“We’re connected.” She pressed one hand to her heart and laid her other palm over his. “Here. Inside us both. More than before.”
“Yes.” He caressed the side of her cheek.
“How?”
“I don’t know. The gods, perhaps.” What they shared now was deeper than their claiming bond. It was as if somehow her healing had not only transformed her body, but also their souls, melding the two of them together in a way that could never be undone. “Do you mind?”
She thumbed away the tears still leaking from his eyes and regarded him with a deep, solemn, steady gaze. He recognized that look. It told him Gabriella had discarded her many masks to give him complete, unvarnished honesty. “Ono,” she said. “I don’t mind at all.”
She lifted her mouth to his, and he seized her lips in a passionate kiss, crushing her body against his, loving her so much he’d never known such feelings were possible. It was as if his heart had become a sun, filled with a love so limitless and strong it could light the whole world. He was hers, utterly and completely, body, heart, and soul.
“I adore you, Gabriella Aretta Rosadora Liliana Elaine Coruscate.”
“Merimydion,” she murmured, pulling his head back down for more kissing.
He obliged her—gladly—but when they pulled apart again to gasp for air, he shook his head and corrected her. “Ono.You are a Siren, the first of your House. I am Dilys Coruscate now, as is fitting for a mated and claimed male.”
“Ah, but I am anoulani,wed to animlaniprince of a royal House. I am therefore a daughter of House Merimydion.”
“But by the grace of Numahao, you areoulanino longer. For nooulaniI know has ever developed these.” He ran his fingers lightly over the almost imperceptible lines of the new, sealed gill slits along her ribs.
Gabriella glanced down in astonishment. “Are those... do I have...gills?”
“Tey.Do you mind?”
“I don’t know. Do you think they work?”
“Tey.Now that the transformation is complete, I think they will work as well as any Calbernan’s.”
“Gills.” She blinked and ran her fingers over them. “Biross... when he was dying after willing his lifeforce into me, he prayed for Numahao to save me. To save her daughter. Do you think...?”
He smiled, ignoring the tears spilled from his eyes. “If anyone could grant a Siren sea lungs, it would be the goddess of all waters. Praise Numahao.”
“Thanks be to all the gods, but especially Numahao and Helos.” Then she suddenly went stiff in his arms. “Dilys,” she said, her voice low but vibrating with urgency.
He bent closer, surrounding her body with his in an instinctive gesture of protection. The tone of her voice set him instantly alert. His battle claws unsheathed, sharp and ready to rend. “What is it?”
She hunched into him, moving deeper into the protection of his arms. Then in a move that couldn’t have been comfortable, she craned her neck way back so that even hunched into him, she could glare up at him. The gold of her Siren’s eyes had shifted back to pure, snapping Summer blue.
“How exactly did I end up sitting on the palace lawn, in full view of half your mother’s court,completely naked?”
He couldn’t help it. His lips spread wide in a besotted grin, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.
Chapter 31
The following morning, with Dilys at her side, Gabriella stood behindMyerialAlysaldria’s pearl-encrusted throne. Gabriella’s impervious mask of composure was firmly back in place, but this time every gentle emotion was battened down and hidden from view, leaving only the unyielding visage of a vengeful Siren staring down at Calivan Merimydion as he knelt in chains before his queen and the highest-ranking members of Calberna’s court.
He’d been stripped of hisobahand jewels, left to stand bare-chested and unadorned in a simple silkshuma.It was clear, however, that the chains and the divestiture of his outward signs of rank didn’t bother him one infinitesimal fraction as much as the way his sister refused to even look at him. He stood before her, his eyes pleading for some tiny crumb of understanding or affection, but Alysaldria kept her gaze fixed firmly on the faces of her subjects.
For that clear loss of the only connection that he’d ever truly valued, Gabriella could almost pity him.
True, this man had tried to kill her, but the fact that he’d done it to save the dearest person in the world to him was something she understood. And if trying to kill her were all he had done, she might have been able to forgive him... at least enough to request that the death sentence he deserved be commuted to banishment, for Alysaldria’s sake if no other. But Gabriella wasn’t his only victim.
For his attempted murder of Dilys, and his part in the deaths of Spring and Autumn, Summer would accept nothing less than Calivan Merimydion’s execution. The more immediate, the better. Becausethosewere the people dearest in the worldto her.
He also owed a blood debt for the lives of Biross and Tarrant and the goddess only knew how many other Calbernans slain either at his hands or because of him. Those men were allsomeone’sdearest person in the world.
So no, Gabriella did not pity him, nor would she ask for mercy. Calivan Merimydion deserved none.
