Page 22 of Cruel Tides (Queen of Tridents #2)

22

Claira

T he warm air of the sandhills tickled my nose, heavy with the scent of salt and pine. Visiting the sandhills was pure bliss—my favorite little getaway. Rolls of orange unraveled underneath a purple sky, the countless dunes awash with chatty crabs who swore they remembered me from visits years before. It was a welcome retreat from the usual rigors of early-morning fishing followed by dull hours of learning and schoolwork. A haven with reliable tides that swelled well below the line of hills. A place I could stretch my legs without the fear of—

A voice broke out over me, low and calm, with the rough edge of a throat parched after long hours of sleep. “Claira?”

The vision tore away from me as my eyes fluttered open, yet the sweet aroma of pine still mingled with my next breath. “L-Leander?” I croaked out, finding my voice equally broken.

Something brushed against my forehead, and I seized up like a fish caught in a net.

Slow, controlled breaths fanned over my eyelashes. The low hum of Leander’s lips tickled my skin as he pressed a kiss against me. “Good morning.”

“M-morning,” I stammered back. The morning fog was lifting, but so much had happened in such a short amount of time, it was hard to place where I was. It was like my brain had finally tried to process everything and had overloaded from the effort. Was I really lying next to golden, perfect Prince Leander? And had he really just used those heart-melting, pretty boy lips of his to kiss me on the forehead?

Forehead kisses were for babies and kittens. For grandparents to their grandchildren. They were reserved for only the most precious of moments, not something a merman—let alone a prince —should have given to a woman he’d taken into his bed for a night.

Not that we actually did anything, I thought. Did we?

With the way our bodies were melded together on top of his little bathtub-sized bed, it was hard to be sure. I felt my left arm tucked next to me, but I’d thrown the other over his side at some point, wrapping it as far as it could reach down his back.

Okay, okay . That was normal enough—it was cold in here, after all. I could give myself a pass for that one, but my legs… What the heck were they doing?

With the way my legs twisted, tangling around Leander’s thighs, I’d apparently taken his bottom half on as a body pillow sometime during the night. And not in the cute, cuddly way, no. I was latched on to him for dear life.

No wonder he’d kissed my forehead like I was a child.

I stared straight at his chest, too embarrassed to look up at his expression and too hard-headed to move my legs away. That would be the same as admitting how ridiculous I must have looked, right? Clinging to his body like it was a flotation device or something.

Well, at least the view was nice.

I wet my lips as I thought about flattening my palms over his chest. Leander wasn’t built like a captain, but he didn’t have to be. Everything about him was magnificent just as he was. Had he gone through military training after I left? The thought of him holding a long spear, its metal glistening with the same polished gold as his tail, made my throat feel extraordinarily dry. Well, it would explain all the muscle definition, but I’d never noticed any scars—

“Your ribs,” I gasped, suddenly remembering how I’d lifted his shirt up last night. Poseidon help me . I’d lifted his shirt, and that wasn’t all I’d tried to do. What had come over me? The plan had been to wait for him to react, but my hands were roaming before he even had a chance.

“I—I didn’t hurt you again, did I?” I went to roll away, but an arm caught me, pulling me right back into the warm impression I’d made beside him.

Had that arm been around me all night?

Leander yawned, and his legs flexed underneath me as he stretched. “There’s no way you could hurt me, Claira.” The little chuckle he added when he said my name, like there was no way I was strong enough to hurt anybody, made me want to stick a finger between his ribs. Damn cocky prince.

“Says the man who screams like a little merfry the minute someone goes to touch him—”

My face slammed forward, my voice muffling as my mouth pressed against the abyss between his hard pecs. Was he really using his muscled man boobs to try to shut me up?

“ Sexually! ” I finished my sentence with a loud gasp, forcing my way out of the rift for air. Leander might have ruled over everyone else here, but he’d never rule over me. A simple “please be quiet, Claira” would have been—

A throat cleared somewhere in the space behind us. “Please make haste, Your Highness,” a voice called wearily. Like literally anything would be better than standing around listening to our pillow talk. I glanced back to make sure the shower curtain was still pulled shut. Thank Poseidon . A sigh drifted in, followed by heavy footsteps over the concrete as whoever was outside marched away.

“Were you ever going to tell me someone was standing out there?”

Leander’s chest vibrated with amusement. “That’s why I woke you. I wanted to let you keep sleeping, but I kind of need my legs, and you didn’t want to give them back.”

I glanced up to see how stupid his smug grin looked but found his entire face flushed with color as well.

Wait. Was he embarrassed?

So what if some random mer thought their prince screamed whenever someone touched him sexually? The whole warehouse had already caught him standing next to me naked. Well, not totally naked—he’d had a crusty old net draped over his sea cucumber—but that detail somehow made the whole incident seem worse.

“Sorry, Claira.” He let out a tired sigh that drained all the humor from his voice. “Two captains have been by already, and I don’t want to find out what my father will do if I make him send over a third.”

“Your father?” I hovered my palm over his shirt, feeling the heat radiating off his stomach. More hours had passed, and his bruise probably looked even worse now than it had last night. Untangling my legs from around him, I exhaled a slow, steady breath. “I’ll go, too.”

“You won’t,” he said stiffly, pulling the blankets back. “It’s just more of the usual whaleshit. Half the guard will be there, so you don’t need to worry. He won’t do anything too crazy while others are around to see it.”

That settled it—I’d stick around him as much as I could from now on, even if it meant listening to boring undersea politics. Just thinking about what I’d seen last night made me want to keep King Eamon cursed indefinitely. Someone that cruel didn’t deserve a throne or a kingdom. As long as I was here, I’d make sure Leander wouldn’t have to face his father alone.

I plucked at my undergarments as I sat up. A jacket wasn’t all Kai had forgotten to pack in his care package, though I was more than thankful for what he had brought. The bathing suit Barren had picked out for me was a little more revealing than I’d hoped, but anything was better than going commando. At least I knew where to find laundry detergent, and a bathing suit would probably dry faster than actual underwear anyway. Silver linings and all that. “The usual? Your father sends someone to come wake you up every morning?”

“Sometimes,” Leander mumbled, and I gawked as he casually slid a hand down the front of his pants to adjust himself. A thought immediately struck me—was he wearing underwear? Neither Kai nor Barren had thought to bring me any, so maybe underwear was still some mystery mermen hadn’t discovered? “Sometimes reckless girls with knives sneak in, prodding me in the throat until I wake up.”

“I didn’t prod you.” I huffed, flipping my attention from his crotch to his face. A broad grin was waiting for me, and I knew instantly he’d caught me staring. Look, it wasn’t my fault his room was so small that his crotch took up a nice, bulging chunk of it. I snatched up his pillow and chucked the whole sorry lump at him, hoping it would wipe the smug look off his face when it connected. “You know I was desperate for a phone and cranky I couldn’t find one. I only came to you after I checked everywhere else first. It’s a freaking warehouse. You’d think there’d be a phone in here somewhere!”

“And there was.” He tossed the pillow right back at me, smacking me square in the place he’d kissed only minutes before. “Right in my back pocket. Checked everywhere, huh? Well, I think you need to check a little more thoroughly next time.”

Scoffing, I got to my feet. “So, next time I’m looking for something, I should check your pants first? Got it.” My arms slipped around him, sliding right into his back pockets. I wasn’t looking for a phone or anything else, but I’d seen an opportunity, and I had to snatch it.

Clearly caught off guard, he let out a cough when my fingers flexed, feeling out the shape of his firm ass. “If you’re looking for my phone, you won’t find it,” he groaned, his voice dropping an octave. Strong hands seized my hips. “But I think what you’re looking for is actually in one of my front pockets.”

With our hips locked together as they were, the bottom of my stomach could clearly feel the hard press of what he was hiding next to his front pocket. If you could call what it was doing hiding . My fingers itched to go exploring.

An impatient throat cleared outside, and we jerked, breaking apart like two kids caught by a chaperone in the middle of a hand check.

“Duty calls,” Leander mumbled, and I felt my heartstrings pulling after him as he slid through the curtain.

I shoved my feet in my boots and poked my head around the curtain, watching Leander disappear down the hall. His movements were so stiff. Accidentally broke a box full of plates, my ass. How hadn’t I realized his father had been the one to injure him sooner?

“Psst.”

My head whipped toward the noise. Echinea’s head poked out from across the hall, her hand waving at me like she was welcoming me over. Uh oh. Dread filled me as I suddenly remembered how close everyone’s quarters were here. I really hoped she hadn’t heard our exchanges just now. Or when Leander screamed when I touched him last night. Or any of it at all, really.

“ PSST ,” she whispered louder, her hands signaling wilder than a lighthouse beacon.

I flashed a thumbs-up and crept out of Leander’s room like a spy carrying out a covert mission. When I got across the hall, Echinea’s eyes were rolling. “You act really weird for a grown-up.”

“Oh.” Straightening my spine out, I walked the last couple of steps. “I thought we were trying to be sneaky.”

A tiny hand latched on to mine, tugging until I slipped through the curtain. My eyes darted around, going straight to the bed tucked in the back of the room. It was larger than Leander’s, with even more pillows and room at the foot of it. A crate was pushed up against one corner, a half-eaten bagel surrounded by crumbs sitting on top of it.

“Come on, come on.” Echinea’s foot tapped until I followed her over to a second curtain. It hung from the ceiling like a tiny circus tent, and when the flap lifted, it revealed a second bed hidden underneath. Shells and corals sat over the blankets, sorted into little piles around the pillows. She dove in, and I crouched down, folding my legs underneath me so I could take a seat next to her inside.

Something poked at me, and I pulled a long seagull feather out from under my rear. Setting it down beside me, I noticed that there were holes poked into the top of the curtain, letting in just enough light to look like starlight. “Wow, it’s really pretty in here. I bet you collected all this stuff all by yourself, didn’t you?”

Ignoring the question, Echinea settled down in the center of her bed. After she had fluffed up all the pillows sitting around her, she threw me a deadpan look. “You know why I brought you here.”

“I, uh,” I stammered. Was this kid serious? “To show me your collection, right?”

“No, the riddle!” Her eyes went wide when she realized just how loudly she’d yelled the words. She reined her enthusiasm back a little and leaned in closer. “ The riddle . Do you have the answer now?”

“Oh, right, the riddle,” I said back, mirroring the volume of her whisper. “I actually do think I figured it out.”

Echinea’s eyes lit. “Really?” she gasped, her body bouncing up and down on the pillows.

I only half-regretted staying up so late last night teaching Kai how to play the board games we’d found at the aquatic center. With checkers being his favorite, I’d had plenty of time to think about the riddle while simultaneously destroying his pawns. It was crazy that even after twenty games, he never did manage to beat me.

“Oh, I can’t wait to tell Poseidon!” As soon as the words left her lips, Echinea’s hands shot up, clapping over her mouth like she’d just spoiled the biggest secret ever.

“Poseidon?” I asked, wondering what she could mean. I gave her time to answer, but she kept her hands clamped down on her mouth, her head shaking wildly. “Oh, I see. It’s like a game you’re playing? Make-believe?”

Her eyes narrowed as her hands dropped. “Nuh-uh, it isn’t! He’s really real! I saw him.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Saw who? ”

“ Poseidon ,” she whispered, hissing out the S sound like I was really starting to frustrate her. But I truly didn’t know what she meant.

“Echinea, I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t Poseidon. Poseidon isn’t around anymore.”

Her hands went wild. “I did see him! He had black hair down to here , and these crazy white eyes, and held a trident up in the air this high , and he told me his riddle and told me if I got it right, he would give me a gift .”

I was speechless. Totally speechless. I wrestled with my words before saying, “That wasn’t Poseidon. Echinea, I know being on land must feel like a big adventure right now, but just like underwater, you shouldn’t talk to men or women that you don’t know. You do know that? Your papa is a captain, so I know he must have taught you about strangers, right? How you’re not supposed to go near them, e specially grown-ups that ask for your help or promise you things?”

Cheeks puffing, her face seemed to light with anger.

But I was angry, too. Angry that some weirdo had gone up to a young girl and offered her a gift, turning it into a game by asking her a riddle. Fucking creep.

The tent flap pulled back, and I looked straight up with a gulp. A mountain stood above me, casting a shadow over us that felt a hundred times darker than the tent had been.

“Hello—um, sir.” You were supposed to call captains “sir,” right? It was something I should have remembered, but with the eyes above me teeming with such a furious rage, I couldn’t think well enough to recall. I took a deep breath. “I hope you heard some of that.”

He mirrored my breathing like he was attempting to calm himself down. Whoever the white-eyed man was, he was dead when Echinea’s father found him. “I did. Echo, please see your friend out. It’s time to have a talk about all this wandering around you do while I’m on duty.”

The glaring look Echinea gave me was more sea monster than human girl, menacing enough to spike a chill through me. Without waiting for an escort, I mouthed “sorry” and turned to crawl out. As soon as I made it to my feet, a firm hand clapped over my shoulder. Echinea’s father and I shared a meaningful look before I slipped back into the hall.

Feeling a bit nauseated, I headed for the end of the warehouse. They hadn’t rolled up the main doors for the day yet, which was strange, considering how early they’d raised them the morning before. Either way, I needed some fresh air after what I’d just heard, so I headed for the side door.

The sun had already risen, but the air was icy enough I had to pull Kai’s overshirt around me to help cut the chill. It was weird to think that although I’d slept next to one merman, another would come for me soon. Would it be Barren this time, or had Kai’s day not counted since it was technically a half-day? Kai had said they’d be back in the morning, but I was too nervous last night to ask which of them was taking a turn next.

Would one of them take me out to the water today? My stomach coiled into a knot at the thought of going back in the ocean. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for anyone else to see how useless I was as a mermaid.

A feeling of joy bloomed in my chest. Uh, what? Considering I was sort of having a mini-crisis, joy didn’t feel quite right. It felt jarring, suddenly being overcome with such a conflicting, powerful emotion. I followed the sensation to the edge of the pier, clasping at the fabric over my heart as I looked out at the water. Yes, it was joy I was feeling. I was certain now. But why—

“I knew you were as dumb as a rock, but standing right next to the water? Seriously?”

I froze, my hand still clutching at my heart. Even if I lived for a thousand years, I’d still recognize the grating sound of Aleena’s cackle. The bitch queen of the fucking harpies was standing right behind me.

“Too easy.”

Before I could turn around, something hard shoved into my back. Up became down as my feet fell out from underneath me.

And down into the water I went.

* * *

No—not now. Not while I was alone.

I screamed on impulse, and a flood of water rushed into my lungs, the salt burning a line down my throat before my body could acclimate to the change. The slap of skin against the water’s surface, the crack of bones rearranging—everything hit too hard, too fast. My arms thrashed, blindly searching for something to latch on to before I started—

Sinking. I was sinking!

Terror brought another shriek, the sound reverberating like a shrill clap of thunder under the waves. Oh—oh no. My body was heavy, so incredibly heavy. My arms beat through the water, stroke after stroke, but still, I sank, the intense weight of my lower half impossible to keep afloat.

My tail had finally become the nightmare I always knew it to be, the anchor that would drag me to my watery demise.

And damn, did I sink fast.

Seagrass billowed in dense tufts around me as I dropped to the bottom of the harbor, my body going momentarily weightless as my tail bounced over hard sand. The grassy canopy closed overhead like the jaws of a great leviathan, swallowing me down into the murk.

The pitch black shocked my senses. Strange lines crowded my vision, rippling in a way that made my temples throb. My eyes darted, my pulse hammering all the way up my throat as my entire being vibrated with a panic I couldn’t control.

What were the lines? I remembered seeing them last time I was in the water, but what did they mean?

I tried tracking one, but it slid away whenever I focused, rendering it impossible to pin down. The throbbing in my head intensified with each movement of my eyes until my head felt like it was on the brink of exploding.

There! I finally caught a squiggle, but my satisfaction was brief. Something in me snapped, and a firework went off behind my eyes.

My vision closed like a shutter, every line dissolving to darkness at once, and when the shutter reopened, the world was reborn in monochrome. I was seeing again—but without the need for light.

I blinked wildly, suddenly able to trail gray strands of grass to where they rooted in the dark sand. My sight fell on the wide scales forming at my hip, and by the time I reached the frills edging the bottom of my tail, fury simmered hot in my belly.

Night vision? I’d lived my entire life without a hint of mermaid magic, and when a spark of it finally awakened, the best trick I could pull off was seeing in the dark?

And what a neat trick it was. Now I could experience my inevitable demise in dramatic shades of black and gray. What luck!

Oh, I was angry . Angry with myself for letting Aleena best me. Angry with the ocean. And beyond furious with Poseidon for having the giant, ancient gonads to cobble someone together with such a useless set of magical “gifts.”

Even if it was my own damn fault I’d never mastered my tail, I was still furious. I’d been haunted by the question of what it was I lacked as a mermaid my entire life, and now more than ever, it felt like my existence was some sort of supreme joke Poseidon had conjured up for his divine amusement.

What was it that made me unworthy? Did I lack strength? An aptitude for magic? Or was it my faith in Poseidon that was the issue? I sure spoke his name in vain a lot, but that little habit started long after he’d turned my life into a joke.

Twenty years of grief, and it was clear I hadn’t learned a damned thing.

Stupid. Useless. Tail.

How long would fate curse me to look at it? To see its beauty and ache for the false promise of a life under the waves?

No matter how many times I’d told myself I wasn’t a mermaid, a foolish part of me held on to the hope that one day some mysterious magic might awaken. Magic that would let me master my tail. That same stupid hope was the reason I’d stuck around after I fought my way out of King Eamon’s cage. But now the truth was painfully clear.

I was never going to master my tail.

I could feel my lips quivering as I fought back a maelstrom of emotions. The ocean was beyond cruel. There was no amount of sorrow that could fill an eye with tears underwater, so I let bitter laughter burst from me instead.

“Night vision.” Hysteria gripped me, my fingers curving into claws as my hands tightened over the sand. “So, I can see predators coming but can never escape them, right? Right? What a joke!” Oh, I was pissed.

“You hear me, Poseidon?” I screamed into the cloudy murk. “I don’t need this useless tail!” My fists seized tufts of seagrass, my muscles burning as I dragged myself through the sand one handful at a time.

If the mermaid part of me couldn’t take me up to the surface, I’d use the part of me that was human.

“You can keep your gifts, your magic! Take them all back. I don’t want a single thing that’s yours!” My hand knocked into a solid mass I didn’t need magical night vision to identify—concrete. A solid block that likely supported a wooden post.

The pier.

How had I not thought to search for the pier sooner? I stretched over the tide-beaten block, and my fingernails sank into the algae-slicked wood of one of the pier’s posts. And damn it, I pulled. Fury filled me, fueling my pursuit of the surface. Inch by inch, my jaw clenched in concentration as my hands alternated their search for the next highest place to grip.

I panted out breaths. “I’m going to slap Aleena so hard in the face when I get up there.”

A fingertip breached the surface, and a rush of adrenaline hit. Almost there. Muscles straining, I yanked myself even higher.

Hair clung to my face as I broke through the surface. I stretched an arm high, searching for the flat of the pier I knew would be overhead. With my torso above water, the deadweight of my tail felt heavier than ever, but still my spine stretched, reaching for a beam to latch on to.

Water crashed over my back, the waves bringing me higher one moment, only to suck me back down the next. I was so close. Grit crunched under my molars . A little higher.

With one last stretch, my hand found purchase, and I pulled, fighting for life and revenge. Oh, I’d give just about anything to see the look on Poseidon’s shriveled, archaic mug when I made a fool of all his gifts.

My forearms burned, and my muscles strained more than they did after an entire day of hauling in fish. The wood was so slick it was hard to keep hold with my entire weight pulling behind me, but I—

A force knocked into me with the momentum of a speedboat, and I was suddenly airborne. My body lurched, curving through the air, until my arms and stomach fell in a heap. I hit the pier with a wet slap powerful enough to knock every lingering grain of sand from my lungs.

“What are you—?” A timid voice shrieked from… somewhere. My senses reeled from the impact, but I scrambled to bring my torso up off the wood.

Of course the harpies were still hanging around. Why wouldn’t they be making sure I wouldn’t resurface? I cursed aloud, my mouth hitting the syllable with the same blunt force Leander always used when he said it. “ Fuck. ”

Footsteps scraped over the pier, and I knew they were coming for me again. My eyes focused in time to catch Aleena’s feet as she made her way over. The deep stain of lipstick curling over her teeth revealed her irritation as she let out her own string of curses. She strutted down the pier in quick strides, her heels spiking into the wood with every step.

I needed to move . My tail draped behind me, close enough to the edge she could push me right back down.

Just as I reached for the boards in front of me, the combined note of the twin’s gasps played like a duet on the wind. Aleena’s ankle gave out from under her, and she stumbled a step, the color in her face draining to a sickly coral white.

What were they—?

Wood crackled as another force hit the pier. It landed beside me with a great quake that shook the entire deck and sent a spray of salt water raining over my back. Something brushed against my arm, pointed and firm, and I was suddenly facing down a monstrously wide stretch of teeth.

“YOU. OUT.”

Joy struck my heart like cannon-fire—the same emotion that originally brought me to the edge of the pier. I fought the urge to clasp at the warmth fluttering through my chest.

A dark weave of scars coated the sides of its mouth, but I already recognized the creature beached beside me. The bull shark’s jaws opened, and I held in a gasp as it thrashed about, its fins and tail working its body back toward the edge of the pier. Mist sprayed over me as it dropped back into the harbor.

My eyes widened in disbelief.

The shark had left more than just splintered wood behind. A knife was next to me, its flat edge gleaming as water formed in droplets on the blade. It was the same knife I’d held to Leander’s throat. The knife I’d used to free the bull shark from the net. I thought I’d lost it in the boat, but now here it was.

Aleena’s voice turned vicious. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shark look so hungry. It’s a shame it missed you.” Her back straightened like she was trying to brush off the shock. She perched a hand under her chin, her hair fanning behind her as she continued her approach. “Well, let’s not keep it waiting.”

Eyes gleaming, she held me with a predatory gaze that suggested she thought she’d already won. Which meant she hadn’t seen it . She didn’t know what the shark had done.

Slowly, my hand crept toward the knife. As soon as I felt it, my fingers curled around the handle.

“You’ll make a disgusting meal.” Aleena’s lips pursed like she’d just smelled something rotten. “But sharks are so brutish and stupid. I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”

When she was less than a step away, her right heel drew back, and I was ready. Metal flashed as my blade sank into her left foot with little resistance, slicing into the delicate skin just above her toes.

The astonishing shriek that followed was loud enough to rattle the warehouse doors. I twisted the blade until my wrist popped just so I could drive the knife in deeper.

“Aleena!” Arina sobbed, running over to wrench her sister away from me. Seawater foamed over my lips as I pressed all my weight down on the blade, refusing to let her go.

“Stop it! You’re—you’re hurting her. Please!”

There was enough panic in Arina’s voice to make me hesitate, and the handle slipped from my fingers on her next tug.

Blood pooled as Aleena’s body crumpled, her sister still determined to yank her away. A hiss cracked through the air as Aleena pulled the knife free. She cast it aside like it was a venomous snake, and my eyes fell on the dark stains smeared over the blade.

“Whoa, dude ,” Kai’s voice called, and I snapped up to see him jogging toward the pier. A car sat behind him, its tinted windows halfway down. How long had they been there?

Sunglasses sat low over the bridge of Barren’s nose, his hard gaze resting on me. Or was it on the blood in front of me? Either way, he’d seen—both of them had seen—what I’d done. My mind reeled. I couldn’t think. I—

“Did that shark just toss you a knife?” Ignoring the sisters, Kai sank to his knees beside me, his eyes alight with a child-like wonder. “That was seriously badass!”

He offered a hand, but I hesitated to take it.

“I–I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I stuttered, my eyes hopping between Kai’s steady gaze to the droplets of blood at his feet. But that was a lie. I had meant to hurt her.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said, an air of softness in his voice. “You’re okay.” Arms drew underneath me, and before I could protest, he’d set me up on my tail. My body teetered, but he steadied me up by my shoulders. His lips quirked. “So, you’ve been holding out on me, eh? Keeping friends without—”

“They aren’t my friends!” I blurted, my eyes jumping back to where the twins stood on the gravel. Regarding her sister as no better than a piece of furniture to prop herself up against, Aleena was still fighting to pry her foot out of her heel.

“No, not those two,” he laughed, not even sparing them a glance. “So, is it just one shark, or do you have a whole frenzy?”

“Oh, uh, just the one.” I could feel my lungs deepen as the adrenaline started draining away. “I don’t usually talk to sharks, but that one needed my help, so…”

Fascination arched his brows, like he could hardly believe what I’d said. “You talked to it?”

I opened my mouth to answer when—

Pop.

My tail split into legs—very bare, very naked legs—and an inferno spread across my face.

“ Wooooah, ” Kai gasped, a hand immediately rising to cover his eyes. “ Hello there. I, uh, don’t suppose you still have those pants I got for you lying around here somewhere?”

Groaning, I stretched my shirt as far down as it would go over my legs. “Of course not. My life’s a divinely orchestrated comedy, and that would be too easy.”

A fountain of water exploded as the bull shark leapt into the air again, its giant body cresting over the harbor. The shark’s nose took a dive back down just as my steel-toes knocked against one another, touching down on the pier a few yards away. “I apparently still have my boots, though.”

Eyes still covered, Kai shook his head, the smile never leaving his lips. “Hey, Barren!” he yelled, angling his face to the car. “Think you can go find Claira some pants for me? Ask around!”

And I thought my face couldn’t get any hotter.

A car door opened and shut, and being alone at the bottom of the ocean suddenly didn’t seem like such a terrible fate. I pulled my knees together, the seams of my shirt snapping as I endeavored to cover my ass.

My day had hardly started, and I’d already managed to lose half my outfit and thwart an assassination attempt. It couldn’t possibly get any worse, right? I still couldn’t believe I’d actually stabbed her. Although I knew she deserved it, the sight of her blood brought a queasy feeling to my stomach. I turned to Kai, whose hand still dutifully shielded his eyes. “Are all mermaids so… so…”

“Callous?” Kai offered, and he laughed when I snapped my fingers in agreement. “Only every one that I’ve ever met. Well, except…” His voice faded into a hum.

“Your sister?” I suggested, and that got a snort.

“Ha! Nice try, but no. She’s just as bad as the rest of them. Maybe even worse.”

A pair of pants connected with the side of Kai’s head, and he peeled them off his face without missing a beat. “Thanks, Barren!”

I traced the trajectory of the pants back to Barren, who was already stalking back to the car. “Is he in a mood today?”

“Barren? I don’t think so, why?” One eye peeked at me through scissored fingers. Kai offered me the pants, but I waited for him to turn before I took them, not wanting to let my shirt ride up in front of him.

I pulled the pants on in a flash. “No reason. He just seems so stern, I guess? I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“Hm.” Kai lowered his hand to his chin thoughtfully, like he was carefully considering my words. “I really don’t think he would have bothered to make you breakfast if he didn’t like you.”

“He made me breakfast?” My stomach grumbled. The dinner at the aquatic center felt so long ago.

“Yep! It’s tasty, too.” He patted his stomach, and his voice took on a heavy sort of breathiness. “A flakey bread roll filled with this wavy land meat in its middle. I ate mine on the drive over—sorry. I wanted to wait for you, but I just couldn’t help myself.”

Kai braced a hand on a knee and stood. His smile broadened as he offered me his hand. “You ready to get out of here? The shops will be open soon, and I think it’s better if you pick out clothes for yourself this time. You look like you could use more than just a jacket.”

Accepting his hand, I bunched up the waist of my pants so they wouldn’t fall to my knees when I got to my feet. I didn’t know whose pants Barren had found for me, but whoever they belonged to definitely wasn’t my size. I shot a quick glance over at Aleena, only to find her rocking on the ground, nursing her foot in her hands. She must have felt my eyes on her, because her gaze slithered over to me. I flashed her the sweetest smile I could muster.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”