On the table, he rested his left wrist—the one with the seemingly smooth, and unending metal bracelet on it. Turning the bracelet a few times, he held it in place with the weight of his wrist, so he could pry at the small seam that he’d discovered a few months back. A panel on it flipped open revealing a lock mechanism. Smirking, he quickly picked it with the same tool he used to open it.
Seri let out a gasp when the bracelet popped open. A shudder ran through him, and his whole body started to tingle. Without hesitating, he yanked the thing off and tossed it across the room. Taking deep breaths in and out, it felt like he could finally fully breathe for the first time in five years. His dry skin soaked in the moisture in the air.
As his powers came back to him, spreading through his system, the tingling disappeared. Without hesitating, he reached out and attempted to pull water from the air. Nothing happened. There his skin buzzed a bit and there was a slight warming in his veins but…not much else.
Dammit… Frowning, Seri tried again, this time snapping his fingers on one hand to help direct his powers to where he wanted them. The buzzing increased, his veins noticeably warming inside him while blue mist burst from his fingertips in an oddly showy fashion… But while a few molecules pulled together to form some pathetic glowing droplets…that was all he managed.
It appeared he was too out of practice. Likely the pregnancy had weakened his powers as well. From what he'd read, Water Nymphs suffered massive energy loss during pregnancy.
Grimacing, he eyed the medium sized circular glass vase filled with water sitting on his table. He guessed it was on to plan B.
Snapping his fingers, he let out a sigh of relief as a much smoother and smaller stream of mist flowed out of him and into the vase, the water moving up and out almost instantly, it began to glow an eerily light cyan blue. He reformed the glowing blob into a perfectly round ball and held the shape. Sweat formed on his brow as he rapidly began to lose strength at the simple act.
Nose wrinkling, he let it flow back into the vase. Seri obviously couldn’t transport the water on its own behind his back. The distance from this room to the living room, though short, would be too much. By the time he got there, he would be too weak to do what he needed.
Seri sighed—carrying the heavy vase behind his back, it was. He would just have to make sure it didn’t slosh as he…waddled.
Picking it up, he carefully maneuvered it behind his back.
Seri left his gray, black, and white room for the uninspiring gray long hallway leading to the living room. The walls had black and white photographs of barren wastelands…super disconcerting, but still better than if it were the hallway on the sixth floor.
Thank the Goddess he had been able to convince Preston to let him move from the man’s bedroom on the sixth to the first. The room may have been smaller and less fancy, because it had been a guard’s bedroom, but it was also a short distance from the elevator that took one down to the garage. And more importantly, there were no steps.
Seri may have been a Cryptid, which usually entailed a miniscule more strength than humans, but no matter the species, pregnancy and six full flights of stairs did not go together. And Preston, for some reason, had no elevator besides the one to the garage.
The living room was just like the rest of the house. Boringly decorated in grays, blacks, and whites, with zero plant-life or even a touch of color.
The outside of the house was much the same even if he didn’t see it much. A massive colorless, six-floor silver mansion. It was comprised of layers and layers of scalene triangles tilted upward. With a large piece curving outward to form a platform from the third floor that then had a sweeping staircase off it that went all the way down to the ground. It was the only part of the house that actually touched the ground, besides the elevator to the underground parking garage. The rest of the house levitated twelve feet into the air, resting on a floating foundation.
Elevation stones were certainly an interesting, if highly simple, invention. He’d broken down the formula many years ago out of boredom. The strength and the use all depended on what the Pixie who supplied the dust intended it to be used for, mixed with the various chemicals needed to create the stones. Really, a pissed off Pixie could fuck up a lot of things, if they wanted to. It was a pity their dust had been wasted on what honestly looked like a fucked up pinecone.
Now that he thought about it, Seri was the only colorful thing in the house, with his cyan hair, and the obnoxiously frilly and colorful dresses Preston forced him to wear. Seri hated dresses.
The current monstrosity he had on was the color of pink cotton candy. The dress cinched at the waist, and there were lacy frills on the front that gaped, showing parts of his chest, the design repeating on the long sleeves. He’d have found something else to escape in, but all of them were equally bad, and this one at least had pockets.
Standing at the opening of the living room, he stared at Leal—his one guard. At least, the only guard close enough to do anything.
The male was sitting on the plush gray leather couch with his feet on the triangle steel coffee table, reading on a tablet. With black hair and reddish-brown eyes—that Seri knew glowed red when angry—Leal, like all his guards, was in a full suit. The man was so consumed by his reading, it took him a full minute to even notice Seri.
Leal flicked an irritated glance his way before returning his gaze to the table as he absently asked, “What? Decided to grace me with your presence?”
He wanted to snort and roll his eyes, but held it back. Something Seri tended to do when it usually ended up with him on the other side of a fist—or a leg, a boot, or pretty much anything they could hit him with. He had held back quite often.
Well, maybe Seri only started doing it when he had become pregnant… After he had gotten past the ‘trying to rid his body of his rapist’s child’ phase of the pregnancy. Those had been some pretty dark days. Who was he kidding? Every day trapped there had been a dark day.
When Seri remained silent, Leal—who continued to look away—huffed, clearly exasperated. “Go back to your room if you plan on standing there like you’re brain dead.”
Yeah, Leal was a bit of an asshole. Then again, all the guards were. Who else would accept an illegal job? Generally, nice people did not help bad people keep others as sex slaves. The maids…he wasn’t sure about them, as they mostly ignore him, and only appeared once a week to clean.
He smirked—though Leal being an assholewasgoing to make the next few minutes quite fun for Seri.
Without hesitation, Seri brought the vase from behind his back and chucked it at the man’s head as hard as he could. And being a Cryptid creature, he could throw pretty fucking hard, at least harder than a human could. The vase shattered on impact.
Leal yelped in pain, sputtering as water cascaded down him before he launched off the couch in a rage, eyes glowing red. Seri had never figured out what the man was. Something canine, maybe. But he sure as hell had no plans to find out now.
Before Leal could even take a threatening step towards him, Seri snapped his fingers on both hands at the same time he called to his powers. His veins heating, a spark of blue mist flowed from his fingertips and into the water covering Leal. As the water began to glow, without a single word, he bent it to his will.
Leal had most certainly caught on to what he was up to. Seri could recognize that through the widening of the other’s eyes—but it was too late. The water surged into Leal’s mouth and nose, completely blocking his airways. Leal gurgled and clawed at his throat to no avail, before launching a last-minute attempt to attack him.
