Page 38 of Drown Me Gently (Flipped Fairytales)

With a sharp chirp, Iska surged from below, lifting him easily onto her sleek, scarred back. She chattered, circling the ship with joyful leaps that sprayed salt into the air.

Auren clung to her, beaming and breathless. “My loyal girl,” he murmured, stroking her side.

Above them, Ulric watched with that storm-swept smile of his—equal parts hunger and awe.

And in the rain, with the sea rolling beneath him and laughter in his chest, Auren had never felt more alive.

And it was here, as Iska spun beneath him and salt kissed his lips, that Auren felt the last echoes of his past self. A self with a different body, belonging to a different world. A world of coral thrones and bioluminescent tides. A boy of the sea, not the sun.

They had first discovered the final dregs of that ancient magic the last time they’d accidentally sailed into a storm. Auren felt it again now, humming beneath his skin, pulsing in his blood as surely as he tasted the sea on his tongue.

It was, perhaps, a mercy from the god of the ocean. A final gift. A whisper of what had been lost.

He closed his eyes and let go.

The transformation was gentle this time. Skin shimmered, then shifted, softening into scales of emerald green. His legs fused, and the aching stretch of muscle gave way to fluid grace. The sea accepted him like an old friend. When he opened his eyes again, the world was brighter, sharper—alive.

He was Mer once more.

But not entirely.

Gills no longer opened at his throat. His chest rose and fell with the sharp rhythm of air, not water. Though his tail gleamed just as it had when he was a prince beneath the waves, it only came during the storms. When sky and sea were at war, and the veil between worlds thinned.

He could not breathe below the surface. That world was still barred to him. Lost.

So Auren surfaced often, like Iska with her blowhole, drawing great gulps of air before diving back down. The rhythm became second nature. Up, down. Breathe, glide. A shared cadence between a merman who had once belonged and a creature who had chosen him anyway.

Together, they raced.

Through the waves, into the storm’s heart, leaping high before crashing back down in twin arcs of silver and black. Auren laughed as they spun, Iska clicking and chirping her joy, their movements seamless with the sea.

For a little while, they were just wild things. Free. Full of salt and speed and the memory of a world that still lived in their bones.

And even if he could never fully return, Auren had this.

Only after Auren was breathless—lungs burning and vision bright around the edges—did their play finally come to an end.

“I can see you eyeing that school of sardines,” Auren panted, brushing water from his face. “Go hunt. I need to catch my breath before you drown me for real.”

He pressed a kiss to Iska’s wide, glistening nose, and she chirped in response, before wheeling around and charging into the school of silver fish.

With a final gasp of sea air, Auren turned and glided toward the ship, curling his hands around the rope ladder that swung against the hull. He paused there, floating for a heartbeat, eyes closed, calling to the sea, coaxing the magic that lived under his skin.

Muscle shifted. Fins dissolved. Skin changed.

When his toes met the bottom rung, he began to climb.

Water streamed from him, a trail of salt and magic, puddling beneath each step as he hauled himself aboard. The sea calmed somewhat, though the wind still tugged at the sails and the sky above churned, like it might crack open again if provoked.

He scanned the deck for Ulric, frowning when he didn’t see him, until he tilted his head up.

And there he was.

Ulric’s Kraken form clung to the rigging like something summoned from a sailor’s nightmare.

All nine of his great tentacles moved in seamless coordination, curling through ropes, securing knots, hauling lines that would take six men to move.

His two arms moved in sync with the rest. Stormlight glinted off his bare chest, catching on every curve and hollow, while damp curls clung to his jaw.

No ink marked the Kraken's skin. No tattoos, no sacred vows, no binding script.

Nothing to tie him to the god of the sea.

Auren watched in awe, mesmerized by the eerie elegance of it—how the tentacles didn’t always wait for direction, how they moved as if obeying instinct, or perhaps thought. They worked with purpose.

Ulric must’ve sensed the heat of his gaze, because he glanced down. “It’s about time,” he rumbled, and descended in a controlled sprawl, settling his bulk to the slick deck like some great beast preparing to pounce.

“Iska’s off hunting,” Auren started, voice light. “I think she?—”

He never finished.

One of Ulric’s thick tentacles shot out, fast as lightning, and wrapped around his mouth.

“Enough talking out of you,” Ulric growled, stalking toward him. “You’re mine.”

Auren’s pupils blew wide. His breath hitched. Every muscle went taut with high alert.

There was no mistaking the power difference—Ulric, ancient and godlike, his form rippling with restrained violence. Auren, bare-chested, flushed, with sea water clinging to every inch of skin. Human in every way but the defiant tilt of his chin.

Ulric could’ve snapped him like driftwood. Could’ve ruined him with a whisper. But all Auren felt was fire.

“I’ve been waiting far too long for this,” Ulric murmured, and then Auren was flat on his back, the wet deck hard beneath him and Ulric’s weight bearing down.

Tentacles slithered across the wood, forming a cage. One wrapped around his ankle, another cradled the small of his back. Ulric’s hands gripped his hips hard enough to bruise. Hot breath ghosted over his throat.

“You’re so small like this… so breakable. And yet you keep begging for more.” Ulric whispered, eyes molten. “Do you know what that does to me?”

Auren groaned, voice muffled.

“Got something to say, my prince?”

A single tentacle crawled up his leg, teasing the sensitive skin of his inner thigh.

Auren made another sound, shivers climbing his spine, hips bucking with the need for more. More touch. More wet. More of him.

“Oh, how I love it when you sing for me. Sing, my siren.”

Ulric released his mouth, and Auren drew in a sharp breath as another curling tendril slid up the crack of his ass.

“Do you intend to tease me all day? Or are you going to actually do something?” Auren goaded, but he did a poor job of hiding the desperate lilt in his voice.

Ulric’s laughter rumbled against his ribs.

“Careful. I am a beast of the deepest, blackest part of the sea, and you’re a very breakable human at my mercy.”

Auren sensed the excitement in Ulric’s tone. The thrill of playing out this fantasy. But Auren wouldn’t make it so easy. He kicked out, twisting and struggling. More tentacles wrapped around his joints, pinning all four limbs.

“Mmm. I like it when you fight. You’re making it very difficult to restrain myself.” Ulric growled, his black hair curling in wet strands around his face.

“Don’t,” Auren dared. “Wreck me.”

The next moment, Auren felt himself go weightless as Ulric lifted him off the deck as easily as if he were a rag.

Every part of him was supported, so that despite now hovering six feet in the air, he didn’t feel the strain of gravity.

Both his ankles were wrapped in a vicelike grip and pulled apart, exposing him in the most indecent pose, his erection in line with Ulric’s face.

“It’s a good thing the thunder is loud. Because I’m going to make you scream until you lose your voice, pretty siren.”

Then he moved Auren’s entire body to him, opening his mouth, and taking the entirety of Auren’s length.

Auren cried out, mouth agape, rainwater sliding down his throat as he groaned.

He reached to tangle his fingers in Ulric’s hair, but two more tentacles caught him, gripping his wrists and pinning his arms behind his back.

Ulric wasn’t moving his head; rather, the tentacles were moving Auren’s hips back and forth, gliding his erection along Ulric’s tongue and down the channel of his throat.

“Fucking hell Ulric. You’re a… a monster.”

Auren tried to admonish him for the indecency of it.

For the lewdness that had even Auren’s cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

The unceremonious position of his body, how exposed he was.

It had Auren’s toes curling just as much as the heat moving in languid strokes up and down his cock. If any of the men saw…

“I barred the doors,” Ulric said as though reading his mind. “Even if they try to come on deck, they can’t.”

Auren let out a high-pitched cry as the most subtle graze of teeth pinched his tip.

“Or,” Ulric said, licking Auren’s cock as though it were the most delicious treat, “would you rather they know? Would you want someone to witness you being ravaged by a monster?”

“You… you know we can’t… I—ahh!”

Auren cried in alarm as his body was rotated, and Ulric took one of his balls into his mouth, sucking at the sack.

“I can reach every part of you without having to tilt my head,” Ulric said languidly, rotating Auren again like he was inspecting a valuable piece of pottery.

“Ulric you son of a bitch put me down!” Auren yelled as he was held upside down, his hair reaching towards the deck.

“Mmm, is that an order, Captain?”

“Y-yes,” Auren said, blood rushing to his head.

“As you wish. But not until I get a taste.”

Before Auren could bark another command, two tentacles slid for the globes of his ass, their suckers gripping the skin and pulling them apart.

Exposed, open. Ripe for the taking. And when Ulric’s tongue licked at his puckered hole, Auren knew he was only moments from losing consciousness.

Blood was rushing to opposite ends of him.

Filling his cock and ringing in his ears as Ulric ate his ass while holding Auren upside down.

When the Kraken’s tongue pushed inside and swirled in a wide circle, Auren saw stars.