and I dove into the water, following another one of Zaniah’s flimsy plans, this fucker had done nothing but complain.
I was the only one who had room to complain. Zaniah was off with her golden boy instead of me. She would probably get lost or hurt, and I would have to go track her down. Kai was next to useless, even though Zaniah looked at him like he owned her next breath.
Never fucking looked at me like that.
Now I was stuck with this… Llyr lover, and I was just supposed to swim around wherever he led me.
And this asshole had the audacity to complain.
“There. We have to go into the cave. Some of them are probably still there, hiding in the shadows.”
We swam a little closer, but I paused outside the cavern. “These fuckers hunted my kind all my life. I was always taught that they were the enemy, and now look at me, seeking them out for help of all shit. I’m the last one that should’ve been sent here.”
Dimitri stopped, whirling on me like I’d said something profound. “You know. You’re right. Maybe you should go back.”
He hovered in the water, swishing his glittery tail, waiting for my reply.
“Maybe I should just go in later. Maybe. I mean, it’s not that I’m scared of an army of Mer motherfuckers who have been trained all their life to kill my kind. Don’t even think it’s that for a second, but we need them on our side. We want them to fight for Atlantis and Zaniah. We need that, right?”
Dimitri nodded, but didn’t budge.
Fuck this shit and all the Mermaids in the world. What I wanted to do more than anything was to go in there, electricity snapping, and freeze them until they had no choice but to agree and come with us to battle Raven. That’s what needed to be done. But I was afraid. Afraid that they wouldn’t agree.
And I needed them to agree. Because agreeing meant we might actually have a shot at winning against this bitch. Plus, winning meant that Zaniah would be safe. And fuck it all if that wasn’t what I craved most in that moment—since the moment I’d met her, actually. I just wanted Zaniah to be safe.
I looked to the cave. Tendrils of water pushed out from the entrance, which meant something was in there, breathing. Waiting.
We had no time to wait. We needed these troops to fight for us right now.
Dimitri blinked rapidly, still waiting for a response.
“I’ll follow behind you. At a distance, but close,” I barked at him, making him jolt in place like he hadn’t expected me to talk.
“Let’s go.”
We swam into the cave, and as we took turns and curves, eventually we heard mutterings from inside. Voices. He was right. They were hiding here like cowards, saving their own tails while people died to fight for their kingdom.
I would keep that little bit to myself. Wasn’t going to help my case.
“Back here. I heard them,” Captain Duh said as we came around a corner. He had paused so that I would stop, and he put his finger to his lips like a teacher telling a child to be quiet.
Asshole Mer.
I peeked around the cave wall as he swam up to them. Surprise didn’t even begin to describe the looks on their faces. They knew who he was. Now, I hoped he would use it to his advantage. He was a squirmy one, Dimitri.
“Dimitri, how are you here?” One of the female Mer asked, her voice both shrill and feeble when compared to Zaniah’s.
“I am here because I came upon Zaniah, princess of Atlantis, while she was on the verge of death. She has been fighting for us. We all know our enemies, or thought we did. Aliz, queen of the Sirens is dead. We watched her die while in battle, but we now have a bigger enemy. An enemy that stands to destroy us all.”
Gasps and pathetic mutterings filtered through the water, filling my ears. I slammed my fists against the cave wall, wanting Dimitri to hurry the fuck up.
“Who? Who is it?” The Mer from before asked.
“Our king, our once king, Lir, gods rest him, had a bastard daughter. She is half Mer and half Siren, it seems. She is our enemy now. She is the one who wields the Trident and has used it to destroy the place we once called home. She has to be stopped.”
“How? How are we going to destroy her if