In the Grotto Lyx
In the Grotto
Lyx
Lyx almost doesn’t return to the grotto.
It’s clear Cav is playing some game. She turns the memory over in her mind until it’s as smooth as sea glass. No matter how sharp the image of Cav is, her brain grows foggy when she remembers the leaf falling away, the dip in his voice, the look in his eye that makes her entire body clench.
She digs her fingernails into her arms. Focus. He’s doing this for a reason. What is he trying to accomplish? To confuse her enough to keep him alive?
It won’t make a difference. She resolves herself to that, but she still needs somewhere to take out this frustration. Fortunately, the perfect target sails into her territory.
A ship of hunters floats past with harpoon guns at the ready.
Lyx makes quick work of them. They’re so easy to fool when she lounges on a rock, pressing her breasts together and kicking up her feet.
None of them are prepared for her. There is no wax stuffed in their ears, no chewed plant to make them immune to her song.
It’s almost insulting when they succumb to her, leaving behind a spreading stain of blood in the water.
They all taste the same. She can’t convince herself to take more than a few bites of their gamy, stale flesh, so instead, she follows the spoils of their shipwreck to a nearby island.
There’s a trunk of dry clothing, an assortment of bottles, soggy books and gold coins, so she dumps what she wants into a bucket and leaves the rest behind.
When she arrives in the grotto, Cav smiles like he’s been waiting for her.
Only her eyes peek above the water. She blows a stream of irritated bubbles and swims closer until she’s obscured by the rocky ledge. She raises her mouth of sharp teeth. “Turn around.”
Damn pirate. It’s like he can’t help himself, leaning forward to get a closer look.
“I said, turn around!” She darts closer to the ledge, heart tumbling like she’s not the predator here. “And shut your eyes, since you can’t follow the rules.”
Sheepishly, he does as he’s told. She wonders if the words, Don’t instruct me, are dancing on his tongue, but he doesn’t say them, so she grabs the bucket floating behind her and climbs out of the waves.
The water droplets on her skin fade along with her siren form.
Her most vicious parts retract, leaving behind a palatable human figure.
It surprises her that she’s almost relieved that he has only seen her like this.
It’s something she’s never felt before, but she can’t begin to examine that. She has work to do.
She deposits the bucket on the bank and stands behind Cav. His eyes are still closed, but he tilts his head back like he’s enjoying the sun. It bares his throat to the wall, delicate and fragile. She could kill him now. One broken shell would be all it would take…
But there’s a more tempting offer. Her skin grows hot, but it doesn’t stop her from running her eyes over him. She likes him like this. When she can almost pretend he’s asleep. When he’s silent. When he can’t see her. When she can look her fill.
Color has returned to his fiery skin, light playing like flames beneath his scales. His eyes crinkle at the corners, but his mouth is no longer caked and dry. His lips glisten softly, barely parting when he speaks. “May I open my eyes now?”
Her stomach flips. She tears herself away to ward off the shaky feeling in her legs. “You live to see another day.”
“As long as you will it.”
He turns to face her and reclines back against the wall. It’s too reminiscent of the last time she was here. This little bastard is trying to fuck with her, and she refuses to give him the satisfaction.
Even when she refuses to look at him, he keeps speaking. “Why don’t you let me see you in the water?”
Great Abyss, this pirate has never met a silence he enjoys.
She tries to remember why she came, returning to the bucket to pull out her netting bag.
It snags on a thick splinter and unravels one of the knots.
She makes a sound of frustration. “It would be the last thing you’d ever see.
” With her teeth, she holds one strand of the net as she works.
“No pirate sees a siren’s true form and lives to tell the tale. ”
“Well, if I’m dying anyway —”
“You are.”
“Sounds like it’d be worth it.”
Her fingers slip past each other, and the knot falls open again. Cursing, she tosses the bag to the ground. She can’t focus like this. Cav’s voice is a song she can’t get out of her head, repeating through her thoughts.
“No pirate actually wants a siren,” she snaps.
“They want a pretty girl with fins. They want a story to take home, the fantasy without the legend.” She doesn’t like how her voice sounds, brimming with some emotion she can’t place.
Slowly, she exhales. She is in control. She holds Cav’s fate in her hands.
Cooly, she turns back to him, never letting her eyes wander from his.
“But if that’s your dying wish, I’m happy to drag you down and show you. ”
What she expects is another one of his grins, but he looks almost sad. When he speaks, it’s as soft as the way he’s looking at her. “If you will it.”
Her chest tightens. She bends for the bucket again, desperate for somewhere else to look besides Cav’s face. Her fumbling fingers finally close around a shirt and trousers, and she extends the pile toward him.
Once he takes it, she busies herself with the string of fish in her bucket, but her ears perk at every sound Cav makes. She hears the waxy slip of the leaf falling to the ground, the rustle of fabric unfurling, the grunt as he works the clothes over his limbs.
“I need help with this sleeve.”
She nearly jumps when he speaks to her. Her head whips over her shoulder to where his shirt is halfway on, hung like a sash across his chest.
Despite his labored breathing, he gives her a smile. “Please, my vicious captor?”
It’s clear that simply dressing has exhausted him. No matter how he acts like this is a breeze, his health is precarious. He’s still weak. There will be no way to fight her off when she finally turns on him. They both need to remember that.
Lyx moves toward him, taking the empty sleeve between her fingers. She’s worn clothing during brief trips to nearby islands, but clothing someone else is hardly second-nature. Her eyes narrow as she inspects the garment from a distance.
He huffs a laugh. “Promise I won’t bite.”
Her glare slices into him. She extends the sleeve, forced to move in closer to aid him.
He shifts his wounded shoulder and winces as his arm struggles to find the hole.
Lyx reaches under the hem of the shirt, searching for his hand to guide him, but instead, she finds the bare skin of his rib cage.
Above that, her fingers brush the curve of his breasts.
The scales on his side twitch.
His breathing slows. Hers stops altogether. Her traitorous fingers flex with temptation, desperate to trace his curves, the muscles in his stomach, the patch of softer scales that leads down…
His skin glows beneath her touch, casting a shadow of her hand through the fabric. She swallows, finding his wrist to guide through the sleeve before she withdraws.
Her head swims. She turns her back on him, fumbling with the fish like she’s never seen them before. What is she meant to be doing? She pulls a knife from her bucket to gut them, but her hands are still trembling.
“How did you get those?” he asks. It takes too long for her to understand what he means, to realize his gaze is following the raised scars wrapped around her torso.
It’s been so long since she gave herself one that she’d nearly forgotten them. The scars are perfect impressions of her tentacles, curls and whorls embedded in her skin. “As a child.” She lifts the fin of one fish and begins to cut. “Before I knew my own strength.”
It would be a warning to anyone else. See what I’ve done to myself? Imagine what I can do to you.
But Cav doesn’t sound frightened. “Nobody taught you how to use them? Your tentacles?”
Her nose wrinkles. “Who would teach me?”
“Your parents.”
Her knife moves easily through the fish now. “That’s not how we’re born. There are no progenitors. There’s just a collision of sea foam and chaos, a bolt of lightning, a hurricane…”
She doesn’t realize how much she’s told him until the silence that comes after. It’s the first time Cav has been quiet, carefully considering her words. Her skin is tight. No one else knows how sirens come to be, and here she is, foolishly spilling secrets like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
It doesn’t matter. He won’t get a chance to share anything she tells him.
Resolutely, she rises to her feet and moves further down the bank.
A strand of dead vines climbs toward the top of the cave, straining toward the sun.
She cuts them down and returns to the shore, dumping the leaves onto the bundle of sticks like she’s seen land dwellers do. Expectantly, she looks at Cav.
He looks confused.
“You promised me fire,” she reminds him.
Another smile cracks across his face. “I did, didn’t I?
” He lowers his chest to the ground, packing dead leaves between the sticks.
Once it suffices, he curls his hands around the base and curves his mouth to blow.
At first, nothing happens. His brows knit before he tries again, producing a faint wisp of smoke.
“That’s fire?” Lyx snorts.
Cav grits his teeth and shuffles lower. “Are you the expert now?”
Something about his taunting makes her teeth drag into her lip.
She can’t tear herself away from the focus in his eyes, the pucker of his lips, the steady breath that finally bursts into flame.
It’s short-lived, but it’s enough. The dead leaves catch and spread to the sticks, leaving Cav with a smug smirk aimed directly at her.
Her nose tingles at the foreign scent, and she stuffs a stick into each fish to lean them into the fire.