Chapter 2
“Doctor Gibbons?”
Sera grabbed the ledge of the counter above her and pulled herself out from under it to see who was talking to her. She frowned, unhappy with the interruption. She was close to being finished recalibrating this contraption. “Yes?”
An enormous young man with a shaved head stood quietly inside her doorway. She’d guess his age at late teens, perhaps early twenties. His gaze swept the room once before settling on her. Interesting. Most people couldn’t wait to peek at her lab. His dark blue irises were rimmed in brilliant, glowing gold, and they never left her face. “The weretiger ship has docked on the landing platform. They bring the Arctic Bear Clan leader and his mate to see you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I know that.”
“Yes, Doctor.” The young man didn’t shift or fidget. He was the stillest person she’d ever seen. And he also showed no indication of leaving.
Sighing, she sat up. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Oeric Fane.”
She tossed aside her tools and wiped her hands on a rag. Grime smeared the front of her jumpsuit. “Whatever they sent you to say, get it said.”
“Ambassador Hahn would like you to meet them when they arrive in Atlantis.” He hesitated briefly before snapping his mouth shut.
“What else?” A feeling of foreboding crept through her. Bretton hadn’t come to her the night before, and she could guess it had something to do with his career, his father, his duty…or some combination thereof. Damn it.
“He asked that you make yourself…presentable.” Oeric winced and focused on a spot over her shoulder, not meeting her eyes.
“He did, did he?” Her eyes narrowed to slits. The too familiar frustration boiled into hot anger. Who was Bretton to dictate what she wore? As everyone here pointed out so often, she wasn’t a mermaid, and she didn’t behave like one. Why should she dress like one? Her work was often dirty, and that helped the citizens of Atlantis more than they’d like to admit.
Bare minutes later, Oeric trailed after her as she stomped into the docking bay wearing her filthy jumpsuit. They wanted to demand her presence? Then they could deal with her less than perfect apparel.
“Doctor Gibbons.”
“Counselor Hahn.” Cuthbert was a shorter, portly version of Bretton. He should have been jolly looking, but he wasn’t. His upper lip curled in disgust as he looked over her attire. She narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin, daring him to say anything.
The one thing she’d never come to understand about these people was why they were so fixated on what others thought. They held themselves in icy reserve, always striving to be perfect. It was especially true for the political families like Bretton’s. So much pressure to be the very best. The oddest thing was, it wasn’t to be more perfect than each other, but to be the best they could be. The ideal was taken too much to the extreme. No person could be flawless, but anyone less than perfect was looked down upon.
So as much as she was prized for what she could do, the upper classes looked down on her for not striving for the perfection they valued so highly. Her hair was always a mess, clothes always stained with grease. She never said or did the right thing.
Cuthbert arched a brow at her, not backing down. “May I remind you that you are a guest on this planet?”
Clenching her jaw, she held on to the frayed edges of her temper. “I don’t need a reminder to know you’ll never accept me as I am, Cuthbert.”
His nostrils flared at her use of his given name. He hated that, the informality…which was why she did it. The skin around his turquoise eyes, so like Bretton’s, tightened. “Perhaps you could consider changing.”
She deliberately misunderstood him and brushed at her jumpsuit. “But I’m already here, Cuthbert. I don’t have time to change before your guests arrive.”
He glowered and glanced at someone over her shoulder. “You deal with her.”
“Must you be so difficult?” Bretton’s heavy sigh sounded behind her. Tingles shivered down her spine as the warmth of his big body embraced her.
She stiffened and forced herself to step away, turning to face him. She lifted a brow. “I’m sorry, have we met? Hi, I’m Sera.”
“I am not amused.” His shoulders drew into a rigid line.
A nasty smile curved her lips. “That’s too bad. I am.”
He folded his arms and stared down at her. “And you’re the only one that matters.”
“Why do you care so much what other people think?” Her fingers clenched into fists, and her temper slipped. “Isn’t it better to be happy with yourself than for everyone else to be happy with you?”
“You assume it’s either one or the other. It is possible to be content with yourself and have others feel the same.”
She huffed. “Is it? Or is that just what you tell yourself?”
“Selfish.” His voice cooled to subarctic temperatures.
Resisting the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him, she retorted, “Sacrificial lamb.”
“This isn’t the time or place for this discussion.”
“You brought it up.” Moving backward, she put some distance between them. Physical distance, at least. Her emotions were always in chaos around Bretton. He’d possessed her, body and soul, from the very first moment she saw him. She’d never been able to distance herself from him, and until recently she hadn’t even tried. A year of back and forth had exhausted her.
Sera stood with the mermen in a semicircle around a round hatch. A rumbling precipitated the green light flashing beside the door to indicate the hatch had been engaged. The cargo skimmer had ferried their guests from the landing platform to the docking bay at Atlantis. It would make multiple trips to bring all the trade goods down from the other worlds. After a few weeks of haggling and negotiation with vendors here, Aquatilian goods would go back to the ship, and the route would begin again.
Her heart rate picked up, and anticipation whipped through her. Jain would be on this skimmer. As the only person like her, she would understand a lot about the adjustment to a whole new culture. Sera’s lips curled in a bittersweet smile. Of course, Jain had had a new husband to help her transition.
The hatch popped open with a whoosh, and the small amount of water trapped between the skimmer and the door rushed down into the grated flooring where it would be pumped back out into the sea. It was just one of the systems Sera had had to repair and improve when she’d arrived.
A composed woman with hair so orange-red it would have been unnatural on Earth stepped through the still dripping water. Mermaid. They were the only species to have such intense hair colors. Often the hair shade matched the tail color when the merperson shifted. But not always. Cuthbert had a black tail to match his hair, whereas Bretton’s was turquoise like his eyes. This mermaid must be the Aquatilian ambassador to Harena—the weredragon world. Her name was Elia…something.
“Ambassador Iden.” Bretton reached a hand out to her, and he smiled as they touched. Fierce jealousy ripped through Sera. He’d never shown that much pleasure in seeing her. Especially not in public. Bitterness coated her tongue, and she glanced away. Oeric looked at Elia with something akin to worship in his eyes. Sera’s eyebrows lifted. The woman was at least ten years his senior. Perhaps more.
The young man bowed to the mermaid and offered his arm. “After a Turn on a desert planet, I imagine you wish to swim.”
Intense longing flashed across her face, and she snapped her fingers around Oeric’s forearm to allow him to lead her away. Sera turned to see if Jain would exit the skimmer.
But next came a dark, exotic beauty flanked by two large, equally dark men. Their scales marked them as weredragons. One of the men was tall and broad with silver scales, the other was absolutely enormous with black scales. She’d seen only one dragon in the time she’d been here, an older ambassador who had kept to himself.
The woman’s purple scales formed a crown on her forehead, and she radiated a calm assurance that Sera would never be able to master. Her gaze slid over the crowd before settling on Bretton. She smiled and swept him a small curtsy. “Ambassador Hahn…so nice to see you again.”
He bowed in return. “Lady Katryn. I must say it is a surprise to see you. I’d heard you returned to your home world of Harena to mate.”
“I did.” A small, secret grin curved her lips. She gestured to the two men beside her. “May I introduce my mates, Tarkesh and Nadir? The three of us have taken up my father’s old post among the weretigers as ambassadors to Vesperi.”
Mates? Plural? A million questions ricocheted through Sera’s mind. She wanted to ask them all, to know more about the hidden dragon culture. It was her curse, always wanting to know more. With Bretton, it was just plain always wanting more.
“Congratulations on your new position.” Bretton bowed and spoke to the weredragons but cut Sera a sideways glance—a warning not to say anything, not to embarrass him, not to upset his perfect life. Her polite smile broke, and she looked away to meet Jain’s gaze as Kesuk escorted her off the spaceship. Her appearance jolted through Sera. Contentment shone in the woman’s leaf-green eyes, and her tiny body was swollen with the advanced stages of pregnancy. Sera felt her eyes widen at the sight. How could someone as petite as Jain carry a child from a polar bear shifter? Kesuk was easily the biggest man Sera had ever seen, and every single werebear was huge.
“Jain.” With the exception of Bretton, Sera didn’t touch very many people. She hadn’t been a comfortable child to be around, and her parents had never known what to do with her constant need to learn. They’d sent her away to school as a toddler. Visits home had been awkward for everyone—no hugs were exchanged, very few words were exchanged—but she reached for Jain now.
Some quiet fear exploded in her belly. If Jain were to die in childbirth, that would leave Sera alone in the universe. The last of her kind. Even if they lived on different planets, she had always known Jain was out there somewhere. She existed, and that was enough for Sera to take some odd comfort in.
She wrapped the smaller woman in an embrace for long moments. A little laugh bubbled out of Jain as she pulled back, tears sparkling in her eyes. “It’s so wonderful to see you again, Sera.”
“It is.” The first genuine smile of the day bloomed across her face. Here was a woman who had known her before she was a token human, the last of a dying breed of technologically advanced people.
The unhappy shriek of a child pulled Sera’s gaze to the hatch again. Amir Varad stepped out with a baby in his arms. The child grabbed two handfuls of the weretiger king’s auburn-and-black-striped hair and pulled. He winced and gently disentangled himself from the pudgy little fingers. Stress drew lines around his eyes, but even he looked more content than he had the last time Sera had seen him.
Had everyone suddenly gotten their lives together except her? She snorted at her own self-pitying thoughts. Why was she so restless lately? So discontent? It wasn’t like her. She used to claim that if she had a laboratory, she would be blissfully happy. She now knew that for the lie it was.
“Varad.” A grin curved her mouth.
“Sera Gibbons. Your beauty has only enhanced in the time since I’ve seen you. Aquatilis treats you well.” The thick gold loop flashed in his ear as he inclined his head. The weretiger king was a charming man who’d given her transport to Aquatilis after his trading party had discovered her. Bretton had been with that party—and had been the one who’d convinced the Brown Bear Clan to give her to him. What he’d said to them, she’d never know, but she was eternally grateful not to be living as a Brown slave.
The Alysians’ archaic culture demanded that she serve as a slave because they’d rescued her. Fortunately “slave” was a generic term for any non-clan member who lived in the Den as a servant. She’d made certain the Browns hadn’t enjoyed her time there. They’d all felt a mutual and instantaneous antagonism. She doubted Bretton had had to work very hard for them to allow her to leave with him.
A matching baby’s scream echoed behind Varad, and he turned to offer his free hand to a woman with the most perfect skin Sera had ever seen. It was the color of pure cream, and the natural kohl lining that surrounded her crystalline blue tiger eyes made them seem enormous. Her hair had blond and brunette stripes. A snow tiger? Sera reviewed what she knew about the genetic anomaly of white tigers. Very little. She made a mental note to look it up in the data archives and then she offered the woman a polite smile. “Hello.”
Curiosity lit the woman’s gaze. “You’re the other human. The non-shifter human?”
“Yes.” Sera braced herself for the probing look so common to those who wanted to see the freak of nature who couldn’t shift into an animal form. It happened less and less often as the merpeople got used to seeing her, though they still goggled when she put on a rebreather, wet suit, and flippers and went swimming. More often than not, she was checking the integrity of the dome structures that made up Atlantis.
“Ahem.” Cuthbert’s throat clearing sounded pompous. Everything about him was pompous—from his heavily embroidered saltwater silk robes to his slicked-back hair to the way he carried himself. In so many ways, he was the antithesis of Bretton. Yet Bretton felt the need to act like his father in public. Aquatilis was all about the public appearance of self-improvement and perfection. It drove her insane. She wanted to rip off her clothes and run naked through the botanical gardens screaming at the top of her lungs, just to break the perfect bubble they all lived in.
On one hand, she respected anyone who would seek to improve themselves throughout their life, but they were in denial about their ability to reach a state of perfection. In her time, people knew it was a good goal, but no one actually thought they’d achieve it.
Cuthbert bowed low to the new arrivals. “May I introduce myself? I am Senior Counselor Cuthbert Hahn, adviser to the Aquatilian Senate. It appears you all know my son, and I look forward to getting better acquainted in the coming weeks.”
She fought the need to roll her eyes. Everyone else took the merman’s ingratiating formality in stride. The tigress managed a graceful curtsy even with a baby in her arms. “I am Mahlia, Amira of Vesperi. These are my children, Crown Prince Razak and Princess Varana.”
“Charming.” Cuthbert smiled at them, and each baby gave a matching wail.
Bretton stepped forward and offered a bow. “I’m sure you’ve all had a long voyage and would like to rest. My assistants will escort you to your quarters.”
Mahlia and Katryn both returned looks of gratitude before moving off with the young mermen Bretton had motioned forward. Their mates followed behind them, leaving Jain and Kesuk standing with Sera. Tilting her head toward the city proper, she led them out of the docking bay.
She glanced down at Jain’s belly, unease rippling through her again at how life-threatening this pregnancy could be for someone as delicately built as Jain. “You came for the medics to give you a cesarean section.”
“Yes. I will not risk my mate.” Kesuk’s deep voice rumbled behind them. Jain stopped walking to reach for him, and he wrapped her hand in his big one. Quiet terror shone in the werebear’s gaze, and Sera didn’t even want to imagine the kind of hell it would be for a strong man to know his child might kill his wife. What a nightmare for them both.
Jain lifted her palm to Kesuk’s jaw. “I’ll be all right. This was a standard procedure on Earth.”
Naked adoration flashed across their faces, and Sera looked away, feeling as though she’d interrupted a private moment. She cleared her throat. “Um, you’ll be staying in the Undine sector.”
Jain nodded. “The western leg of Atlantis, if I recall correctly.”
“How did you remember that?” Cuthbert puffed up beside them, Bretton trailing behind.
“You forget Aquatilis was my original destination, Counselor.” Jain smiled. “I studied the layout before I left Earth.”
His thick black eyebrows arched. “But that was five hundred Turns ago.”
Sera shook her head at Cuthbert. She started walking again, and the group moved forward. “Not for us. It’s been only a year. Remember, we were in stasis the entire time.” They’d awoken one day and found the whole universe had changed and passed them by.
“Is that where you live?” Jain pressed a hand to the small of her back, and Sera checked her stride so the other woman wouldn’t have to struggle to keep up.
“No, Bretton lives there. I’m in the Titan sector.”
“With the laboratories and the medical facilities.” Jain pushed her hair out of her eyes. The dark locks had grown to the middle of her back in the past year. Sera didn’t remember a time when Jain hadn’t worn her hair short.
Sera shrugged. “You know me, I can’t be separated from my passions for too long.”
A quiet smile curled the smaller woman’s mouth. “I remember you used to get up in the middle of the night to tinker with my father’s inventions when you stayed with us.”
“I miss him.” Sera closed her eyes as a pang hit her chest.
Jain tucked her hand into Sera’s. “I’m sorry.”
“He was an ass to you.” Sera barked out a laugh. Doctor Roberts had been more of a father to her than her own ever had, but she wasn’t ignorant of his flaws.
The other woman blinked and squinted up at her. “I never thought anyone noticed. I was the only non-scientist of the family.”
“I knew what it was like.” Sera tilted her chin down. “My parents would have killed for someone normal like you. Not a freak of nature like me.”
“Fate’s a bitch, isn’t it? My parents always hoped you’d marry my brother so they could have a genius daughter.”
Sera wrinkled her nose. “Never would have happened. He was kind of a priggish ass.”
A giggle burst forth. “He was.”
“But he was brilliant and a good friend.” Sera angled a glance at Jain. “I miss him, too.”
Her slim hand squeezed Sera’s tight. “Me, too.”
A rush of noise filtered down the corridor from the entry to the main dome of Aquatilis. It held many shops and restaurants, the botanical gardens, and the Senate chambers. Sera glanced at Kesuk in time to see his eyes goggle at the sight before a mask of indifference slid over his face. The man wasn’t about to allow himself to be impressed by a culture he disliked so much, but as far as Sera knew, this was the werebear’s first trip off Alysius. She wished it were for a happier reason than dangers to Jain’s health. Her stomach twisted at the thought. “Would you like to see the hospital or your quarters first?”
“The hospital,” they chorused.
Trying to ignore Cuthbert’s grating personality and the lightning strike of attraction every time Bretton leaned in to make a comment, she showed them the birthing pool merpeople used and the surgical ward where Jain would have her C-section. They all ignored how Kesuk’s face paled when he saw the operating-room laser. An hour later, Sera left an exhausted Jain in her temporary home and sought refuge in her lab.
Bretton found Sera bent over one of her enormous machines the next morning. He paused for a moment inside the door to her lab to enjoy the tantalizing wriggle of her backside. His cock stiffened in his pants, reminding him that it had been over a day since he’d sunk himself into the hot, wet depths of her pussy. He choked on a groan, and her head popped up and whipped around to look at him. A streak of grease smudged the creamy skin over her high cheekbone. “I wanted to thank you for escorting our Alysian guests around.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You’ll have to show them the more cultured areas of the city. I’m afraid my specialty is more scientific.”
As he groped for a gentle way to discuss why he’d come, he executed a slight bow. “Again, my thanks, Doctor.”
The use of her title was deliberate whether she realized it or not. His body ached for wanting her, and he needed the reminder that she was a duty and nothing more. She shouldn’t mean any more than, say, Elia Iden. His hands fisted at his sides to keep himself from reaching for her.
Her shoulder hunched in an uncomfortable shrug as she turned around and pulled herself up to sit on her machine. “It’s good to have Jain around again.”
The wistful note in her voice made his gut clench. What must it be like to be separated from everything and everyone she’d ever known? The questions he’d never allowed himself to ask her bubbled out, and then he kicked himself for giving voice to his curiosity. “Why did you come with me last Turn? Why didn’t you stay with Jain? Or go with Varad?”
Wariness and vulnerability flashed in the pretty gray depths of her eyes before a mask settled over her features. He missed the open expression. She looked down at her hands and spoke softly. “When I saw you, I felt less…alone. Not so lost.”
“Why?” And why was he asking her this? It would only encourage familiarity. But he always craved more with her than he could allow himself to have.
A low chuckle escaped her, irony glinting in her gaze. “Because I knew you were mine. And I was yours.”
His eyebrow arched, surprise sparking in his chest. “So you believe in destiny? How very unscientific, Doctor.”
“Not destiny exactly. But I believe in the logic of the universe.” Absolute certainty sounded in her tone. “Everything is in its place for a reason, and there’s a logic to it even if we can’t see it. It’s a puzzle we haven’t figured out yet. So when I saw you I knew this is where I was meant to be.”
“I don’t understand you.” But he wanted to, and he shouldn’t. He propped a forearm against the doorframe, cocked a hip, and sighed.
“Me neither.” She giggled.
He laughed with her, reluctant affection twisting inside him. If only it were just desire, but as much as she drove him mad, she was also good company.
Pure wickedness twinkled in her eyes. It was his only warning before she hopped down from her perch and approached him. He tensed, fighting the urge to run from a woman half his size. Sweet Neptune, she made him want. His cock throbbed, and sweat made his shirt stick to his back. Her hand slid down the front of his pants, cupping his dick through the fabric. His breath hissed between his teeth, and he forced himself not to grab her, push her up against the wall, and rip that ugly jumpsuit away from the lush curves of her body. “You should not—”
She flashed a siren’s grin. “Do you want to say no?”
Yes. No. Damn her for bringing him to this confusing place where nothing was as it should be.
“Do you want me to beg?” Her breath brushed over his ear, and he suppressed a shudder. Heat rolled like molten fire through his body. He wanted her. He shouldn’t touch her. He couldn’t make himself stop her from touching him. She tugged at the seal on his pants and slipped her hand inside.
Closing his eyes, he groaned. Her palm slid up and down the length of his cock, and then she rolled his balls between her fingers.
His control snapped along with the last vestiges of his sanity. He stepped forward, wrapped his hands around her shoulders, and spun her up against her workbench. He ripped open the tabs on her jumpsuit and shoved it down her arms. Dipping forward, he sucked one of her sweet nipples into his mouth. She mewed and arched her back to press closer. Her fingers still worked up and down his hard dick, and he damn near came in her hand.
A man cleared his throat from just outside the open door. Bretton froze. The Fane boy. Oeric. The real reason for his visit flooded his mind. Bretton pinched his eyes closed and eased away from Sera. His muscles locked in protest, his cock burning for surcease. Both of them straightened and resealed their clothing.
“Come in, Oeric,” Bretton called out, and the big merman poked his head in the door. His expression bore its usual impassivity.
Sera’s brows arched nearly to her hairline, and she pinned Bretton with a look. “What’s going on?”
“I came here today to tell you I found you an assistant.”
Her face flushed a dark red, and anger flashed in her eyes. She gave Oeric a sweet smile, and it sent a chill down Bretton’s spine. “I’m sorry, Oeric. I don’t know what the ambassador told you, but I’m not looking for a lab assistant. Would you excuse us, please?”
The young man nodded and withdrew. Sera waited for his footsteps to fade before she rounded on Bretton. Her voice went deadly soft. “You came to force an assistant on me?”
He couldn’t contain a wince at the hurt in her voice. His weakness at touching her had caused this. He could not allow it to happen again. “You need one.”
“We’ve had this discussion before.” She pulled in a breath, and her expression flattened. “I don’t like having people in my lab. They touch things and ask annoying questions and get in my way.”
“That’s part of learning, Sera.” Exasperation filled him. Yes, they’d had this argument before. Many times.
She turned away, plucking up one of her tools.
He rubbed a hand down his hair, reaching for calm. What was it about this woman that always ignited his temper? She ignited all his passions, and he shoved them aside to try to convince her he was correct. The Senate was putting pressure on him to force her to take an apprentice. It wouldn’t be long before they called her before their assembly to make demands…and he needed to prevent the explosion that would ensue from both parties. Oeric was perfect for this. He was intelligent and, despite his size, managed to be unobtrusive. “Why can’t you just show him how to do what you do?”
“I’m not a teacher, Bretton. If you wanted one of those, you should have begged Jain to come here. That’s her specialty, not mine.” She flicked him an angry glance.
Throwing up his hands, he resisted the urge to pace. “She can’t do what you do. And when you’re gone, we’ll still need to know how to repair things, create things the way you do.”
“Already ready for me to die, are we?” Her lip lifted in a sneer.
He growled back at her, his patience slipping again. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Fine.” She folded her arms over her breasts, and he forced his eyes away from them. She smirked.
A sigh escaped his lips. “There are dozens of people of any age who are willing to learn, Sera. Just pick one.”
“No.” Her jaw took on a stubborn tilt.
“Sera—”
“I can’t teach them what I don’t know, Bretton. I don’t know how I do most of these things.” She waved a hand around at all the wires and cables and half-assembled gadgets on her workbenches.
“Because you’re a genius.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Yes. What I can do with electronics, nanotechnology, and fiber optics…and, well, pretty much anything mechanical borders on a savant skill. It’s always been this way. I passed the tests without reading the books. It just comes to me that this is the way things are supposed to be.” She sighed and looked away. “I’m trying to help as much as I can, but don’t ask me to teach people, because that’s something I can’t do.”
“I understand.” But he wished he didn’t. “And you are helping. Damn it.” He shoved a hand through his hair and dislodged the thong that held it back, turned on his heel, and walked out.
Frustration bubbled up in his chest, and there was no one to be angry with. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but the fact was that without the knowledge she had locked in her head his people would eventually lose the technology they had. Slowly, over several more centuries, but it would happen. And when it did, Aquatilis would be lost. The water had the same chemical compound as that of Earth, but the air above the water wasn’t breathable for humans, so they couldn’t live on the surface. No technology meant no merpeople society. In time, Atlantis’s systems would fail, and they wouldn’t know how to fix them.
Because Sera couldn’t teach them.
And the Senate was desperate to prevent it. Despite their dogmatic political stance, for once he wholeheartedly agreed with them. Jerking off his clothes as he went, he stalked into a small shifting chamber—others like it were located at the end of each sector in the city. He stuffed his garments into a small locker and keyed it to his personal identification code. It would shoot through a system of high-pressure tubes until it reached his apartments, which were keyed to the same code. Another system Sera had improved. She’d left her mark on the whole city. He growled low in his throat at the thought of her. Stubborn woman. Tempting, beautiful woman.
He jabbed at the button to close the hatch to the shifting chamber. It swished shut with a whoosh and a hissing seal. Then the small room began to fill with seawater. The chill of it bit into his overheated flesh, and he shuddered, gooseflesh breaking down his limbs.
The water soon rose above his head, and he took a deep breath, pulling air in through the gill slits that lined his nasal passages. Then he shifted into his merman form. His legs locked together, and scales rippled down his skin, fusing his thighs and calves. His body vibrated with the force of his bones breaking and reforming into a tail. Turquoise fins tipped in black swirled out from his ankles and feet. When it was done, he palmed the panel to the exterior hatch to let himself out into the sea.
Arching his body, he kicked his tail and let the tide sweep him away from Atlantis. Escape. He needed to clear his head. Of Sera. Of his father, his duties, his position. Propelling through the cool water, he let the current take him and tried to let go of everything except this in the sea where he was embraced in a cocoon of silence.