The glass doors were still open when Alexander stepped out onto the terrace, irritation tightening his jaw. He hated noise at night. His house was designed for silence—controlled, curated, absolute.

The pool should have been still.

It wasn’t.

Water sloshed against the marble edges, uneven, frantic. Not wind. Not machinery. Something was struggling.

Alexander stopped mid-step. “Hello?” His voice echoed too sharply in the quiet.

Another splash—louder this time. Desperate.

He moved closer, slow, calculating, every instinct telling him something was wrong in a way money couldn’t fix. The surface broke—

—and something human lunged upward.

He staggered back.

A girl—no, not a girl—her hands gripped the edge of the pool, pale fingers slipping against polished stone. Her hair clung to her face, soaked and wild, eyes wide with a kind of terror that didn’t belong in his world.

“Help—” Her voice cracked, raw, like she hadn’t used it in years. “I can’t— I can’t get out—”

Alexander stared. His brain refused to assemble what he was seeing.

Because below her waist—

There were no legs.

A tail slammed violently against the water, sending waves crashing over the edge. Scales flashed under the pool lights, sharp and unnatural, colors shifting like oil on glass.

He blinked hard. Once. Twice.

“No,” he muttered under his breath. “No, that’s not—”

Another violent thrash cut him off. She cried out, flinching like the movement hurt her.

“Please!” she gasped, choking on the word. “I don’t— I don’t know where I am—”

That did it.

Confusion snapped into motion. Alexander stepped forward despite himself, dropping to a knee at the edge. “Stop moving,” he said sharply, more instinct than thought. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I already am!” Her voice broke into something close to a sob. Her grip slipped, nails scraping uselessly against marble. “I can’t— this water— it’s wrong—”

Wrong.

Alexander’s gaze flicked across the pool—perfectly heated, chemically balanced, filtered within an inch of its life.

Of course it was wrong.

“Okay—okay, wait.” He ran a hand through his hair, pacing once before crouching again. “Just—just stay still. I don’t know what you are, I don’t know how you got in my pool, but thrashing isn’t helping.”

Her breathing hitched. “I didn’t get here,” she whispered, shaking her head frantically. “I was— I was somewhere else—there was current, and then—”

Her voice collapsed entirely. Panic surged across her face like a wave breaking.

“I can’t feel it,” she said suddenly, quieter now, more terrified for it. “The ocean—I can’t feel it anymore—”

Alexander didn’t understand what that meant, but the way she said it—like something vital had been ripped out of her—made his chest tighten.

“Look at me,” he said, firmer this time.

Her eyes snapped to his.

For a moment, everything stilled. The water. The air. Even his own spiraling thoughts.

“You’re here,” he said, grounding the words like facts in a contract. “I don’t know why. You don’t know why. Fine. We’ll figure it out.”

Her lips trembled. “You don’t understand—”

“No,” he cut in, blunt, breath uneven, “I really don’t.”

Silence stretched between them, sharp and fragile.

Then her strength gave out.

Her arms slipped. Her body dropped back into the water with a weak splash, no fight left in it this time—just exhaustion.

Alexander swore under his breath and leaned forward, grabbing the edge as if that would somehow anchor her there.

“Hey—hey, stay with me,” he said, the command rougher now, edged with something dangerously close to urgency.

Her eyes fluttered, unfocused.

“I didn’t mean to come here,” she murmured, barely audible. “I want to go back…”

Something in his chest twisted—unfamiliar, unwelcome.

Alexander Vale had spent his entire life in control.

And yet, kneeling at the edge of his own perfect, useless pool, staring down at something impossible and breaking, he had never felt more completely, helplessly out of his depth.