Page 8 of Drown Me Gently

“They would,” Ulric growled, drifting closer. “And they have. You think they’d be charmed by a prince with a pretty face? They’d gut you on a table and sell your bones to the highest bidder.”

Auren’s voice dropped low. “Not all humans are like that.”

Ulric shook his head, disappointed. Not in anger. Not even in disgust. But something worse.

Resignation.

Auren swam past him toward the mouth of the cave, the silk scarf gripped tight in his hands, hiding it from the Sorcerer. He didn’t bother demanding to be alone. What would be the point? Ulric would follow anyway. He always did. Not because he cared. Auren wasn’t naïve enough to believe that anymore. But because it was his duty. His burden.

Auren’s fingers tightened around the ribbon.

“Just once,” he muttered under his breath, “I wish you’d come after me because you wanted to. But every time you do this, I can tell you don’t actually give a damn.”

Auren kicked forward, tail cutting the water in a sharp burst of speed as he fled the cave.

He didn’t wait for Ulric.

Let the old Kraken catch up, if he could.

If Ulric had known Queen Tritheya’s final son would become the most infuriating creature in all the sea, he might have stayed in the depths.

He’d served at the queen’s side for a century. Attended every one of her dozen births and watched each of her children grow into scholars, warriors, or courtiers. Each had come into their magic and upheld their duties with grace. He’d seen tantrums, tears, triumphs—and he’d guided them all with patience befitting his post. When the magic inked into his skin warned that this pregnancy would be the last heir of Poseidon’s bloodline, Ulric assumed the worst was behind him.

So he left, confident that Atlantis could stand on its own for a few seasons while he was away. The magic in his skin was calling him home.

To the black depths.

To the trench.

To be with his kind.

The Kraken. Chosen wielders of Poseidon’s magic—keepers of balance, judges of divine will. They served the old ways. The deep ways. The silence and pressure of the ocean’s floor.

Ulric only intended to be away for a few seasons. He didn’t notice the years slip away. Time didn’t feel the same when it couldn’t touch you. But without him knowing, he’d lost decades. And when the magic called him to the surface once more, Atlantis had changed.

And the final heir of Poseidon’s bloodline not only had been born, but had grown into a Mer of twenty.

Auren had grown into something wild and ungovernable—crimson fire and storm-blue eyes, with hair that refused to be tamed and a temper hot enough to melt ore. He slipped past guards, crossed forbidden borders, and vanished for hours—only to return with an eye-roll and some smug explanation about how he “had it under control.”

Ulric blamed himself, at least in part. Auren was the only one of Poseidon’s heirs he hadn’t mentored from birth—and of course, it was this final child who grew into something feral. Reckless. A creature raised in the palace but born of the storm.

He drove Ulric mad.

And that was exactly the problem.

Because Ulric couldn’t stop noticing how that rebellion had shaped him. How his years in the sparring rings had honed his body into a formidable shape—wide-set shoulders, defined arms, a tail rippling with muscle. He didn’t carry himself like a court-bred prince. He moved like a warrior.

And gods help him, Ulric noticed.

“If only he kept his gaze in the water, where it belongs,” Ulric murmured bitterly.

After discovering Auren’s secret cave, Ulirc knew it wouldn’t be long before the prince tried for another escape. And sure enough, the moment the palace grew busy and the guards were occupied, the prince slipped away. Again.

Though Ulric had to admit, however begrudgingly, that Auren was good at it. If not for Ulric already predicting the prince’s escape, he wouldn’t have noticed the Mer disappear in the span of a blink.

But as it was, Ulric was watching. And with a groan, he excused himself and followed. He exited the city, making his way to the now-familiar entrance carved into the stone. Auren was gone—likely off acquiring more human artifacts— but Ulric knew he’d come back. One didn’t abandon a hoard this meticulously kept for long.

That, perhaps, was the greatest surprise.