“Emma—”
“Not happening.”
“Emma—”
“No.” I whirl around so I don’t have to look at her pleading face. Not to mention I feel guilty now because it’s technically my fault that my mom is handcuffed to the world’s best manipulator. Mom groans and beats her head against the door. Which means she knows that I’m not going anywhere.
Catching my breath, I lean against the front of the car and focus on the individual blades of grass hedging my flip-flop, trying not to throw up or pass out or both. In the far distance, a vehicle approaches—the first one to witness the scene of our accident. A million explanations run through my mind, but I can’t imagine a single scenario that would solve all—or any—of our issues right now.
None of us can risk going to the hospital. Mom technically doesn’t qualify as human, so I’m sure we’d get a pretty interesting diagnosis. Rachel is technically supposed to be deceased as of the last ten years or so, and while she probably has a plethora of fake IDs, she’s still antsy around cops, which will surely be called to the hospital in the event of a gunshot wound, even if it is just in the foot. And let’s not forget that Mom and Rachel are new handcuff buddies. There just isn’t an explanation for any of this.
That’s when I decide I’m not the one who should do the talking. After all, I didn’t kidnap anyone. I didn’t shoot anyone. And I certainly didn’t handcuff myself to the person who shot me. Besides, both Mom and Rachel are obviously much more skilled at deception than I’ll ever be.
“If someone pulls over to help us, one of you is explaining all this,” I inform them. “You’ll probably want to figure it out fast, because here comes a car.”
But the car comes and goes without even slowing. In fact, a lot of cars come and go, and if the situation weren’t so strange and if I weren’t so thankful that they didn’t actually stop, I’d be forced to reexamine what the world is coming to, not helping strangers in an accident. Then it occurs to me that maybe the passersby don’t realize it’s the scene of an accident. Mom’s car is in the ditch, but the ditch might be steep enough to hide it. It’s possible that no one can even see Rachel and Mom from the side of the road. Still, I am standing at the front of Rachel’s car. An innocent-looking teenage girl just loitering for fun in the middle of nowhere and no one cares to stop? Seriously?
Just as I decide that people suck, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction slows and pulls up a few feet behind us. It’s not a good Samaritan traveler pulling over to see what he or she can do to inadvertently complicate things. It’s not an ambulance. It’s not a state trooper. If only we could be so lucky. But, nope, it’s way worse.
Because it’s Galen’s SUV.
From where I stand, I can see him looking at me from behind the wheel. His face is stricken and tired and relieved and pained. I want to want to want to believe the look in his eyes right now. The look that clearly says he’s found what he’s looking for, in more ways than one.
Then Toraf opens the passenger side door … Wait. That’s not Toraf.
I’ve never seen this man before, yet he’s eerily familiar. His silhouette sitting next to Galen was definitely classic Syrena male, but the glare from the sun had hidden his face. I’d naturally just assumed that where there’s a Galen, there’s a Toraf. Now that his face is in full view though, I see that this man looks like a slightly older version of Galen. Slightly older as in slightly more jaded. Other than that, he could be his twin brother. It may be because he’s wearing some of Galen’s clothes, a wrinkled brown polo shirt and plaid shorts. But he shares other things, too, besides clothes.
He’s handsome like Galen, with the same strong jaw and the same eyebrow shape and the way he’s wearing the same expression on his face that Galen is—that he’s found what he’s been looking for. Only, the stranger’s expression clearly divulges that he’s been looking for a lot longer than Galen has—and this man is not looking at me.
And that’s when I know just exactly who he is. That’s when I believe the look in Galen’s eyes. That he didn’t lie to me, that he loves me. Because this man has to be Grom.
Mom confirms it with a half cry, half growl. “No. No. It can’t be.” Even if she weren’t handcuffed to Rachel right now, I’m not sure she’d actually be able to move. Disbelief has a special way of paralyzing you.
With every step the man takes toward Rachel’s car, he shakes his head more vigorously. It’s like he’s deliberately taking his time, drinking in the moment, or maybe he just can’t believe this moment is actually happening. Yep, disbelief is a cruel hag.
Still, this moment belongs to the two of them, Mom and this handsome stranger. He reaches the passenger side door and stares down at her with steely violet eyes—down at my mother who never cries, down at my mother who’s now bawling like a spanked child—his face contorted in a rainbow of so many emotions, some that I can’t even name.
Then Grom the Triton king sinks to his knees in front of her, and a single tear spills down his face. “Nalia,” he whispers.
And then my mother slaps him. It’s not the kind of slap you get for talking back. It’s not the kind of punch she dealt Galen and Toraf in our kitchen. It’s the kind of slap a woman gives a man when he’s hurt her deeply.
And Grom accepts it with grace.
“I looked for you,” she shouts, even though he’s inches from her.
Slowly, as if in a show of peace, he takes the hand that slapped him and sandwiches it between his own. He seems to revel in the feel of her touch. His face is pure tenderness, his voice like a massage to the nerves. “And I looked for you.”
“Your pulse was gone,” she insists. By now she chokes back sobs between words. She’s fighting for control. I’ve never seen my mother fight for control.
“As was yours.” I realize Grom knows what not to say, what not to do to provoke her. He is the complete opposite of her, or maybe just a completion of her.
Her eyes focus on his wrist, and tears slip down her face, leaving faint trails of mascara on her cheeks. He smiles and slowly pulls his hand away. I think he’s going to show her the bracelet he’s wearing, but instead he rips it off his wrist and holds it out for her inspection. From where I’m standing it looks like a single black ball tied to some sort of string. By my mom’s expression, this black ball has meaning. So much meaning that I think she’s forgotten to breathe. “My pearl,” she whispers. “I thought I’d lost it.”
He encloses it in her hand. “This isn’t your pearl, love. That one was lost in the explosion with you. For almost an entire season, I scoured the oyster beds, looking for another one that would do. I don’t know why, but I thought maybe if I found another perfect pearl, I would somehow find you, too. When I found this though, it didn’t bring me the peace I’d hoped for. But I couldn’t bring myself to discard it. I’ve worn it on my wrist ever since.”
This is all it takes for my mom to throw herself into his arms, bringing Rachel partially with her. Even so, it’s probably the most moving moment I’ve ever encountered in my eighteen years.
Or at least it would be, if my mom weren’t clinging to a man who is not my dad.
* * *
I’d rather be in the adjoining hotel room with Rachel, even if it meant watching television on mute while she sleeps with her bullet-ravaged foot propped up on a pillow. But apparently my presence is needed here. Apparently it’s very important to hear Mom and Grom fill each other in on the last who-knows-how-many decades they’ve been apart. To hear how she’s missed him so much and still loves him and thought about him every single day. To hear that he swore he sensed her sometimes, that he thought he was losing his mind, that he visited the human mine daily to grieve her loss, blah blah blah.
Galen happens to be in possession of my favorite pair of arms—his—and most of the time when they’re wrapped around me, I feel whole and secure and like my blood has turned into hot sauce running through my veins. I should especially be feeling all melty right now. Aft
er all, I’d virtually lost him then gained him back within the cruel space of twenty-four hours. But right now his arm feels like a shackle chaining me to the hotel bed—and not in a good way.
What’s worse is that he’s doing it on purpose. Every time he feels me tense up, as Mom and Grom exchange mushy sentiments and googly eyes, Galen tightens his hold on me. Which makes me wonder what my face must look like. Does it reveal all the betrayal and hurt and pain I feel inside? Is it obvious that I want to fling myself across the hotel room to where they sit together in one chair, my mom on Grom’s lap, wrapped around him like there’s no such thing as gravity and she’s trying to keep him grounded? How apparent is it that I want to put Grom into a headlock until he goes to sleep, and yell at Mom for not loving Dad or caring that he’s dead?
I know Mom and I talked about this at the diner. That it was never love, that it was an arrangement that suited them both and that I was an added one-time bonus to that arrangement. But somehow I just can’t believe that Dad wouldn’t mind seeing this if he were here. Fine, it wasn’t love at first sight for my parents. But how, after all those years together, could it not have been love at all?
But maybe my expression isn’t as bad as I think it is. Maybe Galen’s just really good at reading me. Or maybe he’s just being overly mushy himself. He is a tad protective, after all. I glance at Toraf, who’s sitting on the other full-size bed next to Rayna. And Toraf is already looking at me. When our eyes meet, he shakes his head ever so slightly. As if to say, “Don’t do it.” As if to say, “You really don’t want to do it.” As if to say, “I know you really want to do it, but I’m asking you not to. As a friend.”
I huff, then adjust myself in Galen’s death grip. It’s not fair that Galen and Toraf silently ask me to accept this. That my mother is putty in Grom’s proficient hands. That her temperature barely raised a degree around my dad, yet Grom, within an hour of reunion, has her titanium exterior dissolving like Alka-Seltzer in hot water.
I can’t accept it. Won’t. Will. Not.
How can she sit here and do this? How can she sit here and tell him how much she’s missed him, and that she never stopped loving him, when she had my dad?
And ohmysweetgoodness, did Mom just say she’s going back? “Wait, what?” I blurt. “What do you mean, ‘I’ll call my boss and let him know’? Let him know what?”
Mom gives me a rueful smile, full of motherly pity. “Emma, sweetie, I have to go back. My father—your grandfather—thinks I’m dead. Everyone thinks I’m dead.”
“So you’re just going to go back to show him you’re alive? You’re just letting him know where you are, right? In case he wants to visit?”
Her eyes get big, full of charity and understanding and condolence. “Sweetie, now that Grom is … I’m Syrena.”
But what she’s really saying is she belongs with Grom. What she’s really saying is that she should have never left. And if she should have never left, then I should have never been born. Is that what she means to say? Or am I seriously freaking out? “What about me?” I whisper. “Where do I belong?”
“With me,” my mother and Galen say in unison. They exchange hard glares. Galen locks his jaw.
“I’m her mother,” she tells Galen, her voice sharp. “Her place is with me.”
“I want her for my mate,” Galen says. The admission warms up the space between us with an impossible heat and I want to melt into him. His words, his declaration, cannot be unspoken. And now he’s declared it to everyone who matters. It’s out there in the open, hanging in the air. He wants me for his mate. Me. Him. Forever. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. How I should feel about that.
I’ve known for some time that he wanted that eventually, but how soon? Before we graduate? Before I go to college? What does it mean to mate with him? He’s a Triton prince. His place is with the Syrena, in the ocean. And let’s not forget that my place with them is dead—no Half-Breeds allowed. We have so much to talk about before this can even happen, but I feel saying so might make him feel rejected, or embarrass him in front of his older brother, the great Triton king. Or like I’m having second thoughts, and I’m not. Not exactly.
I peer up at him, wanting to see his eyes, to see the promise in them that I heard in his voice.
But he won’t look at me. He’s not looking at Mom, either. He keeps his iron glare on Grom, unyielding and demanding. But Grom doesn’t wither under the weight of it. In fact, he deflects it with an indifferent expression. They are definitely engaging in some sort of battle of will via manly staring contest. I wonder how often they do this, as brothers.
Finally, Grom shakes his head. “She’s a Half-Breed, Galen.”
Mom’s head snaps toward him. “She’s my daughter,” she says slowly. She pulls herself from his lap and stands over him, hands on hips. Oh, he’s in serious shiznit now. And I can’t help but feel elated about it. “Are you saying my daughter’s not good enough for your brother?”
Yeah, Grom, are you? Huh, huh are you?
Grom sighs, the triviality in his expression softening into something else. “Nalia, love—”
“Don’t you ‘Nalia, love’ me.” Mom crosses her arms.
“The law hasn’t changed,” Grom says quietly.
“So that’s it?” Mom throws her hands in the air. “What about me? I’ve been living on land for the last seventy years! I’ve broken the law, too, remember? I broke it before I ever left.”
Grom stands. “How can I forget?”
Mom touches his face, all her previous haughtiness diminished into remorse. “I’m sorry. I know that’s why we … But I can’t let Emma—”
Grom covers Mom’s mouth with his giant hand. “For once in your stubborn life, will you let me talk?”
She huffs through his fingers but says nothing else. I blink at the two of them, at the familiarity of it all. The way they know how to handle each other. The way they read each other. The way they act like me and Galen.
And I hate it.
And I hate that I hate it.
After Dad died, I told myself I wouldn’t be one of those bratty kids who made it difficult for their single parent to date someone else, or to find love with someone else or whatever. I wouldn’t be an obstacle to my mother’s happiness. It’s just that … well, I was operating under the assumption that she loved my dad, that they were made for each other, so she probably wouldn’t find anyone else anyway. Now I feel that Grom had intruded on their relationship the entire time. That maybe they could have loved each other if it weren’t for him.
And somehow I feel that since Mom and Dad didn’t love each other, then I’m less … important. That I’m the result of an accident that is still complicating the lives of people I love. I also hate that I’m allowing myself to have a pity party when clearly bigger things than myself are happening.
Feel free to grow up at any time, Emma. Preferably before you push away people you love.
Grom retracts his hand from Mom’s mouth, and uses his fingertips to caress her cheek. My new and improved grown-up self tries not to think Gag me, but I accidentally think it anyway.
“I was going to say,” Grom continues, “that I’m sure your transgression can be forgiven, under the circumstances. But I think we should concentrate on that first. I don’t think we should bring Emma up at all. Not yet. Solid food is for mature ones.”
I feel Galen relax beside me. He nods up at his brother. “Agreed.” Then he looks down at me. “They’ll need time to digest all this. Once Nalia explains everything, and enough time has passed for them to accept—”
“There’s something else,” Grom blurts. He rakes his hand through his hair, something Galen does when he’s particularly frustrated. I find my immature self thinking, I don’t want Grom and Galen to be alike, and then my grown-up self says, Knock it off. And then Grom says: “I’m already mated to Paca.”
The realization slaps us each in a different way.
Me, with elation.
Galen, w
ith … I’m not sure. He hasn’t moved.
Mom, with horror.
Toraf, with open-mouth shock that makes him look a bit silly.
Rayna, with “You idiot,” she spits. “We told you—”
Grom points at her in the universal watch-yo-self sign. “No, you didn’t tell me. All you told me was that I shouldn’t mate with Paca. That she was a fraud. But you…” Grom turns to Galen. “And you didn’t tell me the truth. I won’t take the full blame for this.”
I can tell Rayna’s all kinds of mad, but Galen cows her with a look. “He’s right,” he tells his sister. Then he nods up at Grom. “But we didn’t know the truth—well, not the whole truth—until we got back to shore after you banned us from the territories. We didn’t know Nalia was alive, but we should have told you about Emma. But are you so sure you would have listened? Seemed like you’d already made up your mind.”
Grom pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. Probably not. But I don’t think you understand what all this means.” By the way Galen cocks his head, I think Grom is right. In fact, by the way everyone holds their breath and looks at Grom, I think none of us knows what this means.
“It means, little brother,” Grom says, his voice full of bitter, “that you’re next in line to become Nalia’s mate.”
Ohmysweetgoodness.
8
EVERYONE IS quiet, as if Grom’s words deprive the air of its breathable qualities. Nalia takes her seat in a chair this time, instead of his lap. She stares up at Galen in horror, the same horror you feel when you know something’s true but every fiber in your body rebels against it. The same horror saturating Galen right now, threatening to push him over the edge and riot against the idea of it all.
The Law of the Gifts states the firstborn of every third generation from each house must mate. That used to mean Nalia and Grom. When they thought Nalia was dead, there were no Poseidon heirs left for Grom to mate with. Grom was free to choose a different mate, which he did. But now Nalia is back from the dead. And though Galen is younger than Grom, he’s still from the same generation—and the next heir in line for the Triton kingship if something were to befall his brother.