Soren crossed the warzone that had once been their city. Aya stared. So many things had happened

They were married now.

Elyssa’s castle was gone. Its wreckage made a fertile green lump for new growth, although it crushed the coral forest around it.

Chunks of megalodon, including the tail section, littered the forest floor like fleshy boulders. Mermen kicked between them in a daze searching for their units. The Atlantis warriors were organizing as best they could. Everyone was stunned, many were holding their heads or other body parts injured. Balim would have his work cut out for him.

Most importantly, they had survived. Aya and Soren, Elyssa and King Kadir, Lucy and Torun, their babies, and so many more. Her plan had worked.

She was awesome.

Soren kicked to her castle. New castles sprang up, swelling with the promise of new life.

Her own castle was shut tight, puckered closed. Soren pressed his palm to the pucker. The portal sparkled white and opened.

Anticipation sparkled in her belly.

They had entered together before. But now Soren carried her across the threshold as husband and wife.

He crossed the empty courtyard — Elyssa really was going to have to work hard to get it in shape for habitation— and down the hall. It no longer ended abruptly, but twisted deep, leading them down to a new dead end.

Soren shifted to human feet, stood with both legs apart, and placed his hand on the wall.

“Place your hand with mine.” His voice sounded rough. Her tough warrior, feeling tender?

Her anticipation tightened. She shifted to human feet, stood beside him in front of the wall, and placed her palm above his. Could he feel her thundering heartbeat?

The wall sparkled, shimmering, and then it opened inward.

He looked down at her. His expression turned from gentleness to heat.

She took his hand.

Together, they entered the heart chamber.

It was small for the both of them, especially with Soren so big. But it glowed with health, safety, and protection. Green walls combined a health spa, oxygen bar, and relaxation room. In this deepest core of the castle, they were surrounded by the energy that declared it home.

And she was here with Soren, who no longer pushed her away and declared she would be better off with someone else.

She swayed to him. “Soren.”

He caught her in his arms. She rested her palm against his chest. His heartbeat felt loud.

Soren held her for long moments. They had made it here, finally. After all the times it seemed this would never come.

“I wanted to protect you.” He stroked her curves, waist to hip. “Even now, I feel it is better to protect you from me.”

“I wanted to believe without reason. To stop thinking and feel.”

“I am a terrible male.”

Terrible to his enemies. Terrible to himself.

“But my brain and my heart both love you.”

He crushed her to him. She held him just as tightly.

He lowered his head for a kiss. The kiss of husband and wife.

Their mouths mated and tongues tangled, stroking each other with delicious discovery. She accepted him for all he had been and all he tried to be. Honorable, terrible, beautiful.

Hers.

This was not their first kiss. But it was the first in the heart chamber, together, married.

And this was not her first time pressed naked against Soren.

But this was her first time pressed naked against her husband.

She filled her palms with his bulging biceps, slid her fingers over the hard knots of his shoulders, and caressed the wide planes of his thick pectorals.

He pulled back to watch her. She enjoyed his hard abs, the sharp vee down to his thick cock, the ropey muscle around his waist, and his taut buttocks.

“Why do you like me?” she asked.

A brow rose and a smile curved his thick, kissable lips. “You do not know?”

She shook her head.

“I love to stroke your soft body.” His thick palm slid from her hip up the curve of her waist to her back.

“Your sinuous spine.” He slid his finger down and up again, raising delicious goosebumps on her skin.

“Your flowing hair.” He gripped her hair in a fist and brought her lips under his dominion.

While his tongue stroked her mouth, his words continued to seduce her, vibrating from his chest into hers.

“You are every good and beautiful thing, a light shining as pure and holy, beating in my veins and saturating my blood. With you, I am invincible.”

He lifted his head and glowed his eternal vow of honor into her soul. “With you, I am at peace.”

She heated to a thousand degrees.

His mouth lowered to her neck. He sucked her skin, owning her, and then her powerful warrior squeezed her slippery breasts and brought them to his mouth.

Heat enveloped her sensitive nipple. Sensation streaked to her center and kindled a throbbing fire.

She moaned.

He rumbled deep in his chest, pleased, and cupped her throbbing need, her mons.

She tightened around his hand, rubbing herself on his confident domination. Pleasure squeezed from her bud and the throbbing need turned to an ache.

She found his hard length and stroked him.

He groaned. His cock already pulsed hard and ready for her. He filled her hand and she wanted to be filled all the way with her male.

He was lean and strong, and she stroked his thick cock expertly, lovingly, giving pleasure with the same sweet dedication she devoted to all of her successes.

His eyes rimmed black with hunger. “I intended to savor this time with you.”

She nipped his lips. “Savor the next time.”

“Aya.”

“We have the rest of our lives.”

With a growl, part hunger and part triumph, he crushed her to him. The temperature of the water rose as his full passion unleashed.

She encouraged him, pressing her soft curves against his bulging muscles, and writhing. He palmed her ass cheeks, kneading her desire. She scissored his waist and rubbed her wet, throbbing bud against his hard length.

He groaned.

The head of his cock pressed against her honey-slick entrance. She guided his shaft, penetrating deep into her interior. He eased into her tight entrance and buried himself to the hilt.

They connected in their cores. Heart to heart. Faithful and eternal.

Aya wrapped her legs around his waist. She lost herself in his dark eyes as he pressed his cock deep within.

He kissed her thoroughly. Celebrating their union, cock to channel, tongue to tongue. They were one.

He thrust into her slowly, stroking her senseless with pleasure. She released his face and moved her grip lower, squeezing his taut butt with her hands.

The water tingled around them, electric.

He pushed his throbbing cock again and again into her yielding softness.

She lost her focus. Everything became Soren.

He thrust harder and harder, and she bucked against him. More.

Pleasure rose higher and sweeter. The whole room glowed green. The water turned white between them.

She shattered with orgasm.

Her release drove his. He poured his seed into her with a roar.

The quiet afterward was louder than every other sound in her life.

Her heart beat steadily in her chest. She heard every thud-thud, thud-thud. She stroked his tattoos, tracing secret lines and messages on his cooling skin. The radiance between them bathed her in warm satisfaction.

Soren, too, had a look of peace. Finding his home, finally, after long years of searching in the wilderness of his broken heart.

She held her husband close and kissed his brow. Mer didn’t have wrinkles or pruney fingers, but frown lines scored his forehead, even at rest, and he wasn’t very old. She kissed them gently.

“I realized something.”

He cracked open an eyelid. “Oh?”

“The most important thing isn’t proving someone else wrong. It’s having faith I can be right. I can try my hardest. Love doesn’t have to mean sacrificing my best performance.”

“Not at all.” He raised a brow. “That was an excellent performance.”

Heh. Look. Her furious warrior could tease and relax and just exist. No longer filled only with rage and torment. He could experience the full span of emotions.

And so could she.

She propped herself up on her elbows. “I have a great idea.”

“Of course you do.”

His simple faith, not even teasing, warmed her to her tingling core. “Keep that up and you’ll give me a different great idea.”

“If it is joining with me again,” he squeezed her buttocks, “I agree.”

“It is, but after that, I was thinking. How many cities are represented by the All-Council? Is it roughly equivalent to the number of cities in the army outside?”

He considered it. “The most important cities will be represented.”

“We should forge a new treaty.”

He rose on his elbows. “A new treaty? With the other cities?”

“Now that the Seven Cities Treaty has been broken, we have a unique opportunity to forge a treaty that celebrates the values of Atlantis.”

Because even though using a megalodon against an unrecognized city like Atlantis hadn’t broken the treaty, the All-Council threatening to use one against Dragao Azul – and probably other cities as well – if they didn’t cooperate did break the treaty. And it was so ironic because they were the enforcers of the treaty terms, and they had been created specifically to defend against the very megalodons they themselves unleashed.

“The warriors forced here will not have the power of kings,” Soren cautioned.

“Isn’t that okay? Atlantis is ruled by more than King Kadir. He asks for contributions from all his warriors. Collaboration, freedom, choice — these are all our values and the representatives who are here can carry them back to their own cities.”

Where, hopefully, they would flourish and grow.

“It is like a dream.” He frowned. “The All-Council will be angry. They may try to attack again.”

“What do they have that’s worse than three megalodons?”

His brows lightened. “Nothing.”

“Exactly.

He pulled her to her feet. “We must tell Kadir right away.”

His eagerness heartened her. “You like my idea?”

“It is brilliant, like you.” He flew her out of the corridor and across the bare castle, to the tunnel and bursting to the outside. “You will be our representative.”

“I do know a fair bit about parliamentary procedure.” Robert’s Rules of Order had been a familiar companion on her student government positions.

“You also know the writing. You will be careful and fair. Your sense of justice and your eye for detail will guide us well. And as you said, we will all agree to it. Not only Kadir and Queen Elyssa, but all the warriors, of all the cities, who will be represented.”

They flew across the revitalizing city. Atlantis had been trampled and nearly destroyed, but facing the danger had caused them to find their true inner strength. Now, they would shine that strength like a light across the entire ocean.

Across the entire world.

“What is your idea for the treaty title?” he asked.

She huffed a laugh. “You knew I had a title already.”

He glanced at her with a satisfied smile. Yes, he knew her. Yes, he expected her to fully formulate her plan before she ever opened her mouth.

Very well. She trusted him. He would think it was awesome. Because it was. It embodied the yin and yang of mer and human, male and female, past and future. Hope and dream. Her heart swelled with her love for him. For knowing her so well. For the future they were about to share.

“I think we should call it, ‘The Treaty of Atlantis.’”

* * *

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Starla