Chapter 38
HAZEL
Every emotion I’d been too terrified to explore came flooding through my senses at the mere touch of Draya’s hands.
The caress of someone who wanted to love and nurture me brought a sense of comfort and serenity that I’d been unable to find elsewhere, and I’d been longing for it for as long as I could remember.
He pleasured me over and over throughout the night, using his tongue, his body, his Talassi form and his human form.
If I’d ever had any doubt about how this man felt about me, it dissolved like a snowflake falling into the Atlantic.
I was completely and utterly consumed by him, yet somehow I still craved more.
The feeling of him moving inside me was addictive, filling me until my belly was swollen with his seed, and the urge to claim him as mine forever bloomed. Never in my life had I felt the need to stake my claim on someone, but it burned like an eternal flame inside my core.
After far too little sleep, I awoke to find Draya’s tongue between my legs, not letting up until I was crying out his name.
He only stopped due to a loud knock at the door, which promptly brought me out of my lustful haze and replaced my waking bliss with heated cheeks and a pit of embarrassment growing in my belly.
“This better be important,” Draya growled, crawling off the bed and quickly pulling on his linen pants.
The two men who typically accompanied Cordelia stood outside my door, and I made little effort to meet their gazes. Instead, I shrunk behind Draya, clutching his hand like a frightened child.
“The Prince is awake, and he’s requesting to see you,” the blonde man said.
“Now?” Draya asked.
“Not you,” the blonde man ground out. “Her. And yes, now.”
“Give us a moment,” Draya said, immediately shutting the door in their faces.
Prince Inaki was resting in an elaborate underwater chamber within the Queen’s residence, requiring me to shift as much as I could before entering.
The room was gilded with pearls and shells, bathed in opulence at every turn.
He lay on some type of bed, made of shells and rocks and covered in sea moss, and The Queen floated to his right, a hand on his shoulder.
The Prince was a beautiful man, so striking that even his surroundings couldn’t detract from his allure.
Unlike the emerald green skin of his mother, his was a paler, more iridescent hue.
At the island I’d thought him pale from malnutrition or sickness, but now that he’d been nursed back to health, I realized it was his true coloring.
His hair was a dark silver, shimmering in the pale light emitted from the dark stone surrounding us.
The Queen beckoned us forward, and I moved at a snail’s pace, still unsure how much I trusted, or even liked the woman. As I stepped within a few paces of Prince Inaki, his eyes shot open.
I froze, staring into the hazel eyes of the Talassi Prince, my gaze locked with his as we took each other in. A strange familiarity hung in the water between us, and it felt as if he were staring straight into my soul.
His face scrunched to a frown, and he looked me up and down a few times, the gears clearly turning in his head.
Draya placed a hand on the small of my back, and gooseflesh covered the human skin I still had exposed as I wondered what Prince Inaki would say.
Would he hate me? Would he thank me? Did he recognize me somehow?
“Is your mother Margaret Emerson?” he asked, jolting me out of my thoughts.
I stilled for a moment, unsure how to answer. His piercing eyes never left mine, and I sensed an air of desperation behind them.
“Yes…” I answered hesitantly. How does he know my mother?
What sounded like a choked sob escaped from his throat, and he immediately covered his face with bandaged hands.
The Queen bent down to say something in Talassi, but he waved her away, and I wondered if a half-Talassi could die of a heart attack underwater. I was so utterly confused I thought I might burst.
“I know your mother,” Inaki said, shaking his head as he removed his hands. “Years ago, we had… we were friends. When were you born, Hazel?”
“The twenty-seventh of October, 1853.”
He turned his head to the side, covering his mouth with a hand as what looked like silver tears rimmed his eyes. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Is she well?”
His words were sharp, cutting into my heart. It was obvious he’d cared for her, and it pained me to tell him she was no longer with us. Tears welled behind my eyes, and I shook my head slowly, trying to gather my emotions and thoughts.
“Is she alive?” He asked, his voice strained.
“No,” Draya answered softly, his thumb moving back and forth against my back. “She passed away a little over two years ago, Sir.”
I looked down, hoping the water would conceal the gutwrenching emotions twisting face, but Inaki held out an iridescent, silvery hand.
“This pains me to learn,” he said softly as I placed my palm in his. “I loved Margaret, more than I could ever put into words, but I was captured before I could make arrangements to help her escape that wretched husband of hers. I’m sorry.”
I mulled over his words for a moment, eyes widening as I put the pieces together.
The depth of their relationship, the timeline of their affair in relation to my birth, and the look of anguish that flitted over his face when he learned my mother had passed.
My body went rigid, heartbeat pounding in my chest, and the entire room felt as if it were closing in on me when Prince Inaki’s next words left his mouth.
“Hazel, I believe you are my daughter.”