Page 46 of Song of the Abyss

“They’re fine,” she replied with a small chuckle. She dragged the oysters into her lap, the cold water staining the fabric around her limbs a darker color. “I forget we’re so different sometimes. I must seem so strange looking to you.”

“You are quite ugly.” The honesty made her tilt her head back and laugh so hard her face turned bright red.

He didn’t mean it to sound as terrible as it did. She wasn’t so ugly that he didn’t want to look at her, but she wasn’t exactly... Well, she wasn’t a graceful and beautiful female floating through the water with a long tail and fins that helped her skate through the waves. She was an achromo.

It was hard to get used to.

She stopped laughing, wiping her fingers under her eyes as she gathered up the tears that streamed down her cheeks. He felt a little bad for that, although he hadn’t thought it would make her cry. Honesty had always been his greatest weapon.

And now he realized what a weapon it could be.

Grabbing onto her arm, he gently pulled her hands away from her face so he could smooth away the tears himself. They were surprisingly warm on his fingers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“You didn’t.” She held onto his wrist, that grin not moving from her face. “Laughing sometimes makes me cry. They’re tears of mirth, not tears of sadness.”

Ah. Well, at least he’d gotten to touch her. And suddenly, all he could focus on was the soft texture of her skin. The way her eyelashes flicked against the webs of his fingers when she blinked, and how soft and plush her lips were, just a hair’s breadth away from his claws.

With a soft trailing of his fingers, he released her. Even though he didn’t want to stop touching her.

He kept their gazes locked as he slowly licked her tears off his fingertips. She watched every single movement, and he swore her chest didn’t even rise with a breath. She just watched him, her eyes slowly turning more lidded as her gaze locked on his fingers.

“You taste like the sea,” he rasped. “My favorite flavor.”

He watched her throat work in a gulp. He wondered if that was fear or something else he saw in her eyes. It was hard to read this achromo, no matter how hard he tried. She surprised him more than he wished to admit.

Her gaze dropped back to the oysters in her lap, and when she responded, it was with that throaty tone that always made him painfully hard. “Why did you bring me oysters? Just to eat?”

No. Not just to eat, although now he didn’t think she should eat them at all. They were delicious delicacies, not to be looked at with a nose wrinkle like they were disgusting.

Sighing, he reached for the strand and plucked one off of it. “Not just to eat.”

Using his claw, he balanced the oyster on the metal floor and then wedged his nail inside of it. Anya’s hand darted out, holding onto the oyster to keep it steady for him.

He looked up at her with an unimpressed expression.

“It’s easier if I hold it for you,” she said.

“No, it is not.”

“It definitely is.” She blew out a breath to move the hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. “You’re going to cut yourself or me. Just let me hold it while you open the thing.”

Baring his teeth at her, he flared all his fins wide to make himself even larger than he already was. She should have run from him screaming. Instead, she just puffed her cheeks up and squared her shoulders.

Like she was mimicking him.

His fins flattened to his sides with a snap. That was… unexpected, but he supposed she might help him if she wished. “Hold it steady then.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Grumbling under his breath about foolish females taking too many risks, he finally got the damn thing open. He let the shells fall to each side, choosing to ignore the tiny wrinkle of her nose—again—as she looked at the pale meat inside.

“You eat that raw?” she asked, clearly struggling. “It looks so... so...”

“Delicious?” he asked, using his claw to scrape it from the shell. He was a little disappointed it didn’t contain what he’d hoped, but it would still taste as good as always. “Nutritious? Like food that is much better than the food I have brought you before?”

“Wet.”

He slurped it from the shell before dropping the empty halves in the water. She was right, it was a little wet. Oysters were always soft and tasted like the sea where they grew. These were particularly briny, which he quite enjoyed.

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