Chapter 17 #2
He lowers his head, and the water parts around him, creating a temporary space of stillness.
The warmth of his breath ghosts over me a moment before contact, a stark, welcome heat against the pervasive chill.
Then, he takes my tip entirely into his mouth.
His lips are a soft seal, and the suction he applies is exquisitely gentle, a deliberate, careful pull that seems to draw directly from my very core.
It's a question asked without words, a test of pressure and response.
And to my surprise, that's all it takes.
The world dissolves. A wave of heat, deep and molten, radiates from the point of contact, flooding my veins with a liquid fire that eclipses all thought.
My back arches, a involuntary bow pushing me harder against the rusted metal, a sharp counterpoint to the yielding pleasure.
A choked sound escapes my throat, a mixture of a gasp and a sob, as the intensity coalesces into a blinding white peak.
My fins flare wide, a final, instinctual surrender to the tide he has so expertly commanded.
I climax with a loud, unrestrained scream echoing endlessly through the empty canyons of the Silt District.
I shudder, both hands gripping his hair as my body convulses through pleasure against the iron wall, brilliant white spots dancing wildly in my vision.
He catches my weight as I slump forward, holding me flush against his chest, his own breathing heavy with exertion. He looks at me, unapologetically proud.
"Loud," he says again, wiping a stray tear of pleasure from my flushed cheek with his rough thumb.
"Yes," I wheeze, resting my forehead against his shoulder. "Very loud."
He kisses me one last time, a soft, intimate press of lips, full of a new, terrifying promise. "My turn," he whispers into the water.
He doesn't wait for verbal permission. He knows he already possesses it entirely.
He turns me around in his arms and lifts me higher, pinning me firmly against the rusted iron of the tower wall.
My tail lowers around his again and coils tighter to anchor myself.
The abrasive friction of his rough shark skin rubbing against my highly sensitive ventral ridges sends wild, electric sparks traveling through my nerves.
He is larger than me, solid, heavy, and demanding.
He aligns himself, but then I feel him pull away.
I feel his fingers first. Rough. Caressing. Exploring. Sending new shockwaves low in my groin all over again.
He presses a finger in at the same time his rough hand wraps around my sensitive member, already hardening again from the intensity of his friction.
A second finger slowly joins behind me, and I'm sure with every fiber of my being that I'm the loud one now.
Not him. My groaning could possibly be heard throughout the entire Reef for all I know.
His hands work in unison to undo me, and only then do I feel him align himself again. He enters me. It is a slow, heavy stretch forcing a gasp from my lips, my head falling back against the metal. He fills every empty, lonely space I possess.
"Kael," I choke out, my fingers reaching back and digging into his biceps for balance.
He stills, waiting for my body to stretch and adjust to his size.
A sudden, sharp spike of pure pleasure overrides the initial pinch.
My delicate tail fins all snap open once again, flaring out into the freezing water, rigid and trembling.
An instinctual reaction, a primal, vulnerable display of total surrender.
The physical loss of control startles me. I have never yielded like this before.
Kael notices.
His dark eyes track the sudden flash of my flared crimson webbing. A low, dark rumble of approval vibrates deep in his chest. His feral grin widens in the gloom. He loves the raw display. He loves knowing he caused it.
Then, he moves.
It's no frantic, rushed rhythm. He slowly thrusts deep into me, and with every powerful forward movement, he hums. It's overwhelming.
The vibration of his deep voice travels perfectly through his broad chest, down through his driving hips, and directly into my core.
I am taken by pure, heavy sound as much as by flesh.
I gasp, a desperate, ragged inhale that burns my lungs, and it's in that shuddering moment of relief that I feel it.
The softest pressure, a whisper of contact against my temple.
"Loud?" he asks, his voice rough and breathless right in my ear.
"Yes," I moan, digging my sharp nails deeper into his arm. "Louder. Please."
He grins, a jagged, terrifying slash of bright white teeth in the dark water.
He picks up the pace, thrusting into me with a fierce, possessive intensity bordering on violence, but his large hands are careful.
They hold my hips steady, anchoring me safely to his storm.
He starts to growl. It starts low in his throat, a heavy, dark rumble of unadulterated pleasure.
The sound builds in volume and intensity as he gets closer to his edge.
"Vaelis," he groans.
Hearing my name, my real name, spoken in that deep, gravelly baritone while he is buried deep inside me, undoes me. It shatters my fragile composure.
I lean off the wall and wrap my arms tight around his neck, exposing my flushed face. "I'm right here," I sob, the intense physical pleasure spilling over into hot, stinging tears. "I'm right here with you."
Kael’s driving rhythm falters. He stutters in the water, his powerful muscles locking tight.
He gently pulls my head back by the neck for a fraction of a second, looking directly into my soul before I feel his lips sucking on my throat.
"Mine," he baritones against my ear.
The sound of that guttural growl settles into my bones, a resonant hum that tells me I am no longer Vaelis. I am an extension of him, a territory newly claimed, a possession marked in the only way that truly matters.
He thrusts again, faster, incredibly deep, burying himself completely to the hilt, and climaxes with a groan so deep it bounces powerfully off the canyon walls.
I feel him pour hotly into me. I feel the heavy, exhausted shudder running through his solid frame, the distinct way his muscles lock and tremble against my own scales.
My body follows his lead, tipping over the edge a second time with compounding force. My breath hitches. My nerve endings detonate, flooding my veins with starlight and drowning my mind in an otherworldly tide.
I slump forward onto the wall, my core clenching tightly around him. He holds me there, pressed securely against the rust, while the intense aftershocks wreck us both, the water around us growing warmer with our combined heat, our breaths coming in ragged, shared gasps in the dark.
Slowly, carefully, he lowers us both down, our bodies floating in the now-warm water until we settle onto the silty bottom.
The grit is a soft powder against my sensitized skin, and I lie boneless against him, my head pillowed on his shoulder, my tail still loosely twined with his.
His arms are a secure band around my chest, and for the first time since I was dragged from the upper reef, I feel a profound sense of safety.
It's terrifying in its intensity, a quiet in the storm I never expected to find.
His heartbeat is a heavy, steady drum against my back, a rhythm that seems to anchor the very water around us.
I can feel the rapid, shallow rise and fall of his chest slowly evening out, the deep breaths he's taking to center himself.
His hands, which had been instruments of such overwhelming force, now trace idle patterns on my stomach, the touch impossibly gentle.
There are no words, only the quiet hum of our existence, the distant creak of the tower, and the soft rush of the current overhead. In the encompassing darkness, I find I don't need sight. I can feel the shape of his satisfaction, the warmth of his skin, the unspoken promise in the way he holds me.
He runs his large hand affectionately down my arm. His touch is gentle again, the abrasive roughness of his skin now a familiar comfort.
"Back?" he rasps.
His new voice is getting stronger. The harsh gravel is smoothing out into a deeply resonant, masculine timber.
"Back," I agree with a firm nod. "They're waiting for us."
He scowls darkly. "Mira waits," he grumbles heavily. "She will be disappointed. We did not find her a cure."
I laugh. "Is that what you're worried about? She can wait longer, Kael. You did. And now you finally have your voice back."
He looks deeply at me. He touches his own throat, his fingers tracing the scars there.
"I do," he says simply.
We swim back to the House of Drift together.
The Silt District is eerily quiet. The toxic smog is hiding the dangerous scavengers and the desperate outcasts living in the deep shadows. But I do not feel afraid of the dark anymore.
I am swimming right next to the loudest, most dangerous thing in the entire ocean.
We reach the hidden shell.
Bolt has thoughtfully dimmed the interior lights to a low, ambient amber glow. The mechanical engine hums softly in the sand.
We push through the heavy kelp curtain.
Mira is exactly where we left her, huddled pitifully under the sailcloth blanket. She looks weakly up as we enter the room. Her milky eyes widen in absolute shock when she truly sees Kael.
She sees the confident way he holds himself now. Taller. Broader. Unapologetic.
She sees the deeply possessive way he looks at me.
"You're back," she croaks nervously.
Kael swims forward.
He does not sign. He does not use a single hand gesture.
"We're back," he says aloud.
Mira flinches. The sudden sound of his voice, deep, profoundly human, and undeniably male, seems to hit her harder than an iron blow.
She stares blankly at him, her pale mouth opening and closing in pure, terrified shock.
"You," Mira whispers, her voice a fragile thread of disbelief in the dim light. "She had a cure. And it actually worked." Her sharp eyes dart between us, calculating, hungry. "What price did she name?"
"My human mirror," I declare, a surge of fierce pride propelling me forward to glide beside Kael. I flick my tail, sending a small cloud of silt swirling. "Piece of sea junk anyway. Right, Kael?"
He fails to hide the smirk that tugs at the corner of his mouth, but it's the sudden, flush of pink that blooms across his gray cheekbones that nearly undoes me. It's a color so out of place, so vulnerable, it feels like a secret only for me.
"Did she have a cure for me?" Mira presses, her hope palpable.
I look at Kael. He looks back, the pride in his eyes already dimming, replaced by that familiar, heavy sorrow. "She disappeared once we gave her the mirror. We'll go back—" he starts, but Mira is already moving, sitting up with a strength that wasn't there moments before.
"You didn't get me what I gave you the information for!" She shrieks.
Pip, ever the opportunist, scurries over, its delicate limbs trying to soothe, combing through her scraggly white hair.
"Get off me!" Mira yells, weakly attempting to brush the creature away to no avail. "Get off me, you scavenger!"
Kael laughs. A deep, genuine boom of a sound that startles the dust from the ceiling beams. It's the best sound I've ever heard, a vibration of pure, unadulterated joy that washes away Mira's rage and my own lingering fear, leaving only the warmth of him beside me.
I move purposefully to the cage in the center of the shell.
"Bolt!" I call out, my voice ringing with a new authority. "Wake up."
The giant eel uncoils slowly from the copper cage, the water around him crackling with lazy sparks of blue energy. "It is about time," he yawns, a cavernous display of needle-like teeth. "I was getting bored in here. Mira has been dreadful company. It's as if she has always been a grumpy old mer."
Mira simply pouts, turning her head away.
"Did you successfully get the magic voice back, or are we still playing silent charades?" Bolt asks, his long body swaying in the current.
Kael looks over at the glowing eel. He grins that terrifying, feral grin.
"Loud," Kael booms, and the sound is a physical force, a concussive wave that hits the shell and makes the very water vibrate.
Bolt violently jumps.
He shoots backward in the water, a spark of bright blue electricity arcing aggressively from his long tail to the iron bars with a deafening crackle.
"By the bleeding Tide!" Bolt yelps, his bioluminescent patches flashing in genuine shock. "Warn a fish the next time you speak, shark."
Kael laughs, a deep, rolling sound that seems to stir the very silt on the floor.
"Did you hear the war drums?" Bolt asks, his long body swaying. "They echoed in the distance shortly after you left."
My smile falters. Kael's does too, the light in his eyes dimming.
"No," I say, the word heavy in my mouth. "Not where we were."
I look at Kael for a long moment, and in the silent space between us, a whole conversation passes. He understands without a word.
"Vaelis," he starts, his new voice a low, serious rumble, "I know you want no part of the Reef. But this war is founded on unjust beliefs between our kind. We can put an end to this. Together. Or we can leave this place forever—"
"We're coming back later for my cure, right?" Mira asks weakly, laying down as Pip continues to prune her scales.
"Your cure may not even exist, hopeful mer," Bolt interjects bluntly. "Your curse is your own doing."
I agree with the sentiment, but I will not go back on my word.
"Yes, Mira, we will. But right now… I think it's time to give the Elders one last piece of my mind before we leave. Let's put a stop to this senseless war."
"Good grief, Red Prince, are you optimistic," Bolt grumbles.
"Mira?" Kael asks.
She sits in thought for a moment, now petting Pip as he curls up into her lap.
A slow, predatory smile creeps up onto her face. "That seems worth the wait."
Kael turns back to me, reaches out his scarred hand, and gently takes mine. "Ready," he says, the single word a foundation of solid rock.
I squeeze his fingers, the rough texture a familiar anchor. "Ready," I repeat.
We are loud. We are alive. And we are terrifyingly dangerous, because now, my gentle shark-mer finally has a voice.
And he has a hell of a lot to say.