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“Were you able to locate enough of them?” Barren asked in his thick accent, ignoring me and my question. She nodded, and her dark-stained lips hardened as he reached in to retrieve a leather pouch hanging from her rearview mirror.
I watched her face change with his arm’s approach, pinching like she’d glimpsed something unpleasant. “That’s all I could come up with,” she said evenly, though her shoulders were stiff. “I believe there’s enough there to satisfy Queen Javalynn, wouldn’t you agree?”
Barren let the bag spread out over his palm, weighing its contents. He bounced it lightly, causing something to clack around inside, then tilted his chin like it would have to do.
“Excellent.” The Mustang’s engine revved. “You can take an extra year off my debt for the trouble of getting them to you so fast.”
Barren’s eyebrows creased, but the woman made sure she was gone before he could contradict her.
An extra year off her debt. Did I even want to know what she meant by that?
“Thanks for the harpoons, Barren.” I hugged them close, feeling thankful I’d be going back into the water armed with more than a utility knife.
“Yeah, these’ll be great.” Leander came around to pull them out of my arms, and even though it was the first thing he’d said aloud since our talk back in the hotel room, I only gave up one.
“You don’t need both, Leander.” I pursed my lips, watching him slide the harpoon’s corded strap over his shoulder.
We needed to have a talk. I’d expected to get right into it when I walked back from the shore, but then he noticed Kai following behind me. One look at Kai’s shirt, ripped and soaked with sea water, and Leander’s eyes hadn’t met mine since.
Even now, he wasn’t looking at me, just at the harpoon I held. His fingers twitched like he couldn’t wait to get his hands on it, but I held it tight.
“You’re right,” Leander mumbled, turning away from me to adjust the cord on his shoulder. “One will be more than enough to slay those dark spawn fuckers. But Iwantboth.”
“Slay?” I gulped, inspecting the tip of my weapon in the light. Deadly sharp. It could kill a fish easily enough, but to use it on a cecaelia?
They were part human, just like merfolk, weren’t they? Or were they more cold-blooded undersea creatures than anything else, unable to develop legs and come on land?
“That’s only if they attack us first, ri—hey!”
Barren pulled the harpoon out of my grasp easily, as if he were plucking a ribbon of seaweed up from loose sand. The pouch he’d grabbed from the Mustang’s mirror hung at his wrist, its leather cord catching around his muscled forearm like a bracelet. He hooked the harpoon under the thick strap he wore across his chest while I gawked.
“You’re coming with us?” I asked, surprised. Barren grunted something that might have been ayeah, and I cut a glance over to Leander. “You want me to take both of you?”
Being carried around by Leander was humiliating enough. I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of being strung between two mermen. Plus, I figured I’d be able to talk things out with Leander on the way. Make up, maybe. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted, but Leander acting like this, not even looking at me, felt like my heart was being plucked out piece by piece.
Leander shrugged, his arms crossing like the excitement of his new weapon had already worn off and he’d suddenly remembered he was supposed to be cranky. “If Barren’s willing to help, I don’t see a problem.”
I frowned and scuffed the toe of my boot over the pavement. Goodbye, harpoon.Yet again, I’d have to make do with the knife I kept hidden in my boot.
The lobby doors opened, and Kai walked out, his hands smoothing down the buttoned front of a fresh, dry shirt. His eyes lit up like fireworks at the sight of the harpoons. “Dude!”
“Right?” I chuckled, throwing Leander and Barren glances. “I thought I was going to get to carry one, but nope. They’re being stingy.”
Kai swung around me with a smile, his arm casuallylanding over my shoulders. “They’re just intimidated by you. Man, when you speared that mermaid’s foot! You guys saw her do that, right?”
Warmth beat against my face at the compliment. Me, intimidating? Though I had gotten her good, hadn’t I? Aleena would probably sport the bloody reminder of my rage for weeks to come.
“No?” Kai shrugged, his back straightening. “Well, where’s my pokey stick? You can carry mine.”
“Yours?” Leander said, his voice low in warning. “And what makes you think you’ve got a part in this?”
He stepped forward, and I put myself between them before Barren could pull one of them away.
“Kai is very capable,” I asserted, propping a hand against Leander’s chest like I believed I had the power to hold him back if I wanted. I didn’t, of course, but maybe intimidation was one of my strengths. “I bet he’s just as accomplished a warrior as either of you.”
Leander looked down at me, eyes storming. I held my breath as I waited for him to call my bluff, but he didn’t. In fact, he pulled back, turning away like my touch had repelled him. “Fine. You want him to come, let him come.”
Crap.Had I just agreed to go down there with all three of them holding on to me like a trio of leeches?
