Page 24 of Whispers Beneath the Deep
A chuckle pushed past my lips. “Oh, I think you are.” It was obvious from the way she stared at him, as if she had the moon in her eyes.
She blew out an exasperated breath. “He’s aprince,” was all she said.
Ah, so no more denial? And her excuse was rather pathetic. My eyebrows pulled together in a frown, though the smile still touched my lips. “And I’m an outlaw.”
“So?”
“So…” I drawled. “If you can kiss an outlaw despite your scruples, you can kiss a prince.”
“First of all, you kissed me.”
I waved her words off with a simple flick of my fingers. “Semantics…”
“And secondly, I can’t kiss a prince. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Something inside of me flared to life. Like a volcano erupting. “But you can kissme,little fish, is that it? Why? Because I’m on your same wavelength? Because he’s a royal and we are not?” I could not keep the venom from my voice. Maisie scooted away from me, taking away warmth and leaving the cold of ice between us. I turned to glare at her. I shouldn’t have taken offense at the words, but I did. I knew she hadn’t meant it, but she made me feel unworthy. Worse than that, she made herself sound unworthy when it was the royals who should have been bowing down toher. She had the power to command kingdoms and win hearts, she just didn’t realize it yet. And that infuriated me. “You won’t kiss Prince Kai because you think you’re not good enough for him.” An accusation. One that had her looking away from me before turning back, tilting her chin up in the slightest gesture of defiance.
“I’m not the princess,” she reminded me. “It’s not my place to…seduce… a merman who isn’t mine.”
“And yet he looks at you like you’re the only star in the sky. Like you’re his favorite treasure among the hoard. Like he wants to make you his Dragon Queen.” I reached out and grabbed her wrist, she pulled, and I pulled back. “Like, if given the chance, he would devour you, drown you in the ice of his passions like the Dragon Prince that he is.” She pulled, and this time, I let her hand smack back to her chest. Then, I leaned back against the cushions and smiled. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, little fish. He wanted to tear my head from my shoulders for taking what he thought was his.”
She was quiet for so long. And finally, she whispered, “That’s because he thinks I’m the princess.”
I made a disgusted noise in the back of my throat, flicking her words off as what they were. Foolish.
“I’ve no doubt in my mind, little fish, that Prince Kai Li of Draconi knows exactly who you are.” And I didn’t mean her name, her station. I meant something else entirely. A veritable kindness that lived and shone through the cracks of her smile and the orbs of her dark eyes. She opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. “He may not realize it yet, but I’m sure he is questioning why he’s suddenly fallen head over fin in love with a mer he hated weeks ago.”
I settled back onto the couch and watched the image of the princess in the moving bubble. I could practically hear Maisie mulling my words over, the thoughts in her mind spinning through an abyss.
“Sometimes I fear your attention to detail,” she practically cursed me.
Laughter rattled out of me, tugging at my wounds and making me wince. I doubled over, holding my side. When the pain eased, I sat back up, tossing my arm over the back of the couch.
“All in a day’s work, little fish. It’s my job to know things about Thalassar’s finest…” I looked her over, smirked. “And its most beautiful.”
She rolled her eyes, snorted then looked at me mischievously. “So you think Prince Kai is beautiful?”
“Yes.”
She blinked when I answered with no hesitation. Her mouth dropped open, then closed again. Clearly, I’d caught her off guard.
“I—you—what?”
I winked. “Not the answer you were expecting, little fish?”
“Well, no, not really. You really think he’s beautiful?”
I shrugged. “Is it so rare for a merman to appreciate the beauty of another merman? I’m comfortable enough in my sexuality to admit it.”
“Wow…” she breathed, falling back to the couch. “That’s...surprising…”
Considering the past few days we’d had, I could name some things that were more surprising than finding out I appreciated the finer aspects of a beautiful mer.
“I enjoy mermaids and mermen in equal measure,” I said coolly, wondering what her reaction would be. If she would be disgusted or… No. That was a blush rising to her cheeks. I wondered if she was suddenly picturing as vividly as I was. Of the prince and I devouring one another’s mouths, tearing at one another’s clothes. And an even better fantasy, with Maisie between the both of us, writhing and gasping against the heat of our bodies as we brought her pleasure in tandem. I could feel myself hardening just thinking about it and adjusted my posture so she wouldn’t notice.
But she wasn’t looking at me at all. Her gaze was fixated on the recorder, but the brightness of her flush was telling. I leaned closer to her, the rub of our bodies hinting at the desire I felt. My own hardness pressed against the cloth of my tunic and onto her. She felt it through the material of our clothes and her breath hitched.
“Can you imagine such a thing?” I whispered, my words fanning across her skin.
