Goddess of the Sea (Goddess Summoning #1)(113)

As he spoke, CC lifted her face so that she could look into the hazel depths of his eyes.

'The waters there are lit by luminous fish and filled with the magic of sea horses moving together in a dance of mating." He smiled tenderly at her. "It was there that you first loved me, but I believe that I have loved you forever—that you were a part of me even before we met in the storm that was your mother's creation. And I will continue to love you for an eternity, Christine."

Hesitantly, as if she were afraid he would disappear if she moved too quickly, Christine reached up and touched his cheek.

"How?" she asked.

He turned his head so he could kiss her palm. "I do not know, but I like to think of it as a gift from a goddess. I am sorry it took me so long to come to you. Being human is a very odd thing." He paused and laughed with a sound so familiar that CC's heart quivered in response. "When they die their bodies do not return to water. They stay intact, as if waiting for another's soul to fill them, but this body was…" He paused, shrugging his wide shoulders. "It was very badly damaged, and it has taken me longer to heal than I would have thought possible. Many said I would not heal at all, but they did not know the promise I had to fulfill."

"Dylan." CC breathed the word.

"Yes, my love," Dylan said.

CCfelt the pain within her shatter and dissolve. In its place she was filled with an overwhelming sense of joy. Then her eyes widened in wonder.

"It's the opposite of all those mermaid stories that humans have written!" she exclaimed.

He gave her a quizzical look.

"In those stories the mermaid is saved by the love of a human man—and if he doesn't love her, she dies."

Dylan's smiled mirrored her own. "It appears the humans had it wrong. It is the woman's love that saves the merman's soul."

"Or maybe they just save each other," she said.

"And so we shall, Christine."

"For an eternity."

"For an eternity," he assured her.

And as he claimed her lips, their ears were filled with the magical sound of a goddess's delighted laughter.