by Starla Night
“Says who?”
“I have committed many crimes. Let me rest.”
“Oh, I can’t let you off easy. You’ve got to repay people, Giru.”
His nostrils flared and his kicks became uneven. “Do not say my name.”
“Giru?” She captured his fingers and held them, paralyzing him. “You don’t want me to say Giru?”
His nostrils flared.
Although they were under the water and all she’d smelled since diving had been salt and fish, she got the sense that he could actually scent her. It was hot.
She touched her lips to his darkened fingertips.
He flexed his hands, shifting them from mer webbing to slender human fingers. She took advantage, teasing his knuckles with her lips.
Heat warred with fear. “Do not infect yourself with my shameful illness.”
“I’m immune, remember?”
She kissed the bruises patterned with blue interlocking chains. His skin felt papery and the bones fragile but he was more than strong enough to carry her to safety. He’d done so after the plague ship rescuing her from explosions.
“We’re soul mates so let me do this.”
He tensed, fighting himself. “I already met my soul mate.”
“Me too.”
He frowned. “You said I was your soul mate.”
“Because I was mistaken about Pelan. We had a misunderstanding.” She pulled the chest ties, unwinding the seaweed that bound his plate. “I knew something was wrong when we met. But I was so tired of striving pointlessly to accomplish nothing. He was so certain and I really wanted to believe I was a mermaid, you know? Someone important. But all’s well that ends well because here I am.”
He winced as the ties loosened as though the armor was the only thing keeping his bones in place. “Then is this not also a big misunderstanding?”
“Nope. It feels right.”
She dropped the plate, exposing his chest. The flesh had caved in and he looked like a victim of a severe famine.
Her heart clenched. “Oh, Giru. You’ve been fighting so long.”
He lifted his hands to push her away. “I spread this disease myself. I do not deserve healing.”
“You have to get better so you can administer the cure to everyone you infected. Surviving is the only way to make things right.”
He shook his head, eyes dark.
“Yes. Here is my antidote.” She sought his lips. “Take it.”
“No!” He dodged, pushed her face away and kicked back with the last of his strength. His arms shook and his entire being trembled with weakness and panic. “I met my soul mate. I raised my son. Mer do not join with two brides. Only one.”
Fine. Her rebellious side kicked in. She crossed her arms and tilted her head in askance. “And did you ‘join’ with your last bride? Tell me honestly now.”
His lower lip trembled.
“Giru?”
He looked away.
“The answer is no.” Nora flew underneath him so that he was forced to look at her as pain wracked his face. “Because mermen can’t get it up for just anybody. She wasn’t your soul mate because that’s me.”
He closed his eyes. “No one must know.”
“That your best friend secretly fathered your child or that I’m your actual soul mate?”
“Both.”
“Deal.” She tugged the strings on the braces beneath his bicep-daggers. They were adhered with iron. “For now. No promises after I cure you.”
A mirthless snort jerked his chest. “You would bite a shark as soon as he turned his tail fins on you.”
“Well, if a shark tries to force me to make stupid promises, he has it coming.” She tugged harder. “Help me out here.”
He focused on the task. The knots untangled seamlessly under his expert fingers. “This promise is not stupid. After I am healed you may regret your wish to bind me.”
“So far the only one appearing to regret anything is you.”
“Because my faithless actions speak for themselves! I betrayed my second lieutenant. My closest friend. The warrior who would be my own brother. He—”
“He understood that your old city has stupid rules.” She yanked off the last weapon and let it drop to the icy floor. “You’d have both been put to death if anybody found out. I actually think you all handled it pretty well.”
“I held a knife to his throat.”
“For a few minutes, right?”
“The length of time is unimportant.”
“Your buddy forgave you. It’s time to forgive yourself.”
His fist clenched. “Never.”
She splayed her hands across his sunken chest. The incurable Blue Ring disease was half mental, half physical. If Giru didn’t let go of his past shame, she couldn’t use her mermaid queen powers to heal him. He fought her with his entire being, and while she enjoyed that mentally, she needed him to let go and heal.
“You have to forgive yourself.” Her fingers glowed as she channeled the mystical, healing power of the Atlantis Life Tree, but his taut muscles repelled it like armor. How could she get through to him? “Okay, if you won’t forgive yourself, then just know I forgive you.”
He trembled. Some of the light gleamed on his skin, dancing across him like fireflies, sparkling with hope and promises.
Really?
“I forgive you,” she repeated. “You didn’t mean to hurt him or anyone. You got raised in a strict environment and, unlike me, you actually cared about obeying, so you had no idea what to do when life got messy and changed the rules. Threatening your friend was a momentary shame you wish you could take back. So, I say you can. It’s okay. The moment is taken back.”
More lights glimmered, highlighting the deep bruises crossing his chest and the blue interlocking rings of the disease wrapping his torso.
He clenched both fists and his teeth. “…Stop it.”
“I forgive you.”
“You cannot.”
“I forgive you.”
“You will never understand.”
“I forgive—”
“No! You must not. I must not. He…will never…”
“Forgive you?”
“Ah!” He released his tension and collapsed in her arms. Shoulders drooped, head flopped, Giru clung onto her as the shudders wracked his body. He was a fighter just like her. Neither of them compromised on their beliefs until forced. They twirled slowly in the water. Her fingertips grew warm and then hot. She held her warrior as the healing light chased the illness away.
It would be a long, hard road to recovery. But at least now the debilitating illness had lifted and his recovery could start.
His shudders soothed into mild trembles. “…never…understand…”
“I understand.” She measured each protruding vertebrae of his spine. Once he recovered, he would be unyielding and magnificent. Proud and dangerous to behold. “I’ve also done things I’ve regretted.”
“You suffered punishment for disobeying your human laws?”
“Only when they caught me.” She sighed, flushing water out her gills in her lower back. “No, my worst regret is that I was a bully. I made a girl’s life miserable for no reason.”
“No reason?”
“Literally no reason. This was back in middle school, so I was … what was I, thirteen?”
“A trainee. Many squabbles are forgotten when—”
“She never did anything to me. Never. I had money, lots of friends, a loving family. I wasn’t abused or neglected or anything. But I was angry all the time and I took it out on her. I followed her around, called her names, tried to make her life hell. And it worked. She withdrew from school after attempting suicide.”
“I do not understand these actions.”
“Honestly? Neither do I. What was I thinking? And I could never apologize, so my therapist made me apologize to a mirror. It worked. Eventually.”
He lifted his head, calm finally, and his dark gaze took in her nonchalance
with a critical eye. “Why did you not hunt her to atone?”
“Because she’d moved to Nepal. She lived across a desert that you can only cross by yak.”
The irony struck her immediately after she mentioned it and Nora laughed.
He looked at her questioningly.
“Of course, I’m telling you this after crossing a literal ocean by way of giant octopus, so crossing a desert on yak-back doesn’t seem quite as crazy as it did in Brooklyn.”
“So you did not atone?”
“Well, she’s like a saint now. I figured between digging wells and taking medicine to sick children, she’s probably grown spiritually beyond my nastiness. Whenever I thought about it, I just felt horrible. I felt so trapped and unimportant stuck in New York while she’d moved on to change the world as a great Buddhist humanitarian. I still regret what I did. If I’m ever in Nepal, I’ll cross that desert. But you already apologized to your friend and it didn’t clear your shame. I thought, you really needed to forgive yourself.”
He listened solemnly. Not the kind to interrupt, that General Giru.
There was a lot more to what she was saying than just this small slice. He probably thought that her bad behavior had been confined to a few faulty decisions but in fact she’d gotten in trouble most of her life. Her parents said that when she was a toddler they had to learn how to deny her requests by talking around them because she’d instantly melt down if they said the word “No.” And rules. She’d tried, tested—and broke—all of them. By the time she’d graduated, her grades were a shambles. She’d broken friendships. Started and ended rock bands. All her great plans turned into nothing. Her parents had saved for college and gave it to her little brother while she tried to pull her life together.
So when she actually tried to turn her life around and understood some rules prevented normal people from getting hurt (and not everybody was fine with bashing their heads continuously into a wall to see if it could be broken; some people liked to help each other over the barrier) she realized that she needed to build others up instead of tearing them down.
Right then was when she’d been chosen to date a merman. Hadn’t it been fate? Obeying rules had turned her life around!
And so it was a bit of a shock to find herself tearing down the rules of the mer, disrupting the peace, and going on the run from everyone, friend or foe.
Now, falling for exactly the wrong warrior hell bent on destroying Atlantis seemed par for her course.
She leaned forward. Her lips touched his. Bliss—
“No!” He pushed away her, weak but determined.
“Oh.” She flew free, aimless and unmoored. “Sorry. I thought you…”
What had she thought?
He stared at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence.
She’d thought he wanted her. She’d thought they were soul mates. She’d thought the desires burning in her hearts to complete this coupling and fuse their bodies matched the wish in his.
But the same fight he put up against forgiving himself he now put up against her.
Even though his gaze heated. His cock was hard and ready.
Their coupling was against the rules.
Her body heated with spice. Disobeying rules? Arousal burned.
“You want me,” she pointed out, indicating his hard cock. “Don’t deny it.”
He shook his head. “We cannot.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“But you cannot experience pleasure from my body.”
“Sure I can.”
He shook his head again.
“Sex will heal you.” She caught his hard forearm. “It will amp up our soul resonance.”
He eased away. “My healing does not matter. Your pleasure matters.”
She moved with him. “I’m pleased you think so. But we can both enjoy it.”
“No. You cannot.”
“Well, hey, at least give me a chance to try.”
“No.”
“But Giru—”
He held her back with one hand. Pain flared in his sad eyes. “You are young and inexperienced. Do not confuse my body’s hunger for its ability to give you pleasure.”
She slowly lowered her hackles. “Er, what makes you say I’m inexperienced?”
“Because you believe that this,” he gestured to his thick, rock-hard cock swirled with the same blackberry tangle of tattoos that adorned the rest of his body—but looked significantly healthier as though it was the first part of him to recover, “would pleasure your body when it is clear that it would not.”
Huh…
Her immediate impulse was to deny his denial and fight him to prove her point. Nothing was better than angry sex except perhaps makeup sex, and she had plans to teach him about both. With their opposing personalities, they were going to enjoy many opportunities to practice.
But he was still healing and she had a greater need to be gentle with him right now. “Why do you think your cock can’t give me pleasure?”
“It is obvious.”
“Not to me.”
“Because of your inexperience.”
“I’m not that inexperienced. I’ve had, how shall we say, partners before.”
“Human. Not mer.”
Okay. Fine. “So why do think I can’t get myself off?”
“Because another evaluated me and told the truth. I cannot give a female pleasure.”
Reality thunked Nora. “You offered yourself to your not-bride and she turned you down because she said your cock wouldn’t give her pleasure?”
He nailed her with a gaze. “She was then my bride.”
“No.” Nora drew him back into her arms. “No, she wasn’t.”
“Yes. My city—”
“Technicalities. She wasn’t your bride or your soul mate. I am.” Nora curled her fingers around his thick cock.
He shuddered.
“And I’m telling you right now that this gorgeous, hard, thick cock of yours will give me all the pleasure.” She squeezed. “Trust me.”
His eyes darkened with desire even as he growled. “You do not know what you speak of.”
“Mmm. About that.” She kept a hold of his hard, aroused member and pressed soft, needful kisses against his unyielding lips. “Would it bother you too much to know that I’m actually pretty experienced? I’ve kissed a mer, you know, and his kiss had nothing on you.”
Giru’s mouth softened under her relentless pursuit and his question vibrated in his chest. “You have seen aroused males?”
“Seen, touched, and experienced. And I’ve never looked forward to feeling a cock inside me more than I look forward to yours.”
His lips opened and his tongue dominated her mouth. Hot arousal filled her veins. He vibrated the question in his chest while their mouths were busy. “You…look forward to experiencing me?”
“It’s all I’ve been able to think about.”
His hands gripped her waist, fingers digging in as she wrapped her thighs around his. “You have joined with other males and you also wish to join with me?”
“The most.”
He tangled one hand in her hair, pressing their chests together as her answer made him lose control.
It worked on her. The only thing she liked more than makeup sex or angry sex was driving a man absolutely wild. And she could feel inside her bones from the tip top of her crown to the very end of her toes that Giru had lost to her. He was bowled over by arousal in a wild sea of hunger for her body, her mind, her heart.
“I want your cock,” she vibrated, loving his needy groan. “I want you.”
His cock head drove between her spread legs, stopping just at her entrance. She flexed her heels into his buttocks but he resisted, somehow still clawing for control. Hot spice hit her. They were going to have a supremely satisfying sex life.
She pushed back and forced him to look at his thick member resting against her slick entrance. “Look at your cock going inside me.”
He released some of his con
trol with a watery gasp and his thick head entered her channel, filling her with delicious pleasure.
“It feels great.” She pressed him all the way in, uniting them as one, and sighed. “You feel great.”
He withdrew and plunged in again, watching his entry with unbelieving hungry eyes. Exploring and filling her, teasing and ensnaring her, he stroked her with eager passion.
“Your cock…is giving me…great pleasure…”
That did it. Nora’s sincerity broke him. His control fractured deliciously.
Giru rode her straight into the white hot center of a life-shattering orgasm that defied everything she’d ever experienced before. Time stretched. There was only her and him and the beautiful discovery of the one other person who met their needs.
They rotated in the weightless ice cave. She rode him, his grip dug harder into her waist, and he ground his cock so deep into her channel that her rebellious fury obliterated and she exploded with sex-heat. He caught her moans with his teeth on her lower lip and she burst a third time, shuddering with infinite wonder.
She clung to him, tender and vulnerable, and hid her face in his shoulder.
He slowed. “You have experienced pleasure?”
“Three times.” She stretched her chest in a shuddering sigh. “You didn’t, though.”
He held her gently.
She wiggled. “Hey. It’s your turn.”
“This is enough.”
“Like heck it’s enough.” Nora locked her calves over his flexing buttocks, keeping his hard member centered in her. “I’m not a selfish lover. Let’s do this.”
“Nora. You have experienced the pleasure of a bride.”
“But that’s not nearly so satisfying as both of us getting off. Just let me—”
“I do not require it.”
“Here, I’ll—”
“Stop.” He arrested her. “I must not give you a young fry.”
She stopped fighting. “Oh.”
He kissed her, dangerous to his unfinished passion, and then he disentangled and slowly put himself back into control.
His spirit seemed more vital and his body looked more healed. Success! And he made a good point. She wasn’t sure yet about having his child when the logistics of their relationship were somewhat up in the air. Or down in the water, actually.