Nodding, chest rattling as his gills clapped against air, ignoring the dawn as it bled across the horizon. Eyes fixed to his sweet bride, ignoring Thalos, he pressed his hand to his chest. Miming an unspoken command. Breathe. Just breathe.
For a time, it seemed that she might withstand it. The searing pain.
And then he noticed it in the way her ribs spread on every breath. Her delicate frame flexing, growing hollow as her chest heaved. As she worked to pull oxygen into her blood.
A wet rattling wheeze whistled from a swollen, constricted throat.
Scales lifting when the sunlight touched her, Kore's skin dried out. Exposed. Each dainty new scale curled at the edges. Flaking.
And he knew.
She… she was dying.
Slowly.
Beautifully.
But dying. Right in front of him.
Serene, tilting his head, Thalos hummed. "How long?" he murmured, reaching to touch her chin with a curled knuckle, where she was slumping forward. Testing. "How long do you think she'll last like this?" he asked, and withdrew. Examining his claws with idle curiosity. "An hour? Perhaps two?" Something cruel flicked across his lips, then. "If she spares me the ugliness of extinguishing her myself," he said, "I don't think I'll blame her. Poor, wretched creature."
Kore's glare lifted. Wide and glassy eyes, pupils blown wide enough to swallow that beguiling grey-gold.
Thumping his chest, greedy for her attention, Nyx turned one claw back as if to say, "Me. Look at me."
She dragged her eyes back, blinking at him in the morning sun.
Shifting closer, slithering across the sand, unable to speak, he pulled a rattling breath through his gills and filled the barrel of his chest. Issuing a sub-audible purr in place of his voice, gentler than he'd ever been, he swallowed the pain of exposure and pressed on. Thrumming low in his chest.
Her chest hitched, ribs splaying wide. Collarbones prominent and shadowed. Her sternum sinking in on every wretched breath. But she held his gaze. Clung to the sound turning the sand liquid beneath them.
Thalos clicked his tongue. "Tch. Doesn't look good," he mused, fins catching a gentle breeze when he let them flare. "A pity," he drawled, stretching in the early morning sunlight. Slow and languid. His every ridiculous movement deliberate. Theater. "To survive Nyxarion," he hummed, arching his spine. Shivering as the dawn spilled over his scaled and splintered the light. Utterly at ease. "Only to suffocate on land."
Something hollow yawned in Kore's eyes, then. Her pupils blowing wide as she watched the Thalassari king roll his shoulders.
And then, "Tell me, sweet Siren," Thalos purred, eyes raking over her with a lazy drag of curiosity. "Might you shock me again?"
Nyx flicked his spines, rumbling deep. Ragged.
But Kore seemed to focus when Thalos grinned.
"I must admit," he said, head tilting, teeth gleaming. "That was… unexpected. Exquisite, actually." Grin growing sharp, he dragged his claws through the sand. "I wonder what it would feel like during climax. To feel it while I breed you? Such raw, uncontrolled power crackling through my cock…"
Snarling, Nyxarion's rage shook the air between them. Guttural.
Thalos only laughed, bright and musical. "Such sweet devotion," he sang, inspecting his claws. "Such aching nobility, protecting our little mongrel from the consequences of your own bottomless cruelty."
Nyxarion's glare sliced between them. Cold. Furious. And then, in a voice born from the tectonic plates rolling in the Deep, "Coward," he rasped. The word shredding his throat as it moved through his vocal chords.
"Ah," Thalos hummed. "Is this for challenging a female not born of the sea?" he asked, every syllable crisp. Cutting and droll. "Or for invoking the Spiral over a Siren, perhaps?"
Nyx flicked his spines, as if to say,Yes.
That grin grew predatory, and without missing a beat, Thalos said, "Exquisite irony, don't you think? Such blinding arrogance coming from none other than the beast who dragged a human girl beneath the waves. Tell me, Korrides," he drawled, "did you bother yourself to ask permission before you flooded her lungs with the black waters? Surely you had her willing, before pumping her veins full of trench venom? Stuffing her cunt full of sperm?"
Nyxarion's breath clattered through his gills.
"Or," Thalos hummed, shifting his tail through the sand, "did you simply take what you wanted?"
