her,
and how could she live in our world?”
“The witch cannot lie to me.
Not when faced with my trident. She spoke truth, and if the woman is my bride
and the chair accepts her, she would be able to live in both worlds as we do.
You know this.”
“That’s a lot of if s.”
“But worth it.” Xavior grinned.
“Yes. It is worth all to find
our mates.”
“As far as having met her
before, I have no idea.” He shrugged. “I’ve been on land many times in the last
twenty years, so who knows when I met her.”
Their people were long-lived
and very youthful looking, his line more than most. The males and females grew
until puberty, then stopped aging until the men met their brides or the women
their mates. Most of his race were fully mated or almost, thank Poseidon.
Otherwise, they’d be a race of irrational teenagers with raging hormones and irrational
thoughts, not that they didn’t have a fair share of that population.
On the bright side, they were
impotent with no sexual drive until they began to age again, which didn’t
happen until they were in the proximity of a potential mate. Then, they were
like randy teens, but their bride was the only one who could bring the male of
their kind to orgasm, and only a mate could impregnate his female. So, the men
searched very enthusiastically for that bride.
For three hundred years, he’d
appeared as the equivalent of a human fourteen-year-old, a long time even for
one of the sea people. That is until ten or twelve years ago, when he’d begun
to age again, which meant at some point, he’d met his bride. Now at his prime,
the aging process had stopped; his internal senses told him so. Which meant, as
prince and heir to the sea throne he was unlike others of his kind—he
was now under a time limit.
He needed to claim his
inheritance before the next full moon rose above the waters. In order to do
that, he needed to find his queen. If he didn’t, he’d be forever banned from
doing so, and the next in line could take the throne. Making him the first of
Poseidon’s first born line to lose it. Even the children of the waves had
limits, and since Poseidon already abandoned his throne, they’d waited long
enough for Xavier, the heir apparent, to come of age. His people needed a king
to unite and lead them. There was too much fighting among the tribes, too many
of them abandoning the depths. Only a king could put a stop to it.
Aaron, his friend and right
guard, his personal protector, turned away from him to look out toward the
ocean. Their home lay miles beneath its dark depths.
The call of the waves calmed
them both, lending them strength to stay out of the water for a longer period
of time. They both knew he must find the woman meant to be his bride otherwise.
he wouldn’t sit on the King’s Chair. Poseidon knew he’d searched. His people
needed him.
“Well, I hope you find her
soon, my friend,” Aaron stated.
“I have no choice.” Xav shook
his head. “There are too many factions with too many petty tyrants, and no
sense of leadership. We fight too much amongst ourselves. Our world has been in
chaos for ages, waiting for me to find a bride. If I don’t find her soon, there
will be no kingdom left to lead. We can’t wait for another heir to be named.
That could take hundreds of years. We need a leader now to stop the civil
unrest gaining ground in our world.”
“Especially with the white
witch now awake and stirring up even more trouble.” Aaron glanced away and
added, “Too bad, she’s not as agreeable as her sister, the sea witch.”
He shrugged. “One helps her
people while the other…she swears vengeance for the death of her lover before
my father exiled her, putting her under a spell to sleep forever in her realm.
She should have remained that way. Asleep for an eternity.”
Aaron snorted. “True, but since
Poseidon disappeared, the spell weakened and no longer holds her. She’s awake,
stirring up trouble, while she’s grown stronger
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