Chapter 7
Vodyan
A s soon as the door closed behind me, I slumped, burying my face in my hands. Fuck, I was exhausted. It wasn’t a physical or mental strain, yet I felt raw all over, my nerves overstimulated and aching. My chest was heavy and tender, my throat was still tense, and my heart beat in a sickly, unpleasant rhythm.
If I hadn’t known better, I would have suspected I was ill. But that wasn’t it.
Touching Zoe made me so shaky.
I didn’t fully understand why, and I still didn’t have names for some of the emotions that flooded the pit of my stomach. Whenever I’d brought Lord Kannui, who was my last protection detail assignment eight years ago, to this safehouse, I never felt like such a wreck afterward.
He had felt like cargo when I hauled him around until we reached this hideout at the bottom of the lake. So why didn’t Zoe feel the same way?
Was it a temperature thing? Did she run hotter than he had? Or maybe the suit technology had changed, which was why she had seemed so scalding in my arms? I had no idea, and the more I thought about it, the more the tumultuous whirlpool inside me roiled until I had to force myself to snap out of it.
I had to stay alert.
The security network giving a full view around the safehouse was already on, the screens glowing on the wall of my room. I moved to a dark pool sunken into the floor opposite the screens, where I would work and sleep. If everything went according to plan, I wouldn’t have to even talk to Zoe from now on. I’d just stay here and, hopefully, my condition would go away, whatever it was.
I scanned the screens, predictably seeing nothing out of the ordinary, and reached for the tap to fill my pool with cool lake water. A sound traveling through the pipes made me freeze, a shiver going down my spine.
Soft and very female, it was a moan. I closed my eyes, shaking harder, even as another followed. And then, a low groan. For a moment, I wondered if she was in pain—honestly hoped those sounds were caused by pain—but then her words, distorted yet clear enough to understand, floated through the pipe system.
“Fuck, yes. God. Finally.”
A full-body shiver rolled through me, from my head down to the twitching tips of my tentacles. Heat bloomed in my gut, shocking and unwelcome just like the warmth of her, and it tightened when another moan of pleasure resounded from the wall.
I closed my eyes and exhaled with helpless fury. I’d forgotten about this unfortunate feature of the safehouse’s acoustics, probably because I didn’t want to remember it. Lord Kannui masturbated in the shower often and was very vocal during the act. I’d quickly learned to ignore it, just like I ignored his propensity to watch porn at full volume in the living room.
But the sounds of his pleasure never made me feel as helpless as Zoe’s moans.
I clenched my jaw and tightened my muscles to the point of pain, hoping that would help me get myself under control. But the added sensation only made me vibrate harder with whatever it was I felt. It wasn’t lust, at least, because that would have been incredibly awkward.
But I knew what lust felt like. It was pleasant and easily controllable, a bit like feeling the first pangs of hunger and knowing a meal would come soon. It was easy to wait without much discomfort.
This thing that I felt now was wildly un pleasant. It stirred in my gut like a monster tearing through my insides to find a way out. A parasite.
It fucking hurt.
As I struggled to contain this new, wild thing inside me, I was also swamped by a powerful wave of curiosity. I was so exhausted, I couldn’t keep my thoughts in check, and they poured in, inappropriate and scalding my brain with heat.
Was she touching herself? Was this her way of dealing with tension and anxiety? Or was she some sort of sex addict who had to get herself off multiple times a day? It was odd that she did this first thing after getting here. Had she spent our entire journey craving this release? Was that why she was so hot?
Did she think about getting herself off while I carried her?
I cursed as the monster in my gut thrashed harder, making my muscles clench with something hot and wanting. Desperately trying to get a hold of myself, I slithered into my partly filled pool, letting the jets of water pound my tentacles in the hopes of easing some of the ridiculous tension.
But my limbs twitched and jerked, guided by an urge I didn’t understand. When I gave in, they tangled with each other, sliding and grasping in a wet, slithering mass. It brought me no relief, only more confusion.
It almost felt like I wanted to grip something and squeeze. To wrap myself around… something. Something that wasn’t myself.
Another moan, the loudest yet, came from the wall. I jolted and cursed quietly, pressing my palms to my ear holes at the sides of my head. The thin membranes that covered my ears when I was underwater now gently pulled open, letting me hear everything even more acutely than normally.
My own body conspired against me .
Even worse, as water slowly covered me, cold and soothing like the lake outside, phantom memories of Zoe’s touch bloomed across my skin. I felt every part of me that had been pressed against her. The scales on my stomach that remembered how it felt to have her legs wrapped around me flared with sensation.
I groaned deeply, trying to ease the horrible tension in my throat. The sound was loud and filled with all my discomfort. Too late did I realize she could hear me, too. Sounds traveled both ways in these pipes, after all.
“Oh, fuck,” Zoe’s voice floated through the pipes before growing completely quiet.
I froze. So now she knew I’d heard her, and it would most likely make things really awkward between us. But I didn’t have to spend time in her company, I reminded myself. And hopefully, she’d keep it down now that she knew, though I didn’t hold out much hope.
Lord Kannui knew I heard everything, because I told him about it. It hadn’t stopped him even for one day, but then again, he viewed me simply as help. To him, I wasn’t a person. I was a tool to use when needed, so it probably didn’t even cross his mind to consider my comfort.
I released a long, frustrated breath and did my best to settle in and forget about everything that happened. It was difficult. The tension was still there like a constant itching under my skin, and the camera feeds didn’t offer any distractions.
Of course, I didn’t even have to watch them, because the security system was equipped with state-of-the-art motion detectors. As soon as something larger than a fish moved outside, alarms blared to life.
When I heard movement and shuffling outside my door, I knew Zoe came out. Another bout of curiosity took me by surprise. I wanted to know what she looked like with human clothes on and her head uncovered .
I reasoned with myself, trying to suppress the ridiculous need to see her. It wasn’t normal. I’d just spent a few hours in her company, and it stood to reason that I’d need a lot of time alone to decompress.
So why the hell did I want to come out?
When my stomach rumbled, I exhaled with relief. I was hungry. Of course, I wanted to find some food in the kitchen, which was accessible through the living room. I didn’t want to see Zoe at all. I just wanted to eat.
When I got out after drying myself up, Zoe jerked, shooting me a wary look from where she stood by a bookcase.
“Oh, hi,” she said sheepishly, her face covered with pink splotches. “I, uh, got lunch.”
She pointed at the bowl in her hand, and my eyes helplessly tracked the movement of her slim fingers adorned with a few colorful, glittering rings. The tightness in my throat was still there, and I didn’t speak for fear of my voice breaking.
I didn’t move, taking in her entire frame with eyes that refused to turn away, even though I knew I shouldn’t stare. But she was so… So.
I still didn’t have the right words to describe accurately what I saw. Separate parts of the image were easy enough, so I focused on those, pushing away the urge to find a word that would define her as a whole.
Her messy hair was damp and piled on top of her head in a strange arrangement that looked oddly attractive. Dark curls escaped, framing her face that was small and delicate, with a dainty nose, a sharp chin, and round cheeks that colored a bit deeper as I stared.
There was a crumb in the corner of her mouth, and her lips were slightly parted, that canine tip peeking out. Her green eyes were big under the gentle swoops of her eyebrows, staring at me just as I stared at her, which made me feel a bit better about my abysmal lack of control.
When her pink tongue darted out to lick off the crumb, a shiver ran down my spine .
“So, uh, I guess the person who built the sanitation system here didn’t care much about privacy, huh?” she asked with a small smile, putting her bowl on a table.
I blinked, unnerved by her direct question. I expected her to ignore the entire matter completely, and the fact she didn’t made me respect her a bit. Maybe she wouldn’t be as inconsiderate as Kannui, after all.
Zoe gripped the back of an armchair, clearing her throat, and I finally looked away as I forced myself to speak.
If I kept staring, I knew my eyes would linger on how the too-large, blue sweater hung around her soft curves. How the black, tight trousers hugged her legs. How she rubbed one foot against the other, both covered with thick, dark socks.
I didn’t understand my odd fascination. Humans had never seemed particularly interesting to me.
“It’s because of the pressure,” I answered, my voice resembling a croak. My lips tingled.
She nodded. “Oh, well. I promise not to sing in the shower, then,” she said with a smile. “I wouldn’t want your ears to wither.”
The soft membranes by my ears fluttered gently at her words, and her eyes twitched, noticing the movement. Her smile widened and she opened her mouth to speak before exhaling with a frown. She shook her head once and gave me a tight-lipped smile.
“What?” I asked, touching my membrane that still trembled with a vague sort of nervousness.
I couldn’t remember when they’d last done that, honestly. But then, I never spent much time above the surface.
“No, it’s just a stupid thought. I have lots of those. You don’t want to hear them,” she said, looking away. She grabbed a cracker smeared with a thick layer of peanut butter from her bowl and popped it in her mouth, moving to the tall, narrow shelf by the TV .
“Tell me,” I demanded, watching her. I was frozen to the spot, tracking her hand as she ran her fingertips over the spines of movie cases stacked inside the shelf.
“You really want to know?” she asked, looking at me over her shoulder. “Fine. I just think it’s cute. The way your ears twitch. Which is so odd, because cute is not a word I’d ever think would fit a… well, a grown man of your type. Are these DVDs? I don’t think I’ve seen those in years.”
Of my type? I frowned, about to demand she explain that remark, but bit my words back at the last moment. What was I doing? I was supposed to get food and disappear back into my room. Not lounge around with my principal and talk.
“This safehouse was built twelve years ago for a client,” I explained in answer to her question. “He spent long stretches of time in here and required entertainment.”
“Well, I hope these still work, because if they don’t, I’ll probably torture you with constant talking. I require entertainment, too,” she said, crouching to take a look at more titles. “Oh, workout videos! Cool, maybe I will finally get in shape.”
I said nothing, wondering what she meant by that. Did she think there was something wrong with her body?
When Zoe reached toward the closed cabinet under the TV, I jolted with sudden awareness of what was in there.
“I wouldn’t look at those if I were you,” I said, a bit too harsh. She flinched, looking up with wide eyes.
She was still crouching, her body turned toward me, her face open in curiosity. There was something about that sight that made me buzz. She looked so small and compact like that, and the way her face turned up, coupled with that wide-eyed, expectant look were so… So.
My tentacles twitched with the urge to squeeze. I forced myself to look away .
“Why? What’s in there?” she asked, her fingers grazing the flat knob with an obvious urge to open the cabinet.
“Fetish porn,” I replied, clenching my jaw as I passed her, heading for the kitchen.
“Wow,” she muttered under her breath. “Entertainment, indeed.”