Promise Bound Read Free

shakes after twenty-four hours. A year ago, three daysnearly turned me to chalk. I didn’t know if it was a matter of practice, sheer will, creative coping skills, or something more phenomenal than all three put together, but I didn’t really care so long as I could be there for Lily. I could see how much she needed me.
    “Good,” she said, as if she were considering a different challenge altogether, and placed her palm over the pendant around her neck.
    “Why don’t you just take that thing off?” I asked.
    She looked at me miserably. “I would, but I feel uneasy without it. I … I think Nadia is trying to communicate with me. Remember that story you told me?”
    “No.”
    “You don’t remember?”
    “I mean, no, I don’t want to hear it. I’m sorry, Lily. I really am. But I don’t want to talk about my mother.”
    She stifled a yawn. “That’s fine. I don’t really want to talk about her either.”
    “It’s probably your imagination,” I said. “And the stress of all the changes you’re going through.”
    “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
    I frowned.
    “Okay,” said Lily, “then let me rephrase my earlier statement. I don’t think Nadia is trying to communicate with me. I
know
she is. It’s just that I don’t know what she’s trying to say. You told me the pendant stores mermaid histories.”
    “That’s just a legend,” I said.
    “Like the dagger was supposedly part of the legend? Like Maighdean Mara was only a myth?”
    “Point taken, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have an overactive imagination.”
    Lily avoided the argument and changed the subject. “Gabby called again today,” she murmured, tapping the couch cushions for me to lie down.
    I added another log to the fire and lay beside her, curling my body around hers, protecting her from a threat that I could feel but couldn’t see. Lily pressed her face against my shoulder while the logs crackled in the stone fireplace.
    “Did you talk to her this time,” I asked, my lips behind her ear, “or did you make her leave another message?”
    “I couldn’t avoid it anymore. Gabby’s pretty persistent.”
    “Is she enjoying college?”
    Lily traced the point of my collarbone with her finger. “That’s not what she wanted to talk about.”
    Yeah. I knew that. Lily rolled onto her back, and the fire cast a warm glow across her face. She closed her eyes, and her lids shimmered like gold leaf in the firelight. This was how I preferred her. Warm. The raspberry-pink glow of happiness melting around the outline of her curves. It had been awhile since I’d seen those colors on her.
    Lily sighed, and I kissed her forehead. “So what do I do about Gabby? And Jack?” she asked.
    “I’ve told you. There’s nothing anyone can do for Jack.”
    Nearly half a century as a merman, and I’d never had to deal with this side of things before. It made me uncomfortable to think of all the families who were still searching for children because of what I’d done. The days when I hunted humans to satisfy my emotional appetites seemedlike a million years ago. Ever since Lily had fallen—literally—into my life, I’d forgotten what it felt like to be empty, desolate, alone. The need to hunt was forever gone.
    Lily rubbed the pendant, her thumb moving methodically over its smooth contours.
    As she did so, my eyes watched the ring finger on her left hand, wondering, dreaming. Unbeknownst to her, I’d spent some time over the winter fashioning a ring for her. It wasn’t fancy, only braided copper wire and a polished agate. But now that it was finished, I had no idea how to present it to her. I didn’t even know what it should mean. Only that I wanted her with me. Always.
    I’d told Jason about it over a week ago. I guess I was asking his permission. I’d seen that in the movies, but his reaction didn’t make me any braver.
    Jason: “Well, what did Lily have to say about it?”
    Me: “I haven’t said anything to her.