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I flinched at the sound of my name. Leander was in front of me, carefully draping the flannel pajamas over my tail.
I knew I should have answered him, but I didn’t know what to say. He wouldn’t understand my tears. This excruciating flood of emotions. Legs or fins, he was whole and perfect. Literal royalty.
His hand smoothed over the back of my head, his fingers gently stroking through my hair. “You’re amazing,” he whispered, and the surprise of it made me pull away from his touch.
“I’mwhat?” I said with a hiccup.
“You know what I said.”
As he leaned back in the sand, I sucked in a sharp breath, realizing that he was completely naked in front of me. Flinging the pajamas at him, I shielded my tear-stained eyes with my elbow again. “C-cover yourself up, pervert!”
“Oh, so I’m a pervert now?” He chuckled, his feet shifting in the sand. I silently prayed he was putting the pants back on, but I refused to look and see for myself.
“I guess it was perverted of me, thinking that you might want to put them on when—” He paused as the bones in my fin cracked, my tail wrenching in two. “Yeah, when that happened.”
I gaped at my naked legs, completely stunned. I tried stretching my T-shirt down, but it wasn’t anywhere near long enough to cover what needed to be covered. My eyes flashed back to him, horrified that he might have looked, but he wasn’t looking at my waist.
Leander stared me down, a shit-eating grin slapped across his face. His blue eyes looked brighter when he smiled like that, the image bringing me back to when he used to tease me under the waves. I hated his tilted grin so much when we were younger, but somehow now, I—
“Bet you wish you hadn’t called me a pervert now, huh?” he teased, “’cause now I’m tempted to act the part.” Balling up the flannel pajamas, he held them hostage behind his back, his mortal manhood hanging on display for any passerby to see.
My cheeks were on fire. I had never felt so embarrassed. Seeing him was one thing, buthimseeingme?I wasn’t like him. I didn’t go around spewing flowery words and flaunting a pretty face.
He chuckled for a moment before dropping down in the sand next to me. Though he was respectfully keeping his chin up, the asshole didn’t even look embarrassed. Not even a bit.
“This is your fault,” I groaned, desperately raking sand onto my lap. Leander mimicked the motion and began pulling handfuls from behind us until we were both sitting like foolish children, our legs halfway buried in the sand.
The salty breeze teased through his tawny hair, and he cleared his throat, pressing his eyes shut whenever the air picked up. I watched his mouth ease open half a dozen times while we sat. Was he unsure of what to do next? That made two of us.
“So, what did you think of my transformation?”
Oh—that’s right. I’d nearly forgotten.
A vision of the betta fish sprung to mind, but instead of getting the urge to laugh, questions swirled in my mind. What had happened to him between now and when we were younger?
“I’m sorry I laughed,” I said with a shrug, not really feeling sorry at all. Whatever had caused the switch from attractive merman to pathetic betta fish, well, he probably deserved it.
Leander took a deep breath, the broad line of his shoulders slumping as he released it. “Something happened seven months ago.”
“Oh?” My head tilted. Seven months seemed like a long time to be a fish.
“No one knows why, but everyone in the kingdom was sapped of most of their magic all at once. It was like our powers were sealed off or… I don’t know.” His hands moved as he spoke, absently piling more sand over my lap. “After most of us washed up on shore, my father rounded us up, and we saved everyone that we could. We’ve been rebuilding up here on land ever since.”
“So you’re saying the Kingdom of the Atlantic was somehowcursed?” It was absurd to think anyone possessed that sort of command over the seas. One would think only Poseidon himself could strip merfolk of the powers he’d given them. But that made little sense. Why would Poseidon curse his own followers?
Leander eased back in the sand on his palms. “Not just our kingdom, but everykingdom in the entire ocean. We’ve been in contact with the Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Southern, and it’s the same everywhere. We’ve been reduced to stupid fish. None of us are strong enough to swim down to see what’s left of our kingdoms.”
“Well, I mean, you were abetta fish.It shouldn’t be too surprising that you don’t do well in the ocean as a freshwater fish.” I shrugged. It made sense merfolk wouldn’t know much about freshwater fish. I hadn’t known about them either until I started living on land.
Leander brushed the sand from his palms and raised a golden eyebrow. “A betta fish, eh? Well, whatever fish it is, it’s a real bitch to use its gills underwater.”
I stifled a laugh. The pieces of the puzzle were slowly falling into place. I had a good idea of how he’d ended up in my net. Like an idiot, he’d probably tried to swim down to the palace himself.
“But that doesn’t matter anymore. Not now that we have you.” His lips broadened into a grin, and he placed a hand over mine in the sand.
“Wait,what?”
“You just saw it, Nera! Err, I mean, Claira. Your tail. With you, we might be able to figure out what’s going on down there. Maybe even fix whatever is causing this curse,” he announced, completely serious, not a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
