Page 35 of Whispers of the Deep

“Breath,” he repeated, the word drawn out and so guttural she almost didn’t make it out.

He was breathing out of his gills, she realized. An exhale through his ribcage that feathered over her fingers and turned them icy hot. Not warm breath, not like her own. But cold as the ocean. It made goosebumps pop all down her arms, or maybe that was the strong grip that slowly hovered her hand over his ribs, his chest, his collarbone.

He stopped her fingers at his throat, and again murmured, “Breath.”

She felt it again. Another long exhale that whispered over her fingers, but warm this time. So he had gills on his neck as well, and that’s what the frills were that slowly lifted.

They were so pretty. Compared to the diamond shape of his tail, or the razor edged spines that dotted down his back, these were almost delicate. They looked like silk in the water, but even in the air, there were very specific parts that made it flare around him.

Water dripped down one, beads of it trickling into his gills and then leaking out to drip down his muscular shoulders and collarbone. She couldn’t stop herself. Maybe it was the innate curiosity of her own species. Maybe she had just lost her mind entirely.

Mira ghosted her fingers over the gills at his neck. Gently, of course. She could only guess how sensitive they were. But the moment her fingers touched those soft gills, she was struck by how much they felt like velvet.

The longer frills seemed to reach back, curving around her fingers and sliding through them. He arched into her touch, that strong thick neck bowing as though he couldn’t quite handle the touch. She thought maybe she’d hurt him, and then she heard him groan.

And oh, that sound, so filled with raw need and desperation. It made every nerve ending in her body fire hot and wild. She’d never thought it was possible to want something that wasn’t even remotely human, and yet, here she was. Breathless at the sight of this massive undine, his tail lashing in the water as she stroked her fingers through his gills.

He was magnificent. All those muscles drawn up tight, his hand wrapped around her wrist, holding her in place even as she caught the edge of one of those frills and gently pinched it between two fingers, sliding her hand down them like she would a bolt of silk.

Another groan, this time from deep inside the hollow of his belly. She looked down and saw even the gills near his ribs were fluttering. And below them, another strange-looking gap in his scales that looked... looked...

It all came crashing down on her head. She was stroking a damn undine near to completion like a complete mad woman. She’d gotten so wrapped up in the moment, so full of wonder at the sights and the sounds of all this muscle and handsome man in front of her, that she had forgotten the reason she was doing all this.

The translation chip. Put the fucking translation chip on his fucking ear and stop touching him like you’re trying to jerk him off!

Berating herself for forgetting, even for a moment, she took the chip out of her pocket with her free hand and then reached for the other side of his head.

His eyes opened then, and he looked at her with a wild expression. Almost as if he was afraid of her, or what she would do to him next. But there was desperation in that gaze as well, a need that he hoped she would satisfy.

And oh, if they were in another time. Another place. Maybe she would have indulged the darker curiosities in her mind.

“Sorry,” she whispered, her voice a little raspy with her own need. “I hope you can forgive me for this.”

Hitting the on button with her thumb, she stuck the translation chip behind his gills. She knew the moment the pain hit him. His tail flipped out of the water, catching her with the sharp spines on the arm before he suddenly turned into churning waves. There was an undine in that foamy, white water, but she couldn’t pinpoint where he was. He lashed and rolled, then one more flick of his tail, and he was gone. At least, she thought. The surface of the water was so covered in sea foam that she couldn’t guess where he was.

Mira quickly yanked her feet out of the water, just in case he tried to drag her into it and drown her.

She might even deserve it. That chip could kill him if he reacted too poorly to it.

“You’re bleeding,” Byte said, rather matter-of-factly.

“I know,” she said, cupping the injury with one hand. “I think I kind of deserve it, though.”

Fourteen

Arges

The pain was blinding. He writhed, his hands pressed against his head as a shrieking sound enveloped every part of his mind. Arges couldn’t tell if it was his own shrieking, the screaming of the depths, or the very mother of the ocean coming to claim her dues.

He was cursed. The witch had cursed him, and he hadn’t known such pain could be inflicted by a creature so small.

Surely the achromo had done something. Had she ripped his gills off? He was a fool for letting her touch him. Trusting a achromo was only for the young and the stupid. Her kind always betrayed his. They were meant to fight just as the sea was meant to be cold. He rolled, scales scraping against the sharp stones outside of the cave.

If he could get to Mitéra, then perhaps she could piece him together. She could rip this curse out of his body and then fling it back upon the achromos. He would tear his achromo’s hair from her head. He would bite off her fingers, one by one, for doing whatever this was. This Mira would know pain unlike anything she had ever felt?—

And then it stopped.

All the pain, all the torment, all the bone deep ache, disappeared as quickly as it had come.

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