Thalassari guards flanked him. Lithe lithe bodies snaking through water, cutting through the current with fins edged in razor-thin spines. Colors muted in the Deep, were reflected in the reef's glow, throwing prismatic light across the coral walls. Each movement synchronized, a living crown around their sovereign.
But Kore saw only him.
Thalos.
The ethereal beauty of him struck her anew, that impossible perfection carved from moonlight and arctic storms. Silver-blond hair floated weightless around features too sharp for mercy, too refined for the violence he'd promised. His scales caught every fragment of light, refracting it until he seemed to glow from within.
It was surreal.
Preposterous.
That this creature—this deity sculpted from ice and moonlight—was fighting to claim her.
The thought hooked the back of her throat, jerked her forward as he drifted near.
Nerissa's warning echoed through the venom-haze clouding her mind. If Nyxarion failed the trials, she would need to seduce this… creature of cold perfection. Make him want her enough to keep her alive, use her Siren nature to unravel him from within.
Or die.
By his blade.
Her body clenched on nothing. Veins thick with Nyxarion’s venom, her cunt aching for relief. A knot. And as she watched Thalos approach, she knew he’d been right.
Any knot would do.
The water vibrated with Nyxarion’s fury, unseen.
A guttural roar tore through the current, distorting the reef’s glow into jagged pulses of crimson. The coral shuddered, veins of blue light flickering as his voice scraped against the abyss. Raw. Animal…hungry.
"You will not touch what is mine!"
The command wasn’t speech.
It was violence.
A resonance so deep it rattled Kore’s ribs, made her gills flare in instinctive submission.
"I will peel your ribs from your spine and feed your entrails to the Raskoril,” Nyxarion snarled. “Let Vorynthar grow fat on your bones, Shallow King.”
Thalos didn’t so much as twitch.
His polar eyes flicked toward the darkness where Nyxarion lurked, then back to Kore. Slow. Deliberate. As if the promise of evisceration were nothing more than a curious eddy in the tide.
A muscle feathered along his jaw.
Then his gaze dropped.
Traced the fresh cuts along her collarbones, the venom-bloom spreading beneath her skin. Kore’s breath hitched as his attention lingered on the space between her thighs, where need pulsed, thick and shameless.
His fins didn’t so much as ripple.
But the water cooled.
Nerissa’s voice sliced between them. “The Spiral demands balance. A price you will pay, Sovereign. As he did.”
Jaw bunching at the corners, Thalos grimaced.
And then, slow, deliberate, the Shallow King lifted one pale hand.
