Free Of Poseidon 02: Of Triton by Anna Banks Page B

with none of the clumsiness of Natalie McIntosh, the wife-mother-nurse, and every bit the grace and precision you’d expect from Nalia, the long-lost Poseidon princess … This is slap-you-in-the-face comprehension.
    And all I can do is watch.
    Stretching and twisting, Mom seems relieved to ditch her human legs, the corners of her mouth pulling up in satisfaction. Watching her face, it’s easy to believe the transition feels as good as Galen describes. Her tail flits in controlled elegance, in a way that makes Galen’s and Rayna’s somehow look immature and unseasoned. But the grandeur of the scene seems cheapened by the fact that she’s still wearing her tank top—the same one she’d worn on the car ride home, when I still felt, in spite of everything that had happened, that she was just my mom.
    She swims toward me now where I wait with my feet anchored into the sand in the shallow water to keep me floating to topside. As she approaches, I study everything about her, taking it all in and trying to process it, but it’s her face that gets me more than anything else; she doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. Guilty would be best, but I’d settle for apologetic. Because she’s about to use this tail, this secret extension of herself, this thing she kept hidden from me for eighteen years, to propel herself away, toward the open Atlantic.
    And she seems okay with it.
    “Surprise,” Mom whispers when she reaches me.
    “You think?” Of all the anticlimactic ways to begin this farewell. I mean, we’re in the water behind the house where I grew up. Where she and my dad deposited me after birth, where she fixed me garbage eggs, where she grounded me for reasons valid and invalid.
    She looks down at my legs. “So, you don’t have a fin.”
    I shake my head. This seems to confirm something she already suspected. Her eyes get that serious, listen-to-your-mother glaze in them. “Emma.” She grabs my shoulders and pulls me close.
    I wrest from her grasp. “I don’t hug strangers.”
    I must sound like a traumatized three-year-old, because Galen darts over to us. Mom waves away a stray piece of seaweed between us and puts her arm around me again. Galen has that look on his face, the one where he intends to drop everything and hold me. Normally that’s my favorite look.
    But I don’t want to be tended to right now. More than that, I don’t want anyone to feel the need to tend to me right now. I need to keep all these bratty feelings to myself. My dad always told me that holding a grudge is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die. I don’t want to hold any more grudges. I don’t want to swallow poison.
    “I know this is a lot to take in,” Galen says. He doesn’t move to touch me though, which I appreciate.
    Grom swims up behind Mom and puts his hands on her shoulders in a “couple” sort of way and I don’t want to, but I hate it, hate it, hate it. I realize I’m going to have to try way harder to embrace my grown-up self. “We won’t keep her long, Emma,” he says. “We’ll be back before you know it. You and Rayna won’t even miss us.”
    “What?” Rayna rasps. “I’m not staying here!”
    Grom cuts her a look. “You and your mouth are staying with Emma. It’s not open for discussion. This is all going to take a very diplomatic approach, and frankly, diplomacy is not a gift of yours.”
    Toraf wraps his arms around her from behind. “We need you here, princess. To protect Emma.”
    She elbows him. “You need me out of the way.”
    He nuzzles her neck. “You’re never in my way.”
    Galen and Grom exchange an amused look, and I can’t help but think they’re hypocrites. At any given moment, I could reduce Galen to a cooing mess, and I’m certain my mom would have the same effect on Grom. Galen doesn’t miss the reproving look I give him. Before he can explain himself, Toraf cuts him off.
    “I sense a party,” Toraf says, staring toward the deep. He