Chapter 7
T he golden kelp swayed like living curtains, thick enough to blur the turquoise light into soft, shifting patterns.
Greta kept her body low, tail flicking with short, cautious strokes as she followed Klari deeper into the forest. Every few seconds his powerful blue tail would curl instinctively around her leg or waist, a warm, possessive loop that pulled her closer before she could drift away again.
She hated how good it felt.
"Stop doing that," she hissed. She forced her own tail — long, flexible, and far too responsive — to stay rigid and not curl back around his like it clearly wanted to. "I'm not your personal flotation device."
Klari glanced back at her, amber eyes gleaming in the filtered light. His tail gave one last slow squeeze around her thigh before reluctantly loosening. "It moves on its own when you're close," he admitted, voice low and clicking. "You feel… right."
"Great. That's exactly what every girl wants to hear while running for her life. "
Greta rolled her eyes as a school of alien fish darted past — sleek silver bodies with too many fins and glowing purple spots along their sides. They looked almost like Earth sardines, except they moved in perfect synchronized spirals and left faint trails of bioluminescent mist in their wake.
"What the hell are those things?"
"Shadow-lanterns," Klari answered. "They follow blood in the water. Don't let yourself bleed down here."
He swam a little ahead, pushing aside a thick curtain of fronds. His tail brushed hers again — this time along the underside, slow and, she thought, deliberate.
"Would you quit it with the tail?" she snapped, voice rising in a frustrated trill. "I'm trying to concentrate on not dying, and you're over here playing underwater footsie."
Klari's markings flickered with faint amusement and undeniable hunger. His cock was already half-hard, thick and blue, swaying slightly with each powerful stroke of his tail. He didn't bother hiding it. None of the males seemed to care about modesty when she was near.
"Let me explain the rules," he said, keeping his voice low. A distant click echoed through the kelp — one of the rivals, still searching.
Klari's head snapped toward the sound before he continued, voice dropping lower.
"This is a Mating Game. You were brought here to be claimed.
Three successful matings with the same male — that's all it takes to win the game and leave the platform.
Each time you mate or die the whole round is reset. And you get another sixty minutes."
“You told me that already,” she snapped. Greta's tail gave another involuntary flick toward him. She yanked it back with effort. "And if I don't want to mate with anyone?"
"Then you have — or had — sixty minutes in this form before you revert to being human again. No gills. No tail. No webbing. You drown." He glanced at the glowing vein patterns on her arms and chest. "You're already well past halfway. The rivals know that. They're waiting for you to weaken."
A strange, bulbous plant drifted past. Its translucent pink bulbs pulsed like tiny hearts, releasing tiny glittering spores into the current. Greta watched it warily, then looked back at Klari.
"So the plan is I let someone fuck me three times and then I get to go home? That simple?"
Klari's tail curled around her waist again, pulling her closer as they slipped through a narrow gap in the kelp. His hard cock brushed against her hip, hot and insistent. He didn't pull away.
"It should be," he said, voice rougher now. "But the others won't just wait. They'll kill each other — and me — to be the one who claims you."
Greta swallowed, gills fluttering. "And you're different because…?"
"Because I don't want to win by force." His tail gave her a gentle squeeze. "I want you to choose me. Even if right now you're doing everything possible to swim away from me."
She let out a short, bitter laugh that came out as bubbles. "Smart male. Keep dreaming."
They pushed forward another few dozen yards until the kelp thickened into a small, natural hollow — a pocket shielded on three sides by dense stalks. The distant clicks of the searching rivals sounded muffled and farther away now.
Klari slowed, his tail still loosely wrapped around her leg. "This should do for now."
Greta eyed the enclosed space, then looked at him — at the way his cock stood proud and heavy between them, at the way his eyes kept tracing her pink-scaled body with open hunger.
She tried very hard not to let her own tail curl around his again.
It wasn't listening.
Boy, what is happening to me? she thought.
Then it occurred to her: maybe when the serum changed her into this fish-like creature, she also inherited its mating habits?
Despite being full of water, her mouth felt dry.