Page 63 of Secrets of the Void
The way her dark hair fanned out on the silver sand. The way her pupils had blown out because she couldn't see in darkness like this, but he could. He could see every detail of her body, how she moved with such grace as she blindly touched his features. There wasn't even the slightest scent of fear in the air as she traced the outlines of his lips, up to the slits of his cheeks, down his throat where there were even more teeth waiting for her to find.
"It's okay," she whispered, and he thought maybe she had been saying that for a while now. "It's okay. It's just the rain."
The rain?
Oh, the little daggers. The sharp pricks were hail. Although this hail was formed more like shards of ice, raining down on his back and tried to burrow its way underneath his scales.
A flashing memory burned through his mind once more. A human who had stepped out into one of these storms. Proteus had begged him not to, telling the man that it was foolish even to test it. But he'd gone anyway, and the ice shards had stripped the flesh from his bones so quickly he hadn't even been able to scream.
Wincing, he pulled her more completely underneath him. "You are not safe," he murmured as he coiled his body around her more.
"And whose fault is that?"
"Mine," he muttered, looping his tail over her and making sure that not even a hint of her skin could be touched by the ice.
"We could go back inside."
"No." They couldn't. Because that male was there with his wandering eyes and his scent that screamed he wanted to touch her, taste her, learn her just like he had.
And a part of him feared that she would rather bind herself to a normal undine, one with pretty hair and eyes that reflected the light. Not someone like him.
An abomination.
Her hands feathered over his chest, gently tracing the outline of his ribs and following the hollows there. "We can stay for a few more minutes, if you'd like. But would you care to tell me what made you so angry?"
"He wanted you."
"And?"
He huffed out a breath. "And I won't stand for it."
"Why?"
He couldn't tell her why. Proteus refused to debase himself like that when she knew why he felt the way he did. Ellie knew how much he thought of her, and how strong his feelings were. She knew...
She didn't, he realized. How could she know any of those things if he had never told her?
He took a deep breath, expanding his ribs and preparing to tell her every bit of what had made him so angry. But then he felt her press a kiss over one of his thundering hearts, and he froze. She did it again, and again, peppering little kisses along his skin as she made her way from one heart to the other. Like she could feel the beat pressing against her lips.
"Better?" she asked, the word so quiet he almost didn't hear them.
"Better," he agreed, coiling around her a little tighter. "But don't stop."
She didn't, not for a little while. Not until his heartbeats slowed and until reason returned to his mind.
He was in danger from this woman, Proteus realized. Far more danger than he could ever have anticipated.
Twenty-Six
Ellie
Ellie hadn't ever expected Proteus to be so... clingy wasn't the right word, but it was the one that kept popping up in her head. He didn't like it when she talked to anyone other than him. He didn't like that her attention had to wander from him to all the others. The amount of times she'd had to calm him down in just two days was getting a little embarrassing.
For him, not for her. It was rather thrilling to know that she was the only one who could control this massive sea god, who was always one split second away from killing everyone and anyone who stood between her and him.
It probably wasn't normal to feel like that.
In fact, she knew it wasn't. She was supposed to be kind and thoughtful and guide their visitors through living here, and yet most of her attention was on Proteus as he learned how to share.
