Page 7

Chapter 7

Erik

G uilt wracks my body.

I scared her, she ran, and she drowned.

How could I be so careless?

No, not careless… impotent. Frozen. I knew the monster could help her, could curse her like he did me, but I couldn’t fathom damning someone to the same fate. Surely being saved, at the cost of living forever tied to an evil sea god, is a fate worse than death?

And now that she’s gone… she’ll no longer have to choose.

You fool. She lives.

What?

Can you not sense her presence? Different, yes, faint… but it is she.

Disbelief consumes me. I leap into the water, propelling myself with powerful strokes to the spot where she disappeared. Once there, I dive into the depths, shifting as I allow my captor’s senses to overtake my feeble human once.

As a man, I am not powerful enough to smell her. But my monster is. He opens his beak and the scent of her flaxen hair envelops me. My heart rushes against my gelatinous ribcage. Alive!

She’s alive. She’s breathing.

Breathing? But how ? —

I watch the gills along her pale neck flutter as she breathes. Gills. As impossible as it would seem, despite the fact that I stayed away, kept my monster from her… she was still cursed.

Cursed like me. Forever.

It doesn’t need to be forever. You both can still be free.

I shut my eyes, trying to block out the voice of the monster in my head. He tricked me. This must be His doing. There is no other explanation.

He never intended to free me of the curse. He just wanted to capture a victim for his perversions.

They are not perversions. Or if they are, we are so intertwined by now that they are as much yours as mine.

I wince. I hate it. The monster inside me. Hate how its lust boils through my veins, how its pleasure weaves through me at the sight of her. How it drives me to seize her in my arms…

And now, she too is cursed. Any excuse I had to stay away is gone, and I…

The loch monster has ruined me for anyone else. I have to have her for myself.

But if this curse would ever break… I need to know she would be with me on the other side. Need her understanding. I must not force myself on her. Whatever I give, she must want it as badly as I want it.

Want to feel her soft skin against mine. Weave my fingers through her beautiful hair. Hold her to me as she squeezes around me, taking me into herself, surrendering to the pleasure…

Over and over and over again.

She stirs in her sleep, and I panic. Should I be here when she wakes? Should I take care of her? Feed her?

It isn’t safe for her to be floating in the open waters. She should be somewhere safe when she awakens. Somewhere where I can keep an eye on her and the monster together.

I gather her gently in my arms, careful not to disturb her rest. Her eyelids flutter rapidly as she tosses and turns against me, making it more difficult to swim to the spacious underwater cave that I call home.

Whatever dreams haunt her cannot be entirely unpleasant, though, as the noises she is making do not seem to be ones of pain.

In fact… she seems to be enjoying herself.

Her lips part on a gasp that has bubbles drifting from her soft mouth and an ache forming in my gut. Her legs twist together, rubbing as she clenches her thighs, and the scent of her becomes overwhelming. It saturates the water around us, until my face heats with the headiness of it.

Gods… just what is she dreaming?

Those visions aren’t all her own.

What?

The voice of the monster ringing in my head deflates the swelling of my manhood. Confusion fills the void left behind.

What do you mean? Is this your–

It is not my doing. None of this is my doing, despite your assumptions to the contrary. There is another presence here. One I haven’t felt for many seasons…

My chest tightens. Another?

Another monster?

Phorkys. I address him by name. That terrible, powerful name that sparks with a magic far more ancient than humans. Even without speaking it aloud, I can feel its power as I command him. Tell me who did this to her.

He does not answer right away. Instead, he pushes our limbs more quickly to our cave, transforming my lower half to aid in the propulsion. On the way, he snatches a walleye for me to prepare for dinner. Another, he shoves nonchalantly into his beak, as if he needs to prepare his strength to have this conversation.

At last we reach the cave. I lay sweet Lillian against the smooth rock of the wall, covering her modestly within a patch of lake weeds. She sighs soundlessly, and I feel my heart ache for her.

It is then that he speaks.

I am not the only god who dwells in these waters… there is another.

Fire twists in my belly at the confession. How dare you keep this a secret all these years!

I believed her to be gone. Along with the last of our brood.

Our?

You… you were family?

Lovers. For many moons, we ruled the seas to the east. Had many magnificent children. Witnessed the death of too many. The Grecians… they were a cruel people. We left their shores to find a more accepting home.

Grecians?

Long forgotten memories, stories my people would tell around bonfires, of a people far to the south. Beautiful scholars, less fearsome than ourselves, and strange. But many: their civilization was rumoured to stretch across continents.

We sought to grow as they had. Built ships. Sailed west, to lands they’d never dream to explore. Further and further we sailed, past many islands and settlements, through rapids, until…

We crashed here. Where the lake monster destroyed our ship, leaving only me…

I was not the one to destroy your ship, human. It was my lover. My Keto.

Unbidden, the scene flashes before my eyes. A towering creature, female, with hair like eels and innumerable tails that coiled and crushed our wooden ship from bow to stern. Her awe-inspiring body, curvaceous and proud, wrapping our entire lives in her fearsome embrace, and then…

Phorkys, approaching the ship. Discovering me, my family. Attempting to reason with her. Her explosion of fury.

What few members of my people that may have remained perished in the ensuing lover’s quarrel. I was the lone survivor, but even I would have died if not for…

Yes. I saved you.

Why?

Useless tears dissolve into the lake around me as fast as they form in my eyes. An all-consuming sadness overwhelms me as I remember that horrific day, through his eyes. A memory I had long repressed.

My family. My wife. Our children. Gone.

Because of Her .

Why would you save me ? Why couldn’t you save them?

So much of our magic was hers. She was my world, my source of power. Without her, I was nothing more than a shell. I needed you as much as you needed me to prevail.

You used me. I try to summon my ever present anger, but the sense of loss is too great. Instead, I merely weep. I would have rather died.

I understand this now. But alas… one such as I has only ever had one prevailing drive. To live, and to multiply.

Lillian cries out in her sleep—a haunting, lascivious sound—strong enough to echo even throughout the watery cave. I flinch as my body responds with an unnatural excitement.

You are an abomination.

I am a god.

You used me!

And you, me! Hot rage burns through my sorrow, and Phorkys fills my head. You would have perished without me! First in the wreck, and thousands of times over from your incompetence! Without me, you would have starved. Without me, you would have drowned. Without me, you would have frozen. A hundred thousand deaths I’ve saved you from, and still you curse me!

I never asked to be saved.

His tentacles reach out, and I don’t stop them. Caressing Lillian’s face, her breasts, and down further to–

Stop, I beg him. Please do not use my body for this.

The limbs pause, then retract. I feel the monster consider my request, and a long moment passes before he speaks to me again.

I need you for one more task, my unwilling human. One more, and then I will set you free.

Using every last reserve of mental strength I possess, I search his words for any hint of dishonesty. Any tell that this is another one of his tricks.

I have never tricked you. And I’ve no reason to lie. My Keto lives, and she calls to me through this human female.

My eyes widen. What did she do to Lillian?

You will not like the answer. But you can use it to free you both.

I should resist. Find some other way. I have been better at repressing him, at keeping him at bay. Certainly, if I only try harder?—

Erik.

There has to be another way.

You are not strong enough to fight a god, boy.

Lillian’s breathing slows. Her breasts rise and fall in a steady, gentle rhythm. My body slowly transforms back to my human self as I watch her, my cock swelling once more as I take in her beauty.

You have my word as a god, Erik. Do this one thing, fulfill my purpose, and then you and your female will be free.

When at last she opens her eyes, any hope I cling to crumbles away. Their inky blue depths swirl and sparkle with the magic of the curse.

She jumps when she sees me.

“Who–?” She tries to speak, but only bubbles escape her. She gasps, then panic lights her features as the mouthful of water chokes her lungs, only to relax into an expression of confusion when she doesn’t drown.

She frowns at me, a line etching her strong brows.

We cannot speak down here without much effort, I telepath my thoughts to her. Her eyes widen.

How did you– she blinks. I smile.

It’s one of the curse’s many… gifts. I grimace.

The curse? The crease between her brows deepens. What curse?

I shrug my shoulders in a breathless sigh, then gesture to the fish I prepared for her. Let us eat. I will explain.