Chapter 9

Rose

T he next few days passed by in a blur. Both my futile journey to find Joseph and gaining the new sliver of power from Tisa exhausted me such that I could do little aside from sleep. I woke only to use the bathroom and when Milo encouraged me to eat and drink—not that I tasted much of anything. I was not much more than a being of needs and instincts.

When I started to come out of my hibernation, Beastie was unwilling to allow me to go much farther than the beach for ocean time. He claimed—while hand feeding me cutlets of fish —that it was to help bond us together more strongly, but I suspected it was more that he needed time to be convinced of my safety, that I was alive and… mostly… well.

During the day, despite the darkness looming over us, I let myself be happy. I made love to my beautiful selkie, played with him in the sea. And at night, after Milo thoroughly exhausted me with pleasure, my dreams were filled with echoes of all my happiness… and all the sex we'd had. However, there was little I could do to fend off the creeping guilt and uncertainty that coiled in my gut, threatening to spoil this little bit of joy.

Not only did I still harbor residual feelings for Will—which I was firmly pushing down whenever they tried to reassert themselves—but there was also the not-so small matter of how I'd let Tisa kiss me in order to receive my own spark of divinity… and how unsure I was of all the mate stuff Milo had spoken to me about. It had questions tumbling around in my head that I wasn't sure how to answer.

Though Milo had said he understood my having feelings for Will, it had been some time since that conversation, and he'd made one hell of a confession since then. Would he have the same patience now? Would he care? I mean, he had to care, right? I was his mate. That was a bit more serious and once-in-a-lifetime than just a boyfriend, and my mate bond must really be broken for me to even think about anyone else.

Of course, the same went with Tisa kissing me. He would likely be very understanding, considering it was what brought me back to him, but… that didn't matter as much as the fear of Milo throwing me to the curb for cheating on him. I wouldn't blame him for it, but it opened up a whole world of other problems. Where would I go? Where would I stay? Would my best friends shun me as well?

What confused me most of all was the whole mate thing. My pea brain couldn't comprehend that the universe, Fate, the Gods —whatever—would match me with someone as wonderful as Milo. He deserved so much more than a woman with PTSD and hang-ups regarding her ex. And what if Milo was wrong? What if I was keeping him from his real mate? Why had he taken so long to tell me?

The last question ate at me. He'd told me in the shower why, yes, but now that the emotions of the moment were settled, I couldn't help but feel a tinge of hurt. When would he have told me, had I not turned like I had? Would I have gone through life in ignorance, until one of us died, without knowing?

These questions and more tumbled around in my head as I sat snuggled on my selkie's lap, enveloped in his sweet scent, worrying rather than immersing myself in the movie he'd put on. It was a teen vampire movie, but my dearest Milo unironically liked it and was more than happy to sit through all five movies in the series… Although, I might have to put a stop to this if he keeps calling me loca and asking me how I like the rain.

Eventually, though, Milo grabbed the remote and paused the movie. "Alright, spill it. What has your mind so far away? You keep fidgeting."

I blew out a breath. I need to tell him. He needs to make the choice about forgiving me for the kissing thing… even if it means I'll lose everything all over again. He'd been forthcoming with me about the mates thing—even if it had taken him a while to get there—and I needed to get this out in the open.

"Do you promise not to yell or get mad?" I asked sheepishly.

"Of course, love," he replied, his eyes trained on me. "Short of destroying my pelt, I don't think you could tell me anything that would anger me."

"Even if—even if I kissed someone else?" I whispered, a near mumble.

He tilted his head. "Who did you kiss and when?"

"Tisa—Atargatis." Gods, my cheeks were blazing hot. I couldn't even look at him anymore. "She kissed me the night of my change to give me a piece of her divine spark, so I'd be remade."

"Ah, I see." His gaze went soft. "You're worried that I'm going to be upset and break things off with you."

"I—I—" The most undignified noise spilled from my throat as I battled my embarrassment. He was right, of course. But how could he be so casual about this? Was he not angry? "But kissing?" I managed to squeak out. "Kissing a girl?"

"I'm not upset, sweetheart. And I can hardly judge. I love and have bedded people of all genders as well." The nonchalance on this man… I didn't understand it.

"But… cheating?"

"I can't be angry at what ensured you'd come back to me," he said, his big hand squeezing my thigh reassuringly. "Furthermore, I'm not sure I've ever explicitly stated this, but I'm alright with my partners having other partners, so long as everything is communicated openly and boundaries are established. I'm not someone who particularly likes my partners having casual sex, or extra partners being added to the relationship willy nilly… but being part of a closed polycule is kinda how I always saw my future arrangement being."

Oh.

Oh, that was a lot to take in.

"Is it… is it that one partner is not enough?" I asked, trying to understand—and trying not to throw an insecurity I didn't realize I had until that moment in his face.

"It's not that at all. It's more like I always felt like I'd have more than one mate." He brushed the backs of his fingers across my cheek. "If there's only ever you, then I'll be the happiest man on the planet. But if fate has decided that there is another, I wouldn't be upset with that either. Like I said, communication is what's most important here. Nothing will happen between me and anyone else without you knowing. I hope you can extend the same courtesy to me should someone else catch your fancy, male or female."

Once more, my cheeks heated in a blush. "You really don't care?"

"Not a bit." A soft smile turned up the corners of his lips. "How would you feel about us having someone else in our relationship, romantically?"

Part of me—the weaker, people-pleasing part—wanted to tell him I'd do whatever he wanted so long as he was happy, while the rest of me shuffled around in indecision. Such an arrangement would alleviate my guilt about having feelings for Will. But I doubted Milo would be into allowing my ex into our relationship… if that's how that worked.

"I don't know how I feel about that. It feels… I don't know." I worried my teeth over my bottom lip.

Ever gentle, ever patient, he smiled at me. "That's okay. You don't have to make a decision on how you feel right now, and we don't need to open up our relationship if you're not comfortable. I'm happy just having you."

I knew he wouldn't lie to me about such things… but that didn't stop my anxiety from twisting me up inside. "Would you be? You wouldn't resent me?"

Milo looked positively stricken at the thought. "Oh, sweetheart. I could never resent you for this. We have our whole lives to figure all this out."

Before I could ask about how this sort of arrangement would affect our mate bond, he kissed me tenderly, scattering my thoughts to the wind. It was easy to forget my worries and confusion when he reminded me so thoroughly that he loved and cared for me. I let myself relax into his embrace, softening my body to be that much closer to him.

Our kiss was interrupted by the insistent buzz of a cell phone on the coffee table. Milo let out a long-suffering sigh. Pulling away, he reached around me and grabbed it to check the screen. It read MUM with flower emojis on either side. Throwing me a guilty look, he accepted the call and placed the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Mum," he greeted with a forced smile on his face.

My supernatural hearing picked up her side of the conversation easily as she replied in her charming English accent, "Milo, my sweet boy. Are you well? Your father and I have been worried about you."

"Yeah, I'm fine. We've been resting."

"Well, if you and your mate are up to it, we're having Sunday roast and cottage pie for dinner tonight," she said gently.

The casual way she said the word ‘mate' made my eyes go wide. How long had they known before me? Had they all been keeping this from me? Was this a sign it was real, that he wasn't mistaken? Were we really, truly, one-thousand-percent-for-certain mates?

They know about… about what we are? I silently mouthed to him, needing to get at least one of my plentiful questions answered.

He nodded, apologetic, before answering his mother. "I don't know, Mum…"

"If you're still feeling the need to nest, then I shall bring you over some dinner. But you should know, if you don't come, your sister is going to stage a ‘rescue' to steal Rose away."

Milo snarled, though the sound quieted when I rubbed my hand over his chest. "She will do no such thing. Sister or not, I'll—"

"We're keeping her away, but we'd like to see Rose. It would settle us all, I think, if we could reassure ourselves that she's alive."

Sadness laced her words, and my heart twisted. I brushed my fingers along his cheek to get his attention, and when he looked at me, I whispered, "It's okay. We can go."

"Hold on, Mum." He hit the mic mute button then asked me, "Are you sure? I know you're tired."

"I am, but I want to see them, too. I've missed them," I replied, trying not to sound as vulnerable as I felt.

He searched my eyes for any hint I might be saying this just to placate them, but when he found nothing of the sort there, he sighed again. "If you're certain, my love."

I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. "I am."

He smiled. "Alright, but afterward, I'm hiding you away from everyone forever so we can finish our prior conversation."

My cheeks heated again, uneasiness coming over me. "You'll have to catch me first."

The color of his eyes flickered between jade and cinnamon, a warning I was playing with fire. "Oh, I—"

"Milo? Can you please give me an answer?" Iris's voice cut in. "Making out with your mate while on the phone with your mother is considered bad manners."

My selkie laughed, his whole body shaking with the force of it. He unmuted his side of the call to say, "What time should we come over?"

"Dinner is at six-thirty."

"Alright, we'll be there."

"Just don't tire her out too much. We'd like to have actual conversations with her, not talk at her propped up, sleeping body."

That made me burst out laughing.

"I make no promises to that," he replied cheekily.

Iris scoffed, and I could almost hear her eyes rolling through the phone, which had me in stitches all over again.

After he said his goodbyes, Milo's lips found mine, and I found myself suddenly beneath him. "Now, where were we?"

We never did finish our movie.

An almighty shriek rent the air as soon as I stepped into Iris and Declan's house, and a breath later, two bodies crashed into me. My breath left me in a whoosh, and my back hit the door frame behind me and nearly crashed into Milo, who'd stepped in just after me. It took a moment to recognize the women as my best friends, Ava King and Aira Shioji.

Ava, the smaller of the two, wrapped her arms around my chest while Aira held me around my shoulders. They squeezed me with such strength my human body would've been cracked to dust. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I held them just as tightly in return. That desolation I'd felt in the rare moments I'd been lucid in the grips of the Call crashed through me.

How I'd missed these two.

My head fell onto Aira's shoulder as sobs wracked my body. Normally, I would've been able to hold this in and push through, but all my attempts to stuff my feelings down were in vain. It was as if the bottle that held my errant emotions was already full to overflowing, with no room for anything more… if the bottle still existed at all.

When they tried to come up for air, I held them fast, not ready to let them go just yet. Thankfully, they didn't fight me on this. The strength of their arms soothed a bit of the ache still lingering in my soul, but little by little, the intensity of my need to hear the beat of their hearts, feel the warmth of their skin, to be reassured that they were real and alive, lessened until it was bearable once again.

Once that grinding need was sated, it took a moment to get myself under control. Rain poured down outside, a relentless pelt against the earth, as if the sky were crying with me. Finally, I loosened my arms around my friends, allowing them to step away from me.

"I'm so happy to see you," I said, my voice thick with tears and almost unintelligible, much to my dismay. My eyes darted between theirs—Aira's nearly black eyes and Ava's jade ones—willing them to understand.

"We're glad you're back," said Aira, grabbing my hand.

Ava gave me a onceover. "Fuck, you're beautiful now. Like, you were gorgeous before, but now you're really giving off those otherworldly ‘I rise from the sea to slay my enemies' vibes. If you weren't hopelessly down bad for my brother, I'd have had to snatch you up for myself."

"Oh my Gods," Milo and Aira groaned near simultaneously.

Ava was wholly unrepentant. "What? Is it even friendship if you don't perv on and flirt with them a little bit?"

The ridiculousness of her words almost made me kiss her. Despite everything, she was still perfectly herself. "Gods, please never change, Ava," I said with a laugh.

"She could at least learn some manners," said a gentle voice with a lovely English accent.

In the space between the kitchen and the living room stood Iris and Declan, both patiently waiting their turn with warm, welcoming smiles on their faces.

Where the King children favored their father in coloring—the dark brown of their hair, the tan of their skin, the jade of their eyes—and in their mischievous smiles, Iris could be seen in the shape of their eyes, the curve of their jaws. Even the freckles smattered across the tops of their cheeks were all Iris. She was in the fine details of their makeup, where Declan was the broad strokes. I saw nothing but love and affection in their piercing hazel and jade eyes.

I started sobbing again.

I rushed forward, my arms outstretched, and was pulled into the warmth of their embrace, as if I were one of their children. Declan ran a hand over my hair while his wife rubbed comforting circles into my back. They didn't pour calm into me or try to tell me not to cry. They let me stain their shirts with my tears and cling to them as I'd done with my best friends.

Old me would've been mortified at such a blatant and open show of emotion. It went against everything my mother had taught me growing up. New me, however, didn't give a damn. Not when the people surrounding me were as much my family as Aunty Vi.

Until that moment, I hadn't realized I still feared their rejection—not consciously, in any case. Even before Joseph's takeover of Nora, their relationship with merfolk had been fraught with drama and deliberate sabotage to the Otherkind community. It had been one of the reasons I had kept the news of my impending transformation from them until the hunters came.

Yet here they were, welcoming me into their home and hearts as if nothing had happened. The relief of knowing they wanted me in their lives—even as I'd changed, despite the things I'd kept from them when I started my transition—was amazing. I thought I couldn't love them anymore, yet here they were, proving their unconditional love for me once again.

My tears eventually subsided, and I found the strength to pull away. I even held back the apology for my "outburst" that sat ready on the tip of my tongue, a victory to be sure. I swept the back of my hand across my wet eyes.

"Well, I certainly hope those are tears of happiness and not relief at getting to leave my son's den," said Declan, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

I huffed a laugh. "It's happiness, I assure you. Milo and Beastie have been great."

"‘Beastie,' huh?" asked Ava from behind me. "Have you met his ‘Beastie' yet?" She came up beside me and slung her arm over my shoulder.

I sniffed, then looked over my shoulder at Milo to silently ask him how to answer. This clearly was something important.

Thankfully, he came to my rescue. "She doesn't have to answer that."

Ava huffed an exaggerated sigh before looking at me and mouthing, We're talking about this later.

I snorted again.

Milo approached and mussed up his sister's hair before reaching out to hug his mother. When he pulled away, it was obvious how her eyes zeroed in on the healing bite mark on his shoulder… and how she turned to her husband to exchange a knowing look. My cheeks flamed hotter than a thousand suns, especially when Ava spied it, too, and said, "Oh, nice!"

Aira, Iris, and Declan, despite the knowing looks, were polite enough to keep their thoughts to themselves. The urge to flee back to the safety of Milo's house to avoid the embarrassment was nearly irresistible. It was only Milo's steadying gaze that kept me there.

"Ava, you're a menace," said Aira, tugging her fiancée away and toward the table. "You're lucky she's patient with your nonsense."

Ava scoffed. "My nonsense is precisely why you all love me." She clapped her hands together, changing the subject entirely. "So, are we all ready to eat? Because I'm starving."

As if on cue, my stomach practically screeched its agreement.

"I'll take that as a yes, then. Good!" Ava beamed. "Milo, help me and Mum set the table."

Milo groaned, then grumbled in a language I didn't understand. "It's a wonder you have any friends at all, kid."

"I'm charming, and you know it."

Ava poked her brother in the side, then grabbed his hand and pulled him into the kitchen. Aira sighed, following even as a smile teased up the corners of her lips. This left me with Iris and Declan.

"It's very nice to have you back, dear," said Iris, patting me on the cheek. "And you really have come into yourself."

I blushed, my face heating once again. "Thank you."

"Welcome home, Rose," said Declan.

The elder selkies ushered me to the table while Ava, Aira, and Milo set the table and brought over the veritable feast. Not only was there cottage pie and Sunday roast, as promised, but there were also fresh cuts of raw fish, salad and, still cooling on the counter, an apple pie and chocolate chip cookies. My mouth watered at everything before us. It wasn't hard to imagine falling face first in each of the dishes like a wild beast to get my fill, a reminder that I was now a bottomless pit when it came to food.

Declan opened a bottle of red wine and poured everyone a glass. As soon as everyone sat down—Milo to my left, Iris and Declan on opposite ends of the table, and Ava and Aira across from me—the King clan matriarch lifted her glass.

"A toast," she said with a beatific smile. "To matehood and new beginnings. May your future be filled with bliss."

"And babies!" Ava added.

The rest of us groaned, but Iris continued as if Ava hadn't spoken. "Welcome home, Rose."

We lifted our glasses in the air, the others echoing Iris's words, before clinking them together. I took a sip of my wine, and the flavor exploded across my tongue, rich and deep. I'd liked wine before—had often used it to drown and dull my feelings—but this… this was like nothing I'd imbibed before. My eyes fluttered closed, and I let out a pleased hum.

Milo chuckled. "Tastes different now, doesn't it?"

I turned my head, opening my eyes. "It's delicious."

"Just wait until you start eating. I've heard from others who've transitioned that it's like they'd never truly tasted anything before."

Excitement filled me. I hadn't really thought about the upsides to being a siren prior to my change, aside from getting to stay with Milo for as long as I wanted. In fact, all I'd thought about was the bad things. But something as simple as trying food with my newly expanded palate sounded amazing.

The others snickered as my attention went right to the selection of food before me, but Milo grabbed my plate and started piling it high with bits of everything, more than I'd have put on my plate myself. My smile faded, a flash of anxiety coursing through me.

Declan, who sat to my right, patted my hand. "Fear not. My mate knows how to make enough food to sate even the hungriest of Otherkind chits." Then he leaned in to whisper, as if he was divulging the greatest of secrets. "There are at least two more pans of everything warming in the oven."

Iris let out a faux-indignant huff, her accent coming out thicker. "When you have five Otherkind teenagers with stomachs like black holes, you learn to compensate. Otherkind adults are even worse."

"And now you're going to be eating Milo out of house and home," teased Aira, her amused gaze flicking up to mine.

"I can and will provide all she needs," Milo said, lifting his chin in challenge, in pride, as he set my overfilled plate in front of me. "I welcome her to try to empty my cabinets."

I patted his leg under the table. "I have no doubt that you will be the best provider."

It was a habit of mine—taught to me by my parents—to wait until others had started eating to partake of my own food. When I saw that Ava was already digging in, I grabbed my fork and started in on a nice heaping bite of the cottage pie. I all but shoved it into my mouth, I was so eager. When the flavor hit my tongue, I couldn't help but moan.

It. Was. Divine.

The effort it took not to start shoveling it into my face with my hands was embarrassing. I had to be deliberate with my bites. It was hard not to remember the feel of my sharpened teeth ripping into raw flesh as I popped a maguro cutlet into my mouth. I'd disliked the taste of fish, cooked and otherwise, prior to my change, but now, just like everything else, I was desperately trying not to inhale it.

The others didn't comment on how fast I was eating or the little happy noises that came unbidden with each bite of something new. In fact, they chatted as if I wasn't acting like a child at the dinner table, talking about work at Aira's family restaurant and about the crew on Milo's fishing boat. Once again, I realized acutely that they didn't care I'd changed.

Just as I was lifting a bite of roast to my mouth, a rhythmic buzzing interrupted the table. The conversation stopped completely as Declan pulled his phone out of his pocket. A sense of dread fell over the table. I had to wonder what had them so tense.

With a heavy sigh upon seeing who was calling him, he pushed his chair back and stood. "Sorry," he apologized, raising his phone up. "I have to take this."

He stepped out onto the back porch just beyond the kitchen—for the sake of politeness more than privacy, since we would all be able to hear him no matter where he went in the house. The motion detecting light in the back yard chased away the evening's long shadows. I couldn't help but listen in.

It didn't escape my notice how tense Declan became as he accepted the call and lifted his phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey. Sorry to bother you while you're at dinner." It was Levi Madeira, the police officer who'd helped me when Joseph had initially started making trouble for me and Aunty Vi. After he'd attacked me, Levi and Milo's brother Gavin came to set me back to rights and resettle my mind in my body. He was a gem of a man… well, selkie, actually. So the strain in his words put me on edge. "I thought you should know that there's been another incident."

"What happened this time?" asked Declan, exhaustion seeping into his voice.

"We're running into territory problems with the Calloway branch of the clan. Matt has gotten into a few tiffs with the humans living next door. They keep allowing their children to play in their yard no matter how many times they've been asked to stay within their own space."

"I'm aware. He was very vocal about not wanting the humans anywhere near him and his," replied Declan, the tension in his voice clear.

"Yes, well, Matt exposed his beast to the human father about twenty minutes ago. We had to call in one of the kelpies to wipe his memory and plant the idea in his head to be stricter about keeping his children in their yard."

Declan swore a colorful streak of curses before taking a breath. "Alright. Thank you for telling me. I'll go over and have a chat with Matt tomorrow."

Levi let out a frustrated sigh. "We can't continue like this. We're so close to having the wrong human seeing something and alerting the hunters, and since we just got rid of the last two, we can't afford to mess up."

I flinched at the mention of the hunters. A brief flash of their deaths at my hand popped into my mind, and I had to shake my head to clear it away. The last thing I wanted or needed was to think of those sick bastards.

"I know," said Declan. "We'll come up with a solution. We'll adapt. We always do."

The noise Levi made in response told me he had his doubts, that he grew weary of what was happening around him. Declan ended the phone call and made his way back inside. When he sat down, he looked so very tired.

"What's going on?" I asked, glancing at the others around me.

At first, no one answered. Tension sparked in the air as the moment stretched into another, then another. It was as if they were struggling with where to start.

Finally, it was Iris who spoke. In her voice was the same note of tiredness that I saw on Declan's face. "Selkies are very territorial when it comes to their space. People can end up dead when a selkie defends what they see as their land. Family doesn't trigger a response, since we prefer to live close to one another, but anyone outside those bonds can be seen as an intruder. Since humans have been taking the empty houses close to our territory for lack of anywhere else to go, there have been clashes. It was only a matter of time before this happened."

I furrowed my brows, troubled. "Alright, well, two questions, then. One, why didn't that happen when I was staying at the house near the beach? And what do you mean, ‘lack of anywhere else to go?'"

Iris and Declan's faces softened. "You're Milo's mate," Iris said gently. "We recognized you as one of our own the moment we met you."

My eyes went wide. So, they had known this whole time.

I didn't get to ask further questions about that as Declan spoke, bringing me back to reality. "As for your second question, well, when Joseph instructed the residents of Nora to never return, they had nowhere to go but the other islands. We weren't ready or equipped for the influx of over fifteen hundred new citizens. All the empty homes, apartments, even the hotels are filled on all four of the remaining islands, and because of this, humans have been brought into our previously secluded spaces. It's causing tension."

Aira nodded. "My father has been working overtime to try to steer the humans away from our house, but it's not helped. We can't change into our other forms. We can't be ourselves. Imagine not being able to go into the ocean and shift. That's where we're at right now."

The ghostly fingers of the Call trailed up my spine. My rage at Joseph and his actions threatened to spill out of me. I scarcely breathed, my body going unnaturally still as I fought not to shift form right there in my seat.

"When did that happen?" I asked, my voice cold and devoid of emotion.

The selkies stiffened in their seats, their eyes flickering between jade and brown. Even Aira's eyes changed, her irises turning to slits between blinks.

"It was the night you… turned," said Declan after a long moment. "After midnight, Joseph came to Nora and went after Violet. After he thought he'd trapped her in the burning house, he went to every home on the island and planted a directive in their minds: Leave and never return. By morning, it was absolute chaos."

"This was why I couldn't follow you." Milo explained quietly. "I had to help protect the islands and our people."

I wanted so much to look over at him, to comfort him, to tell him it was alright. That he wouldn't have had much of me anyway given how I was overtaken by the Call—but I couldn't. Instead, my power rose. Joseph needed to die.

"Did you try to stop him?" I asked.

"We did, but we were too late," answered Declan. "Days after the chaos of Nora's mass exodus, the selkies tried to take him out, but by then, he'd dug himself in like a tick. He'd amassed his followers, and try as we might, we could not defeat him. Not when he's somehow attached the souls of the merfolk under his power to himself."

I furrowed my brow. "When I tried to enact my vengeance upon him, I hit him. The other merfolk reacted like I'd hit them, too."

The way they'd cried out, the sounds of their screams, made me shudder… and pissed me off anew. A crack of thunder shook the house.

"I had Joseph's neck in my claws," said Milo with a growl. "I was this close to ripping out his fucking throat when the merfolk under his power began to choke as he did. When I released him, the fucker laughed in my face and told me they were his insurance policy against any attack we made against him."

Declan's hands tightened into fists on the table. "He knows we're not so ruthless as to kill children and other innocents to take him out, and he's counting on that morality to prevent us from getting Nora back."

"And we can't really get anyone close enough to him to figure out how it works," added Milo. Then he smirked. "Well, anyone except Will. But not even he can figure out how Joseph is maintaining the connection."

"And no one's tried to get the prisoners away from him either?" I asked, finding it hard to breathe.

Milo's amusement faded. "We were able to grab one before we retreated, but that bastard stopped the kid's heart before we were able to get off the island."

"We assume the connection between them gives him control over their bodies since he's in control of their minds," added Declan, regret clear on his face. "At this point, unfortunately, it's safer for them to stay with him. We can only hope that he doesn't burn them out before we can figure out how to save them."

Closing my eyes, I took several deep breaths, trying very hard not to absolutely explode. That didn't stop my body from partially shifting as I tried to rein in my rage… a battle I was losing.

"What do you mean your vengeance?" asked Ava softly, jerking me out of my spiral of fury.

My eyes popped back open, and I looked at her. "Joseph is the last of my Marks. Until I kill him, I still bear the weight of that responsibility to the Gods. But when I tried to kill him upon my return, I nearly had my mind taken from me."

Milo let out a low growl. I reached over and laced our fingers together. He gave my hand a squeeze, not that it was much comfort to either of us.

"Then how are you still in control of yourself?" asked Aira cautiously.

"Because I destroyed the Call." Flashes of my anger that day burned in my chest. "Despite the Call's absence, I'm still responsible for taking Joseph's life. If I don't succeed in killing him, my new life will be revoked. I'll die all over again, and this time, there won't be any way to come back."

The reality of that statement hit them about as hard as I thought it would… which is to say it went badly. Silence fell, heavy and thick with unspoken words. I decided to direct our conversation away from me again.

"Has Joseph done anything else?" I needed to know. I needed to feel the full weight of his sins against me, my islands, and the people I loved. I needed it to fuel the pit where the Call used to be.

Iris answered me, waving away Milo's look of caution. "Every night, Joseph calls out to the merfolk to gather more to him, and we've yet to see anyone who can resist him. We surmise he wants to have as many as he can, either to serve him or to be bound to him and used as pawns."

Declan nodded, looking from his wife then back to me. "He grows more powerful by the day. We're doing our best to prepare in case he decides to take the other islands, but there's not much we can do, not when we're struggling to deal with what he's already done."

"And what of the kelpies, krakens, and the whatever-the-Shiojis-are? What plan is being made?" I asked, glancing around the table.

As even-tempered as Iris was, she, too, vibrated with irritation. "The others say they are too busy trying to keep their islands safe to think about going on the offensive against Joseph."

"My father won't even consider helping," added Aira. "He's very much ‘not my island, not my problem.' It's put a rift in my family." A shadow cast across her eyes. I knew from that look alone she was not in agreement with her father.

I wasn't sure why I was surprised—the different species had been on an isolationist path due to Joseph's past meddling—but I was. I'd hoped that they would care more about the other islands, or at least care that Joseph had returned. But they didn't. Whether it was due to Joseph causing trouble or their inability to see him as a threat, they'd chosen to turn a blind eye.

My magic bubbled up my throat. It wanted to be used, to lash out at anyone, everyone, to get retribution for what had happened. Whether it was the ghost of the Call or my own fury, I wasn't sure. For a moment, I was lost to that urge, fighting the need to get up and seek Joseph out, no matter the cost.

"Rose? Rose? Come back to us," said a voice next to me.

My head swung to look at who'd spoken. It was Milo. His big hand cupped my cheek, and his eyes locked with mine, concern filling them. A gentle purr rumbled between us. "I know you're upset. You have every right to be, but getting lost in your power isn't the way to go."

"I feel so powerless ," I admitted. All this magic, this new body, and I was still as helpless as before.

"You aren't powerless. Not anymore. It's just going to take a little time for you to learn to direct your energy in a helpful way rather than a destructive one. For your sake and for the merfolk he's holding captive. This was one of the reasons we were supposed to stay away for a while, so you could learn."

"That was before Joseph came and destroyed everything, and now he's holding people hostage," I pushed back, frustrated. "There isn't time."

"She's right, you know," said Ava, uncharacteristically serious for once. "I know you just got her back, and your first instinct is to hide her away and keep her safe, but we can't let this go on for much longer. We don't know if those merpeople are being taken care of or how they're suffering. And if it's her job to take the fucker out, then we need to help her do that."

Milo crossed his arms over his chest, but he said nothing, a begrudging acceptance of his little sister's words.

Declan nodded. "As the leader of the selkies, I swear we will do what we can to help you take Joseph down, but we need to be smart about this. We need to protect those he's imprisoned and do what we can to ensure they aren't harmed in the process."

I took a deep breath to settle myself. They were right. We needed to be smart about this.

"Thank you, all of you, for helping," I said, though the words were woefully inadequate.

"You're one of us now, Rose. We help our own."

Now that was going to make me cry.

"And not just because he decided to pee on my leg and declare I'm his?" I asked, hiding a smile and jerking my thumb in Milo's direction.

Ava and Aira burst out laughing while Milo scoffed, denying he'd ever do that . Iris and Declan groaned.

"Children, for the love of the Goddess, what have you been teaching the poor girl about our kind?" Iris asked, a hint of amused exasperation in her voice.

Ava grinned. "Only the truth."

The rest of the conversation turned to lighter topics, but I couldn't shake the weight of the burden upon my shoulders. Exhaustion at the road ahead of me, of my lack of power over this situation, settled into my bones.

I just want this to be over with already so I can finally rest.

So I can finally be free.

I'm so tired.