GALEN
“Kneel.”
That was the first word the Queen of Ilma—Queen Mirana Briartide—said to me.
Little did she know that I had already been brought down to my knees the moment I laid my eyes on her.
The moment her sweet scent crept its way into my lungs, filling them with an intoxicating breath I never wanted to let go.
I knelt.
I lifted my head only to find myself lovestruck by just the sight of her cobalt blue eyes.
They complemented her midnight blue gown that trailed behind her.
I swallowed. Thousands watched, including her eight-or-so-year-old daughter, who stood at her side, back straight and attentive eyes identical to her mother’s.
“Galen Myrchorn, do you swear it on your soul to always respect and protect me, my family, my people, and my Land?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “I swear it.”
She took one deliberate step towards me.
I shied away, yet my eyes lingered on her heart-shaped lips for a little less than a second before shunning her completely. My heart drummed the moment she reached for my face, the instant her fingertips lifted my chin, forcing me to look at her. I did.
Then she lifted her index finger and brought it very close to my blue eye. I felt the density of her power caressing my vision, guiding a strained tear out of the corner of my eye. It streamed down my left cheek.
She reached for it.
I restrained every ounce of my body not to shudder as I watched her place her wet fingers in her mouth, like a cook does when tasting batter.
“Then I bind these words from your soul to mine, for I know you tell the truth,” she murmured.
I had no doubt in that. What I swore was true: I would protect her and I would protect her family. Which meant…
How dare he! My soul rumbled and thrashed from deep within me as I watched a man move so very close to her.
He placed his hand on her shoulder and whispered something in her ear.
Not just a man. Her husband. It took every shred of my composure not to shift and leap for his throat, but the moment the bond kicked in, I knew I could never truly hurt a member of her family.
It was not the bond I wished to share with her—I wanted to give her all of my soul and I wanted to accept all of hers.
Instead, I was left with just the taste of what it could have been, a fragment of a bond shared through the oath of tears.
A taste was better than having nothing, I tried to convince myself.
But at that very moment, I knew what my life had become—a living torture.
To stay guarding her side, to smell her with every breath I took, to look at her wherever I went, hell, wherever she went, but to never get to touch or taste.
A fucking living torture.
Yet I would choose this. I would still choose this over nothing.
Being on this Land hit different.
I was growing fond of the warm sunrises I caught every day while doing my routine, and the long sunsets that stretched along the hazy horizon.
The cool air against my golden skin was close to being called warm when compared to my homeland. Even my wolf form was somewhat hesitant on this snowless land. Good thing I could force it to like the lush and sandy land just as much as the cool snow.
Queen Mirana surely loved the sea—she was the goddess of it. Her daughter did, too. Every Sunday, I stayed guard, watching them build sand castles and swim for long hours.
I wasn’t sure why she needed my protection at all.
The first time I watched her shift, my eyes almost teared up at the sight of her.
The power of her. The beauty of her. She shook me through like Jeb’s earthquakes do when they destroy houses.
Her skin turned bluish grey, her thick brown hair behaved like kelp—it moved around her in thick, poised waves.
Her eyes appeared bigger and bluer. They gleamed, just like the little flaps that extended like lappets at the sides of her beautifully terrifying face.
She swam exceptionally fast, with her webbed hands and feet. One moment, her head dipped beneath the sea, the next, she would break the surface a great distance away without even leaving the trace of a ripple.
They used to make a game out of it. Elara would sit at the edge of one of the large pebbles, watching her mother disappear, then she would point, trying to guess where Mirana would emerge next.
I was sitting on the uppermost pebble once, watching Elara point and point and point. I could tell she was getting frustrated. Her giggles had long stopped, and with every miss, she huffed and grumbled. I climbed down the pebbles until landing on the one Elara was sitting on.
“May I sit?” I asked her.
“You may,” she replied. I took a seat next to her, our feet dangling above the calm water. Then she let out a long sigh. “Don’t get too excited, though.”
Was this kid really eight? I chuckled at the thought of her sounding just like my mother…or more like my cousin—my brother—Aegir.
Elara pointed. Wrong. I nudged her wrist, urging her to point east before her mother could see.
“I won!” she shouted, making sure her mother—and the whole world—knew it.
When Mirana dissolved into the water, Elara practically gave me her arm. Then she gave me a cheeky smile that was so wicked, for some reason, it made me think of the phrase poor future husband. And then we—she—pointed and pointed and pointed.
Of course I would know from where she would emerge next. I’d know her from a moon away.