A Bone in His Teeth

by Kellen Graves

Alba’s father, starved to death on a northern ice-locked ship then eaten by crew mates who inevitably died right alongside him.

The underside of the wood crunched with a layer of barnacles that blinked at him like a thousand eyes, wondering why their world had been suddenly turned upside down—but they weren’t the reason Alba stopped. They weren’t the reason his lungs squeezed his heart, making it stutter. With deft movements, he pinched between a cluster of the wriggling creatures, holding his breath when he realized. Throughout the barnacle nests, some flaking off with the movement, others encapsulated, grown into the thick shells—were chipped human fingernails.

‘take that bone from your teeth; good things come to those who wait.’

“You haven’t moved in some twelve hours, you know. Do you need to be watered? Like a beached whale?”

“Sirens are just merrow cursed to hunt for their own food and companionship,” Eridanys continued, and Alba jumped when the man suddenly got to his feet, joining him at the sink where the pot of boiled crabs sat draining into a basket. Claiming one, he tore a leg free, crunching into it shell and all. “Made savage by the waves. Driven mad with hunger, enough that it warps their song, changes how their magic hooks into the minds of prey. Merrow thrive when raised within a familial kinship—so to drive one out, alone, into the vastness of the sea, understandably forces it to resort to its most base instincts to survive. Both hunger and… otherwise.”

Eridanys’ lips parting with a breath as Alba’s fingers explored further—finding the head of a swollen cock, dripping and slippery. One—and then two, straining to emerge where Alba might touch them more.

he felt only the swollen pressure of a cock buried between his legs, the other teasing deeper into his ass with each thrust.

Eridanys smiled—Alba heard it in his breath—pulling away to look at him before kissing the roots of Alba’s hair where the silver strands grew. Not in affection so much as—possession. Alba was owned, accounted for by something of the sea, and Eridanys was clearly satisfied with knowing he was the one who placed the mark. It compelled Alba to rake fingers through Eridanys’ hair in return, frowning as there was no ginger-red streak to match.

“And if they don’t, well, you and I will just have to do somethin’ ourselves, won’t we? I’m sure we could make enough noise and offer enough attention to bring her back out, just the two of us. Does she also like licorice? I’ll buy some in the general store with my first payment.” Eridanys didn’t scoff; he didn’t laugh or shake his head or mutter to himself in annoyance. He just looked thoughtfully at Alba for a long moment, like there was something else he wanted to say.

He approached where Alba lingered at the top of the stairs, tugging on his braid before cupping the back of Alba’s head to pull him in and kiss where the silver strands of hair were hidden beneath his natural red ones. “You will not fall victim to the song of anyone but me,” he reiterated. “So stop doubting my promise. Before I get annoyed.”

Eridanys watched the crab scuttle back and forth, clacking its claws together at both of them in threat. “Alright,” he muttered. “I’ll ask you for things more often as well. Even though there’s nothing I think you could do for me that I couldn’t do for myself.” “God. Close enough, I guess,” Alba said, but laughed as he did. “How about you do somethin’ about that crab for me? I don’t like his attitude—OH!” He practically screamed as Eridanys swiped the creature into his mouth in an instant, crunching down on it like a piece of rock candy. Alba grabbed his face in shock, before buckling over with laughter and having to hold on to Eridanys’ shoulder for support. Eridanys surprised him by chuckling, too—then laughing with him, a bright, musical, wholesome sound far more beautiful than any song Alba had ever heard. Alba’s

never knowing if one would end up stranded and starving in the freezing cold, forced to find food where it fell. Where it fell and closed its eyes to sleep and never opened them again, to be cut into pieces and boiled in salted water and choked down by mouths desperate to live. Forced to find food, to choke down the meat of a man he’d bunked alongside, only then understanding that what happened to his own father wasn’t an act of depravity so much as desperation, turning men into animals relying on survival instinct alone⁠—

“You’re just going to have to trust me.” Alba didn’t answer, he didn’t know how, just tightening his arms until he was nearly choking the siren. “Don’t you dare drown me,” he threatened into Eridanys’ ear. “I’ll haunt you for every day you’re still alive.” “Promise?”

“You were loudest when I first got here… then the night that first man showed up… then again when Marco came… and again when Mr. Michaels was there…” he said, not sure to who, not sure why, but every additional understanding was a comfort. “You kept tryin’ to warn me…”

“I would have still put my eyes on you and failed to ever look away again. I would have still made you mine any time I spotted you. From any shore.”

“Let’s leave,” Alba interrupted. He sat up, touching Eridanys’ face—then kissing him. Kissing him long and hard and breathlessly, pressing their foreheads together when he finally pulled away again. “As soon as the sun comes up, let’s leave. We’ll take that old man’s boat to shore and we’ll walk until we can’t anymore.” Eridanys stared at him, breathless, before pulling Alba in and kissing him again. Again and again and again, until Alba didn’t know where he ended and the siren began. Taking note of each and every part of him—vowing to protect him from harm, just like he once did on the rocks.

Im so stressed still20% left .something bad is gonna happen

“You like how I taste, don’t you, sailor?”

“God—Neptune save me, I will gut any man who ever lays a hand on what’s mine.”

“Alba… ” Eridanys whispered, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to. Like he only did it because Alba said his name, first—but then the sound came again, and again. Alba, Alba, like the taste of it on his tongue complemented the pleasure sparking in his blood. Alba opened his hazy eyes again, unable to help the overwhelmed smile that stretched his sore lips. It was the first time anyone had ever said his name so intimately—so full of emotion. Gentleness, tenderness—nothing he would have ever expected from a mouth lined with such sharp teeth.

and sweat on Alba’s skin, holding his lips there. “Cum for me,” he whispered, making Alba shiver. “I want you to cum for me, Albatross, my prince of the sea.”

“You feel so good, Alba—” he said between gasps, words spilling out like he never expected them. “I want to be the only one—who ever says your name, inside of you, knowing you, Alba, Alba. My caller of the shore—Mine, only mine⁠—”

“My sea prince,” the siren finally whispered hoarsely. “My caller of the shore. I thought just of you to keep my sanity.”

The merrow-turned-siren who Alba would cherish and love and grow old with despite it all, in spite of it all.

Alba shoved the blade to the side, cutting through the clenched muscles of the man’s neck and summoning more blood to gush from the opening. Splattering him with crimson hot enough to nearly burn his skin, pouring in a curtain over his chest, his arms, his face, into his mouth until he choked on it when finally able to gasp.

“I love you,” he whispered, pulling the man closer. “I love you, I love you. I want you, I want to be with you, anywhere else than here.” “I’ll go wherever you are,” Eridanys responded, breath tickling the hairs on the back of Alba’s neck. “With you I’ll always stay, Albatross. Prince of the sea.”