Chapter 16

Eridanys didthe chores Alba asked while Alba tended to the lantern that night, which, as always, Alba didn't actually expect. Which wasn't the response Eridanys wanted once Alba returned surprised to find the work done, pouting and insisting Alba trust him when he went about repaying debts.

Alba's continued disbelief only compelled the siren to stubbornly ask for more to do to prove himself, and Alba was happy to delegate some of the tasks he dreaded most. Not to mention—the more Alba kept Eridanys busy on the lighthouse rock, the more he wouldn't have to think about their conversation the afternoon prior. The more he could put off the anticipation, the anxiety about it. Hating not knowing when to expect what the man said would happen; preferring to go about his day as if they hadn't agreed to such things at all.

Despite his best efforts to put it out of his mind, though, Alba soon couldn't help but ruminate endlessly over what it would be like to—inevitably—give in to a call to someone like him. To be pleasured by a siren—like him. Suddenly acutely aware of the strength of Eridanys' arms, especially how they swelled beneath the weight of lifting and pushing a brick-laden wheelbarrow from the shed over the uneven, grassy terrain to the house.

He couldn't help but watch how the mer-man's shoulders and back moved beneath his shirt while laying bricks in a row along the crumbling garden wall, or the sight of his stomach flexing beneath the tiniest peek under his shirt when lifting his arms over his head. How he was both beautiful and handsome; how there was hardly a rugged thing about him, but that only made the strength of his movements more captivating to watch.

Alba knew what sex involved. He knew how to have sex. To an extent, he even thought he knew what to expect with Eridanys, considering he'd seen the man's cock a handful of times whenever he walked around naked right out of the sea. He was certainly better-endowed than most sailors Alba had caught sight of during his years sailing, but Eridanys' anatomy was, at the very least—human. At least so far as in his human form. He didn't want to think about how he might be mating with a merrow—a bloodthirsty siren—rather than a man.

Three days of calm, non-eventful cohabitation went by, weighed down only beneath Alba's own imagined apprehension. Distracted by the daily work, by tending to the lantern, by the slow progression of sea-mud healing the wounds on his face until he could almost convince himself the confrontation with Marco hadn't happened.

A part of him didn't want to mention it; a part of him wanted to ask. A part of him wished to pretend like he'd forgotten entirely; a part of him wanted to let Eridanys know that he was meant to go back into town for supplies in another day, and if they intended to mate before then, well—they were running out of time. God, how could he ever bring himself to utter such words?

But the following night, just after winding the weights for the last time before sunrise—a sweet hum found its way into the lighthouse from the distant sea, and Alba realized he would no longer have to.

His body responded before his mind knew what was happening, heart thrumming warmly in his chest and making his skin tingle. He touched a hand to his chest in confusion, a small, cold pinch of concern nipping at the back of his neck until he realized what must have been happening. It came with a rush of anxiety, instincts telling him to cover his ears—but just before he did, he stopped himself. No—that was what he'd been waiting for. He'd been warned. He'd agreed to not resist, to not hide away. He consented to being called, to following it. No matter what he would find on the other side.

Once he accepted his fate, forcing the nervous instincts away, the luring call draped over him a second time. Warm and inviting. Making his heart dance, wrapping him in a blanket then cinching a knotted rope at the base of his spine to pull. He stepped forward with its tug, exhaling a small breath and committing to it once more. Pushing the apprehension away. Deciding, even if it killed him, to trust that siren who claimed to still need him. Hoping it wouldn't come to that; hoping a siren was even a thing capable of being truthful.

What Alba didn't expect was how, once he gave in and let the song take hold of him entirely, it would be impossible to break free again. Especially once it melted what remained of his hesitation into nothing but sweet honey. Making his mouth water, lips parting and wishing to breathe it in. To taste the song on his tongue, wondering if it would coat his insides as deliciously as it caressed his mind. Deep and rich and melodic—invisible, all-encompassing hands groped at him, silencing his mind altogether, until only his most basic instincts remained. Basic instincts that knew only sensation, flesh—desire.

Alba barely exhaled another breath, and allowed himself to submit to it wholly.

Only partially aware of his movements, spirited away to a place far sweeter than any he'd ever visited, he left his cane behind. Hating how long it took to descend the stairs, he feared the song would stop before he could reach it. A song that knew him by name without having to call it, beckoning with a growing urgency that made his vision waver and his feet feel heavy. As if walking across the shifting deck of a ship in a storm; or walking in a dream where the earth was made of sand dusted over cotton.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and stumbled through the door. Out into the wind, sky still dark with sunrise a few hours still on the horizon. The start of rain pricked his cheeks like ice falling in shards from a glacier. He clung to the exterior of the lighthouse for a moment, straining his ears to listen over the incoming storm—wishing to hear its call again. Knowing it was there, sure it would ring out again for him. That song meant for him, only him—a song that meant someone, something was out there that wished to have him. Partially clinging to his wavering awareness of Eridanys—partially blinded by the heat growing in the back of his throat, his chest, behind his navel.

Using an arm to block the wind from his eyes, Alba stopped only long enough to strain his ears. To search the water thrashing with whitecaps against the weather, searching for a spot of moon on the surface who sang out to him. Soon the wind emphasized the sound, louder and sweeter than any fluted pipes ever could be. Carrying it to him, then swirling back and nudging him in the right direction. Toward the rocks slick with crashing ocean water, where he stepped closer than he knew better to go even on the clearest of days.

The moon was hidden behind a quilt of thick gray clouds in the sky—but a part of her found a way to pierce between stitches, swimming through the dark current. White and flowing like stringed opals under a light, shimmering with all the colors of the deepest parts of arctic glaciers.

Alba could do nothing but stare—that piece of the moon was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Such a beautiful thing that sang to him, called to him, wishing to know him.

Alba knew that drop of moonlight in the dark sea, too—He knew Eridanys. He wished Eridanys would swim even closer. Just out of reach. Alba wanted to touch him. For the first time, Alba wanted to touch him all over, after so many days resisting every urge that bit at the back of his mind. Always keeping his hands to himself, sure he wouldn't have to that time. Eager to give in, eager to know and be known.

He didn't know how Eridanys sang so clearly with his mouth beneath the water—but then he rose slightly more, revealing the rest of his handsome, angular face, lips dripping with saltwater and moving with the sound of the song. Captivating, hypnotizing Alba no different than the turning lantern had captured the siren himself. Hooking around the thin angles of Alba's bones and drawing him nearer. A fish on a line. Eager to reach him, even knowing it might end in his own gasping and gutting.

Taking one step too far, Alba's foot slid out beneath him. Crashing backward onto the rock, waves swept over him instantly, dragging him into their embrace. On instinct, too drunk with desire to think, he inhaled—filling his chest with water that burned every inch of flesh it scraped against. It burned, it ached—but then cold hands found him. His arms, then his face—then something soft, smooth pressed against his lips, and the burning in his lungs faded.

Water spilled out from between his lips, summoned by the mouth pressed into his, drawing it back. Taking it for itself. Leaving Alba with a raw emptiness he wanted filled—filled, filled with anything he could be given.

Desperate to fill that void left within him, so much that his hands thrust out, grabbing the moon siren's face, cupping the curves of his jaw and kissing him back. Kissing him with inexperienced, desperate earnestness that would have been humiliating had he not been moon-drunk like an ocean tide sycophant following his goddess wherever she went.

"Mine's the first mouth you've ever kissed, isn't it?" Eridanys' melodic voice asked between their lips, and Alba barely managed to inhale a breath between it and the saltwater soaking him.

He didn't answer—he didn't want to admit it. He couldn't. Not to the thing that sang to him so beautifully, the first thing to ever desire him. But no answer was answer enough, and Eridanys pulled Alba closer. Kissed him possessively. To be the first to kiss him, touch him, devour him alive—and devour Alba he did, with hands and mouth and tail wrapping around him beneath the water, parting Alba's thighs against the rocks and gliding between them. Clawing at him, drawing the air from his lungs with every breath always on the verge of dragging him under. With such a hypnotizing voice in his ear, Alba thought he might not grieve his own death if it was at the pale hands of the moon.

Pale hands pulled his shirt open, then tangled the hair braided down the back of his neck; a cold, pale mouth kissed along his jaw, then down his throat before biting at his collarbones. Alba's hands fought for something to grasp at, clawing at scaled flesh and bundles of muscle, back pressed into the smooth stone of the edge of the rocks as the strength of the sea pinned him breathless and gasping.

A tongue that felt warm only in such cold water swirled over his nipples just beneath the surface, teeth nibbling at his sensitive skin and summoning small gasps from his mouth. It left marks on him, and he shuddered as the beam of moonlight traveled lower to open the front of his pants. Mouth never pulling away, warm and cold and soft and sharp, tongue licking water from the skin beneath his navel, before sliding between his legs and making him buck. His hands found the siren's hair in the tide, overwhelmed with a rush of heat burning beneath his skin and gasping a lungful of sea spray, like kerosene sparking in his stomach.

He grasped Eridanys' silvery hair in two fists, but not to yank him away, not to push him deeper—only in need of something to anchor him in his body. The siren responded with sharp hands burrowing into Alba's waist, caressing the sensitive nub between his legs with wet lips, tongue traveling lower and teasing inside. Spreading Alba's legs open on either shoulder, gripping his thighs in sharp hands, moonlight eyes flickering up at him just beneath the water every time Alba writhed or clawed at him in overwhelm. As if wanting to see whether his prey enjoyed it, wishing to see how Alba's face contorted in the rush of pleasure.

Alba had touched himself plenty before, many times before ever hearing Eridanys' song. In the dark, narrow confines of a bunk or a hammock while sailing in the north. Brief, rare stints of pleasure allotted to him on a ship crewed by men who had no business knowing what he looked like with his pants down.

An act that never brought much pleasure in the end, never left him breathless and smiling and warm in the cheeks like when people whispered about it. After climaxing, he would lie there in the darkness, staring at the wooden ceiling, listening to the creak of the ship. The voices of crew mates would waft around him, just far enough away that they wouldn't have heard or seen anything. Sometimes he would cry out of loneliness, misery, the rush of endorphins making him realize exactly how miserable he was and how badly he wished to go overboard like others before him. How that would be so much easier than what he was given.

When Eridanys teased him in the house, talking about how Alba certainly wouldn't be able to ignore his song, Alba had been intrigued. Even—curious. He'd wanted to know if that was true, he wanted to know how it felt to be called out to, knowing that was not something he was ever likely to get in his normal waking hours, whether in Welkin or on a northern fishing rig or anywhere else. There would never be anyone else to call out to him in desire, in affection.

Such fantasies had always been brief, passing fancies, never given enough time to fester into anything more. Knowing the danger of it, knowing his life and his mother's life would always take priority. He didn't deserve something like that, he would never have time for something like that. He would never be able to trust a stranger enough to give or accept something like love and intimacy.

Pinned against the rocks, grasped in the arms of the siren whose song sang against the nub of Alba's clit, savoring every taste of skin as the waves lapped and crashed against them—Alba finally knew what it felt like to shudder with pleasure. Real pleasure full of warmth and wine and a racing heart. With Eridanys' hands clinging to his flesh, as if worried the sea would taste him herself and whisk him away. Alba could even pretend the siren enjoyed it, too. He could even pretend Eridanys liked how he tasted, liked the feeling of Alba's skin under his hands. And while that pleasure was tinged with salty apprehension, not knowing which moment would be the one where he was finally dragged under or torn apart with sharp teeth—Alba never thought he was meant to know gentle pleasure, anyway. The way Eridanys clawed, grabbed, tore at him was all Alba could have ever asked for.

The hands bruising his waist pushed him back into the rocks again, then up, lifting Alba's lower half from the water. Exposing him to the cold air, the overcast sky. Alba collapsed onto his back, hands lashing out for anything to hold onto so he wouldn't slip back into the waves, finding Eridanys as he pushed himself from the water to follow.

The mer-man's eyes were bright even in the darkness, reflecting the occulting light of the lantern overhead whenever it swept by. Alba's instincts shuddered, blood running cold as everything told him to fear the creature licking its lips with such sharp teeth, but he didn't move. Just stared back at him, bare legs trembling, flesh raw and pink from the salt, from the onslaught of the siren's needy tongue. A hum emerged from the back of Eridanys' throat as if he could sense the nervousness, melting Alba's uncertainties back down to nothing again.

Using the indomitable strength of his long tail, Eridanys pushed himself fully onto the rocks, onto Alba. He smashed their mouths together once more, humming at the back of his throat like a purring cat.

"You will be made my caller of the shore," the humming, growling voice spoke between their mouths, making Alba's heart race. "My bride of the salted air, my brine witch. I will be your caller of the sea—your bride of the shore and soil, your mud witch."

He bit at Alba's lower lip, before trailing down his chin, his jaw, kissing the side of his neck where teeth once buried. Kissing Alba's skin tenderly, trailing a long tongue over the faint scars that remained.

"Only my song will ever call to you—and I will hear when you call for me, from any edge of any sea."

Alba's hands trembled, wrapped around the back of Eridanys' neck as the words cascaded over him, through him, making goosebumps pucker his skin, breaths hitching with every curl of the tongue against him, as Eridanys' heavy body parted his legs and pressed closer. The weight of of him was crushing, suffocating, invigorating. To be pinned, held down, dominated by something that might let him live, might kill him—Alba only knew the unsatisfied swirling in his gut would soon tear him open, making him writhe and gasp, bracing for Eridanys to penetrate him with every grind of his tail between Alba's thighs.

The anticipation became all he could think about, sliding a hand between them, where he thought he might find the man's cock—but there were only flat, slippery scales. Alba groped further, until his fingers pressed into a dip in the muscles between his hips, sliding inside and summoning an animal sound from the man on top of him.

"Careful, sailor," Eridanys growled, and Alba nearly pulled his hand away in surprise, but Eridanys grabbed his wrist first. Smiling at him, darkly, intensely, then coaxing it back despite those words. "I don't like to be teased. Tempt me at your own risk."

Alba didn't know what to say, though didn't try to pull his hand back again, either. He touched his fingers to the slit once more, then pressed through the narrow opening, finding the inside as warm and wet as his own when turned on. Eridanys' breath caught, brows furrowing as Alba explored deeper, hypnotized by how the siren's expression shifted from focused to the briefest flicker of soft pleasure. A twitch that lasted only a moment before tightening again, Eridanys' lips parting with a breath as Alba's fingers explored further—finding the head of a swollen cock, dripping and slippery. One—and then two, straining to emerge where Alba might touch them more.

Alba didn't know how—he didn't know how to fondle a cock except by what he'd seen in brothels up and down the northern shoreline. But as the two heads slipped from the slit, Alba stroked one of them, letting his hand move how it felt natural. The growing hardness twitched against his palm, long and thick, textured with smooth scales and boney ridges beneath skin like that of his upper body. Soft but firm, warm and dribbling stringy pearls of pre-cum. His second cock was fleshier, softer, lacking the same bumpy exterior, but the size alone made it still intimidating.

Alba stroked the one in his hand, the siren's hips rolling in and out to gently thrust within his inexperience grasp. Circling his thumb over the tip, Alba watched Eridanys' expression with each movement, learning where he felt it most every time his lips parted for breath or his brows furrowed or his jaw clenched. Quietly enjoying that feeling of taking control of the arrogant siren for himself, even if just for a moment.

And only for a moment it was, as Eridanys soon grabbed Alba's hand, pressing it into the wet seaweed-caked stone beneath them. Breathing heavy, his opposite hand hooked under Alba's jaw, crushing their mouths together once more. Alba suffocated beneath the demands of it, before jerking his head to the side and gasping as the ridged cock rutted against him, filling him with another swirl of sweltering excitement. Eridanys' second cock lapped at him lower, teasing his rear and sidling inside slightly more and more with every roll of Eridanys' hips. Opening him slowly, stretching and spreading warm, slippery fluid inside that numbed any of the pain that might come once it finally couldn't wait any longer.

Eridanys' hands found the backs of Alba's knees, finally pressing him wide with all his weight behind it. Alba bit back a sound of surprise, then a gasp of discomfort as his hip jolted and a spark of pain bolted up the back of his leg. He pressed knuckles between his teeth as the ridged cock circled the sensitive folds of his skin, sliding between them before catching and slowly pushing inside.

Choking on another sharp gasp of surprise, of panic and then discomfort, Alba searched for the taste of pleasure beneath it, knowing there was honey to be had at the end of the first bite. He just forced himself to breathe, to keep the cries out of his mouth, only his fingernails digging into Eridanys' flesh as any proof of distress. Fingers that raked shallow lines up Eridanys' back, his arms, his shoulders; tangling in Eridanys' hair and pulling at the roots as every muscle in his body contracted. Forgetting the freezing chill of the water, the rocks scraping against his back, he felt only the swollen pressure of a cock buried between his legs, the other teasing deeper into his ass with each thrust.

Thrusts that started slow and controlled, allowing Eridanys to kiss him again, to bite at his shoulder, to push hair from Alba's face and command Alba to meet his eyes. But the moment Alba did, Eridanys' own face furrowed, and he pressed deeper. Harder. Pulling back and slamming in again, scraping teeth over Alba's lips parted in a gasp, practically folding him in half with hands still pinned in the crooks of Alba's legs. Using his entire body weight to bury himself to the root of his cocks, until both fully disappeared into Alba's body, until his stomach and hips slapped flush against the backs of Alba's thighs.

The rolling thrusts came hard and fast until Alba was drooling, whimpering, until he couldn't feel the pain of his hip or the rocks against his back, nothing but the crushing weight of Eridanys on top of him, the stretching, sweltering pressure of two cocks taking ownership of him. Splitting him where nothing else ever had, until he didn't know the difference between pleasure and pain, only that he—didn't want it to stop.

He wanted to be crushed, devoured, filled until he no longer felt a single thing. Until there was only Eridanys wrapping arms around him, pulling him close, pinning him as the thrusts continued, humming from the back of his throat again and melting the sharp, prickling edges of Alba's inside into wax.

Dominated until Alba's body was no longer his, all of it culminating higher and higher and higher with every slamming movement inside. Piercing him, filling him, tearing him open for the sea and sky to witness, lost in a swirl of pleasure and fear and pure delight. Until he clawed at Eridanys' body in return, opening his mouth and biting down on the siren's shoulder, making Eridanys hiss and wrench back.

"More, more—" Alba's voice trembled, fighting to keep Eridanys close as tears flooded from his eyes, washed away by the sea spray and rain. "Don't stop—I want you—to fuck me more, more?—"

Alba grabbed Eridanys' face, kissing him. Kissing him hard and desperately, enough that Eridanys' lips shifted and his teeth drew blood from Alba's. The cut was quickly met with a searching tongue, all while the siren's hips dug deeper, hard enough to jolt Alba's body against the ground. Scraping the skin of his back. Feeling nothing except the all-encompassing sensation of being owned and eaten.

He drowned in his own gasping breaths, spirit barely clinging to his bones through hooks knocked looser and looser every time the siren's tail met the back of his legs—until it all culminated in an orgasm that wrenched his soul back into place, clenching every muscle until his bones creaked, back curving upward and mouth releasing a sharp, honeyed cry of release.

Eridanys laid a trail of kisses down the center of Alba's chest, before connecting with Alba's mouth once more, breathing life back into him, barely keeping him conscious long enough to whisper one last thing:

"I will protect you from harm, from the sea and on land, with this act. So be it."

Alba's tired heart fluttered. It warmed, it kissed at the inside of his ribcage in a different way than the warmth kissed between his legs. Matching heat dripped from him as Eridanys slowly removed himself. Warmth covering every inch of him, a blanket against the cold sea, the cold air. Enough that he could close his eyes, and drift away as safe as anyone could be.

Before he did, he extended his hands. Finding Eridanys' face through blurry eyes, he managed a weary smile without knowing why he did it, pulling the siren down to kiss him one more time before the exhaustion claimed him.

"Me, too," he responded. The words made Eridanys' breath catch, staring at Alba as if he'd made some sort of mistake, like he was never meant to utter the same sentiment in return. But if the siren said anything else, it was too late. Alba was already sinking into darkness more encompassing than the nighttime sea.