He would never go back to that life. He would never allow his mate to, either. They were bound now, not just by fate, nor choice, but by those old bruises they had revealed to one another in the darkest hours of the night.
I have much to do today,he thought, sighing into her fragrant hair.But I hate to get up.
Already he had lists of tasks that needed to be accomplished — supplies they needed, tasks to upgrade the security on her moon pool, the things he wished to bring over from his cove now versus later — but it was almost impossible to make himself move when he was cuddled up against his mate, who was so very warm and soft in sleep.
The only way he was able to pry himself away from her was by reminding himself that he would have many, many mornings to savor her quiet breathing and little, content sounds. The slight weight of his bracelet only reinforced that reminder.
He went to great lengths to make sure his mate wasn’t jostled as he untangled their limbs, but it didn’t seem to matter. Either Clementine was a deep sleeper or she had been thoroughly exhausted by their night together, because she barely even twitched when he finally slipped out from behind her.
Shaking his head, he covered her with a blanket before he began to make his way back to the moon pool room. He moved quickly on his hands, the bulk of his tail rolling behind him, as he determined the best things to do while she slept.
Instinct told him to stay put and guard her until she’d been mounted, bred, and wore his rope. It warned him to never let her out of his sight, lest another of his kind stumble upon the treasure he’d found and try to wrest her from his unworthy hands.
But reality did not always align with instinct. Clementine was safe, for the most part, in her cove. He would only be gone for an hour or two, and even so, he knew that she was far from ready to be mounted and bred as he wished.
That would just have to wait. Now that he knew her better, he was even more hesitant to push her into it too quickly. He’d gotten profoundly lucky to find a mate who didn’t run or fight — beyond a tiny psychic blow, of course — and Emory did not intend to spook her by demanding breeding on the second day of their mating.
So while instinct clamored to be heard, Emory knew that the best way to claim his mate was not to sequester her in their cove until she begged for his cock.
His mate needed tenderness, care. She needed someone who would build her confidence. More than that, she needed to know that he was not someone who wished to leave her. The rest would come in time.
* * *
Clementine woke to the sounds of seals barking. Her mind was fuzzy in the way that sometimes happened when one slept too deeply for too long. Wakefulness came to her in inches, bit by bit, as butter yellow afternoon sunshine warmed her cozy spot on the floor.
It wasn’t until she worked up the will to stretch that she recalled why she was on the floor in the first place.
“Emory?” Clementine sat up and looked around the living room. All around her were scattered dishes, half empty bags of chips, and the random bedding she’d pulled from her linen closet to make their bed in front of the couch.
There was not even a single thought that the whole thing might have been a dream. Nothing in her deepest subconscious could have created someone like Emory, nor a night as wonderful as the one they’d shared.
But as she looked around, her grogginess fading rapidly, the heady glow leftover from the night began to dim.
He… left?
Her stomach dropped. When she passed her hand over the indent where he’d slept, the pillow was cold. It was instinct to reach out with her mind an instant later.
Clementine recoiled almost as soon as she made contact.
A part of her hadn’t really believed that he left. She’d thought that he’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, or perhaps he was in the kitchen, rifling through the cabinets. He’d told her plainly that he enjoyed snooping through her things. Maybe he’d ventured into her room while she slept the day away.
But he wasn’t.
Emory was gone, the song of his mind slightly muffled by a distance she’d grown familiar with since she began sensing him around the island. Sometime during the night he explained that his cove, the one he’d inherited from his parents after their passing, was located near the Great Arch — a massive rock formation that stretched over the water on the other side of the island. A quick judge of the relative volume of his mind put him about that far away from her.
He went home.
For a moment, Clementine just sat there, baffled and a little hurt. She was surrounded by the remains of their wonderful night, but the sight of the wrappers and empty mugs scattered around didn’t fill with her the giddy joy they had a moment prior.
“Did I do something wrong?” she wondered aloud. Her voice was scratchy from so much use.
It was a kick to the gut to wake up so happy, only to be left feeling so… abandoned. It was disorienting to know so many vulnerable things about someone, to hand them your own secrets in turn, to spend a night of laughter and intimacy together, only to wake up as alone as ever.
It was hurtful, but more than that it wasconfusing.Hadn’t he gone on and on about being her mate just hours ago?
Mates don’t leave at sunrise,she inwardly grumbled. Huffing, Clementine scrubbed her gritty eyes with her fists.I guess the upside is he didn’t get the chance to see my bedhead.
She tried not to think about it anymore as she cleaned up their mess and righted her living room furniture. As she’d learned the night before, Emory was a being with completely foreign habits and motivations. He might have thought nothing of leaving because maybe that was what merfolkdid.It didn’t do her any good to speculate or theorize based purely on secondhand knowledge about human men.
