Secrets of the Sea Lord Read online

  Secrets of the Sea Lord

  Lords of Atlantis

  Starla Night

  Copyright © 2019 Starla Night

  All rights reserved.

  Cover by Earthly Charms.

  Edited by Linda Ingmanson and Kim at LindaEdits.com. (I wrote more after they finished it. The version they handed me was gorgeous and perfect. Any errors introduced into the book are 100% my fault. I can’t handle perfection.)

  Created with Vellum

  Blurb

  He is lithe, gorgeous, and his kisses taste like rain. But how can I be his queen? I don’t even have a country.

  Harmony is terrified when she awakens on a raft in the middle of the ocean with a deadly, tattooed Lord of the Sea hulking over her. But she quickly realizes he’s the one who saved her from the storm—and that joining his undersea world is the only way she’ll survive.

  Mer warlord Faier dreads his bride’s terror as she stares on his wrecked body. A lifetime of honorable service has destroyed his ability to woo a mate.

  …Or can the purehearted female look past his scars when she willingly takes his muscled arm?

  This star-crossed pair is stranded deep in forbidden territory. Their foe has no compunction about killing Faier and taking Harmony. Because, according to the ancient laws, Faier is the true enemy. Until a long-buried secret changes everything…

  A warrior chained by duty. A bride who refuses any claim. A secret that will untangle a decades-old mystery of the deep.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Seduced by the Sea Lord ~ Brief Excerpt

  Also by Starla Night

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The sea was hot and rough. Blue sky extended in every direction. Choppy waves sprayed her storm-torn raft.

  She’d survived.

  Harmony’s mouth tasted sour, and gunk crusted her eyelashes. Salt powder? It stung. She hung her head over the side of the rotted wood, cupped a handful of seawater, and washed her face. Then she stared out.

  The sun baked the ocean into a watery desert. Miles and miles of gummy, bleary, Caribbean desert.

  She was alone.

  Dread pooled in her stomach.

  Harmony pulled herself back into the raft and ducked her head against the glaring sun. Her dry throat hurt. She tried to swallow.

  She was alone in the middle of the ocean. No food. No water.

  No protection.

  So, she was vulnerable to the monstrous Sea Lords.

  She had to—

  What was that?

  A shadow moved on the other side of the raft.

  Shadow?

  Harmony rubbed her eyes again. Her vision sharpened.

  A humanoid creature crouched on the far side. Dark, wet hair obscured his face. Sloping shoulders betrayed a broad back and tough, muscular limbs. Purple marks slashed his rubbery skin.

  Her blood ran cold.

  Monster.

  He halted and rose. Towering.

  A dead fish hung in one knotted hand. Bare bones reflected white.

  The monster tilted his head to profile. Torn flesh dangled from his teeth.

  She sucked in an endless breath.

  Between the wet locks of hair, a dark eye fixed on her, stopping her heart. Strange iris. Brown with mauve threads. Like fish scales, the mauve threads gleamed, mesmerizing.

  Her belly tingled with warning. The monster had hunted. And now, she was his prey.

  He dropped the dead fish and turned on her.

  Harmony screamed.

  Chapter One

  Twenty-five hours earlier…

  “This is the spot.”

  Harmony pointed to the nautical chart. Rough waves plunged the yacht up and down. Her finger roved over the chart. She peered out the skinny galley window and tried to swallow back her sour throw-up.

  “And today is the date. The date and the spot. Yes, this is definitely the spot.”

  “Then where is your sea monster?” Her ex-boyfriend, Lifet, flicked ash onto his wildly rocking metal tray. It missed and tumbled to the grimy floor. “Where is his sea pearl as big as a man’s head?”

  “Sea Opal.” She forced the throw-up down.

  “Yes. Where is it?”

  “We have to wait. My great-grandmother’s tribe said he’ll come here.”

  “To these exact coordinates. Right near the Florida islands. Where the Coast Guard likes to chase little fish. Eh?”

  She swallowed hard. This wasn’t about her life anymore. Her life was over. One way or another. “We have to wait.”

  Lifet threw his twisted stogie into his ashtray and leaned into her space. “If you are wrong, your cousin dies.”

  Sour acid pushed like a fist against the back of her throat. Her throat muscles worked. She must be as green right now as her little eleven-year-old cousin, Evens, had been when Lifet’s lieutenants had dragged him out of class while his teachers had looked on, helpless.

  In the Haitian ghetto, the local gangster was king.

  “Understand me?” Lifet’s hot breath sprayed her with spittle.

  She nodded tightly.

  Lifet’s cheeks grayed to the ash color of his marijuana. The last shipment’s drugs had made him angry and paranoid. He had been smoking so much recently.

  She got only an instant’s warning.

  His dark aura changed from dangerous to deadly.

  Lifet lunged out of his seat and clenched her throat. He screamed so loud, her ears rang. “Understand me?”

  She squeaked.

  “Understand me?”

  If she opened her mouth to answer, she would projectile vomit in his face.

  “Understand me? Konprann!”

  “Lifet…” His second-in-command, Jean-Baptiste, shifted in his gold velvet seat. A Panamanian beer sweated in his diamond-adorned hands. “You told me to say something…like, you need to calm down…”

  “She’s not answering me!” He shook Harmony. “You are betraying me. That’s it! You are lying and betraying me. M ‘pral’ touyew!”

  “I think she’s seasick.”

  “Leading me into a trap. Eh? I’ll kill your cousin. I’ll rip his little head off. You want that?”

  She clawed at his hand, tearing up as he squeezed. “Nnn. Pleehee. Nnn.”

  “She’s seasick, Lifet. Seasick.”

  “And then I’ll kill you. Throw you into the ocean where you meet this mythical, money-bearing sea-beast. You know the only reason I don’t kill you right now? For running away? And lying to me?”

  The room went fuzzy with her tears.

  “Because of that.” He jutted a stubby finger at the massive white Sea Opal locked in a velvet display box bolted to the wall. “Because your stick-wielding jungle tribe had that. In a shrine. To your mythical sea-beast.”

  She tried to nod her understanding.<
br />
  He leaned in and whispered, “If you lie to me, I will chop you into pieces and feed you to him. You think he will eat your body? He’s already planning to eat your soul.”

  “Nnn—”

  “Don’t lie!” He shoved.

  The floor fell away beneath, and then the cabinet door slammed into her forehead. Her head rang like a bell. She collapsed onto the gritty wood.

  Lifet moved in and out of her range of vision. He lifted the thick, metal ashtray over her stunned body. His lieutenant seized it. They wrestled out of her vision again.

  Once, Lifet had been nice. Smooth. A player to end all players, and he’d made her smile with his pickup lines cribbed from American movies. He’d been a bright spot in the hell that had increasingly defined her spinning-out-of-control life.

  His boss had a boat, he’d said. Maybe one day, he could smuggle her back to America, he’d said. They could eat a Sonic Burger and shop at Walmart and never run into Customs and Immigration. He’d said.

  And being the girlfriend of a gangster had had benefits. An American who couldn’t speak a word of French or Kreyòl in Haiti stuck out. She’d been in real, daily danger. Lifet had kept her safe.

  Until the years had passed. His eyes had grown dull. His aura had turned dark. He’d risen from carefree gang member escaping his own hell to an unstable, backstabbing, deadly gang leader.

  Beating her offered him more stress relief than sex.

  Evens had gotten so scared for her. He’d convinced her to flee into the jungle to shelter with the mysterious great-grandmother Customs and Immigration officials had found in Haiti, the whole reason she’d been deported to there rather than to any other Caribbean island.

  Her great-grandmother had been only too happy to meet her. With long flaring hair and wild eyes, shrieking like a voodoo priest, she had foretold a prophecy to curdle Harmony’s blood.

  You will restore our tribe to its rightful glory by sacrificing your soul to the all-powerful Sea Lord.

  She’d thought that terrible prophecy was her darkest hour.

  But now, Harmony was stuck between two horrors. One, that Lifet would lose to impatience and kill her and Evens.

  Or two, that the monster Sea Lord would appear to exchange his gemstone for dragging her to the bottom of the sea and consuming her soul.

  Lightning streaked the dark sky, and torrential rain beat the windows. The radio growled in French. She picked out the few words she had learned. She was so wretched with languages.

  …pluie…danger…orage…alarme…ouragon…

  “Ouragon” sounded like “hurricane.” A word she’d learned too well in Haiti when her middle-class house was made of tin plates tied to sticks.

  She could die at sea. That was a third horror she hadn’t considered.

  So many horrors she hadn’t considered.

  “I will kill her!” Lifet screamed, still out of sight. “Kill her!”

  “When she betrays you,” Jean-Baptiste, his most reasonable lieutenant, soothed. “When she betrays you, Lifet. It won’t be long. Go. Have a walk.”

  Lifet crossed her vision with a polished black machine gun. He pointed it at the ceiling. “I will turn back this storm! You know the most frightening monster on this ocean? Me!”

  He exited. The door slammed.

  Her stomach lifted and dropped and lifted. The yacht’s rocking was getting worse. The lights extinguished and then flickered on. From below, she heard the frantic talk of the crew sailing the ship. Gang members struggled to keep the yacht afloat and stay out of Lifet’s way.

  Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.

  He was literally shooting at the storm.

  Everything hurt.

  Her entire body was made of stone. Her bones. Her chin. Her forehead.

  How much longer could she wait for a rescue?

  She closed her eyes.

  Evens was counting on her.

  Lifet was too insane. He’d kidnapped Evens and he would never let him go. Even if she traded her soul for a Sea Opal, her cousin would never be released to grow up and live a normal life. He’d be crushed in Lifet’s gang. First they’d destroy his soft, childish body and then his curious, hopeful mind and finally his gentle, loving soul.

  No. She would save Evens.

  Harmony just had to endure a little bit longer.

  Jean-Baptiste’s aura impinged upon her even with her eyes closed. Some people had an acute sense of smell. Harmony had an acute sense of auras.

  His shoe crunched glass.

  “I know you are not sleeping. Just like I know Lifet isn’t so crazy.”

  Maybe if she kept her eyes closed, her rescuer would appear. It had to arrive soon. One of Evens’s favorite teachers had helped her come up with this final, desperate ploy to save Evens’s life.

  Soon, the Coast Guard would carry away the Haitian gangsters, save Evens, and apologize for their mistake deporting her a decade ago. They’d welcome her back to America with open arms. She only had to endure a little longer. Then, she’d save everyone.

  “I know you are betraying him.”

  She squeezed her shut eyes tight.

  A soft towel wiped her forehead. It lifted and touched her again, damp and tender. “Your cousin’s teacher. Monsieur Joseph. He talked about you to the Americans.”

  Her stomach lurched. No. She shook her head.

  “Yes. He talked to the wrong American. One we pay to watch out for us. Our work is very dangerous, you see. And now the teacher sees too.”

  Her last, desperate plan crumbled to pebbles.

  Please be a lie.

  The Coast Guard had to be coming. Evens had to get rescued. Willowy, dignified Monsieur Joseph just had to be okay.

  Jean-Baptiste chuckled. His damp cloth cleaned her cut. “You know your teacher used to run with his children during recess? He was a baseball player. And a baseball coach. But no longer. We cracked both his knees with his own baseball bat.”

  No. No. No.

  Lifet had known about their plan to betray him? All along?

  Her sacrifice here would accomplish nothing?

  She finally opened her eyes and squinted at the gangster tending her face. “Wh…y…w…?”

  “Oh, good. You are awake.” Jean-Baptiste tapped the bloody kitchen towel on the tip of her nose. “I couldn’t tell whether you would awaken. Lifet leaves so many bruises.”

  Yes. And they hurt.

  “Up, up. Here we go.” He helped her out of the cabinet and rested her upright against the marble counter.

  Good thing Lifet had thrown her through the breakable wood instead of against the unyielding stone.

  The machine gun noises stopped.

  Her stomach rolled counter to the dangerous swinging of the wave-smashed boat. Her hands and feet froze to ice.

  Lifet would throw open that door, and Jean-Baptiste would announce that she had betrayed him, and he would finish the job of killing her.

  “Don’t worry.” Jean-Baptiste glanced over his shoulder. “I won’t let him kill you.”

  He wouldn’t?

  “Once, he was an ordinary man, but now, thanks to my influence, Lifet is the perfect leader.” Jean-Baptiste rested on his heels. “He’s crazy. Everyone knows, so no one will cross him. But he is rational enough I guide him. It is a perfect relationship. He smokes the hashish I lace. I stand behind him and rule.”

  She choked on a big ball of blood, coughed, and spattered his suit.

  He wiped at the spatter with cold eyes. “Yes. Well. Anyway. Do you know why you are still alive? For now.”

  Shaking her head made her sick. “Nnn.”

  “Because this ‘Sea Lord’ monster is real. Not a scam. I have confirmed with a very reputable organization: the Sons of Hercules. The fish monsters lost their women long ago. Now they take whores in exchange for huge treasures.”

  He opened his fist.

  Her great-grandmother’s Sea Opal dwarfed his palm. He had removed it from the locked case. Its pale light refl
ected the swinging lightbulbs like white magic. Or a unicorn’s horn.

  She reached for it on impulse.

  If she touched it, all poison would be ejected from her body, and she’d fly to a fantasy land like the Mall of America food court where she’d never hurt or hunger again.

  His fingers snapped shut, breaking the spell. He shook the baseball-sized gem in her face. “This is worth a hundred million US dollars. Do you know that? It is worth more than the drugs we have been smuggling. I deserve riches. I deserve riches and more.”

  She choked on another loogie of blood.

  He pressed the stained bar towel to her mouth, absently suffocating her with damp cotton. “And the powder from this Sea Opal can cure anything. You know that? It could fix your face. All your bruises. Your teacher’s cracked kneecaps.”

  His gaze dropped to her. His aura darkened.

  Violence.

  She whimpered.

  “You are alive until we trap your sea monster.” He removed the bloody cloth.

  He eyed her as if she were a thing. Utterly inhuman. And his impersonal blankness was more frightening than a drugged, manipulated, enraged Lifet.

  “We will use our harpoons and nets to drag him from the water. We will take his Sea Opals. And then we will toss both your bodies into the ocean.”

  The cold traveled up her arms to her elbows.

  “Unless…”

  She shivered.

  “Unless the American you trusted plays both sides.” Jean-Baptiste tugged her blood-crusted locks out of her face. “If we see the Coast Guard, we will murder you and your cousin and your dirty tribe. If your game has ended with the Coast Guard…” He ground his knuckles into her throbbing fat lip until she cried. “Lifet will hunt them like…what is your saying? Shooting fish in a barrel.”