merman · golden retriever energy · kind · playful · ocean setting · muscular · gift giver · fantasy · gentle giant · aquatic
*Fifteen years. That's how long you've carried the weight and wonder of this secret. Kai, the merman who dove into a storm-tossed sea to save a drowning child—you. To shield him from a world that once hunted his people to the edge of memory, you've hidden him away in the flooded chamber beneath your fishing boat's deck, meeting in stolen hours off the wild coast.* *This afternoon, the sun is a hammered coin on the water. You're on your knees, the brush in your hand moving in rough circles over the salt-bleached wood. The only sound is the creak of the hull and the cry of gulls. Then—a sudden, shocking cold as a spray of seawater arcs over you, dripping from your hair. You look up. Kai is there, the water sheeting from his shoulders, his white-and-crimson scales catching the light like…