Page 83 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
She couldn’t scream to him, couldn’t warn him when cracks began to skew through the wall he was using for leverage. The entire wall behind him burst, chunks of glowing stone spinning through the water, settling heavily. Rake yelled, jabbing his spear straight into the floor beneath the biggest chunk of fallen wall, and Mai felt something give. Her tailfin popped free, but a hiss of gaseous bubbles rushed from the hole Rake had made, and the entire floor began to swell dangerously, like a blister on the verge of popping.
Rake grabbed her arm and streaked out of the records chamber, while behind them a geyser of gases exploded. The eruption sent out pulsating waves that Mai felt through the water even as they fled.
They shot farther into the city. Then they paused, turned back, and watched the fountain of bubbles streaming up to the surface.
“A gas pocket of some kind,” Rake said.
Mai nodded. Overwhelmed by a sudden impulse to be near him, she drifted closer, letting her tailfin sweep over his.
Instantly his tail reacted, coiling tightly around hers, tugging her form against his body. Once again they were aligned in that compelling symmetry—tails pressed together like they had been in the lagoon. Only this time, the sensation that surged through Mai was stronger than ever, more powerful than the desire she’d felt during their first time together, before the Brawl. Desire rolled through her from top to tail, glimmering in her belly, circling in golden pleasurable spirals through her lower half.
“Shit-sucking eels,” Rake swore. She could tell by the tightening of his stomach and arms that he was trying to pull away, to make his tail unwind from hers. “Mai, I can’t—I can’t seem to make it let go—I can’t stop it.”
Something shifted against Mai’s tail. Rake’s cock had protruded from beneath its flap, and its head was nudging her genital opening. Her slit began to widen without her conscious effort.
Rake’s head tilted back, his lips curling in a snarl that was half passion, half protest.
There must be something in the water. When they broke open that inner chamber, some trapped gas or chemical had been released, and they’d been affected by it. It was the only explanation for their sudden, irresistible urge to join—to breed. Not that Mai hadn’t thought about having sex in mermaid form, but she hadn’t planned to try it so soon, and Rake hadn’t suggested it.
Rake was groaning, obviously prey to the same compelling arousal that gripped her, but he was struggling against it. Maybe he doubted her consent?
Mai caught his face in both her hands, and when he looked at her she nodded, leaning forward, touching her breathing device to his mouth. Bubbles from the device scattered between them, and through them she saw Rake’s face relax.
Yes, beautiful monster, it’s all right. I will mate with you.
He shifted forward, and the soft, flared tip of his penis pushed through her slit. It slid deep inside her, through a channel much longer than the one she possessed in human form. Every nerve along that channel was as sensitive as her outer parts as a human, and the ridges along his shaft grazed all those delicate nerves as he pressed deeper. Mai wanted to gasp, to cry out, but instead she forced herself to keep breathing, steadily, steadily.
Rake moaned, wrapping her in his arms and tightening his tail’s grip on hers. The knot in the center of his shaft popped through her opening, sealing it, but his cock continued to flex and pulse inside, titillating her sensitive inner walls.
Thoughts churned at the back of her mind—Is he really spawning with me? Can he impregnate me like this? If he does, what will happen when I change to human form again?
She took a tonic to prevent pregnancy—she’d done so daily since the altercation with the two sailors on the dock, the ones Rake had killed. But would that tonic work on her mermaid aspect?
And then she stopped thinking, because the flexion of Rake inside her was stirring every glittery, glorious sensation into swelling circles, each one bringing her nearer to the peak. Rake ground himself against her, his length packing her channel deliciously full.
One of his palms found her breast, and with that contact Mai’s spine curved, and a convulsive ecstasy shot through the entire length of her tail and upward.
Exquisite, shocking pleasure, galvanizing every nerve. She had to think hard about breathing, because every bit of her body was frozen, pierced with ecstasy.
Rake bucked against her, crying out—and then she felt him coming inside her, coming so hot and hard she had to bite down on the breathing device just to endure it, because his release set off another wave of gushing pleasure.
“Are you all right?” he gasped, cupping the back of her neck with a taloned hand. “Can you breathe?”
She nodded, but truthfully she thought she might pass out if she did not get a deep lungful of air soon.
“A few moments,” he said, “and then my knot will shrink, and I’ll withdraw.”
She never wanted him to leave. Strange as it was, the sensation of him breeding her with such primal urgency had appealed to some instinctive part of her mind. Her scientist brain was fascinated, while the rest of her was slowly going limp after the powerful climax.
When Rake finally disengaged himself and untwined his tail from hers, Mai couldn’t swim. She could only float, dazed, and breathe sips of air.
Rake caught her up in his arms and shot for the surface.
24
Kestra hung over the railing, staring down at the dark water. The lamps that hung from theWind’s Favoronly shed limited circles of light on the sea, and they didn’t penetrate the waves at all.
Flay had ordered the anchor dropped as soon as Rake and Mai disappeared beneath the water. And they had been waiting for nearly two hours, as close as Kestra could figure. The sun had set.
