Chapter 8
For several long, suffocating breaths, there was nothing.
But the sound that left Nyxarion's throat was wrath.
Retribution.
A subsonic detonation.
The voice of the Black Sea.
The angler fish that had been drifting near the upper arches scattered. Their lanterns winked out in the same instant their primitive brains registered the vibration of a predator beyond their comprehension.
Caelith Mare's scholars were next.
Ancient gills pressed flat, fleeing the throne room with graceless, terrified strokes, the elders vanished into the tight corridors.
Only Thalos remained.
The Shallow King hung motionless, opalescent scales gleaming in the antechamber.
Not a single fin twitched.
That perfect, infuriating stillness. Every inch of him vibrating with smug arrogance.
"Leave," Nyx spat, grinding the word between his molars. "Now."
Thalos' lips curled around a smirk, the cocky little prick. Frigid polar eyes slid from Nyxarion to the trembling Siren curled against him, and that smile grew savage.
Cutting.
A thing meant to be witnessed.
"I'll be waiting," he murmured, absent urgency.
"The mid-ground. Neither your trench nor my shallows.
Neutral waters, Korrides." A pause, weighted with the precision of one who understood exactly what he was taking.
And just to be cruel, he added, "For the child's sake," loud enough to make Kore flinch.
For an instant, his grin widened. Just enough to show Nyx that he knew.
That Nyxarion's wrath was merely the shape of his defeat.
And then Thalos' scales lifted. Flexed. And the Shallow King vanished into the shadows.
Gone without a sound or a ripple.
Chest heaving, every muscle in his body coiled for pursuit, for violence, Nyx snarled.
A sound stopped him.
Low.
Wavering.
A dual-toned hum that no Pelagorn could produce. Two notes braided together.
Siren song.
Kore had turned into him, cheek pressed to his chest. Dainty little fingers clinging to his ribs.
That strange hum settled behind his gills. Jiggled the water behind his eyes.
Crying.
He could taste it on the current. Grief. The brine of her heartbreak and fear washed away by dark waters before any single tear might fall.
The anguish neither king would let her forget.
Scared.
His bride was terrified for her baby, and in her dread, she had turned to him. The very one who'd dragged her beneath the waves and remade her flesh.
For a moment, he simply drank in the scent of her.
Mystified by this precious, beautiful creature. So delicate.
His sweet Siren bride.
And then, fingers finding the back of her skull, he cradled her head against his chest. Sending the other arm around her shoulders, he pulled her in deeper. Anchoring her in place with the weight of a thing that would never let her go.
For a long moment, he did not move. Didn't speak.
Just let her cling to his strength.
Absorbing the precious Siren song as deep as he could get it.
And then his arms tightened.
When he answered her, it started deep in his chest.
A sound without language.
Absent thought.
A vibration he pressed to the crown of her head, sending the sound through her skull. Down her spine. And into the fragile body that carried his heart and legacy.
"My flame." The words were rough, left ragged from the wrath still smoldering in his throat. "My precious, living flame."
Claws gentling, carding through her hair, he watched where it drifted behind her. Smoke in the water.
Fingers tangling, he gathered a lock of that billowing silk and brought it to his face. Inhaled. Let it flutter across his lips. Tasting her scent, that citrus and lightning. Bright Siren ozone, laced with honeyed sweetness that had clung to her since his spawn had taken root.
"Such a sweet bride," he murmured, lips brushing the shell of her ear. "Mine."
The hum in her chest stuttered.
Softened.
The tension bled from her elegant frame, one hitching, ragged breath at a time. With every pass of his palm. Each crooning note he sent rattling through her bones.
Petting her, singing until her breath steadied. Until her biolume dimmed, shifting from that frantic strobing to the slow, rhythmic pulse of peace.
Nyxarion's eyes drifted shut.
Allowing himself to take this moment with her. Alone.
Beneath his palms, her breathing grew liquid. Measured. Sedated by his mate song, pulling her away from the dread of the unknown. Nyxarion held her steady, one palm keeping her ear pressed against the slow thunder of his heart.
But as his bride grew tranquil against him, the muscle in his jaw flexed.
Sun clams.
That devious, insufferable bastard.
The image of her—taking those iridescent shells from Thalos' hand, sucking at the golden meat with a hunger she didn't understand—burned in his chest.
It was a message.
A test.
One she hadn't understood, but every Pelagorn present in his throne room had accepted in an instant.
Sun clams were a delicacy fed to Virelii in pregnancy. A helpless craving exclusive to Thalassari females.
The child had reached through Kore's blood and pulled her toward Thalassari nourishment with a blind, desperate need she couldn't possibly understand. Fostered a hunger for minerals and proteins the Deep simply could not provide.
Claws prickling her scalp, Nyx's spines flicked. A brief flare of his temper.
It was brilliant.
The sort of manipulation only Thalos might devise. Devious and elegant. Cruel beyond measure.
And effective.
Because it had worked.
Because Nyxarion had watched her eat them. Listened to her moan around the succulent taste, and understood exactly what it meant.
Knew just what he had to do.
Petting her, increasing the volume of his song, Nyx brought a single barb forward. Thin and precise. Angled against the soft tissue inside her elbow, where veins ran closest to the surface.
His eyes stayed shut for one breath. Two. Clinging to this instant, as long as he could.
Silver irises flashed when his lids slid open.
His jaw bunched.
But he slipped his barb between her scales, pumping his toxin into her blood.
Kore's spine went rigid.
With a gasp, she flinched. Fingers curling against his chest. Beguiling grey-gold eyes snapped open. Pupils blown, she turned her gaze up. Searching his face for answers to a question she couldn't voice. "Nyx—"
He hushed her, palm of his free hand stroking her back as he emptied his venom sac. "I know," he murmured, and let the song fall silent. "I know. It's almost over. Just a few more drops."
Already, a pretty flush was blooming in her cheeks. Staining her throat. Her scent growing ripe and thick in the water.
Slick.
Heavy with the perfume of a body preparing to be bred.
"That's it," he murmured, withdrawing the barb.
Soothing the puncture with his thumb. He hesitated, throat flexing on a ragged swallow.
Tail flexing where it was coiled around the base of his throne.
And then, "I don't know if Asterion is lying.
If his scholars speak truth, or serve his wretched designs on our child. "
Gills flaring, he squeezed her tight to him as the venom spread, for each word cost him. Greatly.
"But," he added, pressing his face into her hair, inhaling the flavor of Vorynthar's heart, "I will not gamble with what grows inside you."
A shudder rippled through her muscle.
Heat.
It was building. Swamping her blood with the warmth that served but a single purpose. One she could not resist.
Breeding.
Helplessly drawn to her, his cock pressed against his seam. Swelling inside his vent. Ravenous, ready to fill her. Service his bride and ease the ache he'd put inside her.
But some part of him… some heinous, monstrous piece remembered the frenzy of it.
What it had been like to take her back from Thalos.
To rut her, after the Shallow King had taken what did not belong to him.
The way he'd succumbed to the need, driven to flood every space Thalos had touched.
Remembered exactly how he'd wrung himself empty, and then found more, driven past exhaustion by the need to wash Thalos out.
"Fuck," he hissed, eyes squeezed shut, Kore clenched tight to his chest. He remembered how hard he'd come.
It haunted him.
"Nyx," she whined, hips shifting against his scales. "Please, I need—"
"I know," he said, resisting the urge to fuck her placid. Knew exactly what she needed, and did not give it to her. "Breathe, Kore," he murmured, and did not recognize the gravel in his own voice. "Just breathe."
She whimpered.
Low. Desperate. A sound brought forth by his venom, in his bride seeking him. Her slick blooming between her legs.
"Please," she whispered, forehead bumping his collarbone. Breath growing ragged, caught in the flutter of her gills. "I… I… It hurts," she rasped, hips shifting to ease the ache. "Nyx, I need…"
The antechamber pulsed, reflecting the desperate glow of the Siren begging for his cock. Polyps stretching tiny fingers toward her, feeding on the chemical storm of a Siren in heat.
Turning, legs spreading to straddle him, she pressed against his vent.
That delicious little pussy was growing plump. Needy. Every roll of her hips left a fresh smear of slick across his scales. And the scent alone was enough to make his vision blur at the edges.
But he held.
Resisted.
Let it build in her blood.
And in so doing, he robbed her of agency.
It was the only mercy he knew how to give. To ensure she would carry no guilt. That she couldn't torment herself for what needed to be done for their child to thrive.
"Nghh… Nyx… Please…" Legs wrapped around his hips, ankles locking at the small of his back where tail met torso, she gyrated. Pressing her pretty little pussy against his seam.
Hissing, Nyx let her move. Fighting the heat, cock jerking hard enough to part the scales, just a little. His tip nosing against her, flushed and dark.
Kore sobbed.
Pleading with her body.
Pinning her in place, tight to his chest, Nyxarion cradled her even as he denied her. One arm banded at her lower back, the other looped around her shoulders.
"Just breathe," he whispered against her ear. And with a single powerful stroke, he carried them up. Through the chamber's twisting corridors.
Up, into the dark waters aglow with Vorynthar's desperate, strobing light.
Grinding against him with every stroke, Kore keened against his chest. Ribbons of slick painting the current in their wake.
But he did not ascend through the poisoned layers of the Black Sea.
The layers of the Deep were a blade. Brutal, cutting and savage even to him. But for the body writhing against his chest? His precious bride, growing ripe with a potentially unstable pregnancy?
It may well be a death sentence for both.
Delicate.
The word tasted wrong.
Kore was the woman who had taken his venom, his cock and seed. The human female who'd stared into the abyss, glaring at two kings, and declared the child in her womb to be hers.
But the pregnancy had made her… fragile. And the shifting pressure, the unstable temperatures, it might well be more than her body could regulate.
Teeth bared, Nyxarion swallowed his pride and turned toward the riptide.
Thalos' riptide.
Thalassari architecture. Brilliant.
A helical current engineered from the surface downward, boring through the thermocline in a controlled spiral that traded the violent pressure for a gradual, rotating ascent.
The water inside was warm. Oxygenated. Fed by the heat of the surface.
Entering, he let the current take them.
The rotation pressed Kore tighter against his chest. Her gills fluttered, drinking in the oxygenated water, and a fraction of the tension left her shoulders.
But the venom was still burning through her blood.
"Nyx," she gasped, fingers reaching between them, searching for his vent. Nails caught at the scaled edge, tracing the head of his cock. Clumsy. "Please, I… I just need… just let me…"
Her palm found the exposed tip, and she squeezed.
Hissing through clenched teeth, Nyxarion's vision whited out. Every muscle in his tail locked rigid, and he caught her wrist. Pinning it at her lower back. "Shhh," he hushed, pressing his lips to hers. "Shhh, my bride. My sweet, burning bride."
"It hurts."
"I know," he crooned, lips moving against her temple. "I know it hurts. I gave you this, and I will give you what ends it. Soon. So soon, Kore."
It was a promise spoken against her skin while the riptide carried them toward betrayal.
He broke free of the current in the mid-ground.
Where the water was cold and black, but breathable. The uneasy meeting between shallows and abyss.
Thalos.
Suspended in the dark.
Alone.
Silver hair drifting weightless, framing a perfect face carved from moonlight and malice.
Lips already stretched across a smirk.
Until Kore whined, pressing her face against Nyxarion's gills. "Please, Nyx. Please… please…"
Thalos' smile faltered, then vanished. His pupils ballooning wide. Growing flat and reflective as the scent of slick bled through the current.
Spines flaring, fins spread to catch the current, Nyx allowed himself to drift closer. Imposing. Dwarfing the Shallow King with pure Abyssari strength.
Unashamed, because his bride had a taste for sun clams.
And Nyxarion would feed her exactly what she needed.