Page 21 of Whispers Beneath the Deep
I sprawled onto him as he fell back onto the couch. His hands were warm around my waist, holding me steadily in place. The lava globes illuminated the worry on his face, and likely my own shame. My breathing grew labored, coming out in quick pants. My hands were splayed across his chest and for the briefest of seconds, I tightened my fingers against the neckline of his tunic.
I let go, and begged for him to do the same. “Let me go, please.”
He looked reluctant to do so. I almost wished he wouldn’t. But I was so confused. My body was drowning in heat, a heat I didn’t know if I completely understood, and his touch only made it worse. It made me desire him like I’d never desired anything in my life before.
He slid a hand down the side of my dress. When he reached the hem, he slowly hiked it up. I sucked in a sharp breath. I didn’t move as I felt the warmth of his palm begin to slip up the length of my tail, sliding along my scales. When he fingered my fins, I moaned, dropping my forehead to his chest. I wasn’t entirely sure if the sound had been in pain or pleasure.
Then he moved his hand against my fins, massaging them with gentle fingers. His touch eased the cramping, the pain.
“Does it hurt a lot?” he asked in my ear. There was a sensual curl to his words that had me pulling away to look into his eyes.
I never spoke to anyone about my injury. Not even Josiah, my old boss from back home, knew to what extent it shamed me. With Elias, the line of boundaries was blurred, it was something that had been washed away in the current. He wanted to extract my secrets, and so he would, whether I told him willingly or he had to pull them from the whispers of waves in the deep. He’d get them. One way or another.
“If I exhaust it,” I replied slowly.
He nodded, as if he understood, but did not stop rubbing it, one hand steadying me by the waist.
It felt so deliciously good that I could hardly bring myself to tell him to stop.
I’d never let anyone touch my tail before, let alone my fins. With Elias, everything was different. Like he was the only one who could ever understand. And I wanted him to.
“I was fourteen,” I whispered. Never before had I spoken these words aloud. They were my greatest shame. Back home, everyone knew what had happened and they pitied me for it. I was a fool. And perhaps I was only giving him more information he could possibly use against me. But it wasn’t until this moment that I realized, I desperately needed to share this with someone. “I’d just started working at Tides’ Tavern.”
He listened to me, his fingers not stopping once.
“At the time, there were other waiters there. Before…” He didn’t prompt me to continue, because he knew what I meant. Before Selection had taken them away and left me there alone. “They were my friends. We were all young. And stupid.” I said that last part lightly, but could find no humor in it. “There was one merboy, a waiter a few years older than me. He smiled at me all day, would find reasons to swim by me, let our hands touch…” My face heated. “At the time, I thought it was all terribly romantic. And then he asked me to meet him after my shift in the back.” I took in a shuddering breath, willed myself to continue. “I thought I’d be safe. There are nets separating Jo’s land from the gators but…” I shook my head back and forth. “I waited for hours. He never showed. By the time I realized he wouldn’t, it was too late. A gator had gotten me. The rest was just darkness and pain.”
Elias, who’d been ever quiet, suddenly stilled. The hand on my waist tightened while the one on my fins touched me softly, tenderly.
“I guess I swam to Jo’s house in my delirium. I woke up there, being tended to by Lagoona’s doctor. After I healed, my merfriends told me that he—the one who invited me there—had been laughing about it in Artisan’s Square. About how he’d tricked me into waiting for him. He’d never meant to show.”
It was my biggest shame. I’d been young and impressionable. I’d believed that a few seemingly accidental touches as I passed a bowl of frog-eyed stew, and a couple of smiles had meant something. And because of that, I’d been changed irrevocably. I didn’t care about the ugliness of my fins. Not anymore. What hurt was the pitying looks. Beingcrippledbecause of one stupid mistake, and being reminded of it every time I swam.
Elias let out a slow breath. “What was his name?” he asked, strangely calm.
“Does it matter?” I didn’t like thinking about him.
“It does. I need to know who I am going to kill. I have a few mer who owe me favors, who sell in traveling markets. I would love nothing more than to run him through myself, but I’m indisposed at the moment.”
I believed his every word, and they humbled me, that the Black Blade would think about killing someone for me, however morbid the gesture. However averse I was to violence.
“It doesn’t matter, Elias. Because weeks later he was selected.”
It was the first time I’d been glad to see someone leave. And that still shamed me to this day. Possibly more than my own injuries.
“Good.” Elias nodded. “Then I hope he’s rotting ten strokes under the silt.”
His hand had stopped moving on me, and I realized that the pain had vanished completely. And I was all too aware of how close we were, so close, the rasp of his breath fanned across my mouth.
There was this maddening urge I had to kiss him. Instead, I pulled away, getting off of him and taking a seat on the spot next to him.
Even as I sat down, he pulled my tail into his lap, and resumed massaging his fingers against my fins.
“You really are special, little fish.”
Not this again. I rolled my eyes. “Right.”
“No, really. You should hear what the mer are saying about you around Eramaea.”
