Claimed by the Mer-Shifter Prince I Made Cry novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Three Rules

Minnie sets her rules and wipes his tail clean; he blushes so hard his tears fall as pearls, and Gus calls through the door.

He ate raw salmon from the grocery store, eight dollars a pound, and he ate it.

I watched him finish the third piece and wipe his fingers on his own wet arm.

"Okay," I said. "Rules."

He looked up.

"One. You stay in the tub until I get that other cuff off."

"I cannot go anywhere, Minnie."

"Two. Nobody comes in here. Nobody. I'll lock it every time I leave."

"Agreed."

"Three."

I stopped, because I had to think about it.

"No questions about the sea," I said. "Not to me, not about me. I don't want to hear a word about it."

He studied my face for a long moment.

"Your father," he said quietly.

"I said no questions."

"It was not a question."

I didn't answer that.

I picked up a clean dish towel from my bag instead, and a bucket of fresh water, and I knelt at the end of the tub.

Under the surface his tail lay along the iron.

In the light from the window I could see the damage.

The scales near the tip were scraped away in patches, and there was a long red scratch from the beach where I'd dragged him, and a deep one near the middle that was still seeping.

"That's from me," I said. "The cart."

"It is a scratch."

"It's a bleeding scratch. Hold still."

I wet the towel and put it against his tail.

He stopped breathing.

I looked up.

His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, and a dark flush was climbing up his neck.

I wiped slowly along the scale line.

The scales were smooth, and they were warm, which I hadn't expected, with a faint hum under my palm.

"Does this hurt?" I asked.

"No."

"You're making a face."

"I am not making a face."

The flush reached his jaw.

I pressed the towel to the deep scratch and felt the muscle under it flex.

His ears went red, right to the points.

"Soren."

"Yes."

"Are you blushing?"

"I am a prince of the Deep Court," he said, in a tight voice. "I do not blush."

"You're redder than a lobster."

"I have not been touched like this."

He said it fast and low.

"Not once?" I said. "Not by anyone?"

"I have been touched by guards, by tailors, by physicians. Nobody has ever touched me because they were being kind."

I had no answer for that.

My hand stayed where it was, flat against the warm, slick curve of him, and the towel went still.

His eyes came down from the ceiling and met mine.

They were very bright.

Then one of them overflowed.

A single tear ran down the side of his nose and fell off his chin into the water.

It didn't sink.

It made a small hard sound, and rolled to the bottom of the tub.

I leaned over the edge and looked.

A pearl lay on the iron, white and perfect, the size of a pea.

"Oh," Soren said, appalled. "Oh, no. Do not look at it."

A second tear fell, and another small click against the iron.

"Soren, you're crying pearls."

"I am aware."

"On purpose?"

"No!" He put his free arm across his face. "It is humiliating. Every royal does it. It is the reason we do not feel things in public."

"You're feeling things in public."

"You are touching my tail, Minnie."

I dropped the towel.

I put both hands over my own mouth to stop the sound, and I could not do it, and I laughed until my eyes ran.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so sorry. It's just that you look so offended."

"I am offended."

"You look like a cat in a bath."

"I am in a bath."

"You are!"

Through his arm I saw the corner of his mouth shake.

Then he was laughing too, low and rough.

A third pearl rolled across the tub.

I scooped the three out of the water and held them in my palm.

They were warm, and heavy, and perfectly round.

I thought, in a stupid practical way, of the electric bill on my kitchen table.

"Do you want these back?" I asked.

"They are yours. They are always the finder's."

I closed my hand around them.

Something small and warm pulsed in the pocket of my jacket, hanging on the hook by the door.

I didn't look at it.

Then someone pounded on the boathouse door so hard the bolts rattled.

"Min?" a gruff voice called. "Min, it's Gus. Who the hell are you talking to in there?"

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