Rejected Bride: My Mysterious Sovereign Husband

Kenna POV:

"Where is Dominic?"

I propelled my tail fin half a meter forward, sending a sharp tremor through the water pressure to force the bronze-armored servant to look up at me.

Tonight is the Night of the Blood Oath. My fiancé, Dominic Dodson, and I agreed to seal our marriage pact before the Tidal Wellspring-the most solemn ceremony of the merfolk of Thalassia.

But he is late, so late that every noble in the hall who had come to watch the spectacle began to whisper among themselves.

The Tidal Wellspring gave off a faint blue glow, suspended at the core above our heads. The clan believes that those who bind their souls here are granted three hundred years of life.

And for noble women, it carries another meaning: a Tide-Oath Ring activated by blood. Without this ring on my ring finger, the law would regard me as a wraith. Tonight was supposed to change all of that.

Declan, my fiancé's personal squire, stopped three body-lengths below me. He tilted his chin slightly, exposing the four pale gill slits behind his neck in a half-hearted gesture of submission-no merfolk ever knelt, yet his lack of respect was glaring.

"The Young Clan Lord says he cannot make it tonight," Declan muttered, his eyes darting away from mine. "He told you to swim home first."

Sharp, mocking laughter rippled through the hall. The malicious soundwaves churned the currents, sending an icy shiver straight through my chest.

"He cannot make it?" My voice cut through the water without a single tremor. "Tonight is our Blood-Oath night before the Wellspring. Is he too stingy to even spare me a second-tier silver Electrum Ring?"

Before Declan could answer, an eerie green glow flared at his waist. A Spirit Nautilus-a bioluminescent shell used by noble houses to project live voices and images-floated upward and cast a wavering projection into the water.

In the projection, Dominic Dodson lounged on a plush coral couch. Curled against his chest was a frail mermaid with flaxen curls-my stepsister, Antonina Bass, whom my stepmother had brought into House Reid years ago.

Antonina looked deathly pale, pearly tears clinging to her lashes as she pressed against Dominic's collarbone. "Brother Dominic, it is all my fault," she whispered, her voice fragile enough to shatter. "My Tide Spirit suddenly gave out..."

Dominic stroked the scales behind her ear before turning a cold, irritated glare toward the shell. "Kenna, Antonina is gravely ill and needs my life force to stabilize her. We are pushing the ceremony to next month."

From an angle Dominic could not see, Antonina curved her lips into a smug, triumphant smile aimed directly at me.

My heart dropped like a stone into a trench. I drew a deep breath, letting freezing seawater flush through my burning gill slits until my mind turned razor-sharp.

"Push it to next month?" I let out a soft laugh that echoed off the basalt walls. "Dominic, do you think an oath before the Ancient Deep is a seashell you can toss around?"

Dominic frowned in the green light, his tone dripping with superiority. "Stop throwing a tantrum, Kenna. You do not even have a Tide-Oath Ring. Aside from me, who else in the Inner Atolls would claim a Gill-less woman without a Tide Spirit?"

"Sister, please do not blame Brother Dominic, he is just too kind-hearted..." Antonina squeezed out two more pearly tears, playing the helpless healer to perfection.

I ignored her act. Raising my right hand, I gathered a faint, pure spark of primordial aurora light at my fingertip and pressed it directly against the hovering shell.

The projection flickered violently. Dominic's roar echoed out. "Kenna, what are you doing! Stop!"

"Taking out the trash," I said coldly, and drove my hidden ancestral strength through my fingertip.

With a sharp crack, the priceless Spirit Nautilus exploded into powder under the water pressure. The green light died instantly.

Dead silence swallowed the hall. Every noble who had stayed to watch my humiliation stared with wide eyes, stunned that an unringed outcast dared crush the Young Clan Lord's projection. Deep in my chest, the Remnant-the agonizing soul-thread left behind when a preliminary mate bond is ripped apart-tore in half like a hot blade dragging through my ribs. I did not even flinch.

"Swim back and tell your master," I said, looking down at the frozen Declan with a voice like polar ice, "our engagement ends tonight."

Declan opened his mouth as if to release his Warlord pressure on me, yet under my cold stare, his eyes instinctively dropped downward. Without sparing him another glance, I flicked my tail fin, dragging my long sea-silk hem out of the grand hall. The onlookers parted automatically, chilled by the frost radiating off my scales.

Outside, the dark current cooled my feverish gill slits. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, riding out the lingering ache in my bones-until a low, mocking chuckle echoed from the basalt shadows ahead, heavy enough to stall the surrounding current.

My eyes snapped open. Retreating half a body-length, my right hand gripped the bone dagger at my waist as a tall, broad-shouldered figure glided out of the dark, his abyssal gray-blue eyes locking onto me from above.