But his spines flared. Every fin bristling in a fan of venomous warning. "Don't." A single syllable snapped between his teeth. Low. Vicious.
Blinking against the rush of the current, Kore tilted her head as she peered up at him.
"You think I don't know?" he snarled. "What you're doing? Pressing against me. Rubbing that vile Siren cunt all over my scales. You reek of it," he hissed, teeth bared. "Slick. Do you think me so easy? Some rutting beast from the Deep to be swayed by the scent of a pretty pussy." He laughed, low and cruel. "I won the right to breed you, little wretch. Nothing more."
"Then what?—"
"Patience," he cooed. "Unless you'd rather me serenade you with the details of your ruin." His thumb traced the jutting edge of her hip. Voice dropping low.
"Careful," she returned, mocking his icy tone. Head tilted back to let him see the gaunt smirk stretched across her lips. "Allthat energy spent insisting you're repulsed, and you still stink of desperation."
There was a beat of something violent between them. Unspoken. A moment of prickling claws and stuttering rhythm.
And she laughed, low and rough. Filled with spite. "Does it unsettle you?" she murmured, fingers clutching at his arms. "How hard you have to work? To pretend you're not exactly the same as Nyx?"
It was his turn to laugh, and it was laced with something wild. And, claws skating up, tracing her spine, he said, "Such a clever creature. Just learning to use her claws. Tell me," he murmured, thumb tracing the base of her spine, "if I'm so desperate to sully myself in the quagmire of your…affliction, why would I waste time discussing it with you? A creature who exists outside of the law. Scarcely more than a beast created to breed."
The current gushed over her gills as his speed increased. But she smiled. "And yet, it wasyouwho issued the challenge.Youwho invoked the law to take, knowing it would mean if you won."
Thalos hummed. "You think I want you," he drawled, but it wasn't a question. "That I'm just another mindless trench-dweller looking for a hole to fit my cock." He laughed, breath rippling over her gills. "How disappointingly… human of you."
Shifting against him, Kore lifted her hand. Touched the current as it sailed past them, letting her biolume pulse with the subtle hint of violet fire. "Perhaps you want something… unexpected," she murmured. "A challenge you haven't had in your own kind."
"Perhaps," Thalos returned, letting a predator's smirk gleam at the corner of his mouth, "I merely enjoy Nyxarion's suffering." Grip growing tight around the base of her neck. "Or maybe," he murmured, gesturing at the bottomless abyss yawning below them, "I just enjoy the flavor of your fear."
Breath hitching, Kore's eyes flicked up to meet those that were glacial.
Thalos' fingers curled at her nape, teeth gleaming. Wrenching her head back, only to let his head dip. Tracing the edge of her jaw, inhaling a breath at her throat.
"Ah," he hummed. "There it is. That delightful little shiver." His teeth traced her pulse—the opposite side Nyxarion had marked. "Delicious. Scream if you like," Thalos murmured, and his tongue darted out to taste her gills. "Cry. Beg. There's no one left who might hear you. So let's not pretend you understand what I want, hmm?"
Swallowing her gasp, Kore's eyes went wide. The words were a mirror of her own grim realization.
That she was alone.
Utterly.
Her throat worked around a swallow, flexing against his lips. And then, "I think you're curious," she whispered, because it wasn't time to submit. Body drifting against his. "That you want to know what it's like. Why Nyxarion is willing to bleed in the sun just to keep me in the Deep."
A smile curled against her gills, then. Wicked, when he said,"But not this time, hmm?"
Because Nyxarion had abandoned her.
Given her to Thalos.
Forfeited his right to her body.
"He…" she blinked. Realization blooming without the fog of confusion swamping her brain. "He spared me the suffering," she said, and felt something in her chest hitch. "Because he knew you wouldn't."
Cruel laughter rippled through her gills. "Tell me," he murmured, "does it feel like he spared you?" Claws scoring her scalp, he dragged her head back. "No, Kore. He sparedhimself.Forfeited the humiliation of baking in the sun, knowing he'd loseanyway." Thumb tracing her pulse, notched in the hollow of her throat, Thalos grinned. "Are you so innocent that you can't see the difference between mercy and strategy?"
"Are you so arrogant to think both can't exist in the same place?" she returned. And then she pressed him. Reckless, pupils blown wide as the danger pulsed beneath her skin and his grip on her throat teased the edge of her gills. "I think it terrifies you," she murmured. "Think you can't stop thinking about the lightning. The way I shocked you. Because when you look at me… you don't just see a womb, do you?"
"My, aren’t we an observant little beast, hmm?" he thrummed, vibrating low in his chest. A purr that made the water dance in her chest. Deep in her lungs.
Still swimming, at that impossible pace.
There was still time. To save herself. To convince him.
