Epilogue
Time, as she'd known it, had lost all meaning.
She could no longer measure its passage with sunrise or set. There was only the changing of the tides. Each shift in the dark waters was a promise of what was to come.
Nyxarion.
He was relentless. Doing exactly as he'd promised, he kept her full. Bloated. Hardly bothering to wait until her belly flattened out before he was indulging again. Breeding her with the sort of relentless dedication she’d never known before.
He kept her fat with it.
His seed the only real constant in a place that changed every time she looked.
Vorynthar was thriving.
Schools of Abyssari worked to carve off sections of the Raskoril, shaping pieces, directing their growth into elegant spires that reached bony fingers toward the distant surface.
Living coral venting plumes of oxygenated water into the Black Sea's anoxic currents.
Lending the chance for life to bloom in a place that had been dead for aeons.
Reef breakers, Nyxarion had called them.
Architects of this fledgling city flourishing in the dark. Skilled workers who used no forges or tools beneath the surface where such things simply could not exist. They knew the corals. How to train them. Direct rapid new growth in a way that robbed her of breath.
"Come," Nyxarion crooned, lounging in their chamber. Fins flicking in a lazy pulse as he summoned her from the delicate arch overlooking the city. His claws crooked when she turned to look. "Here, sweet Kore."
She sighed, a tiny smile flicking at the edge of her lips, for she had begun to learn the rhythms of his place. The art of surrender, the joy of defiance. When to provoke, and when to obey.
Fins flaring, she turned. Knees flexed, she pushed off the floor of their chamber. "You're insatiable," she hummed, slipping closer. Reaching. Her fingers spread when they landed on his chest.
"And you," he returned, claws carding through her wild tresses, "ache for my seed."
Spinning her, one hand wrapped about her throat, he pushed her forward.
Bent her over his forearm so he might inspect the puffed lips of her cunt with a predatory focus that made her belly clench.
"There it is," he said, and let his tongue paint through her slick.
Passing over the tight pucker. "Always so eager. So ready for more. Always more."
"Please," she groaned, hands braced against his scales. Anchored around one of those deadly spines.
Tongue sweeping through swollen folds, broad and flat, he possessed her. Making her hiss and arch when he peeled her open with a careful claw.
"Such perfection," he murmured against her clit, kissing between licks. "So greedy."
Hips rolling, she tried to follow when he withdrew. Sucking at her clit with a lewd pop, before he pulled back.
A whine chattered between her teeth. "Nyx…"
"No," he said, claws prickling the meat of her ass. Dimpling the fat. "You'll take my knot first. Let me get you nice and full."
She tried to deny him.
Tried to squirm and fight.
But he was already pressing her down. Her cheek mashed against the floor, arms twisted, he locked her wrists behind her back and shifted. Draping his weight across her back.
Pausing to peel her open. Exposing the hungry slit he meant to use.
"There she is," he hummed, and set the blunt head of his cock between her lips.
Pressing in. Enjoying the stretch as he bullied inside.
Cock snug where it pressed against her depths.
Where his previous offering still bulged.
"Good girl," he said, voice rattling through their chamber as he let his purr shiver through her blood.
"You're not going to move. Just take it.
Show me... show me how much more you can take. "
Inch by inch, she was made to yield. Addicted to the stretch. His girth. The pearls that popped over her clit and tormented nerves left over-sensitive and raw from the constant use.
Pleasure so sharp it had become a blissful sort of pain.
Groaning, forehead dipping to bump her shoulder when he reached her end, she felt his claws flex. Drag across the surface of her belly in a way that brought a shower of shivers as he hefted the weight he'd left churning inside her. "My swollen queen."
And then, hips rolling, he dragged a whine from her throat.
Grinding deep. He nudged her womb, made her feel the force of his arousal. The girth.
Ass up, utterly exposed, she spread her knees to grant him greater access.
And then… something lurched inside her.
Kore went still.
Her eyes snapped open.
Breath still in her chest.
Nyxarion's palms flattened against her belly.
For a moment, there was nothing. Just the sounds of their breaths, one shallow, the other ragged. And then a subsonic hum rumbled through his chest.
"Yesss," he snarled, lifting her belly to agitate what was moving inside. "Gravid. At last."
Another kick thumped against her skin—fluttering against his palm.
He groaned.
Cock lurching inside her, he ground his helm down. Moving in a deep thrust that made her gasp and squirm.
"Already strong," he said, and the tremor in his voice made her ache.
Kore whined, heart clattering behind her ribs. Trying to push up, off the floor. To move the leviathan lodged inside her cunt.
Fingers tightening, a laugh rumbled against her ear when he denied her effort. Kept her impaled. "And where do you think you're going? We're not finished." His hips rolled against her. "There's more."
"Nyx—"
He reached, wrapping careful fingers over her lips.
Silencing her as he let his cock writhe so deep inside.
"Your pretty little tits," he murmured, and cupped her breast in his free hand.
"They'll grow full. Ripe. They'll ache for relief.
" Thumb circling a nipple, he pinched. Kneading.
Tugging on that sensitive bud. "It will be my pleasure," he said, voice a dark rumble against her ear, "to drink from you.
To get you ready. Teach your little body to feed my spawn. "
Breath hitching, she twisted to look over her shoulder at him. Aghast.
"Oh, yes. You'll leak for me," he continued, and drove another deep thrust inside her. "Every time I touch what belongs to me."
Another thrust delivered with a slow pulse.
It was an easy glide, yet all the more devastating for the pace.
One that would be over quickly—for both.
Knot swelling, he caught at her entrance with a desperate, low snarl.
"You're going to look so pretty, all round and helpless while you grow my child.
" One hand slipping back down, over the curve of her belly, he groaned.
Fins shivering as he bore down upon her.
"I'm going to cherish every instant of it. Worship this body as you breed for me."
Moaning, desperate and utterly enthralled by his words, Kore was swept away on the tide of his obsession. Her scales strobing with the approach of her orgasm.
"I'll keep you like this," he snarled, pumping her in long, slow strokes that underscored the feral edge to his voice.
"Fill you while you nurse the first. Keep you pregnant.
Mine. Because you were made for this," he said, pressing a kiss to her nape.
"I made you for this. To take my seed and give it life. "
And then, with a final, desperate snarl, he came. His knot swelled inside her. Locking them together as he gave her the molten flood of seed she'd grown to crave.
She followed.
Falling for the ache, the stretch.
Crying. Overwhelmed by the knowing. That she was pregnant.
"Look at you," Nyxarion crooned, hefting and petting.
Lifting her belly as he filled it up. "See?
Feel how perfect you are?" And then, one hand sliding up to wrap around her throat, he bent her back and pressed his next words against her ear.
"They're going to be perfect. Strong. And you'll make more for me.
" Hips sluicing, he drove inside her once more. "Again. And again."
Tongue tracing the edge of her gills, he made her gasp. Bucking beneath him.
"My perfect Siren Queen."
They stayed like that for a time. Enjoying the glow. Each other. The way she clenched around his every lingering pulse.
Kore's breath steadied. Slowed. And then, "What will it be like?" she murmured, preening when he petted the length of her spine. Turning to look, she found his silver eyes where he lounged at her back.
His hands stilled.
"When… when I'm…"
"Heavy with it?" he asked, and his palm spread across the bulge. Reverent. "Round enough that swimming becomes a labour?"
Chin dipping, she nodded.
Humming, a low purr rumbled through his chest, then. Soothing. The sound wrapping around and inside her.
"Your belly will grow." Pulling at his knot, he worked a few lingering drops of sperm into her. "Slow, at first. Faster toward the end, when it's strong. When the movement becomes restless."
Palm sliding lower, he slid two fingers around his base, where she was stretched to her limit. "You'll feel heavy in a way that has nothing to do with me breeding you. Though I will. Often."
A shiver of fear flickered through her biolume. "Nyx—"
"You'll need it," he insisted, strumming her clit. Making her gasp and clench. "I'll be gentle, but you'll take it."
Hesitating, as if unsure how to tell her the rest, he paused. Fingers swirling around that aching bead of pleasure. "Instinct will drive you into the dark," he murmured. "Somewhere deep. Safe and hidden."
Kore's throat tightened on a swallow.
"I'll bring you everything you need," he said in a voice pitched low.
Soft. Just for her. "The Raskoril will help.
Bloom in your den, so it'll be soft. I'll bring you delicacies from the Deep.
A feast every day," he murmured, and cupped her breast. Thumbing her nipple as he continued the slow circles around her clit.
"I'll drain you when you ache. Drink every drop of milk. "
Heat bloomed in her cheeks.
"And when the time comes," he said, and his knot let go, "when they're ready to swim and nurse and draw that first, precious breath, I'll be right here. It'll be my hand that anchors you. My hand that guides it into this kingdom."
She came, crying softly for him. Empty, and yet more full than she'd ever been.
His smile grew possessive, then. Gleaming in the low light. "I'll watch every moment. Cherish what your sweet body was made to do. And then I'll fill you again."
There was a moment of silence.
Peace.
And then the current shifted.
Kore felt the change before she saw him.
It was a blast of cold, both icy and cutting.
Scales rippling with silver-white, Kore turned.
Even as Nyx's hands tightened on her hips, a subtle order for her to still.
She looked.
Thalos.
He emerged from the shadows. Entering their private chamber without a whisper of shame. His body a patchwork of silver scars equal to those Nyxarion himself possessed. A constant reminder of the damage they had dealt each other. The price they'd paid to fight for her womb.
Moving with the same lethal grace she remembered, Thalos approached. "Korrides," he murmured, head tilted in a mocking incline. "You've been busy, I see."
Against her back, Nyxarion's snarl was a thing born of ancient myth. "Leave, before I remind you that you are unfit."
And Thalos watched, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his lips as his gaze traced the swell of Kore's belly. "No," he crooned, and tipped his head back to taste the water. "I think not." Drifting closer, twisting through the still water, Thalos stopped just out of reach. "I have a claim."
Gasping, Kore's hand drifted to her belly. Where new life was only just beginning to make itself known.
"She is mine," Nyx snarled, voice a deadly rasp. "By Pelagorn law, by the Spiral—"
"The Spiral," Thalos said, flicking his spines, dismissive, "secured your bride. Not ownership of the offspring she carries."
Silence howled in the wake of his declaration.
Teeth flashing, Thalos shrugged. "Any child carrying Asterion blood belongs to Caelith Mare."
"No," Kore rasped, horrified. Turning to press her cheek to Nyxarion's chest. The hum of violet lightning flickering to life within her. "The child is mine."
For a moment, Thalos' face softened. Etched in something approaching kindness, if that were possible.
And then, "Sweet Siren, no. I will not abandon a child of mine to drown in the Deep, as Nerissa drowned."
Horror curdled in her belly, sloshing alongside the ocean of raw, untapped potential churning in Kore's belly.
"No," he said again. "I shall remain in the Black Sea until the birth. Until we know which sovereign is the sire." He shrugged, as if the declaration meant nothing. As if he wasn't threatening to tear her child from her breast before it had even been more than a flicker of excitement in her mind.
"Over my bloated, floating corpse," Nyxarion snarled, flexing his tail. Lifting his spines to remind the Shallow King what had almost cost him everything.
Thalos merely grinned. "Nerissa's bargain holds me to peace, trench king, or I would be sorely tempted to take you up on that offer." Turning, eyes sweeping over Kore one last time, he made to go. "For now, at least."
When he departed as seamlessly as he’d arrived, Kore whirled on Nyxarion. Both hands pressed to her belly.
“I won’t allow it,” Nyx growled, pulling her into a desperate embrace. Lips moving against her shoulder, where his mark was laid into her flesh. “He won’t touch our child,” Nyxarion insisted, curling around her. Spines fully exposed.
Opposite the mark Thalos had left.
But the echo of the Shallow King’s declaration was a poison that threaded through their private chambers.
Any child carrying Asterion blood belongs to Caelith Mare.
Kore’s scales flashed with her alarm.
She’d survived transformation. Sacrifice. Claimed sovereignty in a place where her every breath was a violation of law.
But this?
The chance that the babe moving inside her might boast moonlight scales instead of obsidian? Might belong to the king who’d vowed to drag it up from the depths and into the light?
Horror made Kore cling to her king.
But wrath made her pupils flicker with the crackle of violet light...