Chapter 27 #3
Then he opened the wooden door, and my eyes drank in the splendor of the city.
Every building was constructed out of different hues and textures of coral.
Windows and doorways bored through giant clusters of colorful sea rock to create homes and businesses.
Each towering cluster of coral was connected by channels of water where Water Fae could swim like liquid streets.
There were also bridges and sidewalks for visitors, and hundreds of flying Fae above.
Their wings—variations of butterflies and insects—filled the air with a humming buzz, second only to the thunderous crashing of the waterfalls surrounding the city.
“Because water is a little more forgiving than lava,” he added with a smirk.
“We stepped into the wading pool to merge into traffic…
The moment the water hit my thighs, our wings vanished—and fins like mermaid tails sealed around our legs.
My fin glowed a bright sea-foam green, luminous, and unbelievably beautiful beneath the sparkling water.
The little girl in me would have lost her mind knowing that one day I would actually become the mermaid I used to pretend to be in the bathtub.
“Woah!!!” I cried as I flopped forward. He laughed at my expense.
Our fins were the same color as our hair.
“Okay. I’m going to project my shield onto your shoulders so you can still swim. If it holds, your hair stays dry—if it fails, you’ll feel the water immediately.”
“Ok… but can I breathe underwater? I thought a glamour was just a costume,” I asked.
“No, you cannot. But the shield will wrap a bubble of air around you. It should be enough to get you to the archives building,” he replied. “Should be?” I shot back.
“Trust, Pickles, remember?” He gave me a sly smile as he held my hand.
Instantly, my body longed for him. Every time he affectionately called me Pickles, my heart skipped. Having gone so long without hearing it, the name melted me even more now.
An orb of energy formed around Titus’s head and shoulders, then migrated down his arm and rolled up mine.
The sensation was tingly. Even in this form, I could feel his heat caress me.
The orb stopped once it was in place on my shoulders, and I could breathe its air freely.
Another shielding orb formed on his shoulders. He held my hand and we fully submerged.
The shield was working. I could breathe, and my hair was dry. I sighed in relief.
He looked back and smiled, pleased with himself. The channel’s current grabbed us, dragging us deep under the surface, and shot us forward with rapid speed.
Titus swam in front of me while grasping my hand, guiding me where to go. We definitely looked like imposters, swimming in the channel for the first time, but the other busy commuting Water Fae didn’t pay us any attention.
We zipped through the channel, through the heart of the city, then veered right as we curved around and headed in a different direction. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down, let alone east or west.
He looked back at me again and—damn—mermaid version of Titus was hot. But then again, I hadn’t seen a version of him I didn’t like.
“I’m going to let go of your hand.” I couldn’t hear him directly, but his voice resonated in my bubble shield like a magic version of speakerphone.
“I must not have heard you correctly, because it sounded like you said you were going to let go!?” I shouted back, panicking.
“I have to test the shield without touching you… trust, Pickles,” he replied urgently, emphasizing the word.
I didn’t want to, but what choice did I have? If we didn’t figure out the shield in the water, then how could we ever figure it out in lava? He asked me to trust him, and although his antics were reckless, he had kept me safe thus far.
“Kick your fin and keep up.” Follow me. We are almost there!” he commanded.
I immediately started flipping my fin as hard as I could, and then he let go.
The shield flickered slightly but stayed intact. Instant relief filled my chest as I tried to keep up with the racing speed of the current.
“Is it working?” he asked. There was a hint of strain in his voice— so unlike him. All I’d ever known Titus to be was incredibly, effortlessly powerful.
“Seems to be!” I confirmed.
He merged right again to another exit and we changed direction.
He cut right into another exit tunnel. The current snapped us sideways. The shield flickered twice—then I felt it give. The integrity cracked. A small vertical fracture split above my head, and water started to spew in at an alarming rate.
I panicked and shrieked, “Titus!!! The shield is cracking; my bubble is filling up with water!!!”
He flinched and turned his head to observe, pausing his swimming for only a moment. He took my hand, but the shield didn’t repair. Water pooled just below my shoulders.
“Fuck!” I heard his panic in my orb. “We are almost there.
Hold on!” he yelled.
“Fix it, Titus!! I’m going to drown!” I screamed, and tears of pure panic gushed from my eyes.
Then a second fracture—horizontal—split across the first. It was even bigger, and water flooded in, filling my bubble to my chin almost instantly.
I looked up, thinking maybe I could fight the current and swim to the surface, but my face paled in horror.
We were underground.
“The next exit point is just ahead—hold on, Pickles. Hold your breath!” he shouted, and the strain in his voice was alarmingly amplified.
“Help me, Danny, please!!! Please fix it!!!” I sobbed. “You can do this!!” he shouted back.
I tilted my head back, knowing I was going to have to take my last breath soon. I had about twenty seconds.
Titus increased his speed to an unnatural rate, even by Water Fae standards.
“I can see the exit point, just hold on!!!” he called out.
With the water covering all of my face except my lips, I took my last breath, praying I would breathe again soon.
Water swallowed the last pocket of air—then the orb shattered, the magic breaking apart into glittering shards that got lost in the current.
I could feel the full force of the current pulverizing past my face. I couldn’t see. I could only feel his hand holding mine, squeezing tighter for comfort. My lungs began to burn. My body shook, begging me to open my airway, and then I felt my body go limp as a haze took hold.
Just then I felt my body thrust into the air. Strong arms hooked under my ribs and hauled me up, and I landed back on solid ground.
I coughed up water—so much water—then sweet air filled my lungs and my vision came back. It was blurry at first, then sharpened on mermaid Titus’s turquoise eyes staring at me intensely.
I was so out of it I didn’t recognize the pure panic in his gaze at first. Then the ringing in my ears faded and Titus’s frantic voice registered.
“FUCK! Delilah, wake up. Oh fuck, thank the Guardians you’re okay.”
Were those tears in his eyes? Then again, we were both soaked, so there was no way to be certain.
I coughed and after a few deep breaths, I recovered relatively unscathed.
I knew I should be pissed, but I was just so relieved to be alive.
The way he held me in his arms and the concern in his voice felt so damn good.
His face was so close to mine. I loved the warmth his muscled arms gave.
His lips hovered close to mine. His eyes shifted to my lips, and I wanted him all over again.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in closer.
“Kiss me, and I’ll forgive you,” I said breathily as I stared into his depths. Even through the mermaid glamour, I could see his soul of fire.
“That’s a win-win for me, Pickles,” he said with a charming smile, leaning in and holding my body close to his chest.
He was sitting on the cobblestone sidewalk in front of a row of older buildings. I could only tell their age because the coral structures looked dull and had started to crumble in the corners.
Not cobblestones—shells. The pavement was made of millions of shells embedded in concrete-hard sand. This part of town was not nearly as populated as the area where we came in. There was no one around. We were alone.
My lips met his with shameless lust. Instantly I became lost in his aura. His lips sucked mine. My hands cupped his defined jaw, and I pulled him in so my tongue could explore deeper.
He groaned, and his body temperature rose to an unnatural level. A chuckle rumbled from his throat, and he pulled away. My lips immediately ached from the loss of his warmth.
“Pickles…” he said darkly in his deep, rumbling tenor. “Keeping the glamour intact is not easy when you… distract me like this.”
I felt his cock bob under me, and heat burned through my core with desire.
“We can’t risk getting caught,” he added in a strained, breathy cadence.
I smiled wickedly. “I thought you liked the idea of getting caught.”
He chewed on my words for a moment—then something sparked. He remembered our first time in the alley. I saw his beautiful chaos take light.
“Shall we find an alley?” he tempted. “Take me,” I breathed.
The coral buildings around us weren’t constructed of straight lines like typical city buildings. The spaces between the structures were winding, and there were thousands of hidden, random gaps among the coral.
He stood, my weight in his hands, holding me bridal style. My wet wings brushed the shelled pavement as we disappeared into a twisted maze of ocean rock between buildings.
He stopped, and we crawled into a cavity in the pink rock and lay into it like a large bathtub. It was dark, only a small, horizontal gap of light poured in.
His kiss was intense, borderline violent, but that was pretty much Titus in a nutshell. His large, warm body was beneath mine. Every inch of him was hard; every muscle felt like scorched iron wrapped in flesh.
“I’m sorry, but I have to remove those ridiculous things,” he said between plunges of his tongue in my mouth, and our wings disappeared.
Then I realized it wasn’t just my wings. He removed my glamour completely, bringing me back to my smaller, weaker human form. He cupped my face in his warm hands.
“There… that’s my girl,” he said admiringly as he stroked my jaw with his thumb.
My heart did a somersault, and warmth flooded my veins. Those words—"my girl"—made me feel so loved. He loved me for me, not an enhanced Fae version of me, just me.
I couldn’t help but wonder, though, why he didn’t like the strong version of me.
I smiled and tilted my head into his hand. His thumb brushed my lips.
I bent down for one more sweet, simple kiss, then my hand roamed from his pecs to his neck and then his jaw. I jerked his
head to the side to give myself better access to his neck, and I began to give him a taste of his own medicine.
My mouth planted intense, borderline violent kisses with light nips of teeth on the sensitive skin of his neck, making my way down to his chest.
He let out a startled groan packed with pleasure. “So feisty today…” he teased with a seductive grin.
I began to unbutton his shirt aggressively, and when I had his hard, sculpted body laid out for me, I continued mauling his warm, muscled flesh like a hungry lioness in heat.
That’s when I saw his glamour begin to crack. The skin on his chest flickered from fair and scaled to his gold-tinted tan.
My tongue traced the rigid lines of his abdomen, and his moan hitched as he squirmed slightly.
Was he ticklish?
I grinned, stifling a laugh. “Is the big bad High Lord ticklish?” I snarked playfully.
Then something happened that I didn’t foresee. His face—once wrapped in pleasure—took a dark turn, like I’d insulted him. I paused, fear creeping up my spine like a big ugly spider.
“I’m… I’m just messing with you,” I said seriously.
“I guess I am going to have to remind you how big and bad the High Lord is,” he said wickedly.
Then he unzipped his pants and his giant erection sprang forward.
“Suck,” he commanded.
I… I had a mixed, conflicted reaction. I was both turned on and frightened, ignoring the fact that I could very well be turned on because I was frightened. I sighed internally. I needed so much therapy.
A rush of adrenaline flooded my system, and I did as he commanded. I opened my mouth, and his girth was so fucking big I felt like my jaw was dislocating. I pulled back to relieve the stretch, and a trail of saliva bridged my mouth to his cock.
“I’m not going to say it again. Suck my cock, Delilah,” he groaned with dominance.
Just then, I felt both of his big hands grab the back of my head and thrust my face down on him.
I braced for pain, but to my surprise he wasn’t overly rough or forceful. His fists guided my head in small strokes while his hips thrust into my throat. The feeling was uncomfortable but not painful.
That’s when my body began to relax, and I felt that addictive hot pressure rise in my core.
I loved the feeling of him using my throat as his personal toy. His strength, his arousal, his pleasure—it made me melt. My nipples hardened and my pulse quickened. I started to wonder if I was going to have an orgasm from just this.
I gagged, and the sound only made him harder. He pulled my head back down and thrust again and again, but I was desperate for air. My eyes watered and I began to squirm in discomfort.
“Hold on, I’m so close,” he moaned.
And his entire glamour cracked—Titus, in full Fire Fae form, lay beneath me.
My lungs started to ache, and a wave of panic washed over me. Minutes earlier I had nearly drowned, and now the sensation was eerily similar—being without oxygen for far too long.
I slammed my eyes shut while he pounded deep into my throat until finally he exploded. He let out three identical, rhythmic moans as his hot liquid slid down my throat. It was so hot it felt like lava.
He gave my head one last deep push, then finally withdrew and released his grip. I gasped for air as I—strangely—nearly climaxed.
What in the actual fuck was wrong with me?
I coughed and gasped for several moments as my lungs came to terms with breathing again, while he lay back in bliss, his heavy breathing slowing with every exhale.