Page 4 of Taken By the Alien Triton King

I gasped as my balance wavered, and before I could react, he pulled me fully into the water. My body was weightless, floating between his arms, and I instinctively clutched at his shoulders. His skin was slick—warm despite the water—the texture shifting beneath my fingertips as scales threatened to emerge.

His eyes locked onto mine, dark and unreadable. “I already gave you what you need.” Again with that growly tone, as if he were always on the verge of something huge and passionate. It twisted my abdomen with more heat, and I could see in his eyes that he knew it.

I blinked. “What?” The word bubbled from my mouth, and I realized I was already fully submerged, but this time, my lungs weren’t aching. I recalled the last time he’d taken me under, how I’d panicked and gasped. This time, I’d been so focused on him, on all the sexual tension between us, that I hadn’t noticed—not right away.

His grip on me tightened for just a fraction of a second before he exhaled, bubbles slipping between his lips. “When we first entered the ocean to travel to the Ondrithar territory, I injected you with a bio-adaptive serum. It will allow you to breathe underwater.” He explained it curtly, but they were still the most words he’d strung together into one sentence. It took me a moment to process it all.

When I did, I stiffened. “You did what?” I demanded. Inject me with bio-adaptive serum? What the flying monkeys was he talking about? But I could not deny that I was floating in hisarms, my hands clutching his wide shoulders, inches beneath the surface of the water, and I had yet to surface to breathe.

His expression remained impassive, unapologetic. “You are in my world now. You must survive in it.” Survive in it? That made it sound like he intended to keep me. I should have been furious. I should have demanded more answers, railed against the violation of my body without my consent. But as I took a deep, hesitant breath, expecting to choke, the strangest thing happened. I didn’t.

Cool water filled my lungs without pain, without suffocation. It was like breathing air, only richer, fuller, as though I was drawing in the very essence of the sea itself. I tore my gaze from him, looking down at my own hands, watching the way the water moved around me. That was incredible.

He must have seen the change in my expression because something flickered in his eyes—something softer. “Come.” He released me, and for a heartbeat, I panicked. But then he held out his hand, and I curled my fingers against his. Safety—he wouldn’t let me flounder now. I kicked, uncertain at first, then with growing confidence. He drifted backward, watching, waiting. And then we moved together.

He led me through the water with effortless grace, his body sleek and powerful as he guided me through the tunnels of the palace. I followed, swimming with a freedom I’d never known, the sheer exhilaration of it making me laugh, the sound muffled into bubbles that drifted toward the ceiling.

Kaerius turned at the sound, his lips parting slightly, and, for the first time since I’d met him, I saw it—a smile. Not a smirk. Not a sneer. A real, genuine smile. And it was beautiful.

Chapter 6

Samantha

The moment we surfaced, I gulped air greedily, lungs expanding with something close to relief. Not that breathing underwater had been difficult—if anything, it had felt disturbingly natural after a while—but I was still human, still tied to the comfort of air filling my chest. I wasn’t sure I’d ever fully adjust to the sensation of drawing water through my lungs, no matter what Kaerius said, and he said disturbingly little: “You will be fine.” I guess he was right, but I didn’t feel right.

As the last traces of water slid from my skin, I blinked and realized what I wasn’t seeing—the ornate hall of some ancient palace—but rather the interior of a ship. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but a dress that felt dry even after complete submersion and a room like this one wasn’t it. So the Ondrithar were as alien to this planet as I was, but how long ago had they arrived? Nothing about this was in the files the USSLegacyhad on planet Sanos.

My gaze swept across the smooth, curved walls, the metal plating beneath my feet, and the intricate panels of what couldonly be control systems embedded into the far side of the chamber. Even the massive throne sitting at the head of the room looked more like a command chair than something a king would lounge upon. This wasn’t just a palace—it was a vessel. A shiver trailed down my spine.

Kaerius was already striding forward, water dripping from his broad shoulders, utterly unconcerned with the small group of Ondrithar waiting for him. Three men dressed in elaborate robes that looked both regal and militaristic stood stiffly, their expressions unreadable. The woman beside them was similarly adorned, her eyes sharp and assessing as they flickered toward me. I straightened instinctively under her scrutiny, my heart hammering against my ribs.

But Kaerius didn’t slow or acknowledge them beyond the briefest glance. If they were expecting some sort of formal greeting, they were sorely mistaken. He moved past them as though they weren’t even there, his grip tightening around my wrist as he guided me toward a door at the side of the throne room.

One of the officials—an older male with streaks of silver through his dark hair—opened his mouth to speak, but Kaerius cut him off with a single glare. “I am not to be disturbed,” he growled, pressing his palm to a panel on the wall. A soft chime sounded, and the door slid open.

I saw almost identical, resigned expressions on the faces of all the men, and a furious glare came from the woman. She had green in her hair, just like Undina. I hoped that didn’t mean they were related. She let out a huff, clearly displeased. “Kaerius—”The door shut in her face before she could finish. I tried not to feel amused, but her fish-out-of-water gasp was kind of funny.

I barely had a moment to take in my new surroundings before Kaerius released me and moved toward a console that looked far too much like something from the USSLegacy’sbridge. It only cemented my earlier realization—this place was once a ship, and in many ways, it still was.

The room itself was smaller than the throne room but still carried that same sleek, functional design. It reminded me of a ready room, a space where a captain would retreat to make decisions away from the prying eyes of their crew, or where he could hold meetings with his senior staff if he so wished. The long, ornate table with some kind of holographic map above it could easily seat a dozen.

The map made my curiosity spike, tempting me closer so I could peer at the shape of the ‘palace’—oblong and sinuous—where it lay on what appeared to be a shelf or a cliff. It was a real-time representation of what was happening outside, for I could see blips moving around, as well as hues of various corals that dotted the cliff, plunging into the inky depths on one side and spreading like lush pastures on the other. Forcing myself not to get caught up in all that was hard, but Kaerius was just as pretty to look at. I turned toward him. “You really know how to make an entrance.”

His lips twitched slightly, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes. “They are politicians. They talk too much and say too little.” He was beginning to unwind around me; it was only a little, but I sensed it, and it made my feelings spike with something perilously close to happiness. I shouldn’t getattached. I should be asking the hard questions, not wondering if this king thought I was his mate and what that entailed.

I crossed my arms, glancing toward the sealed door. “And what does that make you?” I made myself sound stern and perched against the edge of the table so I stayed rooted in place. Kaerius looked too tempting, and now that he was on two legs, his skin was a rich honey color that made me want to lick him. Bad, bad girl. In my defense, he was only wearing a cloth-skirt-like thing around his hips in azure blue, like a mini toga. There really was an awful lot of body to ogle.

“A king,” he said simply. “One who does not have time for posturing.” I snorted, but the sound died quickly when he turned that piercing silver-blue gaze on me. I realized he was deadly serious and that he looked weary, as if he were carrying too much weight on his shoulders. I supposed that, being king and all, it was not a surprise. The impulse to go to him and offer my help right that instant was strong, but I curbed it. I still didn’t know enough to make decisions purely based on my gut. I was a scientist; I needed a little more to go on.

“I need information about your people,” he said, his voice low as if he were asking me secrets. “Specifically, about your access to a certain type of fuel.” He said that as if it were almost impossible to get the words past his lips, but once they were out, his shoulders lowered and his posture became more relaxed.

I frowned. “Fuel?” What could he possibly want with fuel? Immediately, I glanced around the ready room, then back at the map where the shape of the ship sat on the sea shelf, integrated into the corals and reefs as if it had been there forever. Did he want to leave Sanos? Did he dream of flying his people back intothe stars? Or home? I felt a pang of pain at the thought. Would I want to go back to Earth if that were possible? I didn’t know, because Earth was a poisonous, polluted mess. It wouldn’t be safe to go back.

Kaerius tapped something on the console, and a projection flickered to life—a diagram of a glowing substance encased in some sort of crystalline structure. It pulsed with an eerie blue light, and the sight of it sent an odd jolt of familiarity through me. I had seen that before—but a very long time ago, back in college at the very least. It had nothing to do with botany, either, so I couldn’t even remember the name of the chemical structure he was showing me. “This,” he said, pointing to it. “Does your ship have it?”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know. I’m not an engineer.” My brain began turning rapidly now. This was good, though—if we did have it, we had bargaining power. Excitement filled me. Could this be the answer? Did the Ondrithar even have livable land inside their territory? My study of the maps we had indicated yes, but I wasn’t sure if it was big enough to suffice.

Kaerius’s expression remained unreadable, but I could feel the intensity rolling off him in waves. “But you are a scientist.” This was extremely important to him for some reason, and I was struggling to believe it had anything to do with spaceflight. Kaerius and this ship seemed pretty rooted in this world, this ocean. Who would want to leave a clean, beautiful paradise like this, anyway? My people would kill to be allowed to live here.

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