Chapter 13 #2
“Shit,” I breathe as realization hits me.
It all makes sense now—her wonder at all the gadgets and devices that make our world human.
How she didn’t know her own body when we made love.
Damn. I’m in love with a mermaid. Ex-mermaid.
Whatever. I don’t care if she’s a former seahorse, she’ll always be my little water nymph.
Mine. And I’m hers. That’s all that matters.
“The Council found out,” Ariel continues. “My father… he’s the king of Starfall Lake. He had to enforce the law. If he hadn’t, they’d have accused him of favoritism, of putting blood before duty. He loves me, Everett. I know he does. But he had to banish me to prove no one is above the rules.”
I stare at her, the absurdity and heartbreak tangling in my chest until the only thing that comes out is, “So you got grounded for saving me?”
She laughs, a watery sound. “More like permanently grounded. The tail-to-legs upgrade was not optional.”
I shake my head in equal parts awe and fury. “So let me get this straight. You risked everything to save my life, and your dad punished you for it. Looks like we both have daddy issues.”
Her snort punches a hole in the tension between us.
“And the degree thing?”
Color floods her cheeks. “That part was… not entirely untrue. We don’t call it a degree, but I was being trained.
Water health, current mapping, toxin recognition, invasive blooms, migration patterns.
I was supposed to inherit responsibility for watching the lake.
Making sure it stayed alive. Making sure humans didn’t”—her mouth twists—“ruin it.”
I blink. “So you were, what, environmental royalty?”
Her nose wrinkles. “That sounds pretentious.”
“It sounds accurate.”
Her shoulders lift and fall in a tiny shrug.
“Fine. I was being prepared to protect the lake. And I was good at it.” Her voice goes quiet, proud and hurting all at once.
“I know her moods. I know where she’s shallow and where she drops off into cold black that humans can’t reach.
I can taste when runoff is wrong. I could tell if a bloom was natural or poisoned by how it moved in the current.
” She swallows. “That was supposed to be my whole life.”
“And then you saved a man in a storm.”
Her lips curve. “Yes. And then that.”
I drag a hand down my face, exhaling hard. “Ariel. You should’ve told me.”
She looks up fast, eyes wide and wounded. “Would you have believed me?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Replay the last week in my head like evidence in a trial. Her awe of blenders. Her complete comfort around water and nature. The way she can point to a patch of algae and tell me, ‘That’s wrong.’
“Yeah,” I say roughly. “Maybe not in the first five minutes. But after that? After what we’ve shared? Yeah. I would’ve.”
Her breath hitches. “Everett…”
“But it doesn’t matter,” I add, cupping her jaw so she can’t look away, so she can’t spin off into guilt.
“Because I believe you now. All of it. Every impossible word. You were a mermaid. Your father is a king. You broke a sacred law to save me, and they ripped you out of your world for it. And I don’t care if that sounds insane to anyone else because it’s already the most logical thing in my life. ”
Her eyes shine. Her mouth trembles. “You’re not… scared of me?”
“Scared?” I huff out a laugh. “Little one, I’m terrified of a lot of things right now—my father’s deceit, corporate sabotage, climate collapse—but you? You’re the only thing that’s made sense since that storm. You’re it for me. Scales, legs, whatever appendages come with you.”
Her answering sound is half-sob, half-relief. She surges forward, pressing her forehead to mine. “I thought if you knew, you’d feel… tricked,” she whispers. “Or like I wasn’t… real.”
I swallow hard. “You are the most real thing I’ve ever touched.”
For a moment, we breathe together, the air between us damp and warm and fiercely ours.
Then a thought hits me, and I lean back, brows lifting. “One more question.”
She tenses as if she’s bracing for a harpoon. “Okay.”
“So,” I say solemnly, “do I get, like, partial royal status now? Am I technically dating a displaced lake princess?”
Her laugh bursts out, startled and watery and gorgeous. She presses her hand over her mouth, eyes crinkling. “Absolutely not.”
“Unbelievable,” I murmur. “Save one mer-princess in distress and still no title. This is highway robbery.”
“Everett,” she says around her smile, her voice soft and aching, “you already have the only title that matters.”
My throat tightens. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Mine.”
Fuck, this woman slays me.
I cup her face, thumbs tracing her cheeks. “And you’re mine. Ariel, your father might have followed his law, but he lost something extraordinary when he sent you away. If loving someone and saving a life is a crime, I hope I get sentenced to the same thing.”
She arches an eyebrow. “Loving someone? Aren’t you being a little presumptuous?”
I smirk. “Nope. You love me. And”—I place my index finger on her plump lips to stall her words—“I love you. With everything I am.” I catch the tear that rolls down her cheek with my thumb. “Thank you,” I say gruffly. “For choosing me.”
She sucks in a breath around my finger and mumbles, “I’ve been trying to learn how to live here. To be enough for you. Human enough. Worldly enough. Clever enough. It’s all so new and scary and wonderful and—”
I remove my finger and cut her off with a kiss.
Her breath catches against my mouth, a soft, trembling sound that feels like the world exhaling.
When I pull back to look at her, her eyes shimmer like they’re holding every secret of the lake.
“You’re enough just as you are,” I whisper, my forehead resting against hers.
“More than enough. You’re everything I didn’t know I was missing. ”
She makes a sound that’s part laugh, part sob. “I love you,” she says, the words simple and shocking and so fucking right. “I thought I loved you the first time I saw you, but it’s nothing compared to how I feel about you now.”
I could tell her the precise millisecond I knew: the first sight of her in the lake, water clinging to the red ropes of her hair; or the way she touched a fern with awe like the world was new; or how her lips parted when pizza surprised her.
Instead, I lean in and press my mouth to hers. “I love you. I’m yours.”
She makes a sound like something inside her unclenches, and then her mouth crashes into mine, wet and sweet. The kiss is messy, desperate, perfect.
This woman is a mystery. My favorite one. I’ve known her for days, but I’ve been waiting for her forever. If happily ever after is a place you build with your hands, this kiss is the first stone.
Ariel pulls back, and we breathe the same air for a long moment. The storm drums and the sky flashes white.
“Come with me,” I say. “We’re going to the office.”
Her eyes widen. “Now?”
I nod. “Now. I want him to hear the truth with you by my side. We face him together.”
She smiles. “Together.”