Page 59 of Call of the Fathoms

He’d been enraptured from the first moment she’d admitted to wanting him. She’d dragged that zipper down her chest and he thought the world would end right there. The red blush that had stained her chest, the bright pink tips of her breasts, the undulating way she had shifted her hips, all of which made him salivate. He hadn’t even realized her people could move like that, but suddenly he wanted to see her do it more. On him. He wanted her to grind like that on his tail, to slide his webbed fingers between her thighs and know what she felt like.

Warm and wet, she’d gasped when he’d asked her. Those words would now live forever in his mind.

Whenever someone said them, he would only think of the way she ground hard against her hand. How her thighs had spread wide, and that wetsuit had parted to reveal her stunning body. All those scars, laid bare for only his eyes to see. He had wanted to lick each and every one of them. To trace them with his tongue and erase every memory of pain that came along with them.

His cocks hadn’t ached like that in years. Fortis had planned for the interaction to be short and to the point. An experiment, in his mind, to see what it was that achromos did when they were lost in passion. Another lie he had told himself so he could watch her writhe before him.

He had fooled himself into thinking he could remain separate from her pleasure and then his cocks had punched through his scales so quickly he hadn’t even noticed until the top one was in his fist.

And fuck, it had felt good. So incredibly good to watch her while he was thrusting into his fist. She only opened her eyes at the end, but he could feel her gaze on him. Her eyes had widened in surprise at the sight of what he held, and he’d wanted to tell her that soon enough, she would take him.

But he couldn’t. She couldn’t. They weren’t doing this because he was using her as a means to an end. Nothing more. Nothing less. She would bring about a new age with him, then he would die at her hands, and it would all end there.

The plan was simple, and it was one he had to uphold. Fortis knew the end of this, and he knew his path.

But now Alexia’s voice echoed in his mind. If she knew she was going to die, she would want to live as much as she could before it was over.

Slipping into the water without catching her eye, he knew very well that he hadn’t been living. Not since his wife died. Not since his entire purpose had turned into getting to the end so that he could return to her.

Life was so much more complicated than death.

The icy water helped relieve his mind. As he left the facility to breathe in the salty air, he felt a bit more like himself. Until he scented her in the water and everything went right back to the madness that had claimed him before. He could feel the beast in his chest crying out for him to return to her and plunge inside of that warmth.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

It wasn’t helping. The ocean wasn’t calming the fiery need that burned through every inch of him. He just... wanted. Needed. Desired.

Now that he’d been so close to connection with another living creature, he couldn’t stop wanting it. He needed to run his hands along her warm skin. He craved to seek out all the pleasure he’d denied himself for far too long.

Tilting his head back, he breathed in the sea and tried to let the icy waters cool him yet again.

“Sea mother,” he murmured, his voice low and quiet. “Please send me a sign that I do not need this. I am tempting myself with what I can only have for a short time. I will find all that I seek in the afterlife once I make it there. And Alexia is wrong. All wrong. Every part of her is that which I hate, and I will not fall apart simply because I have not had the touch of a woman in a long time.”

The sea was no help. A current shoved him back toward the building where he had left a panting creature who tempted him more than anyone else had in years. He couldn’t go back there. Not when his mind was still so full of her bright red features, how her eyes had squeezed shut, and the sounds she made thatrolled out of her throat as she finally discovered what passion meant.

“I have concerns,” he told the sea. “So many concerns. She is larger than most achromo, but I am bigger than any of my people. We are not compatible.”

On the tail of that thought, he had the image of Daios and Anya pressed into his mind. It was almost like a vision. The sea wanted him to remember that Daios and Anya likely had an even bigger size difference than he and Alexia did.

“But it is wrong,” he argued. “Their kind were never meant to be with us. It is unnatural to consider her anything other than an enemy.”

More images were pressed into his mind. The memory of Mira helping him find Tau and how hard she had worked to get all the information they could find. Anya patching him up when he’d been scraped by a passing ship, or even when he had just injured himself seeking out this city. Even Ace showing him how to work with droids and teasing him that he deserved to have a little helper. Having one that wasn’t alive meant he might actually keep it longer.

There were so many good achromos that were in his life. There were bad ones, but there were good ones as well.

And then one last memory. Of his son and Ace’s sister. The two of them working side by side, their heads nearly pressed together as they poured over a projected map of the sea floor that a droid had mapped out.

At the time, he’d thought the image disgusting. He’d taught his son better than to be interested in the thoughts and mind of an achromo. If Aulax wanted to know what she knew, then he should have just taken her memories and gotten on with it. But his son hadn’t, because he had seen something in their people that Fortis had never noticed.

Until now.

Until this warrior woman crashed into his life and he realized that maybe he did want to live for a little longer. Ironic, considering he would die at her hands.

Blowing the air out of his gills, he decided Alexia was right. And in some way, the ghost of his wife was right as well. He would live for a little while longer. He would fill his life with as many good things as he could and then, when it was finally his time, he would feel no guilt at leaving this place.

Turning back toward the building, he was surprised to see Alexia had slipped back into the water. In the spears of sunlight, she swam ever so slowly through the entrance to where he’d brought her.

Frowning, he started toward her. “What are you doing?”

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