Page 46 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Raj

I emerged from the dank-smelling dungeon into the rippling blue sea, not even a strand of seaweed floating overhead casting a shadow as the sun's rays poured down around me and I grinned. It was a perfect morning.

As soon as I was past the steps, a mer figure who'd been leaning against the rock wall of the prison straightened and swam toward me with a glower on his face. "Someone's a little rain cloud," I taunted as Felipe approached.

His vicious scowl might have intimidated another man, but his anger practically made me float two more inches off the ocean floor.

It set my smoking lower half tingling because his fury meant that I was right about Avia’s decision last night.

That those soft, tender feelings humming inside of my chest as I drifted off to sleep were her contentment.

She’d decided to keep me.

His eye daggers merely confirmed it.

“Absolutely beautiful bluefish day, isn’t it?” I taunted, smiling brighter. "Perfect for good deeds."

His nostrils flared for a second before the water swirled and then the soldier was in my face. I saw every pore as he leaned in close, teeth bared. “I could kill you?—”

“You couldn’t. But also, you won’t,” I retorted calmly. I hadn’t woken up in the mood for violent games today, but if he wanted to play…

Quick as a flash, I windmill chopped his hand with my arm, breaking his hold.

Centuries of military training took hold then, and I grabbed the back of his neck, solidifying my twist of smoke into legs the second before I released him, but momentum kept him falling until his nose smashed into my kneecap.

He gave a satisfying grunt of pain but didn't go limp as he should have.

Instead, he used his massive tail to whack me in the side of the ribs.

We went tumbling through the water, rolling over one another, grappling and punching until my back slammed into a rock and he shoved his arm against my neck. Pinned to the wall of the prison and panting, ribs smarting, I kept my arms at the ready but didn't attack. I waited for his next move.

"You're evil incarnate," he hissed through his teeth.

"Yes. And you've got a sloppy left hook," I replied. "Are we simply stating the obvious here, or do you have a point?"

"You don't deserve her."

"No. I don't."

He swallowed several times as he tried to calm the surge of anger frothing up inside his eyes. "Then give her up."

I let him draw in several deep breaths so his heart rate slowed before I answered, "No."

The press of his forearm against my neck merely made me grin. "You hate me and this situation. And that's completely understandable. We're never going to get along, you and me. But we don't have to."

"She doesn't need you!" he insisted, ramming that arm harder against my Adam's apple and choking off my water supply, making it hard to breathe.

The bubbles erupting from my lips grew smaller and thinner as I stared at the furious man across from me and my heart gave a soft thump of concern.

A sleepy, stretching, just waking and recalling something important feeling that spread through me and told me that my Avia was waking up.

My arrogance fled as did my irritation as her curiosity and concern sparked and the tiny treasure in my chest started beating more quickly...almost as if she was up and moving.

"Did you hear me?" Felipe punched my side to get my attention.

Pain crackled up my bones and I'd finally had enough. I shoved at his arm, pushing him back and gulping to refill my lungs. "She's awake."

His brow furrowed and he turned his head toward the door of the castle, but I shook my head. "No. I mean she just woke up."

"You couldn't know that," he scoffed.

In response, I simply tapped my chest. "I can and do."

Jealous resentment turned his expression fierce.

"You don't have to like me or trust me. That's fine. In fact, that's preferable," I stated, swimming forward so that we were within punching distance once again. "If I step out of line, I give you permission to thrash me."

He snorted derisively, crossing his arms across his chest. "I don't need your permission."

"I suppose not. But you have it. In fact, I'll do one better. I'll let you in on a little-known secret. One no djinn has spoken about in seven hundred years. One I've wiped from the history books and the collective conscience."

His scarred eyebrow rose, skeptical but curious enough to hear me out.

"You can trap a djinn in an oil lantern. You simply have to get their ring and toss it inside. Then it becomes their prison."

Despite his scoff, I could see the violent hunger flaring in his eyes and knew he ached to test the theory.

I continued, "If I betray her, you can lock me away."

"Liar."

I shrugged. "You don't have to believe me because I'm never going to give you cause to lock me up. And you won’t do it if I don’t truly deserve it because you’re too honorable for your own good."

His left hook came flying at me and I ducked, avoiding the impact, letting his momentum spin him slightly so that he realized just how foolish he looked.

"You're trying to protect her, which is why I'm not going to kill you," I murmured as he straightened so that we were facing. "But she needs me just as much as she does you. There's a glorious darkness inside our queen. She needs someone who can handle that."

"I can handle?—"

"Let me rephrase. She needs someone who understands that darkness. Who knows that a clear conscience is the gift a ruler can give to their people but must forego themselves."

His head dipped and his jaw worked side to side as he ground his teeth, but the guard stopped arguing...because he knew I was right.

"You protect her from others. I'll protect her from herself.

I won't let her become what I became," I vowed, and the words resonated through my chest with the sort of profundity of a vow echoing in a stone chapel; with the same commitment as the religious vagrants who wandered the deserts, trusting their faith to lead them to water; with the same fealty of a soldier charging into battle.

Our eyes met in a clash of wills, my truth versus his doubt.

Breaking our stare off, Mr. Whelk came paddling into view. The turtle cocked his head as Mateo and Keelan made their way over, the former looking concerned, the latter casually with his hands in his pockets as he took in the face off.

“Get that out of your system, Felipe?” Keelan queried, raising a brow at Felipe.

The soldier just clenched his jaw for a moment but then gave an unwilling shrug.

“Excellent! Glad we got that worked out!” Keelan pulled his hands from his pockets and then slapped us both on the back.

Mateo raised his hands to pacify us both as we turned to glare at the siren. “Hey, now. She wants to keep all of us. So, dismemberment is off the table.”

Felipe rolled his shoulders, almost as if he was trying to decide if he was going to ready himself for another punch. I tensed in anticipation, but then the most beautiful voice in the world interrupted the four of us.

"Is everything okay?" Avia swam forward, brows raised as her eyes bounced between the two of us.

Felipe took a deep breath before his body settled into a more relaxed position. “Yes, we’re good.” His eyes darted to her and then to me, and I knew his answer was meant for both of us.

"I'll be watching you," he muttered under his breath.

"As you should," I replied.

And then we both swam toward our queen, the mer unable to help himself and swimming just a bit faster to reach her first. I allowed it. I was going to count this as two good deeds for the day.

The days passed by, rolling into weeks, and a simple pattern emerged. I'd awaken and eat a tentative breakfast with Avia and her other mates, and then I'd go out on my own—well, sometimes Felipe would grumpily shadow me—and spread joy throughout the kingdom.

My favorite good deed turned out to be helping the fishermen filet their fresh catch.

It didn't hurt that many of them were excellent liars and told the most outlandish and amusing stories about terrorizing sailors with sea trash or hiding behind rocks and singing at them in falsetto voices like they were mermaids.

According to their braggadocious reports, they'd successfully drowned at least forty men.

One afternoon, bored of gutting, I materialized in my queen's study, my twist of navy smoke trailing off in the water.

Avia was sitting at her desk, scrolls scattered around her, that annoying beta of a merman—Mateo—bringing her a glass of bubble as she studied the trade offers rolling in from the surface kingdoms. At a nearby desk, Keelan was doing the same.

As word spread that she'd tamed the unending king, the countries of Kenmare had all fallen over their feet to get into her good graces. Her eyes scanned the latest one.

"You should be thanking me for all those," I told her, leaning back against the door and watching her scrawl her signature across the bottom of a page. "They're scared of you because of me. And Okeanos is going to get rich because of it."

Avia merely brushed aside a curl that had fallen out of a pretentious updo from her maid, sat back, and tried to melt me with the heat of her amethyst eyes.

I don't think I melted the way she intended.

Her indignation was...strangely adorable.

And the irritation she had when she realized my reaction just encouraged me further.

I enjoyed poking at her. Building her anger and teasing out the darker parts of herself.

It was the biggest amusement during my days.

That and the strange fluttering that went through my chest when our eyes met.

This game of tug-of-war was more thrilling than anything I'd stumbled across in a thousand years.

But there was also something far deeper to our connection than that.

Something she had never voiced but I could feel purring contentedly beneath my skin the second we came in close proximity.

There was a flush on her cheeks whenever it hit her.

It was the sort of blush that also affected her breasts, which she had started baring in the undersea fashion upon her return to the capital.

My eyes dropped down to those delicious globes and I didn't bother to hide the way I stared, mouth-watering, every time her breath caught when she glanced at me.

Like now.

I imagined rushing over to Avia, my legs solidifying right as I shoved her back onto the desk. Mateo would hurry over and I'd slit his throat with her letter opener and then rut her atop her desk as his blood salted the sea around us.

"Eyes off her, brute," Felipe brushed up against my side, the mer appearing out of nowhere. He'd probably been off skulking and pouting again about the fact that she wouldn't let him kill me...because she knew our connection was more primal than whatever she shared with him.

Lust and darkness wove together to bind me and my queen.

My hand rose to my chest at the intensity of the thumping there. The heat rising from my skin was as warm as if I'd just spent a day out on the sands. "She likes it." I tapped my chest deliberately, enjoying the way he pressed his lips together and clenched his jaw.

If Avia weren't attached to him, I'd gut him and strangle him with his own entrails. I knew he felt the same, which is why I stepped forward and gave him my back, taunting him.

“When are you going to tell him about the wedding?” Felipe’s question sliced the nerves in my spine, and I stopped, unable to move.

The tension flooding the room immediately changed—it didn’t lessen—it transmuted into chaos. A spinning energy that was as rough and wild as the whirlpool that had whipped through the last event of the tournament.

Avia shot Felipe a cutting glance in reprimand but that didn’t stop the howling possessiveness hurtling through my veins. I gazed down at her and asked, “We’re getting married, darling?”

“No… we aren’t.” Avia’s gaze darted nervously to her other mates. "You'll be with me always, but not..." she trailed off, looking guilty, as an inferno lit up my neck and blazed across my face.

"What?" My head immediately whipped sideways to glare at Felipe, who looked downright guttable at that moment with his arms crossed and brow raised. So smug.

“She can only marry men from the tournament, halfwit.” Felipe grinned widely at me as if he had smugly discovered a loophole and decided to cut me out.

But the words he assumed were a jab only made the moment more delicious as understanding dawned on me. As the heat receded and was replaced by vicious delight.

Avia had asked me so many questions in the weeks since she'd discovered my identity. So many. But there was one she'd forgotten.

Slowly, I turned and swam toward my queen, enjoying the way her eyes widened and an inhale got caught in her chest as I reached for her hand. A blazing smile lit my face as I brought her knuckles to my lips and kissed them gently before I said, “Oh, did I forget to mention I competed?”

As I straightened, I twisted the ring on her finger and said, “Now repeat after me. I wish I could see who you competed as.”

Dumbfounded, Avia whispered the words.

“Granted!” With a snap of my fingers, I transformed into Stavros, eliciting delicious gasps of surprise from all of them.

Felipe’s jaw went slack, Keelan slapped the wall beside himself and started to laugh at the absurdity, and Mateo just mouthed, “Of course you’re him,” as if irony was to be expected.

But it was Avia’s reaction that stunned me most of all. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes welled up. Inside my chest, her heart wobbled shakily, and I didn’t know if she felt relief…or something else.

Dropping the smug attitude that was meant mostly for Felipe, I leaned down and said softly to my quiet queen, “I can’t wait for those wedding bells to ring. That is…if you still want them to.”

And then I was rewarded with a radiant smile that was worth more than a thousand kingdoms combined.