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But he wanted to prove that even if he was broken, he was still worth something.
She was too small for him to be interested in. His hearts did not beat for someone that would break the moment he first touched them. Not to mention she was so perfect. A little golden statue hidden in the middle of her golden city. So pretty and perfect and wrong for him. A monster would leave smudges on something so lovely as she.
No female had ever wanted to pick him. He was too large for their offspring to be easy births, and too aggressive to battle in the mating dance. He had already resigned himself that fluttering was foolish for anyone.
Instead, all he could think about was that she was wrapped around him. Her warmth pressed against him as he swam, and—for fuck’s sake—was that his fins fluttering against her thighs?
He’d mastered it, though. So, in the same rhythm she’d been counting, he focused on the lights while they swam. One, two, three, four, five. All the way down his neck. Then again, to the peak of his shoulder. More down his bicep. Then he made the lights turn and go back up the same way.
He would keep her safe, he tried to mime to her. He would take the wounds for her.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone touched him just to touch him. He’d always spent such a large portion of his time alone, and when he wasn’t alone, he was fighting. That was it. He had nothing else in his life until this little beast was forced onto his path.
She meant to ask, but then his thumb brushed over the peak of her breast. A lightning bolt shocked through her entire system, and she couldn’t think. Couldn’t even move as he did it again. “Except here,” he murmured. “Here you are not pale.” Fuck.
His claw tugged the lapel of her borrowed suit. “You turn so many colors, kalon. I can’t wait to see how many.”
He was going about this all wrong. Here he was, fluttering for her, and he didn’t even know her name.
“Wet and salty isn’t on my list of things that I like to eat.” He opened the next one a little harder, and his claw thunked against the metal floor. “I am wet and salty.”
Because I want to keep you for myself. Because if I keep you, feed you, bring you everything you ever dreamt of, maybe you’ll give me a chance. Because no one has made me want them as much as I want you.
People tolerated him, they didn’t enjoy him being around. He was too difficult, too forward, and certainly too angry for anyone to really want to spend time with.
“I want to find someone who doesn’t fear me. I want to know that when I come home, there is a soft place to rest my head, and someone who cares if I had a hard day, or if I am upset. I want someone to take care of, and who takes care of me in return. That is what I dream of, kalon.”
“It is a special word. We save it only for a rare pearl that we find only once in our life. It means a beauty that is more than skin deep. It refers to a soul that radiates inside a person, so much so that you can see it on the outside as well.”
“How could I? When your hair is the color of the sun on a cloudless day? When your smile warms the entire ocean around me? When I touch you, your soul is so familiar to me. It is like I have known you in a hundred lifetimes before this, and some part of me that I’ve forgotten wishes to bury itself inside you. It tells me to cling to the curve of your waist, to clutch at the feeling in my chest that lingers when you are near. My soul wishes to keep you and never let you go.”
“If we do not see each other again, my kalon, I wish for you to know that I have never been more honored than to have a woman like you at my side.” He swallowed hard again, his eyes still flicking over hers. “I do not know how your people say this.”
chest. “It means that living without you feels wrong. That to be parted from your side makes me miss you more than I miss breathing fresh air. And that I will always think of you, no matter how far I am from you.”
“Know as you dive into danger that I love you, my kalon. I will hold you in my heart until you return to my side.”
He used every muscle, every fiber, every twitching pain to get him to her side. “My love,” he called out, his voice echoing through the ocean and pushing through the currents. “I am coming.”
He hoped her soul knew. That perhaps some part of her could find peace in knowing that she might have died alone, but she would not stay that way. He would find every piece of her and bring her back. Every bone, even the smallest one, he would carry it to her final resting place. With him, as she deserved.
“I wish I could tell you how much I love you. How your light has brought more wonder and joy to my life than I have ever felt in it. I have been a warrior my entire life, and before you, that was all I was. You make me want to put my weapons down and find out what it really means to live.”
