by Bethany-Kris
That man. Though she didn’t know his name, she remembered his voice. So distinct with its thick pain as he called for his mother.
His mother. Who had been a mermaid.
Arelle turned away from the sight of the drowning man—his death would be silent, even if the sea was screaming; that was simply the way of the water—but hesitated in swimming away entirely. Looking back over her shoulder, she felt a tug in her chest.
A pull.
It wasn’t because he could see her and would know she didn’t try to help or even for the fact someone was drowning in waters they couldn’t possibly swim in … no, it was what she knew about him that made her hesitate.
His threat to her from a season before echoed in her mind.
I’ll kill you.
Arelle couldn’t forget the sight of him begging for his mother, either. Or how he’d been willing to risk himself to wade into dangerous waters if it meant he might be able to save the woman.
He wasn’t like her.
But he was one of them.
She heard whispers of the halflings. Of young birthed to merwomen who had been taken as slaves for the landwalkers. Anything was possible with the right circumstances, and though he’d threatened her, she couldn’t ignore the urge to help him.
Didn’t she owe him that? She hadn’t been able to help his mother. She’d watched the woman die. It would be easier to let the man die in this sea …
But that wasn’t who Arelle was.
She turned back for him.
For a man whose name she didn’t know. She turned back to save a life that only wanted to end hers.
NINE
Arelle
ARELLE SUCKED in a lungful of damp sea air as she heaved the man’s body over the sharp rocks leading into a heavily forested part of a smaller island. She hadn’t realized how close they were to Atlas Islands until she dragged the man up to the surface of the sea to get him in the air.
Not that it seemed to matter that they were now on land.
He still didn’t open his eyes.
Didn’t breathe.
She suspected his lungs were full of seawater, considering how long he had been underwater before she’d gotten him up for air. Another landwalker would have been dead from that alone, but this one wasn’t. His throat pumped under her palm when she stopped on the rocks to pull in another breath, letting the magic in her blood do its work to change her tail to legs. Tired legs. The blood from the cuts on her palms smeared across the three faint lines on his throat where gills should be.
Scars.
Still, his body tried to save him.
Arelle panted heavily, her body tired. The crisscross pattern of cuts on her legs, from where the netting had caught her too tightly and the rocks scraped against her tail, left smears of violet on the rocks as she continued dragging the man farther from the water.
Rain pelted down.
It stung her skin.
He still didn’t open his eyes.
“Come on,” Arelle breathed, dragging him by pulling under his arms through muck and rocks and seagrass until she found some coverage under a patch of trees. It wasn’t nearly enough, and it truly didn’t help that much. The long branches and fanned leaves whipped back and forth under the heavy winds. But at least she had gotten him out of the water. “Breathe.”
A good portion of his clothing had been ripped away. Some from his own hand, she suspected, when he’d fallen into the water. Others, by her, as she’d attempted to get him out of the water. Another time, and she might have stopped to admire the man’s lean form, and the way his muscular chest led down to a narrow waist with torn breeches resting low on his hips. Breeches that had split right down the middle of the crotch. His flaccid cock rested half against his thigh, and partly on the fabric.
Instead, the only thing she concerned herself with was climbing on top of the man so that she had better support to do what she needed next. Pushing both hands against his chest while her legs straddled his waist, she put all her weight down against him.
And then again.
And again.
All her efforts were for nothing. Only a small bit of water came out of the man’s lax lips. For someone of her kind, this would have been more than enough to clear their lungs, if that’s what was needed. Except for a second she had forgotten …
This man wasn’t entirely like them.
He was only half.
She struck her fists against his chest, feeling the hard pulse of his heart beating against the hit. “What do you need? What is it?”
Of course, he didn’t answer her.
Could he even hear her?
Behind her, the waves lapped at the rocks, spitting water and sea foam at her naked back while her mind raced to figure out whatever it was she had missed here. If he was like the landwalkers, too, then wouldn’t he need air?
Yes, that’s it.
Triumph filled Arelle, even if she couldn’t be sure that’s what the man needed. Still, she wouldn’t know if she didn’t try. Before she could think better of it, she opened the man’s mouth wide, leaned down, and pressed her lips against his. The first thing she thought as she breathed air from her lungs into his?
He tastes like the sea.
Arelle dug her fingernails into his chest, still feeling the beats of his heart steady under her touch. Dragging in another breath, she gave that air to him, too.
“Open your eyes.”
She waited.
Nothing happened.
Arelle let out a noise thick with her frustration, and then wiped away the red strands of hair that stuck to her face and lips. She could taste the blood left behind from the swipe of her hand, but she ignored it.
A lot like the way she pretended not to see the trickle of blood from her cut palms left trails across the light dusting of hair on the man’s chest. With the wind blowing like it was, she couldn’t smell it at first—she’d been too focused on trying to save this man’s life instead of the dangerous situation she suddenly found herself in when all at once, the wind quieted.
At the same time that she dragged in a heady lungful of wet air that tasted of her own blood, she realized there was a hint of something else, too.
His blood.
Arelle looked back, quickly finding the spot on his body that bled. A cut along the side of his calf, but that wasn’t really the problem. He wasn’t entirely like her, landwalkers couldn’t mate with her kind, but he wasn’t entirely human, either. Not if his mother had come from the sea. This was how the matings started. The scent all around, blood from the struggle, and then when it mixed …
She closed her eyes, letting out a slow exhale.
With the scents of their blood mingling in the air, her stomach clenched.
In a good way.
A promising way.
Still, she ignored it.
She had to.
Because if she allowed her mind to become lost in the scent of their mingling blood, what came next would be … well, she wouldn’t be able to come back from that. Instinct would take over—it already was; she could barely breathe from the sudden need that surged through her bloodstream to make her hot and hazy—and she would be fucked.
You already are.
Thrumming deep in her veins, she could already sense that change.
Arelle fought it.
So fucking hard.
Like the storms in the sky and the unpredictable sea, everything changed in the blink of an eye. Or rather, the opening of a pair of brilliant blue eyes.
His.
He stared up at her, unblinking and wide, his mouth opening to say something … but no words came out. Only a choking sound before his hands that had previously been limp at his sides flew up to his throat. He struggled under her, his body lifting as he choked out another sound that she couldn’t understand.
Arelle’s shock kept her pinned on top of him as he grabbed at the side of his neck, his fingers digging into the three little scars there.
An
d finally …
Finally, she understood as she watched his throat pulse every time his chest heaved upward like he was trying to take in a breath.
His gills.
She bet his body looked different on the outside. But inside, it still worked just like hers and every other person of the sea.
Arelle didn’t even think about it.
Not what it would mean.
Not what might happen …
None of it.
She simply slipped her hands in with his, her fingernails digging deep into the scars there. Filed into sharp points that she could use to eat, hunt or protect herself if needed, her fingernails tore through the soft tissue at his throat, ripping open the scars. For the first time, he made a sound. Or rather, grunted out in the pain she caused him, but she couldn’t stop. Not yet. Not until … there it was. She felt the water and blood pour through her fingers, and she breathed deeply.
Because she could smell him.
And her.
Purple mixed with thick red.
He exhaled.
Water and blood poured down from his opened gills.
They could sew them shut on the outside, but that didn’t change the inside.
It didn’t change who he was.
What he was.
Every part of Arelle knew it, now.
Every single part of her could feel it.
Their blood mingled.
Purple and red turned maroon.
She shuddered on top of him when he stared up at her—her throat flexed with every swallow, her heart racing as though the organ were about to come right out of her chest. Each shift of her hips on top of him reminded her that she was entirely naked, and nothing separated the softness of her sex from the rigidness of his cock.
He couldn’t possibly know it.
Couldn’t understand that change in the air.
The bond had begun.
They could shed their blood. Separately. Together. It could mix all it wanted, but when the mating came into play, it began something that was almost impossible to stop. There was no going back now.
She’d not meant for this.
Arelle was still powerless to stop it—not that she was sure she would even want to.
• • •
Eryx
Pain.
From the moment Eryx came back to consciousness and opened his eyes, the only thing he had felt was just pain. From the bottoms of his feet, to the very top of his fucking head. At first, he thought the pain was just that widespread. He quickly realized it was localized to his legs, chest, and throat.
The second thing he realized?
He was staring at her.
The mermaid.
The mermaid.
And she’d saved his life.
As the air sucked into his lungs with every fast pull, tasting of dampness and earth, water poured from the aching gills in the side of his throat. It was a strange feeling—the sensation of them opening for him like that, as natural as breathing.
Because shit …
That’s what he was doing.
Breathing.
He should have been amazed by that. Fascinated how the parts of him that he’d taken from his mother helped to keep him from drowning just long enough for this mermaid to save him, but he couldn’t focus on that.
Not when he stared at her.
Not when that smell in the air had him sucking in another lungful. It tasted like nothing that had ever touched his tongue before, and he was sure he wouldn’t ever find anything like it again. His gaze darted from the shimmering spattering of blue-green scales at her temples to the backdrop of the black sky behind her.
The whipping branches of trees.
Falling rain.
Swirling clouds.
Eryx swore the air around her shifted when her thighs tightened around his waist. She moved again, and he fucking choked on the words that burst from his lips without any warning, “Stop moving like that.”
He needed to think.
To breathe.
But wasn’t he?
Her wide violet eyes stared down at him, and for a second, he was stuck staring again. At all her nakedness, the softness of her curves and the way her wet, red hair fell over her bare breasts. Her nipples that had already hardened into little peaks.
Was that because of the cold air?
Or because she could feel his hard cock pressed against the soft cleft between her thighs?
She looked … wild.
Not because she was naked, or even because those crazy curls of hers had started to frizz at the ends to make them curl even more. But rather, the look in her eyes. The way her pupils had blown so huge and dark. It was in the parting of those red lips, and the way her tongue peeked out to wet the seam that had him grunting out another sound.
His words didn’t seem to want to come.
Just noises.
Sounds.
He felt like an animal. Like the scent of her, and the sight of her streaked with bright purple and red—their blood, he knew—was enough to make him want to put her on her back, spread her wide, and split her open with his cock until the only thing he could hear was the sounds of her pleasure while she cut lines down his back with those same nails she’d used to allow him to breathe.
And Gods …
He knew that was wrong.
Everything about that was so entirely wrong.
He hated this creature.
This woman.
He’d spend months obsessing and dreaming about the things he wanted to do to her once he had caught her. And here she was atop him, waiting, like he might tell her to get on her knees and she would do exactly that.
Why did his mind feel so light?
So high?
She shifted again, her next inhale of air catching in her throat when his hands landed hard on her hips. His fingers flexed, digging into soft flesh that felt entirely like the curves of a woman. Oh, she didn’t say a thing.
She also didn’t have to.
He swore he could still hear her.
Somehow.
It’s the thrall—the blood.
The smear of red blood on her upper lip disappeared when her tongue licked it away. The guttural sound that followed from Eryx had her shuddering on top of him. He grabbed tighter to her hips, worried she might move.
And if she did …
Don’t let her go.
His thoughts screamed loud enough to scare him.
“Careful,” he breathed.
Her chin quivered.
Speak, he wanted to demand. Tell me something—tell me why.
Instead, her hand laid flat to his stomach and she moved again. A little rock of her hips. Back, and forth, and then back again. Although this time, he thought her intent in doing so was quite clear, considering the way she shivered and the low moan that fell from her trembling lips. There was no hiding how she rubbed herself against him, those needy but raw sounds following each time she rocked her hips. She made him harder with how unashamed she was while she willingly showed him her lust.
Women were trained to think they should all seem demure and innocent. Eryx hated that and quite enjoyed breaking women of the notion that only pureness was attractive.
He liked a woman wild.
A woman like the one on top of him.
He would have leaned up.
Would have went to her.
She came down to him, instead,
Her hands still splayed to his chest.
Each breath came slow and measured.
Her nose grazed his; her closeness had him stilling even as she started a slow, circular motion that had her hips grinding against him. A heat shot up his spine when the slickness of her slit drove into his cock over and over again. Then, she switched that rhythm from circles to lines. Faster and faster until a groan pushed out of his lips that should have warned her what was about to come fast.
Him, that was.
All the while, the water pelted down faster and har
der than ever. Drenching her hair into ringlets that plastered to golden skin. Dribbling in trails down the planes of features that had haunted his dreams for what felt like as long as he could remember.
There had been a him before the day in the water orchard.
And a him after that moment in time.
Everything that came before seemed irrelevant for more reasons than he cared to name. He’d stopped caring about the life he had before, to fulfill the need for vengeance. Even if it meant his own eventual end.
So, yes, he stared up at a face he felt he couldn’t ever forget when it was permanently burned into the back of his mind. Except in those moments, he didn’t stare at it with only hatred, but in awe and lust.
The trails of rain on her face caught the smears of her blood, slipping over smudges and taking the purple to his redder life source streaked on her chin from her own hand. It fell from her face to his, their taste hitting his tongue with a hint of the rain it mixed with.
Finally, he found that taste he’d thought he wouldn’t ever be able to find again. It was them. Their blood mixed, and it tasted of the Paradise where every God his father promised was real—if only he’d believe—lived.
He couldn’t get enough.
Of her in his mouth.
Of her body taking from his.
All those sounds fell from her lips as she started pushing her cunt harder into him. With every flex of her hips, she had him ready to blow. Eryx’s head fell back as the heat in his cock curled into his stomach, sending his back arching up from the ground as her hands found his throat. She squeezed, riding him while he came from nothing more than her pussy rubbing against his dick. His seed spilled hot and thick to his wet stomach.
“Yes, fuck.”
His words came out strained and clipped, thick with his pleasure but short all the same. Still close enough to him that all he could see was her face, he closed the distance between them. While the sparks of pleasure still had spurts of hot cum spilling from his cock, he really got a taste of her when their mouths slammed together.
All that water and blood between them made him higher than ever. The need to take from her the way she’d just done to him became impossible to ignore as her hands drifted down from his throat. Even as he yanked her down, flipping them around so roughly her back had to have stung from the uneven, harsh ground, her fingertips glided down his chest.
