Fine, it wasn’t love at first sight for my parents. But how, after all those years together, could it not have been love at all?
But maybe my expression isn’t as bad as I think it is. Maybe Galen’s just really good at reading me. Or maybe he’s just being overly mushy himself. He is a tad protective, after all. I glance at Toraf, who’s sitting on the other full-size bed next to Rayna. And Toraf is already looking at me. When our eyes meet, he shakes his head ever so slightly. As if to say, “Don’t do it.” As if to say, “You really don’t want to do it.” As if to say, “I know you really want to do it, but I’m asking you not to. As a friend.”
I huff, then adjust myself in Galen’s death grip. It’s not fair that Galen and Toraf silently ask me to accept this. That my mother is putty in Grom’s proficient hands. That her temperature barely raised a degree around my dad, yet Grom, within an hour of reunion, has her titanium exterior dissolving like Alka-Seltzer in hot water.
I can’t accept it. Won’t. Will. Not.
How can she sit here and do this? How can she sit here and tell him how much she’s missed him, and that she never stopped loving him, when she had my dad?
And ohmysweetgoodness, did Mom just say she’s going back? “Wait, what?” I blurt. “What do you mean, ‘I’ll call my boss and let him know’? Let him know what?”
Mom gives me a rueful smile, full of motherly pity. “Emma, sweetie, I have to go back. My father—your grandfather—thinks I’m dead. Everyone thinks I’m dead.”
“So you’re just going to go back to show him you’re alive? You’re just letting him know where you are, right? In case he wants to visit?”
Her eyes get big, full of charity and understanding and condolence. “Sweetie, now that Grom is … I’m Syrena.”
But what she’s really saying is she belongs with Grom. What she’s really saying is that she should have never left. And if she should have never left, then I should have never been born. Is that what she means to say? Or am I seriously freaking out? “What about me?” I whisper. “Where do I belong?”
“With me,” my mother and Galen say in unison. They exchange hard glares. Galen locks his jaw.
“I’m her mother,” she tells Galen, her voice sharp. “Her place is with me.”
“I want her for my mate,” Galen says. The admission warms up the space between us with an impossible heat and I want to melt into him. His words, his declaration, cannot be unspoken. And now he’s declared it to everyone who matters. It’s out there in the open, hanging in the air. He wants me for his mate. Me. Him. Forever. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. How I should feel about that.
I’ve known for some time that he wanted that eventually, but how soon? Before we graduate? Before I go to college? What does it mean to mate with him? He’s a Triton prince. His place is with the Syrena, in the ocean. And let’s not forget that my place with them is dead—no Half-Breeds allowed. We have so much to talk about before this can even happen, but I feel saying so might make him feel rejected, or embarrass him in front of his older brother, the great Triton king. Or like I’m having second thoughts, and I’m not. Not exactly.
I peer up at him, wanting to see his eyes, to see the promise in them that I heard in his voice.
But he won’t look at me. He’s not looking at Mom, either. He keeps his iron glare on Grom, unyielding and demanding. But Grom doesn’t wither under the weight of it. In fact, he deflects it with an indifferent expression. They are definitely engaging in some sort of battle of will via manly staring contest. I wonder how often they do this, as brothers.
Finally, Grom shakes his head. “She’s a Half-Breed, Galen.”
Mom’s head snaps toward him. “She’s my daughter,” she says slowly. She pulls herself from his lap and stands over him, hands on hips. Oh, he’s in serious shiznit now. And I can’t help but feel elated about it. “Are you saying my daughter’s not good enough for your brother?”
Yeah, Grom, are you? Huh, huh are you?
Grom sighs, the triviality in his expression softening into something else. “Nalia, love—”
“Don’t you ‘Nalia, love’ me.” Mom crosses her