Chapter 70

chapter 70

ELLE

Cepharius and I stayed, waiting, until the boat drove off with the siren swimming after it, and we were alone again.

"And now you are mine," Ceph intoned, looking down at me.

"Like I always have been. Ever since I met you," I told him, beaming.

"You did fight it some."

"Only a little," I said, pinching my fingers together between us. "I mean, you can't blame me for being scared."

"I am rather large," he said, with no attempt at hiding his thoughts of a double entendre.

"Yes, you are," I agreed.

"But now you are mine," he repeated. "For life." He sank lower in the water column, and I moved to follow him, but he shook his head. "Stay there."

"Okay?" I said, laughing. "What, I cancel my one ticket out of the ocean, and now you're abandoning me?" I teased. But then I saw him going through the pockets on his belt. "Ceph?"

"I have seen this enough in your stories that I feel sure I know its meaning. And I do not wish to court you anymore— I want to pump you every night, possibly every morning, and many of the times in between." He folded up his tentacles beneath himself and proffered out the ring I'd flung into the ocean. "We are mated, Elle, mind and body, but I have found that I like the idea of this custom, of giving you something to wear from me. So, my beautiful pearl and mate for life, Elle formerly of the Air, and now of the Sea, will you take this ring from me?"

I put my left hand out for him so that he could slide it onto the right finger—and I was shaking.

If I'd still been fully human, looking down at the depths below us, I'd have been horrified at the thought of the ring dropping into the blue, to be lost forever.

But I knew now even if I dropped it on accident—Ceph would go down and find it for me.

And I could follow him.

"Yes!" I cried out. "Absolutely!" I shouted on the 'qa, and he slid the ring home on my finger.