Page 12 of Drown Me Gently (Flipped Fairytales)

How stupid could he be?

Auren dragged a palm across his face, scrubbing away the stubborn tears that clung to his lashes.

His chest still heaved from the confrontation, from the sharpness in Ulric’s voice, from the sheer audacity of the Kraken to show up after everything.

After the silence, after abandoning him without so much as a breath of explanation.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” he muttered.

He cracked open like a shell beneath Ulric’s feet and spilled everything. All the longing, all the fear, all the stupid hope. And for what? For Ulric to flinch away like he’d been scalded. Again.

His jaw clenched so tight it hurt. “Just pour your heart out to the one person who’ll never want it,” he whispered bitterly. “That’s smart.”

He should’ve known better. He’d told himself not to fall. Told himself Ulric was just a protector, a mentor, a stubborn wall between him and the world. But that wall had looked so warm in the bloomlight. Had looked so much like something Auren could lean on. Something he could hold onto.

His fingers rose to the silk braided into his hair.

It still carried Elias’s scent. Sun-warmed linen, sea breeze over sand.

Human. Auren breathed in. Elias didn’t turn away.

He didn’t flinch when Auren got too close.

Didn’t recoil when affection bloomed. Elias never made Auren feel like he was too much.

And Ulric? Ulric had run.

“I’m done,” Auren hissed through his teeth. “Done hurting for someone who doesn’t want me.”

The sea was dark and hushed when Auren surfaced.

The wind carried the sharp scent of lantern oil and brine.

The lights along The Windless were extinguished, sails slack in the evening lull, rocking side to side like a creature at rest. He moved beneath the waves, inspecting her like he always did.

The hull was solid wood, treated and tarred.

Cracks sealed with pitch. The ship creaked with each shift of the tide, breathing with the ocean.

No lights. No movement.

Perfect.

Auren pulled himself over the rail with a strong thrust of his tail, dragging himself silently across the damp deck, careful not to slip. The wood beneath him was warm from the day’s sun, smelling of varnish and smoke.

“You’ve come earlier than usual, my dear,” came a voice like velvet.

Auren startled—and then smiled. Elias stepped from his hiding place beneath the helm and into the moonlight. And gods, he was beautiful. All long lines and soft angles.

“Though I admit, I sent my men to bed early in case you would,” Elias said, and then crossed the deck in a few strides.

Before Auren could think, Elias cupped his face and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Another to his jaw. His lips were warm—startlingly warm—and sent a shiver through Auren’s whole frame. When Elias pulled back, his gaze had darkened.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited to see you again?” he murmured. “To touch you like this?” He sat on the wooden deck beside Auren, eye level and mesmerizing.

Auren’s heart was thudding like thunder in his ears, his gills fluttering with the need to pull in water.

Elias’s hands slid down to his neck, then lower, exploring the strange seam where scale met skin.

His thumb brushed the curve of Auren’s waist, just before the tail began, and he let out a breathless sound.

“This,” he whispered, “is extraordinary.”

Auren swallowed hard.

“Does it hurt?” Elias asked. “To stay so long in the air?”

Auren shook his head.

Elias ran a hand over the seam again, eyes glittering. “Have you ever wondered what it’s like for us? How different we are beneath it all?” He leaned closer, breath feathering Auren’s ear. “Would you like to see?”

Auren nodded, maybe a little too emphatically.

Elias smiled and leaned back, slowly undoing the last buttons of his tunic. The fabric slipped from his shoulders, revealing smooth, lean muscle and pale skin dusted with the faintest freckles. His chest was bare, flat, sculpted. Auren stared, eyes wide.

“Do I meet expectations?” Elias teased.

Auren’s face flushed, heat flooding his cheeks and chest. He nodded once, quick and shy.

“You can touch,” Elias invited.

Auren reached out, fingertips grazing along Elias’s side. His skin was warm. Firm. Unfamiliar. Auren trailed down to Elias’s stomach, memorizing every ridge. He dared move lower, to where human and Mer began to differ. His exploration stopped at the cold brush of Elias’s metal buckle.

Elias exhaled, breath stuttering, lips still exploring the curve of Auren’s neck. His voice dipped into a hush, soft as velvet.

“Would you like to know more?”

Auren didn’t move. Couldn’t. He was boneless for this man.

“Come now, surely you’re curious. Do you want to explore more of me, darling?”

Ever so slowly, Auren nodded, then his mouth opened in a silent, breathless gasp when Elias’s tongue ran down the length of his neck.

“Tomorrow, my sweet,” he gasped into the crook of Auren’s jawbone. “Come to me tomorrow and I shall sate that incredible curiosity all night long.”

Auren’s breath caught. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He only nodded, dazed and warm and pulsing with sensation.

He slipped over the edge of the ship like a falling star.

His heart was a drum. His mind buzzed with thoughts he couldn’t hold still long enough to name.

He was flushed, shaking, high on the heat of Elias’s touch and the echo of his words.

He barely noticed when Iska fell in beside him, her huge body cutting the water with practiced ease.

She pulled him through the sea with eager urgency, but Auren hardly registered the speed.

He didn’t feel how fast they moved. Didn’t hear the agitated trill Iska let out as they approached the reefline.

Didn’t see the way her head dipped, twitching uneasily.

And when he slipped from her side, too dizzy with desire to even say goodnight, he didn’t notice how she lingered. Watching. Warning.

If he had… he might’ve been prepared for the figure waiting in the dark.

Tentacles sprawled across the stone. A shadow in the center of everything. Ulric didn’t rise. He just looked at him. Steady. Cold.

“I see,” the Kraken said. “So my assumptions were correct.”

Auren’s spine went rigid.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Ulric said. “You’ve shown your disregard for rules plenty of times.”

“You have no right to lecture me,” Auren snapped, dragging himself into the cave and keeping a wide berth. “Not after what you did.”

“I left to protect you.”

“You left,” Auren said. “Again. Without a word. Without a thought. And now you’re here, in my space, talking like I’m the one who broke something.”

Ulric’s tentacles twitched. Then his face twisted. His voice dropped, curling sharp like a hook. “I can scent that human all over you.” His nose wrinkled in disgust. “Did you let him rub his oily body across your skin like some kind of beast in heat?”

Auren flushed, rage detonating in his chest. “He touches me because he can ,” he snapped. “Because I want him to. He’s beautiful. And warm. And not covered in cold, slimy limbs that reek of regret.”

Auren’s heart dropped to his stomach even as the words escaped. He tried desperately to force away the memory. Of being wrapped in those tentacles. The way they’d curled around him. The way they’d made him feel safe. Whole.

Never again, he told himself. Don’t be that fool again.

But his chest still ached with the weight of it.

“You smother everything with all that bitterness you carry,” Auren added, voice quieter, but no less venomous. “You twist everything that touches you. I’d rather be loved by a human than pitied by you.”

Ulric flinched.

Good. Let it sting.

“You think I wanted to care?” Auren snarled. “You think I wanted to feel anything for you after the way you treated me? I was stupid. But I won’t be making that mistake again.” His voice cracked. “You’re just a bitter, old Kraken who doesn’t know how to love anything he can’t control.”

Ulric’s jaw clenched, his gaze locked on the floor. Silent.

“You may have the Queen’s ear. But you don’t have mine,” Auren said with finality. “You can’t tell me who I can and can’t love.”

Ulric opened his mouth—but Auren cut him off.

This conversation, and all future conversations, were over.

“You’re not welcome here, Kraken. I never want to see you in my cave again.”

The cave echoed with silence. Ulric’s throat bobbed once. He nodded stiffly, eyes far away. “If that is your decision… then so be it.” He turned and vanished into the water, a shadow pulled by the tide.

Auren shook in the wake of his absence. The water in the cave felt colder. The edges of his treasures dulled. The elation Elias had filled him with drained like blood from an open wound.

“Fuck you, Ulric,” he whispered.

But the tears welled anyway. And this time, he let them fall.