Several weeks had passed and Ren's strength had begun to return.

It was a slow recovery, her body filling out in the right places, just as a woman should. She was slender, a lithe body meant for a dancer. Luster and shine returned to her black locks, silver orbs brought out by the long lashes and the tiny birthmark at the corner of her eye. Cracked and bloody lips healed to a pair of full pink lips, framing white teeth. Burnt skin healed thanks to the pumice he had brought from his home. However, few scars remained, something he couldn't heal with just creams.

Kai's eyes fell on the lone figure on the beach, lean legs trudging up on the sand, a fierce determination driving her forward.

A heavy feeling rested in his chest. He knew soon she would want to go home, but it pained him to tell her that she couldn't, for fear of the humans knowing the existence of his kind.

A sigh left Kai's, dread filling his heart as he swam towards Ren. She was on the palm tree, removing dead leaves as well as some living ones.

"What are you doing," he asked once he dragged across the shore. He propped himself on a rock, his green tail and fins stretched out in front of him, scales glittering beneath the sun.

Ren climbed down, her fingers gripping the rough bark, "I'm building myself a a little hut, like from the movie Blue Lagoon. I can't be sleeping underneath the trees all day. Besides," she paused, "I figured I won't be going home. I'd rather be stuck on this island than going to a boring place in America."

Kai tilted his head, a single eyebrow raised in question, "But your family? Won't they be looking for you? Do you not feel lonely?"

The young woman froze, pain reflected in her silver orbs, "I have no family, my parents are dead, and my uncle and cousin could care less if I lived or died."

He felt a smile threaten to break his passive face. It could've been luck, or perhaps fate, that the young maiden had fallen on his shores and had no intention of going home, despite of their first encounter where she had begged to be taken home.

Now, she seemed reluctant to go, preferring to enjoy the solitude with him as company.

"Would you like to stay then?" he murmured, busying himself with a lock of his wet, black hair, unable to see her reaction.

Ren laughed, sending Kai's heart fluttering inside his chest, "Isn't that what I've been doing these past weeks?"

Kai laughed softly, "So it's a yes." He felt a strange emotion, a mixture of gratitude and happiness, that she was willing to stay here out of her own free will. He had grown accustomed to coming every day, taking a break from his duties of the ocean. Her company being the most amusing and entertaining he had each day. He looked forward towards the visits, listening to her tell stories of the human world.

For so long, he only had seen the negativity of the humans. The machines that polluted his ocean, humans breaking the beautiful corals that grew near the shore or the oil that suffocated the living. Yet the stories Ren had told him made him realize that perhaps humanity had it's good and bad oysters.

"So your the only mer-dude or there's a whole city of you guys?" Ren asked, tying two leaves together beside him.

"Mer-dude?" he said in a confused tone.

"Merman," Ren translated.

Kai flushed, embarrassed of his lack of human slang, "No, there's an entire kingdom."

Ren gasped, "What?! Like The Little Mermaid?"

Kai chuckled, remembering the story she told of a film she had seen when she was a child.

"Something like that, except the palace is made of emeralds," Kai said wistfully. Old memories resurfacing when spent the time hiding from the guards his father sent after him.

"Ah so you live there I assume?" Ren said with a knowing look, "So what are you? A prince or something?"

His breath caught in his throat her statement targeting so close to home, "Nothing fancy as that. I just protect the king," he lied.

He didn't want her to know he was the king himself. The Emerald King, they would call him.

His entire empire flourished with valuable emeralds, coveted by the neighboring nations. He recalled the day he came of age.

Nobles from his kingdom and from other nations bought their maiden daughters, in hopes of marrying into his throne. At that moment in his youth, he didn't think of marriage or duties that chained him to the throne, his young mind had wanted to bath in the luxuries that accompanied the crown. Many flings with the noble's daughters stained his white mantel, not that he cared. Many who were definitely not innocent maidens as the nobles claimed them to be. However, those days had long passed, he never did find a female mate that took his interest.

"A King's guard huh?" Ren said, "Shouldn't you be with him?"

Kai grinned, leaning in close to whisper in her ear, his lips barely brushing the soft curve of her earlobe, "Oh he's in a very important meeting."

Ren giggled, pushing him away, causing him to lose his balance. In an effort to regain it, he grabbed the nearest thing which happened to be Ren.

A soft cry left her lips, his hand gripping her tattered shirt, pulling her down with him. Her body collided against his hard chest, her full breasts pressing against him through the thin cloth. His eyes darted to hers, his own breath leaving at the view he had from below her.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind, curious to know how she looked like below him.

Up close he watched her eyes, that were like two mirrors that reflected his emotions, dilated and hooded with an all too familiar expression from his previous lovers.

She could be your lover, the beast inside him whispered through his mind. They were so close. Lips nearly touching each other's, soft breaths crossing between.

Kai gazed into Ren's gray orbs, the tension so tangible, it could be sliced with a blade.

For once, he wanted to know what it was like to kiss her. A mere human he rescued, and to feel her full lips against his own.

However, he felt a tugging sensation in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong, as if his throne or his people where in some kind of danger. He just recently ended a war from the Diamond Kingdom of the south. A lot of good mermen were lost just to form a shaky treaty between the two kingdom.
He gave Ren a stiff smile, "I must go," he spoke, gently pushing her off of him. 

Not knowing what became of he pressed his lips against hers, a simple gesture that spoke so many words, words left unspoken as he returned to his world.