2
Vivi broke the surface of the sea in a spray of surf. Foam tickled the bottoms of her feet. Suds rolled off her shoulders. Droplets of salted water soaked into the fabric of her dress.
The dress she wore had been the height of fashion when she was a girl back in the fifteenth century.
The women and witches of Camelot would parade around the riverbed in these types of gowns while on the arms of knights and lords.
Vivi doubted she’d ever walk escorted on a man’s arm.
She didn’t care. She could walk on her own now.
She was no longer the Lady of the Lake, cursed by a deformity at birth to never use her legs outside of the water.
She was Vivi on land. After years of living in the River Usk on the grounds of Caerleon where the current kingdom of Camelot sat, she was simply thrilled to be out of the water and on her own two feet.
Her powerful friends—because, yeah, Vivi had friends now—had broken the curse, but she wasn’t exactly cured.
Her legs were still as useless as eyelids on a fish.
To offset this, Lady Gwin, the most powerful witch in all of Camelot, and Dame Loren, the first female knight of the Roundtable, had enchanted a pair of shoes so Vivi could walk on land.
Though she loved the Nicotera heels she donned, Vivi had been wearing the same pair for a while now and they were so last season. The designer’s new batch was releasing in the morning and she would be the first in line at his shop in Rome to snag her very own pair.
She stood up in the water, her magic supporting her useless lower limbs. With a flick of her wrist, she shook all of the water from the gown. She wanted to look her best for her very first solo trip out of Camelot, not like a fish out of water. So, soggy clothes wouldn’t do.
Once her dress was dry, she stepped into the magical shoes that fit her dainty feet perfectly. Taking a deep breath as she prepared for the completion of her maiden quest as an independent woman, Vivi took a step onto dry land and fell flat on her face.
Walking was still a new skill for her. She was also on new ground here in Italy. But she was undaunted. She rose, dusted herself off and–
The world fell away from her. She was being lifted into the air. There was no ground beneath her heeled feet. No water to weave her magic in.
It was terrifying. Just like it had been when she was a child and had been cast into the cold river waters to drown. But she hadn’t drowned in the water. She’d survived and thrived.
In the air, she flailed. Her limbs punched and kicked out, anxious to find a way to anchor herself in the light breeze.
Looking down, she saw that a sea monster had her in his grip.
The beast was big and broad, with dark tendrils radiating from his head like an octopus, and brown skin like the glistening coat of a seal.
Vivi hated anything with tentacles like eels and octopi.
But she liked seals. The creatures were fiercely protective of their young. Still, a seal had never picked her up and out of the water. No seal had ever flashed its teeth at her as this brute did. His broad and wide teeth gleamed white as he prepared to eat her.
She kicked out again and made contact. But all her attempt at defense earned her was the loss of one of her precious shoes.
Vivi slumped in the beast’s grip and shut her eyes. She’d come so far on her own. And now she would be eaten by this terrible monster. And there was nothing she could do about it.
She was out of the water. She was defenseless. She was as useless as her father had accused her of being before he’d tossed her in the waters to meet her death. And this time she was going to die.
“Hello,” said the monster.
The deep, melodic tone of his voice was like a shockwave inside Vivi.
It rolled up her lifeless toes, shook her limp knees, warmed the spot at the crest of her thighs, and punched her in the gut until she was forced to open her eyes and look at him.
His eyes were the color of sea waves before they crashed into the shore.
She felt caught in them like she’d been pulled under and was now drowning in earnest.
“Bonjour?” he said and another wave hit her, pulling her down deeper. “Ciao? Ola? Can you speak at all?”
“Of course I can speak,” Vivi said. “I speak a number of languages, you beast. I don’t appreciate being trifled with. Get it over with and I hope you choke on my bones.”
His sea-bright eyes widened and he flashed his teeth again. Vivi struggled, trying to turn away before he bit her. Instead, she stared at his beauty in avid fascination. She wondered if he was the type to play with his food.
“Eat you?” he said. “I’m not going to eat you.”
But the way he glanced down her captive body, the way his nostrils flared, and his sharp, gleaming incisors sank into his lush bottom lip, Vivi was certain he told a lie.
“I was only trying to help,” he said when his gaze rose back to her. “I was being a gentleman.”
“No gentleman I know touches a lady without her permission,” she said. “Put me down.”
She didn’t expect it, but he obeyed. He turned his body away from the receding tide and set her down gently on the sand. Vivi breathed a sigh of relief the moment her toes touched the ground. Only one foot was shoed. So, the moment the monster let her go, she fell to her knees.
But she didn’t impact the ground as hard as she expected. His arms were around her once more, bringing her up. This time he held her to his big body instead of in the air. The toe of her one shoe tapped the ground. The other, the one that was bare, rested on the top of the beast’s foot.
“It doesn’t appear you can stand on your own,” he said.
“I can, too.” Vivi frowned up at him, feeling like a guppy arguing with a whale. “I just need my shoe.”
The beast peered down at her fallen shoe, then back to her. He crouched with her still in his arms, until he sat her bottom gently on the ground. He took a seat beside her and then he reached for the lone shoe.
Vivi flinched when he reached for her leg next. She whimpered when he flashed his teeth at her again. When his fingertips wrapped around the back of her knee she shuddered, the fear of being eaten momentarily fleeing her body.
“Who are you?” he asked in that deep brogue. “What are you?”
“I am Viviane of the Lake. Well, actually, it’s just Viviane now. But my friends call me Vivi.”
He should know that she had friends. People who would notice if she was gone too long. Or eaten by a sea monster with dark skin, thick locks of hair, and deep, blue eyes.
“May I?” the blue-eyed monster asked. “May I call you Vivi?’
Vivi’s breath caught at the request. His blue eyes implored her even as his wide, shark-like grin promised to devour her. “Do you promise not to eat me?”
He broke into a smile again. This time he didn’t flash his teeth. His lips stretched across his face as he gazed at her. The look heated her from the center outward, touching her pale cheeks.
She felt his thumb rub at her skin, settling on the moisture there. Then he frowned, and Vivi was sorry to see his hungry smile go. He looked down at her knee and she followed his gaze. The skin there had torn from her fall and a trickle of blood flowed.
The monster reached out to the water. It came to him without him even standing in it.
The water swirled in his hand and he placed it on her knee.
Vivi gasped as a warm tingle arrested her leg.
His touch felt like diving deep in a hot spring, like surfacing from beneath a waterfall on a summer’s day.
“My name’s Poseidon. My friends call me Psi. I’d like it if you called me Psi, Vivi.”
He didn’t flash his teeth this time when he smiled at her. Still, something in his eyes told her that she would not be safe with this man. She didn’t believe that he meant her any physical harm. But she knew that her world would never be the same if she took the offer to call him by his name.
“All right,” she said. “Psi.”