Chapter 40

Daios brought them back to the dome faster than he thought possible. With her wrapped in his arms, he had known it would be a slower journey just to make sure she didn't freeze off any of her limbs. But it felt like a blink of an eye for the two of them to be sitting in the dome that was filled with more people than it ever had before.

Mira walked between the two of them, a tube in her hand that dispensed an ooze that healed whatever it touched. She tsked at Anya's broken ribs and had to peel the remains of the droid out of her head. At least Byte had a medkit for that pain as well.

Arges and Maketes had yanked themselves onto the floor of the dome to give the depthstriders a space to argue. The others were beyond angry at what had happened.

So many words flowed past him, and he knew he should pay attention more than he was, but he didn't care to.

"Were all the pods delivered safely to Gamma?" Maketes asked, that tablet in his hands beeping with words that Daios could only assume was Anya's friend still getting in touch with him.

"Yes, of course. They were all delivered with the inhabitants alive," Fortis said, his son floating next to him with a hard expression on his features. "My people did not take our blood price, if that's what you're asking, Maketes. I would be honest if we had murdered any who deserved it."

Then he could only hear Mira scolding Anya, who couldn't hear a word anyone was saying. "What were you thinking, doing all that by yourself? You should have set the bombs and run. That's some stupid shit I would have pulled and I don't appreciate anyone else doing it."

Arges looked over the both of their heads, his neck gills wiggling with amusement. "Oh? It's not as fun when someone else does it?"

"Hush, you. I'm trying to get her healed. None of the med packs will do anything about the worsened hearing problems, though. I'm not a healer. I have no idea what I'm doing."

If she didn't know what she was doing, then she should let Daios do it. Then at least he could be certain someone wasn't hurting her as Mira poured more of that goo down the still bleeding lines that marred Anya's head.

She looked... wrong. Dissociated, he might have said. Her features were so much paler than he'd ever seen them, and her eyes were a little too glassy. She looked very much like she wasn't even in the room.

He wanted her here with him. He wanted to know that she was alive and well and that no matter what had happened, she didn't look at him like he was still a monster.

After all, he'd killed her father. Or at least, the man she thought was her father. He'd listened while she told Mira and Arges everything that had happened the moment he swam up with her into the moon pool. Before the entire place was swarmed with people and she stopped looking like she was seeing what was going on right in front of her.

"We're going," he announced. "Or everyone else is leaving."

"Excuse me?" Mira said, whipping around with a glare on her face and that strange tool suddenly wielded like a weapon. "You're going nowhere with her. She needs to rest."

"Then everyone else get in the water and we will continue our conversation outside."

Arges blinked at him. "Do you have some disagreement about how we're doing things now?"

"I do." He tightened his arms around Anya. "She needs rest. You are not letting her rest."

Everyone whipped around to look at her and they must have seen the same thing he did. A woman who was now a little bit fractured and frayed around the edges. They all needed to give her space.

The depthstriders were the first to sink out of the room. Then Maketes, who gave Anya one last worried look before he disappeared. Arges was the last, his eyes on both of the humans before he looked at Daios.

"Be nice," he said, his voice low and soothing.

Daios bared his teeth in a snarl and ignored his brother's laughter. He shifted even closer to Anya, gently tugging her trembling hands from her lap and bringing them to his mouth. "I wish I could tell you how much I love you. How your light has brought more wonder and joy to my life than I have ever felt in it. I have been a warrior my entire life, and before you, that was all I was. You make me want to put my weapons down and find out what it really means to live."

He ignored that Mira pressed her hands to her mouth, and slipped into the water as well. He had to work to do. Business to finish that would mean he could let all this go. But he had to do this first.

It took about a week for him to get everything done. His people had decided to go back to Alpha and rip the entire city apart. The one fracture was too easy to fix. Maketes was still in contact with Anya's friend, so Ace sent them a little help as well. Ace claimed there were cameras ready to broadcast everything they did to all the other cities. So he and all the other large People of Water pulled the city apart, glass panel by glass panel.

They shattered everything on the stones, leaving nothing but rubble. He took what he wanted out of it, because there were quite a few things to salvage. None of what remained would be given to the humans.

Jewelry, dresses, whatever looked useful, he took. He even brought back a droid that looked a lot like Bitsy for Mira to fix up. Hopefully, there was a way to bring the little droid back to life.

And a week later, when all of it was done, he felt like he could return to her side as a good man. As the man who had changed everything for her.

No longer did he need to struggle or fight. He had set that life aside. And Daios found that he was quite looking forward to what he would find in the future.

Poking his head into the moon pool, he peered through the dark room. It was still early. Mira was probably asleep, but he knew they had set up another small bed for Anya in the garden room.

"Anya," he called out, before tossing a pebble into that room, but he didn't need to wake her. She was waiting for him. Like her soul had known he was coming for her today and he wasn't leaving without her.

She appeared like a ghost, wearing a soft pale gown that he had gotten her. She said it was for sleeping, but he had wanted to see her like this. With the moonlight streaming through the water and turning her skin and the fabric to ivory. She slipped into the sea with him without a sound, but he noticed there was a new droid wrapped around her head.

"My gift worked?" he asked, his claw tapping the metal as he drew them both into the water.

She nodded, then grabbed onto the tentacle at the base of his skull and affixed it to her throat. Now that he was breathing for her, he didn't have to worry as much. She was safe in his arms, right where she should be.

He took his time gliding through the currents, drawing her off into a hidden area of the ocean where no one would bother them.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, her voice light as air.

"I thought we could enjoy each other for a while." He had hopes for more, but if it was just holding her, then he would be happy. "There's something I want to show you."

They said nothing else, but he knew she had understood him. He could see the words reflected on her lens.

Daios thought maybe he should be a little worried that she was saying nothing. She had been through a lot, and he didn't want to be the one to push her. After all, it had been... hard for both of them. The distance. The knowledge that they had succeeded in doing what they had set out to do.

Arcing over a plateau, he paused on the outskirts of a vented area. It was warmer here, the water almost too hot for him. But she would be able to float comfortably. And then there were the bubbles. Every time a vent released, it scattered a thousand bubbles that at this time of the day... Ah. There it was. They all turned into a thousand rainbows the moment the sun hit them.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he asked, his mouth against her neck. "Just like you."

She let out a little sound, a moan that filled him with hope. Then suddenly she was twisting in his arm, grabbing at him. Gripping his hand and dragging it to her waist, to her breasts, to anything she could get him to touch.

"I'm better now," she whispered, her lips finding his and pressing the words against him. "I've been waiting for a week and you've been gone and I... I'm okay. I just need you."

He groaned, the sound part need and part relief. He had been feeling the same way, but he wasn't certain that she wanted to be pushed. After all the things he'd done, all the things they had both been through, he wanted to give her time. He wanted to let her breathe. He wanted...

Her.

Fuck, he just wanted her.

Arm banding around her, he dragged her against his chest so her breasts were crushed against him. He kissed her like he was a starving man. Trying his best to press into her very soul all the things that he'd been afraid to say in the past week. He wanted her. He needed her. She was everything to him, and he would give up the entire world if that made her happy. He would give up the sea itself to see her smile.

Breathing hard, he bit at her bottom lip. "I need to see you, kalon. I've been dying to see you for too long now."

She didn't need to be told twice. Anya twisted in his arms, dragging the fabric of her nightgown up over her head. He had seen nothing like her before. The ivory beauty of her skin reflected the colors of the thousand bubbles behind her. The sunlight beaming through the water heated her flesh and warmed it even more to his touch.

But even better, beyond the soft curve of her waist and the pretty softness that gave underneath his fingers, were the scars that marked her head. Like braids, they twisted along one side of her skull and just barely kissed where her face began. They were the marks of the woman he loved, and of the strength she possessed to survive.

He touched his fingers to the patch of circular scars underneath her eye. Lingering where the new lens just barely covered before he heaved her up in his arms.

She gasped, but then her head fell back as his claws parted her lovely folds.

"Look at you," he praised, his mouth already watering. "Already so wet for me, kalon. Gods, I have waited to taste you for too long."

He allowed the water to buoy her upward until her legs were tangled around his shoulders. With one long lick, he finally had his mate's taste back on his tongue. His eyes rolled back in his head as he did it again and she let out that little moan that always made his heart race and his blood thunder in his body. This was what he had needed. This was what he had been missing his entire life.

A groan vibrated through him, his gills flaring wide as he licked and sucked at her skin. If he could crawl inside her, he would. He planned to. Fuck, he needed years to explore the woman writhing in his arms.

He glanced up the long line of her body. She'd lifted her arms above her head, all those soft curves his to claim if he wished. Her hands were sunk into her hair, the coiled tangles of gold catching in the light and fuck, she was beautiful. Every inch of her. Her eyes squeezed shut, her cheeks just slightly blushed. She was everything he had always wanted and more.

"You taste so fucking good," he growled, sinking his tongue deep inside her. This was what he had discovered she enjoyed. Her legs locked around the back of his neck, squeezing tight as he slowly rolled the entire length of this tongue inside her body.

When he had her writhing so hard he feared for her heart, he pulled back just long enough to growl, "I'm going to fill you up, Anya. And then I'm going to watch my cum seep out of that pretty little slit of yours. And you're going to take me, aren't you? All of me."

She whimpered, looking down at him with those heated eyes. She nodded, but that wasn't enough for him. Not at all.

"Say it," he growled.

"Yes," she croaked.

And so he feasted. He licked and sucked and tasted until she came apart in his arms. Until her tiny claws dug into his arms and she dragged him even closer at the same time as she tried to push him away.

Pleasure pounded in his chest. His cocks were so hard he thought a single touch would send him off the edge, but he'd never been happier in his life. He'd never known that a woman like her could exist.

He thought he'd pleasured her speechless until those warm blue eyes looked him over and she suddenly twisted. Locking herself around him, she moved down his body until he was poised right where he wanted to enter her.

"I won't be able to stop like last time," he said, his voice still low and guttural. "There's two for a reason, my kalon. Last time was just the beginning."

"Last time was learning," she replied. Her gaze was just as heated as his as she reached between them to cup him. "This time is for me."

He didn't have the faintest idea what she meant until she guided him inside her.

Clenching his teeth, now he was the one who had to close his eyes as she slid him up and down her wet slit. By the gods, she was hot. So hot that it warmed him all the way into his depths. He wanted, no, needed, more than this. He wanted to thrust into her as she'd taught him. He wanted to feel her surrounding him and clenching as he moved.

And then she was. She sank her hips over him and drew him down until she bumped against his scales.

They both gasped at the intrusion. She was so fucking tight. Every time.

"Anya," he hissed, as she moved herself up and down with her arms braced on his shoulders.

She moved against him, rolling her hips before she blew out a long breath. Her bubbles joined all the others that surrounded them. She was surrounded by a kaleidoscope of colors and then she said something that made him even more shocked.

"I want them both." Her words were breathless, and he swore he heard her wrong.

"Both?" That wasn't something his people did. They enjoyed long sexual encounters, that was for certain. Two were better than one to ensure that a female was properly fertilized, at least that's what the stories said. He just liked that he could linger with her longer than a human male ever could.

"Both," she repeated, the sound so certain that he wasn't able to argue.

How was she going to do that? He had no idea what she meant.

Until she suddenly pulled herself off him and held both of his cocks in one hand. The tips brushed against each other, one much warmer after the heat of her body. He couldn't speak. He couldn't breathe. All he could do was hold himself still as she squeezed him tightly in her little grip and then lined him up.

"Anya, maybe we should..."

She sank down. Just the tips inside of her, their tapered ends much easier until she got to the thicker part.

He hissed out a long breath, and she looked at him, pupils blasted wide as though drugged. "Fuck."

He should tell her to stop. He should tell her that this was dangerous, and she was still healing, but she had just introduced him to heaven itself and who was he to deny that gift? So Daios cupped her thighs with each hand, holding her spread with that metal hand, and his webs pressed against her overheated skin.

"Look how well you take me," he murmured, the heated words barely understandable. "Spread wide for me."

"Daios," she whimpered, sliding lower on him, more of him pushing inside of her body.

"I know," he whispered, his hips moving to help her. "I know. You're so needy for me, aren't you? You need this?"

She nodded, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she stared down at where they were joined. Together, they worked him inside of her. Inch by inch. Until he could barely breathe because it was so tight and she was whimpering to a point of concern.

"Kalon?" he asked, his voice little more than a rasp.

"You fill me so much," she whispered.

"Watch us." He cupped the back of her head, bringing her face down to look at them again. "Now beg for me."

That whimper again nearly sent him racing to the end. But he wouldn't, not when she needed him right here. He knew it. She knew it.

Then she bit that little lip that he wanted to capture between his and she moaned, "Please."

It was all he could take.

Daios slammed home. They both bowed into each other, foreheads pressed together with ragged breaths as they touched. Flesh to scale. Heart to heart. He was inside her, both of his cocks were inside her and he couldn't fucking think.

"Move," she said, that voice aching and rough. "Move now, Daios."

And so he did. He plunged inside of her again and again, watching as she writhed in his arms. He pressed his thumb to that bead above where they joined and watched her shatter in his arms. She clenched so hard around him that he saw stars, and it still wasn't enough. It was never enough. So he slammed into her harder, every inch of him wanting her, needing her, knowing that this was the only woman that would ever be for him.

And when he came, he swore it plunged him into another existence. One where nothing had ever existed but them.

As they spiraled down, he pulled out to watch the glistening evidence of their love shimmering in the water. Pressing a kiss to her head, he snuggled her tightly in his arms.

He didn't know what to say, because he wasn't very good with words. So instead, he held up the sign for "I love you" as Mira had taught him when he'd asked if she knew any sign language that Anya hadn't taught him.

And all the ugly bits of his soul knit back together as she mimicked the sign and pressed their hands together. Whole. Because she loved him as he hadn't realized he wanted to be loved.