What Lies Beneath the Water

Earl Kai (50)

*Aqua's POV*

We spent a few hours just joking around in my room before Dahlia and Silas had to leave to go back to the Academy. Santino left with them and went back to the Vampire Kingdom, but Tyrus refused to leave. He said that the contract had to be done tonight, and he wasn't budging. I had to kick Nereus and Kai out of my room just to give us some privacy.

"Okay so what are some rules that you want to be bound by a contract?" He said completely serious. There was no hint of the typically easygoing Tyrus. He seemed so stone cold in that moment.

I thought for a bit before saying, "I want your unconditional loyalty. I want you to never betray me because as a royal I have many who speak sweet melodies in my ear but turn to another and speak treacheries about me. I want you to never do that to me." Tyrus nodded his head, and a rose gold quill appeared in his hand. He wrote a sentence or two in black ink in the ancient fairy language. Not many fairies knew the language, but when used it made for a stronger contract.

"Okay, what else do you want?"

"I want to be told the brutally honest truth regardless of how I will react." He took a deep breath and wrote it down.

"Anything else?"

"Just for you to grant my wishes and all those things that fairies do, but what do you want me to obey for your side of the contract?" I asked. Contracts go both ways, and it's only fair that he asked something from me.

He continued writing and said, "I only have one request and that is no matter what information you learn about me, you will never look at me differently. I will always be Tyrus to you. Nothing more and nothing less." He put the quill down and looked me in the eyes.

I smiled at him and said, "Your past does not matter to me. It is the Tyrus now that matters to me, but nonetheless I agree with your term."

Tyrus smiled and went back to writing before he drew two x's with perfectly straight lines underneath them to indicate the signature. He handed me the quill and paper. I signed my name and the ink turned navy blue but went back to black for Tyrus. He then blew on the paper making every single letter on the page glow for a few seconds. He then grabbed the necklace he gave me and put it on my neck.

"This necklace serves as a sign of our informal fair bond. The pearl represents you and your side of our contract. The chain represents me and my side. Once I put this necklace on you, this 'contract' is sealed. Do you still wish to go through with it?"

"Yup!" I popped the p, and he clipped the necklace on.

I smiled when I saw it on me. It was just so perfect and dainty. Of course, I wouldn't wear it every day as a necklace, but I would definitely keep it on me like put it in my pocket.

By the time Tyrus and I were fully finished, his eyes were drooping, and I had to push him through the portal. He was probably up at an ungodly hour to make sure his wretched green hair looked somewhat decent.

I grabbed the Elixir of the Sea and walked to my dad's office where he had maybe a dozen books opened. My eyes glanced over all of them and found a familiar theme: blood bonds. That meant that he knew.

"Kai and Dahlia explained it to me, but what I can't understand is why you wouldn't tell me. I am not disappointed in the fact that you are blood bound. I am not disappointed in the fact that a small group of your friends know your true identity, though against my wishes. I am disappointed in you because you did not tell me."

The disappointment card always got me. I always wanted to make my father proud of me and so when I didn't, it was a shot straight to my heat.

"I think I was scared that if I told you, you would take me out of the school. I didn't want to be ripped away from my friends, my brother, my teachers, and my mate. I had so much to lose, and I didn't want to risk it." It was only after I finished talking that I realized that I dropped the whole mate bomb.