The King Triton

by Sheyla Drymon

  “Well accompanied or all alone?” Eric asked with a hint of mischief in his voice.

  Nathaniel got up from his stool and took out his wallet.

  After paying five dollars, he patted Eric on the shoulder, answering his question.

  “Tonight, I'm going to bed all alone. I've had too much activity for today.”

  Eric raised his half-empty mug.

  “I'll buy you dinner the day you introduce me to a woman who loves you enough to put up with you.”

  Nathaniel smiled as he put on his jacket, which he had left folded on the bar when he arrived. In the evenings, he was cold. The wind that whipped through the human world was aggressive, and no matter how many clothes he wore, even in summer, he was cold. His body was not used to climate changes. In the ocean, it was always the same temperature, and the layer of fat that covered his body cushioned the changes in the environment.

  Before leaving, Nathaniel said, “I’ll make a note of that, Eric.”

  Eric laughed out loud. His eyes sparkled; he was drunk to a point where the world around him was joyful, yet he was not to the point of passing out from too much alcohol in his blood.

  “I can't tell you to have a good night. Your hand must hate you for giving it so much work.”

  Nathaniel ignored that last comment from the human. He was drunk. The alcohol was doing the talking. But his words echoed through the room. It was already bad luck that there was silence at that moment, and Eric’s words caused half of the people who still had a reasonable mind to burst out laughing.

  “Come with me tonight, handsome, and you won't need your hand anymore,” shouted a dark-haired woman sitting two tables to the right.

  Nathaniel did not even turn to look at her. He walked through the middle of the bar, avoiding the naughty hands of the women, and some very drunk men, who were trying to touch his ass.

  As he left the bar, he swore to himself that someday he would get rid of Eric for the embarrassment he went through in there. Being the center of the jeers and jocular comments of half the island and drunken tourists wasn't very gratifying; rather, it amplified his predatory instinct.

  But his threat was forgotten deep inside him. He liked Eric very much. He was a man with a sense of humor, who always seemed to be joking, but he could be trusted. The only flaw he had was that he was a human.

  He turned up the collar of his jacket to hide part of his face and started walking towards the main hotel on the island.

  “By the god of the seas, how cold it is!”

  The streets were deserted; the few who were still awake at that time of night were in the bar celebrating the last hours of the island's most important holiday.

  The street lamps illuminated the cobblestone streets, keeping the darkness away. Nathaniel looked around him. He knew the island. He had spent the last six years walking this place, getting to know every inhabitant, searching for the keeper of the diary.

  He had not done his job very well.

  It had to be a human who discovered it.

  Nathaniel raised his head. He had arrived. In front of him was a building of gothic architecture, renovated by the town hall to provide lodging for those arriving from abroad with all kinds of luxuries and comforts. From the heated indoor pool to the spa that managed to fill up any time of the year.

  With hard work and dedication, the hotel manager had managed to get into the guide of the best hotels, getting customers all year round and not only during the most important holiday of the island.

  The building had four floors of luxury and brilliance, with a modern and avant-garde interior design, dominated by pastel colors. Around it, the gardens and the private beach were a favorite amenity for those who stayed there.

  Several times he had entered that hotel as he had a contract with the city council, owner of the hotel, to attend to the clients who requested a day of diving.

  “Good evening,” he greeted the hotel doorman with a nod.

  The doorman answered his greeting and let him in. He was a man in his forties, dressed in a bluish military-style suit, who worked guarding the entrance to the hotel during the night, increasing the confidence of the guests.

  “Good evening, Nathaniel; are you here on business or for love?”

  Nathaniel was amazed at how curious humans were. They always wanted to know everything, talking all the time about unimportant details that they exaggerated to the extreme.

  “Work matters, Ernie.”

  “You never rest. When are you going on vacation?” He opened the door and let him in.

  “I'm on vacation all year.” He tried to make his voice sound jovial. “My job is to splash around in the sea surrounded by women in tight suits twice a week.”

  As expected, the human laughed at the simple joke.

  “What I would give to be in your shoes.”

  I doubt that very much. You wouldn't have survived the castle attack, the forced exile, the years of exhaustive training and leaving your only family behind to find the weapon with which to finish off the traitors.

  At the counter, he met Lucille Maldonar, a young woman in her twenties who had been following him ever since she saw him walking the streets of the city. For a while, he was amused by her attitude until he had to call the sheriff so that the woman would stop harassing him at all hours.

  Nathaniel sighed before he approached the smiling woman and blurted out unceremoniously.

  “I'm looking for a woman.”

  Lucille's face underwent a transformation from smile to hatred.

  “Do you think I'll help you find your bitch?”

  “I think you'll tell me if a woman in her mid-twenties, medium height, brown hair, blue eyes, is staying here.”

  Lucille stretched, the T-shirt she was wearing tightening to her body where it looked like it would burst if she took a deep breath. She was completely different from the description he offered. She looked like a blonde doll, with her always perfect hairstyle, long legs and brown eyes.

  “I haven't seen any brunette woman with blue eyes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. The hotel is full of students who are on their end-of-year trip. From what I heard, they lost money because of an embezzlement by the principal and couldn't afford the trip to Paris as was their first choice. So they had to settle for this island. Don't you think it's ironic? We want to get the hell out of here. And they paid to come.”

  Nathaniel made a I don't give a shit about that gossip face, and Lucille, luckily for him, seemed to understand and changed the subject after clearing her throat.

  “There's no one here by that description. Good luck in your search.”

  Nathaniel turned and walked toward the exit.

  Okay. Good luck. Wish me good luck on my quest. But how twisted humans are.

  As he passed Ernie, he waved at him and stepped into the darkness of the streets. The streetlights were being turned off, a cost-saving measure devised by the city council. From three o'clock in the morning, they began turning off the street lights to force visitors to return to their hotels. After four o'clock in the morning, the bar could no longer sell alcoholic beverages, and before a good one broke out, they opted to close the place at half past three and send everyone back to sleep off their drunkenness.

  He looked around. All was silent.

  I'd better keep looking for her tomorrow.

  After that, he walked back to his home, a small house by the beach that he managed to buy after "trading" it for a chest full of natural pearls that he collected himself and with which he paid for his first year on the surface, until Eric approached him one day and asked him if he wanted to start a tourist diving company with him.

  The house had two floors. He never went up to the second floor; his life was spent on the first floor where he had a large living room, a kitchen, a toilet and a bedroom, which he never used because he still slept in the sea, which he accessed through a trap door in his bedroom that led to caves that filled with salt wat
er at night.

  On the entrance door hung a sober mailbox on which his name and surname were written in golden letters. At first he had hesitated to tell his real name since he had no past, but the inhabitants on the island were more interested in his meager, not to say non-existent, sex life.

  After having accepted him as a member of the community, all they wanted was to set him up with some good looking and sensible woman on the island. But he would not yield to the pressures or insinuations of the females of that race. His only purpose was to get the source of power of his race to take revenge on those who usurped the throne from his family.

  As soon as he entered, he took off his jacket and threw it on the sofa in the living room. He bypassed the kitchen; he wasn't hungry, and he went straight to his bedroom. There, he walked toward the trapdoor entrance. The push button that opened the trapdoor entrance was hidden very well, near the head of the bed, behind a small painting he bought in one of the souvenir stores on the island.

  He partially lifted the frame, being very careful not to unhook it, and pressed the button. At once, the hatch opened with a slight hiss.

  Without wasting time, for he was exhausted and needed to sleep, he went down the stone stairs, smiling when he smelled the intense scent of saltpeter from the sea.

  It was a real discovery, those caves, when he was watching the island and its inhabitants. They were the reason he had bought the house.

  It mattered little to him what history they had. They were most likely smugglers', used to bring illegal merchandise from the sea to the island.

  As he descended, he took off his clothes until he was completely naked. And as soon as he reached the sea, he dived headlong into the water. The breath of air that sucked in some of the sea water was comforting for him.

  His body adapted to the change in a matter of seconds, and his legs disappeared in the blink of an eye, giving way to a long, dark tail.

  Home at last, Nathaniel thought in his native language as he searched for his little nook near the stairs, a hollow covered by soft seaweed and serving as his sea mattress.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes. Tomorrow would be a long day, and he needed to have all his strength. But his sleep was not peaceful. His mind played with him, tormenting him with a beautiful woman's face that looked at him with blushing cheeks and devoured him with her beautiful blue eyes.

  CHAPTER 6

  The next day…

  Mireilla reached under the shower head. It was still cold. It had been about four minutes since she had turned on the hot water, and it was still freezing.

  “Maybe they don't have a water heater. It's not normal for it to take so long to come out hot.”

  Mireilla pulled up the towel covering her, undoing the knot and redoing it as she passed it around her back. Underneath the rough fabric, she was completely naked and standing in front of the shower being splashed by cold water, she was shivering.

  Just as she was about to give up on taking a nice, hot bath to loosen up her muscles, hot water began to pour out.

  Letting out a shriek of joy, she threw the towel on the floor and stepped into the shower, sighing with relief as she felt the hot water running over her sore and tired body.

  The night before, she had stayed up late reading. It was close to dawn when she turned off the light and tried to sleep. At first the dream, or what little she remembered of it, was wonderful. She saw herself walking through Atlantis, surrounded by spectacular coral buildings. She was happy visiting the mythical city until the mermaids that guarded it began to appear. The beautiful dream turned into a nightmare. The mermaids were hideous creatures with long, sharp fangs that they used to tear her apart, and she woke suddenly, bathed in a cold sweat and trembling with shock.

  She could not fall asleep again. No matter how hard she tried, she did not sleep a wink. She tossed and turned in bed until she saw the sun beginning to rise over the horizon. Then she decided it was time to get up.

  Now, under the hot water, she was relaxed, her mind empty and rested. Her worries were left outside that small enclosure, and the remnants of her discomfort were washed away with the soap suds that trickled down the drain.

  Mireilla threw her head back and closed her mouth. The water impacted against her face.

  “This is paradise,” she thought, opening her mouth and rinsing with the water that came in.

  She spent a few more minutes in the shower before her skin began to wrinkle, and she felt dizzy from how hot the water was. She turned off the faucet and twisted her hair wringing it out.

  She pulled aside the plastic shower curtain that was an undefined color between green and blue and stepped on the towel that she had thrown on the floor. On the towel rack an inch away were three more towels. She picked up a white one; it seemed to her the cleanest, and she wrapped it around herself, knotting it close to her heart.

  The bathroom was in better condition than the rest of the room. She was sure it had been remodeled, fitted to the improvements of the new century. The faucets were new, and the shower was something of a novelty, considering that the bedroom furniture was made of wood and looked to be about fifty years old. The tiles that covered every corner of the bathroom were grayish and some were cracked. When she walked on them, she felt the roughness of the stone.

  She crossed the small hallway that separated the bathroom from the bedroom. When she reached the bedroom ready to dry herself thoroughly, she was paralyzed in the middle of the bedroom.

  A few inches away from her was the hottie, staring at her with undisguised intensity, running his burning eyes over her legs.

  A blush covered her face, and her heart began to pump wildly. His very presence made her nervous, so much so that she didn't even stop to think what the man was doing there in her room, dressed in simple jeans instead of the tight pirate costume.

  If his pirate costume had shocked her, his jeans left her like a quivering flan.

  Oh my God, what's he doing here; am I dreaming? She pinched her arm. It hurt. No. It wasn't a dream. It was very real.

  “What are you doing here? Get out of my room!” she shrieked, pressing the towel against her chest after she partially recovered from the initial shock.

  But the man didn't move; it was as if he hadn't heard her, even though she shouted at the top of her lungs.

  “What are you doing here?” Mireilla repeated, this time taking a step backwards, approaching the bathroom in case she had to lock herself in there. Although he had attracted her with his wild beauty and piercing eyes, she could not forget that he was a complete stranger who had held her yesterday afternoon by force and now appeared as if out of nowhere.

  “Get out of here! Or I'll call the police and report you.”

  That threat had the desired effect. The stranger swallowed hard before answering. He looked tense, his fists clenched until his knuckles were marked in a whitish hue.

  His voice was still deep, full of mystery.

  “Forgive me, I didn't mean to frighten you. The manager directed me to the wrong room. I won't bother you again.”

  And then he rushed out of the bedroom, like an exhaled breath, slamming the door behind him.

  Mireilla dropped to the floor, remaining on her knees. The tension she had built up during the brief encounter exploded inside her and left her trembling, her legs unable to support her. She had never reacted this way to a man before, but this particular one had something that drove her crazy, and she couldn't bear to lose control of her body, fighting with all her might to regain it.

  This time she had won the battle, but if she had him as a neighbor in that motel, she was not sure she would win the war against her heart. When she found her sister with her ex-boyfriend, she vowed never to fall in love again, rejecting the advances of men who approached her years later. She was incapable of opening her heart again.

  Once, she had been hurt, and it nearly destroyed her inside; she would not allow it to happen again. She had erected a barrier around her fragile heart,
and for years, that barrier had held. However, this man made her feel things she hadn’t felt before…her barrier was beginning to fall. For some reason, his presence disturbed her to the point of wanting to take a chance. But her mind kept rebelling against desire. She had already been betrayed once. She had been used. What was to stop this man from not using her as a mere plaything while she was on the island?

  She wasn't going to play with him. Better to feel nothing, than to go through the hell she went through when her illusions were shattered and all because of one man's betrayal.

  He had found her, he thought as soon as he closed the door.

  He had asked at every hotel he knew in town until he came to this motel. The owner was reluctant to confess to him that he had put up a sweet-voiced young tourist. He didn't doubt for a second that it was her, or at least, he hoped it was, and he hadn't failed in his assumption. It was her! She had in her possession the book he had been looking for so long.

  He´d had to tell the motel owner that there was a flood at his house so that he would give him a room. And once he´d had the key in his hands, he let his instincts lead him to her.

  He had walked down the hallway towards the room the owner had given him, recalling the image of the woman over and over again.

  Beyond the wooden door, Nathaniel was in no better condition than she was. With his head held high and his eyes closed, he fought with all his might against the intense feeling that ran through every cell of his body. With hurried steps, he walked the space separating him from the woman's room and entered his own, leaning against the door.

  His body was drenched with sweat from the superhuman effort he was making. He opened his eyes and looked down. His cock, imprisoned by his jeans, stood proudly, bulging, struggling to break free.

  How can the humans stand it? By all the seas of the world, this hurts. Unable to stand it any longer, he unbuttoned his fly and pulled out his cock.

  That thing hanging between his legs was something novel he had played with as he got used to the pain of the change. When he touched it, it grew and tingled and grew more until it collapsed, sending waves of pleasure through him and leaving him panting. Dead curious and praising something about humans, he searched for more information, absorbing every detail he could find about that appendage of the human body.