Chapter 2
Ryke appears in the shallow pool, a shining mirage of a man.
First the top of his head.
The tip of his tail.
Then the rest of him.
I sink to my knees, ever so unbecoming of a lady, and stare at him, mouth agape.
He is beyond my comprehension. A miraculous sight.
Dark heavy locks glued to his head by thick beads of water.
His golden eyes flicker like falling stars.
He is nude from the waist up. I drink in his strong forearms, his sculpted chest. Dark and defined, all of him.
The vision is almost too much to take in all at once.
And then my gaze wanders below his abdomen.
My mouth dries up.
A glorious tail the color of squid ink, practically obsidian, but shimmering as he moves like the sunlight reflected on the crest of a wave.
The texture appears sturdy, like the skin of a dolphin or whale.
But the whisper of small scales, similar to pearls strung together on a necklace, robs me of my next breath. He is magnificent.
And utterly terrifying.
I open my mouth to speak, but words fail to fall from its trapdoor.
Ryke throws his head back and laughs.
I am in disbelief.
A shock so pure it is chaste.
“You,” I try again. “You are a…fish.”
His upper lip curls up at the corner as if dragged by a hook.
“Mer,” he corrects me. “I am mer.”
But it is not possible.
It cannot be.
“Mer,” I repeat. “Like the sea monster? From our bedtime stories?”
He shakes his head. “I am no monster, Merriah. In this world, I am but a man, same as you. I walk among you. Eat as you do. Drink as you do. Fuck as you do. But in the next…”
His explanation lacks sense.
Even as every hair on my body stands up straight.
“There are multiple worlds?”
“So many—”
“So many questions?”
He grins.
Behind him, his tail slaps against the pool of water, splashing me.
But somehow, I do not mind getting wet.
“Little minnow, there is so much about this realm that you do not yet understand. That you have not dared allow yourself to dream about. There is a world that sits above the clouds in the sky. And one nestled beneath the ocean floor—that is where I reside. Or, rather, where I once lived.”
I raise my hand to my forehead, as if to check for a fever, and wipe away the ripples of water falling to my lips.
“Do you mean to tell me that beneath the sand beds and dunes, in the darkest depths where salt water meets seaweed, there is a hidden species of man with…tails?”
The entire notion sounds so ridiculous, I could convince myself it was but a ruse if not for the evidence in front of me.
Taunting me.
Flesh and blood and water.
Ryke shakes his head. “The sand is but a false floor to ward away visitors who mean us ill. But there are rifts in the ground. Doors to another world. And if you know how to uncover such passages, you will enter a land of light and sound waves where breathing grows inconsequential. Cities more advanced than those on the shore. Jewels more refined and colors more brilliant. Languages you have never heard and art so revered you would think the world had seen the last of it. A society full of culture and cuisine fresh from the tide. Seahorse-drawn carriages and raucous beach balls. Yes, my people are the muses of your stories. But we are not the monstrous krakens you fear. The objects of beauty you admire.”
My breath catches.
I allow myself to dream of it all.
A secret world beneath the sea, ruled by the mer.
A land free of poverty, where splendor reigns supreme.
I can practically taste the oyster delicacies, smell the fresh caviar.
“It sounds wonderful.” My voice comes out strained—with desire, I realize. Longing. “Why in the devil’s name would you and your people dwell in our world, passing among us as mere mortals, when you could lose yourself in time and space beneath the sea?”
What I dare not say—what I whisper in my mind—is that I would abandon my world entirely if I could.
Escape my own life.
Become one of the mer.
But such things are not possible.
I am nobody.
Nothing but a sack of blood and bones and salt.
Ryke’s eyes grow stormy. With trouble clouding the skies and the long scaled appendage cascading from his torso, I find myself short of breath in his presence. He is a stranger once more.
“Our world has been marked by a predator, one unknown by those who dwell above the watery graves. Its name is rarely uttered but always feared. For generations, we took to the shores, living next to rivers and creeks, bodies of water that kept us sheltered from discovery. The members of the rebellion were in hiding, plotting our return, all the while fearing what would happen if our presence was discovered before we were ready. Until now, that is.”
Thunder crashes in Ryke’s complexion.
I gulp, then force myself to speak with a strength I did not know I possessed.
“Until?”
As lighting flashes in those twin tide pools of gold, a shiver runs down my spine.
And I swear my soul knows his next words before he says them aloud.
“Until you blew the ancient Conch of Hippios,” he says, “and called the mer to war.”