by Tamsin Ley
Fin flaring tall and straight, he readjusted his course to carry him directly toward the music. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she realized she’d lost him.
In the center of a shoal of tiny, silver fish, he spotted the curvaceous indigo tail fin of the songstress. The fish darted and flashed in time to her voice, falling and rising and spinning around in a magical haze. Her hair billowed outward like a blueberry sea fan, while her breasts, pale as alabaster and tipped with violet-blue nipples, bobbed like lures. Luscious indigo lips sang promises of bliss.
His throat tightened. Her magic was strong. Even with his ties to his new mate, the mermaid’s song pulled at him, burned through his blood, and made his sheath swell as his cock surged in time with the dancing fish.
She spotted him. Her golden eyes narrowed and her lips curved into a predatory grin even as she continued her song. Her fingers caressed the tines of a fish-harp cradled in one arm, pulling notes from deep within each gold-tipped tine while she crooned of love and desire.
His mate’s hand tightened around his fingers; for the barest moment he’d forgotten she was there. His heart thudded against his rib cage. He would be safe from the song because of his bond-mate. He pulled her up beside him and hooked an arm around her waist, delighting in the flicker of jealousy that crossed Loia’s face.
“Zantu, what have you brought me?” she sang. “A pretty little feast?”
He held his woman tighter. “I’ve found my bond-mate. You have no more power over me, Loia.”
The net of fish encircling the mermaid lost cohesion for a moment then re-formed, hovering like a million tiny blades ready to strike. “You cannot bond with a human. Their lives are over with a flick of the fin.”
“Only because you abandon them to drown, Loia, lovesick and broken.”
The mermaid undulated her tail and thrust forth her breasts suggestively. “Why would you even want her? She cannot play hide-and-seek with you among the kelp beds. Or race you along the canyon deeps. Or sing while you orgasm to your very bones. She can’t even escape when a shark attacks. A human is no fit mate for our kind. They’re barely useful as toys.”
“You don’t know that,” he snapped. A tiny fish brushed his arm, and he shrugged it away. “Mermaids don’t take mates.” But her comments had him worried. How would he protect a human mate when predators invaded?
“We take plenty of mates, Zantu.” Her grin exposed every one of her needle-sharp teeth, as if ready to devour him. “We just don’t limit ourselves to one. A pity you will never experience a true lover’s passion, only the clumsy limbs of a land-walker. Or… maybe she would like to play, too?” Loia spun in place, whipping her head around to find him again as she completed her turn. Her genital slit had pulsed open during her spin, exposing the pink invitation of her vulva. “Human men like to watch each other copulate. I could show her—and you—what a real female can do with a man.”
Something caressed the opening of his sheath, and he looked down to find two tiny fish rubbing themselves against him. He looked back up and realized the rest of the school had engulfed them like a net.
Loia licked her lips and ran her hands up over her breasts to tweak her indigo nipples, arching her back. One hand traced lightly down her center line to massage the swollen folds of her labia. Her scent floated to him in the wake of her net of minions.
In spite of his bond to Brianna, Loia’s overt sexuality was getting to him. The teasing at his groin had nearly burst his cock from its protective sheath. His head spun, and all he could think about was letting his urges free.
Brianna batted at a fish near her face and pressed herself closer to him, turning her face into his shoulder. I want to go home.
Those words sobered him faster than the strike of a moray eel. She wanted to leave him. He wrapped both arms around her and began to back away from Loia’s seductions. If he wanted to keep his mate, staying near Loia wasn’t the way to do it. “Go find some other man to ruin,” he called out.
Loia’s pale skin went lurid. Her lips spread thin as she bared every one of her shark-like teeth. “You cannot keep her,” she shrilled.
Brianna wriggled in his grasp, her legs slapping his fin as if she wished to swim away. Her slender shoulders felt fragile in his grip, but he refused to let her go. The scent of blood reached his nose. Inside his head, he heard Brianna scream, My legs!
He loosed his hold and saw her lower extremities surrounded by Loia’s net of fish. A trail of pink-clouded water floated in their wake. They were biting her. The blood would surely draw every predator within a league of them. Rage rose up inside him, and he opened his mouth wide to emit a deep, repelling sphere of sound.
The fish scattered.
Chapter Four
THE SUDDEN BARITONE note Zantu emitted, so different from the tenor opera he’d been singing to the mermaid, vibrated deep into Brianna’s bones. He pumped his tail, and a sudden surge of water forced her to close her eyes as they left the singing mermaid and her biting pets far behind.
Brianna’s skin itched and burned where the tiny fish had nibbled her with razor-sharp teeth, but he was moving too fast for her to check her wounds. She buried her face against his warm neck and hung on for dear life. The mermaid’s mesmerizing performance had grown more bizarre with every note that passed the female’s lips. The final lewd sexual display left no doubt in Brianna’s mind about what the creature wanted. And the pesky, biting fish made it very clear she’d prefer Brianna out of the picture.
She’d been frightened by the merman’s differences only a short time earlier; now what frightened her about him also made her believe he could protect her. She rubbed her thighs together in memory of him between them. Why did he want her, when he was pursued by a creature as alluring as that mermaid? Even Brianna had felt that pull, and she’d never been attracted to another female in her life. No wonder sailors were said to willingly plunge to their deaths in pursuit of the creatures.
Looking back over her shoulder, she sought the mermaid in the gloomy water, sure the fierce female would pursue, but her eyes were too weak to pierce the midnight depths. The world had lost its color and become murky shades of black and green. A school of small fish slithered past, spear-shaped sides seeming to turn as one. Ahead, filaments rose from the seafloor to create a shifting curtain patterned by other sea creatures darting to and fro among them.
Zantu readjusted his grip around her waist, the pressure of his muscular arms making her skin quiver. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingers as he carried her ever deeper into the water. The way his tail bumped her legs and pubic bone as he swam reminded her of their earlier coupling. Made her yearn for more. But he showed no intention of slowing for another dalliance.
Colorful sea stars and anemones passed by in a rainbow blur in the rocks below. He continued to shoot through the forest, past a big red-and-black fish with a gaping mouth, over an eel peeking from the rocks. The forest here seemed thinner, with more light reaching the seafloor. Or maybe they were in shallower water? She looked upward at the canopy of fronds swaying in the current but couldn’t judge how far away they were.
Where are you taking me?
Where you’ll be safe.
His words eased the tension in her chest. Until that moment, she’d harbored a fear that with his lust satiated he might develop another hunger. One that used his razor-like teeth.
He slowed and pushed her away to look at her. I’m not a monster.
Guilt flushed her from head to toe. This whole “hearing each other’s thoughts” thing was weirding her out. I’m… sorry. I just don’t know anything about you or your kind.
We stay away from humans. You’re dangerous.
A chuckle of bubbles left her mouth as she thought of that. Here she was, who knew how many feet below the sea, held captive by a sharp-toothed, web-fingered, sleek-tailed merman, and he claimed to be afraid of her. Yet when she met his silver-eyed gaze, she realized he was completely serious.
Zan
tu clutched his new mate to his side and torpedoed toward the kelp beds where he and the other mermen maintained the nesting grounds. Brianna’s unfiltered thoughts reached him in irregular and unpredictable waves, one minute with disconcerting openness, the next not at all. He had no idea why. Most clear was her fear. Her curiosity. Her sensual attention to his skin against hers. The connection was driving him mad yet reassuring him at the same time. Although she thought him a monster, she wanted him as badly as he wanted her—at least for now. Would her interest wane like the females of his kind?
Ahead, the kelp swayed rhythmically between glistening shafts of filtered sunlight. Zantu dragged her into the foliage without halting, sending sonic commands to the plants and the creatures among it to clear the way. Those unfamiliar with the forest would be quickly lost and confused among the stalks, but he knew the path as well as he did his own tail. Strands of kelp caressed his skin with familiarity, loosing bubbles in his wake. Brianna clutched his neck tight enough for him to feel her racing heartbeat.
The kelp opened up to reveal his small refuge beneath the sea. Like the others of his sex, he’d created a haven fit for a queen, in spite of his determination to remain free of a bond-mate. Nesting was a biological imperative for his kind, mate or no mate.
His home had a floor of round, multicolored stones and wave-polished shells and glass. Items he’d salvaged from shipwrecks and lovingly restored filled the shallow depression: a rosewood table with three matching chairs, a vanity with a tall mirror still clear enough to see a reflection, a rocking chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl. A human bed with a fancy carved headboard rested in an alcove, mattress replaced by a soft garden of sponges. At the foot, an ancient ironbound chest held more treasures from his years of salvage. Around the clearing’s edges, he’d cultivated a garden of fine, edible seaweed, decorative sea fans, and rock outcroppings covered with clusters of indigo and green mussels.
But his finest creation rested in the center of the nest, awaiting the day Zantu truly lost his freedom. Supported by living fingers of coral, a bassinet rocked evenly in the gentle ocean current.
In his mind, Brianna’s thoughts swam with perceptions too jumbled for him to decipher. Or perhaps she was learning to guard her thoughts. There would eventually need to be a filter, if nothing else than to spare the other of the distraction of receiving every detailed impression.
He deposited her in the rocking chair, the fishing weights around her waist keeping her solidly planted against its seat, and pumped his tail once to back away from her. Spinning in a cautious circle, he surveyed the wall of kelp surrounding them. Loia’s minions should have been blocked by the kelp forest, but he could take no chances they—and thereby she—might follow him to his refuge.
Satisfied they were alone, he faced his new mate, looking her over with what he hoped was an unbiased eye. Her hair, much shorter than any mermaid’s and not nearly as colorful, floated in a dark halo about her face, and her speckled green eyes reminded him of sunlight through kelp fronds. Sun-kissed arms and legs transitioned to paler skin over her breasts and torso. Her deep-coral-peaked nipples bobbed lusciously above her smoothly muscled belly, and the tuft of hair between her legs made his cock stir as his eyes drifted over her hips and down her legs to her tiny painted toes.
A human.
He’d bonded with a human.
Had such a thing ever happened in the history of mer-kind? Certainly mermaids seduced human men, but never bonded. Not with mermen and certainly not with humans. The reclusive, emotionally susceptible mermen stayed far away from females of any kind—at least until a mermaid caught him. Just Zantu’s luck to be seduced by a human. What was she doing in the ocean, anyway?
His gaze returned to the coarsely knotted belt around her hips. The weights he recognized as those used by fishermen seeking trophies. Such men were never gentle, and he’d helped many swordfish and tuna escape those deadly lines. The rope had marred her pale skin with angry-looking welts, and small blue bruises covered her hips.
Pointing a webbed finger at her waist, he sent, Why do you wear this?
Her face flushed crimson, and she tugged helplessly at one of the knots. It was a mistake.
Her efforts made her breasts bob more furiously, and he fought to keep his cock contained within its sheath. You wish it removed?
Yes. She looked up at him with pleading eyes, and his attempt at cool objectivity melted.
Here. He located the knife he’d made from a large green piece of sea glass. Careful to face the razor-sharp edge away from her, he sawed the rope free and dropped it to the stony floor beneath the chair.
Freed of the device, she rose toward the sun-dappled canopy above them.
Snapping out a hand, he grabbed her wrist. He would not let her leave. Not so easily. She would abandon him eventually. That was inevitable. But before she did, he wanted to show her what it was to be a mate. What it was to be utterly controlled and owned, as he now was. He could control her but only beneath the water. As long as she was down here, she needed him.
He sent, Why did you come to me?
Her gaze returned to him, and once again a flush infused her cheeks. It was an accident.
This does not look like an accident. He pointed to the belt. This was to tie you to the ocean. To bring you to me.
She pressed her lips together, brow furrowing in pain. No. That… Her hands crept over her smooth belly to lace her fingers together. I was trying to kill myself.
He narrowed his eyes, gauging her sincerity. Why would you want to die?
Her shoulders slumped, her body sinking until her feet rested against the smooth stone floor. It’s a long story. A silly one. The weights were so I couldn’t change my mind.
Tell me.
I lost a baby.
Zantu’s gills fluttered. Mermaids considered children a burden. Something to be abandoned along with their mates. Never did they grieve the loss of one. But Brianna wasn’t a mermaid. Her thoughts pounded his mind in a wave of unfiltered longing.
He curled his tail around the back of her knees, drawing her toward him. I’m sorry you are grieved.
She brought her hands up between them to press stiffly against his chest, as if creating a wall, but didn’t shove with any real force.
He embraced her, running his fingertips lightly up the smooth curve of her finless spine. Her heartbeat fluttered against his chest, and he was reminded of how fragile she was, especially here beneath the waves. Please do not try to die again.
Her stiffness eased. This close, he could smell her unique, sunshine-dappled-waves scent. Her skin slid like silk against his, and his sheath pulsed with his cock’s desire.
Closing his gills, he gathered air at the back of his throat and lowered his face toward her neck. He pursed his lips and gently blew a stream of bubbles against her collarbone. She shuddered, surprised enjoyment vibrating through their thought connection. Encouraged, he added sound, a baritone come-hither call that should penetrate her very bones.
She threw her head back, hips thrust forward, and he took the opportunity to slide his fingers over her folds, discovering her clit waiting like a little clam. Her heat intensified at his touch, urging him to increase his rhythm. He pressed against her slickness and caressed the nub until it swelled and pulsed with fervent need.
Her hands slipped from his chest to wrap around his ribs. Nipples hard as tiny shells crushed against his flesh, and she bucked against his fingers. His cock had sprung free now, bobbing in time to her rhythm, yearning for her each time her hip made contact with the tip. He gritted his teeth and continued rubbing, determined to make her come before he plunged himself into her heat.
A tiny squeak slipped past her lips in a stream of bubbles as her body shuddered in release.
I will make you mine. He thrust the thought into her mind even as he pulled her hips to him. Her legs spread wide, allowing him entry, and he pumped his tail to carry them both to the mossy bed. He wanted her beneath him, held in place so he coul
d grind his hips against her. So he could know her full depths with every thrust.
She settled into the sponges and lifted her hips to meet his rhythm, tiny gasps sending bubbles from her mouth to tickle his cheeks. He dipped his head to claim her lips, his tongue probing one set of lips while his cock probed the other. When she came again, he clutched her rounded buttocks and pumped one final thrust into her core. His shudders matched hers, leaving him exhausted.
Wrapping his arms around her, he allowed himself to fall into sleep.
Chapter Five
BRIANNA WOKE TO groggy darkness. She stretched and rolled over to look for the bedside clock. Her movements were awkward, slow motion, unsupported. What the…?
Memories flooded back to her like a bore tide. The pier, the weighted belt, the water… the merman. Merman? That part must’ve been a dream, an escape for her mind before death took her. This must be death. She stared into the deep black, the weight of the entire ocean pressing against her. Nothingness. She hadn’t thought it would feel so… alone.
A muscular arm snaked around her, and a voice sounded directly in her head. Go back to sleep, my angelfish.
She screamed—or squeaked, the sound muffled by water—and struggled free of the embrace. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
A short burst of sound, and the world ignited in lavender light. Zantu’s webbed hands reached to still her. Blue-violet light reflected from his silver eyes and gilded his skin, accentuating the perfect muscles of his torso. What’s wrong?
Her initial bout of terror was replaced by awe. The strange illumination came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, creating an eerie sort of moonlight without a source. And then there was the godlike form of the merman leaning over her, face creased with concern.