Page 50 of The Merman’s Betrothal (Outcast Hearts #2)

F ionn’s somewhat enigmatic statement of devotion sat heavily on Rory’s chest as they toured the rest of the palace. Wherever you choose to go, as if Fionn expected him to want to move on.

Guiltily, Rory tried not to consider where the horizon lay while underwater.

As soon as they reached the bottom of the Aft Tower they ran into a swarm of guards and palace attendants who had apparently been waiting for them, with Neacel alongside. Neacel gave them a cheery wave while the rest stood—well, floated—to attention.

Fionn took both Neacel and Rory arm in arm and seemed delighted to give them a grand tour of the entire palace, trailing their haphazard entourage in tow.

Word had clearly got around about Rory. Everywhere they went, curious blue faces peered out of archways and studied their progress through the palace’s dizzying network of circular corridors and chambers.

Rory didn’t take much of it in. Instead he basked in the sound of Fionn’s warm voice and the contentment radiating off him. It didn’t escape Rory that Fionn was also effectively showing him off to the palace residents. The tour was less an orientation and more of a victory lap.

Eventually Rory felt his eyelids drooping and asked Fionn to show him a bedroom next.

Fionn cheerily obliged and led the party to a chamber overlooking the central courtyard column.

They bid Neacel a warm goodnight and then shut the figurative kelp door upon the attendants still persistently asking if they needed anything else.

Rory, having been dazzled by so many grand, cavernous rooms filled with crystals and carvings, was struck by the modest nature of this chamber. Fionn’s bedroom.

One large hammock took up most of the space. A rack of differently-sized spears with a variety of blade shapes was mounted on one wall. On another, a simple workbench appeared to hold a handful of in-progress clam tools.

Rory felt Fionn move behind him. Fionn’s torso pressed carefully against Rory’s spines, pushing them down.

His big arms encircled Rory’s shoulders, crossing over his ribs to form a strong, affectionate restraint.

Rory settled into it, allowing himself to enjoy the security of being held by someone so much bigger than him.

‘ You wish to sleep? ’ Fionn asked, gliding toward the hammock.

Despite the creep of exhaustion, Rory’s heart thumped harder. In the undertones of Fionn’s song lay the inference that sleeping was the last thing on his mind.

Sure enough, the thick shape of his cock nudged into the crease of Rory’s buttocks.

Rory’s gills flared, tasting the hot and sweet flavour of Fionn’s arousal clouding the water.

Was it just him, or had his senses sharpened since the Redfolk transformation?

It was like breathing salt and honey, and Rory couldn’t get enough of it.

He turned his face to nip at Fionn’s chin.

‘ How fast can you get your cock in me? ’

Fionn groaned, reflexively grinding his hips forward. Rory had even surprised himself, his own words escalating the rapid- burn arousal that seemed to be pooling at the base of his spine and his dick. He was sure he was dripping.

Fionn didn’t ignore his challenge. He smoothed his arms down Rory’s sides to grasp his boxers and whipped them over his thighs. A brief shuffle of hips freed his cock from behind the kilt. Rory gasped as the rounded tip met the slick heat of his hole.

Fionn still held him tight, pinning Rory’s arms to his sides. Rory found himself savouring the lack of control. Just like in the bath tub. Just like with Fionn’s knot stuck in his throat. Rory wanted to be at his fucking mercy.

Fionn tested Rory’s hole with his cock first, showing remarkable self-control. He eased in just a few inches, allowed Rory to take a few deep lungfuls of water. Then eased out… and in… and out…

When he plunged his cock in to its full length, Rory was desperate for it. He let out an open-mouthed wheeze, a ‘ Haaah, ’ of relief for being filled and of renewed frustration for the need to be fucked by it.

Rory thrust his ass backwards, putting all his little range of movement into grinding some kind of release out of the inner friction. Fionn grunted with the effort to hold him still while grinning against Rory’s neck. ‘ Say I’m yours. ’

‘ Yes you fucking are, ’ Rory gasped.

‘ Say you’re mine. ’

If he’d been on land, Rory knew he’d be sweating. His spines bristled, pricking, he was sure, at Fionn’s chest.

But Fionn wouldn’t be cowed that easily. He hummed against Rory’s gills, sending them fluttering. ‘ I want to hear you say it. You’re my mate, Rory Douglas. ’

Rory’s eyes squeezed shut. Why did it feel like a secret he shouldn’t reveal? His chest might burst under the pressure. He was panting, giddy, but so fucking safe in Fionn’s arms.

‘ I love you, ’ were the secret words that poured out of him in a rush. ‘ Yours. I’m yours. ’

The current of the soul bond surged from his heart to Fionn’s and back again, warm and fierce.

Fionn began pumping his cock slowly. Smugly. Putting all his attention into mastering Rory’s body. Sliding his cock up to the nub of Rory’s bower and withdrawing it, massaging that inner entrance so fucking leisurely that Rory felt he might scream.

‘ Get… it… in… ’ Rory demanded shakily.

Fionn purred into his ear. ‘ With pleasure. ’

Rory choked a little as Fionn’s cock breached his bower. The unfamiliar sensation of opening up from the inside. Of Fionn’s cock pressing into the inner flesh of his abdomen.

He gripped onto Fionn’s thighs behind him, forgetting his claws would dig harshly into Fionn’s skin. Fionn hissed a little but wasn’t deterred.

Only now did Rory sense the cracks in Fionn’s self-restraint. Little streaks of ecstasy across the bond. Twitches from the muscles of Fionn’s arms. Doing his very best to hold on.

Rory moaned in anticipation for what was coming. ‘ Fucking knot me, already. ’

Fionn shuddered around him, wholly pushed off the cliff by Rory.

Rory bucked in his arms, releasing an open-mouthed holler as Fionn’s knot swelled against his insides.

He wriggled and writhed involuntarily, grinding ever more friction out of the heavy bulge nestled so tightly in the inner pocket of his bower.

At some point Rory’s cock shot its load, but it barely mattered because his climax was far from over.

He was caught in a feedback loop with Fionn, in turn feeling the pulse of Fionn’s knot and then the pulse of his own insides and the way both their bodies trembled in an incessant state of euphoria and near-collapse.

What might have been hours later for all Rory knew, their joint orgasm began to run out of steam. The tremors slowed down, the waves of ecstasy flowed more gently. Eventually, with some coaxing from Fionn’s palms stroking over his chest, Rory came back to consciousness.

How do mermen get anything done? Rory wondered, staring at the sparkling rock above him. They had revolved several times in their floating position. He’d lost track of which direction was up or down.

Fionn stretched out a leg and hooked it around the hammock.

Inching closer by degrees, he managed to draw their entwined bodies into the net.

Rory’s spines had relaxed by this point, his entire body feeling loose and depleted.

The warm weight of Fionn’s cock still rested inside him, no longer engorged but heavy all the same.

Rory’s eyes drifted closed. He fell asleep to the sound of Fionn’s gills behind him and light kisses over his hair.

* * *

A month passed in the peaceful shadows of the Shiant Isles. Rory spent all of it learning how to live like a Minchman.

He went on frequent foraging expeditions with Neacel, though at first he was too caught up in watching the wildlife to be any use at plucking good ingredients from the sea floor.

Fionn made an admirable attempt to teach Rory how to fight with a spear, but Rory quickly found his claws and new reflexes were a much better match for sparring with.

He learned to distinguish the shapes of various shipping vessels from beneath their hulls, and then the shadows of larger sea creatures as they might appear through the underwater murk.

Sharks were more placid than Rory imagined, dolphins a source of occasionally destructive mischief, and whales his favourite travelling companions.

Fionn enjoyed more freedom too, now allowed to roam widely over the Minch.

By the end of the month they had planned a trip to circumnavigate the entire Outer Hebrides.

The islands represented a wall to Fionn that had hemmed him in, and a horizon to Rory that he had long looked over.

Beyond them, the wide and cold North Atlantic Ocean butted up against the protected channel of the Minch.

‘ Do you think you’ll be gone long? ’ Neacel asked them over supper.

‘ Probably just a few weeks, ’ Rory said, trying not to worry him. Neacel wasn’t so keen on travelling beyond the bounds of the kingdom, so would be staying behind.

Neacel and Fionn exchanged glances over Rory’s head.

‘ And what then? ’ Neacel said.

Rory paused mid-slurp of red seaweed—a delicacy of Neacel’s that he’d come to think of as sea noodles. ‘ What do you mean? We’ll be back here. ’

‘ Until the next expedition is planned, ’ Fionn said with a knowing smile. ‘ Have you spent more than a day yet without trying to explore somewhere new? ’

‘ There’s a lot to see, ’ Rory replied defensively.

But Fionn had a point. He was so full of energy lately, he couldn’t sit still.

How could anyone sit still, knowing all of this was here?

A whole ocean to explore. So much of it that humans hadn’t even seen.

Christ, humans knew more about the surface of the moon than they did about the earth’s oceans.

What was out there, waiting to be found?

‘ You disappeared on me the other day. ’ Fionn chuckled, gesturing for Neacel’s benefit with his boiled clam. ‘ I found him chasing a fishing trawler, of all things. ’

‘ There was a seal stuck in their net! You helped me release it, for Christ’s sake. ’

‘ I did. And I also stopped you from climbing aboard to berate the crew. ’

Rory grumbled into his food. The young grey seal had been attracted by the fishermen’s haul of mackerel.

It was the seal’s hunting grounds, after all—why shouldn’t it try to stick a nose into the seething shoal being dragged from the waves?

Nobody on board had seemed bothered enough to try to release it at the time.

Fionn’s hand gently clasped his wrist. ‘ I will always go with you, Rory. I will stand with you. And I hope that one day we will see the Great Reef together, too. ’

Rory swallowed back the lump in his throat. He felt he could could anything with his warrior prince at his side. ‘ I’d like that. ’

Neacel rolled his eyes at them, but it was with a smile. ‘ Hurry up, both of you. Else you’ll miss your own ceremony. ’

Fionn withdrew with a pout. ‘ I thought the advantage of doing it this way was that we got to choose the order of events. ’

‘ Probably shouldn’t keep your dad waiting though, ’ Rory sniggered. He focused on eating mainly to keep his mind off what was coming. So that the butterflies in his chest didn’t overwhelm Fionn through the bond, though he was sure Fionn knew already how he was feeling.

They finished up their supper and then departed the cave as a trio.

Fionn led the way to the palace through the moonlit ocean.

A whole parade of guards had been stationed to greet them along the way, escorting at a respectful distance.

Acha joined them halfway, frolicking around Fionn’s legs as he swam.

Inside the palace they followed the green glow of orb-lights to the throne room. The chamber was bedecked in kelp banners and filled to the seams with a waiting congregation.

Rory’s stomach flipped upon seeing their audience. Nearly half the kingdom must have crammed itself into that space.

At the chamber’s centre, King Aonghas and Fionn’s brothers also waited. Fionn and Rory took their places while Neacel and Acha left them to join the watching assembly.

The Blue King raised his arms. ‘ Brothers, kith and kin. We meet here tonight under a bright moon to affirm a soul bond between two souls who have already touched. ’ He lay his hands on Fionn and Rory at the shoulder.

‘ Normally we would celebrate the joining of those souls in this ceremony, but today we are blessed to celebrate these souls that are already joined. My son, First Prince Fionn of the Minch, and Rory Douglas of Ullapool. ’

An answering hum came from the crowd, shivering through the water and over Rory’s body. A hum of assent and reverence.

The king lifted Rory’s left palm so that it was facing up. ‘ Today we give you your first mark as a Minchman, Rory Douglas. Wear it proudly. ’

Rory stared at a spot over the king’s shoulder. Be stoic, be stoic.

The king produced an inked needle and proceeded to etch a small tattoo in the palm of Rory’s hand.

Rory exhaled slowly. It wasn’t as painful as he’d thought—not that pain was something that had concerned him about the ceremony. The number of eyes watching him get tattooed was pretty disconcerting though.

When it was finished, the Blue King turned to tattoo his son’s palm. ‘ Prince Fionn, today we give you this mark of your soul bond. Wear it proudly. ’

Rory studied the dark blue tattoo inside his hand. It looked like two S shapes laid over one another. An entwining of souls. A physical mark of his inner truth. Of his love for Fionn. Of their future together.

As Fionn’s tattoo was completed, the king directed them to face each other and clasp one newly tattooed hand to the other.

Rory stared into Fionn’s eyes and knew the dopey, devoted expression there was almost certainly reflected on his own face.

King Aonghas’ voice faded from his conscious mind as Rory’s whole world was filled up by the current running through him and into Fionn and back again

Here’s the horizon, he thought, caught in Fionn’s adoring grey gaze. I’m well over it already, and I’m never going back.

He leaned up and planted a deep, loving kiss on Fionn’s mouth.

The current swirled between them, warm and unwavering, as it would for the rest of their lives.