I tickle Haime’s feet, and she squeals with laughter, bringing a rare smile to her father’s stoic and broody facade.
Since then, the mermaids forsook Sand’s Hunters for me mating him, for Sand’s Hunters giving Zaeyr a home. But I don’t think they went far.
In recent months, the babies have brought the mermaids back to our shores. I’ve discovered the laughter of babies draws in mermaids. Much more so than singing.
Krakens and other enormous leviathans have also returned to the gulf.Perhaps the mermaids forgot the protection Zaeyr once gave their underwater lands…
Now he protects the coast, and the shores are safer than before.
The femdragon never came back.
Issa claims she saw a small dragonling fly through the skies, but I don’t know...
Makes me wonder…
Reaching the top, Haime whimpers to be on her father’s shoulders. Zaeyr scoops her from me and spins her around.
Stoic and broody.I laugh. He looks that way but he’s anything but. I curl my arm around his side and lean my head against him. “You didn’t have to wait.”
“I wanted to.”
I pat one of the three bone daggers hooked at my hip and then the net tied to my waist. “I know these lands and its predators better than you, dragon man,” I humph.
“But I have better hearing, smell, and eyesight, human.”
I humph again and move away.
But he catches me, pulling me into his chest, wrapping his large arms around my torso—shunting his hips against my back. My core clenches.He wants me. He always wants me.Smiling, I wiggle my backside.
Perfectly unaware of our silent communication, Haime’s little hands reach around her father’s horns to tangle back into my hair. “Where’s the ocean?” Completely unaware of her parent’s tension. My smile grows. Turning around, I tug on her leg.
“Can’t you hear it, little seashell?”
Her ear pricks—literally pricks up. Something else she inherited from her father. “I hear it!”
“It’s close,” I say. “The louder it gets, the closer we are.”
“Aida! Come see!” Issa yells from up ahead.
Please let us be there,I beg.Please.
Together, Zaeyr’s hand in mine, we make our way to Issa’s voice.
The last of the brush clears, the sky spans outward, and after scrambling over several more ledges of rocks, the ocean comes into view.
Sapphire waters stretch out in all directions before me. Water so dark, so deep, a shiver for its greatness courses down my back.
Zaeyr’s home.I squeeze his hand tightly.
“Do you think there are others like us?” Gullis asks softly.
Issa licks her lips and glances my way.
“Yes, sand dollar, far north past Haime’s home, there are others like us.”
The rumor that started it all.
“I want all the world to be like us.”
