Epilogue Lyx
EPILOGUE
Lyx
It’s still dark out when Cav’s tail curls around the back of Lyx’s neck, his lips soft against her hairline. “Want to watch the sunrise?”
Even half-asleep, her skin glows at the promise of the unexpected.
Cav’s smile spreads against her jaw, and that’s nearly enough to change her answer and keep her tucked against him.
It’ll be cold outside. If she listens closely, she can already hear tiny flakes pinging against the window.
She’d never seen snow before — not until Cav charted a course for the Winter Isles.
It’s one of many places he was happy to show her, one of many things he encouraged her to experience for herself.
He takes her everywhere in this old sloop. It’s weathered and worn, but it never lets them down, as if the ocean itself blesses all their journeys. Unlike Tidus’s ship, this one never feels cramped or suffocating. Instead, it’s as warm and bright as the stove crackling in the corner of the room.
Cozy. A word Lyx had never understood before. A word that feels right now.
Almost as right as being next to Cav. When they set off on their own after the fire, she tried to resist him.
Just a little. Just enough to prove to herself that she wasn’t being controlled by someone else.
She tried to make decisions without being distracted by the pools of his eyes, the tilt of his smile, and the heat of his hands.
Cav obliged her everything. He laid out maps for her to wander, setting new courses without question, happy to be guided by her whims.
They returned to the grotto once. It was overrun with broken crates and empty bottles from the slew of hunters that followed in Tidus’s wake.
Those pirates were long gone now, but Lyx felt fury rising inside her.
Of course they’d invaded siren territory, but to tarnish the only place where she had memories of Cav?
The place where they’d first been together?
Cav saw the change in her eyes. Softly, he touched her cheek before he started to clean up the bank.
After a couple of hours, the two of them had the cave looking just the way it used to.
It was like being transported back in time.
Before Tidus. Before the Indulgence. Before Lyx knew what love was.
As the sun set, she laid Cav out on the shoreline and showed him everything she wished she had the first time they were there.
They haven’t stopped sailing together. Cav looks perfect behind the wheel of this ship, like he was born to be there, wind tousling his hair while he scans the horizon for the next adventure…and his eyes always land on her.
It makes her stomach flip. At first, she feared that her hunger would slip out of control. What if happiness wasn’t enough? What if she truly needed the misery she’d always forced herself to digest?
She should never have worried. Since she’s been alone with Cav, her skin has become smooth and bright. She’s forgotten what it’s like to be hungry. In fact, she’s put on more weight, because Cav never passes up a chance to feed all her appetites.
Like now, when he pushes the quilt down her legs. She makes a sound of protest, but she allows herself to be guided out of their tousled bed and onto the snowy deck. The sudden cold is biting, but Cav’s laughter is warm, and he pulls her into his chest when he strips her of her clothing.
She returns the favor, their hands wandering each other until they’re both completely bare. There’s only moonlight between them when he steps up onto the railing and offers her his hand.
It’s familiar. They’ve been here more than once. She soaks in the memories before she slips her palm into his and steps up beside him.
Steam rises from the water below. She shivers against the wind, but Cav keeps her close and murmurs against her ear. “You looked like you were sleeping well. Must have been a good dream.”
A hum crackles through the sleep in her voice. “The image of bubbles streaming from your mouth has never lost its touch.”
His breath teases her lips. “Do all your fantasies still revolve around me?”
They do. They all do. There is not a dream she has that does not involve him. Teeth digging into her lip, she nudges him overboard, and he tugs her right after, sending them both splashing into the hot spring bay.
Salt tingles against her skin. She’s still getting used to this — returning to the ocean whenever she chooses. The water embraces her immediately, and no longer does she hide when she transforms. Now, she shows herself off for Cav’s eager eyes, surfacing as the changes overtake her.
He looks at her for a long moment, still as awe-struck as the first time.
Then he pulls her into him and kisses where her fangs protrude.
His hands curve around the billow of her tail while his own sways to keep him afloat.
It’s second-nature when his legs tangle with her tentacles before he drapes a few tendrils over his shoulder.
Lyx holds her breath at the sight of him, water dripping from his eyelashes like the ice melting around her heart.
Some days, she’s tempted to return to her old ways.
To hunt Mollo down and exact revenge. To begin another endless cycle of suffering for the sake of chaos.
But her time with Cav quiets those urges until Lyx can hear herself past them.
Until she remembers she is not beholden to misery.
Until she allows herself to feel every swell of emotion that Cav inspires in her.
Drifting in the water, Lyx plucks a scale from the base of her neck.
Its edges are paper-thin and bloodied, but Cav’s pupils widen.
He opens his mouth eagerly. With one finger, she presses the scale to the flat of his tongue.
Their gazes stay locked, her sharp talon teasing his delicate muscle until she speaks. “Take it.”
His mouth closes over her, his cheeks hollowing, as warm and wet and inviting as the rest of him.
Arousal twists inside her like a key into a lock. Cav knows it, too, looking up beneath his lashes while he rolls the forks of his tongue against her.
A stinging zap shoots through her tentacles. Cav shudders, leaning into her touch when he swallows her down. Behind him, pink light seeps across the horizon. The waves rock the two of them together, and Cav curls his fingers in the tentacles draped across his shoulder.
“Do you ever wonder if the sea brought us together?” he asks. He leaves her no time to doubt it. “Of all the places I could have landed, I ended up in your grotto. Of all the fancy ships I could have trespassed onto, I wound up on the same one as you.”
A smile flits across her face.
Cav turns up his palm to admire the way they weave together, her cool, slick strands against the red heat of his skin. “I think it did.” He says it certainly, lifting his hand to kiss her tentacles one by one. “And I think we owe it for all it’s done.”
Her gaze stays on his lips. “And how do you plan to repay it?”
He grins with sharpened teeth. “By worshipping its finest creation, of course…” Then his kisses reach a boiling point, the forks of his tongue dragging tight on either side of one tentacle.
Electricity crackles through her, forcing her to bite back a whine.
No one has ever done that. It’s delicate and sensual and unpredictable…
just like Cav. He is the most unexpected thing she knows, surprising her in ways she never imagined.
Just when she thinks he’s discovered the last way to astonish her, he touches her for the first time all over again.
He lifts his mouth to her jaw and finds the leftover wound in her neck. His wicked tongue delves into it, licking her clean until her claws drag down his back. It spurs him on, his tongue pressing into the shape of her missing scale, like he can fill the gap.
She moans against his skin, tentacles spasming, wrapping around his thighs and slotting into the heat of his vent.
His laugh is low and breathless, and she chases the sound, hungrier for his happiness than she ever has been for anything else.
When she pulls him under, he needs no song to follow her.
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