Page 29 of Queen Takes More
Ignoring his reaction, I leaned back against his body, exactly the same as I would have done with Rik or any of my Blood. He wasn’t exactly cuddly like Daire, but I’d leaned against Leviathan before. He’d curled his scaly hide around me, and I hadn’t flipped out and lost my shit. But Okeanos hadn’t ever seen me like that with any of my Blood in their monster forms. In fact… he might not even know much about my other Blood, let alonemyother forms.
“I’ve shifted into a cobra queen and a wyvern, but nothing that could swim. How long do you think I could hold my breath as an Aima queen?”
He opened his huge mouth enough to let me glimpse the jagged rows of teeth inside. As if he truly thought he could answer me with words. Then he must have caught himself, clamping his mouth shut so as not to make me fear he was going to toss me back into that maw and devour me in one easy bite.:I have no idea, my queen.:
“Do you think I could swim along with you sometime? Or would the water pressure kill me?”
:You wouldn’t be able to reach the deep blue, unless you can transform into something like me.:
“Is the water really blue that deep?” I let wistfulness echo in my tone. “I bet it’s beautiful.”
:I don’t exactly see colors.:
“Really? Then why do you call it the deep blue?”
He shrugged, a very human-like gesture that made several of the larger tentacles unfurl slightly as he relaxed.:It feels blue.:
“What do I feel like?”
He was silent a moment, but I was pleased to feel his body softening against my back. He wasn’t trembling against the rocks any longer.:Love. You feel like love and home.:
I swallowed hard and rubbed the back of my head lightly against him. “Good. I am your home, Okeanos. I want you to be safe and happy with me.”
:I know you couldn’t love me like them, but...:
His words stumbled to a halt as I turned to look up into his eyes. “I love you now, Okeanos, and that love will only grow as we spend more time together.”
His black eyes glistened like spilled ink.:How could you love a monster like me?:
I ran my hand over the muscled strength of the thick tentacle gripping the ledge behind my head. “All of my Blood are monsters. My father is the god of monsters.Iam the biggest monster of all. Of course I love you.”
Even… like this?
He didn’t say the words, even in our bond, but I felt them thundering in his mind.
Very deliberately, I pressed my body against his, flattening my breasts against him. I deliberately shifted my weight so I started to slide off my tentacle seat.
And he caught me, a tentacle ever so gently winding around my waist to keep me from falling back into the water. I didn’t try to school my reactions. I allowed my eyes to flare with surprise at the sensation, squirming a little. “It tickles. It feels like mouths. Can you taste me?”
His coloring lightened, from midnight black and deep indigo to delicate lavender.:They’re not mouths, but yes, I do taste you. I taste you everywhere through my skin.:
I laid my head against his body, listening for his heartbeat. I heard a deep, sonorous echo inside him, but it came from several directions.
:I have three hearts.:
No wonder the pounding seemed to fill his entire body. As I laid against him, relaxed and unafraid, he slowly began to touch me. Hesitantly at first, the slightest brush of one tip against my hair. A tickling dance across my back. When I didn’t draw away or rebuke him, he very carefully wrapped his tentacles around me.
Hugging me to him.
Just holding me.
I lost track of time, relaxing in his embrace. We drifted, floating and gently rocking. I wasn’t surprised to find that the grotto had disappeared, though I hadn’t deliberately opened the sea portal. I hadn’t felt us passing through and we certainly hadn’t gone underwater. It was going to take some time and experimentation for me to figure out how to control the portal inside the grotto.
Rik’s bond was a heavy presence in the back of my mind, intensely alert now that I was so far from him, but he understood my need to reassure my newest Blood. Okeanos needed some time alone with me. He needed to feel safe and comfortable with me, even if that meant floating on an ocean thousands of miles from my nest.
Flattening out his body, Okeanos rolled slightly so I was on top of him like a raft. I leaned up enough to look around. A beautiful island jutted up out of cerulean waters. Pure white sand glistened in the sunlight. A structure rose out of the middle of the island, but I didn’t know what it was. Not a building—though it had regular and symmetric architecture. It looked like a natural part of the environment, almost like cliffs and mountains, but it was pink and orange in color.
:Undina built her nest from living coral.:
