Chapter 8

Chapter

Eight

Deepest, murkiest depths, her scales had parted.

Right along the front, revealing tender, secret parts that should only come out for a mating frenzy. And all he'd done was touch her.

"You don't like being dry, Starfish."

The nickname fell from his lips like an endearment, a little teasing, but entirely sweet.

And not just that.

Wetting down her hair had been a gesture. A ridiculously small, why-was-she-even-fixating-on-it kind of gesture, but a gesture, nonetheless. He knew she hated being dry—she'd apparently complained about it enough and how itchy, uncomfortable, and all around awful it was. What Reid did was sweet and thoughtful, and just the sort of thing Killian would do for Lorelei. Just the sort of thing Nireed always wanted from her own mate…

Not your mate. He barely even likes you.

Nireed slapped her tail hard, propelling herself through the water at breakneck speeds, tricking her body into thinking it was in flight-mode. Because even it knew better than to be primed for a potential mate when "danger" lurked. It didn't need to know that all that had been threatened was her pride.

Knowing how terrified and repulsed he'd been when they'd met, and still opening for him after a single touch? Mortifying. Reid would never want someone like her. Not when he knew she and her kin sometimes ate other Surface Dwellers.

Cold water caressed her scales, not something that discouraged arousal among her kind, but the urgency in her swimming demanded they close, shielding the vulnerable flesh beneath. That, at least, made the trip home less awkward.

On the dive to the city, she caught up with a returning hunting party and was relieved to see her friends Melusina and Delphine among the group. If anyone might offer her sympathy, it was those two. But apparently not Aersila, who wouldn't even look at her.

Her heart twinged, hating that they were fighting. They never fought.

What happened with Reid, and all the weird, confusing feelings that accompanied it, was exactly the sort of thing she'd want to talk with Aersila about. Everything from sharing the pangs of an ill-timed, unrequited mating frenzy to confessing the type of thoughtful, loving mate she wanted but would never have.

Melusina and Delphine flashed a cheerful greeting, their respective topaz and red lights winking back at her.

Melusina had dark brown skin, due largely to her Black Surface Dweller-ancestry, but she also spent a lot of time near the surface, hunting in the light of the sun. She wore her hair in long locs that fell to her hips, ornamented with shiny bits of metal scavenged and painstakingly polished from old, sunken ships.

Delphine, on the other hand, was white from head to fin, even her scales. She rarely ventured near the surface, the sun too bright for her pale, light blue eyes and too harsh for her even paler skin. But her inner luminescence was red, rendering her virtually invisible to the other creatures of the deep, making her an especially lethal deepwater hunter.

"Can we talk?" Nireed signed, her amber glow illuminating her hands.

Aersila stiffened, but still didn't look her way. And that cut deep.

No matter the risk, Nireed had always been there for her sister. Whether she agreed with her or not didn't matter. She never turned her back, never refused to talk. Why couldn't Aersila afford her the same respect and support?

Hurt turned to simmering anger.

Just because she was the younger, least experienced of the two didn't make her an incapable fool. She wasn't a child anymore and hadn't been for a long time.

If Aersila wanted to ignore her, fine.

Delphine glared at the older mermaid, blue eyes flaring red, then signed to Nireed. "Come on. Let's get out of here." Melusina nodded in agreement, snapping her tail with extra force.

Nireed didn't spare a single glance for her sister as she followed her friends. Why waste energy? Aersila had made her feelings perfectly clear.

They swam for the kelp forest, Delphine grabbing the old bit of rope they used to mark out pathways—a navigational network branching out through the towering stalks. This particular piece led to a series of others, each knotting around a barnacle-covered anchor, and spiraling out. One of them led to their old hangout, the place they'd been meeting since they were deemed old enough to swim away from the city unsupervised.

All those years ago, they cleared out a little grove for themselves, filling it with sunken "treasure"—pretty, but useless, trinkets scavenged from wrecks—and built a fort from old, rusted out ship parts. They'd play "Sirens and Sailors," a game that went exactly how one might expect. Two of them would pretend to be oblivious sailors, chugging across the sea in a roaring hunk of metal. They'd take turns being the third character, a powerful, shipwrecking siren who'd hunt them down despite the awful noise, quieting the ocean and feeding the pod in one fell swoop—a heroine to her people.

Other times, they'd just play with one sailor, and the spare would pretend to be Lady Leviathan, the mighty kraken goddess of the sea. There was a makeshift skirt around here somewhere, made from twenty strands of old rope, one for each of the goddess's tentacled arms.

Settling among their old treasures and childhood memories, Delphine lightly touched Nireed's shoulder, getting her attention. "Are you okay?"

"Not really."

"What happened? Are you two fighting over a Surface Dweller?"

Nireed wavered her hand. "Not in the way you mean. Aersila only has eyes for Aquilus."

Melusina snorted. "Not that she does anything about it."

"She's been through a lot." Her sister pined for Ryn's adopted father from afar, too hurt and scared by the past to take a chance on something new. It didn't matter that he only had eyes for her in return, turning down all other mating offers, waiting on a slim maybe.

"What's the fight about then?" Delphine pressed.

"She thinks he'll side with the fishermen and hurt me, but that's not what my instincts tell me. He has a protective nature. He cares deeply about his people, but he's also sympathetic to the danger our pod is in." With a sigh, Nireed explained the circumstances around meeting Reid, and every encounter since, sparing no details. "A part of me fears Aersila is seeing something I don't."

"Or she's wrong." Lounging against their old fort, Melusina flicked off a barnacle. "Seems more to me like she's misplacing her fear for herself onto you. She's never met him, so how would she know?"

"He does sound like he could be a worthy ally." Picking up one of their treasures from the silt—a crown made from twisted cutlery—Delphine shook it clear of debris, then placed it on her head.

Nireed wrung her hands a moment before confessing, "My scales parted for him."

"Oh." Delphine's brows ticked up a fraction, but a slow, wicked grin spread across her lips. "How exciting."

"You should go for it." Melusina crudely thrusted her tail upward. Both friends fell into a fit of bubbling giggles.

When the water cleared from their laughter, Nireed said, her cheeks hot, "He didn't see, he doesn't know. He can't know."

Both friends frowned, replying with a simultaneous, "Why not?"

"Because I've eaten men like him, and he knows it. He'll never accept me."

"You don't know that…" Delphine began, but Nireed wasn't done.

"What if this kicks off a mating frenzy? I don't want to just accept whoever will have me." It was a heat, a lust, that overtook the senses and drove one wild with need to fuck. To propagate. And because her people were sensitive to each other's emotions and scents, it was a catching predicament. When one of them began feeling its effects, the rest were sure to follow.

Melusina and Delphine exchanged looks.

A mating frenzy was how Undine had gotten pregnant last year. Many in the pod for that matter. And while that was perfectly fine for them, Nireed wanted so much more. She wanted someone to look at her like Killian looked at Lorelei, or Aquilus stared longingly after Aersila, never knowing if she'd ever reciprocate his feelings.

She wanted to be loved. And she felt nothing for any of the pod's three remaining unattached males. One of which was Aquilus, so he didn't count. The second was Cyrus, the reckless, barely old enough male who challenged her authority anytime she was hunt leader. And the third, while willing to do the rounds with multiple partners, was so notoriously terrible at mating, Undine was trying to convince attached males to loan out their services from time to time. A battle she was badly losing.

The ratio had always been low, but it was even lower now with Nautic's killings.

"It's not so bad," Delphine said. "It starts as a convenience, but it gets good quite quickly. Zavier didn't stop until well after I started showing."

"Never stopped is more like it." Melusina smirked. "He visited you right up until Celia was born. And is still coming around."

Delphine giggled.

Both had dedicated mates and little ones at home, but as far as their pod went, Nireed wasn't the exception. Many others who could carry babies were unpaired—Aersila and Undine being other notables. While the latter had a baby, it was the result of a temporary arrangement early on in their community's reunification, before the father entered into a dedicated pairing with another.

"Is there a way to stop a frenzy?"

Now her friends looked startled. Had anyone ever tried? The need for numbers was at the forefront of all their minds in their pod's never-ending fight for survival.

"He's agreed to help us stop the fishermen killing our kind," Nireed continued. "I won't jeopardize that alliance by making a fool of myself."

"What if he's not opposed?" Melusina's hands moved with passionate poignance. "You say he'll never accept you, but hasn't he already begun to? Surface Dwellers don't touch us unless they want us—otherwise, they're too scared they'll get their hand bit off. That's why your scales parted. Your body knows it even if you don't."

"Nireed, do you want him to accept you?" Delphine signed slowly, brow pinched with concern.

"I don't know." Nireed rubbed her chest before continuing. "There's this pull. Every time, I could've let him be, just kept on swimming or walked away, but I keep going back."

Delphine smiled, taking the cutlery crown from her head and placing it on Nireed's. "Worth exploring, I say. But if you don't want to, self-pleasure takes the edge off. You can get through a frenzy without mating."

Melusina nodded. "But if you do want to, don't be like Aersila and let fear deny you your mate. You deserve to be happy, Nireed. You've given so much to this pod. Now it's time you take something for yourself."

"If Reid is your mate, and he makes you happy, Aersila will come around."