The Prince of Elantis Read online

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2013 Lyn Brittan

  ISBN: 978-1-77130-545-7

  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

  Editor: JC Chute

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE PRINCE OF ELANTIS

  Romance on the Go

  Lyn Brittan

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  Seljuk read the message for the millionth time and shook his head. We’ve been reduced to threats of imminent demise sent by text. “Ibra!” He stopped short, but no one noticed his swearing. Technology aside, humans were completely unchanging, in one regard: they never paid attention. Little scuttle fish, they moved without direction, yet never really advanced.

  Scratch that, he thought, as someone elbowed him and he hastily stepped aside. They were remarkably good at multiplying, much more so than any of the sea peoples — his included. He sighed, heavy under the weight of history, time and purpose, but resumed walking on the beach. He held on to his shoes, needing to feel the sand pivot and give in beneath his toes. He tried to push aside the thought that it could be the last time.

  If the information proved true, the Carthaginians aimed to wipe out all other Ionians, save themselves. “So much for us sharks being the peace keepers,” he said to the ocean, the world his people called Elantis. The last great Ionian War decimated both Dorian and Carthaginian numbers. Who’d have ever thought that thousands of years later, it would be up to him to stop the next one? All because of a single jackass: Crispin.

  A known, but powerful idiot, he’d proclaimed his intent to destroy the Dorians in a flash of drunkenness. The threat had been overhead by a Selkie in a Dublin pub, who’d told his cousin at the end of a street fight in London, which led to both Selkies being overheard by a traveling Merlid singer, who thought it best to let Oristad, Seljuk’s brother, know. Hence the message:

  Crispin’s talking war. No, seriously. He says he’s going after The Keeper, and then coming for us. You have to find her before he does.

  ****

  “Ibra!” Amber’s eyes scanned her laptop. Just like she figured: no visible disturbance, yet something was off. The boulder in her stomach felt as heavy as the one on her shoulders.

  “Dr. Luz?”

  “Huh? Yes, sorry. Are the machines picking up anything there?”

  “No, ma’am. Just checked. All’s clear. Maybe it’s a glitch in your equipment? Have you seen anything else since then?”

  “No.” But then, she hadn’t seen anything the first time either. She stood, pushing her chair away as her heels clacked on the marble floor. The sun glinted off the morning waves like prisms of cracked glass. Oh, it looked peaceful enough, but Merlids knew the sea, and something was wrong. The intern chuckled behind her, and cleared his throat.

  “Look, everyone already knows you’re the best earthquake detector the world’s ever seen. You don’t have to prove anything. I’m making a coffee and scones run. The usual?”

  She nodded in the general direction of the closing door. The kid deserved to be paid better than he was. He did good work, but on this she knew he was dead wrong. He couldn’t feel it, none of the humans could, but there was a troubling pulse coming from somewhere near the deceptively beautiful coast. Amber gathered her black hair into a ponytail, but found herself unable to turn away from the sea for too long. It always told her what she needed to know. She just had to be there to receive it. And if that took staring out the window until her eyes blurred over, so be it.

  Of course, no ‘super sea sense’ was necessary to know that now would be a great time to duck. The sound of a door being kicked in did that just fine. She half-crawled, half-slid to her desk.

  “Get out here, you Merlid bitch!”

  The voice was scratchy, deep and full of confidence. The sound of split wood and the racking of the slide of a gun caused a fear that nearly pushed aside her ability to think. Nearly.

  Merlid bitch?

  No one had ever called her that before. Sure, she’d earned bitch once or twice. But, those who knew ‘Merlid,’ knew and never had to say. Besides, most sea peoples avoided Coronado Beach like the plague. San Diego had too many tourists, and this stretch of coast in particular.

  Another shot whizzed by. Whizzed, not boomed. A silencer, perhaps? Even worse. It meant that whatever this was had been planned.

  “I’m getting tired of waiting, mermaid.”

  That woke her up. Being shot at was one thing, but…

  “Slurs? That’s what you’re resorting to? How dare you come into my office, shooting your gun and your mouth? Who the hell do you think you are?”

  The blond man, Ionian — she could tell immediately by his soggy, sweet scent — grinned at her behind the gun. “You’re attractive.”

  “You have a gun trained at my face,” she said, rising.

  “That doesn’t make you any less attractive.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The scrolls. Hand them over.”

  “Are you insane? I’m The Keeper. The Keeper, you fool! And put down that gun.”

  He didn’t. Instead, he flicked it and his head towards the door, indicating she should go through it.

  “The scrolls are sacred. They’re only thing that’s kept the peace between the Ionians. Are you trying to start a war?”

  “Of course I am. Now move.”

  His nonchalance over the whole situation was more terrifying than the gun. Still, there was one thing true about bad guys from both sea and land — they were only bad until a bigger guy rolled along. And while she didn’t have one on hand, she had to try something. “Who are you? Dorian or Carthaginian? Does your prince know what you’re doing? You think he’s going to go along with this? That you’ll be rewarded for ending a two thousand-year-old peace? And if you don’t think I’ll find your prince and tell him … that I won’t scream about what you’ve done to the seven seas, you’re insane.”

  She glared at his still grinning face and hissed fast and quick. It didn’t exactly have the same fury above water, but she for damn sure didn’t expect a chuckle for her efforts. The Ionian male’s face darkened, though his eyes lit up. The fear she should have felt moments ago, finally kicked in.

  His pupils widened and for the briefest of moments, his cornea disappeared, losing all elements of humanity. He’d gone full shark and the worst part about it was the knowledge that she’d caused it. Fear. Blood in the water, was only second to fear on land. Every shark could sense it, and she’d known that.

  The Ionian crossed the room in an instant, using the barrel of his gun to turn her head towards him. It was cold and hard on her cheek.

  She tried to even her breathing. Tried flexing and releasing her fists, but his smile only widened. The teeth, once large and straight, multiplied by rows while curling into raptor-like shards.

  “Let me go. I’ll tell you where the scrolls are and won’t say a word. Start your war. Just keep it at sea and me out of it.”

  He stopped. Really stopped. Everything. His dark eyes reversed to a beautiful hazel and his skin went from a misty gray to a proper Californian bronze. His teeth were the last to go. Somewhere between eyes and teeth, his whole demeanor turned, almost as if a switch flicked him from homicidal maniac to wel
l-to-do playboy.

  “I mean to kill you after you show me where the scrolls are. But I’m thinking we should have a bit of us time first.”

  ****

  Us time.

  Seljuk heard the words as he rounded the corner of the building. Five minutes earlier and he’d have had The Keeper out of there. He could sense the movements of predator and prey - feel their contrasting emotions. A pounding heart of terror, and one skipping with anticipation.

  “You know the rules,” Seljuk heard the bastard saying. “If I keep you for three days, you’re mine forever. I knew the Princely Right would come in handy at some point.”

  With a firm grip Seljuk let his finger drop from the barrel towards the trigger. The Carthaginian was leaning in towards the woman, mouthing something in her ear. Seljuk wouldn’t be able to make a head shot, but a little lower down, perhaps?

  Masculine shock flew into his nostrils, twisting the hairs there. He’d been discovered and not wasting a moment, Seljuk aimed at the Carthaginian’s knees and shot before his next blink.

  “Keeper, run!”

  The Keeper ran towards him, skidding short with so much force that her heels squealed on the floor. “How do I know…?”

  “He’s bleeding and you’re not. Duck!” The groaning form behind her began to sit up. Seljuk fired across The Keeper’s head. She screamed, a high-pitched wail, but thankfully kept coming towards him.

  His opponent moved too, crawling towards the desk, but still shooting.

  Seljuk reached out to the woman as she closed the distance, finally pulling her behind him, barricaded by the relative safety of the adjoining wall. He peered around to take another shot.

  “Ibra!” The sickening sound: a click when he was expecting a boom. Seljuk tried to clear the jam, but couldn’t get the next round to cycle. Essentially, his gun was now a brick. Options limited, he grabbed The Keeper by the arm and pulled her away. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  “Kill him!”

  “Can’t. Move, lady.”

  “What, why? His prince? Who cares? We’d be doing him a favor.”

  “The gun’s shot. Shut up and run.”

  “No. Fight him. Use your fists and stuff.”

  So much for Keepers being the holders of ancient wisdom. In the next heartbeat, he’d hauled her over his shoulder and run for the door. He was carrying extra weight, but The Carthaginian was dealing with a new hole in the leg. It was enough to get Seljuk to the car first. He didn’t bother opening the passenger’s side door, just his own and shoved the woman across, scooting in after her. Neither of them spoke until they were well onto the main drag and into the blessed safety of San Diego traffic.

  “Okay. I’m okay. I’m alive and I’m okay.” She turned to him then. “I’m—”

  “The Keeper.”

  “Or, Amber. Whatever. Big question. Big, huge question. Why might someone want to kill me and/or start a war?”

  Seljuk took his first real look at the woman before answering. Good for breeding. Well formed. Attractive. “Blessed with the bounty of the sea”, as his father used to say. He cleared his throat and tried, really tried to focus on the very real possibility of an ensuing maritime Armageddon. “Well, you’ve answered your own question. He wants war. Not just war, but what he hopes to get out of it: power.”

  “How is this even an issue? Find out who he is and tell his prince.” She raised her hands and slammed them down across her thighs. “Unless you can think of a better reason to just stand around and get shot. I mean…”

  “He’s the Prince of the Carthaginians.”

  “So we need to contact the Dorians and their prince. Duh. Keep up.” She had the grace to look sheepish for 0.187 second. “Sorry, and thank you for saving my life and whatnot, Mister…?”

  Seljuk. Seljuk Marius Levern Marzetieron Nov, Grand Prince of the Fifty-Fourth Royal Household of the Dorian Principality.”

  “Oh.”

  “And the scrolls?”

  No response.

  “Focus. Don’t get stuck on the prince thing. I’m just the handsome hero who saved your life in a shootout.”

  She chuckled, but not heartily enough for him. He could sense the unease rolling off her body in huge waves.

  “I’m not stuck on the prince thing. You’re the actual prince,” she said without a breath between the two sentences.

  “Yes. Now answer me about the scrolls.”

  “I don’t have them. Well, I do. Just, not actually. Hey, look out!”

  He swerved with inches to spare, swore, and then put the car in park.

  “You’re in the middle of the road.” She waved apologetically out the window. “We need to move. Now.” Sorry she mouthed to someone he couldn’t see over his shoulder. “Focus, Your Majesty … and no, I don’t have the scrolls.”

  Chapter Two

  If the car hadn’t already been stopped, he was sure he would have plowed through a full block of pedestrians and half of the stores behind them. He didn’t speak to her as he eased the car back into drive and pulled away from the blaring horns and pissed-off looks of his fellow drivers. Keeper: One who keeps. Implies a lot. So how—?

  “How,” he finally said aloud, “do you not have the scrolls? It’s the full knowledge of our people. Everything about us and the war and, damn it, everything!” Not that he’d read it, nor had any other of his peoples for some time. It’d been entrusted to the Merlids just after the war. Inside were the words of both the Dorian and Carthaginian sects of the Ionian race. Since neither group had been particularly trusting of the other and only agreeable in the hope for peace, they’d placed the scrolls in the hands of a sea race outside of their own.

  “All these years … those bits of paper have become more than just words, Keeper. They have become the very symbol of peace. The destruction of them is as much a declaration of war as anything inside that could be used to start one. And now you mean to tell me you’ve lost them?”

  He tried to invoke a sense of calm, with little success. A ravenous fear clawed at his heart. “Life has been so peaceful for so long. Now I’ve got some asshole throwing war in my lap and a Keeper helping him do it.”

  “So I don’t have the scrolls. Big deal.”

  “Excuse me? Yes, it is a big deal.”

  “Not having them is different from not knowing where they are. I study the Earth and I live on a plate with a lot of tectonic activity. Give me a little credit. I travel all of the time for conferences and I’d just as soon have them housed in a safe, climate-controlled environment far away and secure.”

  The fidgeting in Seljuk’s heart slowed from gazelle to a slightly less agitated jackrabbit pace. “Another home, then. Fine. We need to get there immediately, grab the scrolls and plan our next move once we have them in our possession.”

  “Housed meaning something a little less literal. Housed meaning a storage unit.”

  “Fine?”

  She hesitated, before mumbling out a soft, “In North Dakota.”

  “What!”

  “Just in case something bad ever happened. Clearly I’m right. This qualifies, I think, as something bad happening.”

  “Un-fucking-believable.”

  “It’s climate-controlled, plus I have a camera set up inside. See?” She leaned over to show him her cell phone. Sure enough, he saw a large black box with a series of numbers on the side. Temperature and moisture levels maybe? He noticed far more than that, though. The top of Amber’s head had come to stop just under his nose. It made a dangerous combination: driving, the scrolls and the euphoric scent of a Merlid woman. Most of her people had a soggy stink, but hers was – well, his nose felt like a piece of jetsam willingly waterlogged and heavy with the sea.

  She was still talking about something. No, not true. The seaweed in his brain was starting to clear. She’d not only stopped talking, but actively jerking away with enough force that her body thunked into the passenger’s door. He’d been around humans too long and forgotten one very cru
cial thing. If he could smell her, then she could smell him, and he didn’t think he was giving off anything rated ‘G’.

  He opened his mouth, and then slammed it shut. What the hell could he say? The scent of lust was distinctive. Matched.

  Seljuk jerked his head from Amber to the road and back again, though he hadn’t been able to see her face either time. “Interesting view out the window, huh?”

  “Mmm hmm. And it is going to stay just an interesting view out the window until we get all of this,” she said, swirling her hands above her head, “settled. No time for anything else, agreed?”

  “We’ll stop here.”

  “Good.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said, pulling the car into a banking parking lot. “I have cash, but more never hurts. Crispin knew where you worked and it’s safe to assume he knows where you live. He’s probably trashing your place now.” He grabbed her hand and gave it a slight squeeze when she gasped at the likely invasion of her home.

  “We princes have access to things. Abilities to do things that are a little less than…well…savory.”

  “Spit it out.”

  “We have a lot of sea peoples living on land now. It’s good, every once in a while, to confirm they’re not saying anything they shouldn’t.”

  “Spying.”

  “Not the best word for it, but I have no doubt that he can trace any banking activity you conduct. One, big cash withdrawal of everything, now, and … in the city. Beyond that, we become gray men.”

  “Gray men?”

  “There. Unseen. Unheard. Blending in with everyone else. No electronic traces. This car, new, no GPS.”

  Her eyebrow arched up. “We’re not flying?”

  “Nope. Crispin would know exactly where we’re going. We need some time and space between us. Get some money and trash your phone.”

  “Ah, crap. I have an intern out there probably making his way back to office now.” She threw him a ‘shushing’ finger and punched something into her cell. “Hey, it’s me. I’ve had a major family emergency and closed the office. Don’t bother going back. Sorry, I’ve already set the alarm and everything so if you go in, it’ll trip the cops and I won’t have cell service for a while. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I don’t know what to tell you. Gotta go. Bye.”