Kai

I leave him and something heavy sits on my chest. I feel like I’m very exhausted and a strange flutter goes through my heart. I shuffle to my bedroom and fall on the mattress as the frame creaks like a tormented soul.

My mind drifts away far from here, travels to the sea I’ve visited twice in my life. My mermaid craves to face the brutal power of sea waves, to taste the sting from the salt on my lips, to experience the unity with all the good creatures living underwater. I sometimes forget that I am a mermaid. I’ve taken mermaid form maybe ten times in my life. It’s easy for me to be in human form. My sisters and I grew up in the human world, after all.

Then my thoughts float to that elven jerk who looked like shit during our meal. He has a woman he loves I’m certain. His words to me almost confirmed it.

Pain stabs my heart for some mysterious reason.

Well, maybe she’s a good looking nymph or a wolf. Or a human. No, he’d choose a dragoness. Definitely a fierce dragoness. A tall dragoness with small tits.

I have large tits, but apparently he doesn’t like them.

Right, I’m not a dragoness. I’m an ugly, smelly mermaid.

Ugh, what am I thinking about?

I roll in bed the whole night.

As the day is about to dawn, I have a shower, go downstairs to eat a sandwich, wake Adva to tell her I’m going out with Ettrian, and I walk out of the clubhouse. Ettrian is waiting for me by his motorcycle.

I zip up my bomber jacket and squat down to tie the shoelaces in my boots.

“Good morning,” Ettrian rasps.

I rise to my feet. “I’m gonna do what I promised to do and then we’re strangers to each other.”

“We will never be strangers to each other. How can we be strangers to each other while we’ve already become family members? We are a family. We can’t be strangers to each other.”

I’ve never heard him talk that much and he seems to be nervous. I’ve never seen him nervous. He’s always aloof.

I shake my head. “Whatever.”

He widens his eyes at me. “On my bike.”

“I thought I’d ride mine.”

He shakes his head like I’m a badly behaved kid then jumps on his bike and gestures for me to join him so I settle myself behind him.

I love riding a motorcycle. My bike to be precise—my beautiful beast of steel and red colours my dad bought for me five years ago. The boys sometimes take me for a ride on theirs, but I definitely prefer my bike.

I’ve never sat on Ettrian’s bike.

I wrap my arms around his chest and cling to his cut that he’s wearing on top of a black hoody. Thank God, he’s decided to have his long hair plaited today so I won’t eat it during the ride. His pointed ears are exposed and look kind of funny.

I don’t know what has come over me, but I raise my ass and pull his ear lightly. And I freeze, shocked by my own lack of restrain.

Ettrian grunts, but not like I expect him to grunt. No, that grunt is low, kind of sensual, almost like my touch’s been pleasant to him.

“Sorry,” I shriek. “I—“

“Just don’t pull my ears during the ride.”

“Okay.”

“You can pull them after I’ve parked the bike.”

“Really?”

He starts the engine so I hold on to him, plastered against his back like a piece of wallpaper.

We shoot forward, and I bury my face into his cut, leaving the smear of my lip-gloss over the inscription The Shadow Immortals MC.

Ettrian

She clings to me like her life depends on it, and I fight the urge to park the bike and capture her into my arms.

I’d beg for her tiny fingers to touch my ear again and give me that jolt of pleasure.

It has never happened to me before.

I heard of it though. It happened between elves who were in love. A true rarity among my kind.

My dick is so hard it’s painful and I can barely focus on riding my motorcycle.

I have to focus. We’re outside of our protection zone and I’m responsible for Kai’s safety.

I try very hard to recall the words of an old elven song in my head, but her thighs pressed against mine are all that I can focus on.

In two hours, we’ll reach the seaside.

I wish I could ride with her chest pressed against my back for four hours.

Then her voice reaches my ears through the roar of the engine. It’s a mermaid ballad. And it fucking makes me feel insane. My heart pounds in my chest. Fever surges through my veins. My rationality evaporates and a primal instinct replaces it. I need to fuck. I need to fuck like an animal.

I take a sharp turn and deviate from the motorway. The bike moves along a car factory then across a village until I spot a narrow path leading into the woods. I slow down and we immerse ourselves into the darkness that smells of earth after rain and resins. I stop, twist my chest and grab that naughty creature sitting behind me. Kai sighs as I plant her on my lap.

“Why are you singing to me?” I growl.

“What?”

“A mermaid song. You know what it can do to me.”

“What?” Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “You’re an elf. My songs don’t affect you in any way.”

Kai

His fingers dig into my waist as he rests his forehead against mine. I’m no angel, but my genome enables me to sense something dark and fierce from him.

The handlebar is digging into my back, but I ignore the pain. I’m seated on Ettrian’s lap and every atom of my body screams that this crazy elf is going to do something horrible to me.

“Your songs affect men,” he says as his hot breath brushes against my cheek.

“Men who might desire a mermaid. Human men. You’re an elf. You don’t desire me, right?”

He growls then draws me closer to him as my ass rubs against the bulge in his jeans. Oh. My. God. He is hard. And his dick is massive.

My gaze shifts to his. Even though it’s dark here, I can see the navy blaze of his eyes. His irises keep changing the colour from navy to purple then to navy back again with more silver. This silver tinge starts blazing and his eyes look like the diamonds reflecting the sun’s rays. His aura hits me hard—earth after rain, the neutrality of death and life, the cold instinct of the warrior raging inside of him.

“Your eyes,” I gasp.

“My eyes?” he says like he’s in a daze.

His hands move up and he hooks me under the arms. Then his lips are on mine.

A gust of his magic surges through me. My hands jerk up, but he kisses me deeper and I feel hazy and limp. My hands collapse and I drown into the heat and wetness of his mouth pressed against mine.

For a few seconds.

My self-preservation instinct switches on, and I push at his shoulders. He moves back a bit, stunned, as my hand sweeps, and I slap him across the cheek. Blood spurts from his nose, shimmery red at the touch of the first sun’s rays filtering through the ceiling of leaves. I freeze, leaning against the handlebar.

Ettrian shakes his head and smirks at me.

“Ettrian’s rule number one,” he says, “never kiss mermaids. Ettrian’s rule number two—never even attempt to fuck a mermaid.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He wipes the blood dripping from his nose away with the back of his hand and scans the front of his hoody. It’s covered in red stains.

“It was worth it,” he says.

“If you touch me again, I’ll break your arm. My dad is President. He taught me how to break arms.”

“My broken bones heal very quickly.” He nods then tilts his head and stares at me.

No—

He’s not staring.

He’s devouring me with his eyes. And it feels so fucking good that I pull the sleeve of my jacket down and wipe the blood from underneath his nose with the cuff.

“You’re welcome,” I say, taking my hand off him.

He nods then leans towards me and slams his lips on mine.

My mind whirls; my self-preservation instinct disappears, and I open my mouth wide for him. His arms wrap around me, and I sink into the heat of his body and the delicious wetness of his kiss. He raises himself and jumps off the bike as my arms and legs wrap around him. Our kiss never breaks. We lower to the ground at the pine tree and Ettrian sits with his legs folded and splayed. I’m on top of him. My lips are united with his as our tongues touch, dance, and mate.

I move away from him. “Our trip…”

“Later,” Ettrian rasps and puts his hand on the back of my neck as his lips capture mine again.

I could have sworn this elven jerk is seriously interested in me.

I tear my lips from his. “You know how it works in the club, huh?”

“I know.” His hands stroke my back up and down then he pulls me to him and kisses me again.

I growl, pulling away, so we sit opposite each other. “There are rules, Ettrian. Very fucking strict rules. My dad—“

My dad would kill Ettrian if the elf took my virginity and trashed me. Being the club’s member means that you respect the women here.

Those rules work for my dad. My sisters and me? Talia is married, but Yara, Murray and I are virgins waiting for our princes to find us, love us and marry us. Whoever they are. What a fucking comedy. Or a drama, I’m unsure.

“I’ll marry you,” Ettrian says.

“What?”