Page 8 of The Merman’s Betrothal (Outcast Hearts #2)

F ionn stared at the unconscious man in his arms with a sinking feeling that was rapidly approaching horror.

This was all wrong. His soul mate’s skin had failed to turn blue when he met the water. He didn’t seem to recognise Fionn as a kinsman when they met, and even worse seemed to be fighting against his help. Why wasn’t he breathing? Where were his gills?

‘ Your Highness? ’ Neacel trilled with a petrified tremor. ‘ I think he’s drowning. ’

His soul mate was drowning.

Fionn jolted into action. He sped to the surface, launched his mate onto the jetty and felt frantically along the sides of his throat for gills.

Neacel followed and batted his hands away. ‘You need to give him air. Here, breathe in his mouth.’

Neacel carefully tilted his mate’s head back and instructed Fionn how to deliver a rescue breath. Then Neacel lay his hands on the man’s chest and started pumping it up and down.

Within a few compressions Fionn’s mate spluttered, took a shaky, rattling gasp of air, and began to breathe. Neacel rolled him onto his side. He was still unconscious.

Neacel’s voice practically squeaked with nerves. ‘I think he’s too cold.’

‘Too cold,’ Fionn echoed, feeling numb.

They both stared at the man before them. Neacel hadn’t dared say what must have crossed both their minds.

Fionn’s soul mate did not have blue skin. Fionn’s soul mate could not breathe underwater. Fionn’s soul mate was troubled by the cold. He was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Or, even worse, human.

It was too much for Fionn to contemplate right now. He decided to set that thought aside and deal with it later. Just as he had decided to set aside his disbelief of soul mates, for now.

Fionn had already dealt with a battering of life-changing revelations this evening.

It was enough to come to terms with the idea that he, of all people, might have a fated mate.

He whose own soul was already supposed to be signed away to another.

Was it a cruel joke or a serendipitous means of escape?

Whatever he believed, he was clearly bonded to this man, and that made him Fionn’s mate.

Meanwhile, Neacel was rooting around in the stranger’s pockets. ‘He has a wallet,’ he said thickly, like it confirmed the worst. ‘Do you want to know his name?’

Fionn took a small plastic card from him which had his mate’s picture on it.

‘Rory Douglas,’ Fionn read aloud. ‘Is this an address?’

‘It is probably where he lives.’

‘On land?’ It felt like a stupid question at this point, but Fionn needed the clarification. He needed to be really sure.

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Your Highness.’ Neacel fiddled with the wallet. It held a collection of other colourful plastic cards and some loose change. The leather was cracked, well-worn. Its owner had used it for a long time. ‘We might find out if we take him there.’

Despite being the one to suggest it, Neacel didn’t sound like he enjoyed the prospect at all. Fionn couldn’t blame him. All Neacel had wanted from the evening was a chance to talk to his crush. Not to get stuck between his prince and a potentially devastating twist of fate.

‘Are you sure you… felt… it?’ Neacel quavered.

‘I’m certain.’ The ferocious pull of the current had ebbed away to a gentle ripple, but it was still very much there, like a tide within Fionn’s chest.

Fionn stared at the rise and fall of Rory’s soaking, bedraggled body. Humans shouldn’t stay in wet clothes, should they? The cold would creep deeper inside them, or something.

Fionn tugged Rory’s coat off and covered him with the jacket from his human disguise instead. He pulled on one of the fabric kilts for himself and threw the other at Neacel. ‘Don’t bother with the rest. Let’s get him indoors quickly. Do you know how to get to that address?’

Neacel snapped to attention at the firmness of Fionn’s orders. ‘Y-yes. I think I’ve passed that street before. I can guide us.’

Fionn lifted Rory by himself. Studied his stubbornly human features again.

He wasn’t ready to accept it yet. While following Neacel’s faltering lead through the quiet streets of Ullapool, Fionn concocted all sorts of reasons for why his mate might live on land.

Perhaps Rory was a Minchman who’d been exiled and his body had somehow de-acclimatised from life in water. Or maybe he was under a terrible curse and had his natural aquatic form stripped from him. Or maybe he had amnesia and didn’t know his Bluefolk origins.

These possibilities were feeling less and less likely as they approached the house listed on Rory’s plastic card.

It was a bland, white-fronted building in a row of similar white-fronted buildings.

The windows were narrow and had curtains drawn while the front door opened right onto the pavement.

There was no greenery around it, nor signs of life in general. It wasn’t even in view of the loch.

It was not a house that Fionn felt any Minchman would be keen to set foot in, let alone spend their whole life inside.

At Neacel’s prompting, Fionn felt around for keys in Rory’s trouser pockets. He’d had reservations about Neacel’s familiarity with human culture earlier, but now he was glad of having a little expertise to hand.

Neacel unlocked the door. Fionn ducked through the doorway, taking care not to bang Rory’s head on the door frame.

They entered into a dingy hallway with a staircase right in front of them.

Fionn made a face as Neacel suggested that dry clothes and a bed would most likely be found upstairs.

Stairs, in Fionn’s view, were unpleasant things made to magnify the effects of gravity while also messing around with one’s balance.

He would rather be able to simply swim upwards instead of taking tiresome, measured steps.

They stumbled into the bedroom—easy to find, as the only other room on this floor was a tiled bathroom—and Fionn carefully dropped Rory onto the bed. The man gave a quiet groan, but otherwise made no movement. He seemed to be sleeping now rather than being blackout unconscious.

Neacel went through Rory’s drawers and deposited a pile of clothes on the bed. ‘Shall I leave you to dress him?’

Fionn considered how out of place he felt in this human room, and also how Neacel looked at him as though he should hold all the answers. He didn’t want to show just how out of his depth he was.

‘Yes. Wait downstairs,’ Fionn said authoritatively. ‘Keep an eye on the road, in case anyone else appears to be coming to the house.’

Neacel nodded gratefully and disappeared.

Finally, Fionn had both the time and the presence of mind to study his mate up close.

Back in the club he hadn’t had more than a moment to process what he thought or felt about the stranger his body was rushing towards.

Somewhere underneath the hurricane of the bond igniting, Fionn’s initial impression had been that Rory was quite short for a Minchman and that his face seemed hard and serious.

Fionn had never given much thought to what qualities he would find attractive in a mate.

He’d always been too caught up in dreading the qualities he wouldn’t find attractive.

Of Redfolk, all he knew for certain was that his betrothed would have red skin and fins of some kind.

They were an insular society, with diplomatic visits occurring rarely and in secret with the Blue King.

This gave way to rumours about what they might look like.

Too much wild hearsay about Redfolk had fuelled Fionn’s imagination with monstrous extra limbs and spikes and tails and who knew what else that might be common among creatures in the fae realm.

None of these features were evident on Rory, which came as something of a relief.

Apart from that, Fionn found his opinions didn’t form as naturally as he’d hoped.

Rory seemed… sturdy. As Fionn peeled back the wet clothes he uncovered firm muscles, bulkier in his arms than elsewhere.

A little soft in the middle. More dark hair that formed a trail from his chest to his crotch.

It wasn’t as prickly as the hair sprouting from Rory’s chin—which Fionn discovered via a curious test of fingertips.

By comparison, Bluefolk body hair was so fine as to be virtually invisible, and Fionn had never met a Minchman with a beard.

Even while asleep, Rory’s expression lacked levity, like his mouth was set into a permanent frown.

Pulling off his trousers, Fionn found solid thighs and a thick cock resting amid more dark pubic hair.

There were fine hairs on Rory’s legs, too—still a little darker and coarser than those found on Bluefolk, but soft to the touch.

Fionn gazed at Rory’s naked body for a long moment. Waiting for his bond to ignite again.

Nothing much changed.

Wasn’t there supposed to be a spark? A feeling like lightning in his soul?

Fionn found himself getting angry. Wasn’t this man supposed to make him feel something?

The current was still there, swirling in his chest, telling him he was connected to Rory. But his cock didn’t seem to care either way, and his heart was only beating hard from a deep apprehension about the whole thing.

Could this really be a fated bond? He had no other explanation for it.

But why would the fates match him with a human?

They belonged in different worlds. Fionn had no taste for human culture like Neacel did, and no patience for adapting to their presence like Iomhar espoused.

Bonding Fionn to a human sounded like a strange cosmic prank.

And yet, might it give him a way out of his Redfolk betrothal?

Earlier, Fionn would have accepted anything as a means to escape the marriage bargain.

‘Why does it have to be you?’ Fionn murmured, trailing fingers across Rory’s chest.

‘Mmm.’ Rory shifted on the bed, a light shiver running over his body. His eyelids fluttered open and Fionn met his gaze. Rory sucked in a shocked breath, then choked, ‘Oh, fuck.’