She shoves my shoulder. “You know what I mean. Us humans are just so small and fragile and weak, it makes you look like a badass when you’re ninety years young.”
“You are a lot of things, but fragile and weak aren’t any of them,” I say, pulling back from her. I skim my thumb along her cheekbone, gazing into her hazel eyes. “And when we’re Elixir bonded, we’ll share a lifespan.”
“I won’t do it without Kye,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “Neither will I. But until then…I’ll love you all the same.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
FIONA
Nereus has grown so much…which I guess is a weird thing to say about a ninety-something-year-old merman. But it’s the only thing on my mind as he takes me into his arms and makes me think everything is going to be okay, even when we’re facing one of the most monstrous people in the universe.
Well, that, and the tentacles winding around my thighs, pulsing with veins of amphoria. I can already feel the pheromones affecting me as they glitter on the surface of the water.
“Kye says I try to solve everything with sex,” I mutter against Nereus’s neck.
The Merati prince chuckles in my ear, his slender fingers skating along my spine, every touch making me tingle and ache. “I think Kye is speaking from experience.”
I wrench my head away as he trails kisses down my neck, toward my now-soaked shift. “Do you think he’s right, though?”
Nereus stills, then raises his hands to hold my face. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sex as long as we have conversations before and after. Kye…uses it to cut off conversation. I don’t think you’re doing that.”
“But do you think I’m controlling you with it?”
Nereus shakes his head. “No. Never.”
“You aren’t playing politics with me?”
He shakes his head again. “I would never do that with you.”
He kisses me, and I sense every bit of honesty in that kiss. Nereus’ tentacles tighten around my thighs yet again, the probing tips of them creeping closer to my core, his hands roaming over my back.
I agonizingly wrench myself away a second time, stopping him in his tracks.
“We shouldn’t,” I say. “You were hurt. We could have died back there.”
“Which makes it all the more important that we use the time we have,” he says. “When was the last time it was just us, Fiona? Just let me ease your worries.”
He’s right.
We might not have much time left.
I fall into the carnal bliss of the amphoria, knowing the sparkling pheromones have coated my skin and are seeping into my veins. And Nereus is beautiful, still with gold painted on his face, the delicate gills on his neck fluttering. He kisses me hard, his tongue pressing into my mouth just as a tentacle slides over my breasts.
The suckers start to squeeze at my nipples, and I throw my head back to let him press kisses to my throat. He always leaves little kiss marks all over my body: hickeys in the shape of pink suckers, like he’s branding me. I know he does it on accident—Nereus is way too polite to leave a mark on me for someone else to find—but I like having them there as a way of bringing him with me, especially now that the others don’t tend to come to bed together. Gone are the days when they would lay me out on the dining room table like a feast…
I want those days back.
And they’re so close I can taste it. We just have to end this war and Ineedto win Kye over.
“Nereus,” I groan, tangling my fingers in his hair. “Please.”
“I’m getting to that,” he laughs against my skin. He scratches my back as he holds me in place, and I’m practically bound with those eight powerful tentacles around my legs, spreading me wide for him, preparing me. One of the appendages slides between my legs and over my folds, not dipping inside like I want it to, but closing over my clit andsuckingjust enough to make me cry out.
“That’s right, darling,” he rasps. “Scream for me.”
“What if Kye hears?” I gasp out. I don’t know why I care; the others hear me having sex with my men all the time. “Won’t he be angry?”