Page 17 of Entranced By the Nakken (Freedom, Love, Monsters #4)

Tsunis

“Your home sounds incredible.” Casimir’s gentle tone didn’t soften the blow, but the way he petted Tsunis’ arm helped. They were safe here, in his arms. For now. “Are there no humans?”

“Very few.”

There were portals strewn across the known territories, but their whereabouts were confidential, and each elemental territory was cautious about admitting any details surrounding portal activity.

Tsunis had heard of humans in other territories used as fodder for the working class, even slavery.

The only time they’d heard mention of a human in Glacis—other than brags thrown around by merlings with clearance to portal travel—was during their first year as a transport dragon.

“A comrade of mine, Rainis, returned from transport duty smitten with an interspecies companion. They heavily implied their lover was from this realm.”

“What happened to them?” Casimir’s heart rate increased under their palm.

“The next time I saw Rainis, they were part of a mated pair.” Tsunis’ brows furrowed. “I’m not sure if it was the same secret beloved, but they were adamant they’d soon be parents.”

The silence grew heavy as Tsunis’ thoughts were bombarded with images of Casimir, lower belly rounded with a clutch.

If Rainis’ mate truly was human, then it was possible.

Tsunis rubbed at a hangnail on their thumb, trying to concentrate harder on the past, to remember their sparse conversations with Rainis.

“Is that something you want?” Casimir’s voice pulled them from their thoughts.

“Yes.”

Casimir chuckled, but it sounded strained. “No hesitation.”

“And you?” Tsunis tilted to study their mate’s reaction.

“Do I want tadpoles?” Casimir laughed at his nonsensical joke, but Tsunis gave a terse nod. “With the right partner, yes, I would.”

Tsunis’ insides thrashed like a guppy. They trailed soft fingertips over Casimir’s abdomen to cup his underbelly. It had the perfect amount of squish covering firm muscle underneath, and Tsunis’ glands slickened at the thought of filling him with eggs.

“We shall have thirty, maybe more.”

None of Casimir’s previous reservations could be heard in his hearty laugh. He captured Tsunis’ hand and dragged it back to his heart, lacing their fingers.

“Let’s start with one and see how the adoption process goes.” Casimir punctuated this confusing statement with a kiss to Tsunis’ crown, and they didn’t push the matter.

Hours of sweet serenity later, back on land, Tsunis dissipated the bubble allowing Casimir to breathe and wicked away the water from his undergarment and skin with a blink.

Casimir teased Tsunis for making him remove his clothes when they could’ve dried everything, but Tsunis only scowled.

Fair was fair. They wouldn’t apologize. In this, they were unanimous with the self-destructive part of them that’d longed to give in to the allure of their mate’s flesh.

Goddess help them if that meant they were a conniving little brat after all.

“Don’t forget,” Casimir murmured against Tsunis’ lips, one hand firm on their nape, the other hanging loosely by their pinkies.

“How could I?” Tsunis nuzzled into Casimir’s touch.

“By the way, Sophie and I will pick you up from the usual spot tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“For the show,” Casimir stated.

The show. Tsunis vaguely recalled a conversation during the post-orgasm haze about getting ready with Casimir’s band mates, and the silly underwater theme he’d come up with to make Tsunis’ appearance less jarring. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but Tsunis was willing to risk it.

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

Later that night, far below the falls, Tsunis dragged clawed nails over the stone where they’d made love to Casimir’s hot, wet mouth. They laid over the boulder like the depiction they’d once watched a human paint of a syren, shameless and free like none they’d met in war-torn Hydra.

Many of the creatures Tsunis knew back home had leaked into this realm, scattered about the globe, with many names and cultures.

Perhaps everyone they’d ever met back home escaped through portals before they clogged.

Perhaps there was nothing to go home to.

Tsunis entertained this delusion for a while, picturing the underwater channels bare, their occupants happily occupying new homes in the human realm, fitting into old legends or creating brand new lore for the humans to get wrong in history books. Happy. Safe. Reproducing.

Power crackled below their scales. It’d been quite some time since they last shifted to preserve energy.

They’d spent long enough feigning ignorance about Casimir’s ability to regenerate their health, for there was only one explanation, implausible as it were.

A myth, they’d thought, for there was no way to prove if a mated pair were fated or merely madly in love.

That myth lay flayed out before them, hopelessly debunked.

Had Rainis and their mate been fated? Was that how their interspecies coupling could produce offspring?

The unnatural mass writhing deeper in the cavern chose that moment to flare, shooting out a nearly imperceptible spark of magic that Tsunis wouldn’t have noticed if not for the influx of power provided by the recent encounter with their mate.

Rolling over on the stone structure, Tsunis heaved a sigh.

Though their actions while in survival mode earlier this decade may scream otherwise, Tsunis did possess a compassionate soul, which their time with Casimir was—rather unfortunately—feeding into.

The dream that all of Glacis made it to other realms safely was a delusion Tsunis could not force their mind to accept.

Tsunis held a palm in front of their face and watched power crackle between webbed fingers.

Tsunis had one last idea, a possibility they’d been too weak to attempt before.

Besides, they reasoned, the only way to determine if it was safe to fuck their clutch deep into Casimir’s womb was to ask someone who’d done it before. Possibly.