Chapter 27

Rose

T wo deliciously masculine bodies cuddled close on either side of me where I lay face down on the bed. Two hands, one from each man, rested on my back, the three of us having untangled sometime in the night. Milo's pelt was still draped over us, enveloping us in the rich scent of cinnamon and the sea. It was pure peace.

In my half-awake, half-asleep state, I couldn't help but think of what had happened the prior day. The feel of their hands, their lips, their tongues. The way they filled me to bursting. Even the memory of how they'd made a snack for us after our nap, and the way they'd cuddled with me on the couch watching a movie. Those things were nice to think about, but that wasn't what I focused on.

I had two mates, two lovers.

My mates loved me.

I saw it in their eyes, felt it in the way they held me into the night. Even now, their hands lingered on my skin, unwilling to stop touching me as they slumbered. The lightness in my chest was unlike anything I'd ever felt in my short life. It had a smile teasing my lips.

There was… hope… within me. It was a foreign feeling, one often fleeting and just out of grasp. I'd felt it once before, when I was university bound, thinking I'd be free from my mother. That was, until she came up to see me as often as she could, without telling me beforehand. Hope had aided me in my trek across the US when I drove from UCLA to Boston, but it was shattered when my mother called to tell me my father was dying. Then I'd grown to hope that the Golden Isles would be my home, that it would be the place my soul could rest and be welcome. Well, Joseph torched that the night he reduced my home to a pile of ash.

In truth, I feared this nascent flutter of hope. The lightness of it contrasted with the weighted knot in my stomach, and I didn't know what to do with it, not really. A mounting sense of dread floated in the periphery of my consciousness, an acute awareness of the fact that, at some point, the other shoe was going to drop. This little bubble in which we were sequestered was going to pop, and there was little we'd be able to do about it. In my mind, it was only a matter of not if but when.

I didn't know how to handle how I felt as I floated between the need to do something, anything , and the helplessness of knowing that nothing would prevent what was to come. Usually, in these situations, I'd do something productive to distract me from the yawning pit of anxiety that lived within me: cleaning, cooking, working… While I could do at least two of those things, I knew it wouldn't really help.

I shifted back to my side, facing Will again, stretching just a little. Maybe I should get up to make them some breakfast, I thought lazily. It would be a nice gesture after how nicely they took care of me yesterday.

Just as I contemplated wiggling out from between my men, Will wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close, burying his nose in my hair. There was no way I was going to be able to leave now… not that I wanted to.

"If you even think about leaving this bed before the sun comes up, I will personally strap you down and make it so you can't use your legs until it's time to take you to see your aunt later," he said, his words thick with sleep.

"Is that so?" I asked, blowing a raspberry over his heart. I may or may not have forgotten we were supposed to go see Vi… but I could hardly blame myself for forgetting when my men had taken turns eating me out again before fucking me into a deep, dreamless sleep.

"Mhmm. I'm going to make you enjoy this for as long as possible." He kissed the top of my head. "I've waited so long to have you in my arms again."

"Well, now you'll have me for as long as you'd like," I whispered, squeezing him tighter to me.

Another arm, a much warmer one, draped across both Will and I, pulling us until my back was pressed firmly against Milo's chest.

"Who are we strapping to the bed?" he murmured, a sleepy smile in his voice. "I'll volunteer as tribute, if necessary."

"Hot," Will replied, already halfway asleep again and not answering Milo at all.

"You're both the worst," I said, meaning absolutely none of it.

"Hmm, yes, but you love us," Milo murmured as he pressed a kiss to the back of my neck, eliciting a shiver from me.

"I do. Maybe too much."

"No such thing."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Will spoke before I could form the words. "You should believe him. He's old as shit."

That got Milo to reach over me and poke the merman in the side, making him jerk. There was a little kerfuffle between the two of them before I had to slap their hands away from each other.

I sighed, hiding a smile. "Children. There will be no roughhousing while we are in the middle of a Rose sandwich," I scolded, bapping both of them on the asses one by one.

They laughed, thoroughly unrepentant, but settled back down regardless. Silence fell over us like a warm blanket, filling the space between us until Milo's deep purr took its place. My mates settled back into sleep again, surrounding me with so much more love than I could have ever thought possible.

"I'm not so sure about this, guys," said Vi from her perch on the lip of stone just above the waters of the tunnels. Her necklace was safely clasped around her neck, protecting her from little things like dying due to drowning. She had that look on her face, the one where she pressed her lips into a thin line, that told me she was more anxious than she was letting on.

When Will and I had arrived earlier after a lazy morning in bed—Milo had to stay in Mariana to help with more disputes between humans and selkies—Jesse and Callie gleefully told me Vi was going to join us for magic. Though, despite nodding and agreeing, Vi looked nervous at the prospect. She'd told us she wanted to see what we looked like as merpeople, and yet it was clear she was being coerced into it by the kids' overzealous enthusiasm.

With a gentle smile, knowing all too well how she was feeling, I put a hand on her shoulder. "I swear to you it will be alright. I've checked the magic in your necklace at least twelve times." I wasn't going to tell her I'd done so because I was afraid of killing her due to lack of skill on my part. "And if it isn't safe, Adrian can give you the breath of life and bring you up to the surface."

I smiled and winked at her, trying to dispel some of her nervousness. One of the hands that had been fussing with her frilly bikini bottom came up and whacked me on the arm. I cackled.

"And how would you know about that?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing.

"Well, considering Will has had to do that for me, I know it works just fine." I most certainly wasn't going to elaborate that, both of those times, I'd nearly died. I mean, she already knew he'd saved me after I'd jumped off that damned cliff—there was no way she would ever let me out of her sights again if she knew he'd saved me from drowning again after Not-me Siren had broken my necklace and tried to kill me.

Yet, she turned those accusatory eyes to my mate, who was bobbing in the water with Adrian and the kids, all of them waiting for us to jump in. Will, for his part, grinned, unrepentant.

"Would you have preferred I let her sink to the bottom and left her there?" he asked.

"In all fairness, he saved me," I added, shooting him a warning glance before thinking at him, It's like you want to be beaten with a newspaper!

Who knows, I might like it, he replied.

Oh, Gods, I sighed inwardly. You have been spending way too much time with Milo. I need to separate you two so you don't catch his weirdness.

I think it's a bit too late for that, pretty girl.

I rolled my eyes, then turned back to my aunt. "I promise you, none of the five of us will let you get hurt. And I especially don't want you to die, so…" I trailed off, not finishing my thought. Because if anything happens to her, I will lose it.

"Alright fine, but if I do die, I'm coming back to haunt all of you," she said finally, mock-glaring at the lot of us.

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then whispered, "I swear, I'll be right there. I won't let anything bad happen to you ever again."

If anything else were to even try to touch her … I shoved that thought away before I let it consume me. This was going to be a great day, dammit!

"Alright," Vi said at last, "let's do this, I guess."

I held out my hand. "Just think of it this way: you get to see what all of us look like as merpeople, and it opens up so many possibilities for exploration!"

Vi took my hand but grumbled under her breath, "If I live."

Despite stepping closer to where the ledge dropped off into the water below, she made no move to get in. I laced my fingers with hers, squeezed her hand three times to tell her that I loved her, then quoted, "‘You jump, I jump, right?'"

My joke shocked her out of her anxiety spiral, and she let out a laugh, quoting the next line back at me. "Right."

"I'm going to count to three, then we'll do it, okay?" I asked, and after she nodded, I said, "One… two… three."

We stepped off the ledge at the same time, keeping hold of each other's hands as we hit the water. Once we were submerged, Vi looked at me, holding her breath still out of instinct while I breathed in an exaggerated manner. Still she held it in. I gave her hand a squeeze.

"It's going to be okay," I coaxed. "We've got you."

Her eyes went wide at hearing me speak so clearly, but she didn't move to respond. Just when I thought she was going to kick to the surface, she sucked in a lungful of water, and though I hid it from my face, I waited to make sure she didn't choke or die. But she took in one breath, then another, clearly just fine. I nearly collapsed into a heap in relief.

"Holy shit," she said, in awe. "I'm actually breathing underwater! This is incredible!"

Holy shit. I can't believe that worked! I thought, giving her a smile to hide my own internal freak out from her.

Of course it worked, Will replied, his voice a warm, soft thing in my mind. He swam over, pulling me close to him. One, you have an excellent teacher, and two, you're brilliant.

My cheeks heated at the casual way he touched me in front of everyone. We may have made considerable strides when it came to our relationship, but there was still a certain amount of "taboo" in having him as mine, especially since we'd never been able to be public with our relationship before. Despite this, I leaned into him anyway, shoving away the weird nag at the back of my mind that told me I shouldn't.

Still! What if I'd fucked it up? I asked him.

Then we would have saved her, just like you said we would. It's that simple. What matters most, though, is that you did it. Your aunt will be safe now, just like you wanted, he replied, a surety in his voice I really wanted to believe in.

I wanted to reply, but Jesse and Callie swam up close to us, snickering to each other.

"Ooooh," sang Callie, "Rose and Will sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!" Jesse finished.

"You rascals," Will said, pulling away from me only to grab the kids. "Making my girl blush!"

"Your girl, huh?" asked Callie, her smile wide.

"What about Milo?" Jesse asked, cocking his head to the side. "Did you dump him? Was it because he's a selkie?"

Will burst into laughter. "We decided we both wanted to be with Rose and with each other, so we're all three together."

"Wait, you can do that?" Jesse's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

Will nodded. "If everyone agrees, yeah."

"I'm going to have so many partners, you won't even begin to count them all!" Jesse exclaimed, practically bouncing.

"Not me," Callie countered. "I don't want to share."

"Both are valid choices," said Adrian, coming up behind them and ruffling their hair. "But before we can plunder the world for life partners, why don't we show Violet what we look like in our other forms, hmm?"

"Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes!" said Jesse, now dancing in place.

A shower of magic prickled against my sensitive skin, more alive under the water than above it. I, much like Vi, who stood next to me, couldn't take my eyes off my companions as they changed. In truth, I'd only ever seen Will in his mer form—I didn't count the time I'd been under Joseph's power, as I didn't remember much of what happened before I woke up in the cave—so it was a rare treat to see what others of my kind looked like.

Jesse was the first to completely change. He had spikey fins along his back and forearms that were the same shiny gunmetal grey as his tail. There was also a glint of turquoise in his scales, depending on where the light hit.

Callie's mer form looked nothing like her brother's. Her coloring and shape looked a lot like a koi fish: her tail was a base of white with orange, yellow, and black splotches. Where Jesse and Will had spikey fins along their forearms and down their spines, she had wispy yellow and white frills.

Adrian, however, was the most majestic of all. The pattern on his scales resembled a lionfish, with stripes of black and white, but he also had stripes of turquoise and yellow and little hints of pink. Butterfly wing-shaped fins flared at his hips, and at his back, his dorsal fin fanned out, just like a lion fish's would.

The three of them were marvelous. Beautiful. And the variation in their shapes made me feel better about my own siren form…

Oh, shit.

I was so busy watching the others that I'd forgotten to shift myself, and now with five sets of eyes staring at me expectantly, my face grew hot. Changing in front of them meant taking off the sun dress I'd worn over to the caves, bearing my body to them… and showing them something I'd yet to show anyone but Will, Tisa, Ava, and Aira. Hell, not even Milo had seen me as a siren yet, and here I was, about to show all.

With shaking hands, I pulled my dress over my head, then closed my eyes to focus on shifting. Usually, this process was instant, easy as breathing, but there was something about having so many people watching that made it difficult. I reached deep inside myself, seeking that part within me that was responsible for my turn, and when I found it, it took a bit of prodding before it did what it was meant to do. Even then, it took longer to shift.

Talk about performance anxiety.

When I opened my eyes again, I was fully shifted, and my gaze sought Will's first for reassurance. He beamed at me, pride shining in his smile. His words caressed my mind, soft and warm: I have the most beautiful mate in the whole Godsdamn world. I'm such a lucky bastard.

I couldn't answer him, not with how hot my cheeks were burning, and I turned away from him, mentally waving him off with a pleased vibe.

As much as I wanted to know what Adrian and the kids thought of my mer form, it was Vi's opinion that mattered most. This was, after all, the first time she was really, truly seeing what I'd become, rather than it being a theoretical situation like it had been before. She'd taken a step back—out of a desire not to be near me or to get a better look at me, I didn't know. What I did know is that her eyes were wide, as if she couldn't quite comprehend what she was seeing.

I gave her space. This was as much an adjustment for her as it was for me, and I waited, barely breathing, for her to show me how she was feeling. A spike of anxiety speared me, but there was hope there, too. My aunt had taken everything in stride thus far, and she loved me despite everything. Even if it took time, I knew this would become normal for her, too.

Of course, she always did enjoy surprising me, though.

"If I didn't know what it would take to get me one of those nifty tails, I might be jealous!" she said, a smile crossing her face.

The tension in my belly dissipated as I let out a relieved laugh. "I'm sure you'd be a beautiful merlady, Aunty."

"May I touch?" she asked, reaching her hand out.

"Oh, sure." I held my arms out to give her better access to me.

But it wasn't only her that brushed their fingers against my nonhuman parts. Two tiny hands, one from each of the kids, also joined her. Jessie poked at the scales on my right hip while Callie touched the frilly fin protruding from my left. Meanwhile, Vi had taken my hand and was running her fingers along the bumps on my arm where fins like Will had would've been.

"You look like a gem," said Callie.

Jesse snorted. "She looks like a frilly princess."

"That's because she is a frilly princess," said Will.

I gave him a smile, knowing that beneath his silly comment he was thinking far more… intimate thoughts… and broadcasting them for me to hear.

"It doesn't seem quite real," Vi murmured, her attention transfixed on my inhumanness. "Like, you're you, but different at the same time."

I smirked, deciding to pull a Milo. "I got the upgraded package. Goddess-approved and everything." I chuckled, leaning in like I was about to tell her a secret. "Wait until you see what sort of magic I can do. I made a crab out of sand once."

Even as she joked, "Oh, whipping out the big guns already, I see," her expression remained pensive as she ran her fingers over the sensitive, milky-white webbing between my fingers.

"You know it! Do you want to see?"

She smiled, finally, and it reached her eyes. "I'd love to see what you can do, Rose."

My face split into a grin. It's going to be a great day!

I spent an inordinate amount of time creating various creatures out of sand and sending them after the kids. This devolved into the kids figuring out how to do it themselves—Will having sent them the information mentally, I was sure of it—and thus began the great battle of crab versus lobster versus sea spider. The adults in the vicinity who were not locked in the epic crustacean-Pycnogonida war did not intervene except to egg the three of us on. Unfortunately, though, the skirmish ended in a stalemate, one of each of our little sandy soldiers surviving until the bitter end.

"Alright, kiddos," said Adrian as the three of us combatants eyed each other gunslinger-at-sunrise style. "I'm going to insist on a ceasefire for now, but we can pick this up after the smallest two hooligans do their laps in the lower tunnels."

Immediately, there was a great grumbling, and the lobster and sea spider of our trio melted back into the sand.

"Oh, but we were having fun!" Jesse cried, and I'm sure he'd have stomped his feet if he had any.

"Don't you want to show Violet how fast you can swim?" Adrian asked, then leaned in closer to them. "I feel like she can't even imagine how amazingly fast you two are."

"Oh, there's no need to show Violet. We all know I'm the fastest swimmer in all the seas," said Will, puffing out his chest.

"Are not! I've beaten you three times on the track!" Callie was adamant on this fact, which made me hold back a snicker.

"Well, then, you better go warm up so you can beat me again!" Will crossed his arms, giving her a challenging look.

There was a brief, tense moment where the three of them just stared at each other, but it broke when the kids looked at each other… then darted away with a flurry of giggles. Adrian and Vi sighed with gentle smiles on their faces before they, too, swam away, hand in hand. This left Will and I alone in the brightly lit tunnel.

Leaning against Will, I smirked. "So, what are we learning today, teach?"

"I thought we could learn how to do healing today," he replied, wrapping an arm around my waist to pull me that much closer.

"Please tell me that isn't going to include you hurting yourself and giving me puppy-eyes until I make it better," I quipped back.

He snorted. "If that's what it takes."

"You're actually the worst." I pushed away from him a little more forcefully than I intended as he made to tickle me.

He gave me a smile that melted me down to my soul. "And yet you love me."

"Debatable, really," I deadpanned.

"By the end of the lesson, I promise you'll love me for sure." There was mischief in his tone, and I was already suspicious. But he continued as if he wasn't planning something that would likely make me want to toss him into the sun later. "So, when it comes to this particular magic, it's important to remember that the body can and does heal itself on its own. When we're healing, we are aiding and speeding along the natural process of the body, as well as trying to ensure everything goes back together the way it should go."

I nodded. This made sense to me. "So we don't reattach body parts backward, you mean?"

"Precisely." He smirked at my joke. "Besides, the body usually wants to go back to normal, so it's in its best interest to get better."

I considered what he was saying as I shifted back to my two-legged form and settled down cross-legged on the sand across from him,. "What are the limits to healing?" I asked.

"Well, I think it depends on your personal power level, whether the ailment is genetic or not, and whether the soul has left the body or not," he replied, his voice hitching a little. His eyes fastened to my exposed pussy before he scrubbed a hand over his face.

I hid a smirk and sat back on my arms, pressing my breasts out just a bit to tease him a little. "What do you mean?"

Will licked his lips, his eyes exactly where I wanted them. "When the soul leaves the body, it doesn't matter how you heal the body. The person is dead, and unless either of the Lords of Death decide to release the soul back to the body—and trust me when I say that's not likely to ever happen, the greedy bastards—there's no point in fixing someone who's passed on… unless, of course, you want a pretty corpse."

Though his words weren't callous, I still shuddered, then full-on shook as he continued. "I've heard of people burning themselves out trying to bring people back or healing wounds too grave to be fixed. For sirens like you, breaking your magic like that is fatal, so you must be careful."

There was something more he wanted to say, like it was just on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't need to voice it, not when his face told me everything I needed to know. I almost lost you before, it said so plainly. I don't wish to lose you again. If there was anything I knew, it was this feeling. So I gave him a reassuring smile to tell him I understood.

"Anyway," he said, shaking the vulnerability from his expression, "are you ready to try healing?"

I tilted my head. "Aren't you going to tell me how?"

"I think you'd learn better with a practical demonstration," he replied, the mischief back in his expression.

It took me only a second to realize what his plan was. My eyes widened. Before I could open my mouth to tell him no, Will sliced his claw across the side of his arm. Immediately, blood poured from the wound, discoloring the water.

"Will, you jerk!" I screeched, bolting over to his side and placing my hands over the long laceration to hold the two sides together. Now that I was up close, I could see that he cut himself deep, having carved through skin and muscle. Panic made my hands shake as I spat, "I told you not to do this! You're going to bleed out!"

"Then you'd better heal me, mate," he replied, quirking up an eyebrow.

"Oh, I'm going to throttle you once I fix this," I shot back, more venom in my tone than I meant. "Better yet, I'm going to throttle you, then heal you, then throttle you again before letting you suffer!"

"Oh, I most definitely am looking forward to that." His voice lowered, and I could have sworn I felt his pulse speed up beneath my hands. The loon!

"Just tell me how to do this!"

He chuckled but didn't tease anymore, thank the Gods . "When you heal someone, you need to gently push your aura, your power, into their body," he started softly. "There will be some resistance. The body is not used to having another soul enter it, and it will try to keep you out, but once you're in, you can start knitting things back together."

Will's mind brushed against mine, asking for entry, which I granted. He guided me on how to stop the blood flowing from the split in his flesh—likely mostly to help me stop panicking, I was sure—then he showed me how to encourage the flesh to knit together again. As he guided me, I replicated what I was seeing in my mind, taking my time to make sure I followed each step exactly. The process was delicate and finicky, his body fighting me a little as I forced it to work faster than it wanted to naturally. However, I was determined to see him whole again and without blemish.

"Good girl, Rose," Will murmured, a little breathless. "Now all you need to do is to withdraw slowly. It's okay if you feel a little woozy when you are fully out."

Once more, I followed his instructions to a T. Taking my time, I slipped my power out of Will as deliberately as he'd shown me in his memory. I didn't want to withdraw from him, my soul yearning to have a piece of me curled within him, but I ignored that compulsion. Once I was all the way out, I moved my hand, needing to see if I'd been successful in my endeavor.

I blinked.

I blinked again.

There was nothing there.

Grabbing his arm, I moved it this way and that, trying to find any trace of the horrendous slice he'd taken out of his own flesh on my behalf. Hell, there wasn't even any blood on my hands, despite having used them to hold the cut together. When it was obvious not even a scar was left, my eyes darted up to his, accusing.

"Did you mess with my mind and make me think you were hurt?" I asked, ready to be equal measures wounded and furious.

He smirked. Smirked . "I did not."

"Then how is this possible, hmm? When I was healed from lacerations before, they left awful scars."

"Because you're so powerful. It's breathtaking to see you work," he replied, but this time his tone wasn't joking. It was reverent. Almost worshipful. "I mean, Gods take me, you aren't even winded. A big healing like that should have at least left you a little dizzy, but nothing."

"What?" I asked, still not understanding how I'd done what I'd done.

"Show me your well of power, please?" His eyes were on mine, and I nodded.

I closed my eyes and pulled up the image he was looking for. I'd expected it to be the same as before, my deep sapphire-colored aura with the turquoise and sunshine yellow just beneath it lit up. This time, however, another layer was lit up, a gunmetal grey.

It took me a moment of just staring at it, puzzling over the whys and the hows, before my mind caught up. I'd sent another soul to the afterlife, his golden sliver of divinity having sunk into my chest after I'd witnessed his last moments. Mentally, I counted the layers to check my hypothesis. I counted them twice over just to be certain, and sure enough, aside from my own at the top, there were three additional parts added to mine.

So, this is what Tisa meant when she said sending the souls would integrate their divinity into mine. Their power was literally being grafted onto mine, extending my well of power. Hope surged up inside me. If I could send all of the souls, then I could overpower Joseph easily. All I needed after that was to know how to use it to save those he kept as prisoners.

Looking at Will, seeing the innocent expression of awe on his face, my resolve strengthened. I would do whatever it took to preserve that, to spare him from any further pain at his father's hand. Anything less was not enough.