his crest frill fanning full out and beginning to shake with his sudden, turbulent emotions. “Burn that thought! I will never leave you—”
“I’m not suggesting that you do,” I cut in, smoothing my hand over his scaly snout, trying to quell the rising panic he’s clearly experiencing. “Kalos, I’m saying it’s time for us to leave.”
Now it’s my sisters who panic. “Adella, no!”
“You can’t leave…”
“You just came back!”
I hunch a shoulder, feeling a pang at the thought of separating from them. “It won’t be for forever.” I paddle in a circle, meeting each of their eyes. “But we really can’t stay much longer, can we? Kalos needs to eat more in a day than all of these waters can spare to feed him.” I open my arms to my dragon, and he fits his nose against my chest, our version of a hug. “Besides, it’s time I met my dragons-in-law.”
Kalos goes tense. Smoke puffs out from under my arms as he exhales. “Adella?”
I pat his spiked jaw. “I know you’ll keep them from eating me.”
“Damned right I will,” he growls.
“Then see? It’s fine.” I release him and sink into the water, swimming for the shore.
Kalos plucks me up before I get there, and we both gaze down at my tail, sparkling with water droplets and reflecting sunshine.
“I’m going to miss this,” he says with a sigh. His eyes begin to burn with wicked heat.
The edges of my slit begin to turn puffy and ache, responding just to this look in his eye. Because we learned that when Kalos turns into a human man, I don’t have to turn into a human woman. We just need a little privacy, and in the water or on the beach, Kalos can sink himself inside my slit just fiiine while I’m in merform. He’s so big, bigger than any man I’ve ever taken before, that it feels impossibly tight to the point of seeming naughty—and it drives us wild.
Kalos has to shake himself, setting me down on the sand and gazing around us, at my sisters who line up along the shoreline, watching us sadly. “I’ll bring her back,” he vows.
“You’d better,” Katiana complains, sounding bitter.
“Yeah, you’ve already made all our men disappear. Now you’re stealing off with our sister again,” Nixie accuses. The words would seem harsh and accusing but she sounds more glum and sad than anything.
Regardless, I’m moved to defend him. “He didn’t make any men disappear!” I fume. I look to Kalos, waiting for him to say something, but he’s peering at Nixie like he’s lost in thought.
“It would make you happy to have males of your own?” Kalos asks.
My sisters stare at him. “You mean like… we get to keep a male only for ourselves?”
There’s a lovely sort of longing in her voice, and Kalos’s chest swells with purpose. He uses his nose to nudge me back towards the water. “Change of plans for the moment.” He scans my sisters. “I will return with a male for each of you.”
My sisters’ eyes have all gone round. Heck, mine have too. “How?” I ask. “Where will you find them? There aren’t many mermen. Mertribes have to share them.”
Kalos casts a considering look at my siblings. “But you could be happy with a male who wasn’t a merman, yes? Do you have any races or species you’re averse to, or fear, or disfavor?”
“Besides dragons?” Sirena drawls playfully. She doesn’t mean it; she was so ready to capture that dragon who tried to hunt here. If he hadn’t flown away looking so terrified, she absolutely would have claimed him.
So I light-heartedly slap her with my tail fins for teasing Kalos.
She squeals and splashes me with water, then turns back to Kalos.
Kalos’s neck crest puffs out and collapses, his version of a shrug. “Oh, I can bring you something besides dragons.” He reaches out to give one last nuzzle to my hair—and when some of it tangles and clings to the roughness of his scales, he brings his claws up out of the water and brushes the strands free. Some of them naturally pull loose though, resulting in Kalos making a whirring purr of a noise.
He gathers all of the freed strands carefully in his claws.
“Oh, Triton’s beard. He’s going to make his hairy ball bigger,” Patrice complains, rolling her eyes and lying back in the water.
“You wouldn’t think he could make his balls bigger,” Pearl snickers, referring to the fact that Kalos’s sack in human form is rather healthy sized. He’s quite