What Does It Look Like?
Chapter Thirty-Four
SADIE
The room feels smaller after Kyros leaves. Glowing algae pulses gently along the stone, casting blue-green shadows across the walls. It’s nauseating.
I squeeze my eyes shut and drop my head into my palms.
I’m exhausted.
I miss my dad.
He’s all I can see. Laughing at the wheelhouse. Pointing excitedly at the sonar. Standing on the deck with coffee in his hand. I want him so badly, would give anything to hear his calming voice one last time, but he’s dead. And I’m now mated to the man who killed him.
My grief comes in waves, and each one steals my breath.
I hate Kyros for it.
And I hate myself for the way I feel about him.
I lie back on the kelp mattress, staring at the curved ceiling. I can just barely hear distant sounds drifting through the corridors, chirps and laughter. The low hum of life beyond the stone walls.
It’s beautiful here. Everything about this world is exciting and interesting. So much so that when I think about going home, I’m no longer excited.
There are no towering white spirals, no streets made from currents, and no massive animals circling city perimeters on the surface. There are no children with vibrant tails or beds made of kelp.
There’s no Kyros.
Guilt immediately follows that thought. Dad is dead, and I’m lying here admiring the city built by the people who killed him.
Water shifts near the entrance, and I sit up just as Kyros slinks back inside, his crimson tail cutting through the water in slow strokes. The flickering light catches on the fresh bandages wrapped tightly around his torso.
“No more paste?” I ask.
Kyros shakes his head. “Apparently not. They upgraded me.”
He drifts closer, his movements slow. He looks exhausted, and he exhales through his nose as he sits beside me. The water shifts around him as he settles, warm currents brushing faintly against my bare legs.
I take a closer look at his bandages. Blood has seeped through the pale fabric, several spots tinted pink. Even injured, Kyros feels too large for the room.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“Not in the slightest.”
Kyros shoots me a sideways glance, a faint smirk playing at the corners of his lips before he leans back on his elbows and stretches out his tail. I try not to stare at the smooth, crimson scales.
I fail miserably.
“You’re staring again,” Kyros murmurs.
“Should I stop?”
“No.” He flicks his tail back and forth, letting it trail through the water. “You can touch it again, if you’d like.”
I hum. “Sounds like you want me to touch it again.”
“Perhaps.”
He lets out a quiet hum, then teasingly drags the tip of his tail over my feet. I swallow, looking away. Kyros is acting differently tonight. He’s lighter, maybe even a little playful. He’s letting me see a different side of him, but I don’t want to know it.
It’s dangerous.
“We shouldn’t…” I admit.
“Why?”
“Because it confuses me.”
Kyros cocks his head to the side.
I continue. “It makes it hard to hate you.”
Kyros’s flickering tail stills, and crimson pulses faintly beneath his ribs before he looks away, letting the words settle heavily between us. He doesn’t know what to do with my confession.
He casts his eyes downward and licks his lips. “You should hate me.”
“I know.”
A long silence stretches. I stare at the ceiling, counting the thousands of tiny imperfections in the stone. Every time the glowing algae sways, I find hundreds more.
Kyros intends to bring me to the surface tomorrow morning.
“I want their bodies,” I say. My throat tightens around the words. “My dad and Tipper. I want to bury them properly.”
Kyros looks at his hands, his eyes narrowed as if he is mentally picking them apart. His palms are mostly smooth—more so than most human palms—and the webbing between his fingers stretches almost to his knuckles. Delicate veins travel through the thin skin.
These are the hands that murdered Dad and Tipper.
“I already sent men to retrieve them.” Kyros closes his hands into fists. “The currents carried them farther than expected, but they’ll be found.”
Emotion lodges painfully in my throat.
It takes several seconds to find words. “You can’t find them?”
“We will.”
Tears sting at the back of my eyes before drifting into the open water. Kyros watches me carefully. Too carefully. Somehow, he knows I’m crying.
“I’m sorry, Sadie.”
“I know.”
My chest aches.
Kyros’s voice is low when he next speaks. “What’s your favorite memory of him?”
The question catches me completely off guard.
I smile softly despite myself, wiping quickly at my eyes.
“God. Um…” It doesn’t take long for a memory to surface.
“We used to watch the whales before sunrise. We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.
” My smile grows. “It didn’t matter how tired I was.
Dad would drag me onto the deck and point them out. I loved it.”
“He sounds like a good father.”
“He was.”
The ache in my chest twists.
“What about you?” I whisper. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”
Kyros hums, taking a moment to think.
“My mother used to take me to the thermal vents during the winter months,” he says. “The water there stays warm. She’d tell me stories while we watched the fish migrate.”
I blink. It’s hard to imagine Kyros as a child, probably full of smiles and laughs as he spent time with his mother. The image is strangely gentle.
“She passed several years ago,” Kyros continues. “And my father only days later.”
My throat tightens. I swallow.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Kyros shrugs.
“What kinds of stories did she tell you?” I ask.
Kyros glances at me sideways. “All kinds, but usually embellished recounts of Tideborn’s greatest victories. We have several. More than most other pods.”
I snort. “Naturally.”
A tiny smile appears again. It makes Kyros seem almost…approachable.
“You know,” I start, “you’re significantly more tolerable when you’re not trying to drown me.”
“That happened only once.”
I raise a brow. “Only?”
I very distinctly recall him dragging me off that stone slab several times, forcing me into the water. Then he’d hold me under until I inhaled, forcing my lungs to undergo the transition from breathing air to water.
“The other times don’t count,” Kyros argues. “I knew you wouldn’t drown.”
He has the audacity to look mildly amused as he says it. Unbelievable.
He changes the subject. “What’s your favorite food?”
I hesitate to answer. “Why?”
“Why not?” Kyros shrugs. “I want to know more about you.”
I narrow my eyes. “Crab legs dipped in garlic butter.”
Kyros looks horrified, his jaw slack and nose scrunched. He looks me up and down with wide eyes, then shivers.
“You eat bottom-feeders,” he accuses me. “Disgusting.”
I pull my knees to my chest and bury my face in them, hiding my smile.
I’m enjoying this conversation, more than I should.
Does this make me a horrible person? The alternative is drowning in grief, which I’m certain Dad and Tipper wouldn’t want.
But to laugh with the man who killed them… I’m not sure they’d want that, either.
I should shut this conversation down.
“What’s your favorite color?” I ask instead.
“I don’t have one.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, come on. Don’t be like that. I know you have one.”
“Fine.” Kyros purses his lips. “Crimson.”
I glance pointedly at his tail. “Creative.”
Kyros shrugs. “You asked. What’s yours?”
“Pink.”
It reminds me of the early-morning sunrise. And of whale watching with Dad. And sunburns. And my favorite coffee mug.
Kyros looks me up and down. “You don’t seem like a pink person.”
“What color do I seem like, then?”
“Crimson.”
The way he says it sends heat creeping up my neck. He’s talking about something deeper than color.
I nudge my foot against his tail, around where his thigh would be if he had one. We’re entering dangerous territory, and judging by the flighty glances we’re exchanging, we both know it.
Kyros curls his tail loosely around my ankle before he seems to realize what he’s doing and pulls away. The movement is instinctive and possessive.
“So,” I say, “how do merpeople have sex?”
Kyros chokes.
I beam at him. “You’ve publicly fingered me. Don’t act shy now.”
“You ask absurd questions.”
“You avoid answering them.”
“Because they’re absurd!”
I raise a brow, and Kyros rubs a hand down his face. He looks stressed, just the way I like him. I bet he’s regretting every decision that’s led him to this interaction. I hope he is, at least.
I lean closer. “Explain this pocket situation to me.”
Kyros clamps his lips together.
“Do you have, like…a penis pocket?”
Kyros squeezes his eyes shut. “Humans are exhausting.”
“So…that’s a yes?”
His tail snaps, and crimson flares across his ribcage. I’m positively beaming.
“You’re enjoying this far too much,” he mutters.
“You shoved me into the ocean. I deserve this.”
Kyros shakes his head. “It’s… Fuck.” He groans. “The scales spread. My slit is underneath.”
I blink. Blink again.
“Your…slit?” I repeat.
“Yes.”
I stare at Kyros for a solid three seconds. “Show me.”