Page 23 of Little Shake of Salt

Oh gods. I did not have time to deal with his antics right now.

This was the thing about my family. All of them were needy. They always wanted my help.

“Sister,” Adonis said, crossing his bulky arms. “Where have you been?”

“You know where,” I said, pushing past him. Our guards followed us as I glided faster through the water, heading straight for the passageway between civilian homes.

“Marina,” he growled. “You missed breakfast.”

“I was with my mate.”

Suddenly, he was right in front of me.

Fucking Adonis. He was going to be all big brother about this, wasn’t he? This is why I preferred Shel, my younger brother who worked with me.

“Your mate? Where are they? I didn’t know?—”

“Sheis on the surface,” I said sternly.

Adonis’s eyes softened. “A human.”

“Yes,” I said.

“How did you meet her?”

“The Barista owed me a favor after his offspring portaled me to a bathtub in a human apartment.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “The Barista. Of course. You should talk to Nerio then when he returns in a couple days, I’m sure he’ll have much advice for being mated to a human. I’d forgotten about you being portaled away, it was quite jarring.”

“It was. Also, I already spoke to Nerio. Well, I spoke to Ofelia, and I know she told him already about my human. Now, do you need something? I need to talk to some of our friends with human mates. I want to speak to Delphin and Aegaeon again.” They’d been very excited for me when we last spoke, which was very sweet. I loved them dearly.

“Why? What is so urgent?”

“I want to figure out long-term living arrangements for humans here,” I said.

Adonis’s eyes widened, and I pushed past him. He wasnotgoing to stop me. No one was going to stop me. There had to be a way to make this happen, and I was a princess, gods damn it. Merpeople had magic, and plenty of it. Surely there was a way for us to dosomething.

My older brother followed hot on my tail, never letting up, even as I reached the sixth quarter along the outer wall where I set up my office. I went through the doorway and wasn’t surprised to see Shel already there with blueprints spread out over a table.

He glanced up from it and cocked his head. “AdonisandMarinaandtwo guards. What’s happening now? I thought you were with your mate.”

Adonis growled. “So he knew too?”

“You act like we talk every day,” I sniffed, shooting him a dark look.

My brothers looked very similar, and yet they were so different. Adonis had bright orange scales and long silver hair that billowed around him in the water. Shel’s scales were a deep cerulean blue, and his hair was pitch black. He kept it back in a bun, as he claimed it got in the way while swimming. He wasn’t wrong.

“I want to create a space for human mates,” I said. “And other monster mates, for that matter. We have friends who are mated to witches and gargoyles and dragons and all sorts of creatures—not just humans. We have magic. Can’t we come up with something?”

“Mother Nature works against us, sister,” Adonis said, crossing his arms.

Shel shook his head. “It was tried. About five hundred years ago, correct?”

“Yes, before we had as much knowledge,” I said. “We are friends with more creatures who use magic. Surely some witch has a spell.”

“Maybe your Grim Reaper friend could help,” Adonis teased.

“He’s hardly a friend,” I muttered. “The Barista owes our family for the favor we did for him centuries ago. But, his entire family will probably be the end of us all.”