They stepped into the ocean, advancing steadily into the waves. Tristan was still holding Austin’s elbow.
“What about Bee and Dew? And Goldilocks?”
“Southerners. Goldilocks kept to his own territory when I came, and my brother has an amicable relationship with him. Bee and Dew are descendants of the court I chased away, but they were not part of it. They do not cause enough trouble tobother with them.” Tristan waved a dismissive hand. “I will not have them in my court, for obvious reasons.”
Austin’s delight sharpened. He was supremely pleased to hear someone else disliked the stupid mermen. He finally pulled from Tristan’s grip and hummed, sinking neck-deep into the water and kicking backwards to keep pace with Tristan’s walk. When it proved slightly too fast, he reached out and set his hand on Tristan’s firm abdomen to get pulled along.
Tristan looked at that hand, muscles flexing beneath Austin’s fingers. His eyes flitted sideways to meet Austin’s.
Austin felt the right thing to do was smile.
“And Adonis?”
“Southern born, given the family line but…” Tristan waved a distracted hand down the coastline. He was staring at Austin’s mouth. “Northern-raised in some capacity. He outgrew the strength of his family line tenfold.”
“Are you stronger than him?” Austin pressed.
Tristan met his eyes. There was no hesitation. “Yes.”
Chapter Eight
They passed the point where Austin could touch the bottom, but the water was friendly here, unlike the disobedient wave that had torn him from his cottage shore and refused to listen when Austin ordered it to stop.
Tristan waited until Austin let go of him, then dipped beneath the next wave. His trousers and shirt floated to the surface, then sank as Tristan’s transformation bubbled through the water beneath them. Austin watched Tristan swim by, an immense shadow catching him off guard. Austin was so accustomed to seeing Bee and Dew with their perfectly proportioned tails that the wavy sight of one four times their length threw him. Adonis’s tail dwarfed them, but Tristan’s was larger again, in length and bulk alike.
Tristan brushed his tail fin—his fluke—against Austin’s ankle as he passed, causing a swell strong enough to spin Austin in place.
When Austin didn’t follow him out, Tristan circled back, breaching the waterline with a disquieted expression. His black hair was secured back in a knot, but errant strands stuck to his temples, water sluicing down his tanned skin. “It is difficult for me in the shallows.” Tristan grasped his wrist, and when Austin—busy studying Tristan’s gills flaring beneath his jaw—didn’tobject to the touch, Tristan pulled him along, diving when it was deep enough.
Even underwater, the pristine white shore continued in every direction, disappearing into the blue haze of the ocean. Tristan brought him out to about ten feet deep, then fifteen, then perhaps twenty. At thirty feet, he slowed, releasing Austin’s arm, and swam a slow circle around him. Austin breathed out, letting himself sink as the pressure of the water snuffed out the pain in his muscles. He spun, studying Tristan.
Though clearly an apex predator, Tristan’s tail moved up and down like a whale rather than side to side like a shark. It was emerald green, bar around his hips, and down his sides, and another patch just before his fluke. It was some sort of irregular pattern? It seemed more like mismatched smudges.
Austin swam forward, cutting off Tristan’s slow circle. Tristan watched as Austin caught his fin and held him still.
Up close, he saw the smudges were actually discoloured scales, and Austin released an agitated hum as he realised what he was looking at. Teeth marks. Large, jagged and slightly irregular. Whatever it was had torn on the way out, though the way the scales were now healed, it had been a long time ago.
Sunlight dappled through the water, lighting up Tristan’s tail enough that Austin could make a thorough investigation. On his fluke, there was a series of serrated cuts along the edge with scarring, but like the teeth marks, the wounds looked ancient. Austin worked his way up, inspecting every scar and discolouration until he was at Tristan’s sides, where scale merged with skin and gills fluttered across his ribs.
He felt Tristan’s chest as he had his tail, the merman allowing the inspection with the same confident feeling as hisyesto Austin’s question of whether he was stronger than Adonis. Austin supposed he understood the confidence. Every inch of Tristan was firm, strong muscle.
A querying hand touched his wrist. Fingers crept beneath the braided strap of his sleeve and tugged. Despite the glint of eagerness in Tristan’s eyes, his touch was restrained enough that it wasmay I?Notmy turn.
It was then that Austin reached the end of his ability to hold his breath. He eyed the surface above as he touched the slits under his jaw. He looked at Tristan’s gills on his neck, flaring regularly. He thought of the bath, and the relief that came from breathing in the water.
Austin shut his eyes and breathed in. Cool ocean water filled his nose, slid down the back of his throat. And here it stopped its descent, jetting suddenly out of his neck instead of flooding his lungs and drowning him. The relief of oxygen filled his body, lightening his head. He did it again and again, but the relief and peace did not change. He could breathe. His neck wasn’t cut open but had morphed to form gills.
A gentle touch on his shoulder. Austin opened his eyes to find Tristan’s questioning gaze on him. Austin waved it off. Breaking away from Tristan, he swam down. Deeper than he’d gone before. Deeper than even he could have made it back to the surface on a held breath. The ocean darkened. Austin sensed the seabed, the sand turning slowly to rocks, where fish flitted between hiding spots. Amongst the rocks were clumps of seaweed and ocean flora; Austin felt their life in the current, but only a few more metres of descent and the plant life was gone once more.
He came to a cold spot and stopped. He sensed the seabed dropping suddenly away and felt for the edge. A cold pit stretched on forever. Austin strained his eyes staring into the black, imagining shadows swimming in the dark. Perhaps a shark, or a great beast of some sort—something vicious enough to have tried eating Tristan. Austin thought of Cessair, rotting in a hole like this at the bottom of the ocean. But a less certainpart of him reminded himself, as it always did, that despite several explorations of the wreck of Cessair’s research tanker, theInfinite,the man’s body was never recovered.
Austin sensed Tristan swim by.
The pressure of the water above was enough to counteract Austin’s natural buoyancy, making him fall. The ocean wanted to sink him into its depths. Very tired, Austin sat on the shelf. His limbs shook, the muscles spent after swimming under so much pressure. Even able to breathe underwater, he wouldn’t make the swim back to the cottage. He’d sink.
Tristan circled back. For so large a creature, he moved quietly. He took hold of Austin and pulled him along, guiding him back the way they had come.
Austin must have passed out. The next thing he knew, his cheek was cushioned on Tristan’s shoulder and the merman was carrying him across land. Austin blinked awake as he was lowered onto a bed, managing only a sleepy, questioning, “Hm?”
