Lost Heir Read online

  My heart is beating so loudly, and my breathing becomes uneven as panic takes over like a wave crashing into me until I can’t think straight.

  I’m dead, so how can I be thinking anything? Feeling anything?

  Feeling sorrow. Feeling loss.

  Wanting to get back to my throne and fix the mess that must be there now.

  “I saved you, anima mate,” a dark, seductive voice says somewhere close, shocking me out of my frozen state. I finally open my eyes, looking around at the black pirate ship I’m on as I lie on the deck and hear a crying noise in the water. The endless crying is hard to ignore, but I push the noise aside for now. Crawling to my feet, I stare at the hole-filled black flag, the rusty ship under my feet, and the still, dark water it rests in. I stare at the starless sky for anything, for some kind of sign of where we are, but if anything the sky makes me feel more lost. There are no moons, and I didn’t know I could miss them until this moment right now. I step to the side to avoid a gap in the ship as I look around where I am, trying to ignore the man I am alone with. No, pirate, from my brief glance at him. I’m well aware I could be in danger; the sea is full of pirates who are not as good as the ones Cassandra found, and many of them would love to have the queen as a hostage.

  And by the looks of this ship, they could use the gold they would get from trading me in to fix some things. The ship is falling to pieces the more I look, with blue fire lights hanging around and making it just about possible to see where I am. It’s also wet, soaking wet everywhere, and almost looks like it might sink into the sea, which freaks me out more. I’ve never been good on ships, they just aren’t my thing, and every time I’ve been on one, it’s not been great. Swimming is something I’m good at, but where exactly would I swim to? There aren’t any islands that I can see; there is just nothing to be seen. I suck in a deep breath, knowing I need answers, and the pirate who is waiting on me is the only one who might have them. I don’t see or hear anyone else around.

  I finally look in front of me at the man who spoke. He is tall, with soft black hair under his black hat, and his odd clothes and full beard make it nearly impossible to really see him. They are loose, rags almost, and make it possible to see bits of his toned chest and muscular arms, but I try not to look too much. He holds a hand out, which I look at but don’t take. He has large hands that look rough as if he works a lot with them and perhaps runs this ship all on his own. I scoot away as I look up to his gold eyes that seem to almost glow in an eerie light. Who has gold eyes?

  And why do they look like pure magic?

  “Who are you?” I ask when I don’t take his hand and he drops it to cross his large arms against his chest. For some reason only the Sea God knows, I’m not scared of this giant pirate man even as I’m aware I should be.

  “The god of souls, who else? Welcome to my ship, Queen Everleigh,” he says, laughing as he walks away still talking. “I’m sorry to say, you’re stuck with me for a long time. Perhaps eternity.”

  By the seas, how am I here?

  Chapter 4

  Tyrion

  The throne room doors blast open, and the council quickly stand as I lift my head to see who has walked into the throne room the queen just died in when it is meant to be locked. I don’t think I’ve moved since I ran into this room, seeing her cold, lifeless body on the floor, her long red dress pooled around her, mixed in with her blood that coated all the tiles. A single arrow through her heart and she died like she was nothing. Like she wasn’t everything good in this god forsaken world and the damn queen who gave her soul to her people. Gave her everything, including her heart.

  Everly died alone, thinking I hate her, when that is nothing near the truth, and I was a fool to treat her that way. I believed giving her distance when she has to marry the mermaid king was the right thing to do because loving Everly was going to hurt us both. Even if I missed her with every single part of my soul, even if I love her more than anything in my life. Now the whole world seems distant, blurred into darkness because she is not here with me. There is no hope, nothing that can be done to save her now. Everly’s body is frozen in dragon ice so her world can say goodbye, but I can’t even look at her. Looking at her is like admitting she is really gone, which I’m not ready to do and never will be. I will find her killer, then follow her to death once Calais is safe. That is when I will see my Everly once again.

  My eyes widen as I see Cassandra, Everly’s best friend, holding a tiny baby in a blanket as she storms into the room. I’ve always admired Cassandra and how she did everything in her life to save a world which condemned her for having magic. In the end, throughout all the loss, she is still as strong as Everly told me she always was. All of her pirates follow in after her, each one stopping just behind her in a formation that makes it clear that no one could get close to hurt her. Cassandra is the hero of the war, and I doubt anyone would hurt her. Then again, I thought, I don’t blame her if she wants to kill me for not protecting her best friend as I should have done. Cassandra’s eyes search the room before she locks her angry eyes with me, and then she stops.

  “Master Cassandra, what terrible news we have to tell you,” Master Igor says, stepping up from where he was leaning against the throne. Master Light shares a look with me before stepping to his side.

  “I know. I am here to hold the throne for Queen Everleigh until her return,” Cassandra says, rubbing her baby’s back which is hidden in the pink knitted blanket.

  “The queen is dead, as you can see. She will not be returning,” Master Light gently tells her. I expect to see shock, anger and fury in the changed one’s expression, but there is nothing but resolve.

  “The Sea God has promised her return. His son is bringing Queen Everleigh back. She will return to unite both land and sea,” she says confidently, though her eyes drift to the side where Everly’s body is held, and her voice catches in her throat. “Dante, come and hold your daughter for me, please.” Dante walks closer as she calls him, gently taking the new baby into his arms and stepping back. Cassandra looks up to Ryland, both of them sharing a look.

  “I, Prince Ryland, temporarily take the throne until the true queen returns,” Prince Ryland states at the same time his brother steps up to the other side of Cassandra as he pulls out his sword. All three of them then turn to me.

  “That is all well and true, but you walked away from the throne to be dirty pirates! You cannot come back to play prince now!” Master Igor snaps. Everyone ignores him, and my eyes stay firmly on Cassandra as I try to believe what she said about Everly. If there is even a chance she could come back from death…no. No one comes back from the dead.

  “Come here, Tyrion. You must be the one to strike down our queen’s killer, and then you will go to find her,” Cassandra asks of me.

  “She is dead. I don’t believe in your magic,” I reply, shaking my head.

  “So…you are going to give up on Everly?” Cassandra asks, her calculating eyes reading me like an open book. “The gods must be mistaken; you do not love her like they suspect.”

  “What do the gods know of love?” I find myself nearly whispering. I’ve never even admitted to myself how I feel about Everly. Not since I found out who she is. I could never be the king she needs at her side.

  “They know you will travel to the mermaids to save your queen. Everly needs you and the mermaid king, but first we must make sure she comes back to a safe throne.” Hunter is the one that speaks, and he holds his sword out as Cassandra raises her hand, lifting the killer into the air in a ball of water. He tries to scream to fight her magic, but it is pointless. I’m not shocked that he killed her, but a burning fury overtakes me as I watch him struggle. He hurt my Everly. My queen.

  “The sea god whispered your name to me as the betrayer, so now you die for the pain you caused my friend,” Cassandra coldly tells him and turns back to her pirates with a much nicer tone. “Take Riah out of the room for this.”

  “Of course, pretty girl,” Dante replies, taking the
ir child out the room, with the others following. Only Cassandra, Ryland and Hunter wait, all of them looking to me. “Tyrion, would you like to do the honour?” Cassandra asks, and I bow my head before walking forward. I will get revenge for my queen, then I will save her.

  Chapter 5

  Everleigh

  The wood on the deck creaks with every step I take, and I just wish it was the only sound on this ship. The awful sounds of the screaming souls under the ship in the cold water are terrifying, the sounds enough to haunt anybody for a long time. They started off just as crying, but the longer I’m here, the louder the sound gets and the more I realise it is not crying at all, but screaming. I’m no stranger to the sounds of death; the battles I fought in to win the war gave me enough horrors to have nightmares about.

  This ship and its captain are another two to add to the list. I look up at the sky above as sunlight shoots across the once black sky, only the sunlight is green, purple and blue all mixed together instead of yellow. And it does not come from one place, it is a mixture of several different beams of light. It still looks less like a sky and more like the sea, but that isn’t right. The sea cannot be above us…right?

  I do not know how anyone, dead or not, could ever forget that noise, and I shiver as cold air whips around my hair. I walk to the edge of the ship deck, where there is a gap. Rope is loosely tied across the gap to stop someone falling, and my hands tightly grip it as I look down at the sight below. Thousands, maybe even more than that, see-through souls swirl around in the water, trying to escape the hole below that is sucking them down.

  “Good souls do not meet the gods this way. Only the bad,” he whispers to me. The captain, who is just as frightening as the view in front of me. I feel the heat of his body against my back. “You need not worry about the dead, Everly, you are not with them any longer. I will never let you go back there again.”

  “Are you keeping me as a prisoner on this ship?” I ask him, not looking back once. I can’t risk it. I don’t want to encourage him when he is crazy and all this is unbelievable.

  “No. You can think of me as your sword in a fight. Loyal, unbreakable and always at your side. Eventually, you will come to love me, just like it is predicted,” he states, and this time I do turn back to him. Glowing gold eyes watch me with amusement, and something worse than that, love. I don’t know this god, nor do I want to get mixed up with gods at all, but he thinks he knows me. I want to get back to my world, to my throne and my friends. I’m no good to anyone dead.

  “I think these screaming souls have driven you mad,” I say, trying to push away the fact he has cleaned himself up from when we first met and now I can really see him. His black hair is soft, tied back with a few strands falling at the side of his face. He has a strong jawline, big gold eyes framed by dark eyebrows. His beard looks as soft as his hair, styled nicely, and it isn’t too long. The god of souls is handsome when he cleans himself up.

  “Do you not want to know my name yet, anima mate?” he asks, almost teasingly.

  “I want a real explanation, and stop calling me that. I know Latin and what it means,” I reply, raising an eyebrow at him. Soulmate? I don’t believe in that magic. Love is earnt; it is a bond formed over time and brought with attraction.

  Love at first sight is something I’ve not ever seen with my own eyes. Though I’ve heard from Cassandra that it happened for her...

  “My name is Naiad, though I’ve seen a vision where you call me Nai,” he softly tells me. I find I like his soft voice. “And I will call you love instead then, miss smarty-pants.”

  And I shouldn’t like his soft voice. Or his sarcasm.

  “What else happened in this vision?” I nervously ask.

  “You kissed me,” he proudly states before lowering his tone and stepping closer. “Deeply, passionately, and it is not a kiss I will ever forget.”

  I gasp, stepping back, and the rope presses into my back, stopping me from falling. He reaches out, grabbing my arm and tugging me to his chest. “Impossible.”

  “What will be impossible is if you fall into the sea of souls and I can’t get you out again,” he dryly replies with a strong warning.

  “You pulled me out of the sea of souls?” I question, pushing away from his arms. “In fact, what is the sea of souls?”

  “The place all souls go to travel to the beyond. It’s my world, well, it was,” he says, nodding at the water, but I’m more focused on the fact a god just said he gave up his world for me. What do I say back to that?

  Clearing my throat, I gently reply. “Was?”

  “I made a trade for you. Now I have to find my replacement and live a normal, non-immortal life,” he says around a laugh, like this is all so funny. “Luckily, you’re a queen, and that will make me a king. I couldn’t be a pirate or villager. Too much hay beds and apples for my liking. I prefer gold and feather beds with beautiful blonde queens in them with me.”

  His big grin doesn’t drop, even when I feel like the world is falling under my feet. This is an impossible situation, one not even my mother could have warned me about. Images of my mother flash back through my mind, but the worst one is when she died in my arms. I remember how she whispered to me about my father, a mermaid she saved from the sea and fell in love with.

  Then she told me I was an heir to a throne…the throne everyone was at war over. I don’t know exactly how I got on the throne when it should have gone to my cousins, but they preferred a pirate life with my best friend.

  Cassandra.

  “This is too much,” I state, my words feeling lost in the magic of the air.

  “I understand, but you know about gods. My father does have a strange obsession with your best friend,” he remarks, “and you as well. I heard many stories of Everly and Cassandra, and what you did to save his precious changed ones.”

  “How do you know that?” I demand, taking a few steps away, and a thought drifts into my mind. I’m not limping anymore. Ignoring Nai, I spin around and stretch my pale leg out into the blue light, feeling nothing.

  No pain. No scar.

  What has happened to me?

  “I know everything there is to know about you, but I could never see your face. I only ever saw your soul and glimpses into your life,” he remarks. “It was a long life until I saw you for the first time. Then I knew it was worth waiting for. You were.”

  “From the beginning,” I pause, trying to ignore how that was the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. “I died and you pulled my soul out of the water. Now how do I get back to my world and to my throne?”

  He laughs, resting back on the side of the ship. “You won’t like the answer.”

  I narrow my eyes and place my hands on my hips. “If it gets me back, I will do anything.”

  “Fine,” he chuckles. “I am going to guide my ship into the mermaid seas with the last of my power, as the mermaid king wishes to speak with you and we made a deal. I’m afraid you cannot go home until we go there, and you cannot escape me at this minute. If you feel like it, you could meet my father in the Ceremony of Merida and become stronger than you ever could be.”

  I pale from the thought, not of the ceremony but of being anywhere near King Damien of the Mermaids.

  The man I promised to marry.

  “We must do it then,” I whisper, opening my eyes to see Nai has left my side. He is at the front of the ship, holding the wheel with a strange, cheeky grin in his gold eyes.

  This god is insane, and I’m stuck with him.

  “Do hold on to something; I’m afraid this might be a bumpy travel in these seas.” His mad laugh echoes around me as he spreads his hands wide at his side. I run to the middle of the ship, grabbing onto the ropes around the stern and holding on as much as I can as water suddenly shoots into the air around the ship. I gasp as I get covered in water, and the ship harshly shakes as it starts to rise in the water, the sound drowning out all my senses.

  We are floating in the sea, the ship holding together som
ehow.

  Magic.

  I never once believed in the magic of the gods, even as I saw my best friend use such magic. The dangerous power they are said to hold, but then again I’ve only seen one person use this kind of magic.

  My best friend, a changed one. A woman blessed by the Sea God himself.

  As the water rises around us, we suddenly speed up, and I scream as we explode out of the world of the gods and into Calais.

  I’m home, but everything has changed.

  Chapter 6

  Everleigh

  The waters around the mermaid sea are just as I remember them, but it is still a stunning sight to enjoy. Tranquil and calming, lulling you into a false sense of safety when under the water lies far more danger than anywhere else. The last time I was here, I was with Cassandra, a ship full of pirates, and a dragon, but now I’m alone.

  Well, not exactly alone. I glance at the pirate god at my side, the one who is so sure he is my soulmate, and he seems to never give a moment’s rest as he stares at me.

  “How old are you?” I question.

  “Time is not the same for gods,” he softly answers me. “We exist in a realm like this world, but it is empty of anything your world has. Like emotions, like love.” Something crosses over his gold eyes as he speaks, as if he wants to tell me something else, but he pauses.