Elyssa was well and thoroughly satisfied. For once, things had gone very, very right.

She stretched in Kadir’s arms. Ahhh. Her muscles were sore in unusual places, but the sex was great. She had known it would be from the first moment he had commanded her with his imperial kiss.

And for their first time, she had been the one who initiated it. That never happened. She never initiated in the past because her past lovers were too quick to get their own pleasure. It was always casual. Never this soul-shatteringly intense.

Maybe she had never really loved any of her boyfriends at all.

Kadir stroked her curved waist and trailed his fingers down her thigh. His forehead wrinkled.

“What?” she asked.

“I will protect you. No one will take you from me.”

“I wouldn’t let them even if they tried.”

His frown deepened. “Not your people. Not my people.”

“Not nobody.” She kissed his forehead wrinkles. He snorted in surprise. So serious, his silver-flecked eyes. Just like when he had told her that he would never let her go.

She never wanted to be let go. And that was the moment she realized that the only way she could truly prove her devotion to Kadir was to take action. Like when she had begged to see the hammerheads, she had reached a crossing point within herself. If she didn’t take the next step, she never would.

She needed to be regal. She needed to be imperious. She needed to match Kadir’s confidence with her own. She needed to not just agree with whatever anybody told her. She needed to go forth and grab what she wanted with both hands and not let go. The same as Kadir.

“So, I’m an official mermaid.” She rose from their resting place, bounced up, and pointed her toes.

They remained human.

Aw.

Kadir rose up on an elbow. “What do you mean?”

Apparently, she meant nothing. “I thought after we joined I’d be able to make my fins.” She flexed her feet, her toes, her ankles.

He pursed his lips. Was he also disappointed?

She hunched away and muttered. “I’ll keep trying.”

He rose. His toes effortlessly separated like spreading wings and silver swirled webbing transformed his human feet into fantastic fins.

It wasn’t fair. He made it look so easy.

“Perhaps you will resolve it tonight in the heart chamber.”

“The heart chamber?” She reached for his hand, missed, and spun in the still sanctuary water. “I thought it hadn’t grown yet.”

“It was growing.” Kadir took her hand to steady her. “I expect it finished after we exchanged vows.”

They should consummate their marriage in the heart chamber properly. “I feel like things are a little out of order.”

“Things are out of order.” He swam with her out of the inner sanctuary and down the corridor. “Normally a bride drinks a temporary elixir and transforms for her journey through the ocean. She arrives at her husband’s castle and joins with him in the heart chamber. If all is well, the Life Tree reacts to her energy and grows a blossom full of nectar, which she then consumes to make the change permanent.”

But Elyssa had skipped all the steps. “I drank the nectar first. Sort of.”

“And we are the first to grow the heart chamber.” They reached the exit. “It is shielded so no noises leak out.”

Wait a minute.

“Noises?” she repeated.

The guard, Nilun, greeted them outside. His eyes averted. “King Kadir. Queen Elyssa.”

Queen Elyssa. Wow. He accepted her already! Tingles ran down her back.

But his awkward refusal to meet her eyes was very suspicious after Kadir just mentioned noises.

Kadir kicked, leaving Nilun behind and easily flying them across the open water to the silver-green castle. She lowered her voice. “Are you telling me that other people heard us just now?”

“The Life Tree dais is built for amplification, not shielding. Although it is now enclosed, I think it simply amplified our passion louder.”

What?

Her first act as queen was to have amplified public sex?

A heat wave rolled through her body. Her cheeks turned the approximate temperature of the surface of the sun.

She was going to die. She was going to die. She was going to die.

Kadir glanced over his shoulder. One brow cocked. Arrogant. Proud almost. “Problem?”

She was going to kill him. “You could have told me!”

“I tried. You were insistent.”

Oh, god.

“Take me to the heart chamber.” At least no one would hear her when she screamed. “Now.”

“Yes.” His lips curved as he twisted away. “My queen.”

She was seriously going to kill him.

Well, she had been trying to prove that she wanted him and it was more than just pretty words. At least her unqueenly performance was confined to the guards outside the castle and the Life Tree. Oh, and the warriors inside the castle courtyard, apparently, because they also averted their eyes and turned nearly her shade of red. Everyone else was out on patrol or at the wreckage site.

Kadir flew across the courtyard into the narrow hallway. Last night — if it really was last night, now that she knew her sense of time was all screwed up — the hallway had terminated before he could take three kicks. It now wound through the inside of the castle like a labyrinth, and they flew around and around in spirals. There, at the deepest dead end, Kadir placed his and her linked hands on the wall. The living green wall glimmered silver, recognizing them, and parted inward.

Inside was a chamber barely big enough for the two of them.

Kadir’s fins shifted to human feet and he stood intimately near. The water tasted smoky, like his flavors. Hickory mixed with vanilla.

Desire rose and twisted in her center.

She reached for his hand. He caught hers and gazed down at her with intensity, twining their fingers. Maybe they should christen the room they were supposed to use—

“King Kadir.” A voice interrupted their silence.

Kadir swung her behind him, deeper inside the chamber. “Who dares approach?”

“I am under orders from Soren.” Balim reached the chamber cautiously, his eyes averted, his cheeks also red. “How is your health?”

Kadir did not relax. “Why have you returned from the wrecked city?”

“We saw flashes of light. Soren asked me to check your condition.”

“Flashes of light?” His shoulders slowly relaxed. “The Life Tree amplified our joining all the way to old Atlantis?”

Balim’s chest was now so hot, his blood-red tattoos blended into the rest of his body. “You did not notice?”

“I was distracted.”

And she was literally going to die. Of embarrassment. Forever.

Balim deliberately did not look at her. “May I inspect?”

“Soren worries too much.” Kadir exited the chamber and stood patiently.

Balim examined his ribs, his arms, his spine and hmmed. He needed a clipboard and glasses to push up his nose and he would be any other physician.

“How do you feel?” he asked finally.

Kadir smiled with his teeth. “Energy flows in my veins.”

Balim raised one brow skeptically and shook his head. “Sure it does. Rest now.”

“Truly, Balim, I am ready to join the work site at the old city.”

“Do not insult my assessment. The journey across the Atlantic set back your healing and now you have once again taxed yourself. Rest.”

Great. They had loud, public, acrobatic sex at the Life Tree and it had set back Kadir’s healing.

Healing?

Elyssa tilted forward and touched his forearm. “Another day can’t hurt. Let’s sleep in here.”

His lips quirked and his gaze darkened. “I obey my queen.”

Delicious tingling filled her veins.

“I said to rest,” Balim said dryly.

“By the way, what are you healing from?”

Kadir looked down at her. Startled. “My imprisonment.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I never realized.” He was so powerful and intense, whether pressing her against a wall, pinning her with his imperial gaze, or swimming her across an entire ocean. It never occurred to her that he might not be feeling one hundred percent. He masked it so well. “Where are you hurt?”

“You cannot see?” He looked at Balim, whose eyes were equally wide. They were shocked. She clearly won the worst girlfriend-wife award for never noticing.

“I’m sorry.” As she spoke, Kadir’s brows darkened. Was it really obvious? “Um…is it your head?”

“My head?”

“Sometimes you look really angry like you might have a migraine.”

He blinked.

Okay. Not his head. She held up her hands before she stuck her completely-human-not-at-all-mermaid foot any further into her mouth. “You have to tell me. I’m going to get it wrong.”

He pointed to his ribs.

Broken ribs were the worst! Or so she’d heard, from people who cracked them horseback riding or skiing. And she’d been holding onto him really tight, and gripping him with her thighs. How had he stopped himself from screaming?

She winced. “How many did you break?”

“No, they are not broken.” He placed her hand flat against his rib cage and, when she still didn’t get it immediately, he slid it to the side. “Do you now feel?”

Hmm. There were scars across his tattoos where the skin had been torn and healed. It must have been rough in prison. “Your scars healed pretty well already. I thought it was the pattern of your tattoos.”

His eyes bugged.

She was still getting it wrong.

Balim cleared his throat. “Kadir was starved. His ribs protrude and he has not regained his muscle. Soren stormed the prison in his final moments. He nearly died.”

Ohhhh. Then, his leanness wasn’t his body type or his rock star personality. Maybe she could see it now. The cheeks that ought to be fuller. The eyes that were intense because they were slightly sunken into dark hollows.

And he had nearly died.

A lump formed in her throat. She struggled to swallow past it. His body was beneath her hand. His heartbeat on her palm proved he was still alive. But he nearly wasn’t. They almost hadn’t met.

She slid her arms the rest of the way around him and hugged him. His heart thub-thubbed steadily beneath her ear. She closed her eyes. He was hers. She would pay more attention, and help him, and treasure him.

His warm palm stroked her head. “You truly did not notice.”

“I thought it was your body type. Besides.” She disentangled herself to look at him. Really look at him. “It doesn’t look that bad. You must be almost back to normal.”

He laughed. A true laugh. “Am I? Almost ‘back to normal?”

Balim shook his head like she was completely blind. “The normal body type is Soren.”

“Soren!” She refused to picture Kadir three times as wide. “No. I can’t. It’s just not you.”

He laughed again, truly delighted, and drew her into his arms. “I am glad my body meets with my queen’s approval.”

“No, I mean, it’s fine if you want to bulk up, but I just can’t imagine you as Soren—”

A distant roar reached their hall.

Kadir’s smile stilled. “That will be Soren.”

“I meant to inform you. Soren is returning soon.” Balim swam down the hall, calling over his shoulder. “And Adviser Creo wishes to speak with you.”

“Of course he does.” Kadir’s eyes darkened again. In exhaustion. His shoulders sagged and he yawned.

She really had over-taxed him. “We could rest. Just a little bit.”

His dark eyes glowed. “I do not wish to rest a little bit.”

Her neither, but he was too busy. If resting was something she could give him, she would do it.

“You do give me energy, Elyssa,” he said, responding to a thought she hadn’t spoken. “More now than in a very long time.”

Warmth glowed in her chest. She helped him. Her presence hadn’t only made him tired. She took Kadir’s hand. “I guess we should see what they want.”

In the courtyard, the returning patrols all flushed and averted their eyes. It took her a minute to remember why. They all knew. Her, sex, the Life Tree.

Ugh.

Kadir kept her by his side and frowned with intensity. It eased the odd looks.

The warriors decided to eat dinner — which was good because she was starving again — and gave their reports.

Lotar described the increasing pattern of shark attacks, which might be used to find the raiders. “With three brave warriors, I could trace the patterns back and locate their camp.”

“And then what?” Soren growled, looking up from his dinner and silencing the warriors who offered themselves bravely. “We cannot spare a unit to initiate an attack.”

Lotar’s gray eyes flicked to Kadir.

Kadir nodded, even though the tension in his body told Elyssa that he did not wish to agree. “Our priority now is Sea Opals. Soren?”

“The wreckage is dangerous. The cave guardian regularly stops our work with his aggression, and many sharks are driven in by raiders from the open ocean.” Soren stabbed a thick fish steak and tore into the flesh. The raw sashimi steaks were delicious, but she felt like she needed sharper teeth. “Balim studied the ancient drawings. It is possible the mechanism to raise and lower the city is still intact. We target the main tower, where we are most likely to discover Sea Opals and the mechanism to accomplish our original goal.”

“Good plan.” Kadir rubbed Elyssa’s knee absently. “It is thoughtful and careful.”

The large warrior flinched with the compliment. He looked away and rubbed the back of his head. “You would do better.”

“No, Soren. Your instincts are sharp and you motivate your warriors to work together well.”

Soren glanced from the corner of his slitted eyes. “If your mood is improved this much, you should always join under the Life Tree.”

She choked on her seaweed.

The warriors nearest Soren smiled. Most mer seemed vaguely amused. Not the adviser, of course. He hated everything she did.

No, that wasn’t true. Adviser Creo worried about her. He wanted her to be like the old brides from the sacred islands. Her wishy-washy attitude worried him, and he was right to be worried because her doubts and misunderstandings caused Kadir real pain.

“You should not put brides on display,” he said, to all nearby.

Well, he had a point. Since she had just publicly displayed herself.

And he was the one in charge of approving Atlantis.

Dear Aya. On my first day on the job, I insulted the adviser in charge of approving the city and I nearly caused a riot. On the second day, I had loud public sex under the Life Tree. Please don’t let me screw up in front of Adviser Creo anymore.

Kadir nudged her gently. On his dagger was a thin slice of steak he had cut for her.

Aw. She chewed it and he rubbed her shoulders softly. His warriors required his attention, but he still sensed her anxiety.

She didn’t want to make him worry.

Was she really doing any good here? She just needed a small sign. One that proved she was all right. That her presence was good, and would help Kadir, so Atlantis could thrive.

Zoan swam into the courtyard furiously, interrupting the gathered meal. “My king! My king, the Life Tree, it —”

“Is injured?” The adviser rose with fear. He was visibly sick at the alarm. “Damaged? Destroyed?”

“No.” Zoan turned away from the adviser and focused on Kadir. Shock and hope lit his normally teasing face. “It has blossomed.”