Instead of choking on water, it sort of… moved through me.

It didn’t feel like air. There was definitely more to it than that.

But there was no denying that it wasn’t affecting me the way it should’ve.

My vision cleared with the breath, and I felt water leave through my abdomen. My hands flew down to my stomach.

The king tugged my sweater over my head with one hand, dropping it in the water. All I had on beneath it was a bralette.

Looking down, I nearly screamed again at the sight of lines on my lower belly.

Lines like gills.

Everything started to spin again, and I felt a massive pulse of water. Looking down, I panicked all over again at the sight of the midnight-colored tail below me. It wasn’t connected to me—it was just moving under me.

“You’re fine. It’s just my tail.”

His tail.

Like he was a giant fish. Or snake. Or… mermaid?

I could definitely feel his hands on my waist and his chest against my mostly-bare back, so mermaid seemed to be the right label.

Although, I wouldn’t have envisioned a mermaid as a gorgeous man with a tail so much thicker and longer than I was.

Mer-monster, maybe?

I didn’t fucking know.

I wanted to demand answers about what he’d done to me. I wanted to tell him to undo it. I wanted to know who and what he was, exactly, too.

But I had no idea how to do the mind-speaking thing he was doing, so I just clutched his arm tightly when he tucked me up against his chest and wrapped his arms around my middle.

With a powerful sweep of his tail—his fucking tail—we shot through the water smoothly.

two

ARIA

We swam quickly through and around schools of brightly-colored fish. They were so much bigger than they had any right to be. I tried not to gawk, but failed.

When I saw what had to be the biggest whale on Earth—or wherever the portal had taken me—my nails dug into his arm.

“They’re friendly,” the king said into my mind.

“Like you?” I wanted to shoot back, but didn’t know how.

He chuckled. “They’re far friendlier than I am.”

Apparently thinking the words at him was all it took to communicate. Great. That would definitely get me in a sticky situation at some point if he didn’t let me go.

He’d called me his bride after basically telling me I was lucky he’d abducted me, so being let go seemed highly unlikely.

“Do they have teeth?” I checked.

“Of course they have teeth. Everything in Alterrae does. It’s simply a more magical version of Earth, which means everything is stronger and more vicious. Your world is docile in comparison.”