genre: undersea fantasy
length: novella
ISBN# electronic: 978-1-59632-584-5
Price $4.99 download
Buy in electronic format @ Loose Id  

If marrying Egeus of the Silverfin clan helps Herma learn about her aunt’s disappearance years before, then she’ll endure their arranged marriage. Especially since by marrying Egeus, she’d help to join the Silverfin and Shimmertail clans in an important alliance. Herma counts herself lucky Egeus is handsome and nice. That’s more than she has a right to hope from a state marriage.

Egeus is of a different opinion. In fact, ever since he first laid eyes on Herma, Egeus wanted her. When it came time to arrange a marriage, he would join with no one but Herma of the Shimmertail clan. Now, in Herma he’s found a sensually responsive mate, and he’s determined to show her all the wonders of his undersea world…starting with making love.

Because at some point, Herma is going to learn the truth about the past. And when she finds out, she’ll have to make a choice — the aunt she loved, or her mate, and Egeus refuses to give her up. He’ll use whatever bonds he can forge to keep Herma for himself.

Reviews

“Aquatic Alliance provides a twist on the usual story where the woman knows that she’s in love but the man is unsure. Egeus is a stand-up dude and he longs to be all to Herma, just like she is to him. Herma likes Egeus but she has her doubts and it makes her act in ways that unintentionally hurt Egeus. Ms. Winter did a great job revealing the confusion each one faces and the sacrifices they are willing to undergo to help the other. Herma and Egeus inhabit an interesting world.” -Amy Wynn, Ecataromance Sensual

“I know that love usually conquers all, but there are two very different but very strong types of love intertwined within Aquatic Alliance. The final choices made by not only Egeus and Herma, but also another, give the book the perfect ending. After I finished, I found myself wondering which choice I would take if I ever had to make that decision. I hope that I, too, would do as Herma does.”
- Joyfully Reviewed

Excerpt

Egeus watched his joined mate sleep. She hadn’t mentioned her aunt. He’d seen the
questions in his uncle’s eyes and suspected she might have asked more questions than either the old man or he were willing to answer. Reaching for her, he grasped a strand of hair between his fingers. He fondled it, watching the fluttering of her gills as she breathed. She lay in repose, her eyelids closed over her eyes like shuttered windows, keeping her thoughts, her gaze from him while she slept. What dreams roamed through her mind, what fears, what nightmares, he didn’t know. He wanted to be a part of her world, wanted to be a part of it so badly he’d agreed to this joining knowing she might never love
him as much as he loved her.

He’d shackled himself to a weaker clan in the name of love. He suppressed his mental
bark of laughter. She claimed she wanted a love like the kind spoken about in old legends. Well, it lay right here on the bed next to her, and yet, she’d left.

Because of her aunt.

Herma could deny it all she wanted, but it was the truth. She’d left the joining chamber hoping to find information. His uncle had kept his thoughts shuttered while they’d stood in the doorway. What would happen when Herma found out the truth?

He dropped her hair and watched it fall to the bed.

Auden’s mind touched Egeus’s. “Meet me in my study,” his uncle ordered.

Egeus jerked. Beneath him, the grasses swayed on the bed. Small currents eddied around
him. He stiffened, not wanting to wake Herma. “I’ll be there in a moment,” he replied.

“Now. It’s important,” Auden demanded.

Egeus wasn’t looking forward to the conversation with his uncle. His stomach dropped
thinking about Herma uncovering his clan’s secrets. That they’d given her aunt the life she’d wanted probably meant little to Herma. They’d taken her aunt away from the clan, away from their ocean home.

Leaving Herma sleeping in their joining chambers was the hardest thing he’d done in a
while. Yet, he knew he had to go. He stood, watching Herma sleep as he donned a short wrap around his waist. That she’d left their joining chamber still hurt him, though he knew what she’d gone through. She liked him, seemed pleasant enough, and her body’s responses were real, but he knew now she longed for the kind of forever love sung about in ballads. No matter how he tried, so long as their family’s difficulties hung between them, he could never give her what her heart desired. He needed to keep his own emotions bottled up tight. He couldn’t even tell her he knew about her aunt.

What a tangled mess their joining had become.

He stepped into the corridor, noticing that the guards were absent from his door.
When his uncle had brought Herma back, he’d thought their absence had been a momentary thing, but the guards were most definitely gone. He wondered if it was because they thought they were no longer needed now that the room was occupied.
Herma hadn’t encountered any problems leaving. He turned down the hall, following the twists and bends until he reached his uncle’s study. He made a quick mental query, and upon receiving a mental greeting, he entered. Egeus strode to the chair next to a low couch made from a sunken relic. Both items sat
in front of floor-to-ceiling shelves full of artifacts and baubles, many from the surface above. Herma would love to see these, he thought, catching sight of glass bottles and glittering jewelry. Like her aunt, she loved the surface and the strange people who resided there.

Egeus bowed his head in deference to his uncle’s age and position as his father’s most trusted advisor and then sat in the chair. “You wished to speak with me?”

“The Shimmertail girl is like her aunt. She hungers for things from the world above. She will find out what happened, and then what will you do? How will you hold your alliance together?” In his customary fashion, his uncle got directly to the point.

“Perhaps these questions should have been asked before the joining, Uncle?” Egeus refused to hide the sarcastic tone of his voice. “I care for her. I hope in time she will care for me. I cannot and will not ask her to give up the quest to find out what happened to her aunt. She will find out. I only hope she cares for me enough not to shatter both our clans.” He stretched out his legs, thinking of Herma back in bed. He should be curled around her. He should be buried balls-deep inside her. Behind the wrap, his cock stirred, and only his strength of will kept it from emerging.

“I told your father it was foolish of them to join the two of you without the truth being known.”

“If you tell her, then she’ll know what you can do, what you can offer,” Egeus countered. He closed his eyes, not yet ready to face that Herma might wish for a life without him, away from the ocean.

“And you fear her leaving.”

Egeus nodded. “How can I not? After all, if I didn’t desire Herma, she wouldn’t be my joined mate. When my father put forth his plan, I requested her. I pulled her into our clan, our lives, even though we were told what she thought of us.” He shook his head. “Yet were she to take the freedom you offer her, the very same freedom you gave her aunt, I would grieve. So tell me, Uncle, what should I do? Try to keep quiet about it, try to get her so fixated on me that she forgets her aunt? Or tell her the truth? Which would you do?”Egeus knew his uncle had no answers. If he’d given them, then Egeus would be back
with Herma instead of here in the den. For a moment he thought about returning
to her, nearly rose to his feet so great was his desire to do so, but then his uncle started talking. Egeus listened. Perhaps in the listening, he’d find the answers he sought.