“Fuck, we have to get out of here. If Madi goes intoheat down here… well we can’t let that happen.” Hunter grabs my hand and pulls me along toward the weird waterfall room we just left. “There has to be another way out, right? If water is coming in, it has to exit somewhere.”
We descend the steps into the room again, Caspian is back in his shorts and Madison is just pulling her shirt over her head, her cheeks bright pink. She looks up at Hunter and me but quickly averts her gaze again. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you, uh, assist me. I don’t know what happened.”
Ah, she’s embarrassed. She has no reason to be. It’s time for me to do what I do best and break the tension once more. “Oh, sweet sunshine, the last thing you should be doing is apologizing. If we were smart males we’d be kneeling at your feet, begging to taste you again.”
Well, I don’t know if that broke the tension so much as changed its trajectory. Pineapple, coconut, and lime tinged with sandalwood flood the room. Oops.
Hunter clears his throat. Caspian licks his lips.
“Are the scary cats still out there?” Madi squeaks out, clearly trying to get us back on track. Though the blush on her pretty cheeks tells me she’d be more than amicable to her alpha’s begging under different circumstances.
“Yes. And they’ve gained some friends,” Hunter answers. “We’ll have to find an alternate way out.”
“There is likely an exit through the canal here, but I can’t be sure how long the swim will be,” Caspian says. “I’ve never seen a city like this, so I know nearly as little as you do.”
Hunter looks at the water and scowls. “So how do you suggest we explore the canal as an option? Is the water safe?”
“I can’t say if it’s completely safe, but remember I breathe underwater just fine. I could explore ahead while you all rest here,” Caspian hedges.
Hunter’s still glaring at the water like it told him his chicken cacciatore was overrated, when Madi pipes up. “You shouldn’t go alone. It might not be safe. And I don’t want to be separated from you, I’m coming, too.”
“The hell you are,” Hunter growls. “We aren’t putting you in danger.”
If he thinks Madi’s going to just concede to him, he’s not as smart as I thought he was. She instantly puts up a fight.
Personally, I can understand her hesitation to be separated from her mate. I’m finding the thought of having any of them away from me in this strange place surprisingly distressing.
But I’ll leave them to sort it out. It’s not my place to make decisions for any of them.
Besides, the water might not be the only way out of here. There could be another way, a secret passage or something. We haven’t scoped the place out much yet. We were all a little distracted.
Madi and Hunter’s arguing fades into the background as I search the strange waterfall room, looking for alternative options, but mostly letting my thoughts wander. Madison is my scent match. My mate. I have amate, and it isn’t my boyfriend. Granted, I’d have bitten Sebby by now if he’d have let me. But bites can only happen in the presence of an omega’s heat pheromones or they won’t take, and Seb was never comfortable with using one of the heat services that allow betas and alphas to bond in exchange for taking care of an unattached omega in heat.
There was one time, a few months ago, when he said he thought he might have found a way for us to bond—an omega he knew online asked him to join her for her heat—but he was hesitant, and in the end, he decided he wasn’t ready. I’m not sure why bonding scares him so much, but it does. We fought about it, and he’s been sort of withdrawn ever since. It didn’t help that I left for a sea exhibition soon after and he’s been traveling so much since I’ve been back.
I love him desperately, but how will he react to me having an omega mate? To Hunter, or even Caspian? Maybe especially Caspian, who isn’t even human.
Call me a greedy bastard, but I want my cake and to eat it too. Or rather, I want my billionaire betaandmy best friend, the merman, and our omega. Yeah, I’m definitely greedy.
Hands in my pockets, I scuff my shoes through the weird moss-grass hybrid as I head back toward the group. My toe connects with something hard, and I nearly trip, sending the mystery object scuttling across the room. The metal scraping on stone catches everyone’s attention.
“What was that?” Madi asks, already padding toward the sound. She picks it up to reveal a small semi-circular item made of black material that’s about half an inch thick. She brings it back for us to examine more closely. I reach for it, and Madi places it in my hand.
Upon closer inspection, one side of the semicircle is convex, while the other is flat. There is a protrusion on the flat side that’s wide but hollow. Almost like a mouthpiece to a harmonica. Or a flattened straw, but at 5 times the scale. Okay, yeah, harmonica is a better comparison.
“What is this?” Hunter asks Caspian.
The merman holds out his hand, silently asking me forit. I hand it over readily. We all stand there for a moment, trying to puzzle out what this thing could be. For all we know, it could be a piece of mer-junk, but something is telling me it isn’t that. It looks too complex to be trash. Madison shrugs and plucks the item from her mate’s palm, then shoves it into her drybag.
“I’m done arguing about this, I’m going,” the omega declares before walking to the water’s edge. Hunter growls and grasps her shoulder, pulling her back.
“You can’t breathe underwater!” Hunter argues.
“Neither can you!” Madison shoots back. Man, she’s feisty. It makes my cock twitch.
“I can breathe for her, we’ve done that before,” Caspian adds.
“No. If you can breathe for her, you can breathe for me.” Hunter looks to me like he wants me to back him on this, then to the merman. “I’ll go with you.”
