Page 22 of Sea of Evil and Desire (The Deep Saga #1)

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Finn

T wo Mer guards flanked the castle’s entrance. Their battle-scarred tails flicked idly as they stood watch, eyes scanning the waters for any sign of intrusion.

“Welcome home, Prince Aigéan.” Alga made a sweeping bow, his seaweed crest rippling in the swell, but his spear remained raised.

The castle’s entrance yawned like the mouth of a leviathan, its towering archway crafted from granite sand.

I gave Alga a tight-lipped smile as guilt twisted inside me like a poisoned blade. I hadn’t stopped the storms—more of our people were turning up dead, and his power was only growing.

Alga stepped away from the glowing doorway, his stern silhouette fading into the shadows. My gaze swept over the castle’s towering spires—one day, all of this would be mine. It should have felt like home, yet somehow, it felt like a gilded cage.

“Your Highness.” Alga’s silver breastplate clinked as he turned toward me. “The king has requested your presence in the war room.”

A wrinkle deepened between my brows. Of course, he has.

He probably wanted to berate me for my lack of progress with the storms, or perhaps he wanted to interrogate me about the girl.

Morgana.

A tightness coiled around my chest as I allowed her name into my mind.

What had I planned to say when I confronted her in the grocery store? I wasn’t even sure. Seeing her with Aranare had awakened something in me, a fire like none I’d ever felt—a danger .

I had tried to push these feelings away, but she lingered in me like salt in the sea, undeniable and inescapable.

I couldn’t tell her anything, because it would mean admitting everything .

“There’s been another storm . . . ten drowned.” My father waved a hand dismissively as he glided in, his magnificent golden tail catching the light.

Pisceon and I had been waiting in the war room for over an hour—typical of my father. I wasn’t sure if he did it deliberately. He didn’t need to flex. He was already the most powerful merman in the Seven Kingdoms.

“I am aware.” I ran a hand through my hair as he regarded me with cold disappointment.

Behind him, two guards sealed the grand wooden doors shut. My father snapped his head toward them, eyes narrowing. “I don’t trust Alga.”

“He’s our most loyal guard. I would charge him with my life,” I breathed.

My father stroked his chin, his slitted eyes distant, until his expression slackened as if the conversation had already slipped from his mind.

In these moments, I wished I never had to sit in this frigid stone room, waiting on this cold man again. I wished I could simply exist as Finn—the man who took the pretty girl from the souvenir shop on dates and didn’t bear the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. But Finn was just a construct, like all the others.

“I’ll trade places with you if you like, cousin. You know how I love human delicacies—coffee, among other things . . .” Pisceon smirked at me from across the limestone table, the room’s centerpiece. Colors from the stained-glass window behind him gently caressed his chiseled cheeks.

“The future of my kingdom lies in the hands of amateurs.” My father moved to the head of the table and pressed his palms into it, glancing between us before a manic laugh tore from his throat.

My face fell into a scowl—it was not like he did any of his own dirty work—but as his eyes fell upon me, his glare cut right to my gut and twisted in the way that only he could.

He waited until he knew I felt it to speak again. “And the human girl . . .”

“Who’s he torturing this time?” Pisceon rolled his muscular shoulders in a bored manner. He could brush off my father’s erratic behavior in a way I never could.

“Torturing?” My father ran a hand through his long dark hair and had the nerve to raise his eyebrows, which were covered in tattoos—runes, but they were faded now—like it wasn’t always torture with him. “I want to know if she’s a human or a shifter,” he growled, turning his dark eyes on me.

“So far, I have seen nothing to suggest she is a shifter.” Lies. Even though it was rare for a Selkie descendant to inherit shifter abilities, I was almost certain there was something more to the girl. Selkies were skilled in mind magic, which could be why she was able to resist my gifts. She had also tried to communicate with the seals. I almost huffed a laugh at the memory but curbed it when I caught my father’s narrowed eyes.

Rage roiled in my belly as he glared at me, awaiting an answer, and my fist clenched on the table.

“You want him to torture her?” Pisceon sniggered.

I kept my face neutral, but I loved having my cousin here. When he lost his parents, he became our ward. Before that, when it was just me and father, things were so . . . dark. Believe it or not, when you’re the only son and muscle of a mad king who loves torture, it’s much easier to have someone to laugh about it with.

“No. What is it with you morons and torture?” My father’s voice rumbled through the room, and a skitter of lightning charged the walls. I was worried he might shatter the windows. He’d been in a foul mood these past few months—actually, he’d been in a foul mood since my mother died, so that would be over fifty years now.

“I want you to let me know if you see anything .” My father’s black eyes flashed as he looked at me, the flickerings of a madman. I couldn’t help but notice how much they resembled mine.

“Why do you care so much about a weak little human?” I stretched in my chair, my tail curling around its side in what I imagined to be a bored manner.

My father ignored me, lips pressing into a thin line as he raked his webbed fingers through his hair.

“Would you like me to give him a hand, uncle?” Pisceon looked hopefully at my father again, and his tattooed chest rippled.

My father whipped his head at him. “I’ve heard of the antics you two indulge in on land. This girl is no human plaything for you fools to toy with.” His brows narrowed, and his eyes drifted off somewhere else, as they often did, until he was no longer in the room with Pisecon and me.

Not all Mer could walk on land—only those with royal blood—and we had to return to the sea every three days, but Pisceon and I only rose when my father willed it.

Getting information from a human should have been easy. Humans are naturally drawn to us; once they get close enough to look into our eyes, we can hypnotize them. They will tell us anything we need to know and do anything we need them to do.

I wondered if I should tell my father about the presence I’d sensed in the mist on Merrow Rocks. No, he would likely fly into an uncontrollable rage. I glanced at him as he glided back and forth along the length of the stone table, his golden tail shimmering behind him.

Was this it? Had he finally lost his mind? He turned his dark eyes on me, and my stomach tightened. I hated that he could still make me feel this way with just a look after all these years.

“Don’t fuck this up, Aigéan.” My father’s lip curled as he turned from me, his mouth moving in an incoherent whisper as if finishing a thought meant only for himself.

There was irony in his harsh words. It was him the other kingdoms were whispering about. They were questioning whether he could still wield the trident, the one that made him the most powerful merman in the Seven Kingdoms—even if that power was stunted like the rest of ours.

I didn’t doubt his ability to wield it, but I wondered about his ability to use it for what was best for our people. I might not care about humans, but I did care about my people. My mother had taught me the importance of that while she was still around.

I sighed and propelled myself from the stone chair, my emerald tail beating against the water as I approached the door.

“Aigéan,” Pisceon called after me. “What name are you using this time? I think Bruce would suit you. Don’t you think he looks like a Bruce?” He nodded at my father, whose eyes were still flashing.

“I’ve called myself Finn.”

“Ah . . . after the dark race from Finfolkaheem, who regularly lure humans into their oceanic home. You’re twisted, cousin. I like it.”

I shut the wooden doors on Pisceon’s devilish grin, gliding back up the dimly lit sandstone passage. It was time to check on my wife-to-be. What mood would she be in?

Guilt tightened in my chest. I had lied to my father regarding my suspicions about the girl. He might be a tyrant, but some dark recess of me still craved his approval.

But her . I swallowed hard as the thought of Morgana sent heat rushing to the sensitive spots on my tail. The way her lips curved in subtle pouts, the fire in her green eyes . . . she was unraveling me.

She would make a madman out of me, and then I’d be just like my father.