Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Waves of vibration slice through the water as the dark seal-like silhouette of a surface dweller vessel chugs along overhead.
Like the net, this surface dweller contraption is different from its predecessors.
It doesn’t creak and groan like the wooden ones that came before, whose bones now adorn the crown on Lady Leviathan’s head. It’s so much worse.
The vessel roars, and Ianthe grimaces, slapping webbed hands over her ears.
Lady Leviathan does the same. All four hands slap over her ears, each layered in pairs. While it does a good job of muffling the awful racket, she can’t spend the rest of eternity swimming around with her hands permanently suckered to her ears. Mother Ocean, why is that cursed thing so loud?
Despite the pain, there is a fierce, determined gleam in Ianthe’s eye. “I am ravenous.”
One by one, Lady Leviathan lowers her hands. Piercing sound assaults her ears, but she grits her teeth and with the pain she whets her rage. “Then let us hunt.”
Lady Leviathan surges toward the surface, ready to unleash the full force of her fury. Higher and higher she rises—the mermaid keeping excellent pace by her side. Even in a weakened, half-starved state, Ianthe’s quick, her sleek body slicing through the water.
These surface dwellers will pay for their trespasses, for every careless action that poisons the water, that destroys lives. A new red tide will sweep their shores, but one of their own blood.
As they near the vessel’s underbelly, the racket it makes is deafening, but that’s all the more reason to tear it asunder. For the creatures killed needlessly in their abandoned nets, denied their Final Fall. For Ianthe.
With a great thrust of her many lower limbs, Lady Leviathan snatches it right out of the water, her tentacles writhing in the dry world above. She throws all her rage into the motion, but after that initial burst of energy, her arms sag.
Oof. The thing is heavy, like it’s filled with boulders, so she thrusts the rest of her limbs surface-ward and redistributes the weight. Blessed be her twenty arms.
There is a noisy spinning piece at one end of the vessel that she promptly rips out and throws. While the vessel itself quiets, she can now hear the surface dwellers’ screams.
A volley of sharp, loud sounds follows, and a spray of tiny stingers pierces her arms.
Ouch, stop that, you infernal little beasts! She shakes the ship, knocking some of its crew shrieking into the ocean.
So tiny, and yet so lethal, Ianthe zips through the water, slashing, biting, ripping. Rivers of blood pour forth sweet and savory, and Lady Leviathan heaves a sigh of relief. Finally, something good in this nightmare the ocean’s become. Nothing tastes so decadent as the defeat of a tenacious enemy.
Hearing more of these overreaching beings rattling around within the ship, Lady Leviathan coils her arms around opposite ends and pulls, using every ounce of her strength.
The metal hull creaks and groans under her might, straining and protesting, yet holding firm.
Her confidence flags. Is she even strong enough to tear this thing apart?
Mother Ocean, wouldn’t that be embarrassing.
Foiled and outmatched by greedy, thieving surface dwellers.
Lady Leviathan relaxes her arms, letting the ocean take the brunt of the ship’s weight as she sucks oxygen in through her gills.
She begrudgingly admires the surface dweller’s ingenuity and rapid evolution in the time she’s been asleep.
But only for a moment. Lady Leviathan has never backed down from a challenge, and she won’t let these land-loving beings beat her now.
She owes it to Ianthe and the denizens of the sea to keep fighting.
What kind of goddess is she if she cannot?
Such titles must be earned. And she has a lot of lost time to make up for.
With a guttural roar, Lady Leviathan lifts the vessel high and pulls, redoubling her efforts. She must have weakened the metal in her last attempt, because this time the ship easily gives way with a horrendous screech, splitting into two.
Triumph alights Lady Leviathan. Her bioluminescence twinkles as she upends each half of the ship and shakes out the rest of the crew.
Plop, plop, plop, the sailors go as they hit the water.
When the ship is emptied, she hurls its carcass away, then sinks all the way down into the water to check on the sea maiden.
Cheeks glowing blue, Ianthe hovers in the water, munching away, sporting a happy little belly bulge. Torn flesh hangs from her mouth and hands. Thank the ocean, Ianthe is already looking less pale.
“It’s good?”
Ianthe nods, extending a hand…a dismembered, surface dweller hand.
Lady Leviathan smiles, uncurling a tentacle. One spike sticks out and Ianthe doesn’t hesitate to impale the appendage onto it. Such a small morsel. More bone than meat, but Lady Leviathan doesn’t mind. It has a quite a lovely crunch when she pops it into her mouth.
The little mermaid is quickly sated. While Ianthe eats most of a sailor all by herself, compared to Lady Leviathan’s appetite, especially after a centuries-long slumber, it’s hardly a snack.
Out of a crew of fifty, Lady Leviathan easily tucks away twenty.
She’s not called the Great Devourer for nothing.
There’s room in her belly for more—truth be told, she wants to eat the entire crew—but Ianthe’s troubling news about whole schools of fish disappearing stops her. Others need this meat more.
“We should prepare the rest of this for your pod.”
Gratitude ripples from Ianthe. “You do us a great kindness.”
Is it kindness when it’s her duty? When she wants to make the mermaid happy? To impress and earn her favor? “I don’t think my motivations are entirely altruistic.” Longing pangs deep within her, a cavernous ache that’s been neglected for centuries.
Ianthe stops chewing. Then swallows with a thick gulp, coughing once. Twice. She pounds on her chest with a webbed fist. “What other reason is there?”
Maybe actions are better than words. Lady Leviathan extends a tentative limb, gently wiping away the sailor flesh still hanging from the corner of Ianthe’s mouth. She brings it to her lips, licking her tentacle clean. The taste is all the sweeter for having touched Ianthe.
Two blushing dots of blue return, but it’s not just Ianthe’s cheeks that illuminate from within.
It’s her chest and tail too. The scent in the water changes.
In the wake of victory and survival, there’s a certain…
lust for life. Lady Leviathan has beheld it many times, this most intimate celebration. It’s the way of nature.
Another kind of hunger blooms from the mermaid.
It makes the longing deepen. Lady Leviathan wants to touch her again, but she’s not sure she should. The mermaid owes her nothing. Not her gratitude. Not her touch. The last thing Lady Leviathan wants is for Ianthe to think she does.
Uncertainty flashes in all five of the kraken goddess’s golden eyes. It’s strange seeing such vulnerability in a divine being, but it’s electrifying too. Even if this want between them is just convenient proximity and a diversion, Ianthe is thrilled to have captured her notice.
It will be an exercise in creativity, whatever comes next, but if the goddess wants to tangle tails…
or, well, tails and tentacles, who is Ianthe to deny them both that pleasure?
Ignoring bodily urges and impulses is not the seafolk way.
Not when nothing is promised. Not tomorrow. Not even the next moment.
Ianthe swims to the Great Devourer’s face. All five of the goddess’s glowing eyes nervously track her ascent. To think, Ianthe, the tiny creature that she is, makes the great and glorious Twenty-Armed Goddess bashful. Perhaps not even time whittles away all shyness.
There’s an intoxicating power that comes with that knowledge. It’s not something she’s ever considered herself. Strong? Yes. Resilient? Also, yes. Powerful? No.
She places kisses between the goddess’s furrowed brow, and crease by crease, she soothes away the tension, the hesitation. Warmth blooms between them. With it comes quiet understanding and need.
Hand over hand, Ianthe slides bodily down the length of the kraken beauty’s nose, peppering more kisses, delighting in the delicious friction of skin against skin. Pleasure spikes as her tail crests over the bump centered along the slope.
The Great Devourer’s eyes flutter. She lifts a claw, delicately running the smooth rounded back down the length of Ianthe’s body, from the nape of her neck to the tips of her fins.
She repeats the motion again and again, and under the caress, Ianthe’s body comes alive, purring with desire.
It’s then the seam at the front of her tail parts, revealing dewy pink flesh that’s begging to be plundered.
Ianthe pushes down, curling her tail underneath the goddess’s chin to keep herself anchored.
If there’s a greater display of trust than this, hovering before the mighty kraken’s mouth, she can’t think of it.
She traces a hand along the goddess’s full lower lip, so plush and soft to the touch.
She follows it with another kiss. Much in the ocean is made of hard edges.
Barnacles and stone. Claws and sharp teeth. But not this. Not her.
The goddess’s lips part and the very tip of her tongue emerges to lick Ianthe’s tail.
She concentrates on Ianthe’s exposed pink seam, rubbing tight, roving circles.
Losing herself to the bliss of it, Ianthe rocks against her, steady as the waves.
Despite the goddess’s assurances, maybe she has died and gone to the hereinafter.
This feels too good to be anything else, and yet she can’t find it in herself to care.
It’s the sweetest dream at the end of a long nightmare.
Whether it’s the exhaustion or the days of desperation and near death, Ianthe’s body succumbs quickly, spasming and coating the goddess’s tongue with her tide. She heaves a sigh of relief, luxuriating in goddess’s warmth and bioluminescent light.
A tentacle tenderly strokes her cheek. “Did that feel good, my little treasure?”
Ianthe sleepily peers up into the goddess’s eyes. There’s a quiet heat there, and Ianthe can already tell she won’t ask for what she needs in return. “Beyond measure. And now it’s your turn.”
Beneath the heat, curiosity flickers.
Their size difference does present a challenge, but Ianthe is nothing if not adaptable. One does not live in the abyssalpelagic zone and not also pick up a penchant for ingenuity along the way.
Determined, Ianthe scales down the front of the goddess, pillowing her body against one of her large, ample breasts.
She kisses along a nipple, licking and flicking her tongue against the bud, and uses both hands to knead and tug it into a stiff peak.
The goddess sighs, a rush of bubbles emitting from her mouth.
“You’re a wonder.” Her voice rumbles beneath Ianthe, warm and thick with desire.
It’s a vibration she feels down to her very bones.
“I’ve only gotten started.”
Ianthe dives. She weaves between the Great Devourer’s tentacles, navigating the massive, swaying limbs, searching for the goddess’s most precious treasure.
Her pearl. She finds the sensitive nub of flesh at the apex of her tentacled limbs, beneath a delicate hood.
Careful not to prick the goddess with her sharp claws, Ianthe kisses and rubs her hands and body against it.
It’s unlike anything she’s ever done before.
Past mating frenzies were all undertaken with her own kind.
Pleasuring the goddess demands every single inch of her, and she’s not sure she has any energy left to give, but it’s worth it to feel the mighty being quake.
All around her the goddess trembles. Her limbs thrash uncontrollably, churning sea.
Like seismic activity it creates waves and changes currents.
Ianthe clings on for dear life. If she moves, she may be crushed.
While it would be a legendary way to die, she’s hoping to live long enough to do this again. One or two or maybe three times more.
Just when Ianthe thinks her arms will give out, the goddess seizes. A jet of ink squirts from her center, pluming the water. The shaking stops.
Utterly spent, Ianthe releases her hold on the goddess’s pearl, drifting aimlessly through the water, through the ink. She smiles though, more than a little proud of herself. Another victory.
The goddess gently cups her in a hand, singing her praises as she draws her back up.
Being beheld by the Great Devourer’s array of eyes no longer terrifies, not when nothing but warmth awaits her.
She rewards Ianthe with nuzzles and more kisses to her tail.
She’s not done until she brings Ianthe to pleasure two more times, each climax more intense than the last.
Ianthe does not complain. Not one bit.