Chapter 2
Endlessly greedy, Nyxarion’s hands traced her dainty body. Mapping her.
Every ridge. Each new scale and delicate fin. Memorizing the impossible reality of what his venom had wrought and what she had become. Jaw tight, fingers trailing down the curve of her waist, he edged the flare of her hips. Outlined the divide between sunset scales and soft, human flesh.
She was a marvel.
Truly.
Elegant and alien. A creature he’d crafted for himself. Driven by instinct. Obsession.
Gripping her hips, he paused to simply… look. Drinking her in.
Small. She was so small.
It was a poison of its own, the obsession.
One that trawled through the muck in his dark, selfish heart with something approaching madness.
A greed he’d never known. And, as he pressed his palm to her belly and let his fingers spread from hip to hip, he knew.
How deep she’d already gone. Exactly which parts of him this glorious creature had claimed.
Movement.
A flutter beneath his palm. The slightest squirming presence that pressed against her skin, and Nyxarion’s breath hitched.
Caught in tattered gills as his scales lifted.
Venting heat, his biolume flared violent and bright as a greedy triumph ignited in his blood.
"There," he breathed, and the word was a prayer whispered into the abyss.
Groaning, her fingers curled around his wrist as he worked. Holding him right where she needed him. Hips gliding against his grip, slick and warm. The perfume of frantic need rolled off her skin in a wave of wanton demand.
Begging with her body.
Absent cunning strategy, or hidden motive, she pleaded for him.
To be bred.
Touched.
Need pulsed through his veins, hot and relentless. A demand to see her stained with his mark. Soiled with seed. Cock throbbing behind his vent, growing swollen and thick, it burst from his slit. Snaking through dark waters to find where she wept for him.
Pearls already beaded along his shaft, glowing in the gloom, he kissed her. Letting every rational thought fade beneath the crushing weight of base, screaming need. Drowning out the festering poison worse than any venom.
Thalos.
The Shallow King had had her, too. His venom was threaded through Kore’s blood, woven into the shimmer of sunset scales.
Nyx could smell it on her. The stink of Asterion’s touch, lingering even now.
Begging to be washed out. Desperate to fill her with him, until nothing of Thalos remained to tarnish his claim.
The fury was a tempest. A beast starved.
And Kore was the only thing that might quiet the hunger.
Lips finding her pulse, he sucked at the tender spot beneath her jaw just to make her melt.
“You handed me the victory,” he reminded her, letting his lips drag over the gill slits fluttering with the truth of her hitching breath.
“Made yourself mine. And I let you suffer,” he murmured, nipping at her pulse with the edge of pointed teeth.
She shivered. Thighs flexing against his wrist as her biolume brightened. Sunset scales flushed a deep gold along her collarbones.
"So greedy, my flame," he drawled, addicted to the way she reacted to his touch. That she was just as enslaved to it as he was. "My impossible, furious bride. So sweet for me. So desperate."
Without marking her skin, he pinched her shoulder.
Just enough to feel the resistance, to listen to her squeal.
To taste the dense weave of muscle that hadn't existed before he’d taken what she was and dragged it to the bottom of the sea.
Made her stronger. Harder. Rebuilt her for depths that would crush a human.
Remade for him.
Tongue flat and hot, he laved a stripe across her clavicle. Tasting her. Drinking in the shift of colors rippling across her skin. Eyes gleaming in her glow, basking in it as he kissed her every inch. Claimed her with teeth and tongue until she was squirming for him.
"You claimed my kingdom, greedy girl,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the bone between her breasts. "Took my seed and spawn." His lips sealed around the peak of her left breast, drawing the nipple into the heat of his mouth.
“Hgnnh,” she squealed, knuckles whitening where they were anchored against him. “Nyx… please…”
The sound she made. Gods, the sound. It sent blue light racing down his spine as his scales lifted. A reflex he couldn’t control.
He did it again.
Sucking. Slow and heavy. Deliberate. Nursing at her breast until the flesh swelled against his tongue, until her back bowed and her fingers found the ridges of his fins. He pulled back with a lewd pop. Admiring the puffy peak.
It was darker, now. Fuller. Distended in preparation for the babe growing inside her.
"I would conquer a thousand poisoned tides, just to watch you claim them as yours," he whispered, cupping her cheeks in massive hands.
Thumbs sweeping back, tracing the blade of her cheekbones, he pressed his brow to hers.
Breaths coming ragged through tattered gills.
"I would let you take everything, Kore. My sweet, greedy girl. "
“Yours,” she whispered, grey-gold eyes luminous as she looked down upon him. Sliding her fingers through his hair. Cradling his face. And then, “Please,” she said, thighs parting. Shifting. “Please. Taste what you do to me.”
The scent dragged him down. That devastating blend of citrus and ozone. Siren arousal thick in the water. A beacon of glistening, silky ribbons.
Groaning, he went. Willing. Aching for it.
Swollen. Flushed dark. Speckled with tiny little scales that rimmed her slit—so alien to any Virelii he’d ever had.
The lips of her pussy were engorged and parted, the hood of her clit pulled back to expose the swollen bud.
Every ridge and fold slick with need, pulsing faintly with the same sunset colors that marked her transformation.
“So pretty,” he groaned, lips dragging down, kissing each hollow between her ribs, across the flat plane of her belly where scales gave way to soft, human flesh.
"Every current in this ocean answers to me," he said, lips brushing her navel, he kissed her belly.
Lingering over the heartbeat he knew was growing stronger with every tide.
"Every creature that crawls through dark waters.
" He spread her thighs. “All mine. And I would let you take all of it.
" Another kiss. Lower. Sipping at the ambrosia gushing between her legs with a lewd, unhinged groan. "Every fathom. Yours.”
“Nyx…” she moaned, his name broken into two syllables by the wanton catch in her throat.
And then, slinging one thigh over his shoulder, Kore locked herself to him, and whispered, "Please.
" Hips rolling against his face, her desperation revealed in the flash of gold and violet in rapid, stuttering waves.
His jaw clenched.
Thalos had tasted this.
It came unbidden. Invasive. A thought that prickled under his scales and made his blood surge with heat.
Had she moaned for him like this?
Had she begged?
Hands locked around her thighs, a snarl ripped from his chest. Something ravenous and livid. Something ancient that was slavering for slaughter.
Spreading her wider still, his claws dimpled that soft, human flesh. Feasting on the sounds she made, his lips crashed into her.
Tongue flat and pressed wide, he dragged it from the base of her slit to the peak of her clit in a single devastating stroke.
Pulling a sound from her throat so lewd, so perfect and erotic, he was tempted to return to the surface and drag Thalos down.
Make him watch what made a Siren sing for her king.
It was electric, the way she melted for him.
The flood of slick that gushed between his lips.
Coating his chin. Pooling between them, a body primed and aching.
“That’s it,” he hummed, and sealed his lips over her pearl.
Sucking hard enough to feel the little bud pull taut and throb as he worked her over.
The sound she made was the sweetest he’d ever heard.
Fingers twisting in his hair, pulling him close, she used him. Reckless and shameless. Grinding her swollen pussy against his face, she keened. Head thrown back.
Grinning, Nyx plunged his tongue inside her just to hear that sweet Siren song spill over her lips. Flicking over all that was sodden and glossed.
But it was then, when her flavor deepened, growing rich and dark, that he caught it.
The whisper of Thalos’ venom laced with his own.
“Mine,” he snarled against her flesh. “This is all mine.”
Nodding, eyes wide and rimmed in white, Kore’s lips parted. “Y-Yours,” she returned, watching without blinking. Giving up all that she was without an instant of pause.
The sounds she made, the unconscious submission, it… unmade him.
Nyxarion snarled, devouring her. Each swipe of his tongue was a reclamation. Every desperate, lewd suck another inch of erasure as Nyxarion feasted between her legs. Drunk on the vicious, territorial need to make her understand exactly what it meant to be his.
Circling her clit, he drew that swollen nub between his lips to savage it with attention.
Color erupted along her edges. Her whole body seizing as she wailed, bucking against his attention. "Nghh—Nyx… I… Gods… I…"
She was graceless.
Shameless.
Reduced to a writhing, sobbing creature begging for release. Mercy. Her voice cracking around every hitching syllable. "Pl-please, Nyx… I… I can’t…”
“Poor sweet thing,” he crooned, blowing a stream of cool water across her clit before he slipped two fingers inside her. Stretching her out for what was coming next.
It was building with every sweep of his tongue. Each word he murmured against glossy, swollen petals. Written in the color dancing across her belly, in the strobing light that pulsed with the alien lift growing hale beneath her navel.
She was greedy. Resplendent.
His.
“Come for me, Kore,” he said, commanding her with a merciless sweep across her clit. “Let me taste it.”
Climax tore through a violent path through her body. Locked in her spine, fins shuddering as a sob bubbled between her lips. It was raw. And the grip on his fingers as she milked him—gods, it was enough to make his cock burst from his vent with a lewd squelch.
But it was the light.
The way she ignited. Golds that bled through to crimson, rippling out from her belly in a cascade of liquid fire. Her veins burning with pleasure he could read. Taste.
Vorynthar answered.
Flaring with brilliant, blazing life, the reef detonated. A perfect mimic. Color flooded the heretical reef with Kore’s signature. The entire city bathed in the touch of their Siren. Her pleasure scrawled across the walls in sheets of gold and violet.
It was her heartbeat.
Thunderous.
Frantic.
Strobing in time with the frequency of a queen bound to the Black Sea.
A sound broke through his restraint. Something feral and possessive. With a flick of his tail, he was on her. Spreading her thighs, only so he might surge between them. Legs draped around his waist, he locked her in place.
Finding her slit without guidance, he drove inside in a single, relentless press. Not stopping until he was buried, until he bumped her end, cock nosing at the mouth of her womb.
Kissing her, he swallowed her cry in a single, greedy gulp. Lips crushed against hers, tongue plunging deep, he kissed her with bruising need. Withdrawing. Hovering at her rim, only to send his hips forward. A snap.
Again and again.
Ruthless.
A punishing rhythm that drove the breath from her lungs every time he bottomed out. Not gentle worship, it was a claiming. Of a female who’d seen what he was and commanded him to yield. Surrender. A female worthy of being his queen. Making her forget that any other had come before. Touched.
“Mine,” he rasped, forehead bumping hers. Staring into eyes that had gone glassy with agonized pleasure. Obsessing over the way her jaw grew slack, the sounds trapped in her chest he meant to tear free. “Sing for me, little Siren. Tell them all who feeds you.”
Vorynthar blazed in answer, a beacon lit by the divine flame burning in its heart.
Alive.
Tethered to its queen.
“I need it,” she gasped, uttering a command through clenched teeth. Clinging to him. Hands twisting in his scalp. “Please. I… I need it. Make me c-cum." Hips rolling to meet his next thrust, taking him deeper, harder, she nodded. "Sh-show them. Give me your seed. Your… your knot. Please."
It was filthy.
Obscene.
His dainty little bride, demanding his sperm?
It humbled him.
Rhythm faltering, his vision went grey. Edged with the sparkle of darkness more profound than even the shadows in Vorynthar. The base of his cock ballooned, knot swelling. Growing thick and brutal in pulses as he fucked her.
Too long.
He’d gone too long without breeding her.
Lost in the madness of Thalos threatening to steal his spawn in the name of Caelith Mare. Countless tides lost circling the perimeter of his own kingdom, snarling at shadows. Afraid to touch her, that the territorial rage had poisoned his every impulse with something lethal.
Such a fool he’d been.
She was the quiet. The thing that tamed the beast. Pulled him… home.
“Fuck, Kore,” he snarled, fins fanning out as he filled her one last time. Cramming his knot inside her.
That silken grip was all it took.
Clamping down around his girth, milking his knot in clenching pulls as her spine twisted. Lips parting as she sobbed, Kore came.
Again.
Body rippling around him, she dragged him under. Forcing him to spill thick, scalding ropes of sperm inside her.
He came with a roar.
Thick, hot ropes of seed flooded her in surges that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Filling her. Claiming her. Painting every inch of her insides with a claim of lineage.
But her womb was full.
Already occupied. Already claimed by the life growing behind the wall of muscle and light. His seed had nowhere to go, and the pressure built until it spilled. Until she couldn’t hold it all inside.
Thick and white, leaking around the seal of his knot in obscene ribbons that curled through the dark water. Catching the glow of the reef as it drifted.
More.
Another pulse.
Another flood.
Jerking inside her, Nyxarion emptied himself. Great, shuddering spasms that wracked his entire body, and still the excess wept from where they joined. Drifting upward in luminous threads that the reef's current caught and carried through the chamber.
The Raskoril drank it down.
Every polyp along the walls opened, tendrils extending toward the cloud of seed and slick. Feeding. Vorynthar pulsed brighter with each tendril that found purchase.
His forehead dropped to hers. Breath ragged. Knot still locked, still pulsing, Nyx rode out the last of it. Palms cupping her little belly. Cradling it. Holding her like something sacred and profane all at once.
Whether or not its blood sang with his name.
"Again," she whispered against his mouth.
And the beast obeyed.