Page 116 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

His chuckle was almost cruel. “Am I so disgusting to consider as a mate?”

I glanced up at him then. He’d always held a certain sharpness, an edge that toyed with danger in a way that had captivated me. There was a gentleness to him as well, a willingness to admit fault I’d rarely met in other people. The last thing I wanted was to offend him.

“No,” I murmured. “But I am not whatever you’ve made up in your head. I’ll never choose anyone but Kye.”

His eyes closed. “You say that now—”

“And I’ll say it later.”

His shoulders slipped. “You’d sentence yourself to a thousand years without a cordae before you’d take me.”

“It—it really isn’t about you,” I cringed.

Aegir shook his head. “I saved you in Rivea. Gave you my Naiads so you could escape. Brought you to Paria so you could find the second stone.”

“And? What are you saying, Aegir? You wouldn’t have done that if you’d known I’d reject you?” I frowned, a bite to my words now. “I thought you wanted to free the land and sea from Thaan.”

“Of course that’s what I want. I’d do anything to kill Thaan. Give anything.” His eyes darkened as he drank air deep into his lungs. “And I have. I’ve given everything.”

The bulb of distress between my ribs unfurled slowly, rooting into dark and bitter anger. I stepped away, hands clenched at my sides. “I’m not a consolation for defeating your enemy and ruling half the oceans.”

“That’s not what I think of you.”

“It must be,” I hissed through my teeth. “If that’s the only reason you offered me your help.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, as though I was a hysterical child. I backed away another step, my veins crackling with fire. “This. This isn’t how I expected things to go.”

“No? Did you lay in your little pool and dream of something else for the last twenty-five years?”

My venom must have startled him. He swung in the opposite direction to pace two steps before pivoting back. “Tell me you haven’t considered it.”

“I haven’t.”

“You will change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“A hundred years from now, when he has long since breathed his last breath, and everyone you once knew has left this world—” He moved in slowly, stepping so close his body heat surrounded me like a cage, but I stretched my neck, unwilling to retreat for him. Only when our faces might have collided did I withdraw, careful to avoid falling into one of the long pools below. But a cool, glassy shell wall met my back instead, and Aegir pressed me flat against it.

His nose skimmed the side of mine, the swell of his chest firm over my shoulders as he breathed in my air. “I’m a patient Naiad. The idea of waiting doesn’t intimidate me.”

“I’ve lived most of my life alone, Aegir.” I lifted my chin, forcing his invading mouth away. “It doesn’t intimidate me either.”

Leihani.

At the sound of Kye’s voice in my head, I jolted forward, shoving past Aegir’s shoulder and out the door. The colossal colony opened before me, Naiads buzzing along the winding ramp and in and out of tunnels like happy honeybees.

Are you there?

Yes, I said, searching for the way Aegir had led me in. Everything looked the same in here. A maze of a thousand hallways drilled throughout the shell.

Are you safe?

I wasn’t sure if Aegir had followed me into the colony or not, but I turned into the nearest corridor, massaging a sudden pounding between my brows. Yes. Did you make it to the palace?

He didn’t answer. Seconds dragged by. My shoulders and back tensed as I straightened, waiting. Striations tracked through the natural shell wall across from me, soft pinks and yellows and whites. My eyes roved the wavy lines in abstract panic, as if that might call his voice back to me, though in truth, I didn’t even see them.

Kye.