Chapter 49
Forty-Nine
One Year Later
Angie stepped out from her beachside Seattle apartment, reciting fishes native to the Salish Sea and murmuring under her breath. Two weeks into school, and her Biology of Fishes professor had already announced a quiz next week.
“Coastrange salmon, cottus aleuticus. Lobefin snailfish, liparis greeni. Queenfish.” She drew a blank on its scientific name.
Damn. What sadist gave their class a quiz on the third week of class?
Her phone pinged with an incoming text from Mia, and thanking her ancestors for the distraction, she opened the message.
It was coupled with a photo of Mia’s four-month-old little boy, Jacques, but they called him Jack.
His middle name was Nicholas, in honor of her father.
Jack’s complexion was fair with eyes reflecting copper, his hair of golden brown and slender lips.
He looked like Nick, and even as an infant, his personality was already as big as his father’s.
Angie knew it comforted Mia that her son mirrored her late husband.
Jack was laying on his back, his chubby legs and arms splayed.
One hand toward the camera, a wide, toothless smile on his face.
Despite looking like Nick, he was much too adorable for words.
Angie grinned and texted her back, and continued making her way toward the shoreline.
Then another text came in, this one from Celia.
Celia: Hey Angie! Thanks for checking in on me. I’m okay. I miss my mom, but I know you understand. Let me know when you’re back in Creston. We’ll meet up.
Angie replied in kind and slipped her phone back into her pocket. She had been in Seattle three weeks, having moved here a week early to get acclimated. With the whirlwind of school starting, moving into her apartment, and getting Lulu settled in, it felt like only days had passed.
Ten paces more, and a glint appeared out of the corner of her eye. Then another.
She turned her head and squinted. What could that be?
Several more steps, and colorful gems spelling out her name came into view.
Angie stopped short and kneeled. Cobalt, gold, copper, and graphite crystals as small as her pinky nail and as large as her hand greeted her. She began to gather them into her hands.
“Do you like them?” Kaden’s voice came to her, carried on the breeze. Her next breath caught in her throat, and she met his gaze.
Angie stopped halfway in her quest to gather all the gems. Adrenaline spiked and rejuvenated her, and the blue-gray seas and skies, golden sun, and sandy shores brightened. “Kaden! You’re here.” She ran to him and fell to her knees, and he rose to meet her height, drawing her into a tight hug.
“Did you doubt me? I told you I would follow where you went. And I had good reason to hasten my trip.” His lips on her neck emitted sweet vibrations, and she pulled back, keeping her hands on his forearms.
“Oh, and yes. Of course I love them, they’re from you. But where did you get them from? These are worth a fortune to some people.” She fell to her backside and sat cross-legged, pocketing the precious gemstones.
“Hydrothermal vents are rich with minerals. Exhausting, and hot, but it’s worth it to see your joy.” Kaden shifted backward so that everything but his upper arms and shoulders were obscured by the moody sea, and rested his chin in his hands.
“Thank you. I’ll keep these safe.” Angie closed her eyes and inhaled the invigorating, refreshing sea breeze. “How was everything at the docks? I mean, I know you probably left a week after I did, but still.”
“All was well. The repairs are moving along, and I’ve been helping where I can. Especially when they needed structures placed closer to, or in the water.” Kaden shifted, his elegant dorsal fin peeking over the surface, swaying with the waves. “I think your dad is warming up to me.”
“If you’ve managed to impress him and Mia, you’re good in my book,” Angie said, full of mirth.
Kaden pushed himself up on his hands, and put one hand to his chest, his eyes growing wide. “Well then, my love. I’m glad to hear it.” He laughed and looked away when Angie flicked sand at him.
A fishing boat appeared from the horizon, bringing Angie back to last summer. She instinctively drew her shoulders to her ears, as if expecting the boat to be taken down by mer.
But the war was over. And the central queendom had pulled their reinforcements back when the humans and mer reached a truce.
Kaden had already turned his head to look.
“Incredible.” The word carried on a long exhale, and he jutted his chin in the boat’s direction. “This never gets old. I still am in awe of their size.”
“Yeah, we like them big.” Angie grinned, moving backward to avoid an incoming wave, breaking at the shoreline. A futile motion, because the seafoam still splattered onto her jeans.
The boat disappeared into the blue horizon, likely heading for the nearby docks some miles away.
The early fall sun beat down on her face, and she didn’t even care that she’d forgotten to apply sunscreen. The welcome smell of a clean sea breeze filled her nostrils, and she took it in, savoring the smell and brisk warmth.
The past year had flown by, like a black marlin sailing the seas.
She had written to Pacific Grove University after the mer and humans had reached a truce, and asked for a deferral simply due to extenuating circumstances.
They’d granted her permission to start one year later without asking further questions, and she couldn’t have been more grateful.
It had taken Kaden another month to fully recover from being shot, and when he’d regained his strength, he explored the undersea with her, and Angie kept current in her studies, helped Bàba rebuild the docks, and comforted Mia while she grieved Nick.
Kaden reached for her and put his hand over hers. “Come for a swim with me? Three weeks is much too long to not have you at my side.”
“Sure. Let me go change. I’ll be back.” She fed Lulu, stored the gems in her jewelry box, dressed in a crimson tankini and shorts, and returned twenty minutes later. Excitement skittered under her skin.
Kaden’s gaze hungered as he eyed her, and when she was close enough, she jumped into the blue.
Angie shrieked, the high fifties temperature water shocking her system.
“If you would have waited one minute,” Kaden chuckled and pulled her in, pressing his lips to hers. First a kiss, and then breath.
Her body warmed in an instant, and she followed him beneath the waves. They passed through a kelp forest, leaves tickling her bare arms and legs. Beneath her feet, halibut and flounders darted about in the sand.
Halibut, hippoglosus stenolepis.
The olive flounder? Angie raked her mind. Paralichthys olivaceus.
Okay, so maybe the first quiz of her PhD program wouldn’t be too bad.
“How’s the family?” Angie asked once they cleared the forest and entered the darkened deep.
“Mother is doing a fine job of ruling on her own. The mer are more sympathetic to her than ever. Cyrus is still recovering. But Libbi and Hadrien are doing wonderfully. Getting bigger by the day, I feel.”
Adrielle had borne her twins shortly before Mia had her baby, with a promise to bring them closer to shore once they were older and their lungs were more developed.
“I look forward to meeting them one day.” Angie tightened her hand around his. “Where are we going? You seem like you have someplace in mind.”
“I do.” Kaden turned right, ducking beneath a bluntnose sixgill shark sailing overhead, wiggling back and forth.
He led her to a spacious, empty grotto and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Now that you’re all mine, I’m going to enjoy tasting and feeling every inch of you on my lips and fingers.”
“Oh, please do, Mer-Prince.” Angie backed into the wall behind her and trailed a finger toward her cleavage, maintaining eye contact with him. She shivered with desire, despite the feverish rush bursting from her core.
Kaden watched her a moment longer through hooded eyelids and closed the distance between them. A gasp escaped her lips as he leaned in to kiss her, dotting his lips down her neck, her collarbone, and her shoulder. Each kiss sent a pleasurable electric jolt down her arms and legs.
One arm wrapped around her waist, and his other hand moved to help her remove the bottom piece of her swimsuit.
He pulled her flush to him, and pulled back, his eyes dancing. “Ah, Angie Song, how I love you.”
“Mm. I love you too, Prince Kaden.”
“Oh, stop it with the prince title.” Kaden bumped his nose to hers. “Now, where were we?”
“I think you’re right where you’re supposed to be,” Angie replied. She buzzed with happiness and passion as he kissed her again, and trailed his lips further down her body.
“That I am.” Kaden’s voice sounded more distant when he was at her bellybutton. A wicked grin was on his handsome face when he glanced up at her. “Now lie back so I can hear just how much you love me.”
His tongue traced a line along the inside of her thigh, and he pushed one hand against her hip to prevent her from floating away. Her breath hitched, and she let her head fall back, her racing pulse reaching a breaking point, and did as he asked.
It felt like an eternity and a fraction of a minute passed while they were wrapped up in each other.
Angie had slipped her bottoms back on and followed Kaden as they made their ascent back to the surface so she could prepare for tomorrow’s classes, pausing every few feet to exchange kisses.
They had made it three hundred feet, with no sign of moonlight or sunlight filtering through. Kaden kept his arm loosely wrapped over her waist, as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. If she had calculated right, they still had another hundred feet to go before they reached the light zone.
“Doing alright?” Kaden looked over to her.
“Yeah, I’m peachy.” Angie grinned at him. She yelped when something cold, solid, and sharp slapped to her bare thigh. “Shén me guǐ?” Looking down revealed a dead, nearly footlong, blue-gray fish with a dark horizontal line running along the length of its body.
Where did that come from?
Kaden reached for the fish and peeled it off her leg, inspecting it. “Looks like she was caught and released.” He examined it closer, brow furrowing.
Angie leaned in. A silver hook wedged through the fish’s mouth, and protruded from her gills. She grimaced. The tip of the hook had scratched her leg, but fortunately, not deep enough to break skin. “These fucking fishers. Couldn’t even be bothered to take the hook out of her mouth.”
Kaden shook his head in disdain, still holding the fish by her caudal fins.
Angie kept her gaze trained on the fish, its appearance striking a familiar chord. She racked the back of her mind.
“A queenfish.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but the words left her lips of their own volition. The scientific name came to her as if she’d never forgotten it. “Seriphus politus.”
A passing, inexplicable sense of dread filled her, and she locked eyes with Kaden. His lips were parted and eyes unblinking as he stared first at her, then at the fish.
In a flash, strong currents swept through, snatching the queenfish from Kaden’s grasp. She tumbled away into the blackness and out of their sight.
Kaden licked his lips, his shoulders dropping. “You okay?”
Angie gave him a firm nod. “Yeah. So um, I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“Of course.” Kaden took her face in his hands. “And the day after that, and the day after that, and after that. Until you’re sick of seeing my face.”
She looked toward where the dead queenfish had been swept away, then relaxed her pose, her mood brightening. “That would be never.”
“I feel the same about you. Until tomorrow, then.” Kaden kissed her forehead and took her hand, motioning his head upward. “But for now, let’s get you home.”