Sheltered by the Sea Lord (Lords of Atlantis #10) - Starla Night Page 0,1

And now, alone on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic, she enjoyed the ultimate isolation, but she was in more danger than ever.

Somewhere, her half sister was worried sick about her. Somewhere, her friends were searching the networks trying to figure out where they’d been betrayed.

Somewhere—in front of her or behind her or to the side—was a giant platform being constructed in the middle of the ocean. It floated over the recently rediscovered city of Atlantis, the city of mermen who had revealed their existence to the modern world, defying the laws of their ancient race, to seek their soul mates. One of those human soul mates had been Starr’s half sister, Bella. And soon this platform would become a meeting place for the two races, human and mer.

But someone did not want the mer to arise.

They would do anything to destroy the platform.

And the mermen.

Bella had asked for Starr’s help. What had started as a project to keep Bella safe had morphed into a quest to bring down the mysterious terrorists threatening the mer. The group, called the Sons of Hercules, was bent on destruction. Even in the middle of the Atlantic, the mermen weren’t safe. A traitor had infiltrated their platform right before the mer held a grand opening.

Starr knew what it was like to fight a hidden adversary. She’d been doing it her whole life. Her traitor was calling from inside the house—inside her body.

But she had underestimated the Sons of Hercules.

She’d been coming to the platform in secret, and her secret must have fallen into the wrong hands. Now she was adrift. Helpless.

The film calmed her panic.

She tore open the plastic.

The bar was brown and mealy. No nuts that she could see, but peanut dust could be on anything, and it wasn’t as if her stuffed nose could smell.

Her stomach growled.

Starvation was a real possibility. She’d always imagined dying from something she ate, not from starving in the middle of the Atlantic.

Starr pressed the bar to her lips. Licked. Food. She was so, so hungry.

She took a big bite. Chewed.

The tingle started in the back of her nose. An itch that she couldn’t scratch.

She choked.

Oh, she wanted to swallow. So bad.

Her throat tightened.

Nuts.

Literally.

She spat the contents over the side of the ship and washed her mouth out with bottled water and spit that over as well. Then she sat, EpiPen resting against the side of her thigh, and waited.

An invisible hand squeezed her throat.

Don’t think. Don’t panic. This is fine.

The invisible hand clenching her throat tightened.

The world faded.

She threw the bar over the side.

Heat suffused her face, and spots of red hives appeared on the backs of her hands.

Hives were not caused by dangerous thoughts in her mind.

She jammed the EpiPen through the side of her thigh, depressed the trigger, and waited.

A sharp pain, and then her body shook as if she’d gone on a race for her life. She gasped. Her throat loosened, opened, and sweat poured down her forehead. Her cold hands turned clammy. She felt sick.

Traitors ruled here, inside and out.

She removed the empty EpiPen and threw it into the water. With trembling hands, she quested in her pocket and drew out her last pen.

She couldn’t keep doing this.

One way or another, she was going to die out here.

The world narrowed and faded as her mind receded.

From a distant vantage point, she saw the allergic reaction fade, thank God. She returned the last pen to her pocket. Her body stood and shuffled to the captain’s chair. Her eyes peered over the control panel. Her hands methodically tested the controls. Radio, satellite navigation, fuse box. If the satellite connection was working, then she could look up how to start or repair a boat. And she would do it in this state. As an automaton. Because this was how she survived.

Nothing turned on. Everything remained dead.

She was a little piece of driftwood, alone in the mid-Atlantic.

No one was looking for her.

Even though days ago, she’d been within hours of reaching the platform.

Starr shuffled downstairs again and back to her cabin. She removed her protective gear, rinsed it, and hung it to dry. She poured a thimbleful of Sea Opal elixir—the concentrated liquid steeped in the mer’s healing Sea Opals—into a cap and swallowed an antihistamine.

Once, her half sister Bella had thought the elixir might cure Starr’s allergies. It had cured her nephew’s leukemia, even though the healing hadn’t appeared at first. Starr had been taking it for much longer. Hope died hard.

Then she