A Merman's Tail: A dark gay retelling of The Little Mermaid (Grim and Sinister Delights Book 14)

by M. D. Gregory

  A Merman’s Tale

  Grim and Sinister Delights #14

  Meg Bawden

  A Merman’s Tail © M.D. Gregory October 2020

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, M.D. Gregory. Copyright protection extends to all excerpts and previews by the author included in this book.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. The author or publisher is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Authors work their asses off to bring you the stories you enjoy reading. Spread the love, not the files.

  Contents

  Credits or It Takes a Team to Raise a Book

  Warning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Thank you

  The Grim And Sinister Delights Series

  Credits or It Takes a Team to Raise a Book

  Editing by Kiyle Brosius

  Early Reading by Kortland Wood.

  Cover Design by Mibl Art

  Ebook Formatting by Rainbow Danger Designs

  Warning

  These books are for adult readers who enjoy stories where the lines between right and wrong are blurred. High heat, twisted and tantalizing, these are not for the faint of heart.

  Blurb

  Lyric waits twenty-five years to rise to the water’s surface with his father’s permission.

  When he finally breaches the ocean, he unexpectedly sees a most breathtaking human. A rogue wave destroys the human’s boat, and Lyric saves him, taking him to land. Since that fateful day, Lyric longs to find his human once more. He is even prepared to make a great sacrifice to finally meet him again.

  Ethan Turmont comes from a family of fantasy hunters, or at least that’s what the locals call them. His father has always been adamant that mermaids exist, and he has searched the ocean for years, looking for the mythical creature that made them the laughing stock of their town. A night out in the boat leaves Ethan fatherless after a storm, but it makes him as determined as his father once was to solve the oceanic mystery. He knows a merman saved his life, once upon a time, even if his friends think he’s gone as crazy as his father.

  When Ethan meets a voiceless man, there’s something familiar about him, and he’s more beautiful than any woman Ethan has admired. He’s never been attracted to a man before. Between his newfound desire for someone of the same gender, and his obsession with finding the merman who saved his life—so he can take his tail as proof—Ethan has a new view on life.

  Grim and Sinister Delights is a dark romance series based on classic fairy tales and stories. You will find standalone tales of gay romance that range in darkness and kinks. If you dare to take the challenge, read them all to find yourself lost in a classic that you think you know. These stories are for adult readers and may contain morally ambiguous themes.

  Chapter One

  Lyric

  Today I realized the beautiful shade of red that blood shone under the sunlight, almost sparkling like the treasure that lay beneath the ocean in the destroyed human boats near my old home. The liquid flowed darker than I’d imagined, though, to the point it looked nearly black. I cocked my head from left and then to the right, but it didn’t matter from what angle I looked, the blood was still the same color.

  Ethan turned toward me, smiling, and my heart skipped a beat. My belly turned warm, a sensation I’d quickly become accustomed to over the last three months I’d been living with him. Everything he did made my body react in ways I’d never thought possible. I had no experiences with other mermen to compare it to, but if I had, I suspected it would never have felt like this.

  “What do you think, my merman whisperer?” Ethan murmured, voice deep and raw. His dark hair was windswept, eyes unnaturally silver, and pure happiness settled on his handsome face. He was perfect in every way.

  A shiver slid down my spine, and I shuddered, staring at the merman between Ethan’s feet. The area around us was covered in blood, but it didn’t all belong to Zolo, who’d been a tormenter of mine for years. He glared up at me from where he lay on the floor of the luxury boat, his green-scaled tail flicking in annoyance. Blood coated his forehead and the side of his face, some dribbling from a cut on his lip where Ethan had punched him to stop him from moving. His blond locks were also coated with the sticky substance, and his chest, covered in fine blond hairs, had a large gash across it from where the knife had sliced his skin.

  Aza lay beside him, eyes wide, but he was as dead inside as he was out. His tail—a gold that had caused many of my brothers to be jealous—was gone. Sawed off. Ethan had already stored his tail away like the precious possession it was. My human liked to call it proof.

  The stench of the blood and guts filled the air and it was putrid. I couldn’t help but scrunch my nose up at it.

  Zolo yipped, or at least, it sounded like yipping to Ethan. He couldn’t understand what Zolo said, but even as a human myself now, I could distinguish the meaning of his words.

  “Lyric, you traitor. Is this what you’ve become? A killer?” Zolo arched upward, but Ethan snarled at him, and his fist went flying into Zolo’s temple. Zolo crashed to the floor again, and he groaned. The sound was music to my ears.

  Tilting my head, I smiled. I couldn’t speak because I’d struck a bargain and chosen legs over my voice, but Zolo saw my joy. With the way I glowed with excitement, he had to have realized.

  “How could you do this to your own people?”

  Easily, I wanted to say. The smell of salt in the air made me lean back against the edge of the boat. I sat on a bench and it was the ideal spot to watch what Ethan was doing to the two mermen.

  “Lyric! What would your brothers say? Your father?” Zolo’s voice had always annoyed me. It was loud. Abrupt. Domineering. He acted as though he was the most important being in existence. He was loved under the ocean, in Atlantia, but not on this boat. In the human world, he was obsolete.

  Here, I had the power.

  Ethan slammed his fist against Zolo’s face again, and he cried out in agony. The sound made my toes curl in delight.

  “Shut up, you piece of shit,” Ethan sneered. He might not have understood what Zolo was saying, but I had learned Ethan hated the sounds mermen made.

  My human smiled and stood, stretching his shoulders. His hands were covered in blood, a mixture of Aza’s and Zolo’s, and he’d never looked more handsome. He grabbed a length of rope and expertly tied Zolo’s wrists together, securing the end tightly to a ring on the boat. Zolo let out a hiss. The noise earned him another punch, this one to the stomach.


  Ethan straightened and moved toward me, and like the good little slave I was to him, I leaned forward expectantly. He touched my cheek and then ran his fingertips along my jaw, smearing blood across my face. The lifeblood of my enemies. My bullies. Mermen I’d hated for as long as I could remember. Then, he traced my lips with his thumb, and I darted out my tongue to taste the crimson fluid.

  My human smiled, and my belly fluttered. “You’re so beautiful, Boy.”

  Boy. It’s what he called me because he didn’t know my name. I’d decided early on that I preferred Boy to the name my father had given me. Tilting my head farther back, I plumped my mouth in his direction, and the smirk he gave me was worth it. He leaned down to capture my lips, and between his taste and that of the blood, I was floating high in ecstasy. He held my face between his hands, and I whimpered into his mouth, the only noise I could make outside of moans and grunts.

  Ethan slid his hands to my shoulders and then down my arms, tracing my body like I was clay he was molding, until he had me on my feet. His palms found my asscheeks, squeezing.

  My cock twitched, already half hard. To have the organ that human males used to mate had been a new experience for me, but I’d decided from the first time I saw one that I liked it. Mating was much more interesting in human form.

  “Fuck you,” Zolo hissed, swinging his tail. I hadn’t realized how close he was to us, and he managed to strike Ethan in the back. My human crashed into me, and I spun to avoid spilling over the side. I didn’t grab Ethan in time, though, and he went flying into the water.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The waves crashed against the boat, making it rock, and even though it was sunny, the ocean was wild today. I grabbed the side of the boat, searching.

  I couldn’t see him.

  Ethan, I saved you once; I can save you again. This time, though, I didn’t have a tail. I was human and not nearly as powerful as I had been as a merman.

  Ethan, where are you?

  Chapter Two

  Lyric

  Around a year ago….

  I stared at the object in my hand and the weird shape of it. I’d never quite seen anything like it before. Long and round at the tip with two circular objects hanging from underneath one end, I couldn’t quite understand what the people above the water used this for.

  “Do you know what that is?” Pru asked, his waist length hair dancing in the water around his head. I once had hair as long as his before I sheared it off with a blade I’d found in father’s hunting weapon vault. Now mine barely reached past my shoulders

  “What?” I asked, turning the human object in my hand.

  “It’s what humans use to mate.” Pru swam around me, flicking his emerald tail like he always did when he wanted to show off. His scales were prettier than mine, and they sparkled like lost treasure under the sunlight that filtered through the water.

  “I don’t understand.” I stared at the human contraption and turned it around in my hands again. How did humans mate with this? It was pink and almost see-through.

  “It’s a phallus!” Pru said, chuckling. He did a swirl in front of me before he swam closer and pointed at the tip of the long part. “That’s where their essence comes out. It impregnates their females.”

  “Where?” I stared down at the end of it, squinting. “I don’t see any essence.”

  “And this….” Pru wrapped his hands around the two round sections of the phallus, squeezing them. “This is where the essence is created.”

  “How?” I turned it around in my hands again, but it seemed solid.

  “What you have in your hand is fake, though. The real thing is connected to the human males. Here.” Pru patted himself just below his belly, near where his tail began. “That’s why they wear pants. So they don’t spray it everywhere and impregnate all the human women.”

  “That sounds scary,” I murmured, attempting to decide whether I should drop the object or not, but it was human, and I always kept everything that I found from above in my treasure box.

  “They are. Human males are very terrifying. Alas, it’s why I don’t visit the surface often. They are scary beings, Lyric. You don’t want to go up there.”

  I did, though, and had since I’d found my first piece of treasure. Mother explained that it was a doll, and even though one of the legs had been ripped off and the hair was twisted and matted, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. That was when I’d first wished I had legs, like the one the doll had, except I wanted two and not just one. I’d told Mother that, and she’d laughed and patted my head before telling me that I could never be human.

  “What is this, then?” I asked, holding up the object toward my older brother. “Why do you think they have something shaped like their breeding tool?”

  “I don’t know.” Pru shrugged, his green eyes glimmering in mischief. “Humans are strange.”

  I shook my head. As far as I was concerned, they were interesting—a mystery I wanted to solve.

  “It’s your birth date today,” Pru said, as though I wasn’t aware that I’d finally turned twenty-five summers old. “Are you going to do it?”

  I knew what he was talking about, of course: the journey. When our kind turned twenty-five, we finally had the right to travel to the surface and feel the sun on our faces for the first time, breathe in the air that the humans used. We could never stay above water for long, but we were taught that as soon as our lungs hurt, it was time to return to the depths, away from the dangers that were humans. Our elders told us stories of the humans, and how they killed without mercy. They told us to always be wary of them, to hide whenever we saw them in their floating contraptions, but I’d felt anything but fear when I listened to the stories. I wanted to meet one and to understand how they lived their lives. I wanted to be one of them.

  “Yes. I’m supposed to meet Grandfather at the throne room soon.”

  “Now, actually,” Pru said, grinning. He’d always had such a beautiful face, with high cheekbones, sparkling eyes, and a pretty mouth. The men and women of Atlantia loved him, though not as much as they loved our other brother, Crown Prince Wily. Our eldest brother was the epitome of merfolk. He was regal in all the right ways. “Grandfather sent me to get you.”

  “Oh.” I stared down at the object in my hand, the phallus, and frowned. I didn’t want to lose it, and if any other merfolk saw it, they’d throw it in the Pits: the darkest and deepest trench of the sea. They hated everything to do with humans. “I’ll take this to my treasure box, and then I’ll go.”

  Pru rolled his eyes. “Why do you keep their possessions?”

  “Because they are beautiful,” I murmured, running my hand down the phallus and over the circular ball shapes attached.

  Pru waved his hand. “If you insist, hurry up. You know Grandfather doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He’s busy.”

  I nodded and didn’t waste any time, flicking my tail to propel me forward. I swam as hard and fast as I could, heading in the direction of my human treasures that I kept secure in an old wreckage not far from Atlantia. The merfolk avoided this area, claiming the humans would come back for it eventually. It’d been here since I was born, and still they had not come for it.

  I sneaked through a hole in the wood and it creaked. Sharks sliced through the water around the old floating device—the humans called it a boat—but they never worried me. They had enough food without worrying about the merfolk, and they were used to us being around. This was their home as much as ours.

  Heading toward the treasure chest—it’s what Mother had told me they called it—I opened the lid and stared at all the human possessions I’d collected over the years. My prizes ranged from the balls they kicked, to things they ate with, to sparkly coins. I’d obtained knowledge of what the objects were over the years, too, by talking to family and other merfolk who’d seen the humans, and even though they hated talking about the world above, they’d tell me so I would leave them alone.

  I placed th
e possession on top of all my other treasures and smiled. There. Another human piece for my collection. I didn’t know the reason they had the phallus, but I was sure someone would know. I’d ask around later. Mind made up, I closed the lid to the chest and turned, sneaking back out of the hole. I didn’t get far before someone tackled me, and I did a twirl, the breath knocked out of my lungs.

  Huffing, I spun with my fists up, ready to fight. Familiar laughter made my eyes narrow as my gaze settled on Zolo, one of the mermen I hated the most. He laughed harder, the lines around his eyes becoming prominent as he turned to his friends and pointed at me.

  “Look at the human lover. Such a papayah.”

  His friends sniggered, and I gritted my teeth at his use of our old language. The word he’d used wasn’t spoken often because it was insulting in all the worst ways, but it was something Zolo had called me since we were younglings. I didn’t understand it at first, not until he’d called me the name in front of my brothers, who’d gasped in shock. It was Pru who had attacked Zolo, and he was punished for it. No one believed that Zolo, as perfect and charming as he was, would call me that.

  “What are you doing?” I snapped, crossing my arms. “My grandfather wants to see me.”

  “Ah yes, it’s time for you to go to the surface.” Zolo shook his head, his long blond hair—darker than mine—floating around his shoulders. “I bet you’ll like it up there, human lover. Why don’t you just go to the sea witch and make yourself human for good? It’d save us from seeing your papayah face again.”