Chapter 7
The pearls kept appearing.
Every morning for days, I opened the door and found more scattered across the threshold, glimmering in the dirt like little pieces of moonlight.
I never saw who left them.
I never went to the beach.
And I definitely did not think about Adrian every time I bent to pick them up.
At least, that was what I told myself.
Life with Rowan settled into something dangerously easy.
He cooked.
He cleaned.
He somehow always had money.
Within two weeks, he had already hired workers to repair half my house. The roof stopped leaking. The yard fence got rebuilt. Even the crooked porch steps were replaced.
He was warm, attentive, playful. The exact opposite of Adrian in almost every way.
And yet—
The nights were different.
Not bad.
Just… different.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would hear a rustle in the yard.
A faint shifting noise by the corner of the house.
One night I finally threw the door open.
There, crouched in the moonlight near the wall like a guilty stray, was Adrian.
He still had the bedsheet around his waist.
His eyes were huge.
Red-rimmed.
Wet.
If I had not known better, I would have thought he was an abandoned dog instead of a top-tier ocean predator.
The comments flew by so fast I could barely read them.
That is not a siren. That is a drenched ex-boyfriend.
What is he even doing?
Paying emotional support pearls, obviously.
The moment he saw me, Adrian spun and ran.
“Adrian!” I shouted.
He did not stop.
I sucked in a breath and yelled the only thing I could think of. “If you run this time, then don’t come back!”
His body jerked once.
Then he vanished into the dark.
I stood in the yard fuming until Rowan came up behind me.
He had already remade the bed by the time I turned back around, like he had expected I would fail to drag Adrian in by the ear.
“What do you think he wants?” I muttered.
Rowan lit the oil lamp, his face unreadable in the gold light.
“No idea,” he said. “But I do know one thing.”
“What?”
He stepped closer, lifted one finger, and lightly pressed it against my lips.
“I’ve been in this house for half a month,” he murmured. “And every time we lie down together, you still bring him up.”
My face heated instantly.
I honestly did not even remember how he got me back onto the bed after that.
Only that his ears were unbelievably soft.
Only that his tail kept brushing over my legs and making my thoughts come apart.
Only that when I grabbed for something in the haze of warmth and embarrassment, he gently tucked that huge tail into my arms and laughed low in my ear.
“Careful,” he murmured. “Don’t hold so tight. That hurts.”
The comments lost all dignity.
Trade places with the tail immediately.
Please.
Even I covered my face at that point.
After that night, the pearls stopped.
Completely.
No more at the door.
No more in the yard.
No more signs Adrian had come back at all.
Maybe he was finally done.
Maybe he had accepted it.
Maybe he had moved on.
I should have been relieved.
Instead, when Nora came by with her wolf husband again and commented on the old siren tub still sitting in the middle of the room, I could not make myself answer right away.
“That thing’s useless now,” she said. “Throw it out. It takes up half the space.”
I stared at the empty wooden tub.
The wood was dark from salt and age. Out of place in the cleaner, warmer room Rowan had built around me.
That night, while Rowan rubbed oil into my arms, I looked at the tub and said quietly, “Tomorrow, move it to the yard.”
Rowan’s hand paused.
When I turned to look at him, his tail had already wound around my waist.
The next morning, I half expected pearls by the door again.
There were none.
Days passed.
Then our new neighbor moved in.
A white wolf beastman.
Tall. Expensive clothes. Too handsome to be real. He built a large, beautiful house next door in only two days, which was already enough to make half the village peek through their fences.
The first time our eyes met over the property line, a strange chill ran down my back.
I had never seen him before.
And yet something about him felt familiar.
The eyes.
The expression.
The quiet arrogance.
I shook it off immediately.
A siren and a wolf were two different species.
I was being ridiculous.
Right?