Epilogue
Lorn
I open my eyes in the darkness and look at my sleeping wife snuggled against my side, her face relaxed in sleep, and my heart aches at her beauty.
Her skin is lovely and dark like the cool, rich color of wet slate and her hair drapes across her shoulders and my chest like the froth on a cresting wave.
Her eyebrows are delicate slashes above her eyes and when her eyes are open, they’re as blue as the endless sea in summer.
Her elegant fingers clutch the blankets more tightly around herself to protect herself from the cold.
I wrestle my way free of my own blankets, wrapped around me for completely different reasons.
My people, the merrow—or the undine, if you are so inclined—have a habit of wrapping their young in long kelp strands when we sleep to keep them anchored.
It’s a feeling of security that we never really grow out of and wrapping myself in a nest of Sadira’s blankets gives me feelings of ease in this place.
Unfortunately, they also trap heat, which my body cannot disperse as easily as the land walkers’ can.
My wife takes pity on me (and admits she finds me wrapping myself in “blankies” adorable), so she keeps the temperature of our dwelling much colder than she would otherwise.
It’s one of the many compromises we make for each other so that we can enjoy a life here together on land.
We built a smaller house near the cottage that Sadira used to stay in, right along the path that she used to travel to the cove so that I can swim whenever I want, or take a treat to Sir Chunk and visit with my father and the rest of the shoal, but my father left last year to join with another siren.
Still, it makes me happy that we can reside in a place she loves very much.
Sometimes her uncle and his wife come to stay in the cottage, and we enjoy our time with them, but occasionally, her cousin and her husband come to stay and bring their son, and I find them fascinating to talk to.
The husband is a siren, which was shocking to me because I’d never heard of male sirens, but his wife gifted us special jewelry so that his magic cannot touch us, and now I don’t ever have to worry about any siren coercing me.
Tonight, though, I feel restless, unable to sleep.
I’ve spent too many days on land with my bond-mate, breathing the dry, parching air.
Not wanting to leave my beloved Sadira’s side long enough to recharge my body beneath the cool embrace of the sea.
My soul needs Sadira, but my body… sometimes it needs the cold, dark depths of the abyss where I can stretch and swim and hunt.
I could slip away for a few hours, as I sometimes do while she is sleeping, and be back before the morning light makes her stir.
That way I won’t miss any of her waking moments.
Perhaps I will even find some of her favorite black clams to put into the eggs she insists on cooking to break her fast each morning.
Even after several years of marriage to my sweet Sadira, I still do not understand her desire to cook her foods.
But I do enjoy watching her use all the unique utensils that are required for the task.
My favorite is the whisk. It’s very cute.
I let my mind drift to all the things in the kitchen that I like, and then to the things I could hunt for her while I rest and hold her for just a few more minutes: the clams of course, some new sea glass for the mural we have started in the front room.
Perhaps I can find some new treasures to add to the antique shop we run together.
It brings me great pleasure that buyers find as much joy in the objects I find as I do.
My bond-mate is very clever, to think that people would like my treasures enough to trade money for them.
She works hard, and I am very proud of her.
Some days she even takes clients for her massage therapy business because she likes to soothe people’s pains with her hands.
‘I could not ask for a better wife,’ I think, as I hold her a little tighter, and I am very lucky she chose me back, because I already belonged to her with everything I am.
Pressing my lips against her forehead in a gentle kiss, I let my taste receptors analyze the hormone compounds on her skin and tell me what I already know: she is content.
I pull her against me, wrapping her arm over my chest to mimic the kelp, and close my eyes.
‘I will go to visit the sea in a little bit… just a few more minutes to hold her,’ I think to myself as I drift off to sleep.
Want Elara and Levi's story? Keep reading for an excerpt from Leviathan's Song.