Abruptly, he strides across the camp and stands before me, his gaze piercing into me. There’s an underlying torment there—and a hint of reserve. Something is bothering him. And it has to do with me. “I would like to speak to you, Emma. Alone.”

44

GALEN LEADS her away from the picnic tables and into the woods. They can still see the campfire from here, but it’s far enough away that his words will be for Emma’s ears only. He stops them after a few more feet, glancing back at the camp then to her.

Her eyes are huge and filled with questions. He doesn’t know where to begin.

“Galen, you’re making me nervous,” she whispers. Her voice is uneven, like she might be on the verge of tears. Which is exactly what he doesn’t want.

He runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t bring you out here to upset you. I just … A lot has happened between us—to us—since our disagreement at the hotel. And I think we need to talk about it, before anything else happens.”

She clears her throat. “When you didn’t come back, I thought you’d left me. I thought it was over.”

Of course she did. What else was she to think? “Did you want it to be over?” It’s not the question he was going to ask, but it’s the one he wants to know the most.

“Galen—”

“If you did, just tell me. I won’t be mad.” He feels himself losing control of his emotions and remembers how that fared last time. Calm down. Talk it out. “I said some things that didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t in a good frame of mind. I was in shock, I guess, from finding Reed and dealing with Reder—no. No excuses.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. But it’s not his physical weight making him feel heavy. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about things. To think about us.”

“I didn’t want it to be over.”

He lifts his hand, caressing her cheek with the back of it. She closes her eyes against it. He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. “The reason I wanted you to live in the ocean with me, the reason I wanted to get away from land is because…”

“You think I’ll live longer. That ocean life will be easier on my body, like it is for Syrena.”

“Humans are fragile.”

“You’re talking about Rachel.”

“I guess I am. Yes, I’m talking about Rachel.”

“What happened to her was an accident. It was no one’s fault.”

He shakes his head. They could argue that for several cycles of the moon. “It’s not even that. It’s … That can’t happen to you. Dying, I mean.”

“It’s going to one day. It’s going to happen to us all. Dying is a part of living.”

“I try to tell myself that, I swear. I try to appreciate the quality-not-quantity thing. But I keep thinking about how you’re going to die first. Unless … But I want you to be happy. I don’t ever want you to feel like my prisoner.”

She grimaces. “Oh. That. I was mad when I said that, Galen. I don’t really feel that way. It’s more like the other way around. I feel like I’m keeping you from the ocean. I feel that’s really where you want to be.”

“I want to be wherever you are.” And he means it.

A tear slips down her cheek. “Galen, there’s something you need to know. About Reed.”

He uses his thumb to wipe away the new stream slipping down her face. He knows what she’s going to tell him, and he decides to let her. To put what happened into her own words. To tell him from her point of view. No matter how badly it hurts him. It’s obviously something that she has to get out.

He would have let her keep it, he never would have forced her to tell him. Because at the end of the day, she chose him and that’s all that matters. “Tell me,” he says softly. “If you want to.”

“Reed and I were … We were in the woods looking for you. And then suddenly he’s in my face, asking if he could kiss me.”

Galen’s gut twists. “And you said yes?”

“I must have, because he kissed me right after that.”

Wow. He didn’t realize how painful this was going to be, reliving the details he’d worked so hard to banish from his mind. “Why … Why would you give him permission?”

Her lip quivers. “I don’t know. I mean, you and I were fighting. You were gone. You wouldn’t answer my calls, my texts. And there Reed was, being nice to be me, showing me how great it was to be a Half-Breed in Neptune. And … And…”

“You thought it might be something that you wanted.”

“Yes. No! I mean, I knew I didn’t want him, I knew all along that it was you I wanted. I just felt that he was giving me another option. An option that…”

“That I couldn’t give you.”

“Couldn’t? Maybe. At the time, it felt more like you weren’t willing to. I’m so sorry, Galen. I never should have let him. I should have pushed him away, stopped it before it happened.”

“You didn’t know where we stood. You thought I left you all alone in a strange place. I can’t … I can’t imagine what you must have thought of me.”

“But I still shouldn’t have let someone else kiss me. You and I were going to be mated.”

Were? His next question burns in his throat, encapsulated by the heat of anxiety rising from his stomach. “Emma. Does that mean … Have I lost you?” He takes her face in his hands. The situation has become beyond urgent. What does she mean we were going to be mated? “Because I swear I’ll make it up to you. All of it. Give me another chance. I’ll give you all of the options. If you want Neptune to unite with the underwater kingdoms, I’ll support that. I’ll try to convince Grom that it’s for the best. What do you want, Emma? Just tell me and it’s yours.”