Page 32 of A Merman's Tail
“Why would you do this?” Father swam closer, and I raised my chin higher so I could stare up at where he floated in front of me.
“Because I love him and he’s mine, just as I am his.”
He laughed and it sounded cruel and mocking. “Do you think he will love you after finding out who you really are? He didn’t know your name, Lyric, or that you were one of us. His hatred for mermen will stop him from loving you.”
Fear became stuck in my chest, and I swallowed around a lump that formed in my throat. It was a thought I’d considered, and it terrified me, but I’d always thought he’d never find out. I wasn’t going to let that stop me, though. I loved him, even if Father never understood. “If that is the consequence of saving him, I will accept it, Father, but I will not back down. Give me my human, or I will destroy this city.”
He shook his head and glanced at Grandfather, like he’d have answers.
Grandfather frowned at me. “This is not you, Lyric.”
“It wasn’t me, no, but I’ve learned things while being a human, Grandfather. I am not weak or crazy, and I will not be stared down on because of my love for humans. I never realized how weird I was to our people, and how they’d only smile at me because I was their prince. If you take away that title, what was I to them? The….” I smiled. “My human calls it freak. You see, Ethan is a freak to his people, too. They call him crazy, but to me, he’s perfect, and I won’t leave without him.”
“You willnotbe leaving. You are staying here, and the witch will give you back your tail. This is not a request, Lyric, it is an order.”
I laughed, and it startled my father. He jerked back. “You seem to think you have control of me. You don’t. Give me back my human, or I leave now and bring back an army to destroy this place.”
“An army?” Father snorted. “You think you’re powerful, but you said it yourself, the humans think your Ethan is insane. What makes you think they’ll follow you?”
“Because I’ll make them.” I shoved my feet against the ground and floated higher so I was face to face with him. “Try me. See what happens. Ethan’s taught me quite a lot in the time I’ve been with him. He’s taught me to be confident in myself, and I’d do anything for him.”
Father’s nostrils flared, and he raised his hand as though he was going to strike me. Wily shot forward and grabbed his wrist in a tight hold.
“Father, stop!” Wily shot a glare at me, and I backed away. “Do not underestimate Lyric. He is one of us and you know what we are capable of.”
“You mean drowning those humans who were washed off their boats in storms?” I sneered.
Wily shot me a look I knew well by now. Surprise. They were so quick to assume I was innocent to what they were doing, and I hated that. Before Ethan, I hadn’t realized how much I’d disliked it. I’d gone along with their life so easily because I’d thought it was my only option. Well, in Ethan’s words, fuck that!
“You are no more innocent than the humans that you claim are murderers.” The more I spoke, the more confident I felt. I surged forward until I was in my father’s face again. “You’ve probably killed more of them than they have of us.”
My father’s jaw twitched and he shook Wily’s hold off his wrist. “I did what I had to in order to keep you and our people safe.”
I grinned. “No, Father, you murdered because you hate them. Well, I’m one of them now, and the witch, whose name is Taya by the way, isn’t going to change me back. I won’t allow it.” I poked him in the chest, and both Wily and father’s eyes widened comically. “Get my human. Now.”
Grandfather swam forward, but Father raised his palm to him, stopping him from coming any closer. Father huffed. “You want your human so badly, Lyric? You can have him.” He waved his hand and the guards came fast behind me. I hadn’t even noticed them until they had a grip on each of my arms. I struggled, but they were stronger than me. They had to be while living in the ocean with strong currents.
“Let me go!” I hissed, but Father sneered.
“Take him to his human. He’ll be happy in the cell next to him.”
“Fuck off,” I yelled, but I realized none of them would know the meaning of the words. It was so… human. The guards dragged me toward the back of the castle where I knew there was a path that led down into a deeper part of the ocean where Father had specifically put barred cells for the merfolk who gave him trouble. There hadn’t been many over the years because my father was feared. I never understood why they were scared of him, not until the day I saw him drag that human down to drown.
I struggled against the guards’ hold, but there was nothing I could do to win against them. The hardest part about being a human was my lack of strength compared to the merfolk. Beneath the surface, humans didn’t hold the same power as they did.
They opened the door to the cell and threw me in, although I floated back rather than crashed to the floor like I would have on land. I raced forward, but by the time I got to the door, they’d already slammed it closed and locked it.
“Fucking assholes!” I screamed at them.
“So that’s how you talk.”
I froze at the familiar voice and turned toward the cell next to mine. I couldn’t stop the gasp from escaping my mouth even if I’d wanted to. “Ethan?”
He stepped closer, and I chewed on my bottom lip as I got a better look at him. There weren’t any words to describe how he looked right now, with his face beaten and swollen, crisscrossed cuts over his face very similar to the ones Taya had. His right eye could barely open and the sight made me sick to the stomach.
“You can speak,” he said with a narrowed glare out of the one eye that was open. He wrapped his fingers around the bars between our cells until his knuckles turned white and the urge to vomit worked its way up my throat. This wasn’t my human that had fallen off the boat.
“The witch made it possible. He took my voice to begin with.” I shifted closer to him, unafraid of him and the anger washing over his face. “Did they do this to you?”
