Chapter One #2
“You were trying to get my attention?” Vi emerged from the crowd. She stood as tall as Trevor in her heels, an imposing yet elegant figure. Crimson-red fabric hugged her body, and paired with her black hair, it gave the odd illusion that her skin was glowing.
“One of the symbols on Nick was bothering him,” Trevor said with a placid smile.
His dad had adopted an acceptance-without-questioning approach to the oddities of what came through The Tear.
Adonis, his son’s merman boyfriend who hissed at him all the time?
He didn’t bat an eye. Bee and Dew, two cheeky mermen who chucked fish at seals, boats and Adonis?
Amusing. His youngest going to fight a memory-eating monster with the help of a tailed swordsman?
Slightly worrying. Trevor took everything in stride, though to be fair, Adonis was stranger than anything Nick had seen at this party.
“Which one?” Vi peered at Nick’s arms.
Nick indicated the one he’d been resisting rubbing.
“It is drawn perfectly. Laurence did a skilful job,” she complimented. “Most likely it warmed as it functioned.”
“That’s the language one?” Trevor peeked at the inside of his own wrist, where he had a small, innocuous symbol done in what Nick would bet was actually henna because he could see the grain of brush strokes in the ink.
“Yes,” Vi confirmed.
A breathless laugh preceded Laurence. He bumped into Nick’s back, shouldering him over to make room for him and Jasper in their circle.
Laurence’s vest hung open, the top few buttons of his white shirt were unclasped, and beneath the fabric, his chest heaved.
Sweat pasted his honey-blond hair to his forehead, and his eyes sparkled, the dark brown reflecting the dancing flames of the braziers.
His clear enjoyment doused Nick’s outrage in calming waters.
Typically, Nick hated The Tear. He resented what it promised for the future, for every worried late-night thought about Connor and Laurence passing out of reach.
Out of safety. Laurence’s happiness complicated that hate.
Nick couldn’t remember him ever being so happy before Connor came into their lives.
Exuberant? Yes. Passionate? Yes. Caring? Yes. Unkeeled delight?
Not like this.
“Why did they make a face when I said I was going to wash these off?” Nick asked.
Laurence blinked up at Nick. “Wash it off?”
“You said it was henna.”
Laurence blinked again. “I said Dad’s one was henna.”
“And implied that these were too.”
Another oh-so-innocent blink. “Did I?”
“Are you—how long is this going to last?” Nick demanded, actually annoyed now that he realised that Laurence’s deception had been entirely intentional. Those stupid, cheeky mermen were rubbing off on his little brother. “Forever?”
“I didn’t use permanent ink. It’ll be six months tops, and then it’ll fade, I promise.
” Laurence’s eyes got even bigger, projecting baby-fawn innocence.
“Nobody else will let me practice on them. Dad can’t have tattoos because of work, and Connor’s all squirmy about needles, and you’re just way easier to work on because you sit super still,” Laurence insisted.
“I tried one on Jasper, and he almost took my eye out with his tail.”
Jasper made an embarrassed noise of objection and reached for his long plait of dark-brown hair, arranging it neatly over his shoulder. “It tickled.”
His tail quivered in the air behind him. It was sage green, and the fletching at the end looked exactly the same as that of the man Nick had seen earlier. His mind jumped back to that smack. To that black tail curling away to hide.
“There was a couple earlier, and the woman smacked her partner for swinging his tail around. Exactly like you are now. Why did she do that?” Nick asked.
Jasper worked for Vi as a guard, and though he was off the clock, Nick seriously doubted he’d swing his tail around in front of her if it was considered rude.
Jasper frowned, taking note of what his tail was doing.
From his expression, he clearly didn’t think there was a problem.
Vi’s gaze slid across the party. “There are diplomats from Aridia in the city that I extended invitations to,” she explained.
“Perhaps they have just come from a conservative area? In some regions, it is considered unfashionable to have a tail, though why they would think this is one of those places… These waters and lands have been ruled by merfolk for generations, and that draws others like them near in copious numbers. An error on the diplomat’s part, perhaps?
” Vi concluded. She looked at Jasper. “Jasper and his family are somewhat of an anomaly, as they’ve lived here for several years now, but while those from Aridia travel outside of their lands on trading runs, they tend not to mingle too closely outside their own race. ”
“Unless they are collecting tithes,” Jasper remarked, with a distinctly disapproving voice and a slash of his tail.
“Kit tithe collectors are renowned,” Vi agreed.
“One came to my family’s grape plantation in the past to demand half the harvest. Mind you, my family’s lands do not border Aridia, nor do we have any allegiance to them.
However, if not for the fact that I was already mated to merfolk, there would have been considerable difficulties in denying them. Kits are a physically gifted race.”
“So by tithe collectors, you mean thieves?” Nick surmised. Despite the explanation, he knew that wasn’t why the young man had been smacked. The hate in that woman’s eyes had been far from ‘diplomatic’.
“There’s a civil war at the moment over that exact argument, I believe,” Vi confirmed.
“I have stayed up-to-date with the details to be sure none come and bother my staff”—Jasper cast Vi an appreciative look at the remark—“but there’s nothing far-reaching in the dispute.
Not even a ripple of it has reached our shores. ”
Laurence drifted close to Jasper, catching his elbow and sharing a worried frown with him. “You’re not going to go and fight, are you?”
“I have not been in Aridia since I was young. My parents were tithe collectors,” he admitted, “but my siblings travelled here and served the previous monarch. I joined them as soon as I was old enough to travel alone.”
Vi smiled faintly. “I remember that. When he found out the monarch had disappeared and he could not enter her service, he came to me and Goldilocks, offering his skills. He has never failed to deliver on his promises.”
Jasper’s expression was downright pleased, and Laurence, in all his empathy, preened as if he’d been the one complimented.
The music changed, a jive becoming a slower melody, and the dancing changed tempo.
Partners began a sort of waltz. Laurence eyed a nearby couple, leaning towards the floor.
Jasper noticed at once. “Would you like me to teach you this one too?” he offered.
“Can you?”
And the two were off again, quick as they’d arrived.
If anyone found it strange that someone waited until the party to learn the steps, it didn’t show. Nick put that down to Laurence looking like a carefree prince.
Trevor asked Vi if she’d like to dance, and they joined the floor.
With a warm smile, rather than Vi teaching Trevor the local dance, he taught her a waltz from back home.
The last time Nick saw his dad waltz was at his wedding to Edith a year and a half ago.
Trevor’s friends were happy for him to be moving on from his late wife after almost two decades, and Edith’s friends had seemed similarly happy for her to be marrying Trevor.
Nick had been glad of the marriage too. He’d started college, and Laurence was soon to follow, which meant Trevor would soon be left alone.
Edith was a neat solution to that particular worry, and given that throughout their relationship she seemed to not only adore Trevor but Laurence too, Nick had given her a pass.
In retrospect, the fact that none of Edith’s guests so much as mentioned her son, Connor, was a clear sign that his ‘pass’ had been given prematurely, and to the wrong person.
Nick turned from the couple as they disappeared amongst weaving pairs spinning across gleaming slab stone. Connor leaned against a table of drinks, watching the dance floor in a too-pointed way.
“Where’s your other half?” Nick asked.
“Lost his legs in the bedroom. Dad hugged me.”
Connor had this habit of only calling Trevor ‘Dad’ when he wasn’t there to hear it, or when he was worried Trevor would be upset over something.
“Is Adonis ever going to get over his jealousy?” Nick didn’t ask if Adonis would ever get over his big attitude. There might be a hole in the sky connecting two different worlds, but Nick didn’t believe in the impossible.
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Connor said. After a second, his eyes slid to Nick. “I think I make him feel insecure.” He frowned, clearly troubled by the thought.
“Not intentionally,” Nick tacked on. “It’s a cultural thing, right?
Merfolk are supposed to break away from their families and start their own unit.
That can include siblings”—and Nick knew that was the case because while Adonis wasn’t a big fan of Nick, he didn’t object to his presence the same way he did Trevor’s—“but not parents.”
“Did Adonis tell you that?”
“Sam. He heard it from Goldilocks, who’s more talkative than your rabid boyfriend.” Adonis tended towards growls and snorts and sneers. He could communicate just fine—Nick had seen that plenty—but he seemed to dislike speaking unless he had to.
“He doesn’t like anyone bossing me around,” Connor explained. “Not that Trevor bosses me around. But I do listen to him.”
Connor also listened to Laurence, and Adonis didn’t object to that, but Nick got it. Trevor was the head of the family; they all did what he said, even if Trevor asked rather than ordered.
Connor’s attention stayed on Nick, pointedness back in his gaze.
“What is it?” Nick asked. He and Connor had never bonded, not the way he had with Laurence and Trevor, but they got along in their own way.
Connor was straightforward with people. He didn’t smile when he didn’t mean it and didn’t ever pretend to be anything he wasn’t.
Once Nick stopped poking at him, he quite liked the personality behind the porcupine spikes protecting his heart.
Most likely that sentiment wasn’t returned, but that didn’t worry Nick so long as they could keep the peace.
“You’ve been bothering me.”
Nick’s eyebrows lifted. “By doing what, exactly?” he challenged. Once in a blue moon, they’d be home at the same time, hardly enough time for Nick to do anything to get on his nerves.
“Do you know how Adonis can find people on the water?”
First Nick had heard about it. “Yeah.”
“I can do that.”
“Good for you.”
Connor jabbed an elbow into his ribs, making Nick grin but not hurt.
“I can feel where Trevor is. Where Laurence is. I can even sense Sam and Goldilocks,” Connor continued, ignoring Nick’s remark. “But you’re annoyingly hard to find.”
Nick took a second to mimic Trevor’s accepting frame of mind. “Right. Shall I get a collar and stick a GPS in it?” He sidestepped a second elbow jab. Connor’s eyebrows scrunched together, his version of a glare as he focused his narrowed gaze on Nick.
“Is this why you called me a sneak earlier?”
Before Connor could answer, Sam turned up abruptly at Nick’s side, red curly hair mussed from fingers, eyes wide with concern.
He shone as bright as his merman boyfriend’s scaled tail in a golden waistcoat buttoned neatly over a pristine long-sleeved shirt tucked into jet-black pants.
Sam cast Nick a quick, distracted smile, but his attention snapped to Connor.
“Adonis is cracking hulls in the harbour—I think Bee and Dew egged him on. Goldilocks is running interference, but would you mind…?”
Nick snorted.
Connor’s narrow-eyed glare turned into more of a scowl, still pointed at Nick.
Nick grinned. “You knew he was going to do something when you left him behind and went with Dad.”
Connor’s scowl eased, replaced by a look of mild surprise. “There,” he said. “I can feel you.”
“So I shouldn’t buy a collar?”
The scowl came right back.
Sam’s weight shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. His impatience quickly got the better of him, and he grabbed Connor’s wrist. “Come on. Vi’s technically my mother-in-law, I don’t want her guests subjected to needless property damage by the people I invited!”
Connor, with the air of only being mildly annoyed by his boyfriend’s rampage, followed.
As Sam and Connor passed through the crowd, people quickly slid out of their way, only to just as quickly turn back around to stare at Connor.
There were murmurs. Whispers. Fixed gazes.
At the archway leading outside, Connor glanced over his shoulder.
Every turned head snapped away.