Sea Bride- Children of the Waves (8 page)

BOOK: Sea Bride- Children of the Waves
4.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“Oh!” She raised one delicate
eyebrow in disbelief. “If that were true, the chair would have accepted her and
all sea children would know we now have a queen and that Xavior is king.” She
glanced around and spread her arms wide. “I see no proof of that, Xavior,
therefore…” She boldly took a step forward. “By Poseidon’s law, I may try the
chair.”

The chill of fear snaked down
Xavior’s spine, and he tightened his grip on the trident, making the red around
him pulse like a living flame. “No! There is one other who must try it first.
That is my right!”

“True. And should it not accept
me, then you can certainly try. But it will. For I am your mate.”

“This isn’t right…” Ballen’s
mind spoke directly to Xavior.

“Yes, on that we agree.” Xavior
raised his head and turned to look at the white witch.

Some would call her beautiful.
Even among the sea people, she stood out, but he found her beauty cold. No
warmth dwelled in the emerald depths of her eyes.

“I have one circle of the sun.
That is also the law.” He knew the laws as well as she did. But she was also
right, she did have standing to sit the chair and be tested, but he also had
the right to test someone of his choosing. The problem was time. He did not
have much of it. Also, if she risked the chair, something else was going on
which he did not understand. He knew in his soul, the witch was not his mate.
Cori was.

“No!” She shook her head, her
hair whipping around her like agitated tentacles.

“You dare to question me?” The
red of the trident flared even brighter, reflecting his anger.

She raised her hand, unable to
stare directly at the powerful light coming from him. “Very well. One circle of
the sun.” She turned around, and eventually the darkness swallowed her up.

He heard a gasp behind him and
spun around to see Cori and his sisters watching the white witch. Cori’s gaze
swung back and forth between him and where the witch had disappeared. He
extinguished his powers and sent the trident back to the in-between realm until
he was ready to call it forth again.

 

Chapter
Six

 

“Who or what the hell was
that?” Cori asked. The woman looked stunning. When Xavior’s sisters came to the
chamber with clothes, she thought they were kidding. The two strips of flimsy
silk-like material they brought for her to put on, only marginally qualified as
a bathing suit. But at least she wasn’t topless or naked.

Unlike the beautiful woman
with the opal-colored hair and blue sheen to her skin. The only thing she wore
was her long hair, and part of it seemed to wrap around her thighs and nether
region, but her breasts were bare for all to see.

“Mate?” Cori said, hating the
confusion and hurt in the sound of her voice. “She’s your mate, as in wife?”

“Dark depths, no!” Xavior and
Ballen stated in unison.

“What is going on?” she asked,
staring at Xavior.

“She is not my mate,” he
seethed. “Nor, will she ever be.”

“Okay.” The denial was forceful
enough and she believed him, but still, something was going on. “So, what’s
with this chair thing and who do you have in mind to try it?” The thought of
someone else as his mate choked her.
Something
inside her silently screamed,
no
.

One of his sisters must have
sensed her distress and wrapped her arm around her shoulders, drawing her
attention. “Cori, among our people there is only one person for each of us,
only one person that triggers our aging. That happens when we meet our mates.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We grow until the age of human
puberty, fourteen to sixteen, and then we remain that way. But unlike humans,
we are unable to reproduce until we begin to age again. That doesn’t happen
until we met our mates. Something, a chemical hormone, whatever, is released
into our system, kick starting the aging process again. Then we age but
continue to look no older than a human in their mid to late twenties.”

She glanced at the adult
Xavior. He obviously found his mate. His sister continued, while Cori’s heart
cracked. “However, we don’t or can’t always tell who the person is who
triggered it, or even when exactly it was triggered.”

“Sounds pretty clinical to me.”
And sad
. “What about love?” She
needed to know, did he love this unknown female? How could he?

At this, both sisters laughed.
“The one who triggers it is the one we will love for a lifetime.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry
for being so dense, but just because you have a chemical reaction to someone,
doesn’t mean you automatically fall in love with that person.” But some part of
her continued to die inside, because Xavior’s destined mate was not her. Yet,
who else had he brought to test the chair? It had to be someone already here.

“For us, yes. That is what
happens,” Xavior agreed.

Then— oh God, he’d met
his intended, and he did love this person. Yet, he slept with her, so obviously
monogamy didn’t mean a thing to them. She needed to get out of there. She must
get away from him. Her hands trembled, but she hid it by moving them in the
water. “Oh, okay. Uh, listen, Xavior, thank you for bringing me here and
showing me all of these wonders.” She couldn’t look at him. Instead, she
glanced around, stared at his sisters and the other man beside him. The last
thing she wanted to do was burst into tears for her stupidity. But what the
hell, she was already in water. If she cried, there would be nothing to see.
Still, she blinked and swallowed, then continued to talk as if nothing was
wrong.

They all remained quiet around
her as she paused.

“…And I promise you have
nothing to fear from me. I won’t say a word about you or the sea people. But I
think I really should be getting back. Des will be worried and I was having a
great time on the ship. Oh, not that I’m not enjoying myself visiting this
wonderful world—but it looks like you’re going be busy and all, so
perhaps your sisters or someone can point me in the direction I need to go and
I’ll be on my way.” The words tumbled over each other, but what else could she
do?
He had a mate
.
And it was not her.
Her thoughts and
behavior were irrational, a part of her recognized that, yet the pain of his
rejection hurt like a bitch.

“Come with me.” Xavior wrapped
her in his arms, her smaller frame trembling against him. Glancing over at his
sisters and Ballen, he murmured, “Excuse us.”

“Highness—” Ballen began.

“Don’t worry, we won’t go far.
To the city center.”

“Good. About time you put
someone in that chair.”

“Dismiss the warriors but
maintain a perimeter guard.”

Ballen nodded, he and his
sisters would remain near the edge of King’s City.

Xavior swam with Cori to the
heart of it. They remained silent during the short swim. There in the center,
in the middle of a coral bed, sat the chair, placed there when the world was
young to determine who would have the right to rule the inhabitants of the
waters, both the upper and lower depths, even the dark ones.

They came to a stop before it.

“What is this? Why—why
did you bring me here?”

“I am ready to tell you
everything.”

She shook her head. She’d
parted her hair in the center and wore it in two braids, one on each side of
her head. She looked adorable, young and innocent. A faint memory flashed
before him, but her sadness beat at him. It hurt his heart. His precious Cori
was in pain and he could not allow it.

“No, it’s okay, you don’t owe
me any explanations,” she continued on, “We had sex, it was just one night or
day. Really
great
sex but no big
deal, right? Right. So, no worries, I misunderstood your intentions, Your
Highness.”

She could not have caused him
more pain if she’d stuck a knife in his chest. To think what lay between them
was meaningless or that he would ever be unfaithful to his mate. He grabbed her
hands and forced her to meet his gaze. He wanted her to see into him, to read
the depths of his feelings for her and the truth in his words. “Listen to me. I
am a son of Poseidon. One of many, but yes, I am also the heir, named the next
in line for the sea throne. But I cannot take my rightful place as king until I
take a bride.”

Her chest heaved against his
and he saw the hurt flare in her eyes. She tried to hide it from him by looking
away.

“I believe you are my bride,
Cori. But, I wanted to give us time. Give you time to get to know me. I’m not
sorry we made love back in the cave, and given the chance, I’d do it again in a
heartbeat. From the moment I saw you on the deck of the ship I
knew—listen to me, Cori. I knew. How could you even think what we’d
shared was a one night stand?”

“That’s—that’s
impossible. You don’t know me, you don’t love me.”

He shook his head. “You’re
thinking like a landwalker.”

“That’s what I am.”

Even though they were in the
water, he could still see the tears in her sweet brown eyes. She couldn’t hide
them from him. “I’m not. My people only begin to age after meeting the soul
meant to join with theirs. It is when an unbreakable bond is formed. I hadn’t
aged for three hundred years, and looked like an adolescent about fourteen or
fifteen. I began to age about ten or fifteen years ago, and have now stopped.”

“But you and I have never met
before a couple of days ago, Xavior. So, she must be someone else, this bride
of yours, one of your sea people.”

“No. I have always known she
was not of the sea. I have been searching for her on the land. And….” He
inhaled. “She is also the only one who can bring me to orgasm.”

She shook her head. “What? But
you came. I felt you, inside me.”

He grinned. “Yes, my love, I
know.”

“Are you saying you’ve never
had an orgasm before?”

“That’s exactly what I’m
saying. I’ve never climaxed with any other woman.”

“That makes no sense. If you
did it once, you can do it again. Maybe it’s just a chemical thingy. But
whoever your mate is, she’s not me. I’m not a sea person, so I would like to
return to the world where I belong.”

The ache in his heart grew
stronger. “Do you feel nothing for me?”

She glanced away from him and
then back. “I will not lie about my feelings. Yes, there is something there.”
She shrugged. “But it’s just not meant to be.”

That gave him hope. He took
both of her hands in his. “There is one way to find out for sure.”

“How?”

“Sit in the chair.” He released
one of her hands to gesture toward the chair made out of living starfish and
other shelled creatures.

“No. No.” She tugged at his
hand. “I just can’t bear it. What if you’re wrong?” She sobbed.

Xavior took her into his arms
and placed her head on his shoulder. She put her arms around his neck and held
on to him. “What if I’m right?” Shifting their bodies, he lowered his head at
the same time, she raised her face to him and he captured her mouth. He
breathed into her and bubbles rose up around them, tickling his skin as his
blood rushed through his body and he dove deeper into the sensation of their
kiss.

She wrapped her arms tighter
around his neck, pulling herself against him.

He lost himself in her arms and
in their connection. He wanted to do more, but restrained himself. They were in
a public place, and word they were there would have already travelled through
the city. She would be put to the test. He raised his head and sent out a
mental call to the dolphins to keep the people back. Cori did not need an
audience.

He kept his arm around her
waist and walked her to the chair, gesturing with his free arm for her to take
the seat.

She glanced up at him, her
lower lip trembling slightly, but she sat down upon the throne. As soon as she
did, the coral of the chair began to glow, accepting her, otherwise it would
have thrown her off. Her eyes opened wider, turning from brown to gold and back
to brown again. Her mouth curled into a huge smile, lighting up her face,
making her look like a little girl.

BOOK: Sea Bride- Children of the Waves
4.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Pets: Bach's Story by Darla Phelps
Maps by Nash Summers
The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh
The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill by Megan Frazer Blakemore
Power Blind by Steven Gore
Wall of Glass by Walter Satterthwait