Behind her, Nyx had gone rigid. His every fin spread wide, spines fully exposed. Bioluminescent bacteria living in the grooves between his scales agitated, blazing a brilliant, electric blue.
“Nyx,” she whispered, fingers finding his forearm, pressing her digits into the dense muscle. Beseeching. Urging him to peace. Trying to anchor him, even as the electric scent of murder perfumed the current.
This was worse than the battle in the Crucible of Bone.
This was wrath.
Because Thalos had offered his venom to save her baby.
Her hand dropped to her belly, cupping the dainty, gentle swell where light pulsed beneath her skin in slow, shifting waves.
Gold bleeding into violet and deep, ocean blue.
Her baby moved against her palm.
A squirm she felt inside. One that felt… lazy.
Weak.
"Thalos' venom," she said, voice cutting through the tension. And then, turning liquid eyes back, she scanned the edge of Nyxarion's jaw, where the muscle was bunched, before she looked to Thalos. “It could help?”
Head tilted, Thalos watched her with a measured, glacial composure. But when his eyes landed on her belly, she saw a crack. Something greedy and ravenous blazing to life behind that polar gaze.
A predator tracking bleeding, wounded prey.
Her.
And, as if unaffected, he shrugged. "You were bred before your transformation was complete," Thalos murmured. "Impregnated before your life as a Siren had truly begun. Your very skin," he murmured, eyes reflecting her colors, "pulses with the evidence of both of us. KorridesandAsterion, regardless of the child’s sire. Of the Deep and the Shallows. Opposites." Tail flicking, he shrugged. "A controlled dose of my venom may tip the balance, give the child's physiology a chance to?—"
"No."
The single syllable carried enough weight to force the tension to boil between them.
Nyxarion's arm didn't move from beneath Kore's grip, but every muscle along his torso locked into combat tension. Fins spread wide enough to cast shadows across the dais. He snatched the clam from her fingers and crushed it with a low, vicious snarl before opening his fist and passed it back.
Watching for a moment as she picked the succulent flesh from the wreckage.
And then, "You will not put your venom inside my bride again."
Mouth watering, helpless before that scent, she groaned. Even as the fingers of her free hand grew tight on his forearm. The scales beneath her palm running hot—feverish with the rage she could feel in her gills.
But she couldn’t help it. The way she reacted to that flavor.
Swallowing the succulent meat, she searched his face. Shifting on the dais, she turned. The scales scattered along her ribs gleamed with a fractured sunset. "Why?"
Jaw working, silver eyes dropped to the elegant fingers wrapped around his forearm. Tracking down to the luminous swell of her abdomen, where their child was pulsing with a lazy rhythm.
As if the clams had sedated it. Fed it something she’d been missing. Offered some nutrient she hadn’t been able to find in the abyss.
But when he spoke, Nyxarion's voice was gruff. Jaw working around a vicious snarl he could scarcely contain, he offered a low rumble meant for her, but felt by all. "Thalos has no intention of helping the child," he said, each word forced between his teeth. "He means toclaimit."
The scholars shifted.
Their discomfort loud enough that even Kore could feel it.
And issuing a sound of protest, the closest opened his mouth, but a single flick of Thalos' silver fluke was enough to enforce a weighted silence.
Tipping a single claw beneath her chin, Nyx forced her gaze back to his.
