Harvey gulps loudly and shakes his head with an exhausted smile. I can’t imagine how hard it was for him to get out of a dangerous situation, only to realize there was no way to find a way back home because itliterally shifted.
Sensing my thoughts starting to run wild again, Angel wraps his arm around my shoulder and ducks to kiss my head. Circling my arms around his waist, I lean into him, basking in his familiar scent to calm down.
Looking back at Harvey, I realize I might’ve missed a minor detail. Our causal display of affection blows his head off, and Harvey is standing with his jaw dropped. His confused gaze keeps bouncing between Angel and me and how we cling to each other.
I wait for him to cool off, but with every passing second, he looks more confused yet equally elated. I don’t think the poor man knows which emotion to act on first.
Pity, the old man finally went cuckoo.
To antagonize him further, I say, “The torture finally got to you, huh? I knew you were the weaker one and would lose your shit first. At least we had some good years before you lost your mind.”
“Like you’re the symbol of mental stability,” Harvey scoffs, folding his arms over his chest. Is he eating the whole city’s ration? How did he get so big and muscly?
“I’ll let you know I’m sleeping ten hours a week and eatingone and a halfmeals daily! Beat that old man.”
“I’m only five years older than you! And I eatfoura day.”What?!
I immediately turn to Angel, who is mortified as we discuss our achievements. “You’ve got to start feeding me more. I can’t lose to this asshole,” I beg him, even when I know I can’t possibly eat more.
“This assholeis standing right here!”
Taking a deep breath before his Divine senses his frustration, Harvey takes a minute to calm down. Every time I comment on his age, something in him catches fire, and it’s so fucking entertaining to watch him try to make me understand that twenty-five is not old. I know it’s not, but irritating him is too amusing to stop.
“It wasshock, not old age, you fucker. I was going to congratulate you on finding your mate, but you’re being mean, so fuck you.”
“Fuck you too… but thank you.”
“You’re so damn irritating. Come here.” As soon as I’m within reach, I’m engulfed in another bear hug.
Not even a minute later, my mate pulls me from my best friend to him. Harvey is about to rip into Angel when Hazel walks over. I didn’t even notice her leave. I bet she did a quick round to make sure trouble wasn’t lurking around.
Harvey stares at her hard before slowly turning to me with wide eyes and asking lowly, as if everyone here doesn’t have the same advanced hearing.
“You have a siren?A Goddamn siren?!”
The merfolk was one of our favorite conspiracy theory topics growing up. We know they stick to deep waters and don’t likelife on the ground, but other than that,their species is a mystery to the supernatural world.
Turning my way, beaming with excitement, Harvey reminisces, “Remember the theories, Dean—”
“All lies,” Hazel interrupts our fawning over her kind.
“What—no!” Harvey and I argue in sync because there’s no way Papa could be wrong about his theories. All of his theories make sense. Okay,mostof them do.
“They’re true! We know you can control water.” “Nope.”What?!
“You can only sing your manipulating songs in water.”
Considering I saw her puppet-ting the hotel staff months ago, I already know Hazel will stomp on another one of our theories.
“Couldn’t be more wrong.”
Turning to each other with similar disappointment, Harvey and I wonder how it can be that nothing we guess is correct. I don’t even want to imagine how Papa will react when I tell him we officially know nothing about Merfolk.
Harvey nods at me encouragingly and musters the courage to ask Hazel one last thing, but not before I duck behind Anxo.Safety first.
“So, I’m guessing you don’t turn blue after not touching water for 24 hours?”
“Who the fuck came up with that one?!”
