Kore.
His precious, living flame.
The way she’d arched, agony evident in her every line, with Thalos' barb slipped between her ribs. Mouth falling open, a silent scream making the veins in her throat bulge as Thalos pumped her full.
A killing dose.
Deliberate.
Claws gouging the basalt, Nyx snarled. Spines fully bared. Ready for battle.
Utterly unable to claim her. To attend her suffering or ease her pain. Guide her through the agony. Breathe for her, if he must. He was helpless but to let her suffer, unable to take her place, for if he tried—if he dared to touch what he had claimed—the Tide Mother would hand her over to Thalos.
Her right by law.
And then he’d be forced to watch her die.
A witness when Thalos opened her belly and scattered her across the seas. An example made from something precious and rare.
Serakh approached, the only one of his people brave enough to do so. Fins fluttering as she clung to the gentle currents, her silver eyes slipped over his body, the damage he’d done to ancient stone.
And then, “He poured his venom straight into her heart,” Nyx snapped, gills flaring crimson as he wrestled with the rage.
Serakh lifted one elegant shoulder. “She’s not dead.”
Teeth bared, Nyx hissed, “She should be. Even a pureblood would struggle to survive that dose. No”—his breath hitched—“No human could.”
Serakh offered a silent acknowledgement in the blink of clear, nictitating membrane. “She’s not human.”
Turning to eye theVireliiwho’d been with him since before Threnakar had fallen—his father’s court, all but turned to rubble at Thalos’ command—Nyx inspected the female who’d stitched his fins after the skirmish in the kelp flats. Remembering the way her hands had been steady as she threaded needlefish bone through his flesh.
Never flinching.
Steadfast. A brilliant tactical mind. One he cherished.
Kore was nothing like her.
Where Serakh was all sleek muscle and trench-born sinew, Kore was softness. Curves and pliant flesh. Her flimsy scales held the sun’s memory, where Serakh’s drank the dark and swallowed the light.
And Sera's scent… it was… nothing to the perfume of a Siren.
His Siren.
The thought sent a surge of possessive rage pounding through his body, and his vent throbbed, the slit parting as his cock pressed against it.
Kore was a tempest, a storm of citrus and lightning. A single breath of her essence, and Nyx was prepared to drain the trench to retain his claim to her flesh.
There’d beenVireliibefore, of course. Trench-born females who knew the weight of a king’s knot, who could take his seed and sing his name into the dark.
But he’d bred both kinds of female, now.
And Kore?
The thought sent a shudder through his frame. Spines twitching where they lay flat against his scales.
Kore broke around him.
That tiny human cunt sucked at his cock even as her mind and body fought the stretch.
