"We do, and I have it right here." Viola said, raising her hand and pulling the creature up from the surface.

It writhed against her hold, struggling to free itself, shifting shapes like something caught between forms, visible only as a moving disturbance against the water. "It’s my water friend, like you called it." She said, watching it change, trying to escape her.

"You described it as friendly but it just tried to drown my ass at the bottom of the pool." Sebastian said, looking at the thing with open displeasure.

Sebastian studied the creature and it’s changing against her grip in the water. He’d seen the drawing of it in Gilbert grandfather’s research book. It was said each individual mermaid had a companion made of water, given as a birth gift by the sea goddess, and looking at the creature, Sebastian realized it might be his wife’s water companion, even when she wasn’t a full mermaid and had no tail.

"I don’t know why it did that to you," Viola said, studying it, and then noticed it was glaring at her husband with what could only be described as intense hatred.

Sebastian met its glare with his own and said, "It’s called a Tidekin. A living companion formed from the sea itself and gifted by the Sea Goddess. It sometimes shares its master’s emotions, protects them from danger, and obeys no one else. It’s trying to drown me because it believes I mean you harm. It’s protecting you. Let it go, and we’ll see."

"Are you certain?" Viola digested his information before she asked uncertainly, and when he nodded she slowly released her hold on the Tidekin.

The moment she did, it dissolved back into the water, and immediately surged toward Sebastian again as if to attack him. But this time Sebastian was ready. He raised his hand and the creature was suddenly encased in a dense, ash-colored smoke that rose above the water’s surface, boxing it in and holding it suspended there.

"You little shit. You will stay in there until you calm down and realize I am your master’s husband." He remarked flatly, meeting the watery eyes now aimed at him as the creature pushed against the walls of Sebastian’s ability.

"How did you do that?" Viola asked in surprise, staring at the smoke sitting above the water in the shape of a box, like ink poured into the air and held there. She had never seen anything like it and reached out to touch it before he caught her hand.

"Don’t touch it, it will trap your hand inside." He warned, then explained, "I was born with it. Every werewolf who carries the strongest Alpha blood carries an ability of some kind within them."

Viola stared at him in surprise. "I have never heard of such a thing. You don’t use it often, do you?"

Many rumors went around about the supreme Alpha but she’d never heard of an ability, or seen Sebastian use it before.

He shrugged. "I don’t use it at all. I kept it hidden to stay on equal footing with my twin, and sometimes I forget I even have it." He said, looking down at his palm where faint traces of the smoke still curled and rose.

If he had shown his powers in the past, there would have been no way he could have switched places with his twin, who didn’t have any powers, and people would have noticed their differences when Alex found himself in a situation where he was supposed to use his powers but couldn’t. To be safe, Sebastian let everyone believe that this generation of Alpha wasn’t born with any abilities.

Viola wanted to ask more about that, about why he had felt the need to hide himself to be equal with his dead twin, but the creature was struggling against its cage with increasing urgency, making strange, strained sounds that drew her attention back.

"Can you communicate with it?" Sebastian asked, watching them both.

"I think I can." She said. "It kind of understands me but it doesn’t speak."

"Then tell it to calm down and I will let it go." He said, still watching the creature with the expression of a man who had not forgiven it yet. The thing had caught him off guard while he was distracted watching his wife earlier.

Viola focused on it for a while, talking to it as though she were speaking to a disobedient pet and telling it to calm down if it wanted a treat. The Tidekin stopped struggling and stayed still, and after a few moments, she turned back to Sebastian.

"I think it’s calm now. Let it go."

He released it. And true to her word, it kept its distance from him this time, though it was very clearly still glaring.

Viola studied it now, unable to believe that it was truly her companion. Just like werewolves had wolf spirits as companions, it seemed mermaids also had the Tidekin, and this little mischievous one was hers.

"Do I get to name you?" She asked it, and it finally turned away from Sebastian to look at her with what could only be described as eagerness.

The Tidekin nodded its watery head and then began moving around her in the water, splashing it up at her playfully and making her giggle.

"That is amazing. You are one cute thing, aren’t you?" She grinned, then looked over at her husband. "What should I name it, Seb?"

"Call it Malvado." Sebastian said flatly, and Viola gave him a look, understanding exactly what that meant given how far her Spanish had come so far, where she understood little words like that.

"Absolutely not. I am not calling it evil." She said, giggling when the creature splashed her again as though agreeing with her. "What about Wave? I think I will call it Wave." The moment she said it, the creature rose up taller in the water, stretching itself upward so that she had to tilt her head back to look at it, clearly delighted with the name she chose for it.

Then she watched it extend something like a hand outward, a blue light pulsing from somewhere within it, and out of pure curiosity Viola reached out and placed her palm against it.

The moment she did, a current shot through her entire body and the light traveled into her chest, blazing bright for one suspended second before it vanished, and she was jolted backward into Sebastian, who caught her in his arms.

"What the fuck did you just do to her?" Sebastian demanded, holding her trembling body against him as she tried to get her bearings.

Then she heard it.

"We are bound now, Mermaidia!"

"It’s speaking to me, Sebastian." She exclaimed, looking between the creature and her husband, who clearly hadn’t heard a word, and Viola realized with a start that she was the only one who could understand it now.

"What did it just say to you?" He asked, his eyes moving over her with open concern as she looked pale and slightly shaky. He examined her entire body and let out a sigh when there were no signs that she had been hurt physically.

"It said we are bound now, whatever that means." She moved to swim toward the creature but Sebastian pulled her back and trapped it inside his ability again.

"You little piece of shit." He gritted out, his jaw tight. "I should destroy you for binding yourself to her without her knowing what it meant."

"I will destroy you too, monster." The creature shot back, glaring at him with undisguised hostility, the way all its kind regarded werewolves, and though Sebastian couldn’t understand the words, Viola could, and she looked between the two of them with growing unease at the tension crackling in the air.

She realized what Sebastian had said and became even more curious.

"Is it bad that Wave bound itself to me?" she asked Sebastian carefully, placing a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm the aura bleeding off him, causing the temperature around them to drop like the middle of winter.

"A Tidekin binding itself to a mermaid means it will be at their side forever and share feelings with them, the way a mate shares feelings with their other half. There are cases where mermaids ended up choosing their Tidekin as a life partner because the bond grew into the deepest companionship of all." He said through his teeth, his silver eyes dark and dangerous behind his wet lashes, and Viola swallowed quietly before looking back at the creature she had just named.

Wave was far too small and far too adorable for her to picture it as any kind of romantic companion, and so she said, "I don’t think it will ever come to that. It’s just water, who marries water?" She laughed, trying to ease the heat in the air.

Sebastian didn’t laugh. "It doesn’t stay water forever. In the sea world, a Tidekin can petition the sea goddess when its master chooses them, and if the wish is granted, it takes a merman form, said to be the most beautiful of all their kind. And then they live together forever."