Chapter 5
K lari pulled Greta deeper into the heart of the golden kelp forest, his powerful strokes cutting through the swaying fronds with practiced ease.
The dense stalks closed around them like living curtains, filtering the turquoise light into shifting patterns of gold and shadow.
He kept one arm wrapped securely around her waist—firm enough to keep her with him, gentle enough not to bruise—while his other hand pushed fronds aside.
Greta twisted violently in his grip, webbed fingers digging into his forearm as she tried to pry herself free. “Let go of me!”
The words came out as a distorted, bubbling warble underwater, her new vocal cords struggling to shape human speech. It sounded strange even to her own ears—higher, with an echoing trill beneath it—but the fury was unmistakable. “I said let go!”
Klari didn’t release her. Instead he angled them downward into a thicker pocket where the kelp grew so dense it formed a natural cave .
He pressed her back against a sturdy stalk, his larger body shielding hers from the open water beyond. His bioluminescent markings were dim now, muted to a soft glow that blended with the golden fronds.
“Quiet,” he said. His voice carried through the water as a low, resonant series of clicks and whistles mixed with guttural tones—strange, but somehow intelligible, like dolphin speech filtered through a translator in her mind.
The transformation must have granted her the ability to understand. “They are close. Be still.”
Greta shoved at his chest, her pink-scaled palms sliding over smooth blue skin. “I don’t care! Get your hands off me—you’re just like the others!”
She kicked hard, trying to slip free and dart away, but his arm tightened just enough to hold her in place without crushing her. “I’m not your prize. I’m not staying here with any of you!”
A low thrumming sound vibrated through the water from somewhere outside the thicket—another rival calling out in sharp clicks. “The female is near! I scent her blood on the current!”
A second voice answered, harsher, with a predatory edge: “She belongs to the strongest. Move aside or I’ll tear your throat out and take her while you bleed.”
Klari’s jaw clenched. He leaned closer to Greta, his breath warm against her neck as he spoke softly. “I am not like them. I will not force you. But if you swim out now, they will catch you. And they will not ask as they ravage you again and again and again.”
Greta’s heart hammered against her ribs.
She didn’t trust him. Not even a little.
Klari pulled her deeper into the kelp forest, his arm still wrapped around her waist as the golden fronds grew thicker, darker, more tangled. He finally stopped in a small natural pocket where the stalks formed a dense, swaying curtain around them.
“Stay still,” he said quietly, voice low and clicking. “You’re bleeding. They can all smell it. Blood travels far and fast in open water. If we don’t stop it, every rival on this platform will find us within minutes.”
Greta yanked against his hold again, eyes narrowed. “And how do I know you’re not just using that as an excuse to get your hands on me?”
“Because if I wanted to force you, I would have done it already,” he answered, amber eyes steady. “But I’m not them.”
He released her waist but kept one hand gently on her arm, guiding her to rest against a thick kelp stalk. With surprising care, he examined the deep claw marks on her shoulder. The wounds still leaked thin trails of red.
Greta winced as his fingers brushed the torn skin. “Don’t?—”
“I have to stop the bleeding,” he murmured. Using the broad, flat edge of one of his own claws, he carefully scraped away a thin layer of a soft, pale kelp leaf, then pressed the makeshift bandage firmly against her shoulder. The pressure stung, but the bleeding slowed almost immediately.
She watched him warily, body tense. “Why are you helping me? What’s in it for you?”
Klari’s jaw tightened. His markings flickered with faint pulses. He was closer than she’d like. She could feel the heat radiating from his larger blue body, the restrained tension in every muscle.
His gaze dropped briefly to the curve of her neck, to the way her pink skin contrasted with his, then flicked away.
“Because the scent of your blood is driving me insane,” he admitted, voice rougher now.
“Every instinct I have is screaming at me to claim you right here. Right now. To pin you against this stalk and…” He shook his head.
“But I’m fighting it. For you. For both of us.
” He pressed the kelp bandage harder, breathing controlled but heavy.
“So stay still… and stop looking at me like I’m about to eat you. ”
Greta swallowed, gills fluttering. “You’re not doing a great job of convincing me you’re different.”
“You are right.” His eyes met hers again, intense but honest. “My name is Klari. I was taken from my world just like you. I want to survive this game and go home. That’s all.”
She hesitated, still pressed against the stalk, the makeshift bandage cool against her burning shoulder. After a long moment she finally spoke, voice wary and quiet.
“…Greta. My name is Greta.”
Klari’s markings gave a single soft pulse. “Greta,” he repeated, as if testing the sound. “It suits you. In our tongue, it almost sounds like Griita.”
“Griita?” she said, attempting to mimic the sound.
“It means… ‘spark that tempts the tide’ — the bright flash that makes even the deepest currents lose control.”
Greta blinked, gills fluttering in surprise.
“Griita?” she repeated, the word coming out with a strange trill in her new aquatic voice. She let out a short, incredulous laugh that bubbled through the water. “You’re telling me my name sounds like some sexy alien pick-up line that means ‘spark that tempts the tide’? Oh, that’s just perfect.”
She shook her head, pink scales catching the filtered light as she stared at him.
“Great. I go from teaching high-school physics to being literally called ‘the bright flash that makes currents lose control.’ My students would never let me live this down. ‘Miss Greta, are you tempting the tide again?’”
Her tone was sharp, but there was a reluctant flush of warmth under her skin — equal parts embarrassment and something dangerously close to flattery. She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to regain control of the moment.
“Nice try, Klari. If you think calling me a tempting little spark is going to make me trust you faster, you’re going to be disappointed. I’m still swimming away the second those psychopaths are gone.”
Even as she said it, her gaze flicked briefly to his dim bioluminescent markings, then away again.
Spark that tempts the tide…
She hated how much she didn’t entirely hate the sound of that.
Klari didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “Understood. For now… just let me keep you alive a little longer.”
Outside the thick kelp curtain, distant clicks and snarls of the searching rivals echoed faintly through the water.
“How do I even understand you? What the hell did they do to me?” She yanked at his arm again, voice rising in a frantic trill. “This isn’t real. None of this is real. I was teaching physics yesterday—building drones—not… not this!”
“Shh.” Klari’s free hand came up, gently brushing a strand of floating hair from her face.
His touch was careful. “The change lets us speak. The Games give us what we need to claim… or to survive.” He paused, amber eyes meeting hers directly.
“You feel it, don’t you? The pulse in your veins?
That is your timer. You had exactly sixty minutes from when they gave you the serum.
You will remain in this form before you revert to being human.
No gills. No we bbing. You will drown if you are still underwater when it ends. ”
Greta froze, staring down at the faint glowing patterns tracing her arms and chest. The veins pulsed steadily, already ticking downward. “Sixty minutes? That’s all?” Her voice cracked into a high, panicked trill. “They didn’t tell me that! How do I reset it? How do I get out of here?”
Klari’s markings flickered. “Mating with a male resets it and counts as a claim. Mate with the same male three times, and this Game is over.”
She turned an even darker shade of pink. “Three times? But… but then I can go home, right?”
He nodded. “If the male allows it. You will belong to him. A claim—or your death—triggers the full platform reset. We start back in our pods and it starts again. The good news is, any claims are cumulative. The counter remains, no matter what happens.”
“That’s the good news?”
“The other rivals… they won’t explain this. Better for you to be ignorant. They only want to win.”
“And you don’t?”
He just looked at her a moment.
Another rival’s voice cut through the kelp, closer this time, full of raw hunger: “I had her against the coral. She fought sweetly. I’ll finish what I started—spread those pretty pink legs and fill her until she stops screaming.”
Greta shuddered, pressing back harder against the stalk. Her small claws dug into Klari’s shoulder without thinking. “See? That’s what you all want. Just admit it.”
Klari met her eyes, gaze intense but controlled.
“I want to live. And I want you to live. The others only want the win.” He loosened his arm slightly—not enough for her to escape, but enough to show he wasn’t trapping her completely.
“Stay quiet with me. Let them pass. Then… we can talk. Really talk. You can run after if you still want to.”
A third voice drifted through the fronds, mocking and close: “Klari thinks he can play protector. I’ll gut him and take the female while his blood draws the rest.”
Greta’s breath hitched—gills flaring rapidly. She stopped fighting for a moment, body tense against his.
One rival’s dark shadow passed mere feet away, powerful strokes stirring the fronds.
Klari held perfectly still, his body a warm wall between her and the open sea. He whispered again, voice low and steady: “Breathe. They cannot scent us clearly in the thicket. Trust me this once.”
“Trust you?” Greta let out a bitter, bubbling laugh that came out as a shaky trill.
“You just told me I have less than an hour before I drown, and I’m supposed to trust the guy holding me hostage in the kelp?
I don’t even know what I am anymore.” She glanced down at her pink skin, the subtle scales, the webbing between her fingers.
“Sixty minutes. And mating resets it? That’s the only way? ”
“Yes,” Klari answered quietly. “But I won’t take what you don’t give. Not like them.”
Another rival swept past, claws extended, snarling: “Come out, little pink! The first claim is mine!”
Greta froze, pressed tight against Klari’s chest. Their bodies were flush now in the tight space—his sleek blue frame against her softer pink one. She could feel the steady thrum of his markings, the restrained power in every muscle.
The distant clicks and snarls of the searching rivals suddenly quieted. The kelp around them fell into an eerie, heavy silence .
Klari’s markings dimmed even further as he leaned closer, voice low and urgent.
“Greta,” he said, using her name for the first time. “I need you to trust me. Do exactly as I say. It’s the only way you’re going to survive the next hour.”
His amber eyes locked onto hers, intense and deadly serious.
“Can you trust me?”
Greta’s eyes widened, bulging with fresh panic. For a split second she stared at him, gills flaring rapidly.
Then she bolted twisted out of his grip with a powerful kick of her webbed feet and vanished into the thick golden kelp, disappearing between the swaying stalks before he could stop her.
Klari let out a deep, frustrated sigh that sent bubbles rising through the fronds.
“Damn it.”