“I cannot understand why you are still contemplating his so-called offer!” John looked like he would very much like to punch something, preferably the Master Shark. “It is clearly a trap. He would say or do anything to keep you from the Throne!”

“But what if he’s telling the truth?” Neridia shot back, her own fists clenching with frustration. “I don’t understand why you won’t even consider the possibility that he might not be lying!”

They’d taken refuge in a small pub called The Full Moon, at John’s insistence. He’d explained that it was a shifter-only establishment, and it was clear he considered it to be the most secure location in Brighton. Neridia hadn’t been impressed by the old, dingy building from the outside, but the interior had turned out to be surprisingly snug, with old oak beams and comfortable chairs.

The Full Moon was owned by Rose, the beautiful, middle-aged black woman Neridia had briefly encountered at Griff’s wedding. When they’d walked into the bar, Rose had taken one look at them both, immediately shooed out the few mid-afternoon customers, and turned the sign on the door round to CLOSED. Then she’d called the other firefighters of Alpha Team.

At the time, Neridia had been grateful for the additional protection. Now, however, she could have done without the audience.

Dai and Chase were fidgeting uncomfortably, exchanging uneasy glances. Hugh had the expression of a man who’d rather be neck-deep in bodily fluids than where he was now. Rose was looking back and forth between John and Neridia like someone who’d placed a very large bet on the outcome of a tennis match, and didn’t like the way it was going. Only Ash still appeared as cool and unperturbed as ever.

Neridia took a deep breath, trying to rein in her emotions. “Look,” she said to John, more calmly. “I know you don’t like it, but the Master Shark’s story does hang together. When I glimpsed him at my dad’s house, four years ago? My dad did say that he was an old friend who’d unexpectedly dropped by. He seemed genuinely delighted to see him again. I think they really were oath-brothers.”

John opened his mouth, his expression thunderous, but Neridia didn’t give him a chance to voice his objection. “And if the Master Shark is telling the truth about that,” she forged on, “maybe he’s telling the truth about everything else too.”

John slammed his fist down onto the polished oak bar, making pint glasses jump and clatter. “And maybe he is not! You cannot seriously be contemplating throwing away your birthright, throwing away everything that you are, on the word of a shark!”

“You don’t know them like we do, Neridia,” Chase said. He looked grimmer than Neridia had ever seen him, his usually smiling mouth set in a hard line. “We’ve run into shark shifters before. One of them tried to kill my mate. Another nearly ripped Griff’s family in half. You can’t trust them. They’re lying, evil bastards, every last one.”

“Like all red dragons are greedy pyromaniacs?” Dai said, one auburn eyebrow rising. “My people’s reputation is no better than that of the sharks, Chase. I’m with Neridia. We need to get Griff back down here from Scotland. His eagle eyes will be able to tell us if this shark is lying.”

“No,” John said, with utter finality. “I will not disturb my oath-brother.”

“I don’t know why you’re so concerned about interrupting his honeymoon,” Hugh said. He was keeping as much distance as he could between himself and John, though Neridia was certain that was more to do with the paramedic’s strange sensitivity to mated pairs than the sea dragon’s simmering wrath. “I mean, you did already call him out to a fire on his actual wedding night. It’s a bit late to worry about disturbing him.”

“Hugh’s right,” Dai said. The red dragon shifter folded his powerful arms across his chest, meeting John’s angry glare without flinching at all. “I mean, that Griff won’t mind taking a day out of his honeymoon to help. He’d want to be involved. He’s not going to be happy about you not calling him.”

John shook his head stubbornly. “As shield-brother Hugh kindly reminds me, I have already infringed on my oath-brother’s sacred time with his new mate. I will not trouble him further with such a small matter.”

“You call this a small matter?” Neridia couldn’t believe her ears. “Our lives are at stake here, John! We need to know whether the Master Shark is telling the truth!”

“It does not matter whether or not he is telling the truth!” John shouted, painful harmonics scratching around his words like discordant violins. “Even if he is, it changes nothing!”

“How can you say that? It changes everything!”

Rose stepped firmly between the two of them, holding out her hands like a referee at a boxing match. “All right, time out. Both of you, take a deep breath and calm down. Remember, you’re mates. You can work this out, but not by yelling at each other.”

Neridia blushed, realizing the scene that they’d been causing. From the echo of embarrassment reflecting down the mate bond, John was equally mortified, though his own expression didn’t show it. His face settled into a polite, neutral mask.

“My sincere apologies, Your Majesty.” His voice was rigidly controlled again. “I spoke out of turn, forgetting my station. Please forgive me.”

Neridia clenched her jaw, having to forcibly swallow the urge to scream at him again. “No titles. Like Rose says, we’re mates. Just talk to me as your mate. I don’t understand why you don’t even want to find out the truth.”

John closed his eyes, bowing his head. For a long moment, he was silent, as if composing a difficult poem.

“Neridia,” he said at last, his deep blue eyes meeting hers. “Let us say that the Master Shark is correct. That he is not our true enemy, and an even more powerful hidden foe awaits us in Atlantis. What happens then?”

“Well…” Neridia hesitated, trying to work out where he was going with this. “Well, then obviously we can’t go to Atlantis.”

He shook his head slightly, gold charms glinting in his indigo hair. “A sea dragon does not flee a battle. We face the foe gladly, delighting in the joy of a challenge well-met.”

“That’s you, not me. I don’t have a code of honor I have to follow.”

“You may not have a formal code, but you have your own honor.” He held her gaze steadily. “Would you truly be content to allow fear to defeat you, before you even know your enemy?”

He didn’t mean it as a rebuke, she knew, but it stung nonetheless. “John, I’m not like you. I can’t fight. I don’t have magic powers. I can’t even speak your language! How do you expect me to be able to defeat anyone, let alone some mysterious foe who’s powerful enough to literally get away with murder?”

“I do not know,” he said softly. “But I do know that you will not face this enemy alone.”

His strength and certainty shone down the mate bond. His powerful warrior’s soul infused her own, his courage almost washing away her own doubts. His utter confidence in her was so absolute, she nearly believed in it herself.

Yes, whispered that strange inner voice, fierce and joyous. Together, we will fight. Together, we will win what is rightfully ours. No force in the sea or above it can stop us from claiming our Throne.

Neridia flinched, spooked by the uncanny sensation of something else speaking with her own thoughts. She still wasn’t sure whether she believed that it really was her inner sea dragon talking, as John had claimed.

It’s probably just my imagination. Or maybe it’s really John’s thoughts, and I’m picking up on them down the mate bond. That sounds more likely.

Common sense came crashing back, drowning out the alien whisper. What was she thinking? She was just a human, and a too-big, ungainly, timid one at that. She hardly needed a shadowy enemy to prevent her from taking the Throne. Every sea dragon in the entire ocean would doubtless laugh themselves sick if she even tried to claim that she was their Empress.

“No,” she said, hating the way that her voice came out weak and tremulous. “I can’t do it, John. I just can’t.”

“You can, and you must. You are the Empress-in-Waiting. You must go to Atlantis. You must claim your Throne.”

“I can’t!” She pressed her fists to her forehead, feeling like her own thoughts were being squashed against the inside of her skull by the force of his willpower pressing down the mate bond. “I don’t want the Throne! I don’t want to be Empress! I don’t even want to be a sea dragon!”

John rocked back on his heels as if she’d slapped him. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish drowning in air.

“Please, for the love of God, someone set fire to something,” Hugh begged the ceiling.

Dai and Chase were also looking desperately uncomfortable. Rose seemed on the verge of intervening again, but Ash caught her wrist, shaking his head slightly.

“I believe that this is a conversation that they need to have,” the Fire Commander said to Rose. His calm gaze swept over his fidgeting crew. “But not, perhaps, with an audience.”

The other three firefighters looked pathetically grateful for their Commander’s suggestion. They all bolted for the door as if the room was on fire. Ash firmly escorted Rose out too, despite the bartender’s attempted protests.

The instant the door closed behind them all, Neridia wheeled on John. Her pent-up worries and fears finally broke through her self-control, words rushing out of her like water spilling from a shattered dam.

“First you thought the lake would unlock my sea dragon form,” she said, her voice shaking with the force of her emotions. “Then you were certain mating would, and then after that it was going to be the sight of the sea…when are you going to run out of excuses? When are you going to have to admit that yes, I really am just human?”

The mate bond was still reverberating with the thunderclap of his shock. “You—do not wish to be a sea dragon? You would deny your heritage?”

Her heart broke at the pain in his eyes, but she couldn’t lie any longer. “John, I can’t live in your world. From everything you’ve told me, I don’t want to. It’s too dangerous. I’m not brave enough, not strong enough.”

“You are, if you would but believe-“

“I’m not. Please, John. Stop pushing me to be something I’m not. I can’t take it any more. I can’t keep having my hopes dashed again and again like this. We have to assume that I will never shift. We have to make plans based on reality, not dreams.”

He shook his head in confusion, as though she was speaking gibberish. “But if you do not shift…you will not even have the option of coming to Atlantis. The Knight-Commander forbade it.”

“I know. That means that there’s only thing I can do. Run, like the Master Shark suggested. Try to forget all of this. Live out my life on land.” She touched her pearl. “Like my father wanted me to.”

“But you have seen the sea.” He stared at her, for once looking utterly lost and helpless. “It is in your eyes, your soul, your very blood. And yet you would turn your back on it? Truly?”

No! cried that strange inner voice, in a chord of heartrending agony. Neridia pushed it away.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “The sea is beautiful, but it’s not my home. I belong on land.”

He bowed his head, his vast shoulders slumping as if under a crushing weight.

“Perhaps you are human indeed, then.” Defeat stripped all the music from his voice. “No sea dragon could bear to leave the ocean forever.”

She sucked in her breath as his meaning hit her. “You won’t come with me.”

He didn’t look at her. “You know I cannot.”

Foolishly, she’d still been holding out hope that he would. That things would be different now that they were fully mated. That he wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of living without her, any more than she could bear the thought of living without him…

“Why not?” she demanded, grabbing onto anger to save herself from falling into a pit of despair. “My father did! He chose to be with his mate!”

“Do not dare accuse me of loving you less than your father loved your mother!” He jerked his head up, his blue eyes blazing with a grief and rage equal to that in her own heart. “It is you who are choosing to leave me, not I you!”

“Oh no, don’t you put this all on me.” She was not going to cry. “I can’t shift, I can’t go to Atlantis, I don’t have any choice! But you do. You could choose me, like my father chose my mother. He left the sea to be with her. Why can’t you?”

“Because I am bound by vows, as he was not!” John shouted back, his voice rising to match her own. “If you are not the Empress, you cannot come before my duty to the Pearl Throne! I cannot choose you without utterly shattering my honor!”

“Then you love your honor more than you love me!”

The instant the words left her lips, Neridia regretted saying them—but it was too late. And she couldn’t call them back. She couldn’t even say she didn’t really mean them.

Because she did.

She expected him to shout back, or flinch, or do…something. Instead, his side of the mate bond just went blank. If he hadn’t been standing right in front of her, she wouldn’t even have been able to tell that he was in the same room. His face was utterly expressionless.

Then, without a backward glance, he left.

* * *

He came back after midnight, right when Neridia had lost all hope that he would ever return at all.

She’d cried an ocean’s worth of tears in his absence, sobbing into Rose’s soft shoulder. The motherly woman hadn’t tried to console her, or tell her that it would be all right. She’d just held her, and let her cry, her own wise eyes infinitely sad.

When Neridia had cried herself dry, Fire Commander Ash—who had silently observed the entire outpouring of her grief—had finally stirred. Despite his apparently unmoved expression, she’d had a sudden, odd certainty that he understood even better than Rose what she was going through.

“Neridia,” he’d said, very quietly. “If you wish it, if this is too painful for you to bear…I can destroy your mate bond.”

She’d stared at him, dumbfounded. “You can do that?”

“I am the Phoenix. There is nothing I cannot burn.” He’d hesitated, his eyes flickering for the briefest moment. “You must be absolutely certain, though. It is irreversible. And you would lose not only the bond itself, but also all memories of your mate. But perhaps that is better than grieving over what you cannot have.”

She’d promised that she’d think about it, though her strange inner voice had cried, No, no, no! And she had thought about it, even as Rose had roundly scolded Ash for daring to suggest such a terrible thing. She’d kept thinking about it as Rose had shown her to the pub’s small guest bedroom, telling her to call if she needed anything, anything at all.

But there was only one thing she needed. Her mate.

And if I can’t have him…maybe it is best to forget.

Now, slowly, she became aware of the faintest glimmer down the mate bond. The tiny sense of his presence was a mere firefly spark in the bleak darkness of her soul, but even that was enough to make her hold her breath, scarcely daring to hope.

He came soft-footed into the room, closing the door gently behind him. He was just a looming shape in the darkness. She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t get any hint of his thoughts through the mate bond.

But he was there.

“John?” She sat bolt upright on the bed, swinging her legs over the side. “What-?”

His finger brushed her lips, stopping her half-formed words. She trembled, even that tiny contact setting her blood on fire.

He traced the shape of her lips, her cheek. His hand cupped the side of her face. She could feel the callouses on his palm, thickened by years of wielding a sword. The rough skin was a harsh reminder of what he was—a sea dragon knight, bound by unbreakable vows.

And yet, he there he was.

He came back. He came back to me. He came back.

“John,” she breathed.

He bent down in answer, his mouth covering hers. She didn’t dare say anything more, for fear that he would change his mind. She just closed her eyes, opening her lips to him.

In the darkness, she could pretend that he was just a man. She could pretend that she was just a woman.

She could pretend that things could be simple between them.

He framed her face with his hands, fingers tangling in her hair. His tongue slid deep into her, as if he wanted to lay claim every inch of her body, the entirety of her soul.

His hands moved down, skimming her neck, her shoulders, her sides. Finding the hem of the old t-shirt she was wearing, he broke the kiss just long enough to lift the garment over her head. She shivered at the rush of cool air over her bare skin. He pulled her closer, recapturing her mouth, his body hot against hers.

Down the mate bond, she sensed his desperate hunger. She was already wet, but his powerful desire for her heightened her own need. She fumbled for the buttons of his shirt. The fabric was slightly damp, clinging to the swells of his shoulders as she tugged it off.

She ran her hands over the smooth, hard planes of his chest, his nipples tightening under her palms. She still only knew him by touch, and as a half-seen form in the night. She craved to finally look at him properly, but she didn’t dare reach for the bedside light. She didn’t want him to see her.

He was trading away his honor for her. The sight of her all-too-human form might make him realize what a bad bargain it was.

Instead, she pulled away from his kiss, ducking her head. He made an inarticulate noise of protest, but the growl turned into a low gasp as she ran her tongue along his collarbone. She could taste the salt of the sea on his skin, and a deeper, wilder scent that was all his own.

She explored him with her mouth, slowly, savoring every hard line of his muscles. His fingers ran lightly over her own back, exploring her in return with a delicacy that belied his strength. He stroked her as if she was some fragile, priceless treasure.

“Neridia,” he murmured into her hair, longing singing in his voice. “My mate. My mate.”

Tears welled in her eyes at being so cherished. Even as her whole body turned to liquid pleasure, a bittersweet pain caught in her throat. He was choosing her, he had chosen her…but she knew what it would cost him.

I can’t. I can’t let him do this.

He went tense in her embrace, as if he’d sensed her sudden hesitance. His huge hands closed over her shoulders. She gasped as he tossed her back onto the bed. A rustle of fabric, and then he was on her, covering her body with his own.

Before, in the water, she hadn’t truly been aware of just how massive he truly was. His solid weight pressed demandingly against her. She felt wonderfully small and fragile, utterly dominated by his strength.

His naked cock slid against her soft stomach, hard and slick with his desire. The feel of him burned away the last shreds of her self-control. No matter what the cost—or who would pay it—she needed him.

She cried out as he slid into her, wrapping her legs tight around his hips. He moved in her as powerfully as the sea, sweeping her away on waves of ecstasy. He was over her and in her, body and mind. She lost herself completely, willingly, dissolving into him even as he emptied himself into her.

Afterwards, they lay in a tangle of limbs, like driftwood washed up onto a beach. Neridia buried her face in his shoulder, breathing in his scent, trying to reassure herself that he was truly there. Even with his heavy, sweat-slick body pressing against hers, she couldn’t shake a feeling that this was just a dream; that any moment, she would wake up, and he would be gone.

His rough fingers gently combed through her hair. She could feel his heart beating. Although her own was slowing, his was still fast. Despite the exhausted relaxation of his muscles, the mate bond betrayed his tension.

“I cannot bear to be parted from you,” he whispered into her ear. “Please. Stay with me.”

She stiffened underneath him, her own contentment popping like a soap bubble. “I thought…I thought this meant you’d chosen to stay with me.”

“I cannot,” he said, his voice the barest breath.

“Then what was this?” She pushed angrily at him, trying to shove him away, but he didn’t move. “You broke your honor just to say goodbye?”

In the darkness, she felt more than saw the shake of his head. “I did not break my honor. I spoke with my Knight-Commander. He released me from my vow of chastity.”

“What? Why?”

“I told him that we were in danger of losing you utterly. I told him of your fears, and how the Master Shark had preyed upon them. I told him…I begged him to allow me one last chance to convince you not to throw away your heritage. I asked permission to show you what it was that you were sacrificing.”

A turmoil of emotions flooded her. Outrage at how he’d inadvertently misled her, relief that he truly hadn’t sacrificed his honor, a surge of sheer annoyance at his arrogance, joy that he was still fighting for her, terror that she could still lose him…

She settled on annoyance. “Wow, you really do think highly of yourself, don’t you?”

“I did not mean this.” John traced the shape of her face, as though trying to read her expression with his fingertips. “Not just this, at least. I know…I know I am not sufficient inducement. But he did not only release me from my vow. He also gave me permission to show you the true reason you cannot turn your back on the sea. Even if you cannot shift, he will allow you to enter Atlantis.”

She closed her eyes, knowing that she should move away from his gentle touch, unable to bring herself to do so. “John…”

“Please,” he breathed, desperation weaving a staccato melody under his words. “Please, come. Let me show you your true home. I swear on my honor that I will protect you, from any foe, if you will but come. Please. Come to Atlantis.”

She wanted to say no. But if she did…she didn’t know what he’d say. What he’d do.

I cannot bear to be parted from you, he’d said.

But he was a sea dragon. She knew by now that he would face any challenge, any pain, if that was what his honor demanded.

She couldn’t bear to be parted from him either. And she wasn’t a sea dragon.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll come.”

“Oh my mate, my heart, my Empress. I swear to you, you will not regret this.” His arms tightened around her, pulling her close. “You will understand, when you see Atlantis. And whatever happens, we will be together, like this, every night and day. All will be well, as long as we are together.”

Neridia curled into her mate’s embrace, listening to his soft words of relief and reassurance, surrounded by his strength and love. She had never felt so alone.