Page 33 of The Sea-Ogre's Eager Bride

“And they like him? Your family?”

Ranan just keeps stroking my ear.

As the moments creep past and he doesn’t reassure me, I grow worried. I put my hand over his to stop his caresses and repeat my concerns. “Your family likes your uncle’s partner? They won’t mind that you have a human bride?”

“It is what I want.”

I study his face. “Is it?”

Ranan scowls and tugs his hand from mine. He gets to his feet, pacing away. “You ask too many questions.”

“I do,” I admit, keeping my voice light. “It’s gotten me slapped in the mouth a lot.”

That makes him stop in his tracks. He turns around, scowling. “I would not hit you.”

“Didn’t say you would. Just said it’s happened a lot in the past.”

“I don’t want you scared around me.”

I arch a brow at him, tossing my hair. “Then don’t act scary.”

His hands go to his hips and he shakes his head. I can’t decide if he’s annoyed or amused at my retort. Probably doesn’t know how to respond.

That’s fine, I’m a champion at carrying a conversation away from an awkward spot. “Once my menses are done, you’ll teach me how to swim, then?”

Ranan’s posture relaxes a bit. “Aye. So you can get Vor a fish. I haven’t forgotten.”

I beam at him. Honestly, a man that doesn’t beat me and remembers the small things I tell him? Lady Dywan never had it so good.

Chapter

Fifteen

RANAN

Ihate that I am so easy to please. So pathetically obvious.

Because I am in a good mood for the rest of the day after Valessa touches me. I am in a good mood when I trawl through my underwater caches, looking for bits to trade in. I am in a good mood when I hunt through the waters, looking for just the right location for a large school of fish. Not that it’ll be there in a week from now when Vali can join me in the waters, but it doesn’t hurt to search.

I’m in a good mood the next day when I wake up with her curving bottom snugged up against my cocks. I’m in an even better mood when she rolls over and starts to touch me, and as she strokes my cocks and mouths them, she grinds her hips and moans. She tells me she enjoys herself, but…it feels too easy. Too simple. Surely she wants something out of this?

I hate that I am so susceptible to being touched. That a pretty woman runs her fingers over my cocks and suddenly I am ready to smile…almost.

It makes me wonder, though. Even as the days pass and the pinch of discomfort is no longer on her face, Vali does not ask for anything from me. She kisses me all over my chest. She strokes my arms, my legs, and most especially my cocks.

Yet it doesn’t always have to be about me. I like it, of course. No sane male would be displeased at a woman who attempts to pleasure him every chance she can. I enjoy it, even as it doesn’t sit right for me. Vali should want more from me than just some fabric and a few trinkets, shouldn’t she?

But what do I give her? Any jewels that she wants, she can simply take from my grotto. The same for fabrics, or statues, or other shiny things. Those do not count as gifts, as far as I am concerned. Nor is food a gift, because she needs to eat. If I make a meal a gift, I worry she will feel she will need to buy each mouthful from me, and I do not like that idea.

Yet if I let her continue to pleasure me in bed, I am using her.

My thoughts trouble me, almost as much as the weather troubles me. It is unbearably hot over the next few days, and the fish that normally teem off the reefs here seek cooler waters. Hunting is bad near the cave, so I swim farther out, into the deep blue depths after several days of poor meals. Akara’s mind touches mine with worry, but I send her thoughts of reassurance and an image of Vali. Even if I am gone all day, she needs to stay with my human female, who has proven to be more fragile and vulnerable than I’d hoped.

And thus lies another problem. How can Vali be the mate to a sea-ogre when my world does not welcome her? She does not swim. The endless sun blisters her fishbelly-colored skin. The people on shore hunt her, and she bleeds heavily at least once a month. How can she live upon Akara’s back at my side as I rob the human ships that sail up and down the shipping lanes here? It’s not safe.

My uncle has a human mate, but his is male. There is no monthly bleeding there. My mother sheds an egg once a month so that must be similar.

The smartest thing would be to take Vali to the innkeeper with the daughter and ask them to help her find a home. To accept that I cannot have a human wife and leave her with people I trust.

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