Page 91 of The Merman's Betrothal
‘We follow our orders,’ the guard replied sheepishly. ‘We must make haste, Your Highness. The congregation is waiting.’
Fionn kissed Acha on the nose and gave her a final scratch along her neck. He didn’t know if he would get to see her again.
It was time to face his fate. Fionn swam through the dark archway into the palace with a guard escort at his side and more than half the kingdom watching, yet feeling more lonely than he ever had before.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rory tore through the water, muscles burning with the strain. He’d left Loch Broom a while ago but knew it would still be hours to reach the Shiant Isles by swimming at this pace. When he’d travelled with Fionn they’d used the current, barrelling across miles as though it were the Minch’s very own underwater metro system. The trouble was, Rory had no clue how it worked.
He swam to the surface to take a break and check his bearings. For an instant he thought he’d been blinded; the moon’s glare was so bright! Then his eyes adjusted and the twinkling crests of the waves took shape under the moonlight.
The Summer Isles were behind him, a collection of little islands between Loch Broom and the wider Minch. For Shiant he would need to keep heading west, and then south once he was close to the Isle of Harris.
Miles and miles of water stretched ahead of him.
I should have taken the Star,Rory thought ruefully. What if he was already too late to help Fionn?
The fear churned in his gut, all too real and ready to drag him under. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Fionn must be in trouble. Rory shivered and stretched his limbs. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—let anything happen to his stupid merman.
He sank into the black void of the night-time Minch.
This underwater world was much eerier in the dark. A school of fish brushed past, causing Rory’s spines to flex in alarm. He was learning his new shape had all sorts of involuntary reflexes. Like his fins, his spines were quite flexible when at rest. But at the slightest hint of danger they snapped taut like a column of savage, needle-point daggers.
I guess if I run into a monster I can just back into it.Rory squinted into the darkness. Down here he saw only the rough shapes of passing creatures. His senses relied more on subtle sounds and pressure from the water against his skin to tell him about obstacles. Not that there were likely to be any, aside from a small kelp forest he was briefly entangled in at the start of his journey.
Frustration simmered in Rory’s muscles with every stroke through the water. He was too slow. Fionn wouldn’t have left him waiting like this if it were the other way around.
On the edge of his hearing, a whale call rolled across the Minch like an unhurried peal of thunder. ‘I… Am… Here. Child… Is… Here.’
Struck by an idea, Rory filled his gills with water and then expelled a call of his own. ‘I… Am… Here. Need… Help. Help… Prince… Fionn…’
A shoal of mackerel scattered in the distance as Rory’s call passed them and rolled onward. He hoped it would reach someone who could help.
Rory continued to belt out this song as he forged onward. The words began to lose meaning, blending into a single sound comprised more of emotions than words.I’m coming, Fionn. I will find you.
The water flurried around him. Rory felt his pace pick up. He sang louder, with abandon. Poured everything into it. All the bewildering ways his life had changed and how he, him, Rory Douglas had changed but not really changed just foundhimself, finally, out here in the abyss where love and adventure beckoned. Here he was, fully himself and free tofeelhowever he felt without external expectations pressing in on the image of who he thought he was supposed to pretend to be.I. Am. Here.
He was free to love a strapping blue merman with a cock. Free to love a handsome, prideful bastard with all his swagger and all his compassion and all his poorly hidden sensitivity besides. The rest of the world be damned.
Rory’s teeth nipped at his lips, sharpening, as if into focus, just a little more.
The ocean rushed in his ears, filled with his wordless song.
Carry me,he urged it.Carry me to Fionn.
His fins curved flush against his limbs, creating a streamlined shape as the water frothed and churned. Rory slipped into a mass of roaring bubbles, shooting like a bullet across the Minch.
I’m coming for you, Fionn.
And no one’s going to stop me from taking you.
* * *
Rory came spinning, bursting out of the current near the palace boundary. He’d lost control of the water propelling him and so tumbled head over feet in his chaotic effort to drag to a stop.
Once his brain had stopped spinning, Rory registered the sound of a shocked splutter from gills that did not belong to him.
Neacel’s slender shape emerged in the darkness. He was open-mouthed, eyes creased in a mixture of wonder and disbelief. ‘I heard your call,’ Neacel said breathlessly. ‘That was you, wasn’t it? We were coming to find you!’
