A Pirate's Dream (8 page)

“Oh, boy.” Cook chortled as she plucked a squirming snail out from under the butcher’s block. “You have angered the beast, legger. You have angered the beast.”

But the way she said the word, Nimue didn’t quite hate it so much. Lips twitching from a runoff of adrenaline and a touch of pride, she brushed at the snail stains coating her skirt. “She deserved it.”

“Aye.” Cook’s brown eyes gleamed. “But will she see it that way?” She winked then waved a hand. “Go, dear. I’ve got this. Just clean yourself up before the king sees you this way. He’s been quite a bear fish these past few days.”

Turning on her heel, Nimue opened the door and muttered beneath her breath, “You’re telling me.”

*

S
he’d bathed and changed her clothes, which was a miracle of ingenuity. Down here, there was no needs for skirts. But Nimue was a legger, with all that it implied. Mermaids could show off their tails without impunity, but for any of them to catch a glimpse of her legs was apparently as scandalous as if she’d shown off the womanly bits with them.

At first, when the servant had shown her the closet full of clothes, Nimue hadn’t exactly been sure what to expect. Maybe seashell bras and kelp skirts, but her clothes were made of annelid silk from a type of glowworm that thrived in dark places. The beauty of the silk was not just in its tensile strength, but also in its shimmering quality. Any type of light that it caught caused the silk to flicker different colors like crystal catching flame.

The mermaids had many different shades of dyed silk, but Nimue found herself repeatedly reaching for anything red as the color contrasted nicely against the paleness of her skin and darkness of her hair.

She had a few minutes before she would be called in for dinner. Nimue had tried all she could to keep herself locked inside her room. But after reading the same page in a book she’d been trying to get through for the past three nights, she’d realized she needed to get out.

But she really had no friends to get out and go see. So here she sat, in the palace gardens, watching the sun set behind a watery horizon.

Mother had told her the first time she’d come that she’d been shocked by the fact that sun was visible in Seren, but Nimue was convinced that it wasn’t the sun at all, more so one of its many illusions. She could stare directly at the golden-yellow orb without flinching in pain.

Parrotfish dipped and dived within the cerulean waters, chasing horsefly and fruit fish around. Kelp waved long fingers, swaying to and fro in the gentle waves.

So pretty
.

She sighed. A little nudge traced across her skull, then Jian popped through a strand of hair and blinked little beady eyes back at her, neighing softly.

In such a short amount of time, she was coming to know him. She felt almost as though she could hear his thoughts. That was not possible since she wasn’t a fish, but she knew he was worried for her.

Rubbing a finger across his ear fin, she gave him a wimpy smile. “I’m okay, Jian. Just a little lonely, is all.”

He cuddled against her palm, vibrating with a contented purr.

“I wonder how they’re doing. My parents. I wonder if they miss me.”

She watched the rest of the sunset through watery eyes.

*

S
ircco watched her from the hidden vantage point of a tower window. For weeks, he’d ignored her presence. Not that he wasn’t constantly aware of her. He was. Her scent teased him, that mix of land and sea bells, flowers that grew only in Seren.

How was it possible that a legger could smell so foreign and yet so... familiar?

She didn’t move, simply stared at the setting sun, but she wouldn’t have needed to turn for him to know she was horribly unhappy.

“You could talk to her, you know.”

His sister’s intrusion caused him to jerk back, moving away from the window as he nervously flicked at his arms, as though brushing away dirt that did not exist.

“Brother, she is unhappy. No matter what I do. No matter how often she goes to visit her great-mother, she is not happy. Maybe you could help her.” Sirenade’s amber eyes looked concerned.

“She is my prisoner, Siren—”

“Argh!” She flicked at his tail with hers, hard enough to make him stumble back. “Will you get over that already? She is far from a prisoner, but even if she were, she’s been a model one and deserves better than you’ve given her these past two weeks.”

“What do you want from me? There is nothing I can do.”

“Yes, you can. Speak with her. Take her to the mystical gardens within the moors. I would, but I’ve so much work to do here. She is bored, lonely, and in desperate need of a friend.”

“I’m as busy as you. Council meetings, visiting the tenants—”

“All matters I can handle on my own.” She laid a restraining hand on his.

“I thought you just said you were busy.”

She gave him a snarly look, her eyes going frosty for a moment. For whatever reason, his sister had taken a shine to the legger. It wasn’t common for her to take someone under her wing the way she seemed to be doing with Nimue. Perhaps it would be worth his time to figure out why.

Switching tactics, he shook his head. “I don’t know why you think I could do something for her you cannot. I am a male.”

Giving him a cross-eyed stare that seemed to imply “exactly.” She huffed, “Sircco, for such an intelligent merman, you can be quite dense sometimes.”

He growled and then his nostrils flared.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose quickly. “You’re as surly as a hedgehog fish. My dear brother, has it never occurred to you that perhaps that would be exactly why you could reach her?”

“Because I’m a male?” He screwed his face up, confused by her logic.

“She is of breeding age, brother.”

“I will not be breeding her.” He took two cautious flicks back, heart hammering violently in his chest when he thought of it.

He’d seen a painting once that depicted the seduction of a mermaid by a legger. The way they spread their legs—he swallowed hard—it was unseemly.

And yet when he thought of Nimue spreading hers, disgust was not the first noun that came to mind.

Sirenade laughed. “Nor am I asking you to. Befriend her, Sircco. It costs you nothing. You hate her because of who she is, not what she is.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Get cranky with me all you’d like, you big dragon of a fish, but you know it’s true. She is Hook’s daughter, and though there is peace between us, you’ve never quite managed to forgive him for taking Talia from you.”

“I am over Talia.”

And it was true—he was. But perhaps his sister was right. Though he no longer felt the depressive love he’d had for her, his pride had been wounded.

He was a king, and she’d chosen a legger instead.

“Good.” She flicked at his chest. “That is very good. Now please, for the sake of my sanity, try to make peace between you two. She will be living with us for the next five and a half months, and I’d rather not feel like I need to swim on eggshells around you two.”

Huffing, he cast a quick glance out the window. The sun had set, and Nimue was gone.

Clenching his molars, he made to head toward the banquet hall, but Sirenade said in a loud stage whisper, “And for the Goddess’s sake, let Stygia know she should be spending her nights elsewhere from now on. I’ve reached my tolerance for simpering.”

Not turning, he gave a brisk nod and went to get settled for the evening’s repast.

He was just about to enter the dining hall when he smelled sea bells. Hearing his sister’s words echo in his ears, he squeezed his eyes shut and turned around.

She stood like a frightened deer fish before him. Her blue eyes wide, she clutched onto her skirt. Blood had risen high on her cheeks, giving her dewy skin an almost luminescent quality.

“Nimue.” He tasted her name.

Every time he said it, he always tasted it. Pulse going mad in his throat, he executed an awkward bow then held out his hand.

A soft frown kissed her brows. Such delicate, fine boned brows, she had.

“Sircco,” she said, startled.

He hated to see the uneasy wariness in her eyes.

“I, um...” She blinked, as though unsure what to say.

Reaching his capacity for words, he grunted. “Take my arm. I’ll escort you to your seat.”

And when she took it, he refused to analyze what the tremble through his flesh could mean.

S
he was all too aware of the merman swimming regally beside her as he led her around the long table to her seat. Or so she’d thought. Instead of placing her several chairs down from him, he sat her to his left.

She felt as though she might vomit. Confused and not just a little dizzy, she took a seat. She thought she may have mumbled a thank you, but her memory was a little sketchy on that part.

She didn’t get a chance to ask him what he was doing because soon after, the hall filled with merfolk who were ready to eat. And it might have been pleasant had it not been for the fact that Stygia sat directly across from her and was glaring openly.

A mermaid with bright-lavender hair and intense eyes so blue they were nearly white, General So and So—Sirenade had introduced them once, but Nimue was awful with names—was regaling those around her with her latest escapades against a seventeen-foot tiger shark.

“What did you do?” another mermaid asked with wide wondering eyes when the general said she’d been trapped inside a cave with the predator circling.

Smashing her fist down on the table and upending several goblets of sparkling cider, she laughed, exposing sharp white teeth.

This mermaid had to be part barracuda. Her tail was silvery blue and striped, but it was the markings along her arms and chest that made her seem much more mercenary than the rest of them.

“I took out my cutlass and hacked it into a thousand tiny pieces. Fed it to the dog fish.” She grinned then ripped into the shell of her lobster, using only her teeth.

Sirenade looked unimpressed by the display, but she did say, “Something really ought to be done about those damned tigers. They’ve grown far too bold for their own good, encroaching this far into the city.”

The general grunted her assent, shoving her mouth full of tender claw meat.

Nimue picked at hers. She’d never been much for lobster, scavengers of the sea. She preferred clams if she had to eat seafood at all.

Here, she sat at a table overflowing with roasted sea snail, fisherman’s stew, broiled lobster stuffed with fillet of fish, and razor clams soaked in wine, butter, and flakes of sea kelp. But all she wanted was a steak.

Someone was speaking, but the voice wasn’t talking to her. They never really talked to her, not here in the dining room. Sirenade was always kind, but these were her people, and Nimue could hardly expect the queen to ignore them all for her sake.

So she drank her cider and only gave the loud chattering room half an ear until she finally heard her name mentioned.

Frowning, she glanced up. “Huh?”

Stygia chortled, rolling her eyes.

Biting down on her tongue so that she didn’t say the word that had just popped into her head—which just so happened to rhyme with witch—she shook her head to try to clear the spiderwebs.

Sirenade gave her a soft smile. “I asked if you’d like to join Sircco tomorrow.”

Frowning even harder, confused as to why she’d be singled out this way, Nimue glanced at several faces that were suddenly silent and staring back at her.

“Um.” She looked to Sircco for some sort of clue as to what exactly she might have missed, but he was no help. He was looking at her just as intently as the rest of them were.

As if understanding that Nimue literally had no idea where she might be joining Sircco, Sirenade ushered a servant toward her to refill her goblet of wine. “You know, to check out the moors,” she said. “We’ve a band of tigers encroaching there.”

“Tigers? As in tiger sharks?” She had to fight to suppress a shudder. She still wasn’t used to Brutus or Sirius, the queen’s pet whites.

Stygia made a rude noise in the back of her throat. “I would be honored to travel with you, my king.” She dipped her head toward Sircco, and it was like magic the way her sea green hair cascaded like a waterfall so perfectly against her shoulders.

Nimue truly disliked that creature.

“Thank you, Stygia.” Sirenade inclined her head. “Nimue?”

It was an effort to not let her jaw hit the floor. The queen had just shamed Stygia in front of the entire court for a legger’s sake. Her heart beating harder than it should, Nimue took a fortifying sip from her goblet, praying to the Gods that no one noticed how quivery her hand was, and looked at Sircco. “Is that what you want?”

If he wanted out of it, then here was his chance. She wasn’t sure why her friend was making such an obvious effort to send Nimue off with him, but she had no desire to have him be prickly with her all over again.

His deep voice resonated like crystal shards through her veins as he said, “I would be pleased for the company.”

Stygia choked on her cider, coughing loudly, before turning a furious glare on Nimue.

Feeling the heat rise in her cheeks—not just because he’d finally acknowledged her out in public, but also because of the press of so many other bodies waiting on bated breath to hear her answer—she gave him a small dip of her head. Then she pretended to be fascinated by the pool of glistening butter on her mother-of-pearl plate.

Her nerves only eased when the chatter once again picked up and she knew she was no longer the center of attention.

“Hello.”

The unfamiliar and very male voice made her lift her head. Nimue had been so inside her own head that she’d failed to notice the human sitting beside her.

“Hi.” But the way she said it made it sound more like a question than an acknowledgement.

His smile was open and inviting, making her feel warm to the tips of her toes. It wasn’t that he was exactly the most attractive male she’d ever seen. He had a broad forehead, wide nose, and thin lips. But there was friendliness about him that made him more attractive than he had a right to be.