Page 22 of Tempting Triton (Mated Myths #2)
Triton
T he human body is full of many surprises. I discovered that my Elena has an entrance between her legs where my cock is supposed to go, and now all I can think about is filling it and feeling her tighten around me like she did my fingers as she climaxed.
I rub at my face as we continue to follow the perimeter of the barrier around Aeolia.
These thoughts are making it hard to contain my aching cock inside my pocket, and I do not want to be swimming around with my cock out like a young Mer who cannot control his urges.
But I am left with the problem of figuring out how I can fill her with my cock when my claspers exist. I will figure it out because I am desperate to be inside her, to feel her slick walls around me.
I want to fill her with my seed until it is leaking out from between her legs, and my scent is so thoroughly entangled with hers that the sea creatures cannot tell us apart .
I have not told my Elena that the water feels cooler again today, and I wonder if there is perhaps a breach in a section of the barrier that we are nearing.
I do not want her to worry about me, and I do not want to get either of our hopes up.
There may be a way for her to return home and for my family to return to me.
But I can already feel the numbness creeping in between the layers of my skin and bone, and a sense of foreboding has been sitting in the pit of my stomach since we started out this morning.
If it does not get any colder, I may be able to prevent myself from slipping into a frozen-like state.
Elena has not noticed, and I think she still believes that it was just the difference of leaving the warmth of the hot spring cave; however, Mer are so much more sensitive to the slightest temperature changes.
If it is the cold season on the other side of the barrier, then my family may not even be waiting for me there.
They would have migrated to warmer waters already.
If my family is waiting for me. If they came back for me.
Do they think I perished? Did they move on after a thousand years of being separated?
Do they think about me as often as I think of them?
I do not want to think about what I may or may not discover—I will follow my own advice and focus on one problem at a time.
First, we will continue to inspect the barrier. This, I can manage for now.
The water gets cooler and cooler the closer we get to the northernmost point of the barrier.
We are not far from home, but I can feel the stiffness in my limbs, and I am not moving as quickly as I have in previous days.
If this continues, we will have to stop and rest for the evening, but I fear that if I stop moving, I will succumb to the cold.
I fondle the conch at my neck, deciding if I should call Ichó to help Elena bring me home, and we can resume another time, but we are so close.
“What’s wrong?” Elena has swum ahead, turning when she realizes I’ve slowed behind her.
“I think there is a breach in the barrier.” My tail feels weighed down and clunky as I swim slowly towards her.
“How can you tell?” I do not miss the way my Elena’s eyes light up at the prospect, and now my heart feels as leaden in my chest as my limbs do in the water.
Of course, she still wishes to return to her home.
She said as much, and I cannot deny her that.
But I wish she would stay. I imagine taking her hand and begging her, but I know that if she did, it would be out of guilt and not because of her feelings for me. So, I say nothing about my feelings.
“It is cold.” As I say the words, she realizes how slow I am moving through the water.
“Oh, Triton!” she gasps, rushing to my side. “We need to get you home, or, or—somewhere to rest. Somewhere I can make you warm again, away from here.” She wraps an arm around my back, slinging mine across her shoulders to help her prop me up. “Is there somewhere close by? Triton?!”
I can hear my Elena, and the worry laced in her words, but I am not fully listening as I spot it.
The break in the barrier. Well, not entirely.
It is not like a hole or a tear in the pearlescent wall that separates us from the outside, but in a fraction of a second, I saw it flicker—so quickly, I would not have noticed had I not been staring in that direction.
I shrug my mate’s arm from around my waist and slowly swim towards the wall, trailing my hand along the surface as I go, waiting for it to happen again. Will my hand dip straight through the barrier when it happens?
“Triton? What is it? Have you found it?” My Elena trails along after me, easily catching up with my slow pace.
“Agh!” The barrier flickers again, my hand popping through to the other side as it blinks out and back in again.
I have no choice but to pull my hand back when the barrier squeezes around my wrist, so tight it feels like my hand might pop off as it attempts to close around it.
I cradle my hand to my chest, my fingers frozen and stiff.
For a moment, I could feel the cold ocean on the other side.
Definitely the cool season then. My heart sinks, and I know that my family will not be on the other side waiting for me. Not this time.
“Triton! Are you okay?” My Elena grabs my aching hand and inspects it, flipping it over to check for injury. Finding none, she wraps it inside her two small palms and rubs it vigorously until some semblance of warmth kindles between them, and I can move my fingers again.
I sigh, leaning into my mate and resting my forehead against hers. “Thank you, my Elena.”
“Come on, we’ve got to—” My mate’s eyes bulge as her hands scramble to touch her neck where her gills are no longer. “Triton!” Panic is etched all over her face as she attempts to yell my name, and a rush of bubbles leaves her mouth.
“Hold your breath!” I do not think, I just grab her hand and swish with my mighty tail towards the surface as quickly as I can with her in tow.
I do not move nearly as fast as I could, and I curse myself for not having turned away when I knew I should have, for not having called for Ichó already.
My selfishness may be the thing that sees me all alone again.
The thought of my waterlogged mate sinking to the bottom of the sea is a horror I do not wish to endure.
“Foolish!” I growl at myself, turning my head to check on my mate as we near the surface, the water becoming more opaque the closer we get.
My Elena’s brows are furrowed as she concentrates on holding her breath, and I thank the Fates that she is a swimmer.
Anyone else may not have the ability to hold their breath for this long.
I can hear the ba-dum of her heart beating in her chest, the pace a little too quick for my liking because it tells me she is at the precipice of panicking.
She squeezes my hand tightly, right as I yank her upwards and push her past the surface.
Our heads break the water, and I steady my Elena around the waist to keep her afloat while she sucks in big, gasping breaths of air amongst coughing and spluttering. Her long, golden hair sticks to the sides of her face, and salty water drips off the tip of her nose.
“I am so sorry, my Elena. We should have turned around. I should have said something. This is all my fault!”
My mate shakes her head at me while still trying to catch her breath. “We didn’t know when it was going to wear off, or if it was going to wear off at all. It’s not your fault.”
My body is shaking, the fear of having nearly lost my mate has rocked me to my core, and I cannot help the tear that runs down my cheek, mingling with the salty water dripping off my face.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m okay,” my Elena croaks, cupping the side of my face with her hand. I lean into her touch, scrunching my eyes closed and willing the fear to subside.
“Triton… Is that a ship?”
My eyes pop open, and I turn to look behind me, towards the barrier.
“It’s a ship! Triton, it’s a ship!” Elena squeals with glee and waves her arms above her head while treading the water below. “Hello! HELP! Hello!”
There is a ship on the other side of the barrier.
At least, on the other side of where the barrier is meant to be.
This big, hulking chunk of metal is not at all like the sunken wreck of rotted timber that lies in the waters of Aeolia.
It has long metal arms that reach upwards and some that extend over the edge of the ship.
Taut ropes drag in the water, and nets teeming with thrashing sea life that die a slow death of suffocation as they’re pulled from the deep.
It is then that it hits me. Blood in the water .
The beast takes me over so quickly in my semi-frozen state, from shock and the cold, that I do not even have a moment to protest.
“That ship reeks of death,” we growl.