Page 23 of Not Your Ordinary Shifter

“Do you do this for everyone?” I asked her.

“Just for the newbies. There’s a room where you can go and the fish will take care of you, but it’s a bit strange at first, so I’d like to help you get used to it.”

The little blue flower fish was burrowing into my bottom, and it really felt good. I sighed, “I’m so happy that I dreamed of being a mermaid, even if I wanted to be a fake one! I wonder where my husband is now? Not that I miss him one bit!”

Marcel spoke up from where he was sitting on a shell chair across the room. “Derrick is just where he dreamed of being, but he doesn’t like it nearly as much as he thought he would.”

“Oh! Where is he?” I wanted all the deets.

Marcel grinned. “He dreamed of having a sex slave who he could do any perverted thing to, but since he was careless about how he wanted his wish to be fulfilled, and since he was not a good man,heis the sex slave and his ass is very, very sore. He’s chained to a bed in a filthy brothel and a giant woman is pegging him with a huge dildo. For eternity.”

I felt I should feel pity for Derrick, but I didn’t. Not one bit.

Chapter

Three

When the little fish had finished, we walked through the palace towards the dining room and Marcel asked me what I would like to have to eat. The choices he told me about were from a variety of types of seaweed, some mussels, clams, oysters, or sea squirts. I’d wondered what was considered edible under the sea, and Marcel explained that merfolk do eat some kinds of sea creatures, but not the ones who can shift. Non-shifting fish were permitted but, “We usually prefer to dine on mussels and clams, oysters and sea squirts as they don’t feel pain.”

I asked Marcel what a sea squirt was, and he told me they were strange things that, once they attach themselves to something solid, stay in one place and eat their own brains.

“Yuck!”

Marcel laughed. “There are many strange things down under the sea, Audrey. You’ll get used to it soon, but for now let’s go to the dining room and sample the buffet.”

After I sampled things I would never have eaten before in my old world – not raw, at any rate – Marcel told me I neededto take a nap, as my new digestive system would take a while to work. He led me to a pretty cave with softly glowing pale purple walls and a big sponge bed, covered with a soft green coverlet.

“What is that made of? I wondered.

“Seaweed,” he told me. “This is your own private cave, Audrey. Entrance is by invitation from you, only. Now have a nap, and I will come and fetch you in a bit.”

I was asleep in minutes.

I woke to a soft cough and saw Marcel standing in the doorway. “May I come in, Audrey? You had a good nap, and I want to take you on a swim to see the rest of the kingdom.”

I got up and sat at a pretty shell dressing table and used a spiny shell to comb my hair — though there was no mirror. Then I followed Marcel out of my cave.

We swam through the castle, Marcel pointing out the various creatures and telling me their names, which I immediately forgot.

“Now we’re about to go outside. Stay close to me and remember, you never have to have sex with any creature unless you want to.”

Past the doors of the castle was a gorgeous garden with every imaginable type of seaweed, colorful sea animals and sea grass. Sea pinks were the prettiest things there, but the corals and anemones were beautiful, too.

We swam a long way, often greeted by fish and merfolk who all seemed to know all about me. Several of the mermen asked me if I would like them to fuck me, and I politely declined, saying I was on a tour of the kingdom, but— perhaps later? We finallycame to a high wall that seemed to be made of glass, but glass that undulated in the currents.

“This is the boundary of the kingdom. The wall is made of jellyfish who take turns guarding our kingdom from predators,” Marcel told me. “We do not go beyond the wall unless our king tells us to.”

“But I came from outside it, didn’t I?”

“Ah, you can enter the kingdom, but the only way to leave is through this wall, and you have to have the king’s permission, or be fulfilling a fantasy.”

“But I didn’t see this wall when we came to the castle?”

“The jellies saw us coming and opened it so we could swim through.”

“Will I ever go back to... to the beach?” I asked him.

“Do you want to?”

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