#tropemas

Only one thing would wake him. Kaan had learned to ignore your voice - with practice, he liked to tease - and the debt to the fae and their blessed garden was worth it when you held out the plump berry in your fingertips. Already the juices dribbled, so sweet in the middle of winter, and the temptation to eat it yourself itched at the back of your mind.

The naga's dusk nose twitched before a forked tongue flicked out to scent the air. His warm lips kissed the juices away, the berry savoured. Kaan groaned, both thick from sleep and delight. “I love fae food," he whispered, and at your laugh, peeked his eyes open. "Only one?"

"More when you say hi."

"Hi," he yawned. Long arms stretched overhead and the naga curled nearer, his head almost on your lap. "Feed me, morsel."

"Morsel," you scoffed. Kaan whined when you stood and ate a fae-blessed berry, the sugars and juices tingling through you. "How are you doing?"

"Apart from missing you?" The glare you gave earned a bright laugh. His teasing never ceased and it did nothing to help the flutter in your chest. He only missed your gifts. "I'm cold. Will you light the fire again? What did you bring me?"

Though you grumbled, his keen eyes already found the logs piled in wait of being lit. Kaan moved out from the bundled nest to the hamper. His arm reached, and a sharp hiss made you both freeze when you smacked him back.

The plea and apology jumbled together as you choked on a laugh. Crouched before the dim fire pit, sparks caught light as a heavy head nestled against your thighs. Kaan groaned and wound his arms to your hips, nuzzling against you.

"Sssso warm," he whispered, and scrunched his face when the lisp elongated. "I missed you."

Soft cracks of the fire warmed the cave. His hair felt silken when you ran your fingers back through it. "I missed you, too."

He hummed, "good. Tell me what you brought me."

The gradual slowing of his breathing came when you spoke. You used to take offence to it, when Kaan began to hug you close and his heart slowed, but now as he draped his heavy tail closer around your bodies, you understood it to be a sign of his trust.

Nobody else would be here- could be here while he neared hibernation. Kaan reluctantly stirred when you pressed a berry to his lips with a whispered groan of your name when you teased and ate one instead. His lips pressed to your fingertips before your cheek, and he fell into the furs you threw back over him.

Beneath the cave, down a tricky slope in near darkness, you washed grime off your body in a freezing, rushing stream. So narrow and fast that you never dared inch too close, only retrieving fresh water and helping stock it for Kaan when he woke.

It was your practice for too long now. Always helping, always returning to his side to wake him, to welcome the lips on your temple as he relied on your body heat in colder nights. You wouldn't change a thing... not many things. The worst part of coming was knowing the same evening you would leave for the season, and return in no time passed for Kaan, but days of a life passed, wasted, pining for the naga asleep in a cave.

He woke with a small yawn and a nudge of his tail to your hip. Without looking up from the fire you stoked, you ran your fingertips to the white and silver scales. "You know, I think you take me for granted."

Kaan frowned. The anticipated retort hadn't come, and the naga instead slid closer. His cool arms curled back to your waist like he’d never parted and settled you on his wide lap. "Would you want me to visit your village as often as you visit me? I could. I would, to see you," he hummed, and his smile grew against your shoulder when you scowled. "I may even end up on a spike. Or be made an accessory… I am pretty enough. You could always keep me close-"

"At least you'd be quiet."

"How rude," he muttered. His chin rested heavy on your shoulder. In the passing seconds, his cheek nuzzled closer, lips soft brushing the shell of your ear. If he scented the air, you dreaded what would be found. "Nearly done with the fire?" He - from practice, knew to dodge your elbow, grinning and squeezing you close. "I need to rest. Will you be gone?"

"I'll be back in a month," you said, but his arms tightened at your words. It hurt. To come all this way only to leave again, empty handed and heavy-hearted. "It'll pass quickly for you. Go, rest."

His tongue flicked at your cheek before he wriggled and curled in his nest. Neither of you mentioned the tip of his tail gently curled to your ankle. "Don't eat all my berries."

Left huddling before the growing flames, it was only the ache weighing on your shoulders keeping you from leaving. That, and the softening of scales as reluctant as you to part. Perhaps a little that beyond the cave, the wind lashed and even standing - gently stepped from the coils slowly winding to your knees - and pausing at the entrance, the harsh chill struck you.

It was dark. The only light came from the fire grown at your back illuminating the cave, bathing Kaan is a soft glow.

One peek from the boulder at the entrance and your stomach fell. Too dark for you, too dangerous with ice coating the path and frost in the air, and any torch carried would extinguish on first step outside.

He woke from a light sleep with a groan like he had before, but once he'd stolen the fae fruit, his eyes fluttered shut again. Only after snatching a blanket - one you had spent hours on, were his eyes lifting to yours.

"Kaan, I'm staying the night."

With a soft stare, fatigued and barely resisting the tug of hibernation, the bundled naga crooked a smile. "Missed me that much already?"

"It's too dark for me to get home." The soft glow of his eyes and his frown reminded you that unlike humans, the naga was adapted to dim caves and night-darkened forests. Unable to look him in the eye, you pretended to search for somewhere to lay. "Not all nagas are as soft-hearted towards humans."

"Not humans." His arms reached out to you from the nest. "Just you. The cost of your stay is to cuddle me. Keep me warm."

The thick boots laced at your ankles landed with a thud even as you frowned. "But you're cold."

"So warm me up."

The chill of his arms made you gasp, but Kaan chuckled and tucked you even tighter. His nest was set in a dip of stone, cushioned by furs and blankets and old clothes, some yours that had somehow been “lost,” and laying on something warmed by the time Kaan had been curled here settled the nerves in your stomach.

The race of your heart lurched as the naga dragged his jaw against your crown, embracing you to his warming body. Bare chested as he was, your fingertips curled above his calming heartbeat and already, he was breathing slower.

Sleep evaded you with the steady tucking of cool scales against your legs. Kaan gripped you to him tighter, coming to clutch you to his chest, and sometime sleep came, when your ear was to his heart and his fingers tangled in your hair, pressing you there.

Without any light to wake you, it was the chill of a fire dying rousing you, and you woke much as you had fallen asleep; warmed in the softest hug, lips hovering to your forehead. There wasn't anywhere you would rather be; it would've been perfect, if the fire hadn't died.

Kaan's soft breaths nuzzled against your crown. He had woken only moments ago with you, but he was quick to draw you back when you readied to move, burying you beneath furs and his coils. He seemed as reluctant as you to leave, so you tucked into his chest, content to listen to the slow beat of his heart. It nearly soothed you back to sleep; the soft pace of like a lullaby.

Words thickened by lethargy, Kaan mumbled against your temple, "why is it only you come in winter?"

"Don't you want me to?"

"That wasn't the question."

Palm flat on his taut stomach, you watched the muscle tense beneath your touch, reluctant to even whisper, "I care about you."

"That would be why you spent the night wriggling closer then," Kaan teased, pressing his nose into your hair with a chuckle, even as you gasped and strained against him.

"I was wriggling because your coils tighten in your sleep! Don't blame me, you heat-hog! That tail-"

"Oh, this one?"

Scales rubbing together rasped like the soft burn of a fire now lost. Kaan weaved them against you until you were pressed flush, able to watch him bite back a grin when you grumbled, "you just want me close for heat."

"Mm. Speaking of heat," he breathed, and if he heard your heart spasm, he didn't show it. Kaan's palm stroked against the curve of your throat, thumb stroking where your collarbones dipped. "You ought to be careful about caring for me. It almost feels like courtship, and we wouldn't want me to fall into a mating rut, would we?"

The gentleness brushed where your neckline fell loose on your chest. His eyelids fell to where he traced the heat rushing to his touch, and the silence only dragged on. His chest rose on a deep breath, one caught in his throat as he whispered, "right?"

"Kaan…"

Hand framing your jaw, the naga swallowed hard, voice rasping. "Would we?"

"I," you shuddered at his forehead coming to yours, his lips only a mere breath away. "I wouldn't mind if you wanted to… to-"

"To mate you."

"To mate me," you echoed. "I wouldn't mind being your mate."

For a fleeting breath, Kaan laid against you, into you. Thick tail nudged to your hips and his lips were so warm where he was elsewhere cold. The affection you ached for flooded you down to your curling toes, but it was fleeting. Kaan unwound himself. He recoiled to the deepest corner of his nest, head tucked low, away from you.

"Go," he croaked. Kaan's claws bit into the cave beneath him; he had never been so small in your presence. "Go, please."

There was no arguing with the tremor in his plea, nor with the agony creeping into his face, the same you fought to hide deep in your chest. Only the words whispered in the back of your mind forced you from his nest, cold now without him beside you. He didn't want you, the voice hissed. He doesn't want you. The promise of a mate tempted him.

He wouldn't be fighting it so hard if that were true. Fighting for you.

Boots heavy on your dragging feet brought you to the mouth of the cave, but no further. The forests beyond remained hidden. Even the grip on the snow boots didn’t ground you when the unyielding stone forced you back from the force of your struggle.

"Kaan…"

"I can't," he mumbled. "If you stay, if-if-"

"The cave entrance is snowed over. The stones are frozen together and we're," you winced. "We're snowed in together, Kaan."

Hardly audible above the storm binding you to the cave, Kaan whispered, "no. No, you're just-you must be weak."

"I'm not weak, Kaan." Weaker than him, yes, but not weak. "If I was weak, I wouldn't make it to you through those woods."

"No… No, I didn't-" his gulp was audible. "May I try?"

Nothing stopped him from trying, but you. Kaan tucked himself round the cave wall and only met your eyes when you stepped back. Sharp guilt rose to tighten and bind your throat.

The rock didn't budge. Not with his body coiling tight and shoving harder, succeeding only to bruise himself.

You were locked together. Trapped.

Kaan's soft voice carried like the wind. Curled into the coldest crack of the entrance, it brushed so gently, quietly, you almost missed it. "Tell me you meant it." Though turned away still, the tip of his tail didn't miss when he reached, winding against your leg. "Tell me again."

"Kaan-"

"Don't come closssser if you didn't," he whispered.

The single step broke him. His tail swept you back but he caught you, the furs your cushions when he laid you down. Kaan framed your cheeks and nudged his nose to yours.

"Tell me before this goes any further," he said, his long eyelashes fluttering by yours. Even as he spoke, the claws of his fingertips traced beneath your thick layers, creeping up your stomach to brush your chest. "Tell me."

"Kaan, I want you to be my mate. I want to be yours."

The gentlest kisses faltered where your chest rose with shallow breaths. Together, the layers fell away, goosebumps and shivers blossoming beneath the cold air, beneath the softening, heated stare running low, lower to your hips struggling to lift beneath the weight of his.

On a warm laugh, Kaan rose up and helped you kick the rest free. Both laying bare, warm and close, your hands travelled the muscle of his chest - only for you to gasp.

The naga grinned, cheeks nestled to your thighs. One hiss made you whimper, forked tongue flicking up, a mere brush. "Kaan-"

"Yes?"

"Don't tease," you whispered, but the warming of his eyes promised nothing less than torture. His tongue slid from his lips reminiscent of how he tasted the fae food, and he tasted you with the same reverence, the same guttural groan as the tip flicked up your folds to brush your flushing bud. "Kaan," you gasped, and the naga only laughed deeper.

"Did you think I wouldn't savour you?"

"Savour-“ you choked. Morsel. “Kaan, I am not a meal-"

"You are," he murmured, and with his hands gripping your thighs, he dragged you from the nest and against his lips.

The cave rang with your hoarse cries and hollow breaths. So sensitive already, the tips of his tongue falling low sent a wave of fire through you. Kaan groaned with your heels digging hard into his back to beckon him close, but he never wasted a second, never wasted a breath that could be better spent pleasuring you.

He pleasured you too well. With a soft whisper unheard over the blood rushing in your ears, Kaan pressed a warm hand to your navel and held you down, the thick muscle slipping into your hips and- oh, you cried, the tip dragging slowly to the nerves tender and tightening.

The cave was dark enough, but only blurred spots danced in your vision. Your legs trembled. Kaan curled his tongue and dragged up, and you arched, bucked, overcome with a rush of-

Nothing.

"That… that was cruel," you struggled to say, shaking still as the crescendo began to ebb away and the offender grinned. His open mouthed kisses rose from your navel and up, pausing to press sharp teeth to your nipple until you sunk heavy again. "I won't... I won't beg."

"I think not. It will be me begging for you," he said to your lips. Thick on his tongue, Kaan kissed you deeper, cradling your crown as a weight nestled between your hips. His lips rose when you whined and spread your thighs wider, welcoming the thick, twin lengths heavy on your stomach. "And beg I will," he breathed, and two crooked fingers inched into you. "I want to make love to you, now. Please. Please," he whispered, fingertips where his tongue had been and teasing whines freely from you.

"I need you. I-"

Kaan's lips parted on bringing his slick fingers to his lips, and in parting them, you saw the swollen fangs, slick like his fingers as he sucked you from them. The gentlest warmth of his head running from your clit down stole your focus with ease, your eyes rolling and hips following, leaning up to align with his cock pressing down.

"Ready?" Kaan pressed his thumb to your lower lip, flushed and swollen, parted as you struggled for breath. Your muscles tightened at the steady rub of him to your centre, and you nodded. "Lips open, my mate."

"For… for the venom?"

"If you'd rather not," he rushed, and though you loved his need to reassure you, the pull of his body away twisted your stomach so you dug your heels into him and tensed. His cock entered you so slowly you nearly came, and when he stroked down your cheek to bring your eyes to his, the warmth there coaxed you back to that precipice. "Do you want it?"

The answer was yes to all he had, and you begged as much. Kaan chuckled and the rumbling met your lips. With the first tang of venom on your tongue, the naga rocked himself forward and his cock filled you, thick and curved and hot like his tongue meeting yours, blackened by the aphrodisiac tightening your chest.

It eased the slight burn in a breath and you nodded once, dragging your mate closer and reaching low to stroke the cock heavy on your stomach. Kaan shuddered and his body stiffened, a whimper passing you both.

Then he moved.

He moved and your body was aflame. The pleasure endless in your nerves arched your chest, Kaan nuzzling down to take your flushed nipples into his lips in turn and nip, suck, kiss, thrusting in time with your stuttered gasps.

Beyond the cave, wind howled; nothing like Kaan's deepened groans, his claws dipping into your thighs where he pushed you back and sunk deeper at this angle. Venom coated his lips. It coated yours, tingling in your throat, thoughts and stomach, until your breath caught.

He felt it, too. Kaan's forehead rested to yours as he rocked slower, deeper, and into your fist. With a bitten back smile, you squeezed your fingers and ran low to tease the slick dip in his scales, the slit, and the naga bellowed a harsh cry. He came deep, hot and strong and along your stomach, Kaan stealing your matching pleasure with a fevered kiss.

Neither of you felt sated. The venom still pulsed strong and hibernation was long forgotten, a mating rut stirred and his cocks stiff against you. Kaan cradled you on his lap as you sought to be closer, aching to take him again until you couldn't any longer.

You itched to draw him. If portraits were your talent, the sloping of his tail beneath the water would be decorating your papers before night, if he hadn’t ruined them.

Each touch of claws almost tore through the soggy paper and he turned the page. Saltwater dripped from hair curling in the heat of the sun when the creature lurched up and the boat jostled. His hand came to your thigh before you rose from the bench, like he had known you were feigning sleep. Where he was so soaked by the sea, you hadn’t thought it possible the slender fingers stroking up your leg could be so warm, pressing against you to trace a more developed sketch – of the same view, but he admired all the same.

Seasickness had never plagued you before in all your time at sea but how the creature rocked it then made your stomach lurch. He had torn through the paper and some noise tumbled free of you, a panicked cry or curse and you reached to snatch it back before he could damage it more. The merman had stiffened. Claws you hadn’t felt before snagged at you bare thigh and the swaying of your small boat only ceased when he rose and clutched the edge tight. In a small way, you were grateful for that.

You weren’t so thankful that it brought him closer.

For the depth of colours in his scales, the sunlight brightening his rounding eyes forced back your bitterness. Equally dark hair shone a hidden navy with his head canting, though he remained as silent as you. His thin lips pulled back and you thought it a threat with predator’s teeth bared, until a black tongue slid against the points of his teeth and he smiled; a macabre smile, but the beauty of it was like the rest of him.

The sketchbook rested on your lap now, cradled, and that was where he lifted a slender arm, down to the book. Pointing to the paper then to himself, and back to you. Again. Once more, before the boat rocked.

“Do me,” he whispered, soft, disarmingly so that he came an inch more from the water and sunk the boat that much lower. “Do me or I may tip your boat.”

He dizzied your head like the boat had your senses. “You want… you want me to draw you?”

“Draw,” he echoed. When he stretched out to the paper, you let him trace the faded pencil lines and bright eyes peered up at you beneath uneven hair tangling along his forehead. “Draw me. Tomorrow at noon. Or the boat tips,” the merman breathed again through a glinting smile of daggered teeth, not entirely a tease. Smaller claws once on your blank sketchbook traced across your bare thigh, grazing up before nudging the hem of your shorts.

The boat tipped without him to held it steady, and only when he began to retreat did you catch his hand. His fingers slid through yours, claws falling to trace the deeper grooves in your palm when you asked, “do you have a name?”

“Don’t you?” In sharing yours – and hoping he wasn’t in any way fae, he smiled wider. “Brae. Noon.”

The waters carried you another hour before the touch of his thumb tracing along your wrist as he had the sketches left your thoughts. It was harder to banish him from your mind completely and he followed you home, the odd warmth of him smothered to the back of your chest where it ached. Wondering how his scales felt against you in place of his claws did you no good.

Noon came and inevitably, you were settled as far out as the day before, though you hadn’t a real choice in whether you were to return, regardless of this being a day you would nap in the sunlight without his demand.

Mer roamed the cove – it was renowned for them, notorious creatures known for luring humans out to toy with them far from land. If Brae had looked before at your art when you napped, you had no way of knowing, of knowing whether any mer had approached you before. If you left the boat moored today and returned tomorrow, you had no doubt that you would be turned into the sea.

Maybe, a little part of you so far hard to smother, wanted to see him. It was curiosity settling you on the bench of the bench, a pencil twisting through your fingers above a blank page. Most mer, those who made their homes at the cove, shimmered brighter; not so much navy but sky blue, softer hues. Brae’s fins were just that bit sharper, eyes smaller slits with less light to them, his body far stronger than any others – the first like him you knew of.

Time passing beneath the sun worked in convincing you Brae hadn’t been anything more than a hallucination. Only the damp blemishes and ripped pages anchored you a little longer – and the memory of his touch was too hard to forget, until a splash of water tipped the boat and lips pulled back into an attempted smile.

You curled the open page from range of where his head canted and saltwater dripped.

With him leaning closer, now was an opportune moment to tell him that, actually, unfortunately, portraits weren’t you specialty, else he wouldn’t need to ask for his, but the words never came when light warmed his rounding eyes.

“When will you start?”

“Start drawing?”

“Start drawing me,” he said, though his stare had risen from the blank page. Like you had only the day before, Brae appraised from your crown to your toes, tongue caught in his teeth the whole time. The weight of it settled in your chest uncomfortably; whatever mer standards were, you doubted you were anything but unappealing to a creature so beautiful, but no comment came. “Now?”

“If I’m to sketch you-“

“You are.” Deep beneath him, the slow swaying of his tail rose through to his arms curling on the boat’s edge. He rocked with every move and his attention flitted from your towels bundled at your feet to your satchel bag. “To draw me. You are.”

“I need you to-“

“On the beach.” Words overrun as you lost your thought. He hadn’t once stopped moving, dipping under the water and rising the other side of the boat, or reaching out to just brush his hand to yours before rushing back. Only his chin rested on the boat now as he said, “we should do it on the beach. Safer. Dry.”

Safer.

Coughing over your laugh couldn’t muffle it when you turned closer. “Weren’t you threatening to throw me out my boat yesterday?”

He frowned. “Not now. Tomorrow. The beach tomorrow.”

“Brae-“

Claws tipped your chin and all breath rushed from you. They were weapons, like daggers poised to cut as the predator he was, but it felt like a caress how he brought your face closer, near enough the cool air from water clinging to him brushed you. “Tomorrow.”

Being so near, the strength to protest waned. How the pencil hadn’t snapped between your fingers was beyond you; it was all that was left stopping you from returning the touch, wanting to feel his scales – were they smooth or rough, how would they feel against you? – and all you knew was that the touch of claws against the tightness locking your throat didn’t feel like a threat anymore.

If this was how mer lured humans out, you weren’t against following.

“Will you lay still on the beach for me?”

“So you can stare at me?” Brae’s black tongue traced along his teeth with a low hum. “If you wish.” he said, a rising smile binding your throat tighter.

The claws now tracing against your top’s neckline bound your throat tighter. “So I can draw you.”

“Why still?”

“If you move, it’s harder to focus. Harder to draw you. I could- can I take a photo of you?” His answer came without a need to verbalise it; his smile was nothing like a threat, far from the twisting of his face and pressed fins beneath his jaw flaring. Under passing clouds, his darkening face harshened. In an effort to calm his growl, you swallowed. “Won’t people see you on the beach?”

Curiosity drove you to again. Before him, you hadn’t seen another mer so close. Flashes of scales glimmered beneath the water but they were a reclusive kind. Why he demanded a portrait yet refused a photography intrigued you, though not enough to outrightly question.

“See me?” Brae’s cheek turned onto his forearm. Beneath the high sun, seawater glistened on his dark skin, the edges of his gills and faint scales almost glowing. “Why would anyone rather look at me than you?”

The truth tingled on your lips. That he was beautiful, and your art could never do him justice nor any photo, but you swallowed it back. Until daylight fell and left a chill, the merman curled against your side, close enough one tremor could tip your boat. Only small talk passed between glances down, and each turn was returned with a small smile until those teeth earlier bared in threat no longer focused in your thoughts. Brae fell away with a lingering run of claws against your hand and the touch stayed with you long after you found yourself retracing the beginnings of his portrait that night. After the fuss of asking, it turned out you didn’t need a photograph to remember him.

Tales of reclusive mer lessened the popularity of this cove, which had been the enticement to it in moving. Finding a shelter of jagged rocks just beyond sight of anyone passing wasn’t hard, nor was it hard to find Brae among the waves when he crept up the beach- rather inelegantly but you couldn’t have done so any better with the huge tail dragging through wet sand.

“I see you sometimes.”

Brae heeded your plea that afternoon, resting not far from reach. Returning to water wasn’t a pressing urge when he only rested, hardly an exertion, but he thanked you for the slight shelter. His knuckles reached to brush you when he spoke and otherwise cushioned himself on his arms while you contented yourself by marking him.

“Sleeping is dangerous.”

That made your pencil slip. “Have you looked at my art before?”

Brae scoffed but turned away, not before his teeth bit on his lip. Shading came easier with the slight warmth in your chest that blossomed. If he had, he must have liked the art to want his own portrait and after a minute, you looked up to find your muse gone.

Not too far but a length of his tail away, the merman dug through hot sand. Looking beyond the way his scales glowed in this light, differently to when they shimmered beneath water, he cradled dozens of pebbles in his arms, face scrunched in looking for more. The pebbles mirrored him: some dark like coal, others among the occasional shell a soft blue. He continued unaware of your standing, muffling the pain of hot sand beneath your bare feet, how it stung like needles until you crouched and kneeled beside him.

“They’re pretty.” Brae clutched them closer. He attempted a sneak at your paper like he had all afternoon, and, like you had all afternoon, you tucked it away faster. This far, so soon, it was nothing of significance, but it had promise; promise from the evening of tending to it and tonight would be the same. “Will you take them back with you?”

“We gather pebbles.”

“Why?”

Brae’s teeth nibbled on his lip. “Mer secret.”

“Pebbles are a… a mer secret?”

He moved in silence, lifting two shades of pebbles before humming. “Yes. Pick.” One pebbled a blotched black, it was no hard choice to pick the softer teal pebble. Brae slotted it in his pile before his thin lips twitched. “Can I see?”

“No.” His smile fell, and his arm trembled beneath the stones. Had they not threatened to fall, the paper would’ve been in his grasp by then. “How will you take them all with you? Do you have something to carry them in?”

On your next afternoon by his side, Brae fawned over the netting pouch with holes just small enough pebbles wouldn’t slip through. He entrusted them to you overnight for safe keeping, had watched you clutch your bag tight as it weighed you down walking along the cove, and was quick to welcome you back, already settled and sprawled against the sand. He hadn’t understood the purpose of snow angels nor sand angels, but his arms turned out in the sand, close enough to snag your shorts, until he left you again.

From that day, your time together crept earlier. Unintentionally, but he always waited no matter how early you came to the cove, and he began returning your questions. Never telling the mer secret of why he hoarded colourful pebbles, but little questions, the most repeated being why you refused to show him his portrait, and you had to swat him away from your paper each time. On hotter days when the rocky shade didn’t suffice, he crept closer until his cheek nestled to your thigh beneath the shade of your sketchbook and when a quiet overcame you, his fingers ran along your forearm, following the twitching in your hand as you drew him laying against you.

Once, he slept on your lap. The running of claws fell low and only then you succumbed, carefully tucking back the dried ringlets from his smoothed forehead. Little scales scattered his jaw and glided beneath your fingers, though you stopped yourself from following them further when he turned closer and against your palm.

You missed him when you were home. On the evenings with only a nearly finished portrait to call company, you missed laying with him.

It hadn’t taken long for you walk down late one night, a half-opened bottle tucked near your supplies. Being near the cove now helped calm you, even if you came now only to settle against the familiar rocks and close your eyes to the crashing waves. Like the swaying of your boat, the faint warmth of sand beneath you lulled you, and you woke only to a soft whisper of your name.

“I drank… I drank this.”

Damp hair fell to your lap, a quiet groan turned into your thighs. The now emptied bottle fell into the sand and rolled down when Brae laughed, at first quietly, before turning and reaching out to your face. The touch of his claws fell to a loose embrace around your neck, where now he swallowed.

This late, you didn’t want to ask why he was here, how he had known – if he had even known, or if he came just like you. You only wanted to enjoy his company, however… inebriated. It hadn’t been much alcohol, and you would only feel slightly lightheaded had you finished it, but with Brae running his claws down your chest, it had to have been a little much for him.

“Wanna see,” he whispered – slurred, trying and failing to lean up on an elbow. “Me. Show… show me.”

Perhaps through pity, you did. Only through pity, and not from the slow rolling of heat in the pit of your stomach from his claws flexing, drawing you down closer as you opened to the page. It had come a long way, far from ever doing justice to the creature gasping, his defined jaw lowering and dark eyes lifting to you, but you welcomed the flush of pride from his growing smile.

“You make me look pretty. Pretty here,” he tapped the unfinished page. “Am not-not so pretty.”

Your voice came out a whisper as you returned the sketchbook, empty bottle with it. “You don’t think so?”

“Me? Pretty?” Brae huffed, a hot breath blowing his dried hair. Falling in long ringlets, your fingers twitched and in the hopes he wouldn’t remember, you reached out to tuck it back. “My tribe. They’re pretty. Pretty. Not me.”

His cheek turned into your palm when you traced the smoother scales scattering his jaw, down to the dip of his collarbones. “Did they tell you that?”

“Always. Not-I’m not them-like them,” he mumbled, losing himself to the alcohol still thick on his breath. “Never one of them.”

The sincerity sickened you. You wished your art could be better, so Brae saw a true reflection of himself but if it couldn’t be, if your work wasn’t enough, then all you could do was say so. “I think you’re beautiful,” you whispered looking out to the calming see, so lost in it you hadn’t noticed Brae shifting closer until he was level with you. “You are. Your colourings and how you lay in the sun and… you’re beautiful.”

You had more to say, so much more, but sand became your pillow. It dirtied your hair with your head tipping further back, a deeper angle to the kiss with Brae’s thumb pressing down on your chin. His parting lips carried a salty tang, a stronger sense of your emptied alcohol, but it fell away with his breaths hastening when his curling tongue tasted you, too.

Those same lips rose into a sly smile when you found the strength to reopen your fallen eyes and found Brae kissing himself lower. Drunken touches only minutes ago felt coherent now, bunching up your shirt for his lips to warm your stomach. Pressed beneath the muscle of his tail, a slow friction worked you into a heat but he fell further with his kisses nesting lower, a pause when he tugged on your shorts.

Every touch made you tremble. Brae settled between your legs and the sight alone was burning through you. He ran soft fingers down, following your stiffened cock as it twitched and ached. His tongue jutted through his lips to the side almost in thought, a breath before his fingers stroked up your length.

“All this for calling you beautiful?”

The merman’s head canted and that curling tongue flicked up the underside of your cock. Brae’s kiss rounded against your tip until he had you hard in his mouth and your eyes rolling back from the heat of him. For a creature of spines and claws and fangs, he kissed you reverently, deeper breaths growing shallow until he swallowed around you.

Through blurring eyes, barely lifting from the sand feeling hotter beneath you, you watched and felt his lips closing around you, groaning with his flattening of his tongue along the sensitive skin. Brae braced a hand on your tensing thigh and when the other stroked lower, a slight touch of claws grazing, you groaned and rolled your hips deeper against his hollowed throat.

Soft hair threaded around your hand. His growl rumbled deep to your hips as he bowed with your guidance, arching up until his throat tightened against you. Heat rushed in your stomach and his thick tongue swirled across your tip. The warmth of his lips fell down to your thighs the longer your body trembled.

“No.” Gentle fingers pinched your jaw until your lips met his. He tasted of saltwater and you and faint alcohol, nipping your tongue. “For… for being you.”

Until the sheen left his eyes, his smile no longer lopsided, Brae rested against you. Passing whispers came beneath the darkening sky and many were from you; with each whisper of his beauty, though you burned saying it, he turned impossibly closer and ghosted lips down your throat, your chest, wherever you were nearest.

“Remind me to call you beautiful more often,” you said, leaning over him. Weak arms ran up to your neck and it felt like a goodbye when he kissed you sweeter. No teeth caught your lips and no claws curled into your nape, only a touch of foreheads before he struggled into the water.

He had told you not to watch – “it’s embarrassing,” he’d frowned, the dead weight of his tail dragging in the sand – but you watched him go, and it was the last you saw of him for almost a month.

Your corner of the cove remained abandoned by the merman. No marks in the sand were left to show if he had ever come and from there, you couldn’t see far out to the waves, not like a mer could. If he watched you where you waited for him with your heavy bag and a nearly finished portrait, he never came.

Floating no longer felt right. Being on the water wasn’t right. This beach was wrong without a glimmer of navy flitting near you and on the sunniest days, the water almost clear, a hint of scales wouldn’t be missed when you stared down. The portrait was finished now; it had been finished for days.

If something had happened to him-

The thought burned in your throat and you swallowed it back.

Worse: if something hadn’t happened to him, Brae chose not to see you.

And if Brae truly avoided you, he couldn’t stop whatever creature had begun bumping under your boat. The surface barely rose with the smallest of waves but your boat rocked again, until water splashed with every jolt, not so different from the day Brae had almost toppled you, but different in every way.

Brighter scales darted beneath you before you ducked back into the – relative – safety of the boat. This wasn’t your merman, but the churning in your stomach made you think it was his tribe. For whatever reason, they taunted you, and at least two were on you now, countering the other’s hits so all you could was curl your knuckles against the bench until they ached.

You were going to be sick.

What could a frail oar do against creatures like them?

You were going to be really, really sick.

Any option was as bad as the other. Shore was too far to swim to if you wanted to avoid a watery grave. Trying to row and lowering the oar into water would be surrendering your only paddle. You couldn’t leave your boat. The portrait bundled on your lap would be ruined; they would ruin it.

It stopped with a heavier jolt, tipping so far water flooded your feet. The jaunts fell away minutes ago but your head swum too much for you to notice anything more than the shaking in your knees, chest braced against your thighs. One final shove to your boat shoved everything against you forward. Your bag skidded, the bench almost giving out beneath you, towels tangling, but the final shove didn’t topple you.

It surged closer to shore.

Only the faintest glimmer of navy disappeared when you looked back.

Water hadn’t felt right because it wasn’t. The rumours of mer weren’t folktale falsehoods. Maybe Brae wasn’t like them, but they tried to overturn you. They tried to ruin you and your portrait and had they succeeded, the promenade steady under your running feet wouldn’t have been something you were likely to experience again.

Leaving the cities had been your distraction. Leaving your family and friends for a calmer life by the beach had always been your dream, to turn to a simpler, less stressful life, yet the beach couldn’t be your solace anymore. Thinking of even your boat made you lurch to your feet in need of something to occupy you, anything but that merman lurking in the sea, anything but the creature you still wanted to see again, the same whose face mocked you from a hidden sketchbook.

After hardly any time at all, the sudden loss almost brought you to your knees. If this was grief, you didn’t want it. If that pang in your chest was heartbreak, you didn’t want it. Flames came so near to the portrait born of hours and sun and kisses it singed, but burning the paper felt like a burning your heart from your chest.

One last time.

One last hope.

Once more, before you burned him from your thoughts. The same taunts that occupied you like intrusions softened at night, when you imagined that in place of your fist was his touch, slender fingers rolling where you cock twitched beneath him. They came in dreams, in moments you lost concentration, and stalked you down to the cove where you settled the bag, the portrait tucked beside a lighter and driftwood.

Whispers of your name from the stirring waves doused the fire in your chest. Brae made it no further than the reach of waves when you collapsed against him, rambling to his lips, “it’s done. I finished it for you but-“

“It will be beautiful.” Brae framed your face in cold and trembling hands. “Like you.”

There was a haste to his kiss unlike before. When he teased you before with light nips rousing your desire, those touches tore back your shirt and bared you to the cold night. Brae wasted not one breath that was better spent settling against you pushed apart thighs, where the hard palm of his hand fell low to rub over your shorts until he coaxed you to roll up into his touch. Slender fingers curled around your hardening cock and stroked how you had dreamed of for weeks, the pad of his thumb following up to tease the seeping slit at the head.

“I want to touch you too,” you rasped. Brae’s laugh softened in the whistles of wind at your grunt when he rubbed tighter to your thick base, but he was soon to gasp with your fingers curling into the rougher scales on his hips until he dragged against you. “Here?”

Not even the crashing waves at his back could drown out the small whine. Where his taut stomach melded with the lightest of his scales, a slick coated them. The touch of it burned against your fingertips, tracing the swollen slit. He pumped your cock in his tight fist how you teased him, arching up when he ground down, his erection rising thick from the slit.

From laying over you, Brae’s trembling lips brushed yours once more. The slow fall of his forehead brushed your hair, his curls loose against your cheek and fluttering with every deep breath. How long he could breathe without struggle on land changed, and the touch of your hips rolling up, rolling against him, clearly took a toll, shorter gasps nestling into your neck. This was an exertion for him; how he trembled at your thumb following where his hand, rolling over the slick on the swollen, purple head.

Grinding his cock to yours came with difficulty as his tail dragged in sand, but a shock of pleasure bolting up to your crown until you strained to rut against him again. The desperation locked in your bodies wouldn't settle for anything less than his cock against yours. Soft blue and deeper navy nearer the tip, your mouth dried. The memory of his lopsided smile after stealing your alcohol struck you, too similar how he slurred you name from curling his fingers and gripping your cocks together. The cry lodged in your throat muffled against the slope of his throat where you kissed the scales there, chasing the rush of his pulse beneath his jaw.

Slick from his slit and hot, it was too much to bite back every moan and curse when he rolled his hips in time with yours. Brae learned fast. His palm rolled your sac slowly, drawing rougher pants, but it was a tighter rub that made you buck up. Your cock jutted against his base, far thicker and swollen, but against the wetter scales and he cried, “again. Closer, please.”

His hot touch stirred you into a delirious high. Brae was twitching, his body rocking hard and harder when you met him faster, arching up to graze the slick, sensitive skin of his slit.

"I want you," he breathed, disoriented kisses slowing when he trembled. "Come. Come for me."

If not for him, you dragged against his waist so you could feel the heat of him yourself. Brae’s fingers locked and he felt it as you did, your cock stiff when you came against his stomach, his scales, rasping when he rutted into his palm and a thicker release came minutes later against your thighs after you traced where his cock thickened at the slit.

In the moment his final gasp left him and Brae fell against you, he ought to be drawn, to be remembered forever. Soft arms wrapped you close to the warmth of him, away from the colder winds in the shelter of the rocks. Hot sweat glistened on his scales. It stuck your hair to your cheeks, where he brushed it away with kisses and closed eyes.

“Do you think anyone saw us?”

Brae's breath caught, but he swallowed past it. His knuckles grazed down your chest and up again. Stray scratches stung beneath the touch and his parted lips kissed it away. "I hope so," he breathed, and the words stirred something in your chest. Something primal and prideful; you wanted to be seen with him, this merman come to you one day, who decided they wanted you. "You were very loud."

Panting to his chest, you smiled. "And you were beautiful."

If there were mer watching, you hadn't noticed.

No head rested heavy on your chest when you woke. Evening had been a blanket to his embrace, but the stars were your only companion at the cove. Sand settled without hint of a trail leading down to the sea and if it had been windy, you might have excused it, pardoned the long-lasting cold on your bare body.

Those questions he had brushed away with a press of his tail to your hips rose to your throat like a fuel on fire. Brae came back. Brae left, after taking you on the beach. He returned to the sea and he left you alone and bare and shivering. He abandoned you where his tribe could see, where they could reach you and your bag-

Your bag.

It had been right there, right on the rocks and wedged firm. No wind could part it from them. No wind had, and no wind would lay it so carefully by the sloping of the beach, the flap resting open. The bag looked deflated, almost like… like it was empty.

“This isn’t funny,” you called out. It was a joke. It had to be a joke. If not a joke then something far, far crueller and each staggering step nearer the waves was a twist of the knife in your stomach. “Brae?”

Harsh water frothed at your ankles. It rose in spitting shivers up to your knees then thighs, where the evening’s memories dried and washed away. The waters this shallow were clear of mer but not of what you prayed was litter. Up to your hips now, stumbling in choppy waves and the cry that tore from you was unholy. It burned up through throat like bile and stung in your eyes. It stung in your chest where your ribs caved, the soaked papers and hours of nights in your lounge wasted in one, cruel jaunt.

Not just his portrait wrecked on the waters he crawled from, but your sketchbook.

How you found your way home was a miracle. You should have stayed in the water. You should have let Brae drown you, too.

Had his tribe done it? Had they been there while he stroked your cheek and lifted your chin in a soft kiss, his scales warming where your thighs tightened? That was all you could think and all you could bear to think. If it were anything more – if he really was so cruel, you’d rather never know, would rather blame it on his tribe for tearing him away.

You could drown your boat like your sketches. That cove belonged to him. It belonged to his tribe and you wouldn’t go near the water again, not willingly and if you saw him again, it would be in nightmares.

The only family you had lived in the cities far from you and too far for them to consider buying your boat, even taking it off your hands. The wood of it was old and would burn on a fire; best to be burned completely than sunken. Brae didn’t deserve anything of yours. He’d drowned your heart with your treasure.

If this was how mer lured humans out, you weren’t against following.

Finding your boat moored and undamaged rose with a sting. The cruelty of his tribe ruined the wood beneath the water from their earlier taunting. You wished they had done more. If his tribe had sunken it, finding a dark bundle of seaweed cradling pebbles wouldn’t have made your legs sway beneath you. Whatever the mer secret behind them was, it wasn’t enough to entice you back. They weighed down your boat as they weighed on your shoulders but in settling into it before setting it alight, you couldn’t help but lift one.

It was the pebble he had asked you of, choosing from two. In your hand it felt like his scales, smooth and cold and wet.

It was still wet.

Pebbles scattered among larger stones as it fell from your hand but you didn’t watch them fall. You watched the fingertips careful on your arm, how they traced down your tense muscles with an unwelcome familiarity.

“The pebbles,” you seethed. “What do they mean?”

His touch softened and both hands rose to stroke against your unyielding fist. “Do you like them?”

Brae yelped as the favoured pebble smacked his forehead; you held another ready, but you hoped not to use it. Not to hurt him. The pain fresh in your chest urged to you but you couldn’t, and the tenderness in his hands slipping through your unfurling fingers held you closer.

His face scrunched. “When we wish to court a mate, we present pebbles. Do you like them?”

Brae never moved so slowly before – before he had wounded you enough to want nothing more than to hurt him; him, with the claws gentle on your palm and sharp teeth behind lips gracing your knuckles. No smile warmed his harsh face. Some satisfaction warmed you in shadows creeping beneath his eyes, where he lifted your palm. Loose tickled your fingers.

“I left my tribe.”

Brae’s whine quieted when you said, not in question, “taunting me wasn’t enough for them to accept you, was it?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Will they welcome you back if I take your pebbles?” Water splashed with his surging up and it was then you succumbed, lifting your hand to frame his dripping face. Every whisper and clashing apology fell beneath you, blood rushing in your ears from just his lips turning to your wrist. “I’m leaving, Brae. Pretend I accepted. Say you drowned me if it helps you return to your tribe. Why you would want to is beyond me, but-”

“We mate for life. This is me. These,” he whispered, and beneath the water, distorted netting carrying more pebbles swayed when he lifted another. “These are me. Proposal of courtship.”

Approaching you had to be at their insistence. The threat to topple your boat them, too, and why Brae had insisted on land. Safer, he’d said, but that was where he hurt you more than they ever had. They may have told him to use you or trick you to love him, but it hurt the same, at their tricks or his.

He hadn’t looked up from where you stroked his cheekbones until you asked, “what does it mean to leave a tribe?”

“If I stay, I trespass.”

“What do mer do to trespassers?” Brae turned his face into your palm and your stomach fell. The choice before you wasn’t one you welcomed or even wanted to consider, but you were already reaching for the pebble you had thrown at him and curling it in your hand. “If you follow me, that is your choice. I owe you nothing. Even this is more than you deserve.”

The boat was tipping.

“But if you follow me,” you drew in a sharp breath. “I say when the courting is over and if I accept you. If I refuse, you respect that.”

His breath warmed your lips.

“And I will never draw you again.”

It was a lie. That morning, his face plagued every breath. Every fleeting memory of his touch consumed you. Scatterings of scales covered old papers and already your fingers itched for more, to purge him from you, but when you accepted – if you accepted him, only then would you ever consider sharing your art with him again.

Burning your boat could wait until the water dried from the sloping of scales to your chest, lips soft on yours and apologies sweet on his tongue. It could wait until he followed you wherever you chose, offering pebbles and nights sprawled on warm sand, where you always woke with a head nestled against your throat.

Really, you were fine. The colouring to your cheeks wasn’t too much, nothing more than the flush rising when Lars would kiss down your chest, beneath your trousers. The tickling cough wasn’t any worse than the unfamiliar itch in your throat after tasting fae food, foreign gifts returned from his travels. Exhaustion now deep in your bones could hardly amount to the lethargy Lars’ return would bring, from nights on tousled bedsheets, his touch everywhere for hours.

So really, beyond your pallor and hair slick with sweat, throat tight, you were fine.

Doubting the fatigue was your undoing. White light of the moon roused you. Curtains left open from falling onto the bed for the promise of a nap, one intended to be short, the dim light led you to a small letter posted that afternoon from Lars. The hardly veiled threat of his return if you ignored him further found its weight in your empty stomach.

Returning to the sleep so deep you hadn’t his calls happened not even a minute later. The dullahan would already be on his way home to you.

Heavy thudding dragging along the wooden floor woke you. Familiar swishes neared your bedroom and through the fog clouding your thoughts, the memory of a vertebrae whip always at your boyfriend’s side forced you to sit the rest of the way. The whip swinging and crashing low preceded a figure of bright flames, glowing in the late afternoon – had you slept all day? – before the flames flared higher, and a broken whisper of your name followed.

Bone clattered as it fell to the floor before Lars was at your side. One firm hand pressed hard on your chest until you fell back to the pillows, the other, glove removed, brushing back your damp hair. Always so cold, the touch felt like a blessing now, running down your hot cheeks to angle your face up.

“I thought something happened to you. Look at me,” Lars whispered, but the softness in his tone fell away when you struggled to look at the flaming tendrils rising from his collar as he leaned over you. “You should have told me you were sick.”

Nothing came to mind for excusing your isolation. Even had you tried to apologise, your lips were too dry, throat too hoarse for a sound to pass. With the tension fought from his words, it was no surprise that a small growl came from the dullahan’s chest. In the silence, a silence at your hand, you leaned into the cool palm on your hot cheek.

“When did you last eat? Have you…” Lars sighed and before your eyes closed, he kissed your forehead.

Different bedsheets – clean, fresh ones, were tucked around you when you woke to an empty room. The dullahan hardly needed sleep but this early, sunlight creeping through the drawn curtains, there ought to have been a dip beside you, a wrinkle in blankets thrown back from your fevering body.

The smell of hot food caught your attention, which must have woken you. Lars had changed you into clean clothes, too, your chest bare and hot. The instant your toes touched the floor, a throat cleared in warning. The sight of him would never fail to send your pulse racing, soaring at the press of his skin to your bare chest. Lars pressed you back against the headboard, sitting between your legs when you kept one out of the sheets. Though you were near feverish, the warmth of having him close eased you, and he leaned close to press a lingering kiss to your forehead.

"You're worrying me."

"It's nothing," you whispered, forcing a smile to cover the roughness of your voice. "Won't you-"

"I cannot get sick. Not like this. Open your mouth."

Spoon feeding was difficult – for him, when you protested. Beneath the vice tight at your ribs, the laboured breaths, you really were fine. Bed rest would only worsen your predicament but he wouldn’t give. When you couldn’t stomach anymore broth, Lars lifted the glass of water to your lips until you drank it all. As much as you hated tearing him from his work, leaning close enough to touch him properly made it worth it. Lars stroked down your back and sighed, shifting closer.

Quiet stories whispered against your temple lulled you. He scowled when he told you of his plans to return early in a week and a half with gifts for you – as he always did, but when the letter was unanswered, calls shouted into an responding room, he rode back without delay.

Finding any sympathy was a chore when his touch fell to stroke your thigh. Lars tucking close filled the ache wide in your chest, the very same you attempted to appease by cradling the head in the dark corner when he was away; it never did much, so his knuckles dragging over the thin shorts awoke a different heat in your stomach, one too long gone without.

“Somebody missed me,” he chuckled, fingers tightening against the restricting shorts, laughing softer at your sharp gasp. “Best not to push yourself, handsome.”

Clutching his hand did little to stop the will of a dullahan. Lars only sighed, long fingers rubbing slowly against your worsening erection. Even in taunting you, the resolve he held against you never crumbled.

Not even when you bucked up, desperately seeking some friction, whispering, "please. Please."

“No. Sleep it off,” he said, a kiss deliberately hot tearing another plea from you, but Lars only laughed and closed the bedroom door behind him.

Waking without daylight left you in the dark as to how long you slept again, and how long now that you found yourself in the full bathtub. Warm water washed the remnants of fever away, guided by a gentle hand cupping water and tangling through your hair. Always careful with his strength, the care when he unwound tangles fluttered in your pulse, but he taunted you like he had hours ago. One hand tentative and caring washed your hair, the other gliding down your inner thigh where your legs fell open against his, drawn back against his chest in the large bathtub.

"Lars," you managed to whisper, and the touch on your thigh fell lower, until you grunted and tensed.

His palm cupped your sac. The dullahan brought your head back and through bleary eyes, you found his pale face, and a shudder ran through you at meeting his still flaming eyes. A kiss from his lips - from his head now attached, and you groaned into him, reaching to hold his knee when he rolled your sac in his fingers, kissing your jaw.

"Look who's finally up," he murmured. "How are you feeling, handsome?"

Every thought was foggy, but that wasn't your cold. The tightness in your throat came from his lips hot on your jaw and his fingers running the underside of your cock, thumbing the vein beginning to throb as you stiffened. This fever making you squirm was all him, but he knew that.

And Lars only smiled, a thin scar on his lips twisting them. "Tell me."

“I’m fine,” you lied. “Better, if you wouldn’t tease me.”

“Me, tease?”

Warmed by hot water, his hand finally came around your length. Lars’ smile nudged against your temple with each steady stroke, up and tightening, running against your thin slit and pumping harder, before loosening. Torn between crying and growling, you covered his hand with yours and let out a rough moan when he let you control the pace, hips bucking into the fist.

“Maybe you aren’t as ill as I thought,” he hummed. The frailty of your voice and bags of your eyes weren't all that convincing, but you tipped your head back and guided his hand tighter. Lars needed no coaxing to run his lips down to your collarbones and stroke his touch down your chest, pausing to run around your nipple. “Promise you will rest after this.”

"Lars," you croaked, and his palm stroked lower, taking your heavy sac in his fingers. Your eyelids fell with the pleasure overcoming you. He was well-versed in how you liked to be touched, and he was doing everything possible to torture you. "I promise."

"I can hear your heart racing."

You didn't care. Maybe it was in part because of the flu still dizzying you, but with Lars running his fingers back through your hair and tugging your head back, bowing to press searing, open-mouthed kisses to your throat, you were losing yourself.

Thickening against your back, Lars rasped as his cock ran up against you. All you wanted was him and you were close, every second losing yourself to the hastening strokes, the blunt nails scraping down your scalp. Wide thighs tightened around yours as he ground himself against you, following each thrust of your hips.

Closer now, close to coming undone in his palm, and you groaned, dragging him up from your throat to meet his lips. Lars chuckled and pressed himself flush, his hips grinding lower and when he dragged himself against you, you stiffened and cried into his kiss.

Still, Lars dragged it out. His thumb slicked against your swollen head as you came, thick and trembling, your stomach clenched at the haze dizzying you. You were met with a softer glow of flames when you blinked into focus. The water remained hot but far from your thoughts, preoccupied with his cock thick and heavy to your back. Before you could turn, the dullahan groaned into your throat, littered with dark marks.

Two shots in, Immie’s sly smile sweetened and she knocked back another glass. Her sharp eyes rose to the bar. “Turn away every flirt in the next hour and you’ll be ten pounds richer,” she said. Charms woven on a chain warded against glamour, but the faint tightening of your chest thudded the same as her tricks did. “Twenty pounds. Deal?”

One desperate plea to the kitsune sunken by her side, and the evening’s path was set. Milo nursed his pint with a bitten back grin. Befriending two tricksters hadn’t been so smart, not with them exchanging secret smiles. Immie waved the crisp note like bait.

If you were fae, a witch, you would have cursed them both.

"What's the catch?"

"No catch, sweetie," Immie said. Note still crisp in her fingers, she nodded to the bar. "Refuse everyone."

Everyone.

Everyone, including the cute werewolf with his nearly finished glass. The werewolf whose name remained a mystery and whose soft voice only came in mumbles at the bar, and the very same who rose twenty minutes after you, after you had resigned yourself to a painful hour.

There hadn't been anything to lose. For all the years you had frequented the old bar, nothing had come of drunkards asking for your number but a few free drinks. Not only were you paying for your own drinks now, you were about to lose your chance - if you even had one, that is - with the werewolf coming to lean against the bar, tail tucking close but wagging.

"Hi."

For a first, real impression – beyond the gentle shoulder nudges on busy nights and tail wags, the opening line was nothing dazzling, but the warmth of him alone stole your breath. The werewolf offered his hand and yours slipped to his with a waning of your resolve.

The soft pad of his thumb ran over your knuckles. In a warmer voice, he inched closer, "you've turned away a few drinks tonight, haven't you?"

Insinuated, gone unspoken, he thought you promised a challenge. As Immie’s words had, your chest tightened the same, but even as a challenge… you wanted him.

The room mirrored. Two stares fell to your back and two to the werewolf’s. Nothing mattered beyond the dark hair framing his soft face in loose strands when he bowed nearer. One breath closer, and the confession of Immie’s bet graced your lips, half a second from begging him to wait a night, but then came the gentle touch of his warm hand on your knee.

"Kiran - he's the orc," he murmured, fingers stroking up to curl into your thigh. "He bet me a tenner my offer to buy you a drink would be refused. Let me split it with you."

The slight lilt to his thick lips tugged at your chest. Hand on his forearm - and breath catching at the muscle beneath, you hummed. "And your goblin friend?"

"Eliot?” With his brows dipping, lashes falling low, his thumb stroked up your thigh. “He… he bet twenty I couldn't steal a kiss."

"Oh?" Gone was any hesitance with your teasing, the werewolf’s smile returning wide, dimpled. Your fingertips followed the same patterns down his arm and he trembled. "Why would they bet that?"

"This is the first night you've been alone. I'd hoped you were admiring me, too," he grinned, and it was a fact hardly debatable, but you burned anyway.

Even the two glasses placed before you barely tore your eyes from his, bright and amber. Both orders came together, but the werewolf squeezed your thigh, and paid. With his hearing, there was every chance he heard the lurch of your heart. Fire in your navel, in his smile, the ice cold drink didn’t help but worsened your fever.

You could almost hear your friends teasing you.

This was what they had wanted. Milo, no doubt, whispered the same to Immie. Maybe they weren’t watching now. Time ticking, and you hadn’t refused the drink, refused him. Twenty pounds meant nothing if you had to refuse him, and your whisper was more of a sigh. "They bet me twenty I couldn't refuse everyone."

"Split it. Split it all," he breathed, and a rush of warmth, the thick scent of woods and a deeper cologne embraced you, his forehead coming to yours. "Accept the drink. Kiss me, then throw the drink on me."

"And ruin your outfit?"

"You're worth it."

"Such a flirt," you whispered, on a curse when his hand cradled your cheek; you were too far gone, lost in the imagining of his presence after weeks waiting for this.

His clawed thumb pressed to your lower lip as breath rushed from you. "May I?"

"Please-"

The bitter tang of alcohol passed from his lips to yours, but soon forgotten when he tilted your head back and leaned against your chest. The stool had such a low back that it was his hand gripping your thigh keeping you close.

This was everything the nights of gulping down alcohol made you dream of. His soft breaths catching, chasing your lips when you made to breathe, and he hooked his finger through your belt loop to drag you back closer. His collar crumpled beneath your desperate touch and as he met your hips, you held him close, lips flush, until he drew in a breath, nose nudging to yours.

Lips to your jaw, he chuckled. "The drink."

Half splashed your lap. Ice clattered. He choked, growled, staggering back. The chill of it twisted your stomach when he distanced, but his touch never fell from your hip when you stood. Glinting eyes narrowed with your body flush against him.

"Meet me outside," you whispered, but in a frown, turning and pushing past.

Milo rose first, whispered his apology. It stuttered in a whine but fell quiet with one shake of your head. Neither of your friends stopped you from bundling beneath your coat. Only with your jaw locked did the tremors to your breath stay hidden. The ache in your hips throbbed. The taste of him sweetened your lips.

You hardly managed to explain you were leaving and Immie, with an apology, too, handed you the crisp, well-earned note.

“Finally.”

Warm hands snatched you a step from the bar. On such a cold night, the press of his damp shirt made you shiver, leaning up into him. His welcoming growl rumbled in his chest to yours, down to your hips dragging hard together. Outside now, alone, you weren’t so careful in running a hand into his hair until he grunted, breaths heavy against your throat.

More than that, temptation won over your inhibitions. His shudder and groan nuzzled close when your touch dragged over his thick ears. Lips softened to your cheek before he laughed and said, "I'm Cane, by the way."

With introductions passed, nothing stopped you from leaning into his kiss again, into Cane’s arms. "Fifty pound, huh?"

"Fifty," he said, and his tail swung wide. "Fifty is enough for a nice first date."

Palm resting on his strong chest, you stroked away from the sticky material not clinging to him. "Once you've changed."

"I have clean clothes at my place," Cane whispered, fingers already linking with your and squeezing. "Walk with me?"