“Margot—” Dylan shot daggers at her, all while her eyes remained soft and dreamy.
I pitied this spritely thing. She hadn’t met the one who would change her life. Not yet. I wanted to tell her that when that love of a lifetime found her, she would know the deepest abysses of despair and the highest hills of joy.
That each day would be perfect, even if there were tears and fears, and none of them would be long enough.
I hid my flinch from her question and covered it smoothly with a smile. “He’s not here, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” Margot’s face fell. “That’s too bad.”
“Yes...it is.” My lovelorn heart squeezed like it always did when I thought of him.
Lunamare might be my legacy, but Aslan?
He was my reason for existing.
Thanks to him, my lips had been kissed beneath a million sunsets. Our blood had turned to salt from a thousand moonlit swims. And our love gleamed brighter than all the stars.
“How did you come up with the name Lunamare?” Dylan asked, looking pointedly at the microphone and trying one last time to follow the script.
I wasn’t prepared for the kick in my chest. “It’s Latin. My mother was always fascinated with languages and swore she’d be fluent in all of them before she died.”
“And was she?” Dylan asked.
“Not quite. But she did know more Latin than anyone else I knew.”
Margot wrinkled her nose. “Luna...means moon, right?” And mare means...”
“Sea.” I held her stare, willing memories not to drown me.
“So you just combined the two words?” Dylan kept a close eye on me, tasting my reluctance to share.
This tale I wanted to keep close. But...if I wanted to do this, truly do this—truly leave behind the purest parts of me, the truest parts and ugliest parts—I had to pour all my hardships and heartaches into their hands.
Do I have the strength?
Sucking in a breath, I tasted the words before speaking them, learning how it would feel to be honest. To give them everything.
“You said without the moon and the sea, we would never have met,” he whispered.
My heart hiccupped. “Thank goodness for the ay and the deniz then.”
“For the luna and the mare,” he whispered, his eyes locking onto mine and making the world drop away.
I sat taller, my chest aching and so full of love. “It was Aslan who joined the two, many, many years before I ever dreamed of creating something so extraordinary.”
A rush of memories.
Star glow and moonlight.
Desire and desperation.
My cheeks heated, and it was my turn to lean forward.
If I shared my innermost parts, I could relive them again. I could rewind time that was whispering of my end and go back to the very beginning.
I could touch him for the first time again.
Kiss him for the first time.
Love him until the end of time.
I need that.
One
last
time...
Brushing down my wave-foam green dress, my bare feet longed to step into the cool wetness of my home. I’d been on shore for far too long.
But it wouldn’t be too much longer.
And then...
I sat taller with determination. “It was the moon and the sea that brought him to me. Without either, we would never have found each other.” I smiled as a vibrant memory swept me up. “It became a bit of a vow between us. A wedding troth, if you will.”
Dylan sucked in a breath.
Margot swooned. “How old were you when he realised he loved you back? I mean...how old were you when you first slept together? I mean—”
“Margot.” Dylan reared back, rolling his eyes. “Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “This interview is not turning out how I thought it would.”
I chuckled under my breath, running my thumb over the ring on my wedding finger. The inscription burned against my skin as if it were only yesterday.
The night he’d placed it there.
The crashing wave of love.
Longing caught in the back of my throat. I whispered, “I’ll tell you what. Let’s forget about the interview. We’ll ignore your scripted questions. We’ll forget about why you came here today.”
“Are you...are you saying you’d like us to leave?” Dylan’s spine snapped straight. “If so, I must apologise. We meant no offense. We’re just impassioned about your life, Nerida—”
“Please, if I overstepped, I didn’t mean—” Margot bit her bottom lip, cutting herself off.
“It’s fine.” I looked at them both. At their newness and verve. I’d been like that once. I’d been passionate about every fish, whale, reef, and anemone. I’d been besotted with love and embraced every day with joy because I’d been given him so young.
I suddenly wanted to relive it all.
Every moment.
Every kiss and trip and fall.
I sighed, accepting how differently today would turn out to be and how thankful I was that I had this final chance to love him. “I meant...instead of a stuffy interview, I give you a story. A story people whisper about. A story about a nymph and her lion and everything else between.”
Margot reached over with the biggest grin and touched the back of my paper-thin hand. “With every part of me...yes. Yes, please.”
I twisted my wrist and let her link her fingers with mine.
A flashback of my much younger fingers wrapping around the arm of a teenage boy filled my mind.
My thoughts tripped back to that fateful day, and I sucked in a breath as so many others unspooled.
I sank like a stone into a sea of them.
I let them crash over me with waves of tenderness, brokenness, and home.
And when the last one washed away, I focused on the two young reporters.
This story wouldn’t be the one they came for.
It would be so, so much more.
“I thought he was dead when I first saw him. I jumped overboard and swam as fast as I could, all while my father yelled, my mother screamed, and the pod of dolphins we’d been studying swarmed around me...”
Chapter One
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in Latin: Luna)
I’D NEVER BEEN SO SCARED OF THE sky before.
Never thought clouds could reach down and smother me. Never believed rain could fall fast enough to drown me. Never thought thunder could reach inside my chest and stop my terrified heart with its fury.
BOOM!
My mother screamed. My sister screamed. My cousin screamed.
But my father just kept holding on to all of us. Draped over us the best he could as the boat tossed side to side, desperately trying to cast us out of it.
Lightning forked.
Terror sliced.
Another BOOM!
“It’s okay. We’re okay,” my father chanted, his voice long since salt-whipped and hoarse. “There is land beneath our feet. There is always land, even when there is an ocean between us.”
My sister pressed tighter against me, huddled into a tiny, storm-dripping ball. “Aslan, make it stop. Please, make it stop!”
I tried to be brave like my father.
“It’s okay, Melike.” I wrapped my arms around her tiny figure, doing my best not to crush her as another wave tipped us high, so high, then shot us soaring down its face, landing back on the churning angry surface as froth splashed high into the sky, clashing with rain, fighting wet with wet.