With his thumb and index finger, Galen snaps his plastic fork in half as Emma gently wipes Mark’s mouth with her napkin. He rolls his eyes as Mark “accidentally” gets another splotch of JELL-O on the corner of his lips. Emma wipes that clean too, smiling like she’s tending to a child.

It doesn’t help that Galen’s table is filling up with more of his admirers—touching him, giggling at him, smiling at him for no reason, and distracting him from his fantasy of breaking Mark’s pretty jaw. But that would only give Emma a genuine reason to assist the idiot in managing his JELL-O.

When he can’t take anymore, Galen plucks his phone from his pocket and dials, then hangs up. When the call is returned, he says, “Hey, sweet lips.” The females at the table hush each other to get a better listen. A few of them whip their heads toward Emma to see if she’s on the other end of the conversation. Satisfied she’s not, they lean closer.

Rachel snorts. “If only you liked sweets.”

“I can’t wait to see you tonight. Wear that pink skirt I like.”

Rachel laughs. “Sounds like you’re in what we humans like to call a pickle. My poor, drop-dead-gorgeous sweet pea. Emma still not talking to you, leaving you alone with all those hormonal girls?”

“Eight-thirty? That’s so far away. Can’t I meet you sooner?”

One of the females actually gets up and takes her tray and her attitude to another table. Galen tries not to get too excited.

“Do you need to be checked out of school, son? Are you feeling ill?”

Galen tosses a glance at Emma, who’s picking a pepperoni off her pizza and eyeing it as if it were dolphin dung. “I can’t skip school to meet you again, boo. But I’ll be thinking about you. No one but you.”

A few more females get up and stalk their trays to the trash. The cheerleader in front of him rolls her eyes and starts a conversation with the chubby brunette beside her—the same chubby brunette she pushed into a locker to get to him two hours ago.

“Be still my heart,” Rachel drawls. “But seriously, I can’t read your signals. I don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”

“Right now, nothing. But I might change my mind about skipping. I really miss you.”

Rachel clears her throat. “All right, sweet pea. You just let your mama know, and she’ll come get her wittle boy from school, okay?”

Galen hangs up. Why is Emma laughing again? Mark can’t be that funny.

The girl beside him clues him in: “Mark Baker. All the girls love him. But not as much as they love you. Except maybe Emma, I guess.”

“Speaking of all these girls, how did they get my phone number?”

She giggles. “It’s written on the wall in the girls’ bathroom. One hundred hall.” She holds her cell phone up to his face. An image of his number scrawled onto a stall door lights up the screen. In Emma’s handwriting.

*   *   *

Dividing waves as he tears through the water, his path leaves a frothy white line on the surface. Submerging when he sees a boat on the horizon, he pushes so hard he might not even appear on their fishing radar if they have one.

This is his second swim to Europe and back this week. Since tomorrow’s Friday, he’ll probably be doing it again. But no matter how far he swims, no matter how fast, it doesn’t relieve him of his tension. And it doesn’t change the fact that Emma has a date with someone else.

He senses other Syrena as he goes, but he doesn’t recognize them, and besides, he’s not in the mood to chat. In fact, solitude is more important to him right now than his next five meals. Trying to navigate the halls at school has been like wading through high tide wearing hiking boots filled with rocks—the human females have lost their minds. They locked around him in waves, grasping at him, shouting over each other, calling each other names that Rachel later clarified meant mating with more than one male—a lot. They only displayed unity when he tried to escape into the men’s restroom—or when he attempted to head in Emma’s general direction.

But he isn’t just tired of humans—it would be unfortunate for any Syrena to press him into a conversation at this point. And any passerby would inevitably be curious as to what brings a Royal this far from the caverns. His response right now wouldn’t win his brother the support he needs as a new king—and it just might push his father to cut out his tongue after all. And groveling at Emma’s feet without a tongue would be inconvenient.

Gritting his teeth, he pushes even harder, ripping through the water faster than any man-made torpedo. Only when he reaches what the humans call the English Channel does he slow and surface. As he approaches a patch of land he recognizes, he can’t even muster a half smile for the new personal record. From New Jersey to Jersey Island in less than five hours. The three thousand miles in distance he put between himself and Emma tonight is nothing compared with the enormous chasm separating them when they sit next to each other in calculus.

Emma’s ability to overlook his existence is a gift—but not one that Poseidon handed down. Rachel insists this gift is uniquely a feminine trait, regardless of the species. Since their breakup, Emma seems to be the only female utilizing this particular gift. Even Rayna could learn a few lessons from Emma in the art of torturing a smitten male. Smitten? More like fanatical.

He shakes his head in disgust. Why couldn’t I just sift when I turned of age? Why couldn’t I find a suitable mild-tempered female to mate with? Live a peaceful life, produce offspring, grow old, and watch my own fingerlings have fingerlings someday? He searches through his mind for someone he might have missed in the past. For a face he overlooked before but could now look forward to every day. For a docile female who would be honored to mate with a Triton prince—instead of a temperamental siren who mocks his title at every opportunity. He scours his memory for a sweet-natured Syrena who would take care of him, who would do whatever he asked, who would never argue with him.