The Coral Crown

chapter thirteen

When the girls and Andrew returned with Kayla, I waited for her to say that I had done something wrong. instead, she just stared. She screamed for Alexis, who was there in a flash. Alexis was shocked.

"Dylan, what have you done?" she said with a quiver in her voice.

"We wanted to be together, he wanted to be one of us, I wanted him, so I made it happen," I said denfensively. I hadn't done anything wrong.

Alexis took Ethan's hand and he woke up. He looked frightened until he was me. He smiled, and I knew that I had done the right thing. He got up, still unstable from acquiring a new tail. He clumsily swm over to me and took my face in his hands.

"Thank you," he whispered. I was sure that we would be together forever, and right them and there, I didn't care who saw. I kissed him and, once agin, I lost myelf in him. I was pulled back to reality by only the annoyed throat-clearing sound from Alexis. I realized that he was just as lost in me as I was in him. That made me happy, and I turned to Alexis, taking his firm hand in mine. She gave me a look of dis approval and began to speak, but was cut off by the gasps of the rest of the mermaids as they were arriving. It was Maria who spoke first.

"Daaaammmmnnn. Who''s this?" he said with a suggestive tone in her voice, eyeing Ethan like he was a piece of meat.

"My name's Ethan," he had no idea that she was into him, let alone that we hated each other.

"Dylan," Maria said with no emotion in her voice at all.

"Maria," I said, matching her tone.

Ethan ralized now, that we hated each other. He casually swung our joined hands out in front of us. Maria saw them and scowled. I miled at Ethan. He was not only a sweet, kind person, but he knew me so well, and he was on my side. And that meant more to me than anything.

"Should we go home?" I asked the girls. I was ready to get to sleep.

"Can Andrew come?" Marissa asked me.

"Sure," I said. I knew Andrew didn't have a family, and he and Marissa would be right by my side the entire night. I realized that our "family" was getting bigger, and we would need a larger cave to sleep in.

When we got back, we gathered our stuff and headed out in search of a new home. We were swimming for a couple of hours before we found our perfect cave. It was a cave that was half under water, and it had a beach with air and places to sit. It was big enough that we could all have space to sleep without feeling crowded. Marissa, Haley, and Andrew picked out their spots to sleep, laid out their beds, and I took the one that was left.

I lay down on the beach. It was slanted anough that my waist and above were on the soft, cool sand, and my tail was completely under water. Ethan came over and lay down next to me. He put his arm around my shoulders and I turned on my side, running my fingers up and down his abs. He shivered and I laughed.

"Maria seems to have her eye on you," I whispered softly. Ethan had told me that I was beautiful, but I didn't even come close to Maria, I thought as I continued to trace the ridges in his stomach.

"Who?" he asked confused.

I smiled. I knew he knew who she was but was pretending for my benefit. We snuggled closer, and I closed my eyes. I could get used to this. I started to fall into my usual nightmare circut. It always starts with me running through the big hallway in the building with the white room. I was scared, and I wanted to get away from the faceless men with needles. Right in the middle of my nightmare, my mind went blank. The a series of words played across my brain like words scrolling across a computer screen. Sharks and mermaids will be united under one queen. You are the queen, and it is up to you. Keep your mate close, for he will be stolen if you do not. Failure is not an option.

When I woke up, Ethan was cladling my head in his lap and was rocking back and forth. The girls were sitting and crying. Marissa was leaning on Andrew's shoulder, and I wondered what had happened.

"What's going on?" I asked.

They all turned towards me at once. They screamed and tackled me off Ethan's lap in a bear hug. We rolled underwater and they were forced to let me up to get air.

"We thought you were dead," Marissa screamed at me.

"You started thrashing around and saying stuff in a language we couldn't understand. Then you stopped. You didn't have a heartbeat or a pulse or anything!

I sat on a rock and pulled Haley on my lap. Andrew and Marissa went over to their beds and lay down. I knew they were probably exhausted, and I took Haley over to her bed and put her down. I swam over to Ethan, who was smilling with relief.

"You scared me to death," he said as he pulled me close to him. I realized that it was the words in my head that made me seem dead. I knew that this was far from over, and I was scared I couldn't do it.

"I'm scared I can't do it." I whispered.

"Do what," Ethan whispered back.

I realized that he didn't know about the prophecy.

"Tomorrow I have to go somewhere. I want you to stay with the kids at Alexis's place. You can ask her about it then. Just tell her I know about the prophecy and that you want to know what it is."

Then I remembered about keeping my "mate" close.

"On second thought," I said nervously, "I'll tell you about it now, and you can come with me tomorrow. It would be nice to have you there with me. I'm gonna need support for this."

So I told him all about the prophecy. It was like the words were we being spoken by somebody else, just in my voice.

**************************************

Okay so Idk if anyone is reading this, so I'm going to wait for at least 10 comments on this page before I update again. be honest and tell me what you think of my story.

--MarMar x