Page 1 of The Nymph Prince

1

Lorcan

My father once said that coveting a thing I could not have would destroy me in the end. That the desiring of it would consume me.

He was right.

Yet, I couldn’t deny my feelings for the young pirate. A connection unlike any other drew me to him. A bond. He was mine. I knew it deep in my bones, just as I knew the sea I swam within. Convincing him of that bond? Well, I suppose that was trickier, especially since I’d barely said two words to him.

Having the god of the sea as your father certainly had its perks, but it was more irritating if anything. Everywhere I went, I was followed. Protected.

I didn’t need to be protected. I wanted to go wherever my heart desired, to swim the crystal clear waters of the Southern Isles or to pass through the deep blue waters of the north.

To follow theCrimson Night, a pirate ship with the most precious of goods aboard.

“I know that look,” Troy said, eyeing me. “You’re contemplating leaving again.”

Troy was my closest friend. He’d been by my side ever since I could remember. Our fathers had been close, and so, once we were born it was decided we’d be the same. He was only two months older than me, but sometimes he behaved much older than that.

I often poked fun at him, saying he was nineteen going on a hundred.

“Perhaps.” I looked up at the glass ceiling and sighed. “I miss the surface. The freedom.”

We lived in a golden palace beneath the sea, in the city of Avalontis. All of the merfolk dwelled there, living in their own homes with their families. Where they felt safe from those who wished us harm.

Where I felt like a prisoner in my own kingdom.

Well, notmykingdom yet. I was only the prince.

Our home was surrounded by a magical barrier and could not be seen from outsiders. Only merfolk—and nymphs like myself—could enter. If you weren’t one of us, you could only enter Avalontiswithone of us.

Needless to say, there’d never been outsiders in the kingdom. Merfolk only trusted each other.

We were able to live in our human forms down there, since the barrier kept out the water. Free to walk around on two legs as the people did in the world above, yet my view was much different than theirs: blue water beyond the barrier instead of the sun and green fields.

Oh, how I missed the sun.

“You’d feel the same if you’d seen the things I have,” I told Troy. “The beauty is unparalleled.”

He’d very rarely left the barrier in all of our nineteen years. Not because it was forbidden. He was just afraid of it. Of humans. Inside the barrier, there were pools and bodies of water to swim in our merforms, but he was reluctant to go beyond the borders—to truly experience the freedom.

Troy shook his head, causing his light-brown hair to fall in his face. His violet eyes shifted to me. “I cannot.” Then, his brow furrowed and he lightly shoved my arm. “Did you forget what happened the last time you left? You were nearly killed, Lor!”

“It was a foolish mistake that won’t happen again,” I said, walking over to the window in my bedroom. Fish swam past, colorful and beautiful, and I watched their synchronized movements. “The pirates got lucky. That’s all.”

I had been captured by the crew of theCrimson Night. They’d caught me in their net and brought me aboard the ship before trying to kill me. The pirate captain was a cruel man with his different colored eyes and soul as dark as the waters he sailed upon. However, I’d seen a light within him that day. One caused by the young man with hair the color of fire.

Love changed men. Not nearly enough, though, as he’d still given the order to have me killed there on the deck.

Just as I’d been staring death in the face, the man I was so drawn toward had saved me. He’d cut my bindings and helped me over the railing and back into the sea. Before I’d been forced to leave, I saw that he was made a prisoner on the ship because of it.

It was torture not to know what became of him. Father had ordered me to return to the palace, where I’d been surrounded by his guards for days. Perhaps longer. Days all seemed to blend together below the sea.

“The same pirate captain who slaughtered our kind,” Troy continued, appearing at my side. “Why are you so obsessed with his ship? The boy you follow is not worth your life, Lorcan.”

He was right about it being dangerous, but I’d never let that stop me from doing what I wanted in the past. I was known as the rebellious prince, always sneaking out of the palace and going beyond the barrier without an escort.

It drove Father mad. Very little could kill a god, but I was certain I’d give him a stroke one day.