Lord of the Deep

by Sherri L. King

  “Tryton, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Niki started to warn him.

  He ignored her and continued, his gaze centered solely on Jada’s. “I think you believe in all sorts of fantastical things.”

  Jada cocked her head and frowned, eyes going hot with some unnamed anger. “Mister, your tone is far too deprecating and I don’t care for it. I’m not a baby you have to talk down to.”

  Tryton felt his eyes widen. She seemed as adept at surprising him as her mother.

  Jada looked back and forth between him and Niki. “I might believe in magic. Not the whole rabbit-out-of-a-hat, or the-world-is-our-mother-let’s-praise-her, kind of magic. But…there’s other stuff I’ve seen.”

  “You know about your mother,” he said flatly. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  The girl smiled a tiny, enigmatic smile and for a moment both Tryton and Niki saw a shadow of the woman Jada would grow to become. But then it was gone and in its place was an impatient, stubborn, intelligent youth. “I’m not an idiot—of course I know.”

  “Baby, you don’t understand,” Niki cajoled, trying her best to rescue the situation. “Not all of it.”

  “I know you send me away because you’re afraid of hurting me.” Jada’s eyes dared Niki to deny it.

  Niki could not. It was, after all, the truth.

  “I know you can help people. Not like it was before—when I was little and you were just a nurse—it’s different now. You help them, I mean really help. Cuts and scrapes and colds go away when you touch people. You can ‘think’ someone well, and somehow they get well.”

  Niki nodded, looking down, away, anywhere but into her daughter’s too wise eyes. She’d never known how transparent she’d been to her daughter before now. She’d always been too afraid to broach the subject, too protective and worried how it might affect Jada emotionally and mentally.

  Jada reached out and surprised them all by touching her mother’s hair comfortingly. “You’ve hurt people, too. I know. But it’s not your fault,” she continued in a rush, “I know it’s not. I know things sometimes, I really do. You didn’t mean to hurt them, you were really trying to help but you didn’t understand how to do it right.”

  “I didn’t want you to know,” Niki admitted hoarsely.

  “I know that too. But something’s happened now, and the cat’s out of the bag for everybody.” Jada pulled back, settling into her chair with a sigh that sounded far too old from one so young. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Tryton answered for her.

  Jada’s eyes flashed at him. “What do you have to do with it?”

  “I’m trying to keep your mother safe.”

  “From who?”

  “From everything,” he answered truthfully.

  Jada thought for a moment. “Are you saving her from me?” she asked with some noticeable difficulty. “Do you want her to stop seeing me? Or doesn’t she want me anymore?”

  Tryton saw the fear in her eyes and felt a searing pain in his soul that he had caused it, however unintentionally. “No, never,” he swore. “Your mother loves you more than life. While I keep her safe, I would keep you safe as well, but never would I come between the two of you.”

  Jada sighed. “You’re her boyfriend?”

  He smiled. “Yes. A little.”

  Jada smirked. “A little? You either are or you aren’t.”

  “He is,” Niki said, surprising him.

  “You love him?” Jada baldly asked Niki.

  Niki looked at him wildly, panicked, as if she didn’t know exactly how to answer.

  “Yes, she loves me,” he said arrogantly, sure that eventually those words wouldn’t feel like lies on his tongue. “And I’m going to take care of you both.”

  “I don’t need taking care of,” Jada snapped.

  “Maybe not, but Niki does. She needs me, to teach her to control her power, to keep her safe.”

  Jada nodded sagely, agreeing.

  Niki choked and sputtered, clearly trying to hold her tongue in check in front of her child.

  “Okay then,” Jada said finally, as if she’d reached a decision that had been plaguing her. “If you take care of her, I’ll go back to school. But I want to see her more often,” she warned, far too much the adult for his comfort, given the situation. “I don’t want to go months at time without seeing her anymore.”

  “Baby, I love you, I wanted to see you—you have to know that—but I wanted to keep you safe more than anything.” Niki had tears in her eyes and voice.

  Jada softened and again there was the hint of the woman in her. “I know Mom. I’m sorry I was such a pain. I’m not really mad about it, ‘kay?”

  Niki nodded, beyond words.

  “Can Grimm take me back?” Jada was an excited young girl again.

  Tryton felt overwhelmed and completely out of his element. He couldn’t wait to officially claim the imp as his child before the Council. But there were other matters to attend to first.

  “I don’t think you should go back to the same school.” He realized it would be foolish to take the risk that the Daemons might track her there. Niki’s eyes widened with panic and he quickly moved to ease her. “There are better, more prestigious schools, after all,” he hedged.

  “What are you, rich or something?” Jada snorted.

  “Yes I am.” He had never been proud of it, but there it was. He was partially responsible for the structure of the human economy after all, and had unlimited funds in all currencies at his disposal. For the first time, money meant something to him beyond the means to an end. It meant security for his family. “How does a trip to Europe sound?”

  Jada’s eyes bulged. “Wicked.”

  “I’ll have Emily make the necessary arrangements at the best school available. You can leave tonight and we’ll have your belongings shipped from the Seattle school posthaste.” He paused. “As well as a healthy allowance to get you anything you should need.”

  “Cool.” Jada smiled and looked over at Niki mischievously. “Way to pick a winner, Mom.”

  Tryton had never felt so powerful.

  * * * * *

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Niki said as they walked back to Tryton’s rooms.

  “I know,” he said simply.

  “Why did you?” She frowned.

  Tryton remained silent, walking steadily so that his footfalls echoed in the incredible stone corridor.

  “Damn it, just tell me, why did you do it?” Niki demanded again, halting stubbornly in her tracks until he did the same.

  Tryton turned and eyed her for a long, intense moment before he answered simply, “Because she is a part of you, and as such, she is mine. I always take care of what is mine.”

  “No.” Niki shook her head jerkily. “That was just sex talk between you and me, a way for you to coax your way into my punani. It was fun then, but not now, not out of bed. I don’t belong to you, and my daughter certainly doesn’t either.”

  “Punani,” he breathed the word, shocking her into silence by swiftly backing her up against a wall, towering over her effortlessly. “Punani. I like that word very much. Punani.” It sounded so exotic on his tongue, even to her ears. “What does it mean? As if I couldn’t guess… Though human slang is ever-changing, its roots will always be the same no matter what language is used.” He took her hands and raised them above her head, clasping her fingers in his.

  “I’m not having this discussion.” Was that her voice all breathy and rushed? “We were talking about why you just spent a fortune sending my daughter to a school in—oh god, I can hardly believe it!—Switzerland of all places.”

  Tryton ignored her. “Punani…punani. It’s like syrup on my tongue.” He bent to her neck and inhaled deeply, breathing her in.

  Her stomach clenched at the double entendre. “Stop it.” His sensuality was overwhelming her, just as it had every second since their meeting. “You’re making me crazy.”

  “Yes, so you’ve said before. But,” he put
a finger to her lips when she made a move to speak, “I took care of our Jada, did I not? I have provided for her future and her safety. There is nothing more that need concern you about her, but your love for her.”

  “I do love her,” she managed defensively.

  His eyes glowed in the dim light of the corridor. “I know you do. You’ve worked hard enough to keep that love alive, despite the dangers you encountered along the way. And I applaud you. But your struggle is over now. Now you may love Jada as a mother should, with no more caution. I have things well in hand on all other fronts. You will have no more worries about your powers, about your problems, about any of it. I won’t allow it.”

  Niki nearly choked on her shock. “You won’t allow it? You won’t allow it? How can you have control over something like that, you, you….oooooh!”

  “I sense you are a little agitated by all this,” he teased. “But you will grow accustomed to it.”

  “I want to go home,” she bit out irrationally.

  “No you do not. You want me to pull those too long, too baggy pants of mine down around your ankles and take you here against the wall.”

  She gasped and sputtered. “You overbearing, arrogant, pigheaded son of a—”

  He pressed his mouth against hers to silence her.

  Her outrage gave way to burning, white-hot anger. Mixed with the arousal she felt with each press and nibble of his lips, it was a dangerous combination. She felt her power flash out, pulsing between them despite her desperate grasp for control of it.

  Tryton groaned and shuddered against her. “Woman, you don’t know what that does to me,” he growled at her mouth.

  But she did know and it confused and frightened and—yes, absolutely—aroused her.

  “How can you react this way? I have killed three people with this…” she searched for a word and found none she liked, “this magic of mine.”

  “I am not a human.” He met her gaze steadily as he said it, daring her not to believe him.

  She already knew he was more than human. How could she not, with all the things she’d recently seen?

  He squeezed her hands tight in his. “You need never fear this. Us. None of it. Let it come, let it be. I will take care of you, my goddess. I will take this power of yours and help you to control it, wield it, shape it into something we can both enjoy.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Goddess? Why? It makes you wet every time I say it.” He flashed his teeth in something resembling a grin, but it was just too dangerous an expression to ever be called such. “And I love it when you are wet.”

  She trembled against him and felt the surge of his erection press heavily into her belly.

  “Elder?” A voice called out from farther down the corridor.

  Tryton rested his forehead against hers for a moment before stepping back and looking toward their visitor. “Yes, Cady?”

  A short, curvaceous woman approached and Niki felt her teeth gnash against her lips. Was every woman here beautiful? Admittedly she’d only met Emily—and that had only been a greeting and a handshake—but now there was this woman. Niki had never seen such beauties before. They just seemed to flock about Tryton—two beautiful women were two too many.

  And she was, inexplicably, jealous as hell. Damn it.

  “We need to meet. There’ve been some…” She cleared her throat, her golden eyes flashing from Tryton to Niki and back. “There have been some questions raised. I don’t think you’ll be able to avoid answering them this time.”

  Tryton remained poised, even though Niki heard the censure in Cady’s voice. Was it there because she disapproved of his dalliance with her, or because of something else?

  “Yes. Call a meeting. I’ll be waiting.”

  Cady nodded, turned, and continued down the corridor with purposeful steps.

  “What’s going on?” Niki asked.

  “You are taking this transition well.” Tryton took one her hands in his again and led them back towards his apartment. “But I’ve much yet to tell you. I don’t know how you’ll take it all in…but just remember that no matter what you hear this day, what is between us is more truth than any of it. All right?”

  Niki frowned. “We had sex after only one night of knowing each other. I think I’m pretty open-minded at this point.”

  “You’ll have that belief tested in the coming hours, I promise you.”

  “What’s going to happen to me? After this, I mean? Will I go back to my life? All those things you said to Jada—”

  “Were true,” he interjected. “Your life is with me now. I’ll take care of everything, always, do not concern yourself with that.”

  “How can you say that? You don’t even know me.”

  Tryton stopped before her again, facing her with that intensity in his gaze that scared and excited her so. “I know enough. And so do you. Do not deny it, you feel it,” he placed a hand over the beating of her heart, “in here. You may not understand it or rationalize it, but it’s there. If you went back to your life now, the Daemons would surely take you. The thought of you placing yourself in such unnecessary danger whilst I am here and ready to protect you maddens me. Here, I can keep you safe. Here, I can keep you in my arms and in my bed, where you belong. You are not going back to your old life, all of that is over. You and Jada are mine now, my family, and under my protection.”

  Niki reeled. “I don’t like this,” she gasped, shaking.

  “You will get used to it.”

  “Fuck you,” she spat, stunned nervousness giving way to hot anger. He was by far the most arrogant man she’d ever known! But he wasn’t a man…not really. He was something else entirely. “Fuck you,” she said again, weakly this time.

  “We will get to that if, gods willing, we have enough time before the others arrive.” He clutched her hand in his, and lengthened his strides so that she had to trot to keep up with him or else be dragged along behind him as they covered the last of the distance to his private apartment.

  Oh shit, what had she gotten herself into? She worried that she wasn’t even beginning to understand the full extent of the dangers associated with this man and these people, these Shikars.

  Heaven help her, for she was powerless, caught up in the clutches of the beast. And Tryton wasn’t about to let her go now that he had her. The door opened and he pushed her unceremoniously inside, into his lair. He followed, slammed and locked the door shut behind them and then turned to tower over her.

  She was unavoidably trapped, and there was nothing she wanted to do to change that.

  Chapter Nine

  One second he was feet away from her, staring at her like a predator eyeing his next meal. The next, he’d caught her up in his arms, forcing her mouth open to accept the sweeping caress of his tongue.

  His kisses were like drugs and she was so addicted that she knew she’d need therapy to kick the habit.

  He took her hand and placed it on his cock, which he’d already nimbly freed from his trousers. “Touch me,” he rasped.

  Niki had to, he felt too good to protest. He was thick, so hot and heavy in her hand. She had to stroke him, she had to clasp him in her hand, and oh, god she felt his response to her touch like a flood of lava in her veins. He groaned, she pumped, he gasped, she squeezed—she’d never felt so omnipotent, so incredibly female.

  “Quickly,” he breathed, “the others will be here too soon to make it last. Unless,” he swallowed hard when she stroked him from base to tip and back, “you want them to watch.”

  It shocked her to the core—he sounded completely serious about that. He must have exhibitionist tendencies—but she did not, or at least none that she knew of. Voyeurism she could do, but not the other. Not yet anyway, she almost smiled, but his tongue was in her mouth again and she couldn’t get past the wild, delicious taste of him.

  His hands were busy pushing her pants down and off. His mouth was eating hers, stealing her breath. She couldn’t keep her hands off him, and when he pu
shed her away she growled her impatience, surprising them both with the fervency of her excitement. Tryton grinned, baring his teeth wolfishly, then pushed her back against the door.

  She screamed her shock as he lifted her high, placed her legs over his shoulders, and buried his face in her pussy.

  His tongue speared her, laved her, lapped her up. Niki had a wild moment when she was thankful to have recently waxed as Tryton nuzzled his nose, mouth and chin deep into her wet sex. The sheer strength in him was astounding. He held her immobile, high over his head with the door at her back, steady and open for his wicked kiss.

  The silky, cool feel of his hair tickled her from thigh to toes.

  “Mmmmmm,” he vibrated against her clit, making her wince and cry out from the sheer torture of it. “I love the taste of your punani. I knew it would taste just like a ripe, juicy piece of fruit.” His tongue licked a long line from her hole to her clit.

  She whimpered.

  “They’re coming,” he rasped against her, kissing her quivering, wet flesh. “But you have to come first.”

  Somehow, he covered her entire pussy with his mouth, sucking on all of it at once, while one of his fingers probed gently at her anus. The tickling, massaging feel of him down below on her ass, the pull and draw and sucking of his mouth on her cunt, made her shout and bear down on an explosive orgasm that took her completely by surprise.

  Her juices wet his face, and he lapped her up like a bowl of cream. A knock on the door behind them had her gasping, even as her orgasmic shudders still racked her.

  In a whirl that had her head spinning—not just from her incredible dance into the stars—Tryton lowered her and redressed her in record time. He delicately adjusted himself back into the housing of his own pants, laced them both up securely, kissed her hard on the lips, wiped her juices off his face, and opened the door to greet the first of their visitors.

  Niki just knew she was going to pass out—little black spots were actually dancing before her eyes. Tryton was too incredible for her own good health.

  “Are we interrupting?” A tall, auburn-haired man entered the room, his hair thick and long, his bearing almost regally graceful.