Page 18 of Entranced By the Nakken (Freedom, Love, Monsters #4)

Casey

“I’m past the point of thinking you’re fucking with me, Casey, which means that if you are,” Sophie wagged a very serious index finger in Casey’s face, “I’m going to be extra pissed.”

“Lower your weapon.” Casey batted her hand away.

His cheeks already hurt from grinning, and there were many daylight hours before the competition.

Glancing at his friend, he could see Sophie wasn’t doing much better.

Over the past few weeks, her eyes had gotten a wicked gleam every time they met Casey’s.

To her credit, she’d refrained from calling him a liar or a nutcase and got everyone on board with the underwater theme Casey suggested for their appearance.

They’d told Anna and Noah what Tsunis was, but for understandable reasons, it got laughed off.

Whatever. The truth would be obvious soon.

“Brr. Did you feel that?” Sophie tripped, and Casey steadied her.

“Huh? No.”

“Weird.” Sophie wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her arms. It was a nice spring day, the weeks closer to summer than winter. She shot Casey an odd look. “It felt like—I don’t know. Weird. Cold. How the fuck have I never seen this place before?”

“Right? I found it when I was a kid. There’s never anyone here.”

Casey’s heart pooped itself when the grand tree came into view, the quilt blanket where they’d shared their first kiss covered in leaves and dirt, the edge muddy.

“Tsunis!” Casey called.

Casey stood at the water’s edge and watched for them to surface while Sophie took a seat on the blanket.

“I get it now,” Sophie mused. She’d tucked her legs up to her chest and was peering around Casey’s secret hideaway. Not so secret anymore. “This is a very inspirational spot.”

“Yes, and it’s mine.” Casey rounded on her. “If I ever catch your ass here, I’m quitting the band.”

“I’ll make a new band and invite you to join.”

“I’ll join, and then I’ll quit that one.” Casey’s attention drifted back to the water.

“Then who will write the songs?” Sophie pouted. When Casey didn’t answer, she rocked forward on her knees to peer into the depths with him. “Maybe they’re getting ready.”

“They don’t wear clothes.” Casey’s worried glance snagged on her widened eyes, and he shot her a don’t even look.

“Maybe they’re nervous.”

“Maybe.” Casey frowned.

He dipped two fingers into the water, to be closer to Tsunis. A pain shot through his chest, and he snapped his hand away to rub at it. “Something’s wrong.”

“I have some old scuba gear at my mom’s.” Sophie, bless her punk goddess ass, sprang into motion. “I’ll be right back.”

Sophie raced away. Casey was too distraught to express his gratitude. Her mom’s house was one street up from his parent’s, so at least he knew she wouldn’t be gone long.

The memory of Tsunis expressing their desire to have children sucker-punched him. Would Casey be as good of a parent as his own? As Sophie was shaping up to be? Tsunis had to be okay, because he had to know.

“Please be okay, brat.”

What must’ve been less than forty minutes felt like hours by the time Sophie returned. She helped Casey dress in the scuba gear, complete with a tank of oxygen. Her calm demeanor kept him from flipping the fuck out.

He focused on that thought during his descent, past the ostensible bottom of the stream, channeling the calm energy Sophie had exuded on shore.

In his mind, he shouted for Tsunis the whole way.

Tsunis had yet to explain the mate thing in depth, but Casey had mentioned it to Sophie, who informed him exactly what her dirty romance novels believed of the bond between mates.

For a moment, he worried he’d gotten off track, but an invisible string pulled him forward until the sketchy hole in the stone came into view.

Casey carefully unhooked the oxygen tank the way Sophie had coached and shimmied feet-first through the hole, pulling the tank along with him.

Not much further. Casey paused long enough to reattach the tank, then forged onward.

The pain in his heart reached a fever pitch when he arrived at Tsunis’ dwelling. He rubbed his chest and observed his surroundings. The underwater oasis appeared untouched. Using the roots like monkey bars, Casey tried to keep his shit together until he reached the portal.

Tsunis, please answer me.

The portal was the same goopy bullshit as before. The porous stones and crawling coral were unbruised and stunning as ever. Nothing seemed amiss.

Casey’s gaze was drawn to a mangled mess of weeds and sticks. There was something odd about the clump of sea rubbish.

Two glowing spots stared back.

Recognition swept through his core. He’d know them anywhere, any form.

“Tsunis!” Bubbles filled the vicinity as Casey cried their name. He reached for the clump, prying it free from a bright magenta coral cluster.

“Casimir.”

Casey cradled the bundle of debris between his knees. “How do I help you?”

“Why…did you come…for me?”

A frustrated huff of bubbles clouded the space between them.

“Because I love you, you damn brat. How do I help you?”

The sticks twitched in his palms. Casey stroked them, desperate to show his affection.

“Like this,” Tsunis’ voice sounded in his mind.

Casey petted the lump, filling his soul with the feeling of how much he loved Tsunis, and how right it felt to love them.

“Mine,” Tsunis growled in Casey’s mind.

“Yours. Don’t you dare fucking forget again.”

The clump of weeds grew heavier. A sheen of magic like what he’d witnessed when Tsunis shifted from their dragon form blurred Casey’s vision.

“Take that ridiculous thing off and kiss me,” Tsunis commanded, their humanoid form a trembling bundle in Casey’s arms.

Casey scoffed then laughed, then cried a little, but couldn’t deny them. He wriggled out of the tank and wetsuit awkwardly, refusing to let go of Tsunis. The vortex of magic formed around his head, but he barely noticed as he slanted his lips over theirs, stealing their next breath.

“You’re mine,” Casey said in his best imitation of their stern voice. “You know that? Mine. Fuck! You know what? I’ve changed my mind.”

“About?” Tsunis tried to lift their head, but Casey wrapped them up tight, rocking side to side.

“I do care. I care where you go after this. I don’t want to watch you leave.

I don’t want to feel that hollow, and it would be worse this time around because you’re a part of me.

You’re mine. Fucking mine,” Casey practically growled, harsher than he meant to, glowering down at Tsunis’ wide, pale eyes. “Where you go, I go. Got that, brat?”

Webbed fingers cupped his jaw. Tsunis gave a feeble nod. “Affirmative.”

“Good.”

Casey bundled them closer, rubbing hands along their spine, their legs, through their hair. His. They were his. They were safe, and they were his. They might’ve been down there for hours before Casey was capable of releasing Tsunis.

“It didn’t work, I take it?” Casey nodded toward the portal.

Tsunis shook their head.

Casey had planned to tell Tsunis of the renowned scientist with a somewhat shady past he’d found while deep-diving the internet, and of her cryptic words in a scientific article about some eerily familiar-sounding sea creatures.

Seeing them in this state, he decided to keep it to himself for now.

He didn’t want to accidentally cause more damage with false hope.

He’d wait until Dr. Billings responded to his email to decide if it was worth bringing up.

Casey kissed their knuckles and drew them in for one more embrace before standing. “We’ll figure it out. Come on.”

“I haven’t missed it?”

Their voice was strangled and full of relief, like they thought they’d missed the show. Casey took their face in his hands and rested his forehead on theirs. “Are you fucking crazy? My mate needed me. I wouldn’t just fuck that off.”

“You are goddess-sent.”

“No, babe, I’m just a boy smitten with a dragon. Speaking of that, Sophie’s waiting for us. May I ride you?”

“You’re begging to be mounted and bred,” Tsunis rumbled.

A flutter glimmered through Casey’s belly. “Technically, I’m asking to mount you.”

“Kiss me.”

Not a request, a demand, which Casey obeyed with enthusiasm. The kiss quickly got out of control. Hands roved. When the extra wide, webbed version of their hand wrapped around his cock, Casey hissed. He latched onto the lobe of their earfin with his teeth.

Casey ate the moans before they could pour from Tsunis’ pale lips. He slipped his hand between their thighs and palmed the smooth surface there, running his thumb up and down until a seam appeared, slick and hot.

Tsunis ended the kiss with a savage chomp on Casey’s bottom lip. Casey’s hand rose to his lip, but their fresh, snowy taste distracted him from any lingering pain. He licked his thumb clean under their watchful gaze.

“You will atone for this later,” Tsunis stated.

“Not if I make you pay first.”

Casey smirked at the growl that reverberated through a swarm of magic, continuing in his mind as Tsunis shifted forms.

“I will deal with you later,” Tsunis growled into his mind.

Yes, later. He gnawed on his lip. Casey had many plans when that time came around as well. Many of those plans were very dirty, but at least one involved fixing that damned portal and offering Tsunis two homes, so they always knew they had a place to belong.