John rocked back on his heels as if she’d slapped him. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish drowning in air.
“Please, for the love of God, someone set fire to something,” Hugh begged the ceiling.
Dai and Chase were also looking desperately uncomfortable. Rose seemed on the verge of intervening again, but Ash caught her wrist, shaking his head slightly.
“I believe that this is a conversation that they need to have,” the Fire Commander said to Rose. His calm gaze swept over his fidgeting crew. “But not, perhaps, with an audience.”
The other three firefighters looked pathetically grateful for their Commander’s suggestion. They all bolted for the door as if the room was on fire. Ash firmly escorted Rose out too, despite the bartender’s attempted protests.
The instant the door closed behind them all, Neridia wheeled on John. Her pent-up worries and fears finally broke through her self-control, words rushing out of her like water spilling from a shattered dam.
“First you thought the lake would unlock my sea dragon form,” she said, her voice shaking with the force of her emotions. “Then you were certain mating would, and then after that it was going to be the sight of the sea…when are you going to run out of excuses? When are you going to have to admit that yes, I really am just human?”
The mate bond was still reverberating with the thunderclap of his shock. “You—do not wish to be a sea dragon? You would deny your heritage?”
Her heart broke at the pain in his eyes, but she couldn’t lie any longer. “John, I can’t live in your world. From everything you’ve told me, I don’t want to. It’s too dangerous. I’m not brave enough, not strong enough.”
“You are, if you would but believe-“
“I’m not. Please, John. Stop pushing me to be something I’m not. I can’t take it any more. I can’t keep having my hopes dashed again and again like this. We have to assume that I will never shift. We have to make plans based on reality, not dreams.”
He shook his head in confusion, as though she was speaking gibberish. “But if you do not shift…you will not even have the option of coming to Atlantis. The Knight-Commander forbade it.”
“I know. That means that there’s only thing I can do. Run, like the Master Shark suggested. Try to forget all of this. Live out my life on land.” She touched her pearl. “Like my father wanted me to.”
“But you have seen the sea.” He stared at her, for once looking utterly lost and helpless. “It is in your eyes, your soul, your very blood. And yet you would turn your back on it? Truly?”
No! cried that strange inner voice, in a chord of heartrending agony. Neridia pushed it away.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “The sea is beautiful, but it’s not my home. I belong on land.”
He bowed his head, his vast shoulders slumping as if under a crushing weight.
“Perhaps you are human indeed, then.” Defeat stripped all the music from his voice. “No sea dragon could bear to leave the ocean forever.”
She sucked in her breath as his meaning hit her. “You won’t come with me.”
He didn’t look at her. “You know I cannot.”
Foolishly, she’d still been holding out hope that he would. That things would be different now that they were fully mated. That he wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of living without her, any more than she could bear the thought of living without him…
“Why not?” she demanded, grabbing onto anger to save herself from falling into a pit of despair. “My father did! He chose to be with his mate!”
“Do not dare accuse me of loving you less than your father loved your mother!” He jerked his head up, his blue eyes blazing with a grief and rage equal to that in her own heart. “It is you who are choosing to leave me, not I you!”
“Oh no, don’t you put this all on me.” She was not going to cry. “I can’t shift, I can’t go to Atlantis, I don’t have any choice! But you do. You could choose me, like my father chose my mother. He left the sea to be with her. Why can’t you?”
“Because I am bound by vows, as he was not!” John shouted back, his voice rising to match her own. “If you are not the Empress, you cannot come before my duty to the Pearl Throne! I cannot choose you without utterly shattering my honor!”
“Then you love your honor more than you love me!”
The instant the words left her lips, Neridia regretted saying them—but it was too late. And she couldn’t call them back. She couldn’t even say she didn’t really mean them.
Because she did.
She expected him to shout back, or flinch, or do…something. Instead, his side of the mate bond just went blank. If he hadn’t been standing right in front of her, she wouldn’t even have been able to tell that he was in the same room. His face was utterly expressionless.
Then, without a backward glance, he left.