Female Fantasy
Ryke’s body tenses in my arms, his head falling back as if I have struck him across the face.
“I cannot believe,” his says, looking grievously offended, “that you would dare ask me to do such a thing. That you believe I would even consider risking your life, let alone taking it.”
I take a breath, then lean forward.
He flinches in response.
“My prince, listen to me,” I explain. “I have a theory.”
Even in his weakened state, he looks intrigued, his eyebrow rising. “A theory.”
“Yes,” I continue. “You told me once that the way sirens gain their additional power, their dark magic, is by seducing men, then drawing out their energy while they are joined together as one. Dimming life as they create it. Gaining strength through sacrifice.”
“Taking life, Merriah,” he spits. “Not dimming. Taking. In order for me to heal my body using that kind of sorcery, I would have to drain you of your life force while you were at the precipice.”
“A human,” I correct him. “You would have to drain a human.”
He pauses for a second. Considers my choice of words. “Yes.”
I hold my breath for a moment, then continue. “But I am not purely human. I am the descendant of Amphitrite, goddess of the sea. I command the treasure trove. Who knows what lies beneath my skin, inside my bones?”
Ryke studies my face as if it holds the secrets to the eighth wonder of our worlds.
“That may be true,” he admits. “But your power is untested.”
“Perhaps even a sprinkle of my life force would be enough,” I say, “for you to quickly grow strong again. Perhaps I need only visit the entrance to the underworld, then return of my own accord.”
He takes my face in both hands. His thumbs stroke my temples, tender and reverent. “I will not take that risk.”
A flame flickers in my chest, angry and indignant. “It is not your risk to take.”
“There is one thing you have not yet considered, little minnow.” His lips brush my ear, his breath tickling the sensitive skin with each syllable. “What if, once I find myself unraveled in your warmth, I am rendered mindless?”
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “Mindless?”
He nods. “The sirens crave human life for a reason. When I have your very life at my fingertips, what if I am unable to stop?”
Understanding dawns.
I reach out and take both of his hands, now cold and pale, in my own.
“Ryke,” I tell him, my tone firm and unwavering. “I trust you.”
His eyes darken, a shiver working its way through his entire body.
“My minnow,” he says, shaking his head. “That might be the biggest mistake you have ever made.”
Then he leans forward and captures my lips with his own.
Light explodes behind my eyelids, so blinding that I worry the trident has caused another explosion. So vibrant that I fear I am already dead, floating in a watery grave, suspended before the heavens.
This kiss is different from the one he bestowed upon me while we danced.
There is no question, no trepidation in the way he presses against me.
Instead, his mouth devours me whole. His teeth nip at my lower lip, his tongue running along the seam.
Once it enters my mouth, we are a mess, biting and tangling and fighting for the upper hand.
It is as if my training for war has prepared me for this moment: trying and failing to challenge him, then succumbing entirely.
Yielding to him, my prince. Until I am wholly at his mercy.
“Merriah,” he groans, his words vibrating against my throat. “Are you certain?”
“More certain than I have ever been about anything.” My fingers are greedy, combing through the dark locks of his hair with abandon, pulling and scratching like a banshee.
“You are a desperate thing, are you not?” he chuckles. “This is not exactly how I imagined our first time, my dear.”
I gasp at the mental image of Ryke, sprawled out on his waterbed, touching himself to the idea of us joined in this way. “Have you imagined it before?”
“More times than I can count,” he says. “But in my fantasy, you were spread out in front of me like a feast, one we could both enjoy in a leisurely fashion.”
My entire body heats.
“I want that,” I tell him, biting my lip. “Badly. But there will be time for pleasure for pleasure’s sake once you are well.”
Without warning, Ryke rips off my brassiere, the pearls falling like teardrops to the sand-covered ground. Under the heat of his gaze, my nipples harden into two shell-like points. He reaches out and caresses them, then uses two fingers to capture each, pulling hard.
“Well, perhaps some pleasure now,” he says before leaning down and nipping at one mound in his mouth.
I cry out, clawing at the second skin on his chest until it is in shreds.
As I allow my head to fall back and my eyes to close, I touch every inch of skin I can find.
Ryke’s body is made up of hard ridges, smooth surfaces, and hard-earned muscles.
He is built like a warrior, but he carries himself like a royal, the essence of composure.
The mere thought of bringing that force to its knees is enough to make me rub my thighs together.
My hands drift lower, and I am surprised to find an absence of scales.
In their place is an expanse of strained skin.
Abs in the shape of a V point like an arrow toward his manhood.
My eyes fly open in shock to find his tail gone, shifted into firm legs.
And between his legs, an unspeakably large member has sprouted, seemingly from thin air.
Ryke laughs. “You did not think I would take you with my tail, did you?”
I feel my cheeks turn red.
He clicks his tongue at my bashful nature.
“One day soon, minnow”—he lays a kiss in the space between my breasts—“I will teach you tail play. One day soon, I will show you the spots where my scales are most sensitive, the places between my fins that hold the key to barriers unknown to your realm. But today is not that day.”
Before I can process his words, his fingers leave my bosom, moving lower over the dip of my waist, the indentation of my navel. Until finally they reach the top of the fabric sheathing my legs like a tail. We lock eyes as one finger dips beneath the skirt, running through my folds.
When he finds the wetness pooled there, Ryke moans.
“Did I do this to you?” he whispers. “Or does your command of the water extend to the high seas between your thighs?”
The muscles in my core spasm at his words. “You,” I gasp as his torturous fingers circle my entrance, never quite giving me the relief I seek. “It is all for you, my prince.”
Ryke’s finger plunders me like a pirate, reaching the very back of my canal, rubbing against a spot in my body as soft as sea glass. I cry out as he works up a steady rhythm, adding another finger, then a third, wringing pleasure out of my body like a wet cloth.
“Too much,” I choke, as his hand retreats and begins tracing slow circles around the spot that aches for his touch the most. “I cannot.”
“You can.” His voice is confident, cocky, and domineering.
Every bit the prince that he is.
That command is my downfall. I come apart against his palm, a tidal wave of emotion and sensation. My entire body shakes, rogue waves of pleasure crashing against my shore until I am a limbless, quivering mess.
“Look at you,” he says fondly, raising his hand to his mouth and licking each finger, one by one. “Mere moments ago, you were ordering the tides, sending sirens to their knees begging for mercy. Now, you are entirely at mine.”
“Yes,” I tell him, before I can overthink it. “Yes. Yours. I am yours.”
Something dangerous flashes across his face as his hands tighten on my body. “Be careful what you wish for, Merriah.” He lines himself up at my entrance. “A mer like me could destroy you. And the sound of that sacred word falling from your lips pleases me a little too much.”
The tip of his member teases my bud of nerves, and I let out an unseemly whimper.
“Please,” I beg. “Do it. Ruin me.”
And so he does.
We both watch as he enters my body, little by little, until he is seated. I look down at where we have become one and bite my lip.
“You feel…” Ryke closes his eyes. “Like mine.”
Then he begins to move.
Slowly at first. Then fast, faster than I thought possible, his weakened muscles far stronger than those of any human man I have ever come into contact with. Beads of sweat start to form on my forehead, and he leans down to lick them off, groaning at the taste.
Without warning, his mouth opens, letting out a primal noise. “What was that?” he chokes. “What are you doing to me?”
“Nothing, I swear it.” I sit up, alarmed.
He looks at me, curious. Then his eyes widen.
“Merriah,” he says, a hint of playfulness returning to his voice. “I believe you are using your power to create—how should I put this—the most exquisite suction?”
My jaw drops. “I can do that?” I bite my lower lip.
“You are capable of more than either of us ever thought possible, my little minnow. My miracle.”
With his tongue, he coerces me to release my lower lip from the confines of my teeth before sucking it into his own mouth, kissing me with animalistic ferocity.
His ministrations start again, hard and fervent.
I feel the whispers of another climax beginning to build in me.
But Ryke’s breath is growing shorter with each stroke, and I realize, to my horror, that our passion is weakening him.
Pulling back to break our kiss, I raise my bleeding wrist to his lips. “You need to drink,” I plead.
He shakes his head. “I cannot. I will not risk you.”
“Please.” I arch into him. This time, I can feel the pressure constricting around his length with purpose, forcing his hand. He pants against me. “You will not hurt what is yours.”
His molten gold eyes latch on to mine, and he nods once.
“Mine,” he repeats.
Prince Ryke of Atlantia lowers his mouth to the trickle of red wafting from the skin of my wrist, darkening the water.
His pupils dilate as he watches the blood float around us, clouds in a sky full of ocean.
As his lips pull back to reveal his incisors, I wonder if there is a better way for us to bring me to the brink of death—perhaps for him to wrap his hands around my neck and cut off my airway as he pumps into me from below.
As his lips come into contact with my skin, there is a tinge of pain, a slight sting.
Then my blood starts to swim down his throat, mixing with his own, until I cannot tell where I end and he begins.
And I know there was never another way. My life becoming his, belonging to him completely.
Until we are one in body and spirit.
A groan escapes me as the pain turns to pleasure. Ryke drains me—the energy in my body, the power of my muscles. The walls my husband has built around my heart. He takes it all until everything left in me clenches, pulling taut, then releases like a stream into a river.
“You are perfect,” he murmurs against my wrist, full of awe, blood dripping from his chin. “Merriah, I—”
His roar of release is the last thing I hear before my vision blurs, fading to the darkness of the ocean’s bottom.