Under: Titans, #0

By Sotia Lazu

For ninety-nine years, Halie has sought her destined mate on land, in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy and save her people's future. With each failure, she returns to her parents' kingdom under the sea, to find comfort with her best friend and lover, Delphinos.

Delphinos would do anything to ensure Halie's happiness, but he knows she belongs with him. Watching her lose herself time and again, while she searches for her future, is more than he can bear.

When the sea witch tells her she'll find The One on her next trip ashore, Halie is forced to choose between the good of her people and the love of her life. And Delphinos has no intention of making her choice any easier.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Acelette Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386206378

Sotia Lazu

Sotia loves romances with a twist and urban fantasy novels, always with vivid erotic elements. Her favorite characters to write are not conventional hero-material at first glance, and she enjoys making them fight for their happiness. Sotia shares her life and living quarters with her husband, their son, and two rescue dogs, one of which may be part-pony. Sappy movies make her bawl like a baby, and she wishes she could take in all the stray dogs in the world. Also, she hates mornings!

Book preview

Chapter One - Halie

Ten more steps. She could take ten more steps. She wasn’t that out of it.

You okay? asked a girl in a black-and-white dress.

The colors twirled together, making Halie’s head spin. She should have stopped before the fourth martini—or was it the fifth? She didn’t even like martinis; Joss said they were sophisticated, and she needed Joss to love her.

No. She loved Joss. And he was behind his bedroom door. Nine steps away.

I’m fine, she said, only it came out mfine. The girl said something else, but it was drowned in the music. The loud beat thudded in Halie’s chest. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling—easier to focus on that than on the swaying floor.

Her stomach lurched. Bile, alcohol, and cheese burned up her throat, and she swallowed it back down. Bleh. Not many things were more disgusting than throwing up after eating cheese.

Three steps.

Two.

She grabbed the door handle at first try, and things were looking up, because it turned easily.

A beam of red light from the party behind her sliced through the darkened room, illuminating the figure on the bed for a split second, before spinning to the right. The broad back and rounded butt were unmistakably Joss’s.

Halie’s drunken brain stalled. Was he doing push-ups? Naked?

No, idiot. He was fucking someone else.

Her stomach flipped in on itself and gave her heart a kick on the way.

It couldn’t be.

Joss was a gentleman. He took in damsels in distress and gave them shelter from the rain, and stayed up with them all night, talking about his hopes and dreams. He was patient and kind and understanding, and he didn’t push when she wouldn’t kiss him even though they’d been seeing each other for a month now—she wasn’t a prude or something; she just had to make sure he was The One before she gave him true love’s kiss.

His offer to wait for her seemed like less of a sacrifice when he was screwing someone on the side.

Halie opened her mouth to yell. To curse at him. To ask him why on earth he’d fuck another woman, when tonight was supposed to be their big night. He’d invited her to his party and suggested she stay the night. Granted, her reply was a drawn-out maybe, but she’d also given him that long, sideways look under her lashes. It was meant to be fraught with promise.

Tonight, he’d say he was falling for her, then they’d kiss, and...

She doubled over and emptied the contents of her stomach.

Joss tensed, looked at her over his shoulder, and jumped out of bed with that dancer’s grace she admired from the first moment she saw him on the beach.

Halie? What—? I didn’t see you come in.

His intellect wasn’t what she loved about him.

What was, then?

Joss? The naked woman in his bed sat up, but neither he nor Halie looked her way.

"Shit, Halie. My shoes," Joss said.

Halie followed his horrified gaze to the floor. She’d barfed on his handmade Italian loafers.

Suited him right.

You’re a piece of shit, she spat out.

The woman on the bed called Joss’s name again. He kept ignoring her. Of course he did. She didn’t mean anything. Neither did Halie.

Joss was the wrong guy. Again.

We only had four dates, he said with a scowl.

Six. In four consecutive weeks. She’d done everything right. Was mysterious and alluring. Why hadn’t he fallen for her?

Did she care?

We never said we were exclusive. His attention was fully on his shoes. Priorities.

We never said we weren’t. The accusation would sound more scathing if she didn’t slur the words. She spun, and so did the walls, but she didn’t let a little dizziness stop her from strutting out of his bedroom. The situation was unsalvageable, and she’d just wasted another month. She was cutting it close, damn it. She had to find the one before her time was up, or her people would pay for it. Stupid prophecy.

She weaved her way through the dancing crowd and outside, to the beach. The cool night air cleared her head a little. She was in no condition to walk to her hotel. She’d call a cab there, pack her meager belongings, and then—

Go where?

As if with a sharp tug, the thread holding her sense of self together snapped. Panic clawed at her gut. Where was home?

She had one. She didn’t always live in a hotel room. Maybe it was the alcohol muddling her thoughts? Head trauma? She gingerly touched her head. No pain, and she didn’t remember bumping it anywhere. Plus, she recalled every detail of her time with Joss, from meeting him on the beach four weeks ago, to all the handholding and soul-gazing and strolling in the moonlight, to seeing him fucking someone else.

Selective amnesia? You’d think her subconscious would delete the useless, Joss-related bits, if his betrayal had the power to erase memories. But no. What eluded her was where she’d been before that.

Worse—who she’d been. She knew seconds ago; she remembered remembering. She was part of a whole. Had a family.

But what did they look like? Where did they live? Would they come looking for her if she didn’t call them in the morning?

What was happening to her?

Maybe someone spiked her drink. Was a would-be rapist watching, waiting for her to collapse before he pounced? One glance toward the large screen windows showed nobody was coming after her. Not a mystery drink-spiker, and definitely not Joss.

The fucker.

Salty air tickled her nostrils and made her lungs expand. The breeze caressing her face soothed her nerves, and the sound of waves breaking on the shore lulled her.

Her