Stolen by the Sea Lord (Lords of Atlantis Book 4) Read online

  Elan had promised the warriors would not chase her onto the land. They wouldn’t expose themselves to humans.

  Muscles burning, puking water, she’d stumbled out of the surf. Terror fought exhaustion. Several people had crowded close, asking if she was okay. She’d pushed through them, shaking them off, and hauled Zain beyond the dry high-tide mark. Her eyes had focused on the parking lot, on the police, on the hills.

  Suddenly, shocked screams had erupted behind her.

  A new burst of fear pushed her on. Dry sand. She kicked dry sand and stumbled for thicker crowds.

  But it hadn’t been enough.

  A seaweed net had slithered over her, slapping her with wet lashes. It tightened around her throat and dragged her to the ground. Then, a naked merman had dragged her back into the ocean. It had happened too fast for anyone on shore to react.

  But there had been hundreds of witnesses. Of course there were minutes of cell phone camera footage.

  The police had been waiting for her once she gave up chasing them and dragged herself out.

  “You’re right.” She set her jaw. “I don’t intend to let them.”

  Milly’s phone vibrated. She checked the screen and stood.

  “Milly.” Zara pushed the interview packet into the manila folder. “Do you think you could get ahold of this Mel?”

  Milly looked at her in surprise. “You want to meet her?”

  “She might know how to reach those Atlantis warriors too. I’m looking for a guide.”

  “That’s great. I’m so grateful you feel that way.” Milly went to the back door with a grimace of guilt. “I kind of told Mel you were up from your nap so now’s a good time to talk.”

  Zara rose as well. “She’s here?”

  “I called her at the police station and she got on a plane right away. She’s come to see you.”

  Zara rubbed her elbows. “Now?”

  “You can ask her your questions.” Milly opened the back door. “This is Mel.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A woman stood on their back step. She greeted them with a warm smile. In her arms, she held a child a few months older than Zain.

  Zara’s throat closed.

  Mel greeted Milly and then came in and crossed the floor to Zara, her charm disarming as Vaw Vaw’s, her handshake firm and yet comforting. “Hi Zara, I’m Mel and this is my youngest, Violet Lee.”

  Violet smiled shyly and hid in her mother’s shirt.

  “Aw, don’t mind her. She’s shy around strangers.”

  Zara cleared her painfully closed throat. “Um, is she…?”

  “Mer? No, her daddy is one hundred percent computer programmer. Some might say that isn’t human either, but at least he’s recognized by the government.”

  Her tone conveyed her understanding.

  “He’s out of town this week. Our older three are at sleepovers and I couldn’t arrange last-minute sitting.”

  Zara fought to reconcile her conflicting emotions. This woman had four children with her husband. The world gave them no grief about being together. It wasn’t fair. Zara fought a brief, unwelcome wave of green jealousy.

  Mel smiled sympathetically as though aware of the direction of Zara’s thoughts. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  She led Mel to the back patio.

  Milly brought out passion fruit juice and crackers, and then she took Mel’s toddler, Violet, around to the front to play with a collection of seashells.

  “So you’re an interviewer,” Zara said.

  “Not by trade. I’m collecting these stories,” Mel held up her own, much thicker copy of the interviews she’d earlier sent to Milly, “because I think a lot more people are affected by our government’s indecision about how to treat mermen seeking asylum. You are only the most recent example. And certainly more will be affected once we launch our dating site.”

  “Dating site?” Zara recoiled. “You want to send more helpless women down there?”

  “We want to offer more willing women the chance to live their dreams as a mermaid queen,” Mel corrected. “Welcome to live freely in either world with their families. And that’s why governments need to act. If Elan and Zain could have gotten their passports on the first day, you’d all be in California already.”

  “That just would have delayed the fight,” she said, unable to dismiss the bitterness. “You and Elan both said the problems with the mer are worldwide.”

  “Yes, relocating to California would have delayed your fight,” Mel repeated, as though Zara had confirmed her point. “Delayed it until you were ready to fight on your terms, not theirs.”

  “I might never have been ready.”

  Mel eyed her shrewdly. “Do you really believe that’s true?”

  Well … if Zara could have made her fins … and could have grown her power…

  Her feelings had swelled with every moment they’d spent together. Assuming there wasn’t something actually wrong with her, wouldn’t her power and fins have come, eventually?

  Probably something was wrong.

  Elan had denied she was a queen to save her from being lashed to the reef. But deep down, she feared it was true.

  After all, she’d thought she’d used her power today. Under the water, half-strangled by those funny ropes, she’d seen a dagger stabbing up at Elan’s unguarded heart and she’d been overwhelmed by fury.

  No, you don’t!

  She’d thrown up her hands to ward off the attack, and a magical white light had sparkled like an armload of disturbed sand, confusing everyone and altering the strike. The knife had missed Elan’s heart and sliced into his arm.

  She must have been mistaken though because after that Elan said she had no power.

  “Why are you here?” she asked finally. “Dropping everything to fly across the ocean from — where did you say you were from again? Florida?”

  “Two reasons.” Mel smiled again, warm and determined. “The first is to get your statement for my book of interviews.”

  “I’m not really in a writing mood.”

  “I have a video recorder.” She lifted her cell phone. “Lucy taught me all about the benefits of Facebook Live.”

  Zara sighed.

  “The second is do whatever I can to help you.”

  That seemed impossible. “How? You can’t bring them back.”

  “No. But I could bring you to them.”

  She straightened. Was it really possible? “No human can swim down to Dragao Azul.”

  “No human can. But suppose I could get you there. Would you go? Tonight?”

  Jagged shock fought with her wishes. Zara uncoiled from the chair and stood up, staring down at Mel with fury. “Of course I would leave immediately. But why suggest this? Without my power, aren’t I useless?”

  “Honey, you’re not useless.”

  “I’m certainly not a ‘real’ queen. I can’t even make my fins!”

  “That’s not unusual.”

  “It’s the first step in capturing my ‘queen power.’”

  “There’s no actual proof that’s true.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve heard a number of people say making fins first is necessary, but going over the stories,” she lifted her packet, “I think some women have used their powers without even realizing it.”

  That was ridiculous. “How could you use a magical superpower and not know?”

  Mel flipped in several pages. “One bride caused a white shield to shelter her husband from a fight. Another stopped a gravel slide from crushing their city’s Life Tree. Yet another fended off a shark with what she described as, ‘white sand.’”

  “White sand?” Zara repeated sharply.

  “In all these cases, nobody recognized the women as doing anything. Even the women never thought of it as a power. They blamed currents, luck, or in the case of the shark, it was a ‘freak underwater sandstorm.’ People discount their own abilities. Channeling your city’s Life Tree into a protective power only requir
es feeling deeply resonant, centered, and true in your soul.”

  Then … Zara had done it? She had channeled the Dragao Azul Life Tree during the attack and nobody had noticed.

  They had dismissed her. They had told her she hadn’t done anything.

  And she had believed them.

  The old anger kindled in her chest.

  Sure, her parents had made her doubt whether right was wrong or up was down. They’d poisoned her psyche since her impressionable, vulnerable childhood.

  How dare complete strangers hoodwink her as an adult?

  She had allowed herself to be fooled. Elan too. He’d been told a “truth” — that she had to make her fins before she could display powers — and believed that was the only way. Just like their attackers believed the ancient covenant was the only way. They were proved wrong and nobody had even seen it.

  “I also might have channeled the Life Tree,” she said.

  Mel smiled warmly. “Can you remember how you felt the moment the power flowed through you? You’ll need to create that feeling again.”

  No problem. Zara remembered exactly how she’d felt.

  The same anger had calmed her when she’d stormed her parents’ yacht to save Zain. Her anger had clarified to a pure white cleansing fury.

  “Yes.”

  Mel’s smile broadened. “We can leave right away.”

  This was crazy. Zara rubbed her forehead. It wasn’t exactly jumping on a plane in the middle of senior finals crazy, or accepting a mysterious sea lord’s proposal during the first meeting, but diving against impossible odds was up there. “I can barely swim.”

  “I have a solution.” Mel rose and motioned for her rental minivan. “Let’s go.”

  Zara followed.

  At the front, a proud smile cracked Milly’s face. “You’re going?”

  Zara pulled her into a hug. “I’ll be back.”

  Milly returned her heartfelt squeeze. “I know you will.”

  They all drove down to the beach. Despite what had happened here only hours before, Zara didn’t feel fear. She faced the sunset’s declining rays with determination.

  This would be the last sunset she watched alone.

  She swore it.

  Down the quieter beach, a dark-haired man strolled toward them. He wore a long mauve dress shirt and classy trousers, and the position of the sun blinded her to his features.

  Mel unzipped a large duffel in the trunk and removed two magenta plastic scuba fins. “These were Lucy’s. I’m not sure about fit. I’ve got her swim socks in here as well.”

  Zara lifted them skeptically.

  “They’re not the fastest, but plastic is better than nothing.”

  “I’ll take them.” She slung the fins over one finger.

  The man limped to their group. Up close, his shirt matched mauve tattoos swirling across his face. His tattoos were punctured with vicious, recent scars. He stood tallest but had to hunch from an old injury.

  He was a mer.

  “This is Faier,” Mel said. “He knows the location of Dragao Azul.”

  He looked away and tugged his sleeves lower. The gesture of shy gentleness was completely different from the warriors Zara had met. But his scars meant he knew combat, just like Elan.

  “Alright.” She took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  “Wait. Let me get your statement.” Mel messed with her phone.

  She itched to leave. “Right now?”

  “Think of what you want to say to the visitors of Lucy’s Facebook page. They’re mostly seeking information on the mer and their brides. Okay.” She pointed the phone at Zara. “Tell me about yourself, who you are and what’s going on here.”

  Oh.

  Right.

  This was her chance. “Can I make this a message to all the other brides?”

  “Honey, you can send your message out to anyone in the whole world.”

  Zara stared directly into the tiny shining lens. “My name is Zara. I was a sacred bride in Dragao Azul. My parents schemed to traffick my underage sister for a Sea Opal. I went willingly down to the city instead. But I did not agree to give up my son. Neither did my husband.”

  Milly and Faier listened intently. Milly stood with a quietly playing Violet. The camera recorded every word.

  “Today, warriors stole my husband and son away from me. They came onto the land. My land. They stole my family.”

  Zara held up one finger. A warning to the warriors, who would never see this video and to the world, who would. “If this happened to you, you’re not alone. If you’re angry, feel angry. What happened to you was wrong. It needs to be righted.

  “Now I’m going down to their city to take them back.”

  Mel slowly lowered the camera. Her smile held hope tinged with sadness.

  She understood Mel’s sadness. Mel was a mother and a wife as well as an interviewer of sacred brides. She felt sadness at the warriors who had caused such pain and sadness at the ancient covenant that continued to wreck their lives. And sadness now for Zara who had to go to battle.

  “Stay strong,” Mel said in farewell. “Good luck.”

  Zara nodded.

  Milly hugged her.

  She treasured her sister’s embrace. “I will be back.”

  “I know.” Milly squeezed her one more time and let her go. Tucking her unruly, wind-swept hair behind her ears, she made fists to root for Zara. “See you soon.”

  Faier unbuttoned his long-sleeved shirt, revealing more stitched scars crisscrossing his tautly muscled torso. “I will return in two days.”

  “Be safe,” Mel told him. “We’re holding the grand opening of the dating site for you.”

  He nodded and moved to the buckle of his trousers.

  Zara turned away, giving him privacy. Milly held up a towel for her to change. It was funny, feeling so naked on the beach. She never thought about how naked she’d been under the water.

  Everything was different.

  She thought about the warriors she was going to face. The hostility. Angry males had already tried to kill her once today. For them, she represented the enemy in a holy war between the past and future.

  Now, she entered the ring as a crusader.

  Milly took Zara’s bunched clothes and hugged her one last time at the very edge of the shore, just before dropping the towel. In Zara’s ear, her worry whispered. “Come back.”

  She stroked her sister’s hair like long ago. Then, she waved at the women on the beach, turned, and followed the already disappeared mer into the ocean.

  Zara might die a martyr.

  But she would crusade.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Elan’s journey back to Dragao Azul took much longer than normal.

  His bicep injury healed quickly, but he’d more severely injured several warriors, and their trailed blood enticed surface predators, scavengers, and opportunists to swipe at the war party.

  Every encounter raised Elan’s fears for Zain, but his captors protected his son as they would guard any young fry. Despite the unconscionable threats against his bride, they had not lost all honor.

  Their slowness also seemed deliberate as if his escorts delayed as long as Commander Haren’s patience allowed. Whatever waited in Dragao Azul evoked their unspoken dread.

  When he crossed into his city’s territory he saw why.

  An army surrounded the city like a deadly blight. Not as extensive as the army that had attacked Atlantis, but the foreign warriors looked hardy and hungry.

  His party swam through their belligerent ranks. The army closed around them, sealing off any escape.

  They passed the first ring of castles.

  Castles or, as Zara had once gasped in wonder, giant living “balloons” anchored to the vibrant sea floor. Beneath the rich floor, their roots interconnected in concentric circles around the Life Tree. Connected at the roots, the city literally was the Life Tree. If Dragao Azul’s Life Tree died, all the castles would wilt to muck and the city its
elf would die.

  They passed the second ring of castles and entered the inner third.

  No patrols. No warriors greeted him. The castles were cold and dark, empty.

  Where was everyone?

  They kept swimming deeper, into the oldest, tightest rings of castles, to the center of the city where the Life Tree rooted. The noise of the ocean muted and a holy stillness shot calm into his veins.

  He had saved Zara. Whatever punishment lay ahead — dishonor, dismemberment, and death — Elan would suffer it willingly. She had survived.

  The Dragao Azul warriors gathered just outside the center. They saw him. Their impassive expressions changed to surprise and then horror.

  His captors dumped Elan near the front. Commander Haren took Zain through the last ring to the Life Tree.

  Dragao Azul elders waited stiffly, ignoring Elan as if he did not exist.

  His former warriors, lined up behind Elan in rank, were not so quiet.

  Dosan, one of the pitying warriors who had let Elan escape with Zain, hissed. “Why did you return? Now all our lives are forfeit!”

  “What?”

  The elders kicked forward as though summoned. Elan thrashed to follow. Dosan and his silent patrol partner, Uvim, gripped Elan’s elbows and dragged him.

  Inside the final ring of the grandest, most ancient castles, the Life Tree emerged in shining glory. Crowning a white dais mounded with Sea Opals, its great trunk lifted reverent branches toward the surface. Its thick anchor rooted securely to the seafloor. And its pure light filled Elan with peace.

  All mer were connected to their Life Tree, not just via their castles, but in their very blood. Himself, Zain, and even Zara.

  In every city, the Life Tree was the place of pronouncements. The place of marriage vows.

  And the place of judgments.

  This was where Elan expected to be tried for his crimes. But someone else was already strung up against the trunk of the Life Tree.

  Dragao Azul’s king!

  The foreign army forced the warriors into a ring around their Life Tree. Spaced out and empty-handed, they were flanked on all sides by an invasion force. Impassive, their tridents displayed in warning, they prepared to cut down dissenters.