"I'm sorry, what?" My voice comes out shriller than intended.
His eyebrows furrow and the light in his eye fades into confusion. I feel guilty for killing his excitement, but saying I'm overwhelmed would be an understatement after a speech like that.
"You're my star," he reiterates. His voice is steady and intense.
I blush and a small smile starts to turn the edges of my lips up. I watch his eyes dip down to my lips and when he sees my smile, he looks back up at me with a full-blown grin.
"Yeah, I got that part," I tease. He winks and I roll my eyes to hide the way my smile grows. "It's the other stuff. The whole 'rule the world together' thing. That's a bit overwhelming."
"Unite the seas, not rule the world, astéri mou," he corrects me as his hand that was resting on my watch trails back up my arm, until his palm rests on the side of my neck with his thumb brushing across my cheek. I automatically lean into his touch and I'm rewarded with his arm wrapping around my waist to pull me closer.
Something brushes against my tail. I throw my arms around his neck and try to close those last few inches between us to get away from whatever it is. I look over my shoulder and see it's just his trident. I let out a sigh of relief as I turn back towards him.
"Sorry," I breathe out, letting my hands slide back over his shoulders to rest on his chest. I had every intention of releasing him completely, but he's toned and I can't seem to stop myself from touching him.
"No need to apologize," he mutters, eyes flickering down to my lips.
My heart picks up. Warmth floods through my veins. I'm almost positive I can hear his heart beating strong and steady. Then my right hand slips a bit and ends up situated over his heart. I don't hear the thudding anymore, but I can feel it beneath my palm. It's quickening.
He starts to lean in.
"Do mermaids have heightened senses?" I blurt out.
Lukianos jerks backwards with a confused and slightly dejected look. I instantly feel like a jerk. It's not that I don't want to kiss him, but in the big scheme of things, I hardly know this guy. And more importantly, I don't know how to underwater kiss.
"Oh, um, I suppose in comparison with humans, yes they do," he says slowly, eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"Oh, okay," I rack my brain for something less idiotic to say. "Thanks, I just thought I could hear your heart, but I was probably just feeling it under my palm and processing it as a sound or something, I don't know. I'm knew to the whole mermaid thing, so I just thought I would ask."
"You could hear my heart?" He asks, awe lighting up his face again. He's beaming at me now, pulling me even closer than before. He removes his hand from my face and uses it to bring my right palm up to cup his face. His hand stays there, holding mine to his face as he leans into it. Luke's eyes close and he asks, "Can you hear it now?"
For a few seconds of silence, I wonder if he's teasing me. His face stays peaceful and kind, so I decide he's not. Just as I'm about to tell him that I can't hear his heartbeat, because I don't have vampire hearing, I hear a quiet thudding. Concentrating on the sound, I close my eyes to divert all of my attention to only one of my senses: hearing.
Sure enough, I hear a thud-thud, thud-thud. A heartbeat. Luke's heartbeat.
"Oh my god," I exclaim, my eyes shooting open and widening. "I can hear your heartbeat. Is that normal?"
Luke opens his eyes, but keeps my palm pressed to his cheek. "No, it's extraordinary."
My mouth opens, but my mind is reeling and I can't form words. Why can I hear heartbeats and how did I not notice earlier? I close my mouth and shut my eyes, but that just makes his heartbeat stand out more. Not only am I having to adapt to this whole new life as a mermaid, but now I can't even be a normal mermaid.
"I don't understand," I whisper in defeat.
"There's a tale about a Greek woman who fell in love with the god of the sun, Apollo, from afar. Being the sun god, Apollo was charged with driving a chariot across the sky to pull the sun behind it, so he was never in one spot for very long. The mortal woman was content at first to watch the one she loved as he pulled the sun over her village, but eventually she grew upset with the short time she had with Apollo. She prayed to the gods, asking for the ability to follow her love wherever he went. Some of the gods sometimes have a twisted sense of humor; they gave the woman the ability to hear her loved one's heartbeat, so she could find him at all times. The incessant thudding of his heart beat was a reminder that he was out there, at first. Then it became a slight annoyance that kept her up at night, but soon it began to drive her mad. She noticed that there was hardly any sound when he was pulling the sun over her village, but it grew louder the farther he got from her. After weeks of pounding in her head, the mortal woman decided to try following Apollo as far as she could, to ease the pain. She followed him as far as she could, but when she came to the edge of the sea, Apollo- unaware of the woman or her plight- continued without her and the pounding started to grow louder again. She couldn't stand it and charged into the sea to find peace from the noise.
"My grandfather, Posiedon, found her sinking to the ocean floor with her hands clutching her head. He transported her back to land to save her, but she only cried out louder from the throbbing in her head, now amplified by such a large distance instantly placed between her and Apollo. She managed to explain her situation to my grandfather in her distress and he took pity on her. He was able to reverse the curse the other gods had put on her, but seeing as he is god of the sea, his help only worked when she was in the water. Desperate to cure herself, the mortal begged my grandfather to give her the ability to live in the sea with him. She became the first mermaid and later gave birth to my father, Triton. When I was younger, I noticed that my grandmother often had her hand on my grandfather's chest. I asked her about it once and she told me it was the only time she had complete peace. My father claims that the love my grandmother holds for my grandfather for saving her brought the curse back, but in the form of a gift. Her love for him is pure and selfless, so she has the ability to find him anywhere and make sure his heart is beating strong and healthy. If she focuses, she can hear the sound of his heart beating. But when her hand is over his heart, she no longer needs to hear it beating because she's with him; she knows where he's at and that he's safe. Do you hear it beating now?" He asks as he places my hand over his heart.
My mind is still processing his story, but I strain my ears for any thudding.
"No," I whisper, shaking my head. "What does that mean?"
There's a light in his eye, but he studies me carefully for a moment, "Are you sure you want to know?"
"I-I think so," I answer hesitantly. Then I nod my head, "Yes, I want to know."
"You're in love with me," he announces, his chin lifting proudly.
"I'm what?" I ask, pulling myself away from him completely.
His arms drop to his side and his smile falters for a minute, but he quickly pulls himself up to a regal pose with his trident held powerfully at his side. "You're in love with me," he repeats with a dazzling smile.
\"Why, you-you smug, arrogant, cocky, conceited son of a fish," I yell.
"Most of those were synonyms," he points out, scratching the back of his head. I feel my hands ball into tight fists at my sides and my blood boils. There's a faint thudding in my head and the terrible thing is I don't know if it's my own heartbeat or his. How dare he? "You said you wanted to know. The reason you can hear my heartbeat is because you're in love with me."
Part of me wants nothing more than to punch him in his perfectly sculpted face. The other part of me is barely holding back tears out of embarrassment. It's not possible, right? I just met him. It takes a few days to start developing feelings for somebody and months to fall in love. I mean, he did say merfolk feel emotions more strongly, but that doesn't mean they fall in love in a day, right? And even if I did love him- which I don't, I can't, it's not possible- who is he to assume so and start parading it around like it's only natural that everyone falls in in love with him. I turn away from him, trying to think of something- anything- to say back.
"Carter," he calls. I hear him swim closer to me, but I don't answer in fear that my voice will betray my emotions. When he talks again, his voice comes from just over my right shoulder, "What's the matter, Carter mou? Why have you turned from me?"
I scoff and roll my eyes, but the anger is mostly to hide my embarrassment at this point. His hand lands lightly on my shoulder.
"You're…embarrassed?" He asks, as if he can read my thoughts. Wait, can he? "There's no need to be embarrassed, astéri mou. You're the second mortal female to be turned into a mermaid, it's only natural that you inherit the gift the first one was also given."
I turn to look at him over my shoulder in surprise, "I'm only the second to be turned? But I thought you said your uncle knew a mermaid, too."
He uses my shock and the hand on my shoulder to spin me back around so I face him, as he says, "You're the second female. We merfolk keep away from humans; we don't turn them often. There have only been four total land-dwellers that were made into merpeople. You make the fifth."
"And none of the mermen can hear other merpeople's heartbeats?" I ask quietly, still embarrassed but trying not to lash out any more.
"They cannot," he affirms. "They can, however, manipulate a small area of water around them. There is one merman I saw who can manipulate water within a 20-foot radius of himself, quite impressive. As far as I know, his powers are the strongest. It makes sense if you think about it. The mermen who used to be land-dwellers were made in the likeness of the first merman, my father and the king of Atlantica, Triton. Being the son of the god of the sea, he has powers to control the oceans. Naturally, any creatures magically created in his image would have influence over the oceans, as well. And this trident was made from one of Posiedon's tridents. Perhaps it's from the very one that transformed my grandmother and it simply remembered the work my grandfather did and mimicked it when I changed you."
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to process this new information. I pinch the bridge of my nose to assuage my oncoming headache and say, "I've learned more about Greek mythology in the past 12 hours than I did in the entire semester of my Greek Mythology class last spring."
"What you call mythology, I call history," he points out dryly. I look up at him to see if he's truly offended, but he has a good natured smile lifting the edges of his lips.
"So, how does this work?" I ask, motioning between his chest and my head. "Why did it just start and how come I don't hear it right now? Oh, wait, never mind. There it is."
He chuckles softly. "Any time you need peace," he pauses to place my right hand over his heart, holding it there. "That's all you need to do, no questions asked. Now as to your questions… Maybe you just didn't notice it at first with the sensory overload of your transformation. Or maybe it didn't start until you actually fell in love with me."
I narrow my eyes at him and try to pull my hand away, but he won't let me.
He continues, "Either way, it's there now. And from what I've seen of my grandmother, you don't always hear it unless you're trying to. Just a minute ago, you said you couldn't hear it, but then suddenly you could. You must have unintentionally started listening for it. It seems to be a way to track the person whose heartbeat you're hearing. For instance, if we got separated for some reason you could use the gift to try to search for me. The farther you are, the louder it is, so you would swim in what ever direction makes the sound quieter, like a reverse metal detector that humans use on the beach."
"But those get louder when you get closer to the metal," I point out. "It would be easier to know if you were headed in the right direction that way."
"If the noise in your head got louder, wouldn't you swim in the opposite direction?" Lukianos counters.
"Fair enough," I concede, playfully narrowing my eyes. He smirks victoriously at my verbal forfeit. I roll my eyes, "Well, come on. You keep complaining about how far away Atlantica is and we've already made a couple pit stops and detours. We should get going."
"You're absolutely right, agápi mou," he admits. He starts swimming, his hand still wrapped around mine, although luckily not still placed over his heart. That would be an awkward way to swim.
"That's a new one," I point out, looking at him expectantly.
He nods once in affirmation. But he keeps swimming.
"Are you going to tell me what it means?" I ask directly.
He chuckles and pulls me closer to him by the hand so he can kiss my knuckles. The end of my tail brushes his, so he lets me drift back away from him as far as our joined hands allow.
"There's plenty of time to learn to speak Greek," he announces.
"You want me to learn a whole language on the way to Atlantica?"
"No, of course not," he corrects. There's a sly smile on his face when he turns to me and says, "I'm a demi-god and you're a Created mermaid, we're immortals. You'll have eternity to learn Greek."
"Could you be more dramatic with the way you keep springing these things on me?" I ask sarcastically. "I'm immortal?"
"Yes," is his only response.
"Alright, that's…interesting," I draw out. He glances over at me with a slightly worried look. "Eternity, wow. Well, I've never been one to procrastinate, even if I do have forever to get things done now. Teach me Greek!"
"It isn't spoken by very many merfolk, I should warn you that now before you swim in and start speaking a language no one understands," he starts. "Only the royal family and a few of our guard speak it, for confidentiality reasons. All other merfolk speak Mermish."
"Mermish? I have to learn two languages?" I whine.
He laughs a hearty laugh, louder and stronger than anything I had heard from him before. "You're speaking Mermish right now," he explains as his laughter dies down.
"No, I'm speaking English," I say slowly.
"Maybe the transformation rewired your brain to think of Mermish as your natural language, but we are definitely not speaking English. And we haven't been since you woke up on the beach. You sat up and started speaking Mermish like a natural born mermaid," he tells me.
"Huh," is all I can think to say.
He laughs again.
"So, I'm not speaking English right now?" I reiterate for my own sake, trying to actually hear the words I'm speaking, but unable to differentiate from how it sounded when I used to speak English. "How strange."
I can't get my mind around that new fact, but it's better than dwelling on whether or not I love Lukainos.
Just because he saved me by giving me a new life and helped me through my transformation and was understanding in my time of grieving and protected me from a sea witch and comforted me when I had an emotional melt down and is altogether a funny, kind, witty, and very handsome merman, doesn't mean I love him. And now I'm dwelling on whether or not I love Lukainos, again. Fantastic.
I hadn't realized that we weren't talking until Lukianos asks, "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing," I blurt out. Then I realize how suspicious that sounds and try to amend, "I mean, just about the Mermish thing."
He glances at me sideways and I can tell he doesn't believe me, but he doesn't press the issue.
Well, isn't that just great. Another thing to add to the list of great qualities that don't necessarily mean I love him, but definitely make it hard not to; he's respectful of private thoughts. The more I dwell on this list, the more I want to kiss him and punch him, at the same time. It's a very confusing situation.
"So, were you wanting to start those Greek lessons?" He asks after a few more minutes of silence. I really need to get out of my head, or he's going to get very suspicious of my thoughts.
"Oh, yeah! Yeah, that would be great," I enthuse. It's time to push all of those other pesky not-loving-Luke thoughts out of my head and focus on learning a new language. "Where do we start?"
"I suppose at the beginning," he says with a one-shouldered shrug. I wonder how he can do that move while swimming and try to mimic it discreetly, but end up veering into his side. He laughs, but kisses the back of my hand before he lets me drift back to my original spot an arm's length away. "Chaírete means hello."
"Kairatay," I repeat.
He chuckles, "We're going to have to work on pronunciation."
