Chapter 22
Sterling
Delmar and the damn school. I don’t want to go anywhere near that place. Not only is it where Anya worked, but it’s full of damn podlets.
I’m sitting. But mostly so I don’t throw him into the table and break it. His students are presenting part of the performance for the Feast of Liberisca. The school is full of my ghosts. It’s where I went, back when I thought life wasn’t a complete, whirlpooling, life-sucking abyss.
Clark, the fish gut. He invited Blair to the festival at the school. Which means my team and I have to be there instead of doing something more pleasurable. Like trailing after Atlas as he goes shopping for more fucking books. I hate that more than anything. Almost anything, as it turns out.
I pull out my block and message the best of the team. A message from Atlas opens up.
“Sterling, put your block away. This is a pod meeting,” Forrest says. I toss it on the table, and it spins to the middle. “Thank you. Continue, Delmar.”
“We’re pursuing Blair,” Delmar says. “But we haven’t decided how.
We’re acting as individuals and not a pod, and it’s causing problems.” He looks from Alexei to me.
Which has me wondering what the professor has done.
He’s like a stonefish—perfectly still, not causing any problems, but when you bump into them, they release a painful toxin. I saw him in the guest room, but . . .
It’s interesting Delmar doesn’t pose it as a question. It’s a statement. In a culture full of rules, there are no rules for how a pod takes a second mate. It doesn’t happen enough. And since Delmar called for a meeting . . . “I say we take a vote on whether we pursue Blair.”
“No,” Forrest says. It echoes around the table.
Zion’s sitting next to me. “What do you have against Blair? Is it that she’s human? She has the same chromosome that her niece has. I’m confident she will become a mermaid.”
My lip curls, and my gut hardens. “I don’t care whether she’s human or a tuna. We’re too old to take on another mate. Why bother?”
“Speak for yourself,” Alexei counters.
“He’s got a point,” Delmar, the youngest of us all, says.
“I want a mate, and I’m older than you. Being old, which for the record I am not, has nothing to do with not wanting a mate.” Forrest points at me and then to Delmar.
“Then I’m a heartless bastard,” I say.
“Yes, you are. But that doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of––” My glare cuts Grayson off. “Or maybe it does.”
“No vote. It’s not like we haven’t talked about this for a month, Sterling. Sure, you weren’t keen before. It’s a little late to object to it now.” Alexei leans back, and when he does, I get the faintest whiff.
“You.” I’m vibrating inside. They fucked her.
“I was there too,” Clark says.
Delmar places his tablet on the table in front of him. “You were more than there.” He grips Clark’s shoulder, and I couldn’t be prouder of the faint wince he places on the architect’s face.
“Yes. I’m not hiding anything. That’s what this meeting is about. Right?”
“Absolutely. We need to be on the same page before we give the female the bends from being jerked around.” Delmar taps his tablet on the table. “Open your tablet and write this down,” he says in his schoolteacher voice.
“I’m not writing down anything.” What I am is a second from pushing back from the table. “There’s a hagissa somewhere that must be able to free me from this group of blubber fish males.”
Forrest gives me his disapproval look. It’s never worked on me. For it to have worked, someone, somewhere would have had to have given a shit to begin with.
“Give us a month,” Forrest says.
“Done.” Now I push back from the table. I can avoid the lot of them for the month. It’s going to be harder to avoid Blair since King Atlas has assigned her and Marlee to my team. To protect without being in the way. Whatever the hell that means.
“Sit down, Sterling,” Grayson says. “You can’t hole up in your office for a month and say you’re done. You’ll have to spend time with her too.”
“I’m not fucking her.”
“Didn’t say you had to. But you have to spend time with her.” Grayson’s using his damn doctor voice, and it makes me want to throttle him and send him to his coworkers.
“Fine.” Also not hard to do since she’s currently my assigned target—not target, task. My mission . . . my charge. Poseidon. King Atlas is right. They both need protecting, and getting out of it isn’t happening.
“Talking. You’ll need to actually talk to her,” Zion says.
Delmar leans on the table, his fingers arched like mangrove roots. He lifts one hand and points at me. “And more than grunting.”
“I don’t grunt,” I growl.
Alexei bursts out with a huff of laughter. “And orcas aren’t assholes!”
My jaw snaps shut.
“Enough,” Clark says. “Acting like sharks swarming in blood isn’t going to help our pod.” I don’t need Clark to protect me. “Sterling knows who he is.” I definitely don’t need him to speak up for me, not that way . . .
“I’ll play along,” I say.
“This isn’t playing.” Clark runs his fingers through his light brown hair, his brown eyes glaring at me. “We’re not going to play with Blair.”
“Heard,” I say and stand.
“I haven’t called for an end to the pod meeting. I called it, and I’m the one who says when it’s over.” Delmar stands. He glares at me, but it’s like a butterfly fish trying to be intimidating—it’s not working.
“Fine. What else do you want to talk about?”
His eyes twitch.
I cock my head to the side. A chair screeches back.
I don’t turn to look, but from the placement of it, I’d guess it’s Forrest’s.
I raise my hand. Our dear governor doesn’t have to be in the middle of everything.
If I try hard enough, I’ll be able to pick out Delmar’s heart rate from the rest of the table.
Delmar puts his hand on my shoulder. His amber eyes hold mine. I’m a little shocked. Actually, I’m a little shocked that I haven’t removed his hand from his arm.
“It’s not your fault,” he says, his amber eyes glassy.
“What’s not my fault? Nothing is fucking my fault.”
There’s a thunder of noise around the table now.
“True, there’s nothing we could have done,” Forrest grumbles.
“It was an idea. More than just you had it.” Zion folds his hands on the table.
“It’s a long time ago. She—” Delmar’s going to ramble on.
“Poseidon! You think I’m going on about . . . Fuck you. Fuck the lot of you. This has nothing to do with her.” I rip Delmar’s arm from my shirt and shove him. His feet don’t move. Even more shocking, he doesn’t even sway.
“Her?” Alexei’s eyebrows raise. “Say her name then, Sterling. Anya, her name was Anya.”
“Fuck you.” I pivot out of the room, stepping around Delmar. I could have checked his shoulder, but I leave him in place.
I stomp down the corridor, and I end up going the wrong way.
Instead of taking the hall that leads to our offices, I’m heading toward the bedrooms. And I pause.
There are three options this way: The pod room—no way I’m going to head in there.
If I’d slept last night, I’d say to hell with it and just stay up.
As much as I don’t want to go to the Feast of Liberisca tomorrow, the threats against Blair are real and imminent.
Yes, most males in the Veiled City treat females with the greatest respect.
But kidnapping and forced mating of mermaids has happened more than is talked about in the upper circles of elites.
The second room was Anya’s dressing room.
There’s nothing of her left in there now.
It’s been scrubbed clean of her scent, and her things are gone.
Still, I’m not sleeping in there either.
I push open the door to the guest room. The intended nursery of the flat. The bed’s clean and the sheets pulled tight to Rodgers’s standards. I close the door with a light click. I toss my shoes to the side, place my block on the nightstand, and lie down on top of the covers.
In my younger days, I could go three or four days without sleep. Now, more than one and my reaction time drops. Nowhere in me is there any intention or interest in mating Blair. That doesn’t mean I would ever want to see any harm come to her.
My head hits the pillow, and the sweet lavender scent of Blair is still here.
I toss the pillow on the floor, and the back of my head hits the mattress.
It’s still there, like the mattress has been infused with her essence.
Crisp, fresh, like well-laundered clothes.
Perhaps it’s not her scent but rather the laundered sheets.
I lift my shirt and inhale and tug at the sheets pinned underneath me.
Not the same. Even with my sandy musk, I can tell it’s not the same. It’s her.
I suck in a breath from the sheets. Is it the smartest? No. Does my dick harden even though I don’t want it to? Yes.
“We’re in position,” a voice buzzes in my ear. It’s Hunter, the newest on this team of males who are used to working on their own.
“The podlets aren’t even here yet,” Stewart responds from his position next to the airlock on the back of the building.
“Preparation is the key to a successful mission. Did you talk to the headmaster about the display?” I ask.
I haven’t been to this grammar school for seven years.
I mostly avoided coming to anything for any of my brother’s podlets.
They’re older. The last time I was here, it was for one of their graduations.
But when my sister, Celeste’s, kids were old enough to be here, they didn’t expect me to come, and I didn’t volunteer.
I’m a shitty brother and a horrible uncle.
Because, fuck, I’m not even sure if Lyra, her youngest, is even still here.
My eyes scan the back of the auditorium where there’s an art display. Preparation. I need to listen to my own advice. My heels click from the front of the stage, where two nervous junior teachers are debating the position of the microphones, to the back of the auditorium.
When I see the tall display boards of student work in the back of the room, my first reaction is to get the headmaster to move them. They block the view of the back quarter of the room. I send Hunter to talk to the male.
“On my way there now,” Hunter says.
I pace out the back of the room, and I’m checking the exits again when Hunter’s coming through my comm. “The headmaster refuses to have them moved. Tradition, and some other sort of rotten shrimp shells.”
But that’s ridiculous. I take long strides into the corridor.
“On the move. To the headmaster’s office.
” I adjust the mic behind my ear. With the security council in more friendly hands, there’s been a good portion of useful tech being passed around to other groups.
Things I would normally have to hide, I can show in the Veiled City now.
“He’s not going to budge. He was overly salty with us wanting to be in the school dome so early.”
“Heard. I have years more expertise at this sort of thing, Hunter.”
“Your time. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.” Hunter’s voice drips with sarcasm.
The corridors of the building are wide and haven’t changed since my last visit. A hissing echoes around the hall. I turn toward it. The airlocks sound their age. This dome needs to go. It’s old and outdated.
Up ahead, there’s a tidal wave of small wet feet slapping the terrazzo flooring.
I’m drowning up to my waist in small podlets, and behind them is a surge of parents dressed in their best dome colors.
Mermaids with their pods. Shouts of “Slow down,” “Wait for me,” and “Antonio, where did you go?” clash around me.
But it all thuds away when a certain pair of green-gray eyes and a tower of dark brown braids catch me before I can turn.
When did my sister start looking so much like our mother?
“Sterling!” Her wide smile tells me I’m going to have to do some rather swift thinking. Grunting and avoidance do not work with Celeste.