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“Thank you, Aleena, Arina. You may go back to your family,” a deep voice drifted from the other side of the curtain. A muscled arm pulled the fabric back, and Aleena glanced at me, a worried look on her face. Turning back, she blew Leander a kiss—a sentiment he seemed to ignore—and strode through the curtain, Arina following closely at her heels.
Leander stepped into the back room of the brig, letting the fabric fall back behind him.
“You know, I never thought much of you, Leander. But abduction? That’s a new low.” My eyes narrowed as he drew closer to my cage.
It’d been over a month since the last time I’d seen him. What an idiot I’d been, thinking it was going to be the last.
After our reunion, he had apparently taken time to clean himself up. His sleek hair shone like spun gold, the loose waves teasing over his brow line.
Crouching down at the cage’s door, Leander ran a hand through that otherworldly hair of his, the ruffled strands falling right back into place the moment his fingers passed through. I stared at him through the wooden slats, but his eyes wouldn’t meet mine.
“I’m sorry, Claira. I didn’t know he was going to lock you up like this. You know how my father can be.” His voice was low and drawn out, as if he was carefully considering each word before he spoke it.
“Do I know?” I asked, my tone laced with venom. “Because honestly, I was just a child when I knew him, and forgive me,my prince, but I haven’t really been keeping up with undersea politics these last few years.”
White fabric pulled tight over the expanse of Leander’s chest as he took in a deep breath. “I didn’t mean for him to find out, but you don’t understand what it’s like for us here. You saw them out there. And not just them. Thousands of lives are at stake. All the merfolk in the entire ocean,” he said, his knuckles twining and pulling at his hair again. “I had to reach out to the other kingdoms just to see if there was anyone else—anyone else like you that still had their tail. I didn’t mean for this. I—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be a prince?” I growled, and Leander’s gaze shot up from under the canopy of his fringe. “Stop giving me all these excuses. Merman up. Look me in the eyes and admit that you’re the reason they shoved me in this cage, Leander!”
A red tint rose over Leander’s cheeks, but he squared his jaw. Eyes focusing, his gaze penetrated me much like his father’s eyes just had. A trail of ice skated up my spine.
“I’m the reason you’re in this cage.”
Satisfied, I nodded. “So what comes next? Am I bound for the gallows? Keelhauled? Executed, maybe, for daring to be abandoned by my own father?”
He let out a heavy sigh and held his palm up to the lock. “No, Claira. The king only put you in here because he’s scared.”
“Scared?” I laughed bitterly. “I don’t think there is anything King Eamon is afraid of.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, the words a breathy whisper. “There’s a lot to fear when a king has lost his kingdom. He technically isn’t even the king if you go by the Law of the Ocean.”
I paused, thinking back to how he had been sitting on the throne. “His trident.”
“That’s right.” Leander nodded, then clenched his fist, dragging his knuckles against the wooden cage. “It’s still underwater. That’s why I went and… well, that’s the reason I ended up in your net. And that’s also why we need you to get it back before someone or something else finds it.”
“There’s just one gaping hole in your plan,” I said plainly. His head cocked, one of his eyebrows rising in interest. “Several, really. But the main problem is I hate you. You think you can have me beat up, tied up, trunked up, half suffocated, freaking dragged all over, thrown in a pit of splinters, and then order me to help you?”
I took in a quick breath just so I could continue. “No, just—no. Only a few weeks ago, you were arrogant enough to say that you had thought we’d beenfriendsthis entire time, but look at us! Look at where you are, and look at where I am. Is this how you treat your friends, Leander? Selling them out, binding them up, and throwing them into cages when they won’t go along with your every command?”
Unable to contain my rage any longer, I reared back and body-slammed the front of the cage like a rabid animal. “You are nothing! Not a friend, hardly a prince, no better than a worthless, scummy bottom feeder!”
Leander jerked away from the rocking cage and straightened up on his feet. For a moment, he watched me, but when it was painfully clear there was nothing more to be said between us, he finally slipped back through the curtain.That’s what I thought.
Spit frothed in my mouth, adrenaline making my pulse come alive. If I’d been able to run in circles, I would have—anything to work off the burst of energy that was suddenly surging through my veins.
My eyes darted over every inch of the cage, taking in every splintered piece of wood some naïve mer had crudely nailed together. Whoever had done it sure knew little about making effective cages—they had used repurposed wood from old pallets and driven all the nails in from the outside.
Those idiot harpies might have patted me down, but they’d left me with the greatest weapon I could have hoped for: my steel-toed boots.
Now that I was alone, this was my chance. I pulled back my knee, lining my boot up with the side of one of the wooden slats, but fabric rustled, and Leander came back through the curtain before I could give it a good kick, holding a thick, woolen blanket in his arms.
He set it down next to the cage where I could easily reach it. That is, if my hands weren’t bound behind my back. What did he expect me to do? Grab it with my teeth?
“I don’t need your damn pity,” I spat out, and I meant it. I would have preferred freezing to death over using a blanket he’d given me.
“You’ll be glad you have it.” His velvety tone wrapped around my ears. “The furnace is on a timer, and well, it gets fucking cold at night.”
“If you really want to help me, you’ll keep those two mermaids—the creepy, quiet one and that bitch girlfriend of yours—far, far away from me,” I said, my eyes focusing on a particularly weak-looking spot of wood. “I might be bound, caged, and kidnapped, but I don’t need babysitters.”
