Kai put his sealed box in the back of the SUV and then went inside the house to fetch more boxes from the kitchen.

"Where are we moving to?" he asked his mother as he moved through open doors. In the midst of the chaos, he hadn't thought to ask her before. But as he packed his belongings into boxes, it suddenly occurred to him that they really was moving away from the only life he'd ever known. As the son of an Ambassador, he should have been used to constant moving and relocation, but his mother had successfully sustained her position as the US Ambassador to Turkey for over twenty years. Which meant that he was moving for the very first time in his life. He was born in this country, and this area near the Black Sea was all he'd ever known, but now he had to leave it all behind, including his friend, Hakan. His chest tightened unbearably.

"Somewhere far from the sea."

Kai abruptly halted in his steps, then backtracked to the kitchen where his mother was furiously dumping her favorite china into a box with little care and no plastic wrapping. Since they'd woken up to continue packing this morning, an unbudging frown had drawn her brows together with no signs of disappearing. Her temperament resembled that of a tea kettle on fire, waiting to hiss.

"Then why did you live right on top of a sea if it's so dangerous?" he couldn't help but ask incredulously, one brow arched.

Seriously, this was poor planning on his mother's part. If the condition to awaken his powers was a life-threatening situation in a body of water, then his mother should have done everything in her power to keep him away from seas or lakes or even hotel swimming pools. It was what he would have done if the situation were reversed.

"It was your father's decision to live near the sea. He insisted you needed the water to... live," she said without looking at him.

Kai pictured a scenario where he grew up far from the sea, and never learned to swim. Would he be the same person he was today? Would he have even known what he was missing? Or would he have instinctively missed it, because of the merman blood coursing through his blood?

Since discovering his heritage, his overwhelming love for the sea made sense to him. Whenever he was given the choice between going for a swim or doing something else, he always, always picked swimming. It drove Hakan mad, whose first choice of physical activity was a sword duel.

Either way, it was too late for such talk now. All they could do now was avoid any future problems by staying away from the sea. He consoled himself in the fact that he now knew the truth.

"Funny how a man that I never met had so much influence over my life." he muttered as he left the kitchen and headed for the car. He saw that he needed to rearrange the twenty other boxes already in the trunk, so he set the one in his arms down on the ground and start shuffling the ones in the car around.

"A prince of the sea performing manual labour. How mundane."

Startled, Kai whirled around, his heart lodged firmly in his throat and he saw him. The breath whooshed out of his lungs in one go and his eyes went wide.

Not too far from where he was standing, a dark-haired giant of a man stood. Never in his life had Kai seen someone so shockingly tall and broad-shouldered before, with rippling muscles that begged to be caressed just to see if they were really as hard as they looked. He had to be at least six feet five, at least. Kai took in the chiseled face, full lips, and broad shoulders that tapered into a thin waist with slight envy, and he couldn't help but be conscious of his own slight physique. He was at least thirty, Kai guessed. The man was not handsome. No, handsome was not a strong enough word to describe him. He was beautiful, like a da Vinci statue made to absolute perfection. It was inhumane.

And so were his clothes. He wore what Kai imagined was a bodysuit that was a second skin the color of the blackest black. It covered every inch of him, emphasizing his powerful body and accentuating his enviable eight-pack. Gold earnings dangled from his earlobes and gold cuffs wrapped around both his wrists.

The man was also armed. A sheathed broadsword peeked from his back. Kai's pulse quickened.

A terrifying, intense shade of blue met his eyes, much like the colour of the sea, and he belatedly realized that they were not normal eyes. The pupils were almost cat-like and they reminded him of a shark's predatory eyes. If the car wasn't behind him, then he would have taken a step back from the sheer intensity in the man's stare. He wanted to look away from it, but his gaze held him in its thrall like a spell.

While looking at him, Kai kept recalling the golden merman.

"Who are you?" A frisson of alarm sizzled down Kai's spine and he was suddenly gripped by the inexplainable need to escape. Alarms were already sounding in his head.

A prince of the sea performing manual labour, he'd said. This man knew who he was. This man was dangerous. He could feel it deep in his soul. An aura of impressive power engulfed him, surrounding him like a cape. His hard face and cold gaze warned Kai to stay the hell away. The stranger before him was not to be trifled with.

Realizing this, the stranger took a menacing step forward. When he moved, his bodysuit shimmered and Kai realized with a jolt that it was entirely covered with black scales that shimmered under the sunlight.

Who was this man and why was he here on their cliff? He quickly scanned his surroundings for a sign of a car parked nearby. There wasn't even a bicycle. The nearest neighbor was miles away, and walking up the cliffs near the Black Sea on foot was an act of God. So how the hell did he get here?

"Do you need something?" He tried to conceal the fear from his voice, but it snaked its way into his words. A suspicion was beginning to bloom in his head. Was the stranger a merman? Had he come from the sea like his mother had warned?

Again, the stranger didn't reply. He was busy eyeing Kai from top to bottom and it looked to Kai that he was taking note of every inch of his body. Much to his chagrin, he shivered.

He was starting to get annoyed. In English, he said, "Can't you understand what I'm saying? Who are you and what are you doing here?" He stole a glance at the broadsword holstered at the stranger's back.

Kai's own sword was in the house.

When the stranger finally opened his mouth to speak, his deep, melodious voice did things to Kai's insides that baffled him. He said with terrifying finality, "You will come with me, half-breed."

Half-breed.

Cautiously, Kai asked, "Come where?" Surreptitiously, he felt behind him for something to use as a weapon in the car's trunk. He scarcely felt anything other than the cold surface of packed boxes.

The stranger didn't answer. Instead, he took another step forward. He was only a few feet away from Kai now.

The icy hand of dread gripped his spine. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself -and only to himself- that he was afraid of this man, if he were even a man to begin with. He was starting to believe that he was facing his second merman in just as many days.

"Kai, what is taking so long?"

His mother's voice from inside the house drew the stranger's attention, distracting him. Kai reacted. He whirled around, grabbed the heaviest box he could lift from inside the trunk, and then hurled it at the stranger. He didn't wait to see his toss land. He was in the house in less than two heartbeats.

"Mom, hide!" he ordered his mother, who was busy packing some more china in a box in the kitchen. "They're here!"

The china fell from his mother's hands.

He seized his sword that he'd propelled against the wall of the kitchen, went to the back door, locked it and shoved the key into his pocket, then raced outside, ready to do battle.