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Chapter 15

Joseph Kelley

T he half-written letter before Joseph was a mess of jumbled thoughts and ink stains. None of the words that came to mind felt adequate to explain his feelings and his actions to his dearest Noemie. Several abandoned drafts lay strewn about his desk, each as insufficient as the last. His thoughts were a patchwork, tangled mess, and the harder he tried to wrangle them into something resembling coherence, they slipped away like water through his fingers. Focusing proved even more difficult as his frustration mounted with the damned tremor in his hands.

Joseph hadn't imagined he'd be ruling this island without his wife by his side. Nor had he imagined that he'd have to all but imprison the other merfolk in order to keep them from fleeing. He'd envisioned his kingdom to be a lively, active thing, his followers making up the members of his court as they fawned over his immense power to gain favor with him.

Worshiped.

Adored.

Feared .

What he had now was none of those things. Without the talisman to bolster his power, his control over the others was tenuous at best. Even those who'd come willingly had no loyalty to him, nor adoration. They wanted a piece of the power that this new haven promised, and though it chafed, he had to let them think they would have at least a small portion of it… even if he had no intention of relinquishing any of it.

As he'd dreamed of his perfect sanctuary, one of the things he'd never imagined was how damnably lonely it would be.

Day in and day out, he had only himself to talk to, but such was the consequence of keeping most of his people under lock and key. It wasn't his intention to keep them like that forever; that would be too much work. As soon as he was secure in his position and preparations to ensure everyone's safety was completed, he'd let them out. Not all the way—that might lead to a rebellion—but enough that he could actually have conversations that weren't one sided. But there were precious few that truly understood—or truly knew—the entirety of his vision.

Hell, even after a year of repeated attempts to speak with them, to explain, even his family wouldn't communicate with him. They couldn't understand that his plans, his actions thus far, were for their safety, and he suspected that it was the damn Malutagans that had fully poisoned his family against him. The Malutagans had certainly filled Noemie and the girls' heads with nonsense before, and it had taken months of painstaking, meticulous work to undo the damage they'd wrought upon them. As it was, the damned meddlers were keeping his family from him, and it was all he could do to not go back with all the merfolk under his control and blast the damn barrier down using all their power combined.

They're also probably not allowing Noemie to read my letters, he thought sourly, his face contorting into an enraged grimace.

In the three months he'd been in Nora, he'd penned over a hundred missives and sent them via magic across the ocean to her. She was the love of his life, and prior to his previous plans blowing up, he'd planned to ask her to have his child once he'd secured Nora for them. She'd always said she wanted a big family, and he'd put it off for years, thinking he had all the time in the world for that to happen. He'd been wrong, and he regretted it.

Reaching into his desk to grab yet another sheet of stationary, Joseph decided on how he wanted to frame his explanation. This time, he'd approach from the angle of all the preparations he'd been making for her, the girls, and the future children they were going to have. He'd already redesigned one entire wing for their children, making sure each room was perfect: one for Elea, one for Amelie, and finally, a nursery. He'd sent pictures last time, but he made a mental note to include more, just in case. He wanted them to be proud and excited about the work he'd done for them.

Joseph lost himself in his writing, penning pages upon pages of his thoughts to his beloved wife and children, and he almost didn't hear one of his men, Ryan, come into the room. When he looked up from his work, he saw the man waiting patiently to be acknowledged. Normally, he'd have shouted at anyone coming in when there wasn't an emergency. Ryan, however, was an exception. Ryan was the man who was going to find him Rose Sutton.

"Were you successful in discovering the whereabouts of the girl?" Joseph asked, steepling his fingers on his desk.

"I was. She's hidden herself amongst the selkies," Ryan replied, but didn't go any further.

Joseph wanted to curse. As much as he needed her, he didn't have the manpower to face the selkies again. Their prior altercation had cost him the lives of ten of his best men and had only stopped when they'd realized that Joseph had bound the prisoners' souls to his. Even now, the horror on their faces sent a thrill of devilish amusement through him… though he had to acknowledge that, without the insurance the prisoners afforded, he'd have perished at the hands of Milo King.

"Is there anything else?" Joseph asked, setting down his pen so he wouldn't snap it.

"Nothing for now," his subordinate replied. "I'll keep an eye on her, if you'd like."

"Yes. Keep following her. I need to know what she's up to and figure out how she's avoiding my call for her."

"Of course. I'll get right on that."

"Also, send Jackson to check on those nodes we put on the other islands," said Joseph, rubbing his chin idly. "Now that the rain has stopped, we need to make sure that they're still in place and functioning. I'm not in the mood to make more."

The merman nodded. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Make sure that Jackson checks the invisibility charms on the nodes as well. We don't want anyone to find them before we're ready."

"Yes, sir."

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Joseph sent the merman away, and once he was sure he was alone, he went back to writing his letter, images of his perfect reality vivid in his mind. Now that he knew where Rose Sutton was, he could focus his efforts on calling her to him—and once she was ensnared, well, he'd do whatever it took to get the location of the talisman out of her.

Anything .

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