Page 89 of Ballad of Sea and Sky

I didn’t add that mates almost always fell in love because of the bond. It would only make her even more doubtful of my true feelings for her.

She frowned at me, and I cleared my throat. Get a fucking grip, Caspian. “There’s usually a handfasting then,” I continued, “wherein both sides make vows to the other and their bond is formally recognized. But partners do not join formally unless they know they are mates.”

“So…” she said, that clever mind clearly turning through the logic of siren custom. “For this to actually work, we would need to pretend to be mates as well.”

I gave her a sharp look, my jaw ticcing again. Fuck,hadI made the right call?

“Unless you already have one?” she added quickly. “In selkie culture, the matches are arranged and matings sealed by a priestess. There’s no fate involved.”

“Romantic,” I murmured darkly, thinking of Vitulus and feeling irrationally angry at the idea of him ever touching my mate.

“Not all of us can have starbound romances,” she said exasperatedly. “It truly sounds like something from a story. But we don’t have to,” she added quickly as if embarrassed. I realized I couldfeelher embarrassment, and it made me feel like complete shit. “It was just a thought.”

“Marina,” I said, pressing a finger to her lips to still her rambling. “Do you remember what I told you, before you dove into that lake?”

“Yes,” she breathed, heartbeat quickening. “But I’m afraid I’m rather sore right now.”

I laughed, my brilliant, witty mate never failing to amuse me even when she was desperately injured. Skies, I loved her.

I cupped her cheek, pressing a feather-light kiss to her lips. “Pretendingto be your mate will not be a problem, Urchin,“ I said, giving her a heated look. It was the closest I dared get to the truth. “Will it be a problem for you?”

“No,” she said a bit breathlessly. I chuckled, and she tried to shrug nonchalantly, wincing as she jarred her broken ribs. “I can do anything for a month. As long as I can put up with you for that long.”

“Oh, believe me, Princess,” I drawled, a grin curving my lips as I resolved to make her fall in love with me this month. “I can make my presence extremely favorable to you, if you wish.”

I could swear I felt annoyance from her, and I grinned at the flush of desire that accompanied it.

“So will we be sharing a room then?” she asked as I rose from the bed to let her get some rest.

“Of course,” I said in surprise, as if our sharing had ever been a question. If nothing else, I didn’t think I could sleep without her now.

I could definitely spare a room for her, but my selflessness only extended so far.

“What do you mean, of course?” she asked indignantly. “You weren’t going to ask me if I wanted to first?”

“Nope,” I said, grinning as I picked up the breakfast tray and carried it from the room. “You’ll share my bed while you are here for the same reason you’ll not be leaving my side.”

“And why is that?” she asked, still sounding flustered.

“Because,” I replied, giving her a serious look. Regardless of my feelings, this was a matter of her safety. I had no desire to risk a repeat of the violence from thelasttime a Siren King had been challenged for his decisions. “I need my people and the council to know that you are mine.”

“Youareafoolin love,” Zephyr chastised, punching me hard in the arm later that night, after I finished explaining everything that had happened to us since we left the Argo.

We sat in my sitting room, Zephyr glaring at me and Astraios watching us with a shit-eating grin on his face as he thoroughly enjoyed my dressing down.

“Ow,” I complained, still feeling sore and tired myself from the flight home. My first priority had been Marina, and I hadn’t properly slept or eaten since we arrived.

Marina had been asleep off and on all day, adamantly insisting that she could handle company after dinner and a short nap. The nap was going on four hours now.

“Serves you right,” she grumbled. “How do you think this will end, Cas?”

“I’m hoping it won’t,” I said, earning yet another punch in the arm and a bark of laughter from Astraios.

“It didn’t end well thelasttime a selkie and a siren were mated,“ she pointed out sternly, “and it’s likely to end in disaster this time, too.”

“That was different,” I snapped. The selkies had twisted their tales to make us the villains instead of the victims in their history. Sirens weren’t completely blameless, our piracy born of desperation, but fueling the fires of discord. But I was determined to right that wrong for the sake of my people. “No one will hurt her.”

The look I gave Zephyr made her flinch, and I tried to reel the protectiveness of the new mating bond back in with an apologetic sigh.