Ambrose inhaled sharply as he pulled back from the soft, pliant lips, eyes wide and body thrumming. She was limp in his arms, head lolling back, hair floating around her face in a golden halo.
She convulsed in his arms, eyes popping wide open as she looked through him, their gaze completely glazed over. His hands wrapped around her shoulders as they jerked; it was nearly impossible to keep her in his arms, but he couldn’t let her go. If he broke the connection with her, he knew the transformation would halt right then, killing her.
Her lips parted and she gasped, sucking in gulping breaths and then coughing right after. She cried out through her garble. Ambrose listened helplessly, barely able to watch what was happening to her, knowing that he had been the one to cause her pain.
Just like everyone else you’ve ever met, this mortal is no different, his mind whispered.
She screamed in his ear, taking his breath away. Gods, the pain—the utter agony—that he heard.
Shame flowed through him just as surely as a sliver of his soul was flowing through her. The change was beginning and the force of the shuddering was enough to nearly pitch her out of his arms. Ambrose shot forward, clenching her against him and beginning to realize that maybe this had been a horrible idea.
Ambrose stared down at her, instincts kicking in that he had believed long dead.
Protect. Hide and protect.
He had to get them to safety, and soon. If any sort of danger came upon them, he wouldn’t be able to do a thing without killing her.
“Please!” she gasped, her hands snapping around his neck, nails spearing his shoulders. He grunted as they dug into already torn flesh, but he couldn’t blame her. He deserved every ounce of pain for what he had done to her.
“Shh, just let it come,” he cooed, quickly swimming through the water. The beginning was almost complete. She was close to growing her fin and he had to find a place where she could safely complete the transformation. Thousands of years later, he still remembered the myths of the ancients, and he knew that this was only the beginning of a painful end.
Because Ambrose had planted a piece of his own soul inside her, he now felt the pull of the transformation coming from him, drawing on his strength. The burning sensation that was climbing up his fin, through his tail, was enough to tell him that she was beginning to transform. He had no clue how long it would take for the fin to fully form, but he knew it wouldn’t be too long.
Grasping her shoulders and adjusting her so that her legs were over his arm and her face was buried in his neck, he grimaced as her hands once again clawed down his shoulders.
You deserve it. You’ll always deserve it.
Ambrose ignored the taunting whisper, focusing on what he had to do now. It was hard, with her fingers digging into exposed muscle, but he managed to clear his mind.
Shelter. Had to find it soon.
As he swam through the water, it seemed like they’d traveled over miles of coral, but in truth it was only a couple hundred yards. Soon enough, Ceto would realize they were gone and—hopefully, by that time they would have found shelter and he’d have regained some of his strength—which even now, he could feel growing inside of him.
Ambrose grinned, reveling in the thrill of power that had been absent for so long.
Now that they were out of the cave, he felt the ocean reviving him, purifying him. Even with the mortal Mari drawing on his own Atlantean strength to complete her change, he felt the rush.
The adrenaline.
The control.
The all-consuming revival that he hadn’t felt in thousands of years. Emotion sealed his throat shut. Ambrose hadn’t been this close to freedom in all his life. With the pressure of his people, the Destruction, and then being exiled…
This was heaven...until Mari screamed, her legs jerking in his arm. He smoothed his hand down her back, trying to find some way to calm her through the transformation while scanning the garden of coral—
There! Only a couple yards away from them was a patch of black, a hole in the coral: the perfect coverage for them to wait out in. The woman in his arms screeched again, the sound ripping through the water as nothing ever had before.
His heart turned over as he forced himself to swim faster. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, tracing her twisted features with his eyes before jerking forward and plunging them into the hole. He swam with his tail pointing toward the ground, tentatively searching for the floor. Several feet down, his tail brushed against a patch of sand.
“Akrina,” he called out. Ambrose only had to wait a second before the thing popped up with a pulse of light. “There you are,” he said, making sure to add a little bit of relief to his voice for the sake of the akrina.
“Sealed cave. Bitch not there. Human and king safe.”
“I’m proud of you.” It glowed brightly with happiness, just like he’d wanted. “Will you morph and find us something to eat? Some fruit, if you can find it. I don’t want her to wake up on an empty stomach.”
His only companion for two thousand years bounced in front of him, as loyal as any creature he’d ever met before. “Bring peaches. Love peaches. Akrinos stay.”
Ambrose smiled with encouragement. “Good. Now go, and hurry back.”
The akrina split into two orbs of light, the original flouncing off while the miniature version stayed in place beside him. He touched it gently, urging it to brighten. Unlike its counterpart, akrina, the miniature light that she’d left behind was not advanced enough to speak. Encouragement and touch activated the akrinos.
It glowed and illuminated the hole.
Thick walls made of coral surrounded them, the hole long-ago settled. Starfish were the only living things in the there, sticking to the floor and walls. One of them settled right beside him, close enough that one of its tube feet reached out and latched onto him. He tightened his arms around Mari, curling his tail under his hips and floating to the ground, moving inches away from it.
The mortal withered, her body so stiff that it wouldn’t comply with his position. “Just…kill me,” she groaned. The pain was so intense that her lips peeled back from her teeth, lines stretching over her face.
Ambrose had never felt like such a bastard in all his life. The pain he had forced on her was so great that she wished death, and he was not man enough to grace her with that demand. He closed his eyes against her pain.
“Ambrose,” she growled. Her claw-like nails dug into his shoulders again and his lips tightened.
“I’m sorry, Marisabel, but I cannot. And won’t. Just accept the change and it will hurt so much less…” It was the truth. The more she struggled, the more his powers had to work to complete the transformation, and the more they had to ravage her body to get the job done. He slid a hand down her back, willing soothing heat to spread from his palm into her body, doing what he could to soothe the pain.
For a second, all he heard from her was the ragged sound of her breathing, and all he felt from her were the convulsions of her body.
“What did you do to me?” she whispered through clenched teeth.
“I saved you,” he said simply, hiding his emotions. He would not add to her distress by expressing his own. The akrinos buzzed beside him, vying for attention, but he shied away from it. Mari needed his attention more than the akrinos.
The thing flashed him in the face as a sign of retaliation, and then settled upon Mari’s chest. She jerked in his arms, eyes widening with fear.
“It will not hurt you,” he murmured, smoothing her hair back with a trembling hand. “Just quiet down and be still. The change will begin soon…”
And it did. Seconds later, a scream ripped from her throat and her back arched to the point of nearly snapping in half. Her face was flushed to a near purple, her knuckles were white, and her legs…disappeared. No longer were her feet kicking through the water, instead laying there limply as the transformation progressed.
He watched with a mixture of fascination and horror as a web-like covering wrapped around her delicate feet, the lacy substance binding her feet together so strongly that Mari had no chance of ripping. The pain-ridden scream turned to one of panic and hysteria, and Ambrose closed his eyes, wishing he could do something, anything.
But he couldn’t. Not while this was happening.
Mari struggled in his arms, trying to break free as she screamed and cried, but he wouldn’t let her go. The webbing curled over her calves and thighs, spreading over every square inch of her flesh and invading, burrowing in deep. Blood sprung from the pores of her pale skin, seeping out of the webbing and then mixing into the water as red tendrils.
The sight was almost too gruesome to watch, but he did. If anything should go wrong during the transformation, it would be all his fault for not supervising and healing her. The sound of snapping bones carried through the water with lightning quick speed, his inhuman ears catching it at an abnormally high squeal.
His teeth ground together..
Mari cried out again. Her arms waved around wildly, the web covering beginning to attack her forearms with vigor. Blood sprung from the pores on her arms, just as it had with her legs, which were now enfolded in the slimy wrap.
He watched with mute horror as it began to take over in parts that he hadn’t planned on. Ambrose didn’t have scale covering on his arms, and neither did Ceto. The only Atlantean he had ever known to have forearm braces was his mother, and she was long-dead.
“Sweet Atlantis,” he murmured, reaching out and sliding his hand over her forearm.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, her face contorting with pain. He yanked his hand away, blanching.
“Mari, I’m so sorry… So, so sorry…”
“Just make it stop!” she sobbed, wrapping her arms around his neck forcefully, right before yanking them away as her eyes flared open. The sensitivity in her arms must be agonizing, he thought numbly, helpless.
“I can’t, I’m sorry…. Please, be quiet. It will end soon enough, much quicker if you don’t make so much sound. Mari, listen to me—I’m only trying to help!” She struggled in his arms, fighting against him with every bit of strength she had.
“I don’t want your help,” she snarled through clenched teeth, slamming her head back into his arm as she shuddered once more. He felt something rub against fin, and moved it out of the way—until he realized what it was.
Mari’s tail.
A golden, luminescent tail that was shimmering in the darkness of the hole. He gasped, looking between Mari’s flushed face and the large, golden expanse of fin that was flapping frantically against his, like it had a mind of his own and didn’t know what to do.
He froze. Groaned. “Don’t…touch me there, Mari. Bad idea, really bad idea.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, you fish-freak!” she screamed, face mimicking that of a woman giving birth. Even from years without witnessing a birthing, he could remember all too well the screams of the pregnant women—and Mari sounded like she was going through the same experience as them.
He didn’t point out to her that she was now a “fish-freak,” too. Ambrose stayed silent and held onto her, adjusting her so that their fins were no longer rubbing against each other. As he moved her around, his hand slipped down her spine and trailed over her bottom—and he felt them.
The scales.
Willing the akrinos close—it had buzzed away when she’d started screaming—Ambrose gazed at the tail and froze.
Gold. Pure, shimmering gold. Whereas his tail was turquoise with the royal coloring, Mari’s was the color of…the gods. He had only met one group of beings with golden scales, and they had been the one to exile him after The Destruction.
The Gods. They knew that he had escaped, and they were punishing him in the form of Mari. But how? He shoved her out of his arms, watching her tumble to the sandy ground. She whimpered, struggling to her hands.
“What are you?” he asked, his voice rumbling. The akrinos zipped behind him, out of the path of his fury.
She was silent. Laying there, panting, her body shuddering from what she had just gone through, Ambrose felt a wrath he had never felt before. Even with all of the shit that had been done to him during his lifetime, nothing topped what he felt right now.
Being exiled, tortured by Ceto, losing his powers? None of that could compare to what he felt. The gods had sent Mari to free him—only to trick him and…what? What had been the point of sending her?
Was she going to bring him back to his kingdom so he could be tortured for returning after being exiled? Was she there to seduce him and finally kill him? Ceto had learned soon on that she could not kill him. Even as a goddess, she had never been able to take his life.
Though she had tried. Years and years of trying had proved that he was, in every sense of the word, immortal. Cut him into pieces? They grew back. Chop his tail off? It grew back. Take any part of his body, and it grew back.
And now, there was Mari, whose golden tail was proof that the gods were out to get him. This strange woman had helped him escape, and now she was going to…do what, exactly?
Her pained eyes met him from across the short distance, terror embedded in their silver depths. “What did you do to me?” she gasped, wrapping her arms around herself as the scale covering continued to invade very part of her skin that had bled. The scales seemed to flip up from underneath her skin, like the set of dominos that Ceto had once brought to him years ago when she hadn’t been so cruel.
“Didn’t you plan on this?” he snarled, yanking his fin away from her when she reached out to him, her eyes showing the torment she was feeling. A moan bubbled out of her throat.
“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean… Please, Ambrose, whatever you did to me”—her voice cracked and she gasped for breath—“make it stop.”
His mouth lifted into a sneer, even as his chest began to fill with sorrow. He could sense the pounding of her heart, and didn’t know whether to attribute it to the fact that she was possibly lying to him, or just going through the agonizing transformation.
Her eyes reddened and she lifted a hand to her cheeks, as if searching for tears.
She choked on a sob and covered her face. “It hurts. Take it away…”
If she really were with the gods, she would not be feeling this. They contained the powers to heal at will, and it took an enormous amount of damage to make them feel pain like she was.
Ambrose crept forward, reaching out a hand, eyes narrowed. Mari had shown real concern for him in the cave, had stayed when Ceto had appeared, and had helped him to the water. It might all be an act—she could have easily taken Ceto if the goddess had spotted her, if Mari really were of the gods—but he sensed that Mari was true at heart, more than any person he had met before.
She grasped his hand, breathing a sigh of relief before her body seized up, her shoulders bunching behind her and as a heart-wrenching whimper burst from her throat.
“What did you mean?” she asked, her voice thin, the life completely drained out of her.
In front of him, her full-blown, golden-scale tail waved in front of him, gently weaving through the water even as her upper body convulsed.
“Nothing, Mari. Just breathe…”
“In the water?” she asked, right before her eyes popped open wide. A crazed look entered her eye right before her face puffed up.
“What are you doing?” He frowned, debating whether he should reach out and touch her cheeks. Ambrose had no clue why, but he liked how she felt, how she didn’t scorn his touch—unlike Ceto, who hated him so much that she had to be the one to start the sex. If he ever touched her when it wasn’t warranted, there was hell to pay.
With Mari, though… Even when she was in pain, she accepted him. He tightened his hand around hers and she looked at him with frantic eyes, cheeks still puffy.
She pointed at her throat, wiggling around until she was sitting on her ass. Apparently, the pain was forgotten and she was…trying to draw a picture with her hands? His frowned deepened. “Marisabel. I don’t know what you’re trying to show me…”
Frustration had her face turning pink, or was that because she wasn’t breathing? Her cheeks expanded even bigger.
Ambrose started to pull away. “If you didn’t want me to touch you, you could have—“
“Drowning!” The word exploded from her mouth before she went back to being a puff-fish.
He stared at her. “Drowning? Marisabel, you cannot drown. You breathe water now, just inhale—“
Her head shook frantically, wisps of golden hair floating up behind her. The akrinos zigzagged its way around her, the light dimming and brightening repeatedly with its excitement.
Mari grasped his hand, and he startled—right before she shoved his hand over her mouth and blew water on it. Slowly, understanding dawned on him. The mortal thought that she was still an air-breather, and that she still needed oxygen.
Right then, for the first time in two thousand years, he burst out laughing. The sound was rough and shocked even himself, but he couldn’t stop the explosion. After so long, his first laugh was at a mortal, who was now an Atlantean, and who thought she was drowning.
Still laughing, he reached up and pressed both hands to her cheeks, pushing. The water blew out of her with a gust and she gasped, eyes stricken.
“I’m going to die if you don’t—wait…”
Realization entered her eyes right as he burst into deep, all-consuming guffaws again. “You can speak and breathe perfectly fine, mortal!” Ambrose grabbed at his stomach, the sensation so strange he didn’t know how else to react except laugh some more.
Mari stared at him, then opened her mouth. Sucked in water. Her face crinkled like she expected herself to cough, and when she didn’t, the surprise he saw in her eyes set another round of laughing for him.
“Oh, sweet Atlantis,” he chuckled, holding his stomach. “It hurts so good to watch you struggle.”
The surprise deflated like a popped blow-fish. Her eyes narrowed so quickly that he instantly stopped laughing and moved away from her.
“Struggle? All-fucking-right, you sadistic piece of salmon! I think I’m more than struggling right now. First off, I no longer think that this is a TV show. I think I actually died. If you’re God, and this is some sort of sick revenge for me threatening to haunt Ray? Then we have a problem. ‘Cause the God I know? He has a white beard and a robe. You don’t have a fucking robe.”
At least she isn’t crying anymore, he thought, even though he was beginning to think that he much preferred sobbing over angry hysteria.
She shoved a hand through her hair—then had to yank to get her hands out.
Her chest heaved a second before her eyes reddened.
Ambrose jumped up, grabbing her wrists and helping her untangle her hands. “There’s an oil we can get for your hair, do not worry.” He pulled her wrists to her lap, setting them there and studying her. Her irrational thought process was most likely swirling in her head as they sat there, which he was grateful for. Half of the things she talked about when she raged, Ambrose didn’t understand.
Her shoulders fell and the thumping of her tail slowed. The shimmering fin was curled up, as if it didn’t have the will to let its beauty flare in the dank hole that they were resting in.
“Did she find us?” she mumbled, head facing the ground.
“Ceto? No, she did not. But that doesn’t mean we should stop and assume we are safe. Are you tired?” he asked, brows lowering with concern. Her face was pale and her red eyes still hadn’t returned to their normal whiteness.
She shook her head. “The farther we get away from this place, the better.” Mari began to sit up, and Ambrose once again rushed to her side, taking her arm, forcing himself not to ask himself why he was being so touchy with her.
Damn, but did her arm feel smooth and delicate under his roughened palm…
Her head lifted and their eyes met. Ambrose froze. Maybe he should learn better restraint; obviously he’s repulsive to her…
The soft touch of her palm on his bicep made him flinch, before he realized that she wasn’t retaliating. With a breath of relief, he pushed up from the ground and dragged her with him, letting her lean into his chest when she needed to.
“Why do I feel so—“ Her question cut off so quickly, he would have thought she’d disappeared had she not been in his grasp. He glanced at her and paused, frowning.
“Are you alright?”
Her head slowly shook. “No, no I’m not alright. Ambrose. I have a tail. A friggin’ tail.”
He nodded. “Yes, you do. Didn’t you notice it before?” How could she not have? The thing glowed almost brighter than the akrinos.
“I was... I did,” she admitted, scrubbing a hand over her face. “Just hoped that it was a hallucination or something.”
He patted the scale brace on her arm. “No, it is not a hallucination. It’s very much real,” he said, swimming upward and urging her to follow him with his hand.
She slowly followed him. Ambrose forced himself to be patient. The mortal was as unused to her new appendage as a merbaby was, so he had to take it carefully. Overwhelming her with too much at once would make her easily worn out, and they didn’t have time for that.
He would have much more preferred to just let her stay there and rest, give her a moment to get accustomed to her tail, but they didn’t have that kind of time. They were barely a couple miles away from the cave and even though it didn’t feel like it, hours had passed. The sun was dimming and casting less light into the water than it had before, giving him reason to worry.
Sure, akrina was enough light to get them farther away, but she needed rest and when she was out, so was akrinos. If she suddenly decided she couldn’t go on anymore, then Ambrose and the mortal were in deep, dark trouble.
Ambrose was quickly gaining his strength back, but not at a fast enough rate to fight off the dangerous ocean creatures. The sharks, Sirens, Octopian, and Ceto were the biggest threats he could think of, and he knew that he wasn’t ready to take them on yet.
Thinking about the Octopians made him shudder. Dealing with the eight-legged Atlanteans, who could easily snap a mortal in half, was not something he looked forward to, especially not with Mari witnessing all of it...
He tightened his grip on her, dragging her behind him. When he felt her catching up with less help from him, his mouth kicked up in a half-smile and he glanced back. She was getting the hang of it perfectly—and way too seductively. Her tail was flowing behind her, shimmering like pure gold, and the fin was just as entrancing to watch. But her hips...that’s what caught his eye the most. She had a small waist, and perfectly proportioned chest. It only emphasized how womanly she moved, even when learning how to swim.
“Am I doing it right?” she asked, nervously biting her lip.
Ambrose forced himself to tear his eyes away from her body. “You’re doing wonderfully, Marisabel.”
He watched with fascination as her cheeks turned pink—and not from crying. A smile started to curl her bow-shaped lips. “Thank you...even though I’m definitely not okay being a fish.” She glared at him.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, instantly feeling like he’d been kicked in the jaw. God, he’d ruined her life while she’d saved his. What kind of repayment was that?
“Well...We’ll figure it out.” The look in her eyes said she believed otherwise, and he almost started to apologize before she said, “And don’t call me Marisabel, I haven’t heard that name since I was ten and my mother found me dangling from the tree by my feet because my brothers thought they’d turn me into a literal bell, dangling from the tree. It was the worst April Fool’s prank ever.”
“April Fools prank?” He frowned. “I haven’t heard of this. Explain.”
“You know there are twelve months a year, right?”
Ambrose nodded his answer.
“Okay, well the first day of April is basically where everyone plays tricks on each other, doing things that would normally freak other people out and then telling them it was just a prank.” She shrugged, flipping her tail hard to boost her way closer to him.
She took his hand and it made his heart stop. After everything, she still touched him.
Ambrose glanced away from her, hiding the relief in his eyes. Why it mattered to him at all, he didn’t know.
“Anyways,” she murmured, her hip brushing against his as they swam, “Where are we going? Do you have any specific destination in mind?”
“Ah...no,” he said, running a hand over his jaw. Where was he going to take them?
He couldn’t take them to Atlantis, or anywhere close. It might have been thousands of years, his hair might reach his jaw, and the scars on his body had deformed him, but people would still recognize him, still try to kill him.
His lineage no longer mattered—his folly had been too great to redeem and the gods had abandoned him.
“That’s great,” she said dryly. He didn’t miss the sarcasm. “So we just swim away as much as we can and pray she doesn’t catch us?”
“For now? Yes. There are other places than Atlantis that we can seek shelter at. We just have to find them and pray that they still exist.”
“Atlantis?” she squeaked. “There’s actually an Atlantis? Oh my god. Oh my god. Heaven is friggin’ Atlantis?” By the time she got done waving her arms around her with her eyes going all wide and crazy, her voice was the pitch of a dolphin’s squeal and he made no qualm hiding his reaction.
Covering his ears, he said, “I realize this might be a shock, but please keep in mind that I have only heard one voice for two thousand straight years and her tone never reached above the pitch of barking seal.”
She stared at him, then quickly snapped out of her stupor. “There’s actually an Atlantis?” she asked again, this time whispering.
He dropped his hands. “Yes, there is.”
“And you lived there?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s real?”
“I believe I’ve already said this, but yes.”
“Oh my God.”
His eyes crossed. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Yes! We have to go there!” she squealed, her tail starting to thump with excitement. He opened his mouth to warn her to calm down, but before he knew it, she was shooting past him and screaming her head off the whole way.
“Ambrose!” she screeched, looking backwards even though her tail was forcibly carrying her the other way.
Groaning, he followed after her. Figures that he’d be stuck with a permanently hyper mortal who couldn’t control her own damn tail.
“Coming,” he growled.
“I can’t stop this thing!” Of course she couldn’t.
“Sweet Atlantis. Maybe I should just let it carry her off?” The akrinos shot up from behind him, coming out of hiding. It bumped against his shoulder, basically telling him, “Fetch her, you fool!”
Ambrose ran a hand through his hair. “You’re right, of course.” He sighed. “If she swims too fast, she might get whiplash and, gods forbid, cry.” He snarled the last word before taking off after the runaway woman, already knowing that this was going to be a journey he’d never forget.