Storms: A Tale of the Little Mermaid (HighTower Little Mermaid Book 3) by Jacque Stevens

Author:Jacque Stevens [Stevens, Jacque]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: sjacquebooks
Published: 2021-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

My eyes caught. I barely contained an audible gasp. I had known for a long time now that Erys had a child, a babe more than halfway through his first year. I had traveled across the sea and all the way into Cypari for the very purpose of retrieving him. But there was a difference, being told something and then seeing it. The same spell had silenced my ghostly companion.

And Erys was never silent.

“Ari?”

I couldn’t tear my eyes from the baby, but I recognized Helene’s voice. I had stayed too long, and she was rising from her own bed to stand at my side. She seemed tired and perhaps a bit confused but not really alarmed. She had never seen me as the threat that I was. “What is his name?” I asked.

“Erys. Of course it is Erys.” She said this as if I had asked her another question, but I had already known that Helene was far too boring to have an affair. And I could already see the curl of the baby’s hair and the clever glint in his eyes.

This was Erys’s child and an heir the emperor would accept.

I took him into my arms.

Helene reached out a hand. “What are you doing?”

Was she really going to try to stop me? Perhaps I should have expected some resistance from her, but she was a woman who had already thrown her own life away to stop a war. It didn’t seem too unreasonable for her to throw her son away to achieve the same end, now that I was here to give her the means to do so.

Besides, I wasn’t really asking anyway. “I’m taking him away from here,” I said without apology. “Surely you want that. Or have you not noticed the army outside?”

She shook her head. “So, you are taking him because you wish to keep him safe? How am I to believe that? I haven’t heard one word of you in more than a year, and now . . .” She trailed off on her own, like she wasn’t sure how to describe me. Fair enough—I wasn’t sure I knew how to describe me—but I was done with this conversation.

I turned away with the baby still in my arms.

“I could scream,” she tried, but without conviction.

“So could I,” I spat. She might not be a man and subject to my charms, but she was nothing compared to the powers I had, and both of us knew it. I didn’t fear the sound of her voice when mine had always been stronger. But I finally turned to face the young woman beside me, though it was still hard to see her upturned nose and regal pose in the dark. “Do you want to start a fight in here? Someone could get hurt.” The baby could get hurt. I was sure that was what she had heard, though I had enough sense to leave that part unsaid.

“And what will happen to him if I don’t?” A tremor entered her voice.

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