Female Fantasy
Ryke’s lips meet mine, and every nagging voice in my mind goes silent.
I can no longer see the bodies spinning around me.
Ryke’s Upper Shoal watching from the corner of the room.
The sirens holding court on the dais.
My entire body, mind, and soul is invaded by him.
Him.
Him.
I open to the kiss like a water lily in bloom. His tongue runs over my teeth, and then he devours me whole. Worshiping my mouth, as if I am the one who belongs on the dais.
My senses are on fire. Beneath my scaled skirt, my toes curl as my fingers find purchase on his body. Every hair on my neck rises, and my breath comes fast and hot. I submit entirely to this moment as Ryke makes this declaration of…what?
Surely not love.
But passion.
Desire.
Pure, unadulterated want.
A want that I fully reciprocate.
But our moment is interrupted by a sharp, taloned tap on my shoulder.
And when I turn around, I find myself face-to-face with Talassa.
The false queen of Atlantia.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she coos. “I was so enjoying the show.”
Every muscle in my body freezes. This is not part of the plan. We intended to fly under the radar until it was time for me to create a diversion. If Ryke moves, if he utters a single syllable, she might recognize him.
So I lift my mask, akin to Ryke’s, and do what I did every day of my sorry marriage.
I pretend.
“Then kindly leave us to our second act,” I sneer, turning up my nose. “Your Majesty.”
She gasps, narrowing her eyes. “I have not seen you at court before.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I am but a visiting sentry, my queen.”
Her head tilts slightly toward Ryke. “And your dance partner?”
“My steward. A lowly mer from the swamplands.”
I watch, frozen, as Talassa’s bloodred eyes rake over Ryke’s lips, swollen from my kiss.
“Why is he masked?” Her talons scrape the gold ornament.
I force my voice to remain steady. “A sandstorm grossly disfigured his face several years ago. And I wish to look upon only pretty things, wouldn’t you?”
Her laugh is a throaty, vile poison. “Absolutely,” she says.
Then she sniffs me. Wrinkles crease her nose.
“Your scent wafted all the way to my dais. It is most peculiar—ancient and foreign. Almost…human. But not entirely so.”
“I have shifter blood in my lineage,” I tell her.
“Hmm.” She turns to Ryke. “And you, sir? Are you a shifter as well?”
I open my mouth to answer for him. “He is—”
“He can answer for himself,” she snaps at me, her fanged canines breaching her bottom lip. She leans in, her lips a mere breath away from the tendons in Ryke’s neck. “Can you not, princeling?”
Before I can process this turn of events, Ryke has Talassa flipped, his forearm braced against her neck like a restraint, his other hand holding a dagger to her heart.
“Bold of you to assume I would forget the scent of your blood when I tracked it for more than a century,” she snarls.
That is when I see it.
The bead of crimson decorating his bottom lip.
I touch my teeth. Did I put it there? If so, I may have accidentally ended my lover’s life.
“Bold of you to speak so brazenly when my knife is at your chest,” Ryke retorts.
Faster than the speed of sound, Naia and Nix are at our side, their teeth bared at Ryke.
From every corner of the room, siren soldiers emerge.
They are carrying green-tipped spears, painted in something that resembles the venom of a viper.
Eyes as red and vacant as the queen’s mar their otherwise-exquisite faces.
“You did not think you could take me alone, did you?” Talassa taunts. “Your time rotting away in hiding has clearly impacted your judgment, prince.”
She says prince as if it is a curse.
“You did not think I would come here alone, did you?” responds Ryke with a grin.
Dylan, Guinn, Kai, and Mira drop their pretenses and line up behind us.
Kai cracks his knuckles, his sullen mouth twisting into a menacing grin.
Mira twirls her hair, as if bored by our antics.
But that is not all.
Other mer join our friends, linking arms. Members of the resistance, making themselves known to the sirens.
From what Ryke has told me, this can end only one way: with bloodshed.
“Have it your way then.”
Suddenly, the water around Talassa starts to boil. Angry, tempestuous whirlpools explode, pushing everyone in her vicinity back until they are meters away, an invisible circle of protection around her.
I gasp. Are these the powers Ryke has spoken of? The special abilities the sirens gain from taking human lives? Do we even stand a chance against them?
“Do you know the easiest way to expose a false prophet?” Ryke asks, raising a brow.
Talassa only squeezes her hand closed, causing a tidal wave that strikes fear into the hearts of all the guests watching. Around us, mer flee the ballroom in terror, their tails flashes of brilliant color.
“Introduce her to her gods and watch them deny her prayers,” Ryke continues.
With one brutal slap of his tail, he cuts through the chokehold of the water. Then his huge calloused hand is around the false queen’s neck.
“Any last words?” he whispers.
Fighting breaks out in earnest then. The sirens’ stolen magic clashes with the mer’s natural strength and finely honed skill.
Battle cries ring through the air, each more high-pitched and beautiful than the last. The sound sends my body into a state of stasis.
Blood begins to spill, clouding the water so that I can barely see.
I blink several times, trying to find Ryke in the fog of the fight.
If I can get to him, I can help him.
I have been training for this.
All I need to do is—
A male picks me up and throws me over his shoulder. “You are coming with me,” Dylan says.
I bang on his back with my fists but fail to break free of his clutches.
“You need to find somewhere to hide until the sirens retreat.”
“Ryke wants me to fight,” I wail. “He has been readying me for war. The prince has given me a choice, and I choose to fight to free Atlantia.”
“Are you mad?” he asks as he swims. “Do you not understand what you are? This room is teeming with sirens looking for a magical pick-me-up. If one of them realizes that you are human, your neck will be between their teeth so fast you will beg for a quick death. And if Talassa somehow discovers that the blood of Amphitrite pumps through your veins, she will destroy us. Not just you, but the whole resistance.”
He dumps my body in a dark room. “Stay here.”
“I can do more than stand idly by while people die,” I protest.
“Fine. Then life will be your gift. I will be back for you once the battle is won.”
Dylan turns to leave, locking the door behind him.
Tears immediately fill my eyes. All the air in my bubble seems to evaporate, and I feel like I can’t draw in enough. My head spins as the space begins to shrink. Memories of my husband locking me in our house, refusing to let me leave, weaken my resolve like the blood of the dead mer.
I try my best to steady my breath, but it is all too much. Pictures of Ryke drained of life fill my mind. His dark lashes closed, that golden sunlight drained from his face. That strong obsidian tail limp in the sand. Wetness pricks my vision, rendering me blind.
And in the darkness, I feel it once more.
The pull.
The quiet request urging me forward. Singing to me.
Tugging me up off the floor and into the darkness.
I gasp at the realization.
Could Dylan have inadvertently led me to the treasure trove?
I follow the invisible string like a sailor’s rope, and it guides me toward a heavy metal object in the shadows. My fingers skate over its ridges, discovering ancient lettering, the hard edges of gemstones.
A chest.
My eyes begin to adjust to the dark. There is a latch in the center, an elaborate cipher that I do not have the time or the language to open.
My shoulders droop in disappointment. I attempt to lift the chest, but it is so heavy that even my newly muscled forearms quake with the effort. I am forced to put it down.
But then the tether between us begins to vibrate.
My entire body shakes, every organ so taut, I feel as if I am about to snap.
Take me, it seems to say. I am yours.
“Mine,” I say out loud.
The latch snaps open.
Inside the chest are four objects.
Instinctively, I reach for the first: a three-pronged spear made of solid gold.
I expect I will struggle to lift it, but it feels light in my hand.
Right.
There’s a rushing in my ears, the sound of water crashing at the bottom of a waterfall.
Then a loud, violent clap of thunder sounds, followed by a blinding burst of lighting that explodes from my body.
I begin to levitate above the ground, as the mer do.
But I am not swimming. I am floating, tiny droplets falling from my skin.
I am a rain cloud. My tears of wrath are a summer storm.
And then it stops.
I fall to the floor with a thud, and everything goes quiet.
But the door to the room is now open.
A tall shadow appears in its frame overhead.
I point the strange spear in that direction.
“Minnow,” someone says.
Ryke.
I go sprinting, the spear still in my hand, into his arms. His mask is gone, and there is a gash upon his defined cheekbone, another along the left side of his tail. He swims with a slight asymmetry, as if in pain.
“You are hurt,” I whisper.
His eyes search mine, tiny embers of hope floating in them.
“You saved me,” he says.
I choke on my laugh. “By hiding like a coward?”
“Come see for yourself.”
He carries me back to the ballroom. The blood misting the air has now settled, painting the sand a dark maroon. There are dead mer and sirens scattered all over the room.
But the siren queen and her siblings are nowhere to be seen.
Ryke looks down at me, his eyes wide.
I realize with a sick feeling that the crown prince of Atlantia is afraid.
“Merriah,” he whispers. “What did you do?”