It was a disturbing flavor to find at the bottom of the Black Sea. One that clung to the back of his throat. Cloying and thick. Tacky.
Evidence of what his bride had wrought.
Eyes gleaming, Nyxarion could not stop looking at her.
This dainty, elegant thingstandingbefore his father in rigid defiance. Chest heaving as her scales flitted with mythic colors. The corpse of her victim drifting in the lazy current, while every remaining set of abyssal eyes tracked her movement down the most miniscule flicker of her fins.
He watched as her hands petted her little belly, settling the child in her womb.
Watched when she swayed, strength beginning to wane after what she'd done.
He didn't blink.
None of them did.
The moment commanded respect.
And she had earned it.
Kore had reduced his father's entourage to toothless old guppies, obliterated centuries of Caelith Mare authority, and declared herself the author of a new tide.
Nyx didn't blink, but he didn't bother hiding his grin either.
Mine.
It was a possessive thought, laced with something savage and primitive. Something greedy that wanted her in a way he hadn't imagined possible. Selfish. Desperate.
This power is mine by right of claim. This tiny queen is mine.
His cock pressed against his seam, nudging her lower back where he held her. Pressed close to his chest.
Absurd. Inappropriate.
She had just committed an act that would reshape Pelagorn politics for generations, and all Nyxarion wanted was to drag her back to their chamber and breed her until she forgot everything but to coo and plead for him.
Beg for his seed.
His knot.
The unhinged glee bubbling behind his ribs made it hard to think of anything else but the tight grip of her cunt milking him dry. The way she let him own her.
Cried so pretty for her ruin.
Her scales flirted with that maddening Asterion Chromatic Camouflage, and Nyxarion's grin grew positively wicked.
Thalos.
The voltage she'd unleashed upon Threnakar's scholar dwarfed what she'd unleashed during the Gauntlet of Tides.
Thalos had only been staggered long enough to give Nyxarion the win.
But this?
This time she'd cooked an Abyssari male almost three times Thalos' length.
The only reason the Shallow King had survived her temper at all, was because Kore hadn't understood the truth of what was lurking inside her.
Spines twitching, elation making him buoyant, his scales lifted to vent some of the heated energy bubbling under his skin, for he meant to tell Thalosexactlythat.
