by Amanda Milo
“—To that hunk?”
“—We’re still sharing him, though, right?”
“No! There’s no sharing!” I holler. “Kalos belongs to me!” I’m snarling the words, but the declaration brings a massive grin to Kalos’s face. He drops deeper into the water beside me, and his arms come around my middle and squeeze me for dear life, making us both sink until I flex my tail.
My tail! Oh, how I’ve missed it! I sigh happily and lean back against my mate.
“Where did you find him?” Pearl asks. “And how did you escape the dragon?”
“This is the dragon—” I start to say.
And then Kalos twitches against me and grunts.
And I just know. I spin around, sliding out of his surprised arms and ducking under the water—and I catch Sirena and Katiana each with hands full of Kalos’s anatomy that belong strictly to me.
Kalos manages to haul me out of the water with him before I rip out more than a few handfuls of their hair.
CHAPTER 12
ADELLA
Kalos was so uncomfortable being ogled (and fondled) that he fashioned a loincloth to cover himself. This act also saved my sisters because I was having visions of blinding the lot of them in a jealous rage—which is a completely alien reaction for any mermaids let alone my sisters and me, who have shared countless willing men.
The key being ‘willing.’ Because Kalos has no interest in being shared. And stars above, I love him even more for that. Me, a mermaid who’s never thought twice about sharing a man, is willing to attack my own sisters to protect my man.
The dragon I love.
Kalos is thrilled at my raging possessiveness, although he never teases or baits me—he understands that the way I feel about my sisters’ hunger for him is no laughing matter. Not to me. But it isn’t a laughing matter for him either. My dragon is quite shy.
Although, even with his natural reticence while surrounded by slavering women other than me, I’m able to introduce him to the bliss of cove sunning, sharing my rock with him just as soon as I shove my sister Ianthe off of it, the thieving sea cow.
We’re drowsing, replete after stealing away for a good hard session of lovemaking, when suddenly, a shadow swoops over us.
“DRAGON!” Pearl screams, and everyone dives for the water.
My reflexes have been broken; I don’t dive.
Kalos, though, is struck by fear enough for the both of us. He throws me into the water.
Or that’s what it seems like. It’s only later that I put it together that I was catapulted off our rock not because he chucked me off of it, but because his body expanded so fast I was flung aside.
At the first hint of danger, at the very first threat to my safety, Kalos erupted into his dragon form.
And his dragon half is not only defending his mate, which is enough to make him bellow in rage—Kalos’s dragon side is serious about territory too, and as far as he’s concerned, all of our cove is now his and under his protection.
My sisters whoop as Kalos aims the first of a volley of unerring blasts at the very bewildered dragon who dared to hunt our Titan’s Tears Cove.
Kalos chases the trespasser to the cliffs. The other dragon, a great black Crested Merlin almost the same size as Kalos is, lands heavily on the rocky hillside, and barks, “What has gotten into you?”
He shouts at him like he knows him, and I realize that Kalos has friends and maybe a whole family of his own. A whole family he would probably be proud for me to meet, if I care to dry myself off, grow some legs, and go meet them.
He’s been so good about being here with me and my sisters that I decide if he wants me to meet his family, I will.
Kalos faces off, looking like an angrier twin to the towering serpent he’s cornered, and snarls, “THIS COVE IS MINE.”
“Since when?” the other dragon asks, clearly perplexed.
“Since I took a mate of mermaid kind,” Kalos explains. “There will be no more hunting of mermaids,” he orders.
The other dragon gapes at him. “You mated a mermaid?”
He says it like, You mated a radish?
Kalos glowers at him.
The other dragon holds up one heavily clawed hand. “All right. No more hunting here.”
Kalos grumbles something to him.
“What did he say?” Nerissa asks.
Ianthe says, blinking, “I think he just told him that mermen are still fine to eat.”
My sisters all turn on me.
I gasp, and jump to defend the man I mated. “Kalos wouldn’t eat mermen!”
“Are you sure?” Katiana drawls, her brow raised, clearly not moved by my vehemence. “Because two mermen were sent from the Ice Cove, but they never got here.”
“Then they were stolen by naiads!” I spit. Which is possible. Naiads are pretty little sea women who love mermen. We’ll get back the men they stole, eventually. When the next generation of half-mer, half-naiads are growing in their mother’s bellies.
Kalos brushes me with his nose. He’s not in the water; his big body is leaning out over it, his long neck stretched. “What are you ladies arguing about now?”
I glance over to see that the other dragon is still there, staring at Kalos like he’s lost his mind. I ignore the other dragon and focus on the way my sisters are looking peeved about their mermen accusation. I consider the best way to exonerate Kalos, but Nixie beats me to it, bypassing the careful line of questioning I’d been preparing, and instead blurts an accusing, “Did you crisp two mermen?”
“No,” Kalos says. No hesitation.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
My sisters, though, look upon him with suspicion.
That is, until Kalos calls to the other dragon, “If you’re looking for a mate, I highly recommend a mermaid. I know of a few candidates, if you’re interested.”
My sisters begin fighting each other to get to the shoreline while fascination and horror mingle on the dragon’s face. It’s a total toss-up if he’s going to fly away or get close enough to the edge to get dragged under. If he thinks my sisters aren’t strong enough to take him down, he’s mistaken. Give us a nicely rocking wave, and a tribe of mermaids can capsize a good-sized ship.
I turn from the spectacle and wrap my arms around my own dragon, careful not to stab myself in the elbow with the spikes that sit over each of his nostrils and in the middle of his nose. “Thank you for protecting us.”
Face knocking against my arms as his lower jaw moves as he speaks, Kalos says, “You are my mate, Adella. Your people are now my people. I will always protect you.”
With my sisters’ frustrated screams echoing around the cove as they try to catch the only eligible male in their vicinity (who is backing up but not flying off yet, giving them hope as they try to beach themselves to reach him), I kiss Kalos on the big scale set square between his eyes and vow, “I love you, my dark dragon.”
Nuzzling into my side, Kalos releases a rumbling purr and responds, “I love you more, my maiden of the sea.”
CHAPTER 13
ADELLA
“Why’s he coughing?” Pearl asks, sounding concerned.
“Oh,” I say quickly, “he’s fine. Just leave him to it.” I silently beg Kalos to move further away from the shore.
He doesn’t.
His great midnight-scaled back arches as he heaves. His neck extends with his rough retching spasm, followed by an unsettling choppy cough. And a distinct gagging. Hllllugggh!
“EWW! He’s puking!” Nerissa cries. “It… it looks like a turd! Right on our beach!” She turns to me, horrified. “The first time it rains, it’s going to wash right in here!”
I sigh. “It’s not a turd. It’s called a ‘casting.’ It’s made of all the bits of things his system won’t digest. He has to hork them back up.”
Everyone looks at me like this is madness. Well, almost everyone is looking at me. Patrice is evidently watching Kalos because she exclaims, “Why is he picking up his turd?”
&
nbsp; “It’s not a turd!” I shout.
I don’t glance behind me to watch Kalos… because I already know what he’s doing. I groan as my sisters watch my oblivious dragon pick up his own casting in his mouth (it’s surprisingly dry, for the record. Like a compacted ball of… well? Coughed up hair and feathers and bone bits) and he starts walking it proudly down the path.
“What the hell is he doing with it?” Sirena asks, sounding truly perplexed.
Patrice’s voice is angled away from us when she calls, “Cu, Bossie, Cu Bossie! Come Bossie!”
We ignore her and Sirena is still looking absolutely confused about Kalos’s regorging quirk. And who can blame her? Even I still think it’s beyond strange, and I’ve been trying to hide this habit of his since he first called me over to admire one of his regurgitations.
(Yes. Dragons are very proud of what their systems can’t eat. Since it happens to be so very little compared to what they swallow, I suppose it is quite a marvel.)
I knew my sisters would never understand. “You see, dragons collect them. What he’s doing is completely normal.”
“And what is he doing?” Katiana prompts, staring at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
I sigh. “He’s got a little cave where he’s storing his castings. And stop gaping. It’s not strange for dragons!”
“Well it’s damn strange for mermaids,” Ianthe points out. And she’s not wrong.
“Come Bossie!” Patrice hollers again.
“But I’m mated to a dragon now, so we’re accepting it,” I inform Ianthe.
Kalos bounds back into view, casting gone and squirreled away with his other self-made ‘treasures,’ thankfully. “Adella!” he calls, spotting me. All my sisters scatter as he crashes into the water, plodding right up to me as inelegant and lumbering as a flippered loch creature.
I eye the invisible avoidance-perimeter my sisters are giving Kalos, and my brow rises slowly. I give my mate a considering look. “I’ve just decided that I adore your casting collection.”
Kalos’s dragon visage brightens. Not in color, it’s more an uplift to his scaly mouth and his jutting dragon brows. “Really? What wonderful news! I would like to show you my newest—”
And he begins to extoll the virtues of his latest casting-contents, which include lots of fish scales and feathers, because he’s been cleaning the skies of seabirds… something my sisters don’t approve of.
I try to shush him as he reveals his casting’s contents, but it’s too late. My sisters are glowering at us.
“Oi,” I admonish them. “He’s keeping us safe. And he has to eat.”
“He ate our sea cow, didn’t he?!” Patrice screams.
Oh no. I try to shutter my stunned expression, but I’m pretty certain I fail.
I sigh, my arms crossing over the shells on my breasts as I look to my shame-faced mate. It would be one thing if this was his first transgression, but Kalos has frightened away our fish, eaten our dolphins, swallowed down our rays, sucked our starfish off their rocks, and now if it’s true that our gentle sea cow is missing... If he’s responsible for her disappearance, then the only thing Kalos hasn’t devoured are our sea otters.
(But only because he tried to eat one, and the entire romp of otters chased him.)
He was covered in so many little bites by the time he managed to flap his way out of the water and into the safety of the sky that he declared the animals wretched and vowed to burn them all the next time he saw them.
My sisters and I intervened.
But our last sea cow? “Kalos…” I chastise.
“I was hungry and she came right up to me,” he explains.
“Because she was tame!” Patrice sobs.
“I’m sorry!” Kalos insists. He’s stricken to see Patrice so overwrought. He keeps himself low as he stretches his neck out over the water, truly apologetic. “I didn’t know the thing was off limits.” He casts a gimlet eye over my sisters. “If you listened to their shrieking, it seems everything in this cove is off limits.”
“It IS!” they screech in unison, making him flinch and pound his ear depressions with his tail.
“Maybe…” I start. “Kalos, maybe it’s time for new hunting grounds.”
Kalos shoots to his full height, his crest frill fanning full out and beginning to shake with his sudden, turbulent emotions. “Burn that thought! I will never leave you—”
“I’m not suggesting that you do,” I cut in, smoothing my hand over his scaly snout, trying to quell the rising panic he’s clearly experiencing. “Kalos, I’m saying it’s time for us to leave.”
Now it’s my sisters who panic. “Adella, no!”
“You can’t leave…”
“You just came back!”
I hunch a shoulder, feeling a pang at the thought of separating from them. “It won’t be for forever.” I paddle in a circle, meeting each of their eyes. “But we really can’t stay much longer, can we? Kalos needs to eat more in a day than all of these waters can spare to feed him.” I open my arms to my dragon, and he fits his nose against my chest, our version of a hug. “Besides, it’s time I met my dragons-in-law.”
Kalos goes tense. Smoke puffs out from under my arms as he exhales. “Adella?”
I pat his spiked jaw. “I know you’ll keep them from eating me.”
“Damned right I will,” he growls.
“Then see? It’s fine.” I release him and sink into the water, swimming for the shore.
Kalos plucks me up before I get there, and we both gaze down at my tail, sparkling with water droplets and reflecting sunshine.
“I’m going to miss this,” he says with a sigh. His eyes begin to burn with wicked heat.
The edges of my slit begin to turn puffy and ache, responding just to this look in his eye. Because we learned that when Kalos turns into a human man, I don’t have to turn into a human woman. We just need a little privacy, and in the water or on the beach, Kalos can sink himself inside my slit just fiiine while I’m in merform. He’s so big, bigger than any man I’ve ever taken before, that it feels impossibly tight to the point of seeming naughty—and it drives us wild.
Kalos has to shake himself, setting me down on the sand and gazing around us, at my sisters who line up along the shoreline, watching us sadly. “I’ll bring her back,” he vows.
“You’d better,” Katiana complains, sounding bitter.
“Yeah, you’ve already made all our men disappear. Now you’re stealing off with our sister again,” Nixie accuses. The words would seem harsh and accusing but she sounds more glum and sad than anything.
Regardless, I’m moved to defend him. “He didn’t make any men disappear!” I fume. I look to Kalos, waiting for him to say something, but he’s peering at Nixie like he’s lost in thought.
“It would make you happy to have males of your own?” Kalos asks.
My sisters stare at him. “You mean like… we get to keep a male only for ourselves?”
There’s a lovely sort of longing in her voice, and Kalos’s chest swells with purpose. He uses his nose to nudge me back towards the water. “Change of plans for the moment.” He scans my sisters. “I will return with a male for each of you.”
My sisters’ eyes have all gone round. Heck, mine have too. “How?” I ask. “Where will you find them? There aren’t many mermen. Mertribes have to share them.”
Kalos casts a considering look at my siblings. “But you could be happy with a male who wasn’t a merman, yes? Do you have any races or species you’re averse to, or fear, or disfavor?”
“Besides dragons?” Sirena drawls playfully. She doesn’t mean it; she was so ready to capture that dragon who tried to hunt here. If he hadn’t flown away looking so terrified, she absolutely would have claimed him.
So I light-heartedly slap her with my tail fins for teasing Kalos.
She squeals and splashes me with water, then turns back to Kalos.
Kalos’s neck crest puffs out and collapses, his version of a shrug. “Oh, I can
bring you something besides dragons.” He reaches out to give one last nuzzle to my hair—and when some of it tangles and clings to the roughness of his scales, he brings his claws up out of the water and brushes the strands free. Some of them naturally pull loose though, resulting in Kalos making a whirring purr of a noise.
He gathers all of the freed strands carefully in his claws.
“Oh, Triton’s beard. He’s going to make his hairy ball bigger,” Patrice complains, rolling her eyes and lying back in the water.
“You wouldn’t think he could make his balls bigger,” Pearl snickers, referring to the fact that Kalos’s sack in human form is rather healthy sized. He’s quite well-endowed all over.
“Shut up,” I warn them, and watch as Kalos ignores his onlookers and moves to a wadded collection of my hairs off to the side of the beach. Whatever hairs of mine that he combs loose with his claws… he’s been keeping them. I had no idea before I mated a dragon that they keep everything they find pretty: precious metals, pretty rocks, mermaid hair, their vomit-pellets.
Dragons are charming, really.
I should be more disgusted, but I must be completely crazy for my dragon. I find it sweet.
Using gentle movements, Kalos winds the new hairs just-so around my rainbow hairball.
My sisters watch him with various expressions. Some still looking a little repulsed, but I don’t let them fool me—they all find Kalos’s obvious adoration of me just as heart-melting as I do.
“When exactly did you say you were going to bring us men in exchange for stealing Adella away?” Katiana prompts.
Kalos sets his—yes, sigh—hairy ball down and says agreeably. “Right now.”
With a farewell snap of his tail to me, he flies off.
***
He returns with an ogre.
An honest-to-octopuses ogre. “Kalos,” I cry, shocked.
If possible, the ogre looks even more bewildered than me and my sisters are. Of course, for his part, he probably thought he was about to be eaten by a dragon, not sacrificed to a cove of mermaids.
“He looks like you pulled him out of a swamp,” Patrice says with dismay. “He’s filthy!”