It slipped down Kore’s nape and puddled in her heart. Slackening her jaws. Slowing her blinks.
The creature before her smiled, and Kore felt that flush of heat bloom in her cheeks.
Inhaling a breath of Kore’s scent, the female bared sharp teeth, while the glow along her edges pulsed. “Estrus,” the female sang, a musical sigh. The sort of tone human choirs would burn a thousand virgins to reproduce, just once. “She floats on the edge of bloom. Oh, Nyx,” she sighed without looking away from Kore’s wide, shocked eyes. “You’ve done well, my Liege.”
At the sound of his name, another warm gush spilled between Kore’s thighs—and the currentcarriedit. Spreading it out, through the ranks of those gathered all around them.
Shaking her head, Kore cringed through the cloud of hair floating all around her. Trying to plead for them to look away. To grant her an instant of modesty. Wrists crossed, she lifted her hands to cover her face, shielding herself from view as best she could.
The movement offered another sort of distraction.
An unconscious flick of something rooted deep in her muscle. A part of her and yet… utterly foreign.
Fins.
She felt them unfurl. Knew it when they caught the faint current stirred by the crowd, moving her back where she was suspended in her cage.
Twisting to look, Kore saw what she already knew was there.
A tiny mockery of the magnificent creatures crowding in around her, her fins had erupted from her flesh in strategic placement. New ridges lined her forearms and hips. Her outer calves. Sensitive filaments that seemed to flick and twitch without her awareness—they were tied to the currents. A balance that kept her stable and upright.
But it was the glow of a sunset blazing with divine warmth that held her horrified gaze.
Scales.
Pools of purple kissing red, bleeding into orange that sighed in the softest yellow. Shot through with veins of gold.
Her scales shimmered with rich color, even at the bottom of this forgotten sea.
Licking her curves, delicate patterns spiraled over her hips, traced her ribs, and grew lighter around her breasts. Edging her nipples just enough to make those tender peaks grow pointed and sensitive. Collarbones etched in that same golden sunset, she could feel where scales wrapped about her throat.
Fingers curling, she reached to touch—and felt the webbing stretch between her digits.
Fascinated and horrified from one blink to the next, Kore couldn’t look away.
She was changed.
Utterly remade.
Muddled bubbles masked her horrified question.
The gloom shifted as her captor made himself known, at last.
“See how she breathes,” Nyxarion crooned. Arrogance and satisfaction rolling off his skin as he slipped through their audience. “Here, in the black waters. Thriving. Already on theedge of estrus, for my bride begs to be bred, even without her sweet voice.”
Jaw clenching around a protest that wouldn’t come, Kore stilled as Nyxarion settled before her. Unable to retreat.
The beast planted his three-pronged staff into the seabed with a plume of sediment…
… and with a flick of his wrist, coaxed the bars of her cage open.
“Come,” Nyx crooned, shocking her. “You are the jewel of the Deep, sweet Kore. My most prized possession.”
For a moment, she could only stare. Mute. Shocked by his voice. By the rich timber that hummed in her marrow, for she’d only known him as a beast. A primal thing that came from the sea to fuck her full of sperm and venom.
She’d thought him little more than an animal.
A monster.
