Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Waves crashed onto the shore in a rather odd, melodious rhythm — not the roaring kind, but something softer, almost like the tide itself was singing. Nicol stood alone on the sand, the evening breeze ruffling his silky hair, which shone like ink in the fading light. His eyes, framed by thick lashes, were half-lidded, thoughtful, as if listening to something only he could hear.

His dear little sister had wanted some glass lilies by today.

She was going to get some glass lilies by today.

His father had tried to convince him not to go — "A servant can do the same work just fine. It's not worth the hassle going out at a time like this, especially for someone like you."

Nicol was the town’s famously beautiful merchant heir — known for his ethereal looks and equally rare discretion. A young man whose presence could stir gossip from nobles and fisherwomen alike. Going out in public like this would attract attention — good and bad both.

He could already see, from a distance, some town girls — high-class ladies in silk wraps or dockside girls in loose skirts, it didn’t matter — waving at him flirtatiously as he undid the rope that moored his canoe to the bay.

He also caught a few envious stares from his more... well-known business partners as he prepared his rower. Men who smiled too sharply, whose respect came only when profit was involved. But he paid them no mind. No one knew his sister better than he did, and no one — not even the best-trained servant — could pick out lilies that would suit Sophia’s exacting, romantic taste the way Nicol could.

Maybe he’d even find some mangrove pearls. They had a faint lavender sheen Sophia adored, and their scent, when crushed, reminded her of rain.

And so, he set off alone, without help or escort — a quiet defiance dressed in good manners.

He rowed the boat himself, each stroke clean and steady. The dipping sun cast a warm glow over his face, gilding the edges of his hair and the fine lines of his jaw. The breeze had a scent to it now — something wild and green.

Soon, the shoreline narrowed. Tangled roots, thick and dark, began to rise from the shallows like reaching hands — he was entering the mangrove channels. Few dared go this way. The undergrowth was dense. The currents were slow and strange. But Nicol knew the route. Or thought he did.

The deeper he went, the thicker the canopy became, until it blotted out the last threads of sunlight. Only the soft flicker of fireflies and the glow of strange, fluorescent blossoms remained to light his way. A hush settled over the air, thick and full of breathless life.

This narrow, hidden waterway was a shortcut — one that led to a quiet pool where water lilies bloomed, and where rare mangrove pearls sometimes rose to the surface like gifts from the deep.

As he progressed deeper into the mangroves, rowing slowly, Nicol’s relaxed posture stiffened when he heard a female voice humming.

It was unmistakably human — unmistakably female — and it was humming a soft, wordless tune. The sound drifted through the branches like mist, delicate and slow, weaving through the trees and curling around him.

Nicol froze.

Women in his seaside town weren’t allowed out on the waters after evening — a strict rule upheld by tradition and fear. Stories of sea-spirits, storms, and vanishings still lingered in the minds of elders.
Even stepping outside past dusk was frowned upon.

His little sister Sophia often sulked about this “stupid rule,” calling it outdated, unjust. And maybe it was.

But even so — this was no place for a human woman. So how...?

How was there a woman here?

Without fully realizing it, Nicol began to row toward the source of the sound. He didn’t register the vines thickening or the roots twisting more dangerously beneath the surface. He was entranced. The humming guided him forward, deeper into the mangrove labyrinth — farther than he’d ever gone, or been allowed to go.

Above the trees, the sky had darkened, but now it revealed something startling — the moon was already up. A full moon.
Not low on the horizon either, but high and glowing with an almost too soon brilliance.
That didn’t make sense. The sun had dipped only minutes ago... right?

Then the boat stopped — not by his own doing. It had glided into a still, shallow circle in the water, surrounded by thick, gnarled trees.
The current had stilled. The air felt charged.

The clearing was breathtaking.

Green vines floated across the water’s glassy surface. Fireflies danced in slow spirals, casting faint glimmers that flickered against the leaves. Strange blossoms glowed faintly, dusted in pollen that shimmered like stardust.

They were all swarming around a shape — around someone — in the center of the glade.
The moonlight, stronger than it should’ve been, pooled around her like liquid silver.

Nicol sucked in a sharp breath.

It’s a siren, he realized, eyes widening as he stared at the figure sitting across from him — a woman, her back turned, poised atop a thick tree root that curved up from the mound like a throne.

Her skin shimmered pale blue in the moonlight, almost pearlescent. Her hair, long, thick and loose, spilled like strands of midnight ink down her back, rippling slightly in the breeze as if remembering the water it had once belonged to. Draped in sea-silk that clung to her in folds, she looked carved from salt and dream,but only her back facing him.

She hummed again — the same haunting melody. A voice too beautiful to belong to a mere human.

It’s unmistakable — the humming...

Nicol stared, unmoving — the oar slack in his hands, the boat drifting barely an inch on the still, mirror-like water.

He should have turned back the moment he saw her. Should have obeyed the old warnings, the whispered tales. But instead, he stared.

She doesn’t look like the ones from the harbor stories, he thought.

The human half of the siren looked like a young woman — not much older than himself. Her back was slender, elegant, half-submerged in the water, her skin carrying a pale, creamy hue with a bluish undertone, as if the sea had steeped into her bones. Fluorescent scales shimmered along her shoulders and lower back, catching moonlight and tossing it in glints across the still pool.

Nicol swallowed. She can’t be more than nineteen... maybe twenty at most?

That sparked a thought. Do sirens age like humans? Or do they simply pause — caught somewhere between girlhood and something ancient?

Her wet hair — a deep, inky brown — clung to her back and shoulders, slicked back and swept over her left collarbone, revealing the nape of her neck. It was laced with thin, iridescent ridges that shimmered faintly beneath her skin, delicate but inhuman. Her neck alone seemed like something sculpted from sea glass and dream.

Nicol’s gaze drifted lower as her arms moved slowly — not startled, not aware of him yet — but in rhythmic, absent-minded motion, like a cat grooming itself or a bird tending its feathers. Her forearms, too, were patterned with those opalescent plates — not quite scales, but smooth, organic ridges like polished shell. Her fingers were long and delicate, the nails curved and slightly clawed at the ends, sharp enough to tear netting or seaweed, but graceful enough to be mistaken for something ornamental.

She dragged her fingertips lightly across the lines of her own body — along her side, her hip, then across the subtle gill slits near her ribs. It looked like a ritual, not vanity. A kind of checking or remembering.

Her tail lay curled around the root like a ribbon, long and gleaming. It was a soft, pearlescent ivory, tinted with faint lilac and sea-glass green, ending in a wide, arched fin shaped almost like a bow. It flexed gently with the water’s pulse — elegant, untouched, perfect.

And that, more than anything, unnerved him.

No scars. No bruising. No torn scales or shattered shell plating.

Nicol had seen sirens before — glimpses, at least. He’d seen one wash up on shore once, wild-eyed and furious, its scales chipped, its face full of jagged sorrow. Others had been captured by fishermen and released only under bribes — battered and feral-looking, like wolves cornered on land.

But this one... this creature looked like she’d never even seen a net. Never heard screaming. Never had to fight for her breath.

She looks like a princess, Nicol realized. Raised like a nobleman's daughter. Protected. Adored.

He could just make out the sharp curve of her ears, poking through her hair — unmistakably siren. Narrower than human, ending in a graceful point, webbed lightly at the edge like a translucent petal. The kind of detail one would find only in illustrations, or whispered fables told near firelight.

He exhaled slowly, afraid to break the fragile balance of silence around him. She hadn’t noticed him yet.

And yet — he couldn’t look away.

He had been so mesmerized by her sultry humming that when she suddenly stilled, sensing something — someone — and turned in a whiplash, Nicol jolted so violently he nearly tipped the canoe into the shallow waters of the mangrove glade.

God, her face...

Nicol lost his train of thought the instant their eyes met.

Her gaze locked onto his — icy, precise, unblinking. It pierced through him like twin spears of light.

She had a sharp, angular face with the kind of elegance sculptors tried and failed to imitate. Her eyes were striking — narrow and almond-shaped, rimmed with what looked like natural kohl, as though the sea had drawn lines upon her lids. Her nose was long and straight, her lips shaped with a perfect, prominent cupid’s bow that made his chest seize slightly just from looking at it.

But those eyes...

They glowed — a vivid, piercing blue that illuminated the darkness like moonlight trapped under ice. They blinked once, slowly, thick lashes momentarily veiling their glow, then opened again with the same arresting clarity. Around the outer corners of her eyes and browbone shimmered more pearling, tiny nacreous flecks that glinted softly beneath the moonlight like scattered stardust.

She stared — no, studied him. Her clawed hands had stopped mid-motion, resting silently on her own side, and her lips were slightly pursed, as though she had caught an insect between her teeth and was deciding whether to speak or strike.

The silence stretched. It could have been seconds. Or hours. Time folded strangely around her presence.

Nicol stared back, unblinking, breath stuck in his throat, heart thudding loud enough he feared she could hear it. He didn’t dare move. His mind raced, but his body remained still, as though the moment had frozen him in place. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Could only see her — this impossible, sea-born being.

Wha...

He couldn’t even form words. Alarm bells were ringing inside his skull, loud and frantic — She’s a siren. Get away. Fast. She’ll tear your throat open with those claws —

But his body refused to obey. He sat frozen, half-breathing, limbs numb with awe and dread. Never — never in his life — had he seen something so impossibly radiant. So consuming. Every line of her form, every shimmer of her strange beauty seemed carved to captivate.

When he finally clawed his way back to sense from that stunned haze, she moved too — just slightly, as if tethered to his heartbeat. Nicol lurched for the oar and began to row backward with all the strength he had, arms burning, shoulders tense with desperation.

The water sloshed wildly around the canoe, the boat jerking at odd angles. But it didn’t move. Not an inch.

It’s stuck — the vines, Nicol realized, terror blooming fast in his chest as he looked down. Tangled green tendrils wound around the hull like fingers.

And the siren — she hadn’t stopped watching. If anything, her stare grew more amused, more intent, as if fascinated by his struggle.

Panic surged, rising like bile in his throat. He wracked his brain for a solution — something, anything — but nothing came. Nothing but her eyes, her stillness, her impossible beauty.

And then she moved again.

Slowly, languidly, the siren turned to face him fully.

Her front came into view like a vision rising from a dream — pale sea-glass skin sheened in silver light, only a sheer membrane of iridescent film clinging to her chest like the ocean's own silk. Pearling clustered like jewelry across her collarbones, glimmering where her upper body transitioned into the otherworldly half below.

From just beneath her navel began the transformation — the start of her tail, a seamless gradient from soft flesh to shimmering shell. The opalescent plates ran along her stomach in intricate patterns, merging into the elegant sweep of her gleaming tail. She was armor and moonlight, violence and grace, all wrapped in the silence of the sea.

The moonlight glinted sharply along the ridges of her body, catching every scale and contour in a silvery glow. She didn’t break her gaze — only continued to hold him in it, like a predator testing the limits of its prey. Nicol stared back, frozen on the outside though panic clawed violently inside his chest, his heart a snare drum under his ribs.

Something around her neck caught his eye — a pendant, strange and delicate, hanging from a thin strand of what looked like woven sea-hair or coral thread. It shimmered like it held a drop of starlight inside, an ornament too strange to be human-made. Perhaps — he would later think — it was important. Perhaps it mattered more than he could know.

Then, she smiled.

It was slow, deliberate — a smile that unfurled like a trap. Her teeth glinted under the moon: sharp, serrated, yet aligned with eerie precision. Two long, fang-like canines framed the rest, gleaming like wet ivory. It was beautiful. And terrifying.

She smiled with the lazy confidence of a queen lounging on her coral throne. No urgency. No fear.

"Hello."

Chapter Text

Nicol blinked. Her voice was soft, syrupy, smooth — far too human. No lilting echo, no watery distortion. Just fluent, clear speech. English.

That... that’s not possible.

Sirens, by every record, spoke Sea Tongue — a dialect of clicks, melody, and vibration, unintelligible to humans. It was a voice of waves and currents. Never words. Never this — this precise, warm articulation that slid along his spine like a drop of cold water down skin.

“You can talk?” he whispered, more to himself than to her.

She cocked her head, strands of inky hair falling over her shoulder. “Can you breathe?”

He opened his mouth, shut it, then nodded. Slowly.

Her lips curled into something wicked. And then she moved.

With a single flick of her powerful tail, she vanished into the water, cutting beneath the surface with almost no splash. Nicol flinched violently, scanning the dark water around his canoe in a rising panic.

She dove. Gods, she dove —

His heart raced. Sirens were known to despise humans — especially lone men trespassing into their sacred waters. They had legends of humans who hunted them, trapped them in nets, cut their fins and bled them dry for pearl-studded profit. Sirens were beautiful — but brutal.

She could tear me limb from limb. She could drag me under. She might leave me alive, but it’ll cost me more than a leg...

He was mid-thought when —

— something slammed into the side of the canoe.

He let out a strangled scream as the entire vessel lurched. His arms flailed for balance. The world tilted sideways, and the canoe nearly tipped.

Then she was there — on him.

Weight. Pressure. Water dripping cold across his chest.

Nicol gasped, wind knocked clean from his lungs, as he looked up — and found her face inches from his own.

Those glowing blue eyes bored into him, framed by wet lashes and glinting droplets. Her entire body was sprawled against his, anchoring him to the canoe’s floor like some sea-born shadow. The bend of her tail dug into either side of him, her claws resting beside his face.

One wrong move and she’ll gut me. She’ll torture me — slowly, beautifully, until I beg her to end it —

He clenched his eyes shut.

A high, ringing sound filled his ears — melodic, unholy. Laughter. Her laughter.

“Keep your eyes open.”

She sang it like a lullaby. A command wrapped in music.

Something sharp — a claw — trailed gently down the side of his cheek, cool and teasing. His breath hitched. Despite himself, his eyes fluttered open.

And there she was.

Her face loomed impossibly close — close enough to see the faint translucent veins beneath her skin, the pearling scattered like constellations around her brow. Her eyes held him still, their depth vast and unfathomable — not merely blue, but a chasm of cerulean twilight, like staring into the deepest trenches of the sea. Her beauty was unkind. Arresting. It forced him to surrender thought, to drown quietly in her gaze.

Her expression was unreadable. Studious, almost. Curious.

Then she parted her lips. Nicol caught a glint of white — jagged, sharp teeth again — and braced himself.

“You’re really pretty,” she said, voice low and even, as if stating a fact.

Nicol blinked, stunned. Did she just...? His ears burned. Surely he misheard.

She grinned, sharp and mocking, watching the color rise in his face.“You're really, really pretty.” she said again, this time more thoughtfully. Then, narrowing her eyes with amused intrigue, she added, “Are males supposed to be this pretty?”

Nicol could do nothing but stare. Words completely escaped him. His thoughts were tangled, snared in the net of her voice and the cool dampness of her skin on his.

She laughed. A bright, mocking sound that fluttered down his spine like a silk ribbon on fire.

“The Queen is the prettiest in our kingdom,” she teased, voice dripping with amusement. “She won’t be pleased to see your face.”

She snickered as he continued to gape, and despite himself, he thought — beautiful. That was the word that danced dumbly in his head like a flame, betraying every ounce of his caution.

He inwardly cursed his own mind. Idiot. Idiot.

And then she tilted her head.

Her bright eyes darkened slightly, lashes lowering. Her lips parted again — and a sudden thrill of dread hit Nicol square in the chest.

She’s going to bite me. Gods, she’s going to rip out my throat —

“Oomph.”

His panic scattered like startled birds when her mouth crashed into his.

It took him a moment to realize what was happening — what the wet, shockingly soft pressure against his lips even meant. But then came the heat. The wet swirl of something sharp and hungry.

Her tongue pushed past his parted lips, sharp and sinuous, grazing the inside of his cheek — tasting him. Testing him. It was nothing like a kiss he’d known. It was deeper. Wilder. Possessive.

He gasped into her mouth, the breath stolen from him, his chest tightening. His mind screamed for air, for logic, for escape — and yet his lips betrayed him, moving in trembling response, caught in rhythm with hers like two ships swept into the same wild current.

She pressed closer, claws digging gently into his sides, pinning him in place as her mouth claimed his fully — hot, slick, and relentless. He felt her drool mix with his, something primal and wrong and addictively sweet. His senses blurred. His spine tingled. Time warped.

Every nerve in his body was alight — not with fear now, but something far more dangerous.

His head spun. The world outside vanished into a haze of humid breath and salt-laced heat. She tasted like the sea and something forbidden — like fruit that grew only on the edges of storms. His hands twitched helplessly beside him, not daring to touch her but desperate to anchor to something real.

And then, just as he felt himself tipping off the edge of sense, she pulled away — slowly, deliberately, with a sultry, lingering lick across her lips, as though savoring every drop of him.

Her eyes glinted, cheeks flush with faint color as she grinned with razor-edged glee. A teasing, wicked smile that said: I liked that. I might do it again.

Nicol couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. His thoughts ran in desperate circles — heat, confusion, shame, awe, hunger. He felt dizzy, as though she’d stolen not just his breath but his name, his soul.

Then he saw it — a red glimmer against the pale blue of her bottom lip. A smear. His lip stung faintly, and the realization clicked: she bit him.

She saw his gaze, and with a low, pleased hum, licked the blood from her lip.

“You taste good too,” she purred, voice husky, molten.

Nicol could barely breathe. His heart pounded wildly in his chest like it wanted to escape him. His limbs felt heavy, slack, useless — but his mind raced with a wild storm of thoughts: what just happened — what is she — why does this feel like drowning and burning and living all at once —

She leaned in one last time, her claw brushing a damp strand of hair back from his forehead with unexpected gentleness. Her mouth hovered near his ear, warm breath curling down his spine like silk.

“See you soon... maybe, handsome.”

Then, without warning, she pulled back with the grace of a ribbon unfurling in water, and dove backward into the dark, moon-silvered pool. Her tail flicked once — glittering — and she vanished beneath the surface, the ripples closing around her like the hush of a closing secret.

What happened next was strange, dreamlike — as if reality folded and left Nicol behind in a space between waking and drowning.

He stayed like that for a long while — sprawled in the bottom of his canoe, eyes turned upward to the night sky. Stars blinked faintly between the slivers of mangrove canopy, silent and distant. The full moon still hung high, casting pale silver light that clung to his soaked clothes and bruised lips like a final echo of what just occurred.

He couldn’t move, not at first. His limbs felt like they didn’t belong to him. His lungs only remembered to breathe when the breeze whispered salt against his cheek.

Eventually, on autopilot, he sat up. Mechanically. As if summoned by an invisible thread, he began plucking glass lilies from the edge of the glade — the very thing he had come for, the reason he ventured into this haunted corridor of vines and myth. His fingers trembled as he tucked the luminous flowers into the side of his canoe. Then, silently, he began to row home.

The stars gave way to dawn. The horizon flushed pale pink as he broke from the mangroves and drifted into the open bay.

People stared as he arrived — fishermen pausing mid-net, noblewomen shielding their eyes from the sun to gawk at the returning merchant heir. Whispers rippled along the docks like waves. And when Nicol stepped onto land, drenched and pale, the whispers grew louder.

He walked through the manor doors like a phantom. The grand hall — always bright and filled with footmen and floral scents — was suddenly stifling.

His mother screamed in alarm. His father stood and shouted, voice cracking with worry and disbelief. And Sophia — sweet, wide-eyed Sophia — gasped aloud and clutched her hands to her mouth as if she might cry.

The merchant heir of the Ascart household had returned — but not as he left.

His fine clothes were soaked through, stained by brine and streaked with mud. He reeked of the sea — a heavy, wild saltiness that no perfume could mask. His dark hair, usually groomed to perfection, clung in limp, tangled waves around his face. And his lips — gods, his lips — were swollen and bruised, nearly purple, hanging open as if they’d been ravaged.

Dark claw marks ran in parallel lines across his exposed forearms. Deep. Precise. And unmistakably inhuman.

But worse than all of that — worse than the wounds, the scent, the disarray — was his expression.

He didn’t flinch at his mother’s tears. He didn’t answer his father’s demands — “What happened? Who did this? Are we under threat?” — nor did he even try. He only blinked, slowly, like he’d forgotten how to be present. His eyes were full of something foreign — not fear, not pain — but a haze, like smoke drifting over embers not yet dead. He shrugged off their questions with a barely audible murmur. His voice sounded fainter than usual. Fragile. Not quite there.

Sophia stepped forward, the only one who noticed the tremble in his hand, the silence behind his eyes. She placed a calming hand on their mother’s arm.

“Let him rest,” she said softly. “He’s not ready to talk.”

After a tense silence, their parents reluctantly nodded. Nicol said nothing. He simply turned and trudged upstairs. Every step was slow, deliberate — as though walking through heavy water. He disappeared into his chambers without a word.

That night, Sophia stood outside his room for a long time, one hand pressed against the door. Her eyes were unreadable.

Something serious has happened, she thought. And no one else will understand it but him.

The next two days passed like molasses. Nicol barely left his room. When he did, he only went as far as the window, standing silently as he stared out toward the sea.

Always the sea. Always the smoggy, blue-grey stretch of ocean where the mangroves lay hidden.

He didn’t speak. He barely ate. Staff whispered that he was quieter than ever — a feat they once thought impossible. Even the horses in the stable turned their heads when he passed, as though sensing something had shifted in him. His mother paced the halls in anxious circles. His father wrote urgent letters to the mayor and local priest, fearing a curse or an omen.

But Sophia didn’t join them.

On the third day, she walked into his room, stood beside him at the window, and said only:

“Big brother... why don’t you solve this problem of yours?”

Nicol blinked, surprised.

Sophia had always been clever — witty in a way that was sharp but never cruel. She was the only one who could match his quiet in kind. And in her voice was not pity, but challenge. Encouragement.

It gave him what nothing else had: the will to try.

That evening, just before sunset, Nicol took his canoe and returned to the water. The mangrove forest loomed once more in shadow and light. He followed the same winding path, breath tight in his chest.

But the glade was empty.

He searched. All evening, he wandered — deeper and farther than before, rowing silently through the tight green veins of the forest, eyes scanning every root and shadow. There was no trail. No song. No glimpse of moonlight hair or glowing eyes.

And still he searched the next day. And the day after that.

With each day that passed, his desperation grew more tangled. His thoughts were a whirlpool of emotion: confusion, desire, fear, disbelief. Had it all been a dream? Some madness brought on by exhaustion and moonlight?

No. The bruises on his lips. The marks on his arms. The way her kiss still burned behind his ribs — it was all too real. Too sharp. Too much.

By the sixth day, he had started to believe he would never see her again.

And then —

He saw her.

He was rowing past a small rocky island, barely more than a cluster of jagged stones poking out from the tide, when he caught the shimmer. At first, he thought it was the reflection of light — then his heart dropped into his stomach.

There she was.

The siren. The woman of his dreams — and nightmares.

Perched casually on the largest rock, her tail draped like a banner over the stone, glinting in the golden haze of late afternoon. She looked like she belonged there, sculpted from the sea itself — too vivid to be real. Her hair was damp, wild, clinging to her bare shoulders. Her fingers trailed lazily in the water beside her. Her face tilted toward the sun, her eyes closed as if basking in it.

Then she looked over.

She saw him — and smiled.

A slow, sultry smile that curled at the corners like smoke. She didn’t move. She didn’t call out.

She smiled — slow, knowing, impossibly radiant under the setting sun. “I heard someone was looking for me,” she said, voice like silk poured into his bones. “The mangroves whisper, you know.”

Chapter Text

Nicol gaped.

She was really there — again.

For the past three nights, sleep had evaded him. Every time he closed his eyes, she appeared. The image of her, glittering like a curse under the moonlight, would fill his vision. That kiss — that unholy, world-tilting kiss — had rooted itself into the very seams of his thoughts. He’d lose whole hours just remembering, the memory growing more surreal each time. Surely it hadn’t been real. Surely he’d imagined it. Hadn’t he?

But now — after three days of fruitless searching, chasing rumors of a ripple, a shadow, a whisper in the tides — she was here.

His canoe nosed into the rocky shore of the small, jagged island. It scraped against the sand with a soft grind. Nicol stood up too fast, his legs stiff from rowing and heart too full of shock, and stumbled awkwardly out of the boat.

She laughed — a sound both light and cutting, like silver wind chimes in a storm.

Nicol flushed from head to toe, the heat crawling over his neck and face like fire ants. He could feel it pulsing in his ears.

Was it just him, or did she look... radiant?

Sunlight kissed her wet skin like it belonged there. It sparkled across her damp hair, turning dark chestnut into threads of gold and bronze. The pearlescent scales on her arms and collarbone shimmered in pastel gradients — pinks, blues, soft greens that weren’t quite earthly. Her tail, sprawled out behind her on the warm rock, looked carved from mother-of-pearl and sunlight. She didn’t flinch from the heat. She looked thriving.

Sirens don’t like the sun, he thought faintly. They’re creatures of moonlight. Dwellers of night. Hunters in silver shadow...

Yet here she was, basking like a cat in a patch of warmth — as if she owned the sea and the sky.

“You... you...” Nicol stammered, voice weak with disbelief. His lips still remembered the shape of hers.

“Look who’s here,” she drawled, her tone as smooth as the tides. “You look horrible. Don’t tell me it’s because of me. I didn’t take that much from you.”

Nicol stared, mind awhirl — like a storm trapped in a glass jar. It was because of her. He wanted to say so. But how could he, when she looked like this? Blinding. Ethereal. Like something torn from the pages of a forbidden myth. Her radiance under the sun was a different kind of dangerous — not soft like moonlight, but bold, daring, defiant. The soft glint of her scales made it feel like the sea itself had chosen her.

They were fifteen feet apart, yet Nicol felt like she was breathing straight into his mouth — like her presence was an invisible current tugging at his very soul.

“It’s... you,” he said before he could stop himself — and immediately wished he could swallow the words. What a thing to say. Of course it was her. There was no mistaking that face.

She tilted her head, sharp eyes glinting like sapphires. “What made you look for me like a madman, salt snack?”

He sputtered — sputtered — which he never did, flushing beet red. She laughed again, cruel and melodic, clearly enjoying the sight of him unraveling.

He opened his mouth to retort, but no words came. His tongue was useless. His thoughts were a puddle. She found it adorable.

Nicol shook himself. No — no, this wasn’t why he was here. He wasn’t going to be toyed with. He remembered Sophia’s voice, echoing like a compass star inside him: "Big brother, why don’t you solve this problem of yours?” And he wouldn’t leave until he did.

“Why… why did you kiss me that night?” Nicol asked, flustered like a beet, the words tumbling from his mouth.

The siren tilted her head, properly looking at him for the first time. Her cerulean eyes shimmered with amused curiosity, and for a moment, the sea wind seemed to hush in anticipation.

“Only now you’re asking?” she drawled with mock surprise, her lips curling like a cat’s. “And here I thought you enjoyed it too much to care.”

“That’s not— I mean— I didn’t—” Nicol fumbled, mortified as his voice cracked halfway through like an adolescent boy at his first confession.

This isn’t me, he thought with something close to horror. He was the poised one, the quiet one, the graceful heir of the merchant guild — not this flushed, stammering mess that could barely string a sentence together.

The beauty only grinned, her sharp teeth catching the light like slivers of moonstone. Then she leaned back on her elbows, the warm rock glistening beneath her like a throne. Her voice dropped to something softer — almost reflective. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

She lounged with predatory ease, her shimmering tail curled to the side like a ribbon of moonlit silk. One shimmering fin flicked lazily, scattering droplets across the rock. Her chestnut hair, damp from the sea, clung in loose strands to her pearling neck and collarbones, and her glimmering tail shifted behind her, catching and fracturing the sunlight like a living prism. She looked like some deity of salt and myth, reclining between sea and sky. Her gaze wandered out over the waves as she spoke.

“I like beautiful faces,” said the alluring merwoman simply. Her voice dropped an octave, smoky and indulgent.

Nicol froze, breath caught halfway between chest and throat.

“Pretty ones,” she went on. “The rare ones that shine under moonlight like cut crystal.”

He blinked, stunned. “...So you collect them?”

She laughed — a soft, cruel sound like silver bells in a storm. “Gods, no. I drain them.”

His blood ran cold.

“Their blood,” continued the siren, her tone now almost lazy as she idly twisted a lock of hair around one claw-tipped finger — talons that somehow still looked delicate, elegant. “I don’t need much. One kiss usually does the trick. I don’t devour them or anything — ugh. That’s messy. Wasteful. And I don’t need to. My father’s a Duke of the lower currents, trades in whirlpools and freshwater springs. I have everything I want beneath the sea.”

She leaned forward then, and the sunlight caught her eyes just right — not just blue, but fierce with light, like the sea itself had caught fire. “But blood… mm. That’s like dessert. Human blood tastes like memories. Like sweetness and fear. And yours...”

She licked her lips with a slow, languid motion, then smirked.

“Yours was divine. You tasted like longing and moonlight.”

Nicol opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again, unsure if he should scream or sink into the sea himself.

“So… why did you stop?” he finally managed, voice hoarse as his thoughts spun.

The siren laughed again, more gently this time — almost teasing. “Did you enjoy it too much?”

He burned redder than ever, shoulders drawing in, fingers twitching. His mind was a haze of static and salt, his heart thundering like a war drum.

She only shrugged, feigning carelessness — but something flickered behind her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe I got too full.”

She paused, her gaze falling to the sand between them.

“Or maybe I looked at your stupidly beautiful face and thought...” Her voice turned airily soft. “‘This one shouldn’t die yet.’”

There was a pregnant pause — one that glowed warm and uncomfortable, thick with unsaid words and the shimmer of something dangerous. The air between them crackled like dry leaves catching flame. Nicol didn’t know what to say. His thoughts twisted and whirled like a storm-tossed sea, and his heart thundered in his chest like a war drum, deafening.

Then, very quietly, almost not meaning to say it, Nicol whispered, “You kissed me…”

The siren tilted her head, lashes lowered, her lips curving into a knowing smirk.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been losing sleep over just that,” she drawled, her tone soaked in amusement.

He said nothing. The silence between them deepened, rippling with tension. She leaned forward slowly, with all the languid grace of a predator watching her prey breathe too loudly.

“What is it, pretty face?” she purred. “Do you want another?”

Nicol's eyes widened, his throat going dry. “I—no— I mean—”

She smiled wider, baring the pearly hint of fangs as she slowly licked her teeth — deliberate, lazy, and electric.

Then, without quite knowing why, he nodded.

Just barely. A ghost of a motion. But enough.

The siren blinked, the glimmer in her eyes flickering. She hadn’t expected that. That flicker of longing. That helpless, soft confession, wrapped in a twitch of his chin. It surprised her. Intrigued her. And perhaps, for a second, moved her — deep beneath all the glitter and mockery.

“Gods, you really are hopelessly pretty,” she murmured.

Then she opened her mouth — and sang.

Not words. Not language. A pure, ringing note that hummed with ancient power. The sound shimmered with longing, soaked in honey and salt, spun from shipwrecked lullabies. It didn’t touch his ears so much as it wrapped around his ribs, squeezing. Nicol froze.

He’d heard her hum before. But this — this was a siren’s call. A true lure. Wild and devastating. And it overwhelmed him utterly.

He stepped forward. Slowly. Like gravity had shifted. Like the tides had taken his limbs and claimed them.

He walked toward her, helpless.

The song faded — not with a stop, but a curl, a hum, like moonlight wrung from a dream. It melted into the air, leaving behind a silence too soft to trust. Nicol stood before her, breath caught somewhere between chest and throat, eyes wide, heart a stammering thing. He felt strung taut — like a harp trembling under invisible fingers. His thoughts? Useless. His limbs? Not his. Every nerve buzzed with a heat that didn’t belong to him.

Her tail glittered beneath him like a ribbon of living opal, curling lazily over the rock’s edge. The fins twitched — alert. Alive. Ready. The siren regarded him with a look carved from stormlight and shipwrecks, the kind that weighed a soul before deciding whether to kiss it or devour it whole. She was myth made flesh. Terrible. Beautiful.

His eyes traced the sharp cut of her cheekbone, the soft smudge of sea-dark kohl beneath lashes thick and wet. Her eyes shimmered — sapphires cracked with lightning. Her gaze was too much to bear and too much to turn from, like staring into the eye of a wave just before it broke.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” she murmured, voice low, curving like a hook. One arm rose, unhurried, until her hand curled behind his neck. Her claws skimmed the sensitive nape of his neck — cool, precise, electric. He shivered hard enough to jolt. “Most men don’t. They lose a little blood, a little sense, and they stay away.” She smiled like the sea smiled before it pulled ships under. “They favor life, you know?”

He swallowed. I guess I’m stupidly brave, he thought, or just hopeless. Brave men didn’t wade back into the monster’s mouth. And yet — here he was. Trading his breath, his blood, his reason for a voice and a kiss and something that would never let him go. His family would call him a fool. Sophia would slap him.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he said — quiet, helpless. Truth peeled bare.

She laughed. It was smoke and honey and something cruel. “That’s how it starts,” she said. “Obsession. That’s how the sea takes you. Bit by bit.”

He should’ve stepped back. He almost did. He saw Sophia’s face behind his eyes. His mother’s furrowed brow. But he didn’t move. The tide had already claimed him.

“Why… why did you kiss me?”

“I told you already.” She toyed with a strand of his hair, then traced one claw gently behind his ear. He flinched, breath catching. “You’re beautiful. I wanted to taste you.”

He hesitated. Then, hoarse: “And… now?”

His voice cracked. He hated that. Hated how much he needed her answer.

She tilted her head, slow and elegant. “Now I’m wondering if you taste even better the second time.”

Then came the pull — her claws sliding into his hair, tugging, tender and possessive. Her other hand gripped his shoulder, holding him in place. The heat of her palm soaked through his skin.

And then — she kissed him.

It shattered him.

Her kiss was nothing like he remembered — it was worse. Better. Deeper. Fire, salt, silk, and smoke. Her mouth opened against his with practiced hunger, her tongue flicking sharp, coiling with command. The kiss deepened, dragged him under, stripped away thought. She tasted of storm-brine and sugar, of danger laced with promise. His tongue met hers — tentative, then bolder — and recoiled when it met a scrape of fang. Not enough to draw blood. Just enough to burn.

He gasped into her mouth. Drool slipped from the corner of his lips, caught by her with a hum of satisfaction. He was breathless, ruined, unraveling in her arms. His fingers found her arms, gripping sleek scales warm with sunlight and ocean pulse. Everything else — gone. Just her. Just this.

Let it last. Let it never end.

He was drowning. No water needed.

When she pulled away, their lips parted with a wet gasp. A silvery string of spit stretched between them before breaking. Both of them were panting, breath mingling, hearts unsteady. The siren’s pupils were wide as moons, her cheeks flushed with triumph or heat or hunger. She looked intoxicated.

“Oops,” she whispered, licking her lip slow — almost reverent. “Habit.”

She tapped his mouth, then leaned in once more and sucked softly at the place she’d bitten. A droplet of blood welled up — warm, bright. She caught it with her tongue and hummed, pleased.

Nicol kept his eyes open, glassy and wild, his lashes damp. The world behind her was nothing but smog and blur.

“You always taste like…” she trailed off, blinking slow. Then, with the ghost of a smile, “Like midnight and memory.”

Then — her head turned. The wind shifted. And something in her expression cracked.

Her ears twitched.

A ripple brushed the waves. A pull beneath the surface — subtle but certain, like the tide calling its daughter home. The siren’s smile faltered just slightly. Her gaze sharpened toward the horizon, where the sky was starting to stretch gold at the edges.

“That’s my cue,” she sing-sang, the words light but her tone unreadable. Already, she began to shift back — tail glimmering as she twisted, muscles rippling beneath the glassy sheen of her scales.

Nicol almost forgot to breathe. His heart lurched like a snapped rope in a storm. Something in him screamed — no, not yet, not again — and before he knew it, his hands moved.

“Wait—!”

One hand caught her wrist — slender, sea-slick, chilled like morning dew. The other landed on her tail, gripping instinctively. The touch burned. The iridescent scales scratched his palm like glass set on edge, and he hissed from the sting — but he didn’t let go. Couldn’t. All he knew was that she was slipping away, and it felt like losing air.

“Don’t go,” he breathed. It came out hoarse, smaller than he wanted, thick with things he couldn’t say.

She stilled.

“What the—” she muttered, twisting halfway back in surprise. But she didn’t pull free. Her head tilted, wet hair clinging to her cheek. “I could hurt you, you know.”

“I know.”

He tried to release her, he really did — but his hands didn’t move. Not right away. Not when he could still feel her warmth under his palms. “I’m sorry,” he added, too quickly, too late — but still, he didn’t let go.

The siren looked at him, unreadable at first. Then something softened — not fully, but enough. Her lashes dropped. Her mouth curled, not in amusement, but in something gentler. Something more tired.

“You shouldn’t hold onto things like me, pretty boy.”

She meant to tease. But her voice betrayed her. It came out quiet. Almost... rueful. Maybe it was the way his fingers trembled, or the look in his eyes — open and raw, like a prayer in human form.

“When… will we meet again?”

He hated how his voice cracked. Hated the way he sounded — young. Fragile. Like a boy begging the tide not to recede.

She hesitated. Her gaze searched his face. Her brow furrowed. “You want to meet again?”

He nodded.

“What if I kill you the next time?”

She said it so simply. Like a truth. And maybe it was. She could. She would. That was the nature of her kind. His logic should’ve screamed. His memories of those sleepless days — of longing and confusion, of guilt and obsession — should’ve turned him away.

But all he could feel was the ache in his chest. The hole she had made in him, just by existing. And the desperate, unbearable need to see her fill it again.

“Please,” he whispered. “I… I need to see you.”

She stared. Her pupils dilated, flicking with unreadable emotion. Then slowly, she spoke:

“When the sea decides.”

“When the moon sings.”

“When I’m bored.”

It was the closest thing to a promise she could give.

Nicol stared at her, almost stricken, hands falling to his sides. She was already leaning in. One last time. One breath’s distance between them — and then she tilted her mouth to his ear and whispered, with that velvet voice that would haunt his dreams:

“You’re cute when you’re desperate.”

Then —

Her tail snapped. A gleaming arc of light. The force of it sent Nicol stumbling backward, his legs giving out from under him. He fell, gracelessly, onto the damp rock with a grunt, the sting in his hands nothing compared to the one in his chest.

She laughed — a bright, ringing sound like wind over water — and with one fluid twist, she dove into the waves. Her tail flashed once, catching the sun like a blade made of pearl — then vanished beneath the blue. No splash. No sound.

Only ripples.

Only silence.

Chapter Text

Katarina.

His Katarina.

The name pulsed like a secret against his ribcage — a word he held close, clutched tight like a pearl tucked beneath his tongue. Every morning he found himself whispering it before breakfast, and every evening it was the last thing to leave his lips before sleep. Her name was a tether, delicate and golden, anchoring his waking hours to something more beautiful than the world he was born into. It was a vow whispered to the sea, a secret stitched into the chambers of his heart.

Each day, Nicol found an excuse to disappear. A headache. A delivery. A "walk" that suspiciously ended with the creak of a canoe on the lake's edge. His family learned not to ask. Even his father, though stern, stopped raising an eyebrow. Sophia understood first. She only smiled — soft, knowing — and told their parents not to worry. “Let him have his hours,” she said. “They belong to someone else now.”

Katarina.

He would row out into the golden morning light with gifts in his lap — sweet preserves, jeweled combs, delicate cakes in tiny boxes. He didn’t know what sirens ate, truly, but he remembered the way her eyes lit up when she tasted the lemon tart the first time — surprised, delighted, then utterly loving. He knew then he’d bring her desserts forever.

Katarina.

She told him her name on the tenth day of their meetings. Not with ceremony. Not like a precious secret. She simply said it while half-lounging on a sun-warmed rock, as if the syllables were seafoam: light, vanishing. But Nicol had caught it, held it, repeated it under his breath a hundred times since.

Katarina.

The name didn’t just settle in his mind. It carved itself into his bones — not like a memory, but like a vow.

He sometimes wondered if she knew what she’d done to him. If she understood that this wasn’t a fling, not to him. It wasn’t passing fancy. It wasn’t the enchantment of danger or the sweetness of forbidden waters. It was her. Her laughter, her wit, her strange affection blooming like coral in a tidepool. Her cold hands that sometimes lingered on his wrist longer than they had to. Her eyes, ocean-colored, that softened when she looked at him like he was the first real thing she'd seen on land.

And oh, the way she teased — gods, it drove him mad.

Like one afternoon, when he arrived at the cove to find her lounging sideways on a flat rock, twirling a string of pearls between her fingers like a bored duchess. The moment she saw him, she rolled her eyes in faux irritation.

“You’re late,” she said. “I was almost tempted to sing some poor sailor to his death from boredom.”

“Only almost?” Nicol said, stepping out of the canoe with his basket of pastries. “How merciful.”

“Mercy doesn’t enter it,” she replied, lifting her chin. “I already filled my quota for the week.”

He tried not to smile too fondly, but failed. She always said things like that — half-jokes soaked in real danger. Once, it terrified him. Now, he just found it charming. There was mischief in her, but something gentler beneath it. Like a cat batting at string while sitting in a sunbeam.

She plucked a raspberry tart from the basket and bit into it without ceremony. Crumbs dotted her lower lip, and she wiped them with the back of her hand. “Mm. This one’s good. Bring more.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Damn right!” She laughed, and he swore the sea itself paused to listen.

They sat in quiet for a moment, broken only by the soft splash of waves and the delicate snap of sugar glaze. The air was warm. The cove smelled like salt and crushed lemons.

“You know,” she said suddenly, licking her fingers, “You’re lucky. Most men never get past the first kiss. Let alone… how many has it been? ten?”

He flushed. “Are you keeping count?”

“No. But you are.”

He didn’t deny it.

Then, more softly: “Why do you keep coming back?”

He looked at her — properly. Her wet hair glistened down her back. Her voice was quieter than usual. Almost… unsure.

“Because when I’m with you,” he said, “everything else is dull.”

She blinked. Slowly. Then looked away, flicking a pearl into the water.

“…You say things like that too easily.”

“Only to you.”

There was a long silence. Then:

“You’re weird.”

He laughed. “You’re dangerous.”

She leaned against him just slightly — shoulder to shoulder. “Fair.”

Later that evening, as he braided seaweed into her damp hair, he asked: “How come you speak my language?”

She hummed. “My father’s archives. He collects things — ships, art, tongues. I wanted to lure prettier prey. The dumb ones were getting boring.”

He remembered what she told him once, about her father — a duke of the lower currents. Unlike most underwater nobility, who were cruel and obsessed with power, her father was kind. Eccentric, even. She once described how he hoarded old human records not for strategy, but out of curiosity. Out of love. She said he sang with her as a child, taught her the melodies of storms, let her wander into libraries stacked with stolen ink. He was the one who taught her that not all beauty needs to be devoured.

He raised a brow. “So I’m pretty, then?”

“Excessively.”

He smiled. Then, gently: “You and my little sister, Sophia… I think you two would be great friends, if you ever met.”

She blinked. “You have a sister?”

“She’s clever. Quiet. You’d probably braid each other’s hair and complain about me.”

Katarina grinned. “She sounds like a nice girl.”

He nodded. “She is.”

Another silence. She felt him inching closer. Her eyes slid toward him. Almost rolled them. His hand came to rest lightly on her scaly hip, where skin turned to scale — pearlescent and sharp at the edges. She didn’t pull away. Didn’t warn him off. Instead, she let him press a gentle kiss to her cheek.

“You’re awfully clingy, you know?” she huffed, but her tone was amused. His lips lingered. Her hand drifted to his wrist and stayed there.

Another day, the sky was blue as a bell, the sun warm enough to gild skin but gentle enough not to burn. Nicol sat at the edge of the rock, bare feet dangling just above the water, his shirt sleeves rolled up, eyes tracking every flick of Katarina’s shimmering tail as she floated just out of reach.

“Say it again,” she demanded, chin propped on her hands. Her eyes sparkled like mischief bottled in the form of sapphires.

“You almost got it right last time,” he chuckled. “Try again: ‘You’re pulling my leg.’”

“You are…pulling…my tail?”

Nicol laughed so suddenly it startled a gull from a nearby tree. “Not quite. ‘Pulling my leg.’ It’s a phrase humans use when we think someone’s teasing us.”

She narrowed her eyes with mock offense. “Why would I ever tease you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like a list?”

In one fluid motion, she lunged forward, grabbing his hand and yanking. With a startled yelp, Nicol toppled forward into the sea, clothes and all, landing with a tremendous splash. He surfaced coughing and sputtering, blinking saltwater from his lashes.

“Katarina!”

“Consider it revenge,” she said sweetly, circling him with a grin as wide as the tide. “For all the times you brought pastries and not a single one was chocolate.”

“You could’ve asked!” he sputtered, half-laughing, half-exhilarated . His legs kicked wildly beneath the surface, trying to gain balance and control. “I can’t keep up-”

Her hands found his arms at once. “Shh. I’ve got you.”

He froze. The panic quieted — not completely, but enough. Her grip was cool but firm, and beneath the surface, he felt the slow, languid motion of her tail brushing against his thigh as she held him afloat with casual ease. The water seemed to settle around them, a hush falling over the waves. Nicol let out a shaky breath.

“See?” she said, voice softer now. “You’re floating with me just fine. You trust me, don’t you?”

He nodded, water dripping from his lush lashes. “I do.”

“Foolish boy.” But her tone was full of fondness. She adjusted her hold, guiding him gently through the water. It was clumsy on his part, graceful on hers. A strange sort of dance — all sway and silence and warmth beneath the surface. Their fingers brushed. Then lingered.

Eventually, he found himself half-draped against her, the water buoying their bodies as the sun set fire to the sea around them. He could feel her breath at his ear, the curve of her arm beneath his shoulder. Her tail curled lightly around one of his legs, not to bind — just to feel.

“This is cheating,” he murmured. “You’re doing all the work.”

“I’m the one with the tail,” she said. “Let me have this.”

Their noses brushed. He blinked, startled at how close she suddenly was — her eyes clearer than air, her skin damp and flushed from sun. For one beat, neither of them moved.

Then she kissed him — just like that — underwater, with a quick flick of her wrist and a laugh in her lungs. It was brief but intoxicating, her lips cool from salt, her fingers tangled in his wet shirt. The sea held them, silent and wide and watching.

Before he could deepen the kiss, she pulled away, smiling like the cat who’d licked the cream.

“You’re not ready for that yet,” she whispered, voice teasing, but her eyes held a flicker of something deeper. Something daring.

He blinked, breathless. “Says who?”

“Says me.” She ducked beneath the water before he could argue, her tail flashing once, twice, before she surfaced a few feet away, floating on her back. “Catch me again, and I might reconsider.”

He swam — terribly, awkwardly — after her, grinning like a boy chasing the tide.

Nicol thrashed gracelessly through the water, sputtering as Katarina glided just out of reach, laughing like a bell made of foam and thunder. She moved like a dream — one made of glittering scales and sharp smiles, always just a breath away. His arms ached, his shirt clung to his chest like seaweed, but he didn’t care. He was chasing her, and that was enough.

“You’re cheating,” he gasped again, laughing through the saltwater.

“I’m surviving,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s how I’ve lived this long.”

“Let me catch you, and maybe you’ll live even longer.”

“Tempting,” she said — and then stopped moving.

Nicol didn’t expect it. He collided into her with more force than intended, arms instinctively locking around her waist just to stay afloat. Their bodies bobbed together in the water, tangled and breathless, the ocean holding them like two secrets not meant to be found.

Katarina’s eyes met his. The teasing was still there, but it dulled around the edges, like a knife being sheathed. Something heavier settled in its place — something slow and crackling. The only sounds now were the wet push of waves and the frantic beat of Nicol’s heart.

Her arms slid around his shoulders, slick and sure. His fingers rested at her hips, uncertain at first, then bolder. He didn’t pull her closer — not exactly. He just stopped pretending he didn’t want to.

“You’re getting better at touching me,” she murmured, voice low and wry against his ear. “Should I be worried?”

“Only if you want me to stop.”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned in and pressed her forehead to his. The tip of her nose brushed his, her breath warm and wet between them.

“You look ruined already,” she whispered. “And I’ve barely started.”

“Maybe I’m a little in love with being ruined by you.”

Her mouth curved, but she didn’t laugh this time. Not really. She searched his face for something — a hesitation, maybe. A fear. But all she found was a boy too far gone to lie. A boy whose hands shook slightly against her scales. A boy who looked at her like she was the miracle, not the myth.

So she kissed him again — slower, deeper, less like a tease and more like a promise. Her lips moved over his with intent now, tasting him like sugar melting on the tongue. His mouth parted for her willingly, helplessly, and when her tongue flicked into his mouth, he gasped into her — not from surprise, but want. Her tail wound softly around one of his legs, anchoring him to her.

This time, the kiss didn’t end in a laugh or a taunt. It built, hot and thick and molten. Her hands slid into his hair, wet and tousled, gripping as though trying to keep herself still. His fingers found the small of her back, pulling her against him in the water. They fit. Somehow, impossibly — they just fit.

When they broke apart, it was only for breath. Her lips were redder now, slick, and his eyes were glazed with something sweet and aching.

“That,” she said, breath hitching, “was more than you're ready for.”

“I’m always ready for you.”

She rolled her eyes, but her smile was wide. “Gods, you're trouble.”

He touched his forehead to hers again, smiling softly. “Only yours.”

They drifted to the shallows eventually — not in any rush, not with the sea holding them like that. The waves pushed them gently toward the shore, and when the sand finally brushed Nicol’s knees, he realized his arms had never left her waist.

Katarina leaned against him, damp and glittering like a jewel born from shipwrecks. Her head rested against his shoulder, eyes half-lidded, lips slightly swollen from their kiss. She looked content. Lazy. Almost... human.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured, brushing a hand back through her wet hair. Salt clung to her lashes.

“I’m comfortable.” Her voice was thick with sun and softness. “Don’t ruin it.”

He chuckled and didn’t try to speak again. Instead, he shifted to sit on the sand, letting her tail stretch across his lap like a strange and precious offering. The scales shimmered pale lavender and green under the sun, razor-sharp in places, soft in others. He let his hand trail over them lightly, not caring that they nicked him when she moved. He liked the sting. It reminded him she was real.

She watched him for a moment, then tilted her head against his chest with a sigh. “This is new,” she murmured. “No one’s ever stayed after.”

“Then they were idiots.”

“They were prey.”

He frowned. “And I’m not?”

She smirked, eyes fluttering shut. “Not always.”

They lay like that for a while, sun on their skin, tide whispering stories at their feet. A gull cried overhead. The moment was still — the kind that only comes once in a long, long while. A pocket of peace.

“You should be afraid of me,” she said softly, not looking at him.

“I was.”

She opened one eye. “And now?”

He looked down at her — her wild hair, her dangerous mouth, the way her fingers curled loosely over his wrist like an anchor she wasn’t aware she’d dropped. He smiled, small and true.

“Now I think I was always meant to find you.”

Katarina blinked — and for a moment, she looked like she might kiss him again. But instead, she curled closer, hiding her face in the curve of his throat.

“You say things like that too easily,” she whispered, voice barely a breath.

“Only to you,” he whispered back, his lips in her hair.

Her hand slipped under his shirt, resting lightly against his ribs. “Say my name.”

“Katarina.”

“Again.”

“Katarina.”

“Again.”

He kissed her temple. “Katarina.”

She let out a low, quiet hum. “Good boy.”

And they stayed like that — tangled on the sand, half in water, half out — until the sun began to dip, and the horizon burned gold. He looked down at her, salt-damp hair pressed to his chest, and she tilted her head up, eyes heavy-lidded, mouth already parting.

When he kissed her, it was slow and molten. Her mouth opened beneath his with a soft sound, and his tongue brushed gently against hers — just once, just enough to make her shiver. She answered with a sigh, her fingers curling into his shirt like she couldn’t decide whether to hold him close or pull him under.

He kissed her — slow, unhurried — like they had all the time in the world.

And maybe, just maybe, in that moment... they did.

Chapter Text

The sun was soft that day.

Not shy, but mellow — a golden hush draped over the sea, casting warm kisses across the jagged rocks of the island, where Katarina lounged like something carved from myth and salt and the memory of shipwrecks. She lay sprawled across a sun-warmed slab of stone, one elbow propped lazily, her back arched just enough to catch every drop of light. Her hazelnut curls, still damp, clung to her shoulders like ribbons of kelp-touched silk, glinting where they dried. The scales along her hips shimmered with every slow breath — iridescent hues of lilac, pearl, and moonstone green, rippling like treasure just beneath the tide. Her bare arms stretched above her head, one clawed hand lazily spinning a pebble between her fingers, like a queen toying with fate.

Nicol sat cross-legged at her side, devotion etched into every careful movement. He was silent, reverent, his hands busy at the curve of her tail where stubborn seaweed clung in thick little knots. He worked slowly, untangling each thread with gentle fingers, grazing where skin turned to razor-edged shimmer. Her tail flicked occasionally in idle satisfaction, brushing his thigh — not to tease, but to ground herself in his presence. Saltwater still beaded on her skin, caught like glass against her collarbone, and her expression — half-lidded, drowsy with sunlight — made him think of lullabies the ocean must have once sung for gods.

Above, gulls wheeled like lazy ghosts, crying out across the cloudless sky. The sea purred below them, foam curling like lace at the island's feet. Between them sat a small, silver box lined with velvet — filled with chocolate truffles, each glistening like tiny treasures. Katarina plucked one between her fingers and bit down, letting the syrup run down the corner of her mouth without care.

Nicol watched her — the way her lashes lowered, how her throat moved as she swallowed — and felt the ache of something almost holy stir in his chest. How could something so dangerous make him feel so safe?

“You’ve got some on your face,” he said softly, rising to his knees, a devastatingly beautiful smile tugging at his lips.

She tilted her head, eyes sharp with amusement as she raised one clawed hand and slowly dragged her thumb across her lower lip, smearing the syrup a little more instead of wiping it clean. "Then why don’t you have a taste yourself?”

Before he could blink, she had his collar in her grip — claws catching against the weave of his shirt — and pulled him down with feral grace. Their mouths met in a kiss that was all teeth and sweetness and heat, the suddenness of it dragging a small gasp from Nicol’s chest. Her mouth was cool from the truffle, slick with chocolate, and when her tongue found his, he moaned low, trembling into her. His hands settled instinctively at her waist, fingers brushing across the velvet-slick swell of her tail, unsure where skin ended and magic began. Her body shivered in response.

Katarina raked her claws through his hair, pressing closer, angling the kiss until their breaths melted into one. Her tongue moved with slow wickedness, curling and tasting him as if she meant to consume. Then—

She bit him.

His breath shattered. A broken sound tore from his throat as pain flared sharp and sudden — her fangs had sunk into the soft of his lower lip, just enough to draw blood. He gasped, trembling, his grip on her tightening instead of breaking.

She drank.

Blood welled in her mouth, copper-sweet and human. Katarina’s breath hitched. Her lips pressed harder. She drank, not in a frenzy, but needfully — like something starved of warmth. His taste curled down her throat like wine. His blood was warm, briny, electric against her tongue — a taste she’d craved in dreams she hadn’t dared admit. It wasn’t frenzy, not yet, but there was a depth to it. A darkness. She drank because she needed it, because something in her was starving and only this boy’s devotion could fill it. Her claws dug into his back, and he let her. No protest. Just shuddering breath and trembling hands.

She didn’t even realize her claws had tightened against his back.

Then he sagged. His breath slowed. His lashes fluttered — and it broke the trance.

Her eyes flew open, and horror snapped through her spine.

“No—” she gasped, and pushed him away with a force that echoed more panic than strength. Nicol stumbled backward, landing on the stone with a grunt, his mouth red, lips bruised, blood smeared down his chin.

He tried to sit up. “Katarina—”

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, frozen, breath ragged. Her voice cracked at the edges. “I didn’t realize—”

He reached for her, fingers gentle. “I’m fine. I swear, I’m fine. It didn’t hurt that badly.”

But she didn’t hear him. Her eyes were locked on his mouth, the bloom of bruising on his lip, the slow trail of red. Her gaze darted to her claws. Her hands. His collarbone, where a pinprick cut still welled.

“If I hadn’t stopped—” she choked. “If I’d taken more—”

“But you didn’t.”

He moved to her again, slower this time, and when he reached her, he pulled her into his arms. Her body remained stiff, stone-tensed with shock, but she let herself be held. He cradled her like something sacred, tucking her head beneath his chin. One hand slipped into her hair, the other stroked soft, grounding circles at the small of her back.

“You didn’t mean to,” he murmured, still holding her. “I know that. I promise, I’m okay.”

He let out a shaky breath, brushing her hair back from her face. “Yeah, it hurt. And yeah... I was scared for a second.” His voice cracked a little, honest. “But then I looked at you. And all I saw was you.”

He leaned his forehead to hers. “So don’t look at me like I should be running. I’m still here. I want to be here. I’ll bleed for you if I have to — just don’t push me away because you’re scared too.”

She trembled in his arms, still shallow, lips parted like she wanted to speak — but nothing came. The metallic taste lingered on her tongue. She’d tasted him. Taken him. And he had not recoiled. Her mind raced. She could still taste him. Still feel the warmth of his pulse. Her body had responded without thought — instinct, hunger, power. And he had let her. Willingly. Gods, what kind of man did that?

But something inside her recoiled. Not from him. From herself.

What if one day she didn’t stop?

She pressed her face into his chest, trembling. Her claws curled slightly into his shirt, not to hold, but to keep from vanishing. From breaking. The sun faded behind clouds now, soft gold swallowed by gray. Wind stirred the sea, and the water shifted in tone — no longer just lapping gently, but whispering with purpose. With change.

And far across the open blue, just beyond the line where sea kissed sky, black sails began to rise.

The tide had turned,

The sea was calm.

Not still — never still — but calm in the way a beast rests between hunger. The waves lapped gently against the hull of the ship, sails billowing with lazy pride, sunlight glinting off polished brass and lacquered wood.

Across the sea, Geordo leaned against the ship’s railing, golden hair tousled by saltwind, his piercing blue eyes — sharp as broken glass, framed by lashes too pretty for a pirate — drifting toward the horizon like he was searching for something he couldn’t name.

He had once worn a crown. A perfect son to a perfect kingdom. His smile had charmed a nation, his sword had impressed generals twice his age, and his bloodline dripped with centuries of power. He was born into silks, trained in diplomacy, and praised for every breath. But beneath the layers of gold and grace, he had suffocated. The palace was no kingdom — only a polished cage with velvet bars and expectations like chains. Every bow, every court dance, every calculated word had carved pieces out of him until he’d smiled like a prince and felt nothing at all.

He remembered the exact moment everything shifted.

Years ago, on a diplomatic voyage, he'd stood like this — bored out of his skull, staring at the sea — when something in the water moved. A shape, dark and sinuous, unmistakably feminine. Not a trick of the current. Not human. She surfaced just long enough for him to see her: hazelnut-brown hair slicked dark against her cheeks, eyes glowing kohl-blue beneath long lashes, and lips curved into a smirk that seemed to say, I know something you don’t.

Then she was gone. Swallowed by the sea.

That moment lodged in his mind like a splinter. That smirk — not cruel, but knowing. Amused. Powerful. It hadn’t mocked him. It had dismissed him. Like she understood something about the world he never would — unless he went and found it.

He abandoned his crown within the year.

“Captain?” a voice called behind him. One of his crew — boots thudding against wood. “We’ll be reaching Port Cerulia by dawn.”

Geordo didn’t turn. Just nodded once, eyes narrowing as gulls wheeled in the orange light. Port Cerulia. The merchant city. A restock, a few trade deals, a brief diplomatic stay. Spices. Gunpowder. Gold. The usual.

The Ascart family had agreed to host him — one of the older merchant houses. Rich, respectable, harmless.

Or so he thought.

He hadn’t expected to be housed at the Ascart estate for an entire week — the negotiations dragged on, merchants bickered like spoiled children, and the paperwork multiplied with each polite delay. Geordo tolerated it all with the easy boredom of someone used to getting what he wanted... eventually.

It was a well-appointed estate — too opulent to be tasteful, all polished mahogany and imported silks — but its people were harmless. Pleasant. Forgettable.

Except for one.

He noticed Nicol the moment they were introduced. Of course he did. Anyone would.

The Ascart heir had the kind of beauty that didn’t belong in merchant halls. Fine-boned, ink-haired, skin like moon-pale porcelain. He looked like he belonged behind harp strings or under soft candlelight — not buried in ledgers and trade agreements. Beautiful, yes. But dull. Polite. Silent.

Geordo marked the observation, then tucked it away. Pretty men were hardly a rarity in court or sea. Most blurred together after a while.

So he dismissed him.

Until the second day.

They crossed paths in the corridor before dawn. Geordo was returning from the stables. Nicol — pale and damp, hair tousled by wind — was slipping inside from the servants’ door at the side of the manor, clutching a familiar paper box tied with twine. The boy startled slightly when their eyes met.

“You’re up early,” Geordo said casually, tilting his head.

“So are you,” Nicol replied smoothly, voice quiet but even.

But what Geordo noticed was this: Nicol’s lips. Bitten, bruised — not just red, but raw, like they’d been kissed too long. Or too hard. A dark flush rose along his neck, curling beneath his collar like a secret too fresh to hide.

And just like that — Geordo’s indifference turned to interest.

The next morning, it happened again. Nicol left at dawn, returned before breakfast. Hair windblown. Shirt damp at the hem. Box of desserts in hand.

Evening — same pattern. He’d slip away before sunset, come back with salt on his cuffs and that distant, dazed look in his eyes. Once, Geordo saw a smudge of blood on his throat, half-wiped clean. Another time, a velvet pouch of pearls clutched in his hand, his lips trembling just slightly — like someone who’d tasted something sweet, and dangerous.

Geordo’s curiosity snapped awake. And Geordo, once curious, didn’t rest until he had answers.

That evening, he found Nicol in the garden — under a tree with a book in hand, curled like a cat pretending to nap.

“Heir of the house, hiding among flowers,” Geordo drawled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were avoiding me.”

Nicol didn’t flinch. He looked up, expression unreadable. “Good evening, Captain.”

“Evening indeed,” Geordo said, stepping closer. “You always vanish at the prettiest hours of the day. One might think you’ve got a lover stashed in the treetops.”

Nicol closed his book carefully. “You’re very imaginative.”

“No,” Geordo murmured, eyes narrowing, “just observant.”

He let his gaze trail — pointed, slow — over Nicol’s collar. A pale mark, a fresh one, bloomed faintly near the hollow of his throat. Not a bruise. Not a scratch. A bite.

Geordo smiled. Not kindly.

“Tell me, heir,” he said, voice like velvet over a blade, “do all your business partners leave you looking like prey?”

Nicol didn’t answer. Not directly. But the flicker of discomfort in his eyes — the way his fingers tightened around the spine of his book — was enough.

There was something almost devoured about him. As if he’d been undone slowly, and didn’t mind.

It unsettled Geordo. And intrigued him.

“That’s a fresh mark,” he said idly, nodding to the faint red line beneath Nicol’s ear.

Nicol’s fingers brushed over it instinctively — too fast, too guilty. “Scratched myself shaving.”

Geordo’s brow arched. “Must be quite the razor.”

Silence followed. Then Nicol shut the book, stood, and bowed slightly. “If you’ll excuse me, Captain. I need to deliver something to the docks.”

“Ah, yes,” Geordo said, watching him leave. “Desserts and lies.”

He said it softly. But he knew Nicol heard.

Geordo laughed under his breath and walked away, not pushing further. Not yet.

But he would.

Because something in that boy was claimed. And Geordo intended to find out what was doing the eating.

Chapter Text

On the fourth morning, just before sunrise, Geordo slipped out.

He moved like a shadow over water — cloak drawn close, boots muffled against the damp earth. From a safe distance, he kept the faint outline of Nicol’s canoe in sight as it cut through the glassy sea. He let the cliffs hide him. Let the wind speak for him. The sky was still navy above, barely touched by pink, and the world held its breath in the hour between night and day.

Nicol looked different in that hour. Less guarded. There was an urgency to the way he rowed, each stroke of the oars fast, practiced, eager. Like a man chasing something sacred. His expression, caught in flashes, wasn’t blank or distant — but lit from within. Excited. Desperate. Devoted.

Geordo followed silently, the dark cliffs concealing his path. When Nicol finally docked at a narrow cove hidden by overhanging trees and jagged rocks, Geordo veered uphill, climbing high. He crouched between boulders and peered down, sharp eyes fixed on the shoreline below.

And then he saw her.

Perched on a smooth slab of rock half-submerged in the tidepool’s curve, she lounged with the casual indifference of something ancient and powerful — a goddess who’d never known fear. The first light of dawn spilled over the sea like liquid gold and painted her in shades of rose and fire.

Her tail glinted as it swayed — a ribbon of pearlescent ivory, laced with lilac and sea-glass hues, curling around the stone like silk. The wide, translucent fin at the end flexed gently with the pulse of the sea. Even still, it moved — living art bathed in molten light.

Her hair was wet and dark, a deep inky brown that clung to her back in sleek, shining strands. It was swept to one side over her collarbone, revealing the pale, ridged nape of her neck — and those subtle, iridescent lines beneath her skin that shimmered faintly, not quite human. Her skin itself was luminous, a soft shell-like gleam. The curves of her body were half-hidden beneath the rise of her tail, but her posture made her impossible to look away from — utterly unbothered, utterly regal.

Her face was all sharp grace and lethal symmetry — narrow, kohl-lined eyes with long wet lashes; a high brow flecked with tiny nacreous shimmer like crushed pearl; a long, fine nose; and lips shaped like sin, plush with a defined cupid’s bow. And her eyes — gods, those eyes — glowed a searing azure. Like glacier ice under moonlight. Piercing, unblinking, unreal. When she blinked, it was slow and sultry, as if time didn’t matter. When she opened them again, it felt like the whole sea exhaled.

Geordo froze, crouched in the rock’s shadow, something sharp rising in his chest.

He knew her.

Not her name. Not her voice. But the smirk. That gaze. That face. The memory seared through him like fire meeting oil — a girl in the water, long ago, looking up at a royal ship with a knowing gleam and a smile that mocked the world.

He hadn’t imagined her. She was real.

And she was his.

Except she wasn’t looking at him.

She was watching Nicol.

Katarina was too focused to notice the second set of eyes.

Geordo kept to the cliffs — crouched low between sea-slick stone and bramble, cloaked in rising mist. He didn’t breathe too loudly. Didn’t blink too fast. Every movement was measured and silent, honed by the instincts of a man who had learned to hunt both storm and secret. The wind masked his scent. The hush of waves masked his breath. But it was Katarina’s focus — wholly, hungrily on the boy in the canoe — that rendered him invisible.

She raised a clawed hand lazily and flicked her wrist. The metallic click rang out, sharp and unmistakable.

And then she spoke —

“Come here.”

Two simple words, smooth and fluid in the human tongue.

Geordo's brows twitched.

She speaks their language? The surprise rippled through him, quiet and sharp. He hadn’t expected that. There was something unsettling — and oddly thrilling — in hearing that voice shaped for his world.

It made her feel closer. More dangerous. More real. She said it not sultry, not teasing, just quiet and unreadable. Her voice held no amusement. Her eyes gave nothing away.

Nicol didn’t hesitate. He paddled in fast, tied the canoe, and practically leapt onto the rocks. Wind had tousled his hair, and his face was pink with anticipation — like he’d run barefoot through fire just to reach her. “Hey,” he breathed, climbing toward her. The sound was low and soft — not shy, but reverent. A voice Geordo didn’t recognize in him. Adoration lived in that word like prayer.

Geordo’s mouth flattened. His eyes narrowed to a blade-thin line.

Nicol knelt before her without pride or hesitation — not like a suitor, but something more dangerous. A man who’d given up reason.

Katarina cupped his face in both clawed hands, and Nicol inhaled sharply — a choked breath that made his chest stutter. But he didn’t flinch. He leaned into her touch like it was gravity. Her thumb brushed his mouth with a careful pressure — tender, but not apologetic.

“Almost healed,” she murmured.

His lips were still red — raw in places, with that flushed wine-dark coloring that came only from feverish, endless kissing. Bruised, bitten. The marks were dulling now, softening at the corners. But she saw them. Remembered them. And the look in her eyes — serious, soft, still — made it clear she hadn’t forgotten what she’d done.

“I told you,” he whispered, his voice like warm tidewater, “it wasn’t serious.”

She looked down at him, unsmiling, and for a heartbeat said nothing. But then —

His hands found her waist, sliding down to where her skin shimmered into the scales of her tail. They rested gently there, right in the transition — skin to scale, human to siren — as if it was the most natural place in the world to hold her. Morning light crowned them both in silver and soft gold. The world seemed to hush for them. It looked painted.

Geordo clenched his fists into the stone. His knuckles scraped the rough edges, but he felt nothing. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t even anger.

It was rage.

Katarina tilted her head and leaned in. Her lashes dropped, and she kissed him lightly on the mouth — a whisper-soft touch, too brief to satisfy. A kiss not meant to stir, but to soothe. Nicol trembled beneath her. His shoulders shook, though his hands remained steady at her waist, like he was forcing himself to hold still and not fall entirely into her.

Geordo stared. His pulse kicked against his ribs. The cliff beneath him might as well have vanished — only her remained. Her mouth. Her hand in Nicol’s hair. The way she looked down at him, like she owned him.

She kissed him again, slower this time — lips parting, tongue slipping out to taste the bruise she'd left behind. It was possessive. It was gentle. It was obscene.

Nicol gasped — a breathy, broken thing — and tried to follow her as she pulled away.

But she didn’t let him. Her hands stayed firm. Her body stayed still.

Geordo’s thoughts, until now restrained, unraveled.

She ran her claws through Nicol’s dark hair, slicking it back from his brow with delicate, claiming strokes. Not careless. Not idle. Reverent. Like she was preparing him for an altar, or pulling him back from the edge of some storm. There was ownership in her hands. In her stare.

And Nicol… Nicol looked peaceful. He closed his eyes. Let her move him. His mouth parted slightly as he exhaled, body soft and warm and safe in her arms.

Geordo gritted his teeth. His mind burned. He didn’t need to guess what they’d done. The evidence was there — on Nicol’s lips, on his throat, in the slow drag of her claws across his skull. In the devotion in his breath.

“You can’t,” Katarina murmured, her voice so quiet even the wind seemed to lean in. “Don’t you remember what I did?”

Her hand slowed in his hair, her nails now tracing idle patterns along his scalp. Not threatening — just a quiet, cruel tenderness, like remembering the taste of something forbidden.

“Do you think that’ll stop me from craving you?” Nicol breathed. His voice was a vow. A promise he’d bleed for.

He leaned in until their foreheads met. Their noses brushed. Their mouths hovered — not kissing, not yet — just breathing each other in. The entire cove seemed to pulse around them.

“Pfft.” Katarina laughed suddenly, the sound light and cutting like sea-foam breaking on rock. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t shy.

It was hers.

“What a stupid man you are,” she said, and smirked.

And that was it.

That smirk.

Geordo’s lungs locked. He didn’t blink. Didn’t move. The ocean could have risen and swallowed him whole and he would not have noticed.

She had smirked at him once, years ago — just like that. From beneath the waves. With that same gleam in her eyes. That same curve of lips that looked too human to belong to anything else, and too cruel to be human at all.

She was real.

And she was not his.

Katarina curled her arms around Nicol’s shoulders and pulled him closer, kissing him again. Slower. Deeper. As if nothing else mattered. Nicol melted into her touch, hands drifting up her spine, mouth parting wider. Their kiss was a slow worship — a lullaby for monsters and men.

Geordo’s hands curled so tight into the cliff edge that his palms bled.

She’s mine.

His chest rose with a slow, deliberate breath.

She’s mine, she’s mine, she’s mine.

He would find a way. He would make one.

He should have turned away.

Should have left — marched back to his borrowed room, drowned himself in rum or trade ledgers, pretended he hadn’t seen what he’d seen. Pretended he didn’t care.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

Geordo stayed hidden in the crags above the cove, muscles locked, jaw aching, as the scene below unfolded like a cruel painting meant just for him.

Nicol was now draped against her, his dark head resting lazily against the curve of her neck. His lips brushed her skin in slow, absent kisses — not the desperate kind Geordo might expect from a man drunk on desire, but something far worse. Intimacy. Familiarity. A routine worship, like this wasn’t the first morning Nicol had buried himself in her like that. Like he belonged there.

One of Nicol’s hands had curled around her waist — that strange line where soft skin faded into shimmering scale — fingers tracing gentle, circling patterns as though he were trying to memorize her by touch alone. The other hand wandered, slow and idle, trailing up her back, occasionally tangling in her damp curls as she leaned into him.

Katarina didn’t stop him. She barely even looked at him. She just let it happen — lazily popping another cake from the woven basket into her mouth, reclining against the rock as though this was just any sunlit morning. Her tail flicked now and then, catching the light with casual beauty. She looked every inch a creature of legend, basking like a cat who’d eaten her fill and had nothing left to fear.

Geordo could hardly breathe.

He felt searing heat flood his chest — too much heat, not enough air. Rage and want tangled, clawing against his ribs. She should have looked at him that way. She should have smirked at him like that. He’d followed that expression across oceans. He’d abandoned his title, his throne, his whole life for it. And now?

She laughed for someone else. Bit someone else. Let someone else hold her like he deserved to.

She’s mine.

The thought came fast, loud, uninvited.

She’s mine, mine, mine.

His nails scraped the stone. He wanted to shout, to leap down and take her — drag her out of Nicol’s arms and remind her who she belonged to. That smirk had called him across the years. It had set fire to everything he was. She couldn’t have smiled like that at just anyone.

No.

He would not let this stand. He refused to let the soft-spoken heir keep what should have been his.

Geordo rose slowly, retreating from the cliff's edge. His heart thundered, his mind a roaring sea of plans and obsession. He didn’t know what she was yet — siren, goddess, nightmare — but he knew this:

She was real. She was here.

And she was going to be his.

No matter what it took.

The sea hushed beneath the lavender sky.

Evening draped itself across the shore like silk, dimming the world in soft violets and fading golds. The tide whispered against the rocks, gentle and low, as if too reverent to disturb the two figures tangled near the water’s edge.

Katarina lay draped over Nicol’s body, her cheek pressed into the hollow of his neck, lips brushing the pulse beneath. Her arms, bare and strong, circled his ribs; her tail coiled beneath him, tucked between his legs — cool scales pressing into the warmth of his thighs like an anchor. They were wrapped around each other in a slow, steady stillness, like waves that refused to part.

Nicol’s fingers traced the curve of her spine, barely thinking, eyes half-lidded as he stared into the coming dusk. His other hand rested at her waist, stroking her side where soft skin met scale, just to feel her breathing. Her weight against him wasn’t heavy. It felt like gravity. Like something meant to be there.

She hadn’t spoken in minutes. Just the occasional breath. A small nudge of her nose into his neck. He thought she might have fallen asleep — until her voice came, rough and quiet.

“You know I care about you, right?”

He didn’t answer. Not right away. The tide pulled back, exhaled.

“Even if it’s just for a little bit,” she added, so softly it almost hurt.

Nicol turned his head, just enough to press his lips into her hair. He closed his eyes, held her tighter. He didn’t need to ask what she meant.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’d still choose you. Even if I only had one day.”

Her claw traced the bruise at the corner of his mouth — absently, delicately. A wound she’d left, a mark she hadn’t meant to give. He kissed her fingertip in reply, a silent forgiveness that made her throat close.

For a long time, neither of them moved.

The tide shifted. The sky dimmed. The world turned slowly around them, but Nicol only saw her — Katarina, with her damp lashes and sea-warm skin, curled against him like something that belonged there. Like she always had.

He felt her tail twitch once against his legs, but otherwise she was still — not asleep, not tense, just... listening.

So he spoke.

“I’ve fallen for you,” he said quietly, the words barely above the sound of the surf. “I think you know that already, but I want to say it. Clearly.”

Her head didn’t move, but her hand stilled against his chest.

“I love you.”

There. It was out. A terrible, beautiful truth laid bare like a shipwreck cracked open on coral. His heart thudded painfully as he went on.

“I’ll give you anything I have. My time. My attention. Every dessert you like — lemon tart, raspberry cakes, even those sugared violets I found last week.” He gave a small, nervous laugh. “I’ll give you my blood, if you ask for it.”

Her fingers curled slightly, claws catching his shirt.

“But I won’t ask for more than you’ll give,” he said, softer now. “I don’t want to own you, or cage you. I just want to be with you. For as long as you’ll let me.”

That made her shift — not away, but up. Slowly, she raised her head and looked at him fully, and her eyes were impossible to read. Ancient. Torn between curiosity and disbelief.

“That’s all you want?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Her expression flickered — something quick, unguarded. A crack in her usual confidence. She looked almost... troubled.

“You’re not like the others,” she muttered. “You don’t chase power. You don’t crave danger. You don’t even ask for my song.”

“I don’t need it,” he said simply. “You’ve already ruined me without it.”

She blinked, once, slowly. Then looked away — out to the sea, to the darkening horizon.

Silence stretched between them like spun glass. He didn’t break it.

Finally, she said, “I’m not sure what I want yet.”

He nodded. “That’s okay.”

She glanced back at him — and something about the way he smiled, small and genuine, as if her uncertainty didn’t hurt him, made her chest ache.

“I’ll answer you,” she said at last. “When I feel like it.”

He leaned forward, brushing her forehead with his lips. “I’ll be here.”

And with that, she let herself relax again. Rested her head on his chest once more, quieter this time. Not purring. Not teasing. Just... quiet.

The waves whispered around them like old lullabies. The sun sank. The stars blinked open one by one.

And for now, that was enough.

The gulls had quieted. The sky dimmed. In another cove, another man burned. But here, under the weight of salt and breath and skin, time did not exist. Only the ache. Only the warmth. Only now.

Chapter Text

The sky had turned strange again — low-hanging clouds like bruises, stitched in dull lavender and slate — and the days that followed were long, cruel things.

Ever since Nicol returned from the cove that evening, something had shifted. It began with a run-in he hadn’t anticipated — one that made his skin crawl.

He’d turned a corner in the lower estate hall, only to find Geordo standing there, half-cast in shadow, the scent of sea wind trailing behind him. His coat was immaculate, silver buttons gleaming, and his smile — razor-thin and gleaming — curved like a blade.

“Evening, Heir of Ascart,” the captain drawled.

Nicol stiffened. He almost forgot he wasn’t alone on land. He’d almost forgotten the presence of the pirate prince entirely — and now, here he was, grinning like he knew things he shouldn’t.

“You’re later than usual,” Geordo added, voice smooth as honeyed wine. “Trouble rowing? Or perhaps something more… indulgent keeping you?”

Nicol’s brows pulled, but he said nothing. Just nodded stiffly. “Good evening,” he murmured.

“Ah well,” Geordo chuckled, already turning on his heel. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t be late to the meeting.”

“What meeting?” Nicol called after him. But the man was already gone.

And that was the beginning.

The rain started that night, a heavy curtain of mist and chill, and it hadn’t stopped since. Neither had the meetings. One after another — unexpected delegations, urgent merchant reports, revised shipping contracts. New schedules arrived daily, each thicker than the last. Nicol barely had time to sleep, let alone slip away to the sea.

It was Geordo. He didn’t have proof, but he knew it like he knew his own heartbeat. The pirate prince was behind this — meddling, manipulating, smiling all the while like it was a game.

And worst of all, it was working.

His visits with Katarina grew scarce. Every hour he stole to see her was borrowed time. He could feel her noticing. The second time he arrived late, soaked from the surf and panting from the run, she was already reclining on her stone, arms crossed and expression unreadable.

“A bit late, aren’t you?” she huffed — but the moment she caught sight of his exhausted smile, her tone faltered.

“I apologize,” Nicol said softly, brushing water from his lashes. “I’m going to be... busy these next two weeks. More than usual.”

She watched him carefully. He looked thin, sleep-starved. Like something precious was draining out of him. Her hand reached up — slow, casual — and with the back of her claws, she slicked his damp hair back from his forehead.

He shuddered under the touch. Not from cold.

“I was joking, silly,” Katarina muttered, lips quirking. “It’s not like you’re going to die just because you can’t see me for a few days.”

But oh, it felt like dying.

Every moment apart from her left him aching. He missed the glint in her eye when she teased him. The sharpness of her wit. The way she tore into lemon tart with a glee that made him forget every rule of etiquette he’d ever learned. He missed the mornings curled beside her, the evenings thick with her perfume and the taste of salt on her skin. Seeing her once a day had become his anchor — now he was adrift, and the world seemed crueler for it.

“Then don’t meet me,” Katarina had said suddenly, and Nicol flinched like she’d struck him.

“How can you say that?” he’d asked, voice raw.

But she just laughed — that bright, musical, seafoam laugh that cracked through clouds. “Alright, alright. I’ll be here,” she said with a soft grin, her eyes turning more serious. “Just don’t push yourself. You’ll break, and I don’t want that.”

He nearly sank to his knees right then, flooded with something between devotion and relief. She was kinder than she admitted. And smarter than she let on.

So he worked. He obeyed his schedule. But the days bled into one another like ink in water, until one morning, his father handed him a timetable that made his soul deflate at first glance.

“You’ll be assisting me directly today,” the merchant lord said. “From sunrise to dusk. No exceptions.”

Nicol nodded, heart sinking. He could already feel the loss — the absence of Katarina’s voice, her gaze, the smell of salt and citrus and mystery. Even now, as the carriage rocked down the road, he found himself staring out the window, picturing her biting into a tart, juice running down her fingers, her expression proud like she’d hunted it herself.

He never saw the figure slip down the dock behind him. Never saw the gold-haired captain, boots silent against the boards, stepping into Nicol’s little canoe with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

The oars dipped. The sea opened.

And Geordo, now unobserved, began his own journey toward the hidden cove.

Katarina swam lazily through the shallows, her tail flicking through the water in slow, sweeping motions. The sea was quiet today — waves humming low like a lullaby, the tide warm and slow. She made her way to the usual rock where she and Nicol always met, her body slicing through the surface with ease. With a soft push, she hoisted herself up, water trailing down her shoulders and arms, and perched atop the stone ledge in a single graceful motion.

She leaned back on one elbow, reclining in practiced ease, her other hand reaching absently toward the basket of sweet fruits Nicol had left her last time. Her hair clung damply to her back, catching stray sparkles of sunlight as the waves lapped below. The rock was warm beneath her, sun-soaked and smooth, and the salt in the breeze curled sweetly around her senses.

“The sun is perfect today…” she murmured, eyes slipping half-closed. It gilded her in gold and warmth, lit the soft shimmer of her tail, and made the sky feel like a dome of soft velvet overhead. But even as she soaked in its embrace, her gaze flicked once toward the horizon.

She doubted Nicol would come. Something in her gut told her so — and it was rarely wrong. He had looked so tired last time. Pulled taut with burdens he wouldn’t name. That was fine. She could rest a while, bask a little longer, and then slip away before the mood soured into longing.

But then —

Crunch.

A footstep. Not the soft plip of water, nor the hush of oars. It came from the trees — a crackle of dry leaves, a step made by someone who didn’t belong here. Her head snapped toward the sound.

And her breath caught in her throat.

He stood there at the edge of the rocks, tall and dry and utterly, unfairly beautiful. The sun caught in his hair — that impossible golden color, like melted crowns and lion’s mane, windswept and wild. His eyes were a glacial blue, sharp and arresting, like they could cleave seafoam from sky. His mouth was drawn in a half-curve — not quite a smile, not quite a sneer — but his gaze…

His gaze was unreadable. Calm, amused, a little dangerous.

He wore a long coat the color of storm clouds — dark blue, finely stitched, belted at the waist with polished leather. The trim shimmered with faint gold thread, the buttons gleamed like coins, and tucked beneath the lapels she could just see the flash of a jeweled dagger. He stood like someone used to commanding winds — like a man who knew exactly how handsome he was and exactly how dangerous that made him.

Katarina blinked, her brows pulling together faintly. This was definitely not Nicol.

And yet… her heart gave a tiny, ridiculous jolt.

He looked exactly like the princes from her childhood stories — the ones her father used to tell her during long nights curled beneath coral archways. Noble, daring men who rode white horses and crossed whole kingdoms to rescue their beloved. She’d imagined them in cloaks and crowns, their hair golden, their smiles kind. She used to picture one waiting for her — her prince, who would find her one day by the reef and fall helplessly in love.

This man looked exactly like that — if not better.

But real princes didn’t usually wander into secret coves without permission.

And this one… he stared at her like she was treasure he’d already claimed.

Katarina tilted her head slowly, the edges of her mouth quirking just faintly upward.

“Well,” she drawled, eyes narrowing slightly, “hello there.”

Katarina tilted her head, taking him in with a practiced eye. He was undeniably beautiful — like someone carved out of sea foam and noble blood. Tall, broad-shouldered, golden-haired and sun-warmed, dressed too richly for a fisherman yet standing like he owned every grain of sand beneath his boots. His smile widened — lazy, sharp — the kind that knew its own charm.

He stepped forward — not cautiously, not fearfully, but with easy interest, like a man approaching a friend, not a monster. What struck her most wasn’t his gall, or even the gleam in his eye — it was that he wasn’t surprised when she opened her mouth and spoke.

Most men turned pale the moment she surfaced. Even Nicol had tried to flee, heart pounding, when he first saw the shimmer of her teeth. But this one… he looked delighted.

That intrigued her.

She smiled slowly, lips curving in that signature way that felt both amused and indulgent. “You look like something from my father’s bedtime stories.”

That smile — that damned smirk — sliced straight through Geordo like salt on a wound he didn’t know was still raw.

He saw it and bled memory — a moonlit ocean, a smirking girl rising from the sea, and the silent undoing of everything he'd been raised to become. A crown had felt heavier that night. A ship, lighter. He'd spent years chasing that grin across dreams and storms — and here she was. Smiling at him like that again.

It rattled him.

He masked it, of course. With a scoff. With a toss of his golden hair and a rakish tilt of his head. With all the swagger of a prince who never had to beg — and the desperation of a man who suddenly might.

“Charmed,” he drawled. “Though I hope I live up to the version with fewer tragic endings.”

Her brows lifted, curious. She didn’t look at him like a rescuer. Nor like prey.

No — she looked at him like a story. A living myth she was considering revising.

And Geordo? He needed to be written in.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing out here alone?” he jeered lightly, stepping closer to the tide-washed rock she perched on. “Surely your prince ought to be keeping you company. Or has he gotten... lazy?”

Katarina rolled her eyes, tail flicking once behind her in the tide. “Oh please,” she said dryly, “were you stalking me?”

Geordo’s grin stretched wider — too white, too easy. “Such a harsh word,” he murmured. “I prefer... serendipity.”

He perched himself on a nearby rock, just far enough to be polite, just close enough to test a boundary. Water lapped between them. His eyes, bright and blue as a summer storm, raked over her — not with lust, but with the intense curiosity of a collector recognizing something rare.

Katarina let her gaze linger on him, deliberately, like she was trying to decide what sort of creature he might be — not quite prey, not quite predator. Something decorative, maybe. Something made for watching, not trusting.

“Mmm.” She hummed as if considering his claim. “So… serendipity, is it? Must be terribly strong these days to toss a prince-faced boy all the way from court to my private sunning rock.”

Geordo raised a brow. “You think I look like a prince?”

“Yes,” she said with a lazy shrug. “You look like the very idea of one.”

Her smirk curled again — slow, knowing — and Geordo felt the echo of it somewhere deep in his chest. That dangerous, merciless little expression — the kind that made girls into legends and men into fools. And gods, was he already halfway both?

“My father used to tell me bedtime stories,” she continued, tracing a lazy circle on the rock with one claw. “Of men with golden hair and blue eyes who rode white ships and rescued drowned maidens. Promised them palaces. Kissed them like oaths. You know the type.”

“And?” Geordo asked, cocking his head. “Did they live happily ever after?”

“They lived,” she said airily. “The maidens didn’t.”

Geordo let out a chuckle — soft, but tight around the edges. “Sounds tragic.”

“Sounds accurate.”

She leaned back on her palms, tail flicking once behind her — the motion displacing a fine spray of seawater that caught the sun like scattered gems. Her eyes, half-lidded and glinting, slid up toward him with cool amusement.

“So,” she said at last, reclining slightly on her rock with one arm propped behind her. “What exactly do you want, stranger? Or did you just row out here to admire the scenery?”

Her smile was sly, deliberate — like bait tossed just out of reach. It made Geordo’s own grin tighten, almost involuntarily.

“Careful with that smile,” he said, casual but edged. “Men have sunk kingdoms for less.”

“And women have escaped them,” she returned, just as smoothly. “Don’t look so impressed. I’ve heard better lines from drunken fishermen.”

“You wound me,” Geordo said, pressing a hand to his chest in mock offense.

“You’ll live,” she said, flicking a drop of seawater toward him with the tip of her tail. “Though I will say — you’re not as dull as most humans. Bit of a shame you didn’t show up on a white horse. That would’ve really completed the picture.”

Geordo smirked. “Afraid I’m fresh out of horses.”

“Pity.” Her gaze drifted lazily back to him. “Still — not bad, for a landwalker.”

She said, flicking a droplet of water toward him with the tip of her tail.

Then, almost like an afterthought — but not really — she added, “...Nicol. You know him, don’t you?”

That name — soft, effortless — dropped like a pebble into still water. Geordo didn’t flinch. Not outwardly. But something in his eyes pulled taut. Just a tremor, just a flick — but Katarina caught it. She always caught things others missed.

“Ah,” he said lightly. “The merchant’s son.”

“Mm-hmm.” She rose a little higher in the water, resting her chin in her hand again, eyes narrowing slightly as she watched him — not like a threat anymore, but like a riddle. I knew it, she thought. “You’ve known each other for a while, or...?”

“Briefly,” Geordo said — too fast. “Polite boy. Quiet. Bleeds dignity.”

“He bleeds better things than that,” she said, her voice softening despite herself. “Kindness. Patience. Maybe even faith.”

Geordo’s teeth clicked together once, softly. He offered a smile that meant nothing. “You speak highly of him.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she said, a sharper edge threading through her tone. “He’s dear to me.”

“Dear,” Geordo echoed, tilting his head. “Such a gentle word for such sharp company.”

“You think me sharp?” she asked, feigning flattery.

“I think you could tear down empires if you cared to,” he said, quietly. “You just haven’t been bored enough yet.”

Katarina laughed — a real laugh, bright and light as wind through crystal chimes.

Geordo’s mind buzzed at the sound. A reminder. She was a siren. Of course her laughter could drown a man quicker than her song.

She folded her arms loosely across her shimmering tail and leaned back again, one hand trailing through a tidepool. She looked far too at ease for someone entertaining a stranger — as though the sea itself had approved his presence and so she’d decided not to bite. Yet.

“Tell me something, stranger,” she said, voice musing now. “Did you really follow Nicol out here just to meet me?”

“I didn’t follow him,” Geordo said smoothly. “I was… curious.”

“About him?”

“About you,” he admitted.

She blinked — slow and wide-eyed. “How flattering.”

“I don’t flatter,” Geordo said. “I pursue.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Is it working?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

Katarina raised her brows, clearly entertained. “Until what? Until I fall for your dazzling eyes and dashing hair?”

“Until you remember where you’ve seen me before.”

That stopped her. The amusement faded, not completely, but enough to draw a stillness across her face. She looked at him more closely now. Really looked.

Something flickered — memory, suspicion, recognition half-formed.

“So we have met?” she asked at last.

Geordo smiled — slow and sharp. “Once. In another life. You smirked at me from under the sea, and I haven’t known peace since.”

She stared at him for a beat longer, unreadable — and then let out a soft, disbelieving laugh.

“You’re either mad or a poet.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “they’re the same thing.”

And then, all at once, something lit in her eyes — a gasp caught in her throat.

“Ah!” she exclaimed. “You’re the boy from the ship!”

Chapter Text

Once upon a time — which is how all foolish stories begin — years ago, she had seen a boy riding the tide like he owned it: golden-haired, sun-kissed, and sinfully bored.

Not in a ship. Not even on a raft. But astride a sleek silver skiff that skated across the waves like an afterthought. He lounged atop it like a prince from the old human fairytales her father used to hoard in his sea-cavern library. The kind with velvet sashes, jeweled hilts, and a flair for sighing theatrically at banquets. The kind who posed on cliff edges with dragons behind them and absolutely no intention of doing anything useful.

Except this boy didn’t look like he wanted to stab dragons. He didn’t look like he wanted anything at all. He looked like he might die of ennui before the sun set. And gods, he was pretty. Not just handsome, but crafted—with cheekbones like ship carvings and eyes made for tragic poetry. He was the kind of human girls would drown for. The kind sirens were warned to never take seriously.

Katarina had watched from behind a reef, her chin propped on folded arms, seaweed trailing lazily from her hair. The tide hummed beneath her, but she stayed still, hidden in coral and shade. She’d expected nothing of him—just another spoiled noble with sea glass in his teeth and silk in his ears. The coast was full of them. She only watched because it amused her. Because he looked too clean to belong to the sea.

But then his head turned. Not quickly. Not like prey. He moved slow—deliberate. And his eyes found hers.

They were cold. Icy, even. Clear and pale as frost beneath morning sunlight. But it wasn’t the color that caught her. It was the way he looked at her. Not startled. Not afraid. Just... interested. Boredom peeled back in his gaze like old paint revealing something sharper underneath. Curiosity. Flicker-fast. Almost shy.

And for a moment, he looked alive.

She smirked. Slow. Irresistible. Teasing him felt like drawing hearts in the sand with full knowledge the tide would erase them—but drawing them anyway.

“I’ll miss this face,” she’d thought, more amused than wistful. It was a beautiful face. Too beautiful to last. Too human to matter. The sea always took back its prettiest things.

So she’d flicked her tail and dove under, hair streaming behind her like ink in water—and didn’t look back.

---

She never expected to see him again — and certainly not like this.

The sunlight was warm again today, slanting through palm fronds and painting everything in lazy gold. The salt air carried the scent of overripe fruit and tide, thick and clinging. Katarina leaned on her elbow against the sun-warmed rock, tail flicking idly in the shallows. Droplets slid from her bare shoulders, catching the light like pearls.

She wasn’t impatient, exactly. But Nicol hadn’t come. And her mood had begun to curdle, slow as milk forgotten in a jar. She’d spent the morning darting between sea caves, nibbling on stolen citrus and humming old sea-ballads to herself, hoping the hours would melt. They hadn’t.

So when she heard the rustle of leaves and snapped twigs beyond the trees, she sat up—not alarmed, just vaguely irritated. Another fisherman, perhaps. Or worse, a wandering fool with something to prove.

But then he stepped into view.

Him.

The bored prince.

Except now, he was no boy. He had grown—taller, broader, carved with new sharpness. Clad in a dark coat trimmed with gold, its high collar framing a jawline grown arrogant. The sun hit his hair like a blade, all burnished glory, and lit his eyes into twin lanterns of blue fire. He still had that stare—steady, appraising, far too calm for a man who’d just stumbled upon a siren in secret waters.

But it wasn’t calm. Not really. Not when she looked closer. There was tension in the set of his jaw, in the way his knuckles flexed at his sides. The glint of boredom she remembered—polished and pristine—was gone. In its place: something unkempt. Curious. Fierce. A glint of hunger. Of desperation.

“…You,” she breathed. It wasn’t a question.

He smiled—sharp, angled, never sweet. “So it was you,” he murmured, voice like crushed velvet soaked in dark wine. “I thought I was hallucinating. But you’re real.”

She tilted her head, one brow lifting. “And you’re still rude. No hello?”

“Hello, Katarina.”

She blinked. Her fingers curled slightly on the rock.

He knew her name.

She hadn't expected that. Not from him. Not from anyone.

“And you are?” she asked lightly, eyes narrowing with theatrical suspicion. Of course she knew. She’d heard Nicol muttering that name through gritted teeth. She’d seen the way he came back from the estate hall soaked and seething, like something cold had followed him in from the sea. But pretending otherwise was more fun.

“Captain Geordo Stuart,” he said, sweeping into an exaggerated bow. “Pirate. Ex-Prince. At your service.”

“Prince?” she echoed with a low laugh. “I knew it. You had that look — spoiled and spectacular. Like someone who’s never scrubbed barnacles or tied their own boots.”

His lips twitched—half amusement, half warning. “You remembered me.”

“Of course,” she said, drawing circles on the rock. “I don’t often smile at floating boys with tragic cheekbones.”

He crouched now, closer to the water’s edge. She could see the fine embroidery on his cuffs—real gold thread, stitched in spirals. Absurd. His eyes were sharper up close, less like jewels, more like weapons. Beautiful. And dangerous.

“I’ve thought about you for years,” he said simply.

Her tail flicked once, hard enough to splash. “You don’t even know me.”

“I knew your smile.” A pause. “And it ruined me.”

She opened her mouth—and found no tease waiting on her tongue.

“…What do you want?” she asked at last.

He tilted his head. “Can’t I just visit?”

“You followed Nicol here.”

“I did,” he said easily. “He was keeping something from me. I don’t like secrets.”

Silence settled like mist between them. A breeze stirred—lifting strands of her sea-wet hair, catching the hem of his coat. Neither of them moved.

“You’re not afraid,” he said eventually. “Of me.”

“Should it be the other way around?”

Geordo’s grin spread, slow and wicked. “Possibly. I’ve been told I’m quite the villain.”

“Mmm,” she mused, twirling a strand of her hair. “I’ve met worse.”

He leaned forward, like a man peering into deep water—enthralled by what might be hiding in the dark. “Let me ask you something.”

“If I say no?”

“I’ll ask anyway.”

She smirked. “Go on, then, captain.”

He tilted his head, hair falling over one eye. “What’s your name?”

She blinked. Then laughed. “That’s your question?”

“Yes.”

“You already know it.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

Something fluttered in her chest—annoyance, mostly. But the warmth behind it made her wary.

“…Fine,” she said. “Katarina. Of the low tides. Daughter of the Duke of Currents. Fruit thief. Ego-crusher of passing gentlemen.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said, softer now. Almost reverent. “Thank you.”

He rose, brushing sand from his gloves. But he didn’t leave.

“Pfft.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back on her palms. “What are you going to do about it?”

He stared. Unmoving. Then—

“One more thing.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t speak.

“May I kiss you?”

And everything stopped. The wind. The tide. Her pulse.

She stared, momentarily speechless.

This idiot.

And yet, her heart was thudding like a storm-beaten tide. And her smile—slow, dangerous—rose anyway.

“…Excuse me?” she whispered, voice dipped in sugar and seafoam.

Katarina’s eyes flicked toward him, pupils catching slivers of moonlight. His words lingered — smug, golden, impossible. He sat too close now, still grinning like a prince who thought he’d already won the game.

She scoffed and leaned back lazily on her elbows, the sea swirling gently at her waist. “Do all pirates ask for kisses before plundering?”

Geordo smirked, stepping just close enough to tempt without trespass. “Only the ones they want to steal properly.”

She flicked water at him with her tail — half warning, half invitation. “You’ll have to try harder than that, captain.”

“Challenge accepted,” he drawled, the words velvet-rich with mischief.

“You keep looking at my mouth,” he had said then, like he was teasing a lioness with raw meat.

She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. “I’m deciding which would be more satisfying — sinking my teeth in, or swimming away.”

“Let me help you,” he murmured, slow and sure, like he already knew her answer. “I bite back.”

She stared at him for a long, unblinking moment. Her hair clung to her shoulders, seawater trailing down her arms in rivulets. Her smile rose low and feral — part threat, part promise. The tide licked at her skin like it sensed what she was about to do.

She was a bit pissed. Who did this pretty boy think he was, tossing sparks into her sea like that? She was a siren, for the love of the old gods — born of the deep, not some fluttery maid waiting for a prince to woo her.

She stared at him — really stared. At that golden face too sure of itself, that lazy smirk curling like a hook. And suddenly, she remembered Nicol. Sweet, careful Nicol, whose kisses she always softened. Yes, her teeth had grazed him before — once in hunger, once in a slip — but never the way she wanted to. Never deep, never hard enough to spill what her blood craved. With him she’d kissed like glass might shatter, always afraid her sharpness might undo something gentle. Because she cared. Because he was dear.

But this man—
This one she could bite.
This one could bleed and still smile. This one could handle her hunger.

“Then bleed for it.”

There was a breathless beat where neither moved. Just the sound of the sea breathing. The sky held its breath.

And then she struck.

It wasn’t graceful — it was an ambush, a claiming. Her hands fisted in his collar, dragging him downward even as she surged up, coiled and sudden and relentless. Her body moved with the power of something wild and ancient. Her mouth crashed against his — a wave of teeth and heat, of salt and fury, raw and resounding.

She kissed him like it was punishment. Like it was war. Her lips bruised his, pressing hard, searing, and then—

She bit him.

His breath stuttered, sharp and startled — he tasted blood, copper-sweet and electric. Her fangs, too sharp and too perfect, sank deep into his lower lip, and he gasped into her mouth, the sound ragged and half-mad. That only fed her hunger.

She devoured him — lips fierce, hands grasping, power thrumming beneath her skin. He clawed at the sand behind him for something to ground him, but there was none. Just her.

And even in the frenzy of it — she thought of Nicol.

How she would never kiss him like this.

Couldn’t.

Wouldn’t.

She had always held back for him. Out of care. Out of guilt. Out of fear of shattering something gentle. She did a mistake once but it was enough to haunt her for days. But not here. Not now. With Geordo, there was no need for restraint.

This was who she truly was.

Her claws raked his chest through linen, scoring skin. Her tail curled around his leg for one possessive, terrifying second — a gesture not of love, but dominance. A queen of tide and teeth marking what she’d taken.

And then, just as suddenly, she pulled back.

Blood streaked her mouth like warpaint. Her lips, bruised and red, curled into a slow, dangerous smile. Her eyes glittered like polished obsidian, wide and alive.

She licked a crimson drop from her lip with slow amusement, a smug glint in her eye, and let out a breath of laughter — delighted, savage — like she’d just remembered how fun it was to be alive. But a tiny prickle of frustration tickled at her chest, annoying and unfamiliar, as if the game she thought she controlled was already bending her in ways she hadn’t expected.

Her tail slapped him squarely in the chest, knocking him flat to the sand — a final blow and a mock goodbye.

“Next time,” she said, voice velvet-sweet and razored at the edges, “ask for a wound. You might just earn one worth kissing.”

She dove backward into the waves with a flick of silvered scales, her laughter echoing in the wind. The sea swallowed her whole, leaving only the faint memory of her challenge and her thrill lingering in the salt-scented air.

Geordo lay there for a beat, blinking up at the stars, chest rising and falling like he’d just been dragged back from death. His mouth was torn open, bleeding freely, the pain blooming hot and holy.

He touched his lip and stared at the blood on his fingers like it was a lover’s gift — a vow carved into flesh.

A jagged smile broke across his face, too wide, too wild. He laughed — breathless and burning, ruined and radiant.

For the first time in years, his eyes blazed with purpose.

“Oh,” he whispered to the empty shore, “I’m ruined… and I’ve never wanted anything more.”

The waves crept up, red-stained foam brushing his ribs. He didn’t move. Just stared out to sea, heart thundering in his ears.

Already, he was planning his next move.

Trouble was coming.

And it was shaped like obsession. Maybe even desperation.

Chapter Text

The estate hall was quiet, dim with the honeyed wash of dusk. A single lantern flickered against the stone wall as Nicol stepped into the corridor, cradling a pale box in his hands like it was something sacred.

He looked exhausted. His eyes were rimmed faintly in shadow, and his hair had lost its careful parting, strands falling loose around his temples. But his steps were lighter tonight, almost boyish in their unevenness. He had not eaten. He had not rested. He had spent every coin of energy on meetings, logistics, trade letters, and apologies to his overworked staff — all for one reason.

Tomorrow, he would have an hour. One full hour to see her.

He glanced down at the cake box with a soft, private smile. He’d gone out of his way to get lemon tart again — the one she always devoured with lips sticky and eyes half-lidded like the flavor transported her. His Katarina. His mercurial, secret girl of the sea. She would like this one. He’d made sure it was the exact same brand she’d praised before, down to the candied peel on top.

He stepped around the corridor, mentally planning what to say. He would tell her a joke, maybe, something small. Or read her that poem he found last week — the one about moonlight and monsters, the one that reminded him of her. She might laugh. She might roll her eyes. But she would kiss him.

He didn’t expect to collide with anyone. Certainly not him.

The moment he rounded the corner, Nicol jerked to a stop — cake box still in hand — and nearly stumbled straight into the other man’s chest.

Geordo.

His irritation sparked immediately. Of course it was him. The prince had been loitering around the grounds all week like he owned the place, flashing smiles and stirring whispers. Nicol had been too busy to deal with him properly, and now—

“Watch where—” Nicol started, sharp and cold—

Then he saw it.

His words died in his throat. The cake box wobbled in his hands.

Geordo looked like a man who’d barely survived a storm. His golden hair was tangled and windblown, clinging to his temple in damp individual golden strands. His shirt was torn open at the collar, and beneath it, raw scratches bloomed like ribbons of red. One sleeve hung loose, ripped. His lip was split clean down the middle, blood crusting in a line down to his chin. And worst of all — his eyes were dazed, blissful even, like a man who’d walked through fire and come out baptized.

He was bleeding, disheveled, half-undressed — and smiling.

Nicol couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

The blood. The bruises. That dazed expression.

He knows that look. It’s the look of a man who’s been kissed like a drowning, bitten like a secret, claimed.

“What—” Nicol managed hoarsely, his voice foreign to his own ears. “What happened to you?”

Geordo didn’t answer right away. He just looked at him — through him — with a half-laugh forming in his throat. His fingers brushed his lower lip, smearing blood across his knuckles like warpaint. He seemed drunk on it.

“She’s…” Geordo breathed, chest rising and falling like the sea. “She’s magnificent.”

Nicol’s heart stopped. The cake box slipped slightly in his grip, pressing awkwardly against his ribs. He couldn’t look away from the mess that stood before him — couldn’t look at the torn skin, the dark blooms on Geordo’s throat, without imagining her mouth there. Her teeth. Her laughter.

“You saw her.” His voice dropped. “You—”

Geordo’s eyes flicked toward him at last, sharp and golden and far too knowing.

“You were never meant to keep her in a garden, Ascart,” he said softly, almost kindly. “Didn’t you know? Wild things bite when they’re caged.”

For a moment, Nicol didn’t breathe.

The world shrank to the salt-sting in the air, the battered stranger before him, and the words that slid into his chest like knives wrapped in silk. A garden. That’s what Geordo had said. Like she was some shy bloom he’d fenced in, watered with patience and lemon cakes. Like Nicol’s love was... a prison.

His grip tightened around the cake box until the ribbon snapped beneath his fingers. The sweetness inside — the one he had chosen carefully, the one she liked best — sagged to one side with the tilt of his trembling hand.

He stared at it numbly. The delicate pastry. The ruined bow. The blood smudged on Geordo’s collar, the raw mark on his mouth, red and gleaming in the moonlight like a seal of something sacred.

Katarina had done that.

Not by accident. Not in panic. But with teeth.

Nicol’s thoughts spun wildly. He could see her — could feel her — in his arms days ago, all sea-salt and soft laughter. The kiss she’d pressed to his jaw before vanishing into the surf. The way she always looked back once, just once, when she left. The sweetness. The gentleness. The ache she soothed and the hunger she never fed.

And now…

She bit him.

Not Nicol. Him.

His stomach twisted. A cold, crawling dread bloomed behind his ribs — ugly and bitter and jealous. He hated the way Geordo stood there with that easy grace, with blood on his lip and glitter in his eyes. Like he’d seen something Nicol never would. Like he’d survived a storm and loved it.

Was it just a kiss?

Was it more?

Had she ever burned for him like that? Had she ever lost herself in their kisses — or had she always been careful, so careful, holding herself back so she wouldn’t break him?

Had she ever wanted to?

His mouth was dry. His heartbeat hurt. The box in his hands felt suddenly ridiculous — sugar for a creature who fed on storms.

“What…” he began, voice hoarse, “did you do to her?”

Geordo just smiled, slow and gleaming. Not cruel. Not kind.

Knowing.

“I asked for her teeth,” he murmured, “and she gave me her wrath.”

He stepped past Nicol, trailing blood and salt like a second skin. And Nicol stood there alone, surrounded by quiet and waves and a cake that no longer mattered.

The wind stirred his coat. The sky was cold and gray.

Nicol didn’t feel the cake box fall. He only heard the dull sound of it hitting the ground, lemon cream smearing like an afterthought on the polished floor.

And deep inside, something began to splinter.

The clouds had rolled in by midday, veiling the sun in a gauzy gray shawl. The tide came and went with restless murmurs, as though the sea itself couldn’t settle on what it wanted. Wind tangled through the palms, carrying the distant scent of salt and impending rain.

Katarina was reeling. Not just from the lack of sun—though that was already a personal offense—but because her day had spiraled into absurdity. Her usual surfing had been disrupted by a pod of nosy dolphins chasing shrimp near her favorite swell. Then came the drizzle. Then, him.

That stupid, aggravating captain.

Even now, sitting at the rocky edge of Nicol’s quiet little cove — the place she had promised she’d return to every day — she found herself chewing on thoughts of him. That blonde prince with the sharp mouth and sea-glass eyes. Geordo.

She scowled at a gull flying overhead. She should have dragged him down into the dark. Bitten him until he cried. Let the current teach him reverence. Instead... instead she had kissed him. Crashed into him like a storm. She had bitten him, yes, but with a hunger that startled even herself. And all she got in return?

A grin.

Not a scream. Not fear. Just that maddeningly beautiful grin — dazed, bloodied, wanting — like she’d just become the only thing he’d ever worship again.

“Stupid,” she muttered under her breath, flicking a pebble into the tide.

And then there was Nicol.

Poor, poor Nicol.

She cursed herself for the thousandth time that hour. He was working himself to the bone—for her—and she had kissed his most disliked rival. Not sweetly, not gently, but in a way that said too much about her own nature. Wild. Wanting. Unforgivable.

She didn’t love Nicol. Not the way he loved her. She didn’t burn when he touched her, didn’t ache when their lips met — but she cared. Deeply. Enough to wait here every evening. Enough to eat the things he brought her with such care. Enough to let him kiss her in his reverent way. Because spending time with Nicol felt like peace, and peace was rare beneath the waves.

But Geordo…

He spun the world off its axis.

The memory of that kiss curled heat through her spine, down to the tips of her fins. Her tail, usually graceful and fluid, gave a restless flick beneath her — betraying the storm she tried to quiet. She had lost herself in it, truly — not just in the heat of mouths or the graze of teeth, but in the raw, ruinous surrender of it. She hadn't felt that way in years. Not since her mother taught her to tether desire with caution. Not since her father warned her about the hunger of surface men, and the ease with which even a powerful siren could drown in it.

And yet… she had bitten him like prey, kissed him like fire, and watched — to her horror — as he grinned, dazed and drunk on her. Like she had become his whole damn world.

“You’re not human,” she reminded herself bitterly. “Don’t act like one.”

Footsteps crunched in the gravel above. Hurried. Heavy.

She blinked. Nicol never hurries. He always descended the slope like a gentle breeze — calm, composed, with arms full of food and a soft greeting on his lips.

She rolled her eyes. “You again?” she snapped, spinning around to deliver a sharp jab —

But it wasn’t the captain.

It was Nicol.

And he looked wrecked.

His dark hair, usually smooth and tucked back, was disheveled like he’d run his hands through it too many times. His coat hung unevenly, and his boots were caked with red dust from the hills above. In his trembling hands he clutched a familiar white box — the one that usually held the lemon cakes she loved — now slightly crushed.

But it was his face that made her breath catch.

His beautifully carved jaw was clenched so tight she could see the twitch in his temple. His mouth, always so careful with words and kisses, was pressed into a pale line. And his eyes — those steady midnight eyes — were blazing.

Not with jealousy.

With fury. With grief. With something that looked far too close to heartbreak.

“Katarina.”

Just her name. But it split the air like a blade.

She flinched.

It wasn’t how he usually said it — soft and steady, dipped in reverence like she was something fragile. No. This time it rasped out of him, broken and bare, almost hoarse. There was no carefulness in it. Just ache. Just fury.

Her tail curled in tight. Her heartbeat skittered.

She looked at him — truly looked — and felt her stomach lurch. He was soaked, windburned, half-breathless, his clothes clinging to him in strange angles. The box of cake in his hands had gotten wet at the edges. His knuckles were white around it. But his eyes — gods, his eyes.

They didn’t shimmer like starlight tonight. They burned like bruises, dark and wet and wounded.

“Nicol...” Her voice was a whisper. Her mouth felt dry. “What—”

“Did you enjoy it?”

Her lips parted. The words hit her like a slap, unprepared.

He wasn’t looking at her lips, or her tail, or the little jewels braided through her hair like he usually did. He was looking into her, past every mask she’d ever worn. She hated it. Hated the way her guilt rose like bile. Hated how seen she suddenly felt.

“Nicol, I—”

“Just answer.” His jaw was trembling now, barely holding. “Was it everything he wanted? Was it everything you did?”

The sea crashed behind them, loud and cruel. She couldn’t speak. She could only stare. The ache in his voice, the heartbreak buried under every syllable — it gutted her.

She swallowed hard, and for the first time in a long, long while... Katarina didn’t know what to say.