Taken By The Shark

“This girl, though,” Sirenia insisted. “I’ve never seen a greater power among my children than she has been born with. She needs to be properly trained, not wasted on your spoiled princeling who doesn’t even want to live among you.”

“Never mind about Caerulus, he’s a good boy,” he snapped. “He’s bound to settle down now that he’s found a true mate. You wait and see. Besides, very soon he and his little bride will be moving down to that underwater facility the humans have built. At least that way they’ll be a bit closer to home.”

“Brother, you know that I must teach the girl,” she insisted. “If she isn’t properly instructed it could be a huge disaster. She must begin training right away.”

“If I allow it, you’ve still got to convince my son,” he pointed out. “And I’m sure he won’t have forgotten that your creatures were trying to harm the girl.”

“Merely a test of her mettle,” she said, shrugging all eight of her tentacles. “I had to be sure I’d found the one I was looking for.”

“Fine, I will inform him of the words we have exchanged,” he conceded. “If he is willing, I’m sure you could train her at the station itself. I know that you have been training part of their crew, haven’t you, Jill?”

“You heard about that?” she fidgeted. “Well, I was only trying to get closer to the girl, to find out if she was the one I sought. At first, I had no idea which one was calling out to me, but I had it figured out once your son was so attracted to her as well. That is our way, after all.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But I’ll have your word, witch, that you will not seek to harm Chelsea again, nor allow your minions to make any attempt on her. We will make the oath, right here, and right now.”

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked in a pouting tone. “You do love to spoil all my fun. But, if I must, I must. However, brother, I suggest that you choose your wording with care.”

“As always,” he grumbled. “Then here they are: neither you, nor anyone acting under your control or advice, shall harm Chelsea McDonald or her descendants in any way from this day forward. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she sighed. She wrapped three tentacles around the whale’s tail and gave it a tug, and he tugged right back as a wreath of golden light formed around the joined appendages.

“It is done,” Paribdus said. “Now, I shall let you get back to your dark deeds. Try not to overdo it again tonight, will you?”

“You might have taken away a bit of my fun, brother, but you’ll not be taking away my dark parties next,” she grumbled. “A girl’s got to have something to do, after all.”

Paribdus left her without another word, and carved a golden portal straight to his son’s living room, arriving there in human form. As a human male, he was most impressive to say the least, with his bulging biceps and hard body. Which he remembered he ought to clothe before he went looking for the two he sought.

He magicked on some pants and a shirt, then began padding up the stairs, where eventually he found the sleeping couple in the bedroom. Smirking, he cleared his throat in an attempt to wake them. Chelsea woke, but his son did not.

“You must have really worn the lad out,” he chuckled.

“Who are you?” Chelsea asked him then.

“I’m the King of the Sea, of course, who else?” he replied. “Did Caerulus not tell you that I’d be here?”

“We had no chance to talk about anything when he returned, unfortunately,” she said, wrapping a sheet around her as she slid out of the bed to join him in sitting at the little table near the window. “And there’s a whole lot to discuss, too, I think. Perhaps you’d care to fit a few pieces of the puzzle into place?”

“My son was right about you,” he smiled. “You are indeed an exceptional human specimen.”

“Not anymore, thanks to you,” she pointed out.

“As to that, it’s come to my attention that you’re a bit of an enigma, thanks to me,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Throughout history the gifted have sometimes bred with the humans,” he explained. “There was a time when my sister bore three daughters, and they were eventually banned from our realms and forced to live among humans for a thousand years for their crimes. They were all witches, you see, just like their mother, dabbling in such things as foretelling the future and using spells to further their own ends. Not all witches are so dark, of course, but these three most certainly were. They bore ten children among them to mortal men, and they and their descendants became the heroes of human legend. I believe your ancestors may have come from them, maybe even from more than one line, for I sense the power of which Caerulus spoke coursing through you even now. You will be a very powerful witch one day, but let us hope you use those powers for good, and not for selfish gains as Sirenia is known to do.”

“There is a way to know for sure which lines she may have mingling in her,” Mark said as he sat up in the bed. “We must do a sensing.”

“No need, really,” Paribdus said. “I’ve gleaned an oath from Sirenia that she will never seek to harm Chelsea or her descendants, nor direct anyone else to do so either. It will be perfectly safe to allow her to teach her, so long as your dear little bride takes care not to succumb to the darker side.”

“But look what happened to the last three she was allowed to teach,” Mark pointed out as he, too, arrived at the table with a sheet. “They tried to take over the world.”