Awakening (3 page)

I’m not sure why I’d thought of the pool as a safe haven from him. It wasn’t that deep, and surely he’d been in it before. Why else would he have it? To keep mermaid pets? Definitely not if it hadn’t been filled with seawater.

He lowered himself the rest of the way in and started to do laps. I was surprised he could swim, and so well. I could understand why they’d avoid it in the ocean. With the sharks and sea monsters, it’s a lot to deal with for someone who doesn’t have to for survival. Or maybe they sometimes swam close to land, and I hadn’t noticed them.

I watched his legs kicking out as he smoothly traveled through the water. Finally I surfaced to watch from above.

After about twenty minutes of laps he stopped and stood in the shallow end of the pool, the water coming up to just below his pecs.

“I might keep the ocean water. It’s refreshing.” He ran his hands through his hair, and I closed my eyes.

After last night and the way he’d touched me, the way I’d been at his full command, something felt different. And that feeling seemed like a dark threat.

As if answering the confusing swirl of thoughts in my head, he said, “See, Nerina? You’ll still be able to swim.”

“It’s not the same.” I wouldn’t be able to breathe underwater. I wouldn’t be able to swim out deep to sea and go underneath it for miles and miles. I’d never be able to go home. For a moment, I fantasized about pushing him under, drowning him. But it was only a fantasy. It wouldn’t free me. His servants would probably cook me for dinner in retribution. I wasn’t strong enough to overpower him anyway.

Fantasizing made me remember what had happened the night before. The images. “Were you here last night? After I was asleep?”

His eyes narrowed. “Address me properly.”

“I’m sorry, Master. But were you?”

Kyros shook his head. “No, Nerina. I was asleep. Why?”

I considered not even bringing it up. Whatever it was somehow hadn’t been real. Maybe it had just been my imagination. But imagination had never been so vivid before.

“Nerina?”

“I saw you and me. But I had legs. It was so real. Then I opened my eyes in the pool, and you were gone and my fin was intact.”

He chuckled. “Don’t mermaids dream?”

“Dream?” It was the first time I’d heard the word for what had happened while I slept.

“Humans do it all the time.”

That statement made me cold. First the twitch, now the brief
dream
. And to make matters worse, it had been about him and me and the thing my kind didn’t do. Sex. Even the word made me shudder in discomfort. No, I was never going to become like that. I wouldn’t allow it to happen.

“Master, please. You’ve had your fun; return me to my family. Let me go.”

He swam toward me like a shark, his eyes filled with purpose. I was faster, so I kept eluding him. Finally he stopped swimming, realizing the futility of the chase.

“Nerina, if you don’t come to me right now, I’ll order the pool drained. Then we’ll see who is the fastest.”

Fear quickened my heart, starting a flurry of palpitations. I believed him. Short term I knew there would be some type of pain for not obeying. Long term, I was afraid he wouldn’t refill the pool. I didn’t want to awaken the part of him that might be cruel and do awful things to me, so I slowly swam to where he stood waiting in the shallow end.

He wrapped his arms around me, lifting me when I reached him, holding me steady since I had no feet to stand. The fingers of one hand stroked through my tangled, wet hair.

“Does your kind never leave their family?”

I shook my head. What did he mean leave our family? We lived together, all of us in a large school, like fish. I should have figured out humans didn’t do that. I just assumed everyone was somehow part of the same family here. Obviously not.

“Well, my kind does. Women often leave their families to go with their husband. Sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away. Sometimes they never see them again.”

The revelation was more than I could assimilate. “That’s awful. What is
wrong
with your kind?”

He silenced my protests and railings with a kiss. I knew what he was doing. I might not know everything about their culture, but I did know one thing: if he could take my fin away, I’d have no choice but to stay with him. Then he wouldn’t be the bad guy. It would be my own body that had betrayed me.

I sobbed into his mouth because I was afraid he was right. I feared he was awakening me from a long slumber caused by all my years living deep in the ocean, where maybe we didn’t dream because it was all a dream down there. Everything from my time in the sea somehow felt unreal and fuzzy in his arms. I couldn’t think with his mouth moving over mine like that. The way he held me. His possessive, proprietary kiss.

He made a sound against my mouth that for a split second almost undid me. It made me melt against him. My breasts, still wet from the pool, pressed against his equally damp chest.

Twitch.

If I didn’t fight these feelings I might lose myself to him. I’d thought the legends weren’t true, but with the feeling he was awakening in me, paired with the dream, I was no longer so confident. I told myself I still wanted to get away, but one thing gave me pause.

If I went back to my family they would love me, but they wouldn’t touch me in any way. Somehow in the space of one day, I’d grown almost fond of my Master’s careful touch. Now that I’d experienced it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to a place where no one would ever hold me.

My kind would admire me for the beauty we all had, but no man would sear me with his gaze in the way Kyros did every time he looked at me. My only lover would be the sea itself. Was that enough?

He broke the kiss. “Are you hungry?”

I flushed because something had twisted the tiniest bit in my mind. Hungry. Was I hungry? Yes, but not for food. I quickly shook myself out of his spell and pulled away. He let me go and I swam around the pool, reassuring myself I still had my fin.

As he climbed out, I tried not to watch the water rolling down his perfect, nude form. I tried not to be curious or think about the thing that would take away a major part of my identity. Mermaids are very proud of who and what we are. To be stripped of that, to become one of these human animals—it was more than I could stand.

I swam laps again, even though I was starving and all the swimming only made me feel weaker. He returned a few moments later, fully clothed—thank the gods. He had a pail of fish and tossed them into the pool. They were still alive, which was good, because that was how we ate them. Bigger fish eat little fish, and in a sense, mermaids are
bigger fish
.

I was surprised he knew what we ate. Humans are always romanticizing us, making us into a type of fantasy that would never eat a live fish. I guess that’s not attractive to them. I knew Kyros in many ways saw me as the fantasy because of his belief in the legend and his determination to turn a mermaid. I still didn’t understand his build-a-woman-from-the-ground-up statement.

He brought his breakfast in and sat beside the pool to eat. I didn’t know what he was eating, but he offered me some, feeding me from his hand. The act was so intimate, his fingers brushing over my lips, the gentle caring in the act. It created a new feeling. Not the twitch, but a kind of warmth that suffused my entire being.

The first thing was red and sort of triangular. The flavor burst over my tongue.

“It’s sweet. What is it?”

“Fruit. Specifically a strawberry. And this is a grape.” He pressed the oblong purple fruit into my mouth, his finger lingering for just a moment longer than was necessary. When he pulled his hand away and I bit down, I was surprised by the sudden burst of juice. More than the other fruit. “Now try this one, it’s an orange wedge.”

The last was sweet, but then bitter and rubbery. I spit it out.

“Oh, no, Nerina, not the rind.” The next orange, he peeled the bad part off for me. This time it was sweet and perfect all the way through.

Then he handed me a small cube that was yellow in color and firm, but also a bit soft. “This is cheese.”

I must admit, the contrast of the cheese and the fruit was exquisite. And for just a small moment, I wasn’t homesick. This new world of flavors made me dread going back to eating fish and seaweed. It was as if my taste buds were awakened to new, exotic things I’d never known existed, and my former diet paled in comparison.

There was also meat on his plate of some sort, cooked meat. I didn’t know how I felt about that, but he didn’t offer me any. Perhaps because I’d already had fish. When we were both satisfied, he scooped me up out of the water and took me to his chambers again.

A nervous flutter started low in my stomach, right above my fin, as we entered his room. He laid down a type of absorbent cloth he called a bath towel on the bed and used it to dry me so I wouldn’t get the bed wet with seawater.

The quick heartbeat started again as he settled in next to me, his hand starting that gentle stroking, the touches that were starting to feel nice and welcome. Especially after he’d shared his breakfast with me.

I let out a soft sigh as the pads of his fingertips brushed over my nipple. He kept touching and stroking until they were hardened points. The effect was accompanied by the twitch again, and as he smiled at me, it turned into a flicker and then the beginnings of a flame.

A moment later the door opened, and a portly older woman walked in, smothering the flame. “Master Kyros, I was wondering if you wanted the new linens in the closet or in here.” She looked up from the folded bundle in her arms. “Oh, excuse me, sir, I do apologize. I’ll come back another time.”

“Leave the linens on the chair,” Kyros said, not taking his eyes from me.

He was unfazed by his own nudity, even in the presence of this disapproving matronly woman. I, on the other hand, had developed an extreme case of modesty. The look of distaste the woman gave me, as if I were something dirty and wrong, had me rushing to cover myself, but Kyros gripped my wrist, stopping me.

The servant put the linens down, then sort of … lingered.

“That will be all, Estella.”

She flushed and left us alone, shutting the door behind her. Kyros got up and locked the door, an act for which I was deeply grateful. My misgivings must have shown on my face, because he said, “Don’t worry about her. She’s just an old woman who doesn’t remember what it’s like. Or else she’s merely jealous her time has passed.”

He went back to the stroking and gentle caresses. Then his mouth was on mine, a full-on assault as if he would accept nothing but my utter surrender. I whimpered against him, returning the kiss with equal intensity. I’m not sure if this intensity I gave him was my own fear manifesting as an action I could take to appease him, or if there was something new growing inside me. A new curiosity and hunger.

After a while of this, he pulled away and lay back on the bed. Without a word, he guided my hands over his body, making me stroke the hard planes of his chest, the musculature of his arms, his face, his eyelids, his hair, his thighs, and finally what was between his legs. When I first touched it, my instinct was to pull back. It stood erect and hard, but the skin was so soft, softer than anything I’d ever felt.

He helped me close my hand around it and guided me to pump up and down. I blushed, because I knew what I was doing was something deeply intimate and a simulation of the sex act, but I was so fascinated by the whole thing that I kept going, not listening to the twitch and flicker as it started again, not realizing that each moment in an intimate embrace with Kyros moved me that much closer to becoming truly his.

He urged me on harder and harder until finally something happened. It was like an explosion. I couldn’t hear it, except for the low, masculine groan, but I could see it as something shot out of him, coming to rest on his stomach. Then that frightening and fascinating part of him went limp, as if it were tired.

While he seemed to be satisfied, I was far from it. I had a new need forming that I didn’t have a word for. It felt like being itchy on the inside with no way to reach it to satisfy the feeling. It was uncomfortable and scary, and I wished I understood humanity more, because it made me feel lonely.

His lids dropped a little, a smile spreading across his face, his features relaxed. Then he ran a finger through the liquid on his stomach and brought it to my lips.

“Taste me, Nerina.”

His intensity scared me, but the command made my skin heat up. I tried to imagine one of my kind asking me to do something so intimate. Even if they had the right equipment, I couldn’t fathom such an exchange ever happening. I couldn’t even imagine being fed by a male, or holding hands.

But for Kyros, this request was as natural as breathing. I inched closer, wondering if just tasting him could somehow put out the flame burning through me. I closed my mouth around his finger and sucked the liquid off. Salty. Primal. It was like the sea. Somewhere deep in my mind, I knew he could be my new ocean.

It was a heady and terrifying thought, that one person could loom so large and be so much to me. I didn’t want to accept its truth.

He gently grasped the back of my neck, urging me forward to lick it straight off his stomach. As my tongue ran over him, he massaged my neck and played with my hair. Something about the twitch changed until it became a deep throb. I felt as if my fin were electrified. The pulsing feeling was too frightening, too much. I pulled away.

“No, please, Master.”

His eyes narrowed, disapproval creasing his brow, and I knew he must be thinking about punishing me, but in the end he merely used the towel I’d been reclining on to wipe his stomach clean.

“All right, Nerina. I’ll slow down. But you can’t have your own pleasure until you surrender to me.”

He nestled me against him and rubbed my back for a little while, then took me to the pool.

A few weeks passed like this, and I knew he was growing impatient. At night my dreams became longer and more vivid. In the dreams, when he took me, I could feel that throb start again. Every time, I woke up before anything happened, before I could find out how that throb ended and what it became.