“Wait,” Tallulah said with a look of disbelief on her face. “You were boinking a demigod for fifty years and didn’t know it?”

“Umm… yes,” I admitted sheepishly. I’d thought the events of the last few days were bad. However, this was freakin’ painful. My sisters were positively over the moon at my life as of late—not good.

“Is boinking a god all kinds of awesome?” Ariel asked, grinning like a fool.

“Demigod,” I corrected her while avoiding the answer to her question. The answer was yes—a million times yes, but for some reason I didn’t want to share.

Madison had gathered snacks and was handing out Piña Coladas all around. My sisters made themselves comfortable in the living room of my suite and apparently thought we were having a party. Shit. I had an appointment for a fabulous boinking. I didn’t have time for a sisterly cross-examination.

“So, correct me if I’m wrong—and I’m usually not—though this is a messy little story,” Madison stated with an evil smirk, twisting her long hot pink hair into a messy bun on top of her head and securing it with a sparkling seahorse clip. The move meant she planned to stay for a while… “You boinked a smexy demigod for half a century without knowing his name. He sprayed you with some glittery shit that got stuck on your skin—which, by the way, looks terrific on you. And that led to Poseidon of the scary man-diaper seeing the sparkle crap while you were trying to talk Pirate Arsehole out of wearing what amounts to a fucking dress for his wedding. Moving forward… Poseidon hired you to be the new Cupid. Then the soused God of the Sea fired the original—the nameless hot dude you’ve been boinking—and lo and behold Archer aka the former Cupid shows up here to kill you? And then Wally, along with your new BFF Thornycraft, threatened and tortured him and decided he was cool. Yet somehow you ended up in bed with him?”

“That sounds really bad when you say it like that,” I muttered, wanting to become one with the couch.

“Is there another way to say it?” Madison asked with a laugh.

“Gods, this is fabulous,” Ariel sang as she stirred up a second round of drinks. “Plus you made your first human match as the new Cupid! Aaaaaand they’re getting freakin’ married on the island next fall!”

“They are?” I asked, shocked yet secretly proud of myself. “For real?”

“For realsies, for real. Great for business,” Madison confirmed. “So hot ass doesn’t want his job back?”

Did he? I wasn’t sure. Was all the lovey dovey stuff just to get his position back? My stomach lurched and I felt a little light-headed.

“Umm, not sure,” I admitted, glumly. “I hope not.”

“You like him,” Tallulah whispered with so much hope in her tone I winced.

I said nothing.

All three of them stood and approached me. It felt like an intervention on a bad reality TV show.

“You love him,” Madison said, carefully watching my every move and expression.

“I don’t love any man,” I snapped, grabbed the Piña Colada from Ariel’s hand and downed it in one swallow. Groaning and pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose, I winced as the brain freeze set in. Balls, every move I made today was wrong.

“Why are you so against love?” Tallulah asked as she took the glass from my hand, and gently seated me on the couch.

“Yeah,” Ariel added. “Love is the best. Keith is my every dream come true. I mean, he’s an idiot and all, but he’s my idiot and he’s a freakin’ rock star in the sack. I’m keeping him even though he does his laundry naked in a pot over an open flame.”

“TMI, Ariel,” Tallulah said with an eye roll and a slight gag. “Besides we’re discussing Misty’s love life—not yours.”

“Or mine,” Madison said with a pout. “Because I don’t have one.”

“If you’d stop mooning over a certain human, you might,” Ariel pointed out and then ducked for cover as Madison shot a blast of pink sparkles at her.

“Cakehole. Shut it,” Madison warned.

I glanced over at my beautiful pink-haired sister in surprise. If I wasn’t so embroiled in my own shitshow, I would be getting to the bottom of hers. However, the time wasn’t exactly right to add to my own poop pile.

“Look dudettes, I umm… like him. I don’t love him.”

“Don’t or won’t?” Tallulah asked.

“Does it matter?” I asked, staring my sister down.

Of all people, she should know why I would never love any man. I still couldn’t believe she was taking the plunge with the questionably intelligent Pirate Doug.

“Why are you so afraid?” Tallulah asked.

Narrowing my eyes, I wanted to headbutt my beloved sister. Did she really want to go there? Her silence as she stared intently at me proved she did. Shitshitshit. It was her wedding week. I felt awful for what I was about to say, but she’d asked and wouldn’t back down.

“Mom died of a broken heart. You saw it and I saw it. It was awful and it was his fault. I will never let that happen to me,” I ground out.

“She did?” Ariel asked, shocked.

“Who told you that?” Tallulah asked me.

That gave me a brief second of pause. I couldn’t recall. “Umm… I don’t remember. It was so long ago some of it’s a blur. But that is what happened.”

Madison and Ariel both refilled their drinks and sat down on either side of me on the couch. They were shell-shocked and I felt terrible. Tallulah stood in front of me looking pained.

“That’s not what happened,” my eldest sister said firmly with sorrow in her eyes. “Is that why you’ve avoided love all these centuries?”

“Maybe,” I replied, all of a sudden feeling wildly unsure of everything I’d known to be true. “So what’s your version of the story? If you know so much, how did she die?” I challenged harshly.

The room was so quiet it was eerie. The only sound to be heard was Ariel and Madison’s sad sniffles. This should not be happening. Not now. Not ever. My younger sisters knew none of this and had lived somewhat normal lives. Well, as normal as an immortal Mermaid’s life could be. This was going to add to their burden and I was pissed at Tallulah for pushing.

“She had a rare affliction,” Tallulah said in a strangled whisper.

“Yep, sure she did,” I snapped with an eye roll. “We’re immortal. We don’t get sick.

“I didn’t say she was sick… I said affliction.”

“What’s the difference?” I demanded. “And do we really need to do this here? Now?”

“Yes,” Tallulah said flatly. “We do. It’s time. Our mother was cursed.”

That rendered me speechless. What was Tallulah talking about? The gasps of Ariel and Madison made my heart ache… or maybe it was the words Tallulah had spoken.

Wouldn’t I have known that my own mother was cursed by some evil force?

Was my oldest sister simply trying to justify her own love to the idiot Pirate Doug by rewriting history?

“Oh my Gods,” Madison gasped out and began to cry.

Ariel just sat and said nothing. Not her normal behavior, but this conversation was anything but normal for us.

“I call bullshit,” I muttered. “If she was cursed, then why in the Seven Seas did our father keep taking off for years at a time? Hmmm, let me think… maybe because he was a selfish bastard? Like all men?”

Tallulah stared at me so hard I got uncomfortable. “There’s a lot you don’t know,” she said in a broken voice. “I wish on every star in the sky that I’d known you believed such a warped version of the truth.”

“Fine,” I said in a hollow tone, feeling sick. “What’s the truth?”

“Our father searched for a cure for the deadly enchantment that had been placed on our mother. He scoured the world for the one who had placed the curse. He would have given his own life to reverse it. And in the end… he did.”

Madison’s weeping grew louder and Ariel still sat as still as a statue. Tallulah? Tallulah wasn’t quite done.

“He never found the evil that cursed our mother, but he died trying. So maybe you and I are both correct. Our mother died of a broken heart, but there was far more to that sad story than you knew. That’s the truth, Misty. I promise.”

Breathing became laborious and I thought I might pass out. The sobbing hurt my ears. I wanted to scream for my sisters to stop but realized it was me crying—not them. Tallulah took me in her arms and held me tight. How did I not know this? I would have helped my father search. I might have been able to save both of them. Why didn’t I know?

“It’s okay, baby,” Tallulah whispered in my ear as she rocked me back and forth. “I’m just so sorry you didn’t know and lived with this for hundreds of years. It’s my fault. I should have realized something was strange when you ran from love.”

“Not your fault,” I said through my tears. “My fault.”

“I feel like it’s my fault,” Madison said, joining the sister hug.

“Why would you think it’s your fault?” I asked, perplexed.

“I don’t know,” Madison said. “Most stuff is my fault so it stands to reason.”

Ariel was the only one who still sat alone. That was not okay. I couldn’t let my fuck up destroy my baby sister.

Gently pushing Tallulah and Madison away, I moved to Ariel and wrapped her in my arms. I pushed her curly blue locks from her beautiful face and laid my cheek on hers. “I’m so sorry you had to hear this.”

“I’m not,” she said as she relaxed against my body. “I always felt like something was wrong, but I never knew what. I thought maybe I was a burden and it was my fault she died.”

“Oh Gods, no,” Tallulah gasped out as she and Madison now barnacled themselves to Ariel and me. “We were her greatest joys. I know this for sure. And we were our father’s as well.”

“This day has been the weirdest one of my life,” I mumbled against Ariel’s hair. “And I know weird.”

“You can love him now,” Tallulah said quietly. “If that’s what you want.”

“So much has gone down in the last fifteen minutes, I’m not even sure I remember my own name,” I replied with a small laugh. “I have a lot to absorb before I can make any decisions like that.”

Ariel took my hands in hers and smiled. “Sometimes, the decision isn’t yours to make,” she said wisely. “Sometimes love simply happens. Take it while you can. Our lives are so long and empty without it.”

Not wanting to fight her on something I still didn’t understand, I just nodded.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Archer said from the archway of the room. “But maybe I do.”

“How much did you hear?” I asked, letting my head fall back on my shoulders. How could I have forgotten that only a wall had separated him from a conversation that tilted my world upside down?

“The truth?” he asked, his eyes focused only on me.

“Yes.”

“All of it.”

“Maybe we should go,” Madison said. “But only if you want us to.”

Archer entered the room. I was glad he’d put his shirt back on. I felt a little possessive of those nice pecs of his.

“Actually, I’d like you all to stay and I’d like to call a few others here as well. There’s an evil coming and everyone should know about it,” he said, looking very much like a powerful God.

“Umm… are you fucking serious?” I asked, completely unable to grasp that there was more to the shitshow than had already developed.

“I’m trying to fuck you,” he said with a grin so sexy I laughed. “However, yes. I’m also serious.”

“Is this the part about killing and dying for me?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“I’ll gather the family,” Tallulah said, walking over to Archer. “You’re on probation here, little mister. If you screw it up, you shall become Johnsonless. Am I clear?”

“Very,” Archer said with a laugh. “You Mermaids are vicious.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered as I stood up and walked my sisters to the door of my suite. “Meet back here in a half hour.”

And they were gone. The room felt claustrophobic and I wanted to let my tail out and swim in the ocean so badly I could taste it, but that would have to wait.

“Can we talk?” Archer asked, trying to gauge my mood.

“I need to be alone for a bit. I’m going to help round the others up. Cool?’

I could tell he wasn’t happy—at all, but he acquiesced. Pain was etched on his beautiful features and I was pretty sure he’d absorbed my pain. I just didn’t know what to do with all the new and scary feelings I was having.

“I’ll be back in a few.”

And before he could say another word that would stop me from leaving him, I waved my hand and disappeared in a mist of green glitter.

Maybe, I was being a true chicken of the sea, but I needed to talk to my BFF. My semi-fingerless buddy hadn’t steered me wrong yet.

I just hoped he was still full of profane wisdom.