Page 60 of The Merman's Betrothal
The sight of the bubbles seemed to faze him. ‘Wugh?’ Rory gurgled. Tentatively, he touched the side of his throat. His eyes popped. ‘Igh!’
Could it be? Fionn curled over to see what Rory was poking at.
Gills,he comprehended with a burst of joy. Rory’s chest rose and fell normally while water rushed in and out of it as naturally—presumably—as breathing.
NowRory seemed to panic. He grasped Fionn’s hips with both hands, trying to push himself away.
‘Careful, let me help you…’ Fionn tried to soothe him.
The abrupt shock had done a lot to quell Fionn’s arousal. As his body calmed down, his knot receded in Rory’s mouth until they could finally separate.
Rory stretched his jaw, looking utterly stunned.
‘Will you believe me now?’ Fionn asked, bright with hope and the satisfying knowledge that he’d beenright.
‘Ug up.’ Rory burbled back. He watched the bubbles float from his mouth to the surface.
His gills, like Fionn’s, were comprised of three narrow slits on each side of his neck. They subtly expanded and contracted with the flow of water moving through them.
Rory seemed to awake from his shell-shocked state and began kicking for the surface. Fionn followed him up.
‘What thefuck?’ Rory exclaimed upon breaking into the air. Or rather, Fionn gathered that’s what he tried to say, but instead choked out a series of coughs and splutters.
‘You need to let the water drain first,’ Fionn said helpfully. ‘Your body needs a moment to adjust between lungs and gills. Doubtless you will find the transition gets faster with practice.’
Rory inhaled a raspy lungful of air and clutched at his gills. They had closed up, as they should, becoming imperceptible from more than a few feet away.
‘What the fuck is happening to me?’ Rory wheezed.
‘It is obvious that you are a—’
‘Don’t answer. I know. I think I fucking know and I hate it.’
Fionn found his cheerfulness deflating. This wasn’t the reaction he wanted. He watched Rory carefully, both of them treading water some fifty yards from the shore where the current had carried them.
‘Why do you hate me so much, Rory Douglas?’
Rory didn’t look at him. ‘I don’t— I don’t hate you.’
‘Then why…’
Fionn stopped himself. He recalled with sudden clarity his argument with Neacel.He was about to act on an assumption of Rory’s feelings, yet again. But perhaps he always fared so badly because he only measured Rory’s reactions to himself, rather than… digging to find the truth of what Rory was feeling. Was that what Neacel meant?
Fionn tried to understand now. The soul bond ebbed and flowed between them, somewhat dormant and satisfied by their sexual encounter. But it also carried sounds in the current, wisps of thought and emotion if Fionn cared to look for them.
And what he discovered was that the current didn’t so much flow from Rory; rather it swirled and eddied like an anxious whirlpool. It carried restless waves of insecurity and confusion that frothed against each other, churning into a deep, deep well of self-doubt…
Rory’s head jerked up. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I am not doing anything,’ Fionn replied honestly. ‘Just listening.’
He felt Rory shrink away, like the tide pulling back from the shore.
‘I feel like you can see into me. It’s awful.’
‘You can see all of me, too. Here…’ Fionn was struck by a wonderful idea.
He endeavoured to reach out through the soul bond, imagining a great wave rolling out from his chest into Rory’s.
