasn’t air at all anymore. It was water. And instead of violently hurling us out, the shadows tipped, and we slipped through the portal like liquid sliding off a spoon.

Damn . Talk about royal treatment. When we landed on the stone floor of the Undersea, it was so smooth that it almost felt surreal.

I didn’t even have a headache, and Abyssal’s tentacles were far too preoccupied with the attention mine were giving them to have healed me if I had gotten one.

My moment of appreciation evaporated the instant my deep-eyes settled, and I caught the first slither of movement. Bored, disinterested faces of the pawns lounging around the area came into focus. But as soon as I noticed them, they seemed to notice us, too.

Well, shit.

Low murmurs stirred the group, and soon, more were dropping from rocks above, others emerging from the crevices in between.

A coil of dread nearly froze me, but with the eyes of my grandmother’s men already on us, there was no avoiding it. And now that we were here, Abyssal’s limbs were already at work, carefully disentangling my tentacles from around him. Soon enough, his puppet persona would slip perfectly into place.

I would never get used to how he could distance himself in an instant with his stiff posture and cold looks.

Of course, I understood why he did it. His survival depended on it. But even that understanding never stopped my anger from rising at the situation. My hearts thudded with the fierce need to free him from that cruel reality and to permanently tear apart the mask he’d been forced to wear.

It was time to face the one who’d made him this way—my grandmother.

Behind columns of stone, the rest of her throne room stretched out. From what I could tell, we were tucked in the back, concealed by a maze of slender rock formations that rose from floor to ceiling.

“I’m ready,” I said, giving up the hold I had on Abyssal and forcing my tentacles to do the same. They didn’t listen well, but I hoped the writhing chaos it resulted in made us look more like a cold sea wizard escorting a reluctant princess than what we’d actually become.

With a bow of his head, Abyssal led us forward, and whispers rippled in our wake. The pawns edged nearer, weaving through the rock formations in slow glides to get a better view.

And then I heard it. The first lewd murmurs, their realization of my new form stirring something terrible in their voices.

The magic inside me seethed. I really hated pawns.

Abyssal’s fingers curled where they supported my waist, and though his face gave nothing away, I swore I could feel the murderous thoughts brewing inside him. It almost made me smile—until my gaze landed on the arms of coral that formed the back of my grandmother’s throne.

“My queen.” Abyssal’s voice was thick with the effort of suppressing his loathing, but his posture remained perfectly obedient as he brought us in front of her.

She snorted a sound as we approached, jerking upright as though caught mid-nap.

“Mmm-huh?” she mumbled groggily, one hand absently feeling for the crown hidden in the nest of her hair.

Or maybe she had been fully asleep? After everything that had happened, I had absolutely no idea what time it was.

Queen Sagari shifted on her throne, leaning back into the coral mesh as though trying to reclaim the comfort we’d stolen. “You’d better have a good excuse for disturbing me,” she slurred through lazy lips, then spat, “ Puppet .”

Her eyes barely opened, just enough to search for him, but then they landed on me, and her entire demeanor changed. Thick fingers gripped the arm of her throne as she swung upright.

“Well, now, what’s this?” Her eyes raked down my form as if she were appraising me, a new possession that had been dropped in front of her. One she couldn’t wait to show off.

The last remnants of her sluggishness quickly faded away. “How perfect . Just what I’ve been waiting for,” she crooned so sweetly it made my skin crawl.

“Queen Sagari,” I said, dipping my head in an awkward bow. I didn’t trust myself to say more, and I certainly wasn’t going to call her ‘grandmother.’

“Look at her.” Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she waved a hand to draw the attention of her pawns. “Our pitiful little gem, all polished up to near perfection.”

Um. Excuse me?

Abyssal’s hand curled tighter just as the pawns erupted in eager approval, although I didn’t give a damn about their opinion of me.

All of this would’ve been easier if my tentacles weren’t at war with each other. The back ones strained to pull me backward, even as Abyssal’s grip kept me upright. But that might have been a reflection of my mind, screaming for us to leave.

“Now that the princess’s curse has been lifted,” Abyssal began as soon as the pawns’ roars subsided, “we can proceed with her reception ceremony here in the Undersea if it pleases you.”

“ Here? ” The queen’s smile fell into something much colder. “The ceremony will stay on land,” she snapped before she caught herself and smoothed her expression back into syrupy sweetness. “We have a special guest arriving, and the arrangements have already been made. The cake has been ordered, after all.”

I felt the shift in Abyssal immediately, his focus snapping to her every word. But his voice was steady, betraying no urgency as he intoned, “Special guest? And who might we have the honor of receiving?”

“What’s this? Asking questions of your queen?” The words were sharp enough to cut. “I don’t recall granting you permission for such insolence.” With each drop of her voice, her eyes grew more menacing until they rivaled the jagged black tips of the crown protruding from her hair. “You’ve done your part—slowly and inefficiently, might I add. The princess should have been restored to her true form days ago. Do not mistake my patience for approval, puppet. Now, leave us!”

Abyssal was gone before I could even call out to him, leaving only the thinnest wisps of magic to fall through as my tentacles pulled me down. Those wild limbs jerked me forward, then yanked me back until my mind screamed for them to stop.

Finally, I caught myself, arms stretched out, holding steady. Upright. Composed. Oh, shit.

“Well, well,” the queen chuckled as I tumbled to the stone. She leaned forward, offering no help, her fingernail tapping idly against her chin. “I’ve seen spawnlings move with more grace. But I suppose that will come with time.” Another chuckle as I righted myself. “Ah, yes, things are certainly looking up for you, aren’t they, dear child? I imagine you must be pleased to finally be rid of that tiresome puppet.”

My front tentacles clung to the stone, trembling with the effort to keep me upright. “Pleased?” I bit out, my jaw clenching tight as I struggled. “Why would I be pleased? ”

She tilted her head slightly, her gaze lingering over me, evaluating.

“Why? Because of how far beneath you that puppet is, of course.” Her laugh turned ice cold, a sharp, knowing smile curling at the corners of her lips. “Don’t tell me you’ve grown attached to my tool?”

The pawns behind me jeered, and I couldn’t help but flinch.

With that cruel gleam in her eye, I immediately knew that I’d made a mistake in showing how much I cared for Abyssal. If she blamed him for my feelings, if she twisted this against him, I wouldn’t be able to bear it.

She knew exactly how to hurt him, and I had no doubt she would do just that.

But I couldn’t let her hurt him. I wouldn’t. Never again.

“I’ve grown fond of everyone I’ve met here in the Undersea,” I said, letting just enough warmth into my voice. “Harini. Vishmiel. Everyone you’ve allowed me to meet.”

“Mm, how quaint.” She reclined on her throne, fingers drumming lightly against the armrest as though she was savoring every drop of my lie. “I’m unfamiliar with these subjects of mine, but I’m sure they’ve been delightful company to you.”

“Yep,” I said, the word tainted with bile. So delightful.

“But now that you are, shall we say, presentable .” She let the word linger, her sharp smile cutting deeper than her tone. “I see no need to keep hiding you away from the rest of our dear subjects. Now, isn’t this exciting? You can finally be among those of us who truly matter . ”

She swept her arms wide, making it clear that this— this right here —was who she deemed worthy of sharing company with.

My frustration flared into outright anger.

I didn’t need to glance around to know that none of them mattered to me. Not even her, my own grandmother.

No, there was only Abyssal.

The rest? They were just shadows in this cold, endless dark. The cecaelias’ lives, their thoughts, their petty ambitions—all of it meant nothing to me.

I’d thought I cared about Hari. Convinced myself we’d become something like friends. But how could I claim any of that when I’d taken her brother’s life with my own hands? And I’d done it happily. Gleefully.

The Undersea could collapse into the abyss, swallowed by its own corruption and filth, and I wouldn’t so much as blink.

I didn’t care about its future. I cared about my future. About tearing Abyssal away from them, and about claiming the mate whom they were keeping from me.

Abyssal was mine .

The rest of the Undersea could rot .

And in that moment, chest heaving, mind spinning into oblivion, the truth struck me, and it was like being gutted by my own knife.

I really was a dark spawn.

That cold shiver of understanding swept over me, stilling even the wildest of my tentacles.

Heartless demon.

My lip hitched over my teeth, and I laughed. Loudly. Cruelly.

It felt freeing. It felt like surrender.

Because now, I realized with sickening clarity that I was already halfway to becoming one hundred percent what the Undersea expected me to be. A cold, self-centered princess. Ruthless. Untouchable. The type of ruler who would take what she wanted and destroy anyone who dared stand in her way.

The kind of princess who would steal her grandmother’s crown.

“Something the matter, child?” Queen Sagari was looking at me like I’d grown a new head instead of these eight wriggling nightmares.

“Nothing at all,” I said, the laugh still lingering. My gaze was on that disgusting nest of knots on her head, on the crown keeping Abyssal tethered to the Undersea. Soon, it would be mine. Once I had control over my tentacles. Once I got her in a room without her men.

Once I’d saved up enough magic.

My grandmother’s gaze narrowed, her voice sharpening with suspicion. “Someone be a dear and escort the princess back to her chambers.”

Movement slithered behind me, and my tentacles snapped like whips, alert to the creeping approach. “Don’t touch me!” I hissed before anyone had a chance to grab me.

The nearest pawn, a lean figure with long arms and a perplexed expression, reared back.

“I’ll take myself back to my chambers,” I asserted, my voice tight with the need for space. Now that I had these tentacles, I wasn’t some helpless thing to be carried around anymore. No one would touch me unless I let them.

“My, my.” My grandmother’s eyebrows lifted. “Go on, then.” She seemed interested in watching me try, but when my tentacles pulled me in all the wrong directions, her amusement quickly faded.

She slumped back into her throne, sighing with exaggerated disinterest. “Yes, well, I’m going back to sleep.”

And I— Shit.

Just as I thought I’d made progress toward my exit, one of my tentacles caught hold of a thin column, yanking me to the side with a sharp jerk that had me slamming into a pocket of stone. My arms scraped across the side of something large and unwieldy as I tried to pull myself out of it.

What the heck?

Sitting in the middle of the pocket was a mirror—the same mirror my grandmother had made me look into so that I would see underneath my spells.

The kelp that covered it was already sliding away as my tentacles coiled and uncoiled, trying to figure out how to get me out of here. Then I caught sight of the mirror’s surface, and a razor-sharp hiss tore from my throat.

It wasn’t the reflection of my sea witch eyes that shocked me—it was the jagged outline of missing glass along the mirror’s bottom edge. Of course, I’d broken the Undersea’s magical mirror. How could I not be that clumsy?

But wait . That shape…

“Megalodon tooth,” I whispered, pressing my fingers to the empty void.

But the shard in Abyssal’s office wasn’t magical. If it had been, I would’ve seen through the spell he’d cast over my eyes. So, what did that mean?

A pawn casually slipped into the gap alongside me, and I shoved away from him before he could reach me. Instead, he went for the mirror. “Princess,” he purred, his gaze flicking over me. The smirk on his lips as he pulled the cover back over the glass screamed that he thought himself irresistible.

I had to get out of here.

“Might I offer?—?”

“Nope,” I cut him off sharply. Absolutely not.

Channeling every ounce of my irritation, I hauled myself back to the rocks I’d tumbled between.

See? I didn’t need help. What I needed was the time to figure out how to make these damned limbs listen to me. But they would listen. Even if it took every last ounce of my strength. Even if it took me days to make it to my chamber.

Because I’d finally realized exactly who I was.

And now that I knew with certainty, I’d let this cold darkness shape me into something the Undersea would never forget.