The scarred brother, having finished his inspection of Herman’s prone form, sat back on his hip and crossed his brawny arms over his chest. “Were you surprised that you’d caught the notice of an unmated merman? The island has been home to our kind for centuries.” Something in his tone raised her hackles, like he was scolding her for not knowing there might be lonely, desperate merfolk around every corner, waiting to pounce.
“I didn’t know that,” she answered, some of her shyness melting away. “No one really does, I think. I was sent to live on the island by the EVP government. They’re trying to reestablish friendly contact with merfolk and thought it might be a good place to start.” Giving him her own arched-brow look, she added, “Sorry, but I don’t think I caught your name.”
Emory wound an arm around her waist and tugged her close. “This is my eldest brother, Ezra. He’s one of the two pod leaders in Grim’s Bay.” Giving his brother a narrow-eyed look, he said, “You didn’t need to tell the pod to stay away. I could have defended my mate without your help.”
Suddenly the scars made a lot of sense. Emory had explained that he wasn’t in contact with the pod very often, partially due to his history, but also because he had no patience for what he calleddominance games.Moving up in the ranks of the pod required years of hunting for the choicest meat and picking fights with those above you.
If Ezra was one of the leaders of the Grim’s Bay pod, then his scars told a story of bloodshed, competition, and vigilance.
It was no wonder her instincts screamed for her to run whenever she looked at him for a little too long. He was a predator’s predator.
“Of course you could have,” Ezra replied, his stern tone unchanged, “but you have no idea how vicious the fights have gotten, Emory. It’s not just Herman and his little clique that have begun to disrespect prior claims. More and more of the pod are fighting for lifemates who’ve been settled for years. It’s chaos.”
He nodded toward the gaunt merman, who had long since passed out. “They’ve threatened to start hunting land dwellers again. I’ve been struggling to restrain them from breaking the treaty and they resent me for it. I didn’t want that resentment to be your problem if they found out you’d snatched a mate.”
“We headed here as soon as we heard that Herman had gone off on his own,” Mary Celeste explained. She flashed him a narrow-eyed look of pure dislike. “But it was only a matter of time. You really should make sure your mate wears her mating rope. I don’t think anyone will bother you once word gets out that you have a fierce mate, but…”
“I didn’t think it would be necessary for a trip to our cove. She should have been safe here.” Clementine appreciated that Emory didn’t mention that she hadn’t been entirely sold on forever with him andthatwas the real reason she hadn’t worn any outward sign of his claim.
Mary Celeste shook her head, but it was Ezra who replied, “The way the pod has been acting, I don’t know that a mating rope would have done much to dissuade Herman or any other bully from trying.”
Emory’s arm tightened around her. Resting his chin on the crown of her head, he let out a low, whistling curse. “I didn’t know things had gotten that bad. They’ve never been great, but…”
Ezra’s jaw flexed. “They have, and I have no fucking clue how to fix it.”
An idea, one that she’d been quietly nurturing for a while but had felt too silly to vocalize until that moment, jumped to the forefront of her mind. Clutching her mate’s long rope of hair to her chest, Clementine quietly cleared her throat. “Hypothetically, if land mates were more available, do you think the pod would be more open to a friendly relationship with the government?”
She felt the combined scrutiny of all the merfolk both through the rippling water of Emory’s mind and on her skin, which prickled in the cold air and wet spray of the water.
Ezra’s gaze was particularly heavy. The expression in his dark eyes was inscrutable, the hard planes of his face unreadable. The dull orange light from the entrance to the cove cast the hollows of his features into deep shadow, only adding to his air of general menace.
“Little sister,” he began in that earthquaking baritone, “we’d offer far more than just friendship in exchange for thechanceto find a mate.”
Clementine leaned into her mate, who offered her his warmth and his stability without question. A very small part of her empathized with the desperation she’d felt in Herman’s mind, and even more so with the stark intensity in Ezra’s gaze, as if he felt his people’s unhappiness with every breath.
Maybe he did, or perhaps he simply realized the far-reaching consequences of so much desperation. What would happen to his pod if they began to break the treaty? The EVP would act, as it always did, with brutal efficiency. Aided by modern weapons and a righteous cause, it would be a bloodbath.
And what would happen to those people plucked from the shore? She’d consented to everything with Emory, but what if he hadn’t been the one to find her first? Lonely, worried about dying out, and pushed to their limit, it chilled her to think of what someone like Herman might be capable of.
Clementine licked her lips. She wasn’t used to so much attention, but without the psychic pressure of constantly reinforcing her walls against their minds, she felt only the regular kind of discomfort one experienced when meeting their super intense merfolk in-laws.
She took a breath in.Don’t be a weenie, Em.She let the breath out.
Squaring her shoulders, she asked, “So… how much do you know about the Bureau of Interbeing Affairs and Regulation’s partnership with the Protectorate Oceanic Territory Department and the inter-territory friendship initiative?”
Epilogue I
A report,dated 21 May 2049, from Franklin Hauf, supervisor of the Bureau of Interbeing Affairs and Regulation, forwarded to Theodore Thaddeus Solbourne, Sovereign ruler of the Elvish Protectorate, Head of the Solbourne Family, and husband of Margot Goode. It is digitally stamped by all three of the Sovereign’s assistants, as well as the Captain of the Sovereign’s Guard. The name of the person who forwarded it to his inbox is labeled as, “My Beautiful Wife”.
The subject line reads: WHEN DID YOU SEND A WOMAN TO A DESERTED ISLAND??
Dear Sovereign,
It is my hope that this report finds you well. I’m writing to inform you of the BIAR’s success with your edict to forge alliances with the merfolk pod local to Grim’s Bay.
The witch stationed on the Farallon Islands, Clementine Ortega (see attached personnel file), has exceeded all expectations. Not only has she managed to survive, yesterday she informed her superiors that she has formed a matebond with one of the merfolk. In doing so, she also provided valuable information about the state of hostilities within the merfolk community.
It appears that the noticeable decline in abductions, disappearances, and other acts of aggression since the signing of the treaty has had unintended consequences on the population of merfolk. Per her report and attached interviews, it seems that merfolk have been unable to successfully mate with land-dwelling people as they once did. The decline in numbers that we have seen can be directly linked to a lack of available mates. She believes that the implementation of a program to encourage friendly contact between our two communities with the express purpose of connecting potential mates will successfully bridge the gap between our peoples.
