Page 25 of Seduced By the Mermen
“I agree.” Delmar leans back in his chair again.
“You didn’t even know me ten years ago.”
“Well, there’s nothing about you that says fun now.” Delmar shoves a whole pastry cake into his mouth.
I’m fun. This is ridiculous. “I’m going.”
Chapter 11
Forrest
Iglare at the Koralli owner of the teahouse. I offered and paid a ridiculous amount of money for him to close the restaurant for our courting with Blair. A ton of gold, which he just dropped into my hand before opening the doors for the two other damn pods I know don’t have mermaids anymore. A Seolfor cocks his head at me. Behind them stands Tinom’s Kade Driftwood.
“Are you fucking serious?” Alexei growls. “How the hell did they even find out that we were meeting Blair here?”
Clark stares at Kade, and he inclines his head to my pod mate. Clark raises his hand.
“What the hell?” Zion bumps Clark’s shoulder.
“I can’t exactly stab our competition. Not when he’s my client,” Clark says.
“You have plenty of clients. Designing the atrium of the new Maelstrom is going to keep your agenda full until you retire.”
“Sure, but I’m not planning on retiring anytime soon. Who wants to be stuck in the house with the lot of you, with you wandering around in your robe?” Clark takes a sip of his tea, but his cup is empty. It’s empty because he’s been working nonstop. The male forgets to eat and drink, and when he remembers? He inhales everything.He could easily give up the Tinom project.
“Or you could back out since we’re competitors,” I say.
“How’s he going to take it when Blair chooses us?” Zion takes a bite of a teacake.
“She hasn’t chosen us. She hasn’t even met Sterling yet.” I raise my eyebrows. And fuck, my gut twists. I’m not sure I’ve even seen him in the last few days. I’ve been busy with the security council, and Athena knows what Sterling’s up to. In all the years on the council, I’ve only ever gotten wind of one of his projects. He’s not a government employee. Rather, his firm has a lifetime contract with the king. And with our current king being beyond secretive, I have no idea what the male does.
With the doors open to the teahouse, regular customers have rolled in.
“Who’s that?” I cock my head at the group of five congregating at a table near the window. Their heads are together, and they’re dressed in black. We are in a mixture of purple, black, and yellow. It’s protocol for me, being the governor. But for the others, I suppose it’s more of a habit. Our mothers all dressed us in dome colors growing up. And most of us were born into Stele. All but Delmar and Sterling. Sterling was born into Seolfor, of course. Sterling’s the most Seolfor name there ever was. I can think of ten Sterlings from Seolfor. But none as frustrating as our pod mate.
“Did you have to say his name?” Alexei says.
“What?” Zion, who’s sitting next to me, asks. The two of us are facing the front entrance, while Clark and Alexei are facing the other way.
Alexei stands, his chair squeaking on the tile floor. “Didn’t know you were coming.”
Sterling’s here. “I’m here on business,” he snaps. When our mate put him up to bring into our pod, it was Grayson, Zion, and me. He made the important fourth, the male that can close the ring on a female’s fertility. The one that lets a pod becomeparents of podlets. Not for us—it didn’t work out for us. But that was a long time ago. And it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It’s just something that didn’t happen.
I stand and hold his eyes. I’ve long ago given up on assuming that Sterling knows what people want or don’t want. With my other pod mates, I can incline my head and give them the don’t-fuck-this-up-for-us look. But not with Sterling. “We are here on business too. More important business than whatever you’re doing.”
“Forrest, sit down.” Sterling turns from me and moves to the corner of the room in what I suppose is an attempt to blend in. There’s nothing about Sterling that blends in. He’s six feet, nine inches tall and dressed in a leather jacket, black tunic and trousers. There’s not a bit of decoration on him other than the octopus ink tattoos that are sticking out from beneath the cuffs of his tunic.
Years ago, we could go up against each other. Not that our mate let us. She’d diffused it, saying Sterling was full of eels’ blood and I needed to let him be. Letting him be somewhere else is what I should have done. Somewhere other than our pod. But now we’re stuck with him and all the frustration he brings.
“We’ll need to talk about this at home later,” I say.
His eyes flash at me. Sterling’s not one to cause a scene. Honestly, he thinks he’s the master of blending. He used to say he was the master of disguise and the deliverer of force. But then, we were all full of fish guts when we were younger. Things were strained between us before our mate died, and after? Yeah, it’s amazing force we haven’t killed each other.
Perhaps pursuing Blair is foolish. She seems like a sweet human, based on everything I’ve seen since I met her at the dock. Dealing with us? Yeah, she might not need that. Hell, I’m not sure I need it.
“Ho, I see those political wheels rolling around in your head Forrest. We’re not giving up on this. We can make the jellyfish brain see this will be good for us all.” Clark leans back but then gets up with his cup. “I’m getting some more tea. You want anything?”
“I’ll get it—and another plate of teacakes so we have some for when Blair shows up with the Portsmouth pod.” Zion picks up the tray, like he wasn’t the one who ate most of them. When he damn well was.
