Chapter 4Cetius

Chapter 4

Cetius

“Did you even read the files I sent you?” Lago sighed from behind his large coral desk after I’d made the introductions and explained our speech issue.

Shit! I had not. I ran a hand through my head spines.

Lago had been the one to extract my extra gills and send them to the lab to make the artificial ones for Vera. After finding out I’d been paired with a human, he’d gone above and beyond and sent me some information on the species, but I’d been so busy with the family business that I frankly hadn’t had time to look through it.

“Because if you had, you’d know that temporary loss of voice is a common side effect for some species when they enter the deep. Water is heavier than air, and their vocal cords are not accustomed to it. In time, she will build the strength to speak again, especially once the external gills start merging with her body. There is no cause for concern.”

“Sorry. I’ve just been so busy—”

“I know. I heard the announcement that your grandsire will be leaving the company to you and not your brother. I am not surprised.” He glanced over at Vera, who was still clinging to me like her life depended on it. “But this is a joyous occasion! You should spend time with your new bride while you can. Work will always be there.”

“’I will.” I reached my tail out to the healer and touched his in thanks.

Yes, work would always be there, but Vera might not. In a year’s time, she might return to the surface and the human colony, taking with her my one and only chance at life with a female from beyond the sand.

“Congratulations again. Now go and spend some quality time with your bride.”

“I will.” I turned to leave, and Vera waved at Lago in that strange human way I had read about.

She didn’t have a tail, so I suppose it made sense that she’d use her hands to communicate. Some species touched snouts in greetings, but I heard humans touched hands.

“Don’t forget to read the files I sent you,” Lago called as we exited his office.

As we passed the front desk, Killia handed me a pamphlet printed on an eco-friendly sheet of pressed seaweed that read Book Now: A Guide to Booking an Appointment for the Technologically Uninitiated on the cover. I was pretty damn sure she’d just printed it out, since the front cover was still warm.

I didn’t bother to read it. I knew how to book a fucking appointment. The moment we were outside, I lifted the pamphlet above my head and waved it around, drawing the attention of several schools of cleaner fish. The moment I let go of the offending document, they converged on it immediately. In mere moments, there was nothing left.

The cleaner fish really did do a great job at keeping Coral’s Deep’s streets free of garbage. They’d learned quickly that anyone waving something over their head meant feeding time. Just don’t accidentally drop any important notes or any edible goodies. If you did, you only had about two seconds to retrieve them.

Vera peered up at the feeding frenzy in amazement. I’d heard the Earth was so dirty now that anyone who could leave the planet did so. But who was I to judge? Our planet might be clean, but Thalassonians had other issues. Big ones. It was why we relied on crossbreeding with other species to keep from dying out.

I took a shortcut to my estate because I was sick of all the staring. The very public news that my grandsire would be handing the family business to me was one of the reasons. But the other was the fact that I had a female from beyond the sands in my arms. The news that I was no longer one of the most eligible bachelors in Coral’s Deep would travel fast.

“Here we are,” I said as I guided Vera into the main foyer. “This will be your home for the next little while. I’ll show you to the room I had built specially for you.”

As we moved through the hallways of the abode I’d worked so hard to build, I couldn’t help but be pleased by Vera’s reaction. She was impressed, that much was certain. Maybe she would change her mind about leaving at the end of the year now that she guessed I was rich, even though a female who only wanted me for my wealth was precisely what I was hoping to avoid by going to Starlight Brides.

“This is your room,” I said, stopping in front of the door decorated with a giant shell, complete with the original pearl, an impressive specimen easily the size of my head. “I built it just for you so you would have a place to dry off and breathe air.” I opened the door to the room designed for those from the surface and pulled her under the lip and up to the other side.

She coughed and sputtered as she tried to breathe the air.

“You will have to expel all the water from your body before you can breathe air again.” The gills breathed for her while she was underwater, but that didn’t mean water didn’t get into all her other airways as well. I gave her back a few firm pats.

“Ugh! That’s horrible,” she finally managed. “Why is the air so sharp?”

I chuckled. “That is how air always feels to me.” With a powerful thrust of my tail, I launched myself out of the water and onto the tiled floor. I’d had them build a ramp so my future bride could help herself up using her legs.

She tried to step up, but her little feet slipped. She tried again, reaching for the edge with a hand, but between the angle and her lack of claws or suckers, her hand slipped as well.

Well, this was embarrassing. I hadn’t anticipated this. I’d need to make some modifications to the design.

I held out a hand to her, then hauled her up into the room. I took the opportunity to analyze her hands. Her fingers had short, flat nails that were slightly soft—from her time in the water, I assumed. Even her thumb had a flat covering over the tip. And she was missing an opposable digit!

So odd. In contrast, I had three claws per hand, plus two blunt, clawless opposable digits. Our opposable thumbs were in the same spot, but where my smaller opposable digit was, Vera had only a tiny finger. How awkward to have only one opposable digit per hand. Poor thing.

“Thanks.” She looked around, her eyes widening when they landed on the computer on the desk. “Is that what I think it is? If so, I’m going to send Starlight Lottery a very strongly worded email.”

“It is. It’s all yours. And since you had to leave your portable device on the surface, I will get you a replacement for that as well.” I still couldn’t believe that their technology didn’t work underwater. How backward was that? “You can take the external gills off while you’re in here. If you wear them all the time, they will start fusing with your body and eventually become permanent. But if you take them off every day or so, that won’t happen.”

“Oh! So that’s what Lago meant. In that case, I should take them off.” She lifted her hands to her face, paused, and then moved them to her neck. “Umm, how do I do that?”

“Allow me.”

I reached for her and traced the gills over her shoulders and down to her chest. Her soft inhalation as my hands brushed over her breasts was barely audible. I watched in fascination as her nipples pebbled under the thin fabric triangles. I gritted my teeth and willed my body not to react as I continued to search along the edge of the gills, looking for a place where I could slip my claws underneath.

I didn’t want to be too forward. Sure, I’d hoped perhaps she’d be amenable to playing the part of my wife in more than one way while she was here. But I didn’t want to give the wrong impression by ravishing her the very first moment we were alone. That would have to wait.

“Found it!” I eased a claw under, and using the flat side of it so that I didn’t damage the delicate gills, I lifted the edge free and peeled the gills off her body.

By the look on her face, the process of removing them didn’t feel much better than when we had put them on.

“Thank you,” she said as I placed the gills into a water-filled box on the table meant to store them on dry land. “And… Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“You mentioned that there are very few females of your species left. Why is that?”

I’d known I’d have to explain this eventually; might as well get it out of the way now. I guided her to the seat, then reclined next to her, and explained our people’s recent history.

“Our people have been at war with a neighboring civilization for generations. Both sides were ruthless, our otherwise logical minds blinded by hatred. We became brash and unthinking. About a decade ago, they released a chemical weapon into our water that killed off many of our females. My sister survived, but I lost my mother. She succumbed to the chemicals quite early.”

“I’m sorry. That sounds awful. What happened to your enemies after?”

“They are no longer our enemies. We are no longer at war with each other. There is a tentative peace now between our people.”

“Really? After they did something so horrible?”

I grimaced. “We were no better,” I admitted. “We sent our best to infiltrate their labs. Mere days after the toxic plume settled over our city, theirs was engulfed as well. Our cities are the two largest on the planet, and in the end, they suffered even heavier losses than we did. Now our entire species is on the brink of extinction. Their goal was to end the war once and for all. They achieved that goal, but there were no winners. We all lost.”

“Sounds like war’s the same everywhere.” Her voice was grim. “I’m sorry.”

“It was only after this disaster that our scientists started working together, not on weapons but on the external gills. Without females of our own, we had to find suitable mates among other species. We are lucky at least in that we are breeding-compatible with other species across the stars. Like yours. So far, all offspring conceived with Thalassonian sires are born with predominantly our characteristics and can live under the waves.”

“I guess your people have been keeping Starlight Brides busy.”

“Yes, we have. And other galactic matchmaking services as well. We’ve also found human brides at the human colony on the island.” The one she’d join after our year was up.

My contact conch pinged with an alert; the sound was strangely sharp now that the conch was out of the water. I checked the message, hoping it was something I could do from home, but it wasn’t. The information the supplier wanted was somewhere at the office.

“I’m very sorry, Vera. It’s work. I need to head out for a while.”

“That’s okay. I’ll just get myself settled.”

“The rest of the house is open to you as well, of course. Feel free to explore if you like; if you don’t, I will give you a proper tour later.”

I pulled my new bride close, my eyes landing on those soft pink lips. Maybe I could have just a little taste of her before I left? I might not have read the information about humans very thoroughly, but I knew they had similar mating customs, including touching lips.

Threading my hands through the still-damp strands of her hair, I captured her lips with mine. It was supposed to be just a small kiss, a hint of things to come later. But when she made a soft needy sound and kissed me back, her little tongue tangling with mine, I couldn’t stop myself from taking more, plundering her mouth and claiming everything I could reach.

She tasted divine! Better than any expensive, imported brine. Her form, so soft and tempting, molded to my body with pliant promise. It took everything I had to stop myself from thrusting through my vent and demanding we consummate our marriage right here and now.

She was panting softly, her eyes half lidded and unfocused when I finally pulled myself away.

“I will return soon, my bride.”