Of Poseidon (16 page)

“
What?
” Emma eases out of her chair, leans over the table

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with arms crossed.

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Here we go.
“Toraf asked—”

“You’re telling me your brother forced her to marry Toraf ?” Speaking while her jaw is clenched makes her words diffi cult to understand.

“Well, it’s not like she was there—”

“
What?
She wasn’t at her own wedding?”

“Emma, you need to calm down. Syrena don’t call it a wedding. They call it—”

“I don’t care what you call it,” she shouts. “And I don’t care if she’s human or not. You don’t force someone to marry someone else!”

“I agree!” Rayna calls from the living room. Toraf follows her into the kitchen grinning, despite his split lip. Rayna plants herself beside Emma, crosses her arms the same way.

Emma nods to her. “You see? She doesn’t like it. She shouldn’t have to be married if she doesn’t like it.”

“Exactly my point,” Rayna says, elbowing Emma in a show of camaraderie. Galen shakes his head. Emma doesn’t seem to remember that just last night, Rayna used that same elbow to try to puncture her left eye.

“Morning,” Toraf says pleasantly, taking the seat next to Galen. “I trust everyone slept well?” Rachel silently serves him breakfast and pours him some water.

Galen sighs. “Emma, please sit down. This isn’t some new law she didn’t know about. She did have a choice at fi rst. If Rayna had picked a mate sooner, this wouldn’t have—”

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“There’s a time limit to picking a mate? Really? This just 0—

gets better and better. So tell me, Galen, if I turn out to be one

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of you, will I be expected to mate? Do you already have someone in mind for me, Your Highness?”

There she goes again
. All night she called him Your Highness and Majesty. And by the face she makes, she considers it an insult. Which is why he’s dying to tell her she’s a royal too, but that would create more trouble than eradicating that smug expression would be worth. And it would make her think she could pick her mate, like most female Royals can. But Emma isn’t like most female Royals. She’s the last living proof of the Poseidon line— which dwindles her choices of a mate to one.

“
Do
you have someone in mind, Galen?” Toraf asks, popping a shrimp into his mouth. “Is it someone I know?”

“Shut up, Toraf,” Galen growls. He closes his eyes, massages his temples. This could have gone a lot better in so many ways.

“Oh,” Toraf says. “It must be someone I know, then.”

“Toraf, I swear by Triton’s trident—”

“These are the best shrimp you’ve ever made, Rachel,” Toraf continues. “I can’t wait to cook shrimp on our island. I’ll get the seasoning for us, Rayna.”

“She’s not going to any island with you, Toraf!” Emma yells.

“Oh, but she is, Emma. Rayna wants to be my mate. Don’t you, princess?” he smiles.

Rayna shakes her head. “It’s no use, Emma. I really don’t have a choice.”

She resigns herself to the seat next to Emma, who peers down at her, incredulous. “You
do
have a choice. You can come live with me at my house. I’ll make sure he can’t get near you.”

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Toraf’s expression indicates he didn’t consider that possibility

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before goading Emma. Galen laughs. “It’s not so funny anymore is it, tadpole?” he says, nudging him.

Toraf shakes his head. “She’s not staying with you, Emma.”

“We’ll see about that,
tadpole,
” she returns.

“Galen, do something,” Toraf says, not taking his eyes off Emma.

Galen grins. “Such as?”

“I don’t know, arrest her or something,” Toraf says, crossing his arms.

Emma locks eyes with Galen, stealing his breath. “Yeah, Galen. Come arrest me if you’re feeling up to it. But I’m telling you right now, the second you lay a hand on me, I’m busting this glass over your head and using it to split your lip like Toraf’s.” She picks up her heavy drinking glass and splashes the last drops of orange juice onto the table.

Everyone gasps except Galen— who laughs so hard he almost upturns his chair.

Emma’s nostrils fl are. “You don’t think I’ll do it? There’s only one way to fi nd out, isn’t there, Highness?” The whole airy house echoes Galen’s deep- throated howls.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, he elbows Toraf, who’s looking at him like he drank too much saltwater. “Do you know those foolish humans at her school voted her the sweetest out of all of them?”

Toraf ’s expression softens as he looks up at Emma, chuckling. Galen’s guff aws prove contagious— Toraf is soon pounding

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the table to catch his breath. Even Rachel snickers from behind 0—

her oven mitt.

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The bluster leaves Emma’s expression. Galen can tell she’s in danger of smiling. She places the glass on the table as if it’s still full and she doesn’t want to spill it. “Well, that
was
a couple of years ago.”

This time Galen’s chair does turn back, and he sprawls onto the fl oor. When Rayna starts giggling, Emma gives in, too. “I guess . . . I guess I do have sort of a temper,” she says, smiling sheepishly.

She walks around the table to stand over Galen. Peering down, she off ers her hand. He grins up at her. “Show me your other hand.”

She laughs and shows him it’s empty. “No weapons.”

“Pretty resourceful,” he says, accepting her hand. “I’ll never look at a drinking glass the same way.” He does most of the work of pulling himself up but can’t resist the opportunity to touch her.

She shrugs. “Survival instinct, maybe?”

He nods. “Or you’re trying to cut my lips off so you won’t have to kiss me.” He’s pleased when she looks away, pink restain-ing her cheeks.

“Rayna tries that all time,” Toraf chimes in. “Sometimes when her aim is good, it works, but most of the time kissing her is my reward for the pain.”

“You’re trying to kiss Emma?” Rayna says, incredulous. “But you haven’t even sifted yet, Galen.”

“Sifted?” Emma asks.

Toraf laughs. “Princess, why don’t we go for a swim? You

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know that storm probably dredged up all sorts of things for

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your collection.” Galen nods a silent thank you to Toraf as he ushers his sister into the living room. For once, he’s thankful for Rayna’s hoard of human relics. He almost had to drag her to shore by her fi n to get past all the old shipwrecks along this coast.

“We’ll split up, cover more ground,” Rayna’s saying as they leave.

Galen feels Emma looking at him, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he watches the beach as Toraf and Rayna disappear in the waves, hand in hand. Galen shakes his head. No one should feel sorry for Toraf. He knows just exactly what he’s doing. Something Galen wishes he could say of himself.

Emma puts a hand on his arm— she won’t be ignored.

“What is that?
Sifted?
”

Finally he turns, meets her gaze. “It’s like dating to humans.

Only, it goes a lot faster. And it has more of a purpose than humans sometimes do when they date.”

“What purpose?”

“Sifting is our way of choosing a life mate. When a male turns eigh teen, he usually starts sifting to fi nd himself a companion. For a female whose company he will enjoy and who will be suitable for producing off spring.”

“Oh,” she says, thoughtful. “And . . . you haven’t sifted yet?” He shakes his head, painfully aware of her hand still on his arm. She must realize it at the same time, because she snatches it away. “Why not?” she says, clearing her throat. “Are you not

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old enough to sift?”

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“I’m old enough,” he says softly.

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“How old are you, exactly?”

“Twenty.” He doesn’t mean to lean closer to her—
or does he
?

“Is that normal? That you haven’t sifted yet?” He shakes his head. “It’s pretty much standard for males to be mated by the time they turn nineteen. But my responsibilities as ambassador would take me away from my mate too much. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

“Oh, right. Keeping a watch on the humans,” she says quickly.

“You’re right. That wouldn’t be fair, would it?” He expects another debate. For her to point out, as she did last night, that if there were more ambassadors, he wouldn’t have to shoulder the responsibility alone— and she would be right. But she doesn’t debate. In fact, she drops the subject altogether.

Backing away from him, she seems intent on widening the space he’d closed between them. She fi xes her expression into nonchalance. “Well, are you ready to help me turn into a fi sh?” she says, as if they’d been talking about this the whole time.

He blinks. “That’s it?”

“What?”

“No more questions about sifting? No lectures about appointing more ambassadors?”

“It’s not my business,” she says with an indiff erent shrug.

“Why should I care whether or not you mate? And it’s not like
I’ll
be sifting— or sifted. After you teach me to sprout a fi n, we’ll be going our separate ways. Besides, you wouldn’t care if I dated any humans, right?” With that, she leaves him there star-

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ing after her, mouth hanging open. At the door, she calls over

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her shoulder, “I’ll meet you on the beach in fi fteen minutes. I just have to call my mom and check in and change back into my swimsuit.” She fl ips her hair to the side before disappearing up the stairs.

He turns to Rachel, who’s hand- drying a pan to death, eyebrows reaching for her hairline. He shrugs to her in askance, mouth still ajar. She sighs. “Sweet pea, what did you expect?”

“Something other than that.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. We human girls are a bit feistier than your Syrena females—

Rayna being the exception of

course.”

“But Emma’s not human.”

Rachel shakes her head at him as if he’s a child. “She’s been human all her life. It’s all she knows. The good news is, she can’t date anyone right now.”

“Why’s that?” Because to him, it sounded like maybe Emma thought she could.

“Because she’s
supposed
to be dating you. And if I were you, I’d mark my territory as soon as I got back to school— if you know what I mean.”

He scowls. He hadn’t planned on staying in school after Emma learned the truth— the whole purpose for going was to eventually get Emma to the beach. He didn’t anticipate having to teach her how to become Syrena. And he didn’t anticipate that up until yesterday she actually thought she was human. In fact, there’s a list the length of his fi n of things he didn’t anti-

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cipate.

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Like how thick the school books are. Rachel had taught him to read and write over their years together, but he doesn’t have a need for math or gym. Human geography is virtually useless to him. What does he care where the humans draw their invisible land boundaries? Still, science could be interesting.

And if Emma likes history, it wouldn’t hurt to look into that either.

Galen isn’t above admitting that learning more about humans could be advantageous to him— but not in the way Emma hopes. The idea of revealing his kind to them, of negotiating terms of peace, is laughable. Humans can’t even be peaceable with their
own
kind. And he’s seen how much they care about the masses living below sea level— devastating entire communities of life with a single careless accident. Or ruthlessly hunting some species into nonexistence. Even in the days of Triton and Poseidon, when humans and Syrena coexisted in friendship, some humans still showed a disregard for their dependence on the oceans surrounding them— which led the two generals to pass the Law of Gifts. Their foresight proved to be invaluable over the centuries as the humans developed technology enabling them to cross the oceans in their big ships and, eventually, to invade the depths with their death machines.

But Emma’s just as naive as Rachel. They both maintain that the more you know about humans, the more you’ll like them. It’s at least partly why Rachel’s encouraging him to go back to school, even if she hides it behind the
other
good reason he should attend— to keep some adolescent human male from

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getting himself killed. Just the thought of Emma walking the halls without him makes him ball his fi sts.

“You’re right,” he says with fi nality. “I need to stay in school.” He peels off his shirt and tosses it over a chair. “Tell Emma I’m waiting for her.”

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