Legacy Lost

who sees; he couldn’t care less. There’s no reason to think about his plan to woo her, then reject her; he knows now that there will never be a time when he will reject these lips.
    These lips, this kiss, they’re everything he never knew he wanted.
    Nalia pulls away suddenly, looking every bit as stunned as he feels. She clears her throat. “I’d better get going.” But her expression tells him that maybe she’d rather stay, that maybe she’d rather keep kissing.
    Grom nods, in agreement with it all. She’d better get going. He wants her to stay. He wants to keep kissing.
    She lets the carcass of her hair sink to the mud below them, and for the longest time, she only stares at it, won’t meet his eyes. The Tracker party is close, within sight, Grom knows, but still she stays, immobile and hesitant and stunning.
    Then, without another word, without meeting his eyes, she turns and swims away.

    He finds her with Freya, sitting on the outer rocks of The Crag, the deep chasm etched into the seafloor, where you could swim down for hours and never touch bottom. They’re both peering over the edge of the cliff, as if they’re actually contemplating going down there.
    “Don’t even think about it,” Grom says. “Your lionfish spike won’t work on a giant squid.” He’s amazed how natural it feels to settle down next to Nalia and hang his fin over the ledge.
    She smirks up at him. “We waited for you. You’re slow.”
    He laughs. Freya would have sensed him for a while before he arrived, but did Nalia? Can she sense me as strongly as I sense her? “Some things are worth the wait.”
    “You’re slow and delusional,” she says without bluster. She peeks back down into The Crag. “I want a tooth from a dangle fish.”
    Grom shakes his head. Dangle fish live in the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean, where they dangle a light in front of themselves as a lure to attract unsuspecting prey. Their teeth are as long as his hand. The Crag is a good place to hunt for dangle fish. “What could you possibly need that for?”
    She scrunches up her face.
    Grom raises a brow at Freya, who sighs in defeat. She has gotten used to this game. “She wants it to make a gift for you. For your mating—Ow! Poseidon’s teeth, Nalia, he’s a Royal!”
    Nalia points her finger in Grom’s face, almost up his left nostril. “You need to stop bullying her. Sometimes it not your business.”
    Grom captures her hand and uses it to pull her closer. Her eyes go wide as she glances at his lips but she doesn’t squirm, doesn’t try to move away. He feels himself melt a little at her touch. His bones feel like the water around him. “You were making me a gift?” He glances at Freya. “Freya, how rude would it be if I asked you to—”
    Freya shrugs, then spirals up and over them. “Some Triton Trackers found a new human mine,” she says, winking at Nalia, who flinches as she passes by. “Guess I could go help them set it off.” Freya told Grom that whenever the Trackers come across a mine, they set off the explosion from a distance, using rocks they hurl from the surface. She said when one of the floating metal balls burst, they all do.
    “That sounds exceptionally fun,” Grom calls after her. When she’s gone, he grins at Nalia. “Don’t tell me you’re all of a sudden shy, princess. We’ve seen each other every day for the past month.”
    Nalia lifts her chin. “I heard you feel the pull for me.”
    That is unexpected. From the sound of her voice, she doesn’t like the idea. And he takes slight offense. Suddenly the tiny pearl in his hand feels like a burning rock from the hot beds. “Is it so bad for me to want to be your mate?”
    “That’s just it. The pull is mindless. It tricks your feelings. It’s not what you want, it’s what the pull wants. To make stronger offspring. But I want something real.”
    A whirlpool of relief swirls through him. She wants something real—from me . “But you have to mate with me, pull or no pull. What does it matter if the feelings are real? There could be no feelings at all, and we’d still have to mate.”
    “I’d rather there were no feelings at all, than be tricked by the pull.” She crosses her arms. He’s spent enough time with her to know this is her gesture when she’s unsure.
    “And if I don’t feel the pull for you?” He caresses her lips with his eyes.
    She swallows. “Don’t you?”
    “Hmmm,” he says. “I’m not sure. Wouldn’t you feel