Surrendered to the Sea

by Dessa Lux

  Devon could barely hold his gaze steady on Lir’s eyes. They were a clear, sunlit blue now. He could feel the weight of Lir’s attention, but it was like a thick blanket wrapping around him, not a weight holding him down.

  “Just... something nice, I guess,” Devon tried. “We say mostly... sweet things, or little things. Good things. Honey, or sweetheart, like that.”

  Lir wrinkled his nose and leaned in closer—close enough to get Devon’s scent, which meant Devon got to breathe in his, salty and electric and green.

  “You’re not sweet,” Lir observed. “But you are good. And small, maybe, but not little. Important, and...”

  Lir glanced up at the cloud again, and his smile quirked into something mischievous. “Sunlight? How’s that.”

  Devon thought about telling him that humans would say sunshine, but Lir had just said he was important and Devon’s throat was almost too tight to breathe. He smiled back instead and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” Lir said, folding one hand around Devon’s and tugging gently. “Come here, sunlight, you need something to eat.”

  *

  Lir found clothes for him, dressing him in a soft t-shirt and loose board shorts. There was a tent with an awning, and Lir set it up and anchored it. As he did, Devon noticed that the island had gotten bigger—he would have thought he was imagining it, but the new part was all green and slimy like low tide.

  “I’ll get more sand up to cover it,” Lir told him, when he saw Devon looking. “I... I know it’s not really a proper island, but I can make it better. Is there anything you’d like?”

  Devon blinked at him, and then down at the slimy green margin of the island. Lir was making it. Not just wishing it up with a twitch of his nose, but... building it, for Devon. Speechless, Devon shrugged and then shook his head. “It’s... it’s really nice. Thank you.”

  Lir didn’t look entirely convinced, and Devon didn’t know how to make it sound better, or how to explain what it meant to him that Lir was building him an island without making it sound like... He didn’t know what it would sound like, exactly, but he knew he would probably get it wrong.

  “Thank you,” Devon repeated helplessly. “I... it’s nice.”

  No, he’d said that already, now it would sound like a lie. “I’m going to just.” Devon turned and went into the tent, only to realize that now he couldn’t see the island Lir was making for him, and seemed to be hiding from Lir himself. But he couldn’t just turn around and come back out, and he...

  “Sunlight?” Lir’s voice was soft, just outside. “I found some things for in the tent.”

  Devon covered his eyes with both hands and his voice shook helplessly as he said, “Okay.”

  Lir came inside then, arms full of blankets and pillows. He had put on his own pair of shorts, and it made him look more real somehow, more immediate and breathtakingly gorgeous and more obviously someone who Devon should be grateful just to get to be near. He shouldn’t be taking care of Devon, and he was bound to tire of it soon.

  Devon’s eyes filled with tears. He ducked his head, trying to hide them, and Lir knelt down and began spreading out the bedding, fluffing up the pillows.

  “Lie down, sunlight,” Lir said softly. “Shh, see how soft. Lie down now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Devon whispered, even while he was letting Lir guide him down. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Shh,” Lir repeated. “You didn’t do anything wrong, sunlight, you just need to rest. Lie down.”

  Lir was putting him to bed like a child, and Devon probably should have resented it, should have insisted that it wasn’t even dark out yet—but the blankets were warm and soft and smelled a bit like land instead of the endless sea stretching away in every direction. Devon let himself be tucked in, and scooted a little closer when Lir stayed there beside him, letting his eyes close while Lir’s hand stroked over his hair.

  *

  Devon tried not to think, after that. He tried not to wonder, or question, or worry. He was on Lir’s island, and Lir looked after him. He ate when Lir gave him food, and slept inside the tent or sat outside under the awning. A second tent appeared before long, halfway across the island from the first, with separate curtained spaces inside for a shower and toilet, complete with nicely rippled toilet paper.

  The first time he used that tent, Devon stared for a moment at the toilet and the shower drain, wondering exactly where the water went, and where it came from, and then he shook his head. Lir was a sea god; clearly he could handle a little domestic plumbing if he wanted to.

  Lir was around sometimes—to present him with food, to encourage him to go to bed or to get up, to call Devon sunlight and smile and run a gentle hand over his hair. Devon should have been happy, probably. He smiled, he knew that he smiled—he couldn’t not smile at Lir, who was gorgeous and kind and just kept giving him things.

  But none of it was exactly real. None of it was a life. Even the sight of Lir fully clothed and peering intently into a brand new laptop—as Devon woke to find him once—was dreamlike and impossible. All of it was.

  But it was a nice dream, brighter and warmer than the fog he’d been living in before. It was unimaginably better than Devon had probably deserved to disappear into after throwing himself off his parents’ rented yacht. He let himself drift along through it, trying not to think or feel too much about any of it. Wolves were supposed to be good at living in the present, enjoying what they had; maybe he had finally learned to truly embrace his wolf.

  He tried to think of who he could tell that accomplishment to. Lir wouldn’t understand, and no one else would really care.

  Still, Lir might smile at him, tousle his hair and call him sunlight, or scratch behind his ears if he took his wolf form after telling him. Devon was sitting under the awning when he thought of it, and he looked around to see if Lir was there. Often he wasn’t, off doing... whatever a sea god did when he wasn’t amusing himself with his new werewolf pet.

  He wasn’t far today, though, standing at the edge where black sand gave way to slimy green out past the bathroom tent.

  Devon pushed to his feet and walked over to Lir, who looked up and grinned at him when he was halfway there. Devon’s steps faltered, but Lir beckoned him closer with a quick gesture.

  “I was just thinking I should ask you about this,” Lir said as Devon came closer. “I want to make terrain on the island, so it isn’t so flat and boring. What would you think of a ridge along here, curving around? It would block the wind a little.”

  Devon turned his face into the breeze, which he’d never noticed becoming strong enough to qualify as wind. Lir must be doing that, sheltering the island from weather as well as making it float.

  Devon nodded, picturing it, then said hesitantly, “If it’s just...”

  He stopped. Lir must have thought of that. He hadn’t asked Devon what to make the ridge out of.

  But Lir was looking at him with apparent interest. “Yes? I’ve been trying to look things up, but I’m not very good at Google yet—it’s funny how many things I search for and find pictures of mating instead of what I was looking for.”

  Devon’s whole body flushed hot at the thought that Lir had been looking at porn on that laptop while Devon slept. He felt himself getting wet, his nipples tightening, and he wanted—

  Devon squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.

  “Devon?” Lir stepped closer, bringing with him his rich, strong scent—not unfamiliar anymore, not strange, just Lir, powerful and alpha and good—

  “Fuck,” Devon muttered. “Oh, fuck, I’m stupid.”

  His season was coming on. He’d lost all track of the days, but it had to be pretty well arrived, which meant that any day now he’d go into full heat. And he hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t even wondered what he meant to do alone on this island with this gorgeous alpha sea god.

  Underneath feeling stupid, though, he felt... excited. Which was stupid.

  “Sunlight? I don’t think you are. Not every lan
d-dweller needs to know—”

  Devon shook his head. “It’s not—about the island. It’s about me. About... mating.”

  “Oh,” Lir said.

  Devon could feel Lir looking him over. He opened one eye just enough to see Lir looking him up and down thoughtfully, and he felt his cock stirring and his opening getting even wetter as Lir looked at him.

  “Do you... require...?”

  Devon bit down hard on his lip and tried to think. He felt like he’d been asleep for days—which he more or less had—and his brain was gluey and blank now. “It’s... for werewolves, for ones like me—I’m an omega, do you know what that means?”

  “I’ve... seen that word. On some of the mating videos.”

  “Did you see the word heat? Because that’s going to happen to me soon, and I...”

  He didn’t know what to say. I want it, I want you, please take care of this too, please just keep making everything okay so I never have to think.

  “Heat means... not just mating—not just sex,” Lir said slowly. “Heat means... breeding. Your receptive time is coming?”

  Devon winced and nodded, making himself meet Lir’s eyes. “I... yes. If I... if someone... I could...”

  He could hardly speak, thinking of that possibility, a new little life growing inside him, one he could love for sure, one he could care for and do things right for. Except that he couldn’t even take care of himself, couldn’t even fetch his own food or remember his own cycles.

  “Do you... want that?” Lir asked. “Do you need another werewolf? Do you...” Lir’s voice altered, and he turned half away from Devon. “Do you need to go back to land?”

  “No,” Devon said, too sharply. The very thought of landing back with his parents right now made him want to hide.

  They wouldn’t waste any time being shocked—werewolves survived all kinds of things that would surely kill humans, so they might be holding out hope for him even weeks after he’d disappeared in open ocean. Werewolves lost at sea, or in the cold, turned up alive sometimes after years; a few weeks wouldn’t impress his parents. Everything would go right back to the way it had been, and they would ask endless questions, suppress his heat or sedate him through it. That always left him feeling even worse than the exhausting empty feeling of getting through a heat alone.

  He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to leave this charmed place. Even if it was no kind of real life, even if Lir could never be a real mate to him like he wanted, Devon didn’t want to leave him.

  Lir didn’t say anything for so long that Devon had to look at him again. Lir’s eyes were gray-green and dark, intent on Devon. Lir stepped in closer, and Devon stood his ground even as his whole body responded—Lir was suddenly entirely present, entirely focused on Devon, and their bodies were more than just the shapes they happened to be wearing.

  “Do you want me?” Lir breathed softly, one arm curled around Devon without quite touching him.

  Devon nodded frantically, leaning in and tilting his head up, and Lir’s arm closed around him, crushing him against the warm, muscular strength of Lir’s body.

  Even then, Lir didn’t kiss him, not quite. He brushed their noses together first, his breath tickling across Devon’s lips, and Devon was startled into a little laugh. That was when Lir kissed him for the first time, open-mouthed and smiling. Lir’s tongue dove into his mouth, strong and wet and the faintest bit salty.

  Devon’s laugh turned into a helpless moan, and just like that the kiss was over, leaving Devon tingling all over and longing for more.

  “Do you want...” Lir’s eyes were on his, the darkest Devon had ever seen them, but Lir was holding him, and Devon remembered Lir’s grip, Lir’s body, holding him up in the dark water the night he almost drowned. He had nothing to fear from a dark sea, not while he belonged to Lir.

  Then Lir moved one of his hands to Devon’s belly, flat and smooth for now.

  “Do you want this?” Lir asked. “Sunlight, do you want me to give you this, when your heat comes?”

  He couldn’t really keep Lir, Devon knew that. Even if Lir kept him on this magical island for the rest of his life, a sea god wouldn’t stay this interested in some werewolf who couldn’t even take care of himself. But if he had Lir’s child, Devon wouldn’t be alone. And he could love his baby, even if it had tentacles sometimes, and Lir... Lir would take some kind of interest in a half-sea god child, even if Devon himself was nothing special. So he wouldn’t completely forget Devon, either.

  Devon couldn’t speak; he only nodded, pushing up on his toes. Lir took the hint and kissed him again, and this time he didn’t stop until long after Devon had forgotten everything but being kissed.

  ***

  Chapter 7

  Lir was starting to see that this business of caring for a land-dweller was really complicated.

  He had managed to keep Devon fed and sheltered properly, and had even worked out how to use the computer Caroline had delivered along with the other essentials. It had revealed that keeping a werewolf alive wasn’t an especially impressive accomplishment—there were actually only a few ways to kill them, and they could get extremely close to death without quite dying, especially in cold conditions.

  Keeping a werewolf happy and healthy, on the other hand, seemed to involve an infinite and frequently contradictory list of requirements; all in all he had earned his many breaks to study those fascinating images of mating.

  It had been obvious that Devon was not presently receptive to mating—the smell of him didn’t have that kind of richness, that openness. He seemed to be in the grip of some indefinable sickness, so Lir had focused on caring properly for him, only leaving him for short periods of time to look in on the rest of his domain and to continue working on the island.

  Still, thoughts of mating had returned again and again, and he had found himself imagining what it would be like if—perhaps when—Devon’s receptive time came. His own land-dweller shape seemed to please Devon, and judging by what he had seen on the computer, he had all the necessary parts to be compatible. So maybe, when the time came, when Devon was ready—if Lir took proper care of him, so that he could regain his health and become ready...

  George had Caroline, after all. Perhaps Lir could keep Devon in the same way, not simply as someone who had given himself, but as a... a mate, a spouse. Someone who stayed with him. Someone who Lir could share pleasure with, at the appropriate times, and more than just pleasure. Companionship. Life.

  And then, in mere minutes, Devon not only told Lir that his receptive time was coming and that he’d like Lir to share it with him, but asked Lir to give him a child.

  A child.

  Lir could hardly wrap his thoughts around that possibility. He thought that George and Caroline had some offspring, though none born at all recently. They had been more like Caroline, Lir thought, and he didn’t think he would mind if his own child with Devon should be more land-dweller than creature of the sea. He could keep growing the island to make more room—there was certainly no end to the plastic debris his brothers delivered to him, so he had plenty of material to work with.

  But when Lir looked on the computer to see what a child would need—what Devon would need while carrying a child—what Devon would need during heat...

  Lir set down the computer and slipped into the sea while Devon slept, letting himself dissolve into his domain, vast and varied and wild. It all went along without Lir having to really do anything at all. Things mated, gave birth, and died, every hour and every day, requiring nothing special from him for any of those processes. Everything just... happened.

  Didn’t it?

  But Devon wasn’t a part of his domain in the same way. Devon was a person, who only belonged to Lir because he had given himself. And people were different; people were complicated. People were unique. The fact that other people mated and gave birth and died elsewhere made no difference when the question was Devon desiring mating, Devon carrying a child and giving birth, Devon...

/>   Lir was back at the island feeling no more certain than he had when he fled into the sea. Devon was awake now, sitting under the awning of the tent and eating one of the little lemon-flavored cakes from the food chest.

  It was the first time Lir had seen Devon eating without Lir bringing the food to him, and he knew, logically, that it was a sign of improved health. Still, he was also aware that he had been somewhere else when Devon woke up hungry, leaving him to find food on his own.

  Devon waved at him shyly and said, “Sorry, it’s—I’ll be really hungry all the time for a day or so now. Body’s saving up reserves for heat.”

  That meant that the heat must be taxing, or somehow a time of deprivation; Lir knew of many creatures who built up internal reserves to survive winter, but he’d had the impression that Devon’s heat would not last so long—only a day and a night, or two at most.

  On the other hand, Devon’s slim frame didn’t give him much room to pack in reserve energy—or much margin for going hungry.

  “Do you need anything else?” Lir came and sat beside him, opening the food chest and peering worriedly inside. A crate had bobbed up to the island yesterday with extra food and supplies for preparing foods that needed cooking, but Lir hadn’t experimented with the complicated stuff yet.

  “I want to provide whatever you need,” Lir added, looking back at Devon, who was looking down at the half-eaten cake. “Not just food, I know there are a lot of... things that you probably need. And for later, I know babies need lots of things.”

  Devon smiled a little, looking up and meeting Lir’s gaze. “Have you been looking at the internet? Because that’s gonna tell you that you need everything in the world, so they can sell you stuff. My—” Devon’s expression changed and he looked down again, but continued speaking. “My nanny used to say, as long as you’ve got a roof to put over their heads, something to feed them, and something to catch their messes, everything else is extra.”

  Lir looked around the island, glancing up at the awning overhead. He didn’t think it counted as a roof in the way Devon meant.