Another wave of pain crashed through me, and I arched back against Kaelan's chest, a cry tearing from my throat. My hands flew to my neck, where something was happening—something sharp and strange and utterly foreign.
"Gills," Kaelan explained, his voice tight with controlled fear, his hands coming up to cover mine where they clutched at mythroat. "They're forming. This is the last part. After this, it's over."
The pain in my neck was different from the rest—sharper, more focused, like someone was carving new openings into my flesh with a very precise knife. I could feel them forming, could feel the new pathways connecting to my transformed lungs, could feel my body becoming something that could breathe water as easily as air.
Then, suddenly, it stopped. The pain receded like a tide going out, leaving me gasping and trembling and utterly exhausted. I lay limp in Kaelan's arms, my new tail curled beneath me, my new gills fluttering with each breath.
"Is it over?" I managed to ask, my voice hoarse and raw from screaming.
"It's over," Kaelan confirmed, and I could hear the relief in his voice, could feel the tension draining from his body where it pressed against mine. "You did it, Lily. You survived."
"More than survived," Vale said, his voice thick with emotion, his silver eyes shimmering as they traced over my new form. "You're one of us now. Truly one of us."
I looked down at myself again, taking in the changes with clearer eyes. My tail was even more beautiful than I'd first realized, the scales catching the bioluminescent light and throwing it back in shimmering patterns. My upper body was still mostly human, but there were differences there too. My skin had taken on a subtle luminescence, a soft glow that seemed to come from within. When I reached up to touch my neck, I could feel the delicate slits of my gills, three on each side, opening and closing with each breath.
"I want to see," I said, struggling to sit up, my new tail moving in ways I didn't quite understand yet. "I want to see all of it."
"The water," Thane said, practically vibrating with excitement, his golden-brown eyes bright. "You should see yourself in the water. That's where you'll look most beautiful. That's where you belong now."
"We'll take you down," Kaelan promised, helping me adjust to my new form, his hands steady and sure on my shoulders. "But slowly. Your body needs time to adjust."
"I don't want to wait," I said, surprising myself with the urgency in my voice. There was something pulling at me now—a longing I'd never felt before. A need to be in the water, to feel it surrounding me, to breathe it in and let it fill me. "I need—I need to go down. Now."
The four of them exchanged glances—those wordless communications I was coming to know so well.
"She's right," Riven said finally, a low growl of approval in his voice, his golden eyes gleaming. "The water is calling her. It's part of the change. Fighting it will only make her uncomfortable."
"Then we don't fight it," Kaelan decided, shifting to lift me in his arms, cradling me against his chest like I weighed nothing. "We take her home."
Home.
The water was home now. The thought should have been strange, should have felt wrong. Instead, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. They carried me to the edge of the pool, where the water lapped against the stone. I could smell it now in a way I never had before, could smell the salt and the life and the ancient depths waiting below. My new gills fluttered with anticipation, my new tail twitching in Kaelan's arms.
"Ready?" he asked, his dark eyes meeting mine, something fierce and proud burning in their depths.
"Yes," I said, and I meant it with every fiber of my transformed being. "Take me home."
He stepped into the water, and the moment it touched my tail, I gasped. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before. The water didn't feel cold or foreign—it felt perfect. It felt right. It felt like sliding into a warm bath after a lifetime of being cold, like taking a full breath after years of suffocating.
Kaelan lowered me further, until the water covered my gills, and instinctively—naturally—I breathed in. The water flowed into my gills, through my transformed lungs, and out again. Easy. Effortless. Like I'd been doing it my whole life. Like I'd been made for this. I had been made for this. I just hadn't known it until now.
"Open your eyes," Vale said from somewhere beside me, his voice carrying easily through the water. "Look at yourself. See what you've become."
I hadn't realized I'd closed them. I opened them now and found that I could see perfectly in the underwater darkness—could see every detail, every color, every shifting pattern of light.
Including my own reflection in the smooth stone wall before me. The creature looking back at me was beautiful. Inhuman. Perfect.
My tail stretched out behind me, easily as long as my legs had been, covered in those shifting blue-silver-green scales that caught the light and threw it back in dazzling patterns. My hair floated around my face like a dark halo, longer than it had been before, threaded through with strands of silver I hadn't had as a human. My eyes—my eyes were different too. Still the same color, but brighter now, with a luminescence that matched the soft glow of my skin. And my gills. Three delicate slits on each side of my neck, opening and closing with each breath, beautiful and strange and utterly, perfectly mine.
"I'm a siren," I breathed, and the words came out in a voice I barely recognized—richer, more musical, carrying power I'd never had before.
"You're our siren," Riven corrected, appearing in my reflection behind me, his scarred face fierce with possessive pride. "Our omega. Our mate."
"Ours," the others echoed, surrounding me in the water, their bodies pressing close, their hands finding my skin, my scales, my hair.
"Yours," I agreed, turning to face them, my new tail propelling me through the water with an ease that felt like freedom. "Forever."
Kaelan reached for me first, pulling me into his arms, his mouth finding mine in a kiss that felt different now, deeper, more intense, like our bodies recognized each other on some fundamental level they hadn't before.
