Chapter 17
Vodyan
I felt out of control, bursting with the need to somehow tear the pain and fury out of myself and fling them far away. At the same time, the hormonal reaction I finally triggered to warm up Zoe made me painfully hard, and all of it combined felt like a ticking bomb in my system.
Zoe’s words still burned in my mind and heart, too, and I didn’t know what to do with them. They just didn’t fit with everything else that I’d learned, and yet, she said them with such conviction, they rang so true.
The most painful, burning thing was her acceptance. Here she was, knowing my greatest shame, and she still wanted me unconditionally. I’d told her I would take my pain out on her, and she simply said yes.
I didn’t know who was crazier at this point, me or her.
“You’re fucking unreal,” I said, pressing my lips to her head as I went around the house to the front door. “Feels like I dreamed you.”
She shivered but didn’t move, and another burst of gratitude choked up my heart. I needed that, though I didn’t know why. All I knew was that if she stroked my nape in that soothing way of hers or gave me hot little caresses, I would die .
I wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would be too much.
“Baby, I promise you I’m real,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes, squeezing her warm ass in my palm, where she fit so nicely, seated on my hand like it was her personal little throne. Because it was. She had no idea what she’d done, and I didn’t comprehend the full extent of it myself, but I knew one thing: now, a month from now, or in twenty years, I would have her.
I wouldn’t let her leave.
The metal door was intact, though a bit rusty around the handle. I slid open the crude crate covering the electric lock. It lit up when I pressed a button, meaning the underwater generator still worked.
The generators were a state-of-the-art vodnik invention, transforming life underwater in an instant. They produced extremely cheap, renewable energy only at the cost of the generator itself and its maintenance. I knew there were attempts to invent a similar type of tech for saltwater environments, but none were successful for now.
I snorted under my breath. My grandfather had abhorred civilization, and yet, that didn’t stop him from installing electricity and cameras that would keep him safe from lamias in his separatist fortress on the shore.
I hadn’t been in this house in two years. It belonged to me now that my grandfather was dead, and I’d bothered to complete the paperwork and have it filed under my name, but I rarely came up here. The memory of that day I almost died permeated every fucking stone of this house, but it was the only place I could think of that was on the surface and safe for Zoe.
There were vicious traps around the house, and a perimeter keeping wild animals away. A few cameras were dotted around the property, and if the lock worked, hopefully, they would, too.
“What is this place?” she asked as I punched in the code and the lock buzzed mechanically, allowing me to open the door .
“It’s mine,” I said simply, unable to get into the rest right now, my being already stretched taut with one painful confession. “It’s a safe place.”
“Okay,” she said, pressing her face to the crook of my neck.
It undid me. She was so fucking trusting, so completely devoid of doubt. It hurt, that trust. When people expected nothing but disappointment from me, I couldn’t really fail them. But Zoe? If I fucked up, I would hurt her, and I couldn’t bear the thought.
And yet, she’d already forgiven me. My incredible, pretty human.
“It’s not much,” I said as we entered the narrow corridor that opened into a large kitchen at the end.
Two bedrooms flanked the corridor, and I hesitated. One had belonged to my grandfather, and the other had been supposed to be mine after I was finally conditioned enough to stay out of water for longer. It was where he tied me up to train me.
In the end, I picked that room instead of the one that had belonged to him. The bedroom was bare, not even a mattress or a shallow pool. One dirty window looked out onto the rolling waters of the lake, set in a stone wall with no decorations. The dark wooden floor was dusty.
I still held Zoe, pouring heat into her, even though she was perfectly warm. The house had no heating, though, and she’d have to stay close. It was perfect, because I wouldn’t let her out of my sight, anyway.
The bathroom attached to the bedroom was equally bare. An oblong toilet made of cracked, white porcelain was level with the floor. I knew it was different from human toilets, but hopefully, Zoe would be able to use it.
“Oh, a squat toilet,” she said, looking in over my shoulder. “We have those in the kindergarten.”
I blinked. She’d be fine then.
Apart from the toilet, a small bath stood by the wall. It would probably fit Zoe, but not me .
I flinched, a memory flashing in my mind. My grandfather taking a break in the surface training to hose me down in there before he tied me up again so I wouldn’t flee into the lake.
“Everything okay?” Zoe asked softly.
I shook myself off. “Yeah. Do you… Need the bathroom or something?”
She nodded. “Just need to peel this suit off. At least I’m warm, thanks to you.”
I let her stand but I didn’t retreat, crowding her. It was a visceral need at this point. I had a ridiculous notion she’d vanish if I let her move too far away.
Zoe didn’t mind. She smiled at me, red-lipped and bright-eyed. She took off the breathing tank before pulling the top of the suit off her head to reveal dark hair braided into a messy updo.
“Give me a hand?” she asked playfully, undoing the zipper at her front until she reached her sternum.
I reacted instantly, catching her wrists.
“Yeah. I’ll do it.”
She let her hands hang loosely by her sides and looked up, still smiling like my controlling behavior was a perfectly normal thing.
“Okay.”
“Is there something you won’t immediately agree to?” I asked, slowly undoing the zipper all the way down to her pubic mound.
“I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head to the side. She watched me watch her naked body as it slowly appeared to me, and she was so deliciously unabashed about it. “Keep pushing and let’s find out.”
“What if I told you I will stuff both your holes full?” I asked, my cock hardening in a rush as I pushed the suit off her shoulders, uncovering the heavy curves of her breasts, her dark nipples pointed, her flesh pebbled with goosebumps.
“I’d say yes, please, and ask you to go slow when you fuck my ass,” she said, her breath catching.
Mesmerized, I raised one tentacle and ran the underside slowly across her soft, warm tits. She shivered, arching into my touch. I focused, and on the next pass, one sucker latched onto her nipple. She cried out, throwing her head back, as it sucked. My cock pulsed with a hot, heavy need, pushing to come out, but I held it back.
It was a struggle. My dick flexed in my slit, trying to peek outside even just a bit. Reaching for Zoe.
She was my cock’s favorite person now.
I watched her face, scrunched up in pleasure. Her hands were balled into fists, shaking at her sides, and her mouth was open. She was so…
So sweet. So filthy. So understanding, warm, affectionate, cheeky. So pliant and sexy, so utterly uninhibited. So fearless. So good. So funny. So kind. So searingly erotic. So precious. So needy.
So shockingly into me.
Her desire fed mine, making me shake with the need to do exactly what I said. To fill her up until she wouldn’t go away. To make her full for months to come. Trap her, so she’d have to stay.
To breed her.
That thought shocked me, and the following thud of desire in my abdomen made my vision darken at the edges. My cock slid out, heavy and hard, eager to start right away.
I raised another tentacle and pushed it in her mouth. Her eyes flashed open in shock which lasted just a moment before she closed her lips around me and sucked.
“Fuck, sweetheart,” I said, rusty and low.
Her eyes widened, and she gave me a harder suck, as if to encourage me. But I swallowed the words that wanted to come out. I wanted to call her so many things, because I finally had the vocabulary for it, but I was afraid of saying too much.
The lust pounding in my veins made me unhinged.
With tentacles that refused to shake because it would slow me down, I slid her suit down her body until it pooled on the floor. Seeing as her flesh pebbled in the cold, I picked her up and wound myself around her, suckers pressing into the mounds of her breasts, hands kneading her ass, tentacles slithering between her thighs to feel her heat.
She cried out, pliant and easy, exactly like I wanted her. I was a mass of coiling, sliding, seeking flesh, and she was in the midst of me, the thing I sought and craved to devour.
I brought her up for a kiss, plunging my tongue deep inside her mouth, and positioned her until her foot rubbed against the top prong of my cock, the one that probably wouldn’t fit in the first time.
But there would be more times, many opportunities to stretch her, mold her, prepare her to take me whole.
“You’re the prettiest human of all,” I breathed, bringing her even higher so I could bury my face in her tits and suckle first on one, then on the other, both pressed tightly together with my palm until they spilled over.
She keened as my cock wrapped around her foot, stroking itself against her. It made a wet sound, my natural lubrication marking her skin. That wound me up even tighter, giving me an idea and, a moment later, I slid a tentacle inside myself, where it was hot and wet. I shivered from pleasure.
When it came out, I stroked it down her spine, marking her as mine.
“Such a soft, yielding girl,” I rasped, mindless with something that was beyond lust, beyond need. “You will let me do anything with your pretty holes, won’t you, sweetheart? You will let me stuff you full and make you come, then fuck you raw until I come deep inside you, yes?”
“Oh, God,” she pleaded. “Yes! All of that, yes!”
“So perfect,” I whispered, running my tongue along her earlobe, and then sucking the edge of it in my mouth.
I couldn’t get enough of her.
“But before, bathroom,” she got out. “I really have to pee.”
I stilled, a bit of reason trickling back. Yes, that was the plan, after all. But I was so winded, so completely crazy about her, I couldn’t let her disappear.
“Leave the door open so I can watch you,” I said without thinking.
She gasped, and I realized how creepy that must have sounded, but before I could take it back, Zoe gave me a cheeky grin.
“Okay.”
It was the same word she said every time, to my every demand. Her green eyes glinted with an unfazed smile, a bit challenging, and I understood she was pushing me. She wanted me to demand more .
Was it a game? I was eager to play.
I lowered her to the floor, pinching her nipple on the way, thumbing her lip, teasing the crease of her hip with the tip of my tentacle. She shivered, her smirk sliding off her face until she looked needy and pleading. When I let her go, she swayed on her feet before she caught her balance.
“Well, go on then,” I said quietly, watching her without blinking.
She pressed her lips together in a nervous gesture that somehow was also a smile. When she turned and walked into the bathroom, shivering in the cold air, she swayed her hips provocatively.
When she squatted over the toilet, I held my breath.
Of course, she could have faced the wall, giving me the view of her back and her dimpled ass. And of course, she didn’t.
I stared at the landscape between her legs as she peed, the gorgeous, pink and red heat of it, the softness I saw even from a distance, and the unique, mesmerizing shape of her. She squatted wide, opening for me without a hint of self-consciousness, though she was nervous.
Was this her first time peeing in front of someone like that? Did it turn her on? It did me. I was an animal, craving all of her, and this was a part of it.
When she was done, she looked around and bit her lip. “There’s no toilet paper.”
She got up fluidly, turning to the bath. I came closer to watch her, but I was still outside, a voyeur skulking by the door. She washed her hands under the cold spray, because there had never been hot water here, and then cupped some in her hand and brought it between her legs.
I jolted into action.
“I’ll do it.”
She straightened and looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes dark. “Okay.”
I stood right behind her, my cock nestling against her lower back until its curve molded into the exact shape of her spine. Holding her close, I reached for the spray that thudded metallically against the bath and wet my fingers, winding my tentacles around her legs to push them further apart.
Zoe’s breath hitched as she widened her stance. I brought my wet hand between her legs and gently glided it up her inner thighs first as I buried my face in her neck and breathed her in.
“Oh, I should wash,” she said, shivering. “I’ve been cooking in that suit for hours, I must smell…
“Perfect,” I broke in harshly, licking a long strip up the side of her nape. “Good enough to eat.”
She shivered, and I reached for more water, sliding my fingers over her without parting her first. I licked the place where her collarbone met her shoulder, and then pushed my face closer to her armpit and breathed in.
“Vodyan,” she choked out, sounding dismayed.
“Perfect,” I repeated, wetting my hand again. “Everything you are is perfect.”
This time, I parted her gently and slid my wet, warm fingers over her hot skin. She was so soft here, so eager. I mapped her out, learning her shape, attuned to her reactions. When I circled her opening with the pads of my fingers, she sighed softly. When I went higher up the side, she gasped, and so I explored that place until I found it.
Here was that small, pulsing part of her, swollen and needy. I ran my finger over it in an exploratory circle, and she sagged against me with a trembling sigh .
“I used to be very selfish,” I whispered, rubbing her clit in thorough, soothing circles and watching to see if she liked it. “And now, I’ll have to learn everything, because I am determined, Zoe.”
She swallowed audibly before asking, “Determined about what?”
“Making you come so many times, you’ll never want another cock but mine.”
She cried out, her body tensing. I brought my slick hand up to my mouth and sucked my fingers into my mouth. She looked at me with wide, awed eyes, turning to face me.
“You really are good enough to eat,” I murmured without a smile, looking into her eyes. “Can I eat you?”
She stilled, her jaw going slack. There was a beat of startled silence, and then I grinned, baring my sharp teeth with a low laugh.
“Psych,” I said, cupping the back of her head to angle her face up. “No breathy little ‘okay’ this time, ah? Kiss me, you sweet thing.”
I didn’t wait for her response as I claimed her mouth in a deep, thirsty kiss. I did want to eat her, or something that felt like that. She had to be mine, all of her. It was like I’d waited my whole life for her to appear, my unabashed, beautiful, trusting Zoe, and all my pent-up need now focused on her.
It scared me, but it was also inevitable. Even if I knew how, I wouldn’t stop it.
“It’s all your fault,” I said, kissing down her neck until she trembled and moaned, her fingers clutching my scales. “I had it all handled but then you came in and broke it all to pieces. And now you have me, for better or worse. Now you have me.”
“I don’t understand!” she choked out, squirming in my hold.
“It’s okay. You will,” I promised, kissing back up to her mouth. “Are you on birth control?”
She nodded frantically, and my greedy heart thumped with disappointment. But if not now then another time.
“I got a shot. It’s good for one more month. ”
She wouldn’t get any more.
“I’m clean,” I kissed into her skin.
I got tested every month one week after my sex appointment. It was a rigorous part of my regimen.
“M-me, too,” she sighed, clutching at my nape. “So, Vodyan?”
“Yes, my sweetest?”
She pulled back, breathing hard, and gave me a mischievous smile with those lips I’d reddened with my kisses.
“You can’t eat me, but you could eat me out. ”