I was still shaking my head, my eyes wide. No way was I taking a job that meant I had to get back in the water every day.
“I need your help,” Alyx said softly to his brother, and Keion came over to me and touched my arm, looking deeply into my eyes.
“You’re not really afraid of the water, are you, Kailar?” Keion said in a gentle tone. “You know you’ll be safe, and the money will really help your stepmom out at home. You want to do this, don’t you? You really want to help my brother.”
And the more he talked, the more I nodded. It’s as if the words he was saying weren’t questions but a kind ofpersuasion.A compulsion? Was he hypnotizing me like he’d done with the Dragon Lady earlier? I felt as if I were sinking deeper and deeper into his eyes, but I wasn’t at all panicked or afraid. A sense of soothing calm came over me, instead.
“And you promise everything will be all right?” I heard myself ask him.
“Oh, Kailar, everything will be fine. Wonderful. You’ll be very happy here. You believe me, don’t you?”
I nodded again, mindlessly. It was odd because I knew Icoulddisagree with him. I knew it was possible. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to simply stand close and bask in the warmth of these kind, handsome brothers.
He smiled as if I’d just given him the moon. “That’s good. Thank you so much, Kailar.”
I was turned then and pulled over toward Alyxsander, who smiled down at me, his eyes glowing. “Thank you, Kailar,” he said in that deep, sexy voice. “I swear to you that I’ll keep you safe.”
It seemed a strange thing for him to say to me, but I was still under their “spell” and just accepted it. As crazy as it sounded, I wanted desperately to make him happy and erase those strain lines from his eyes and mouth. And somehow, I knew I was the only one who could do that, though this man had the world at his disposal. Or so it seemed to me. To look like he did and have limitless funds? A bad knee seemed a small price to pay. I simply took his words at face value and totally accepted them.
How crazy was that?
Over the next few hours, things moved quickly. Keion took me home to get my things and came inside with me to speak to my stepmom. He called her Mrs. Theos, and she said to call her by her first name—Martha. I thought she’d be wary of him, and even suspicious of his brother’s motives where I was concerned, and not make friends with him. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Whether it was that way he had of hypnotizing people or just his ample charm, it was almost as if they’d known each other forever, and I knew that wasn’t possible, but Keion had such charisma that within seconds, she was asking him to sit down and telling him she’d go make iced tea. They were chatting about first one thing and then another like they’d known each other for years.
She acted really concerned about Keion’s brother’s injuries, and I heard the two of them whispering when I went to my bedroom to get my things. I wanted to eavesdrop, but I knew my stepmom only ever had good things to say about me, and always had my best interests at heart, so I relaxed and told myself I was just being paranoid.
When we left, she gave me a big hug and told me she might be traveling now that she had some extra money and I’d be busy with my new job. I thought it was a little odd, but her life had been tragic so far. I wanted her to have a little happiness, so I’d never stop her, though I did think it was pretty soon for her to be going somewhere and leaving me behind. After all, she didn’t even know if I’d keep this job.
It all still seemed too good to be true.
****
Alyxsander
The first time I saw the beautiful boy standing in my entrance hall, I was shocked and dismayed. I had to take a moment to gather myself before I could speak to him. Guilt and remorse flooded me. So many times when I was a younger man, newly named as his guardian, I’d seen him as a nuisance, a brat, a damned inconvenience who was standing in the way of my happiness.
I was very young then, and maybe more than a little melodramatic. But when King Cleotus first approached our father to task me and my brother Keion with looking after these two bratty Mer Folk children, Keion and I were shocked and dismayed. Cleotus said he thought that since we were “closer in age” to them, we could be more effective in talking to the boys and convincing them it was a really bad idea to keep going outside the Atlantean walls.
Closer in age! First of all, my brother was a very self-important twenty-two at the time and I was an insufferable twenty-one-year-old who thought he knew everything. The Mer kids, in comparison, were only ten years old—mere babies.
We hadnothingin common with them then and couldn’t think of them as possible mates one day. That was appalling, as they were just children! In fact, they were so attractive and even seductive—albeit unwittingly so—that even then, I think it made us feel nervous and on edge to be around them.
Keion and I told ourselves we were much more interested in having a few drinks with our more age-appropriate friends—or make that, a lot of drinks. We told ourselves that if we’d wanted children, we could have had our own.
We were disgruntled and unhappy at the idea of keeping up with two beautiful brats who were, let’s face it, not well behaved and pretty much a pain in the ass. At the time, we were the young and spoiled sons of indulgent parents ourselves and to be saddled with two youngchildrenwas simply a burden.
I tried talking to the one that King Cleotis had designated as “my future mate.” I sat him down and asked him to be honest with me. Why did he and his brother keep going outside the city walls? Did they not realize the danger? I tried not to be too harsh with him, but he was so pretty sitting there in the faint luminescent light of the plankton that attached themselves to my outer walls. They gave off a cold, bluish light that complimented his skin.
“Well, Kailar? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I-I’m not sure what to say, sir.” He peeked up at me shyly from under his hair and I grew impatient.
“Come on, give mesomeexcuse. Is it to irritate your father? Are you punishing him for sending you away? You know it was for your own good, right?”
Kailar looked anywhere but at my eyes. “I know that’s what he said.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“No.” He darted me a quick look. “I think he just wants to keep us away from our mama.”