Page 25 of Secrets Among the Tides
The quiet afterwards was disconcerting. Never before had things with the Princess been so awkward. It was always sharp words spitting from her tongue. Now, she just looked awkwardly at the floor. I wondered if something had happened to her, wondered what had made her change so suddenly.
“I suppose I will see you around the palace more often, Princess?”
She snapped her attention up to me, a blush brightening her face. The captain tensed, and he was the one who answered coolly. “Of course you will be, your Highness. Although I fear the Princess must take her leave now. Her schedule is filled, and there is much to do to ready for your anniversary dinner.”
My hand closed into a tight fist.
The Princess made a squeaking noise that startled my gaze over to her. Her face seemed to get redder by the second. “Anniversary dinner?” she echoed.
The captain glared at her. “Yes, Princess. I know you’ve been sick for months, but surely you remember you are betrothed to Prince Kai?”
She squeaked again and looked at me with a complete unreadable expression on her face. It was an amusing sort of look that involuntarily had me smiling at her. “It’s alright, Princess,” I reassured her. Maybe it was the look on her face that prompted me to joke, “I don’t bite.”
If she had spikes down her back, surely they would have bristled. Her fins fanned out, as her eyebrows pulled together and her eyes narrowed on a glare. “Maybe Ido.Did you ever think of that,Prince?”
I found myself chuckling at this sudden humor and defensiveness. Maybe I was just on edge because I hadn’t seen her in so long. Whatever the case, I took a stroke forward and reached for her stiff, unyielding fingers. I brought them up to my mouth and whispered against her knuckles, “Every day, Princess,” before pressing a kiss to them and easing away from her.
I got the satisfaction of watching her face brighten once again before I turned and left with my advisors.
There was definitely somethingverydifferent about Princess Odele Malabella of Thalassar.
And I liked it.
Even if I couldn’t quite place what it was.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tiberius
“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” I DEMANDEDas I closed the doors to the Princess’s quarters. My anger rose higher and higher by the minute because of this mer. Disobedient, sarcastic and rude. She acted like she was raised in a stable. Which, in her case, was probably true. Small town mer had absolutely no decency whatsoever and just because she looked like the Princess did not make her an exception.
“What do you mean?” she asked calmly as she swam into the center of the room. She looked so out of place here within Princess Odele’s quarters. But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t ask her to leave or relocate her to a new room.
I glared at her. “You disobeyed and left the room and nearly blew your cover out there with the Prince of Draconi!”
“Really?” She cocked her head to the side. “I thought it went rather well.” As she said this, her fingers flexed at her sides, and she slowly brought them up to her chest, pressing them there as if she wanted to wipe off the memory of the imprint of his lips against her skin.
I glowered. “That went the opposite of well. Did you somehow forget that the Princess and him are engaged to be married?”
She let out an exasperated sigh and went over to the bed to sit at the edge of it. The bright anemones reached out for her with caressing fat tentacles. I glared at those, too. She lifted and lowered her tail almost absently, leaning her hands against the soft cushioning of the bed.
“What did the Queen and King say?” she asked quietly.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. That conversation had not gone well at all. As soon as she’d left, the Queen had floated up to her regal height and screamed her rage in my direction. Words had soon blurred together in a chorus of ‘beggar,’ ‘peasant,’ ‘demeaning,’ and my personal favorite, ‘this is all your fault.’
Did she think I didn’t know that?
The King had sat at his throne, stroking his black beard and twirling the enormous ruby ring round and round on his finger until he finally silenced his wife.
“You will teach her the ways of royalty. You’re right. The mer are growing suspicious. So groom her and prepare her for the anniversary dinner and let this doppelgänger be presented to the courts.”
“If she slips up in anyway, I will have both of your heads!” the Queen added. “And you will keep actively looking for our daughter or so help me…”
“Captain?”
I broke out of my reverie to look at her. Smiling and words of reassurance were beyond me. “The Queen will have both of our heads if we slip up in any way, Maisie,” I explained coldly.
Her whole body tensed, but the realization seemed to settle quickly over her shoulders. She bit her bottom lip and nodded. “I understand,” she said.
