The pressure in her skull didn't fade. It settled.
Cold. Quiet. Certain.
Like a new tide had begun inside her head, one that obeyed no moon and no logic she understood. Isla pressed her hands to her temples, fingers digging hard into her scalp as if she could claw the intrusion out. But the presence didn't retreat. It waited—patient, steady, unhurried—as though her panic were nothing more than bubbles drifting past in the deeper dark.
The creature—man—drifted forward again. The water parted in a slow, reverent glide around him, gathering in soft eddies along the curve of his tail. Light shimmered down the length of it in pale streaks that highlighted the power beneath the scales—smooth, lethal movement disguised by grace. His chest lifted with a slow, deliberate breath, and for the first time she saw the faint outline of gills hidden beneath the lines of his ribs, opening and closing like small, private doors to the sea.
Her lungs spasmed.
She couldn't look away.
You need to calm.
The words—meanings—slid through her mind like silk dragged across cold stone.
Your heart is fighting water it can no longer command.
Her breath hitched violently. Water surged deeper into her chest, spreading warmth where air had once burned. She pressed a palm to her sternum, counting the beats shifting beneath her ribs. They weren't wrong, exactly. They were… altered. Slower. Heavier. As though the ocean had wrapped fingers around her heart and told it a new rhythm.
"You're—" she tried, but the water devoured the word instantly. Her lips moved again, desperate. "Stop. Stop talking in my head."
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing with a shade of amusement that didn't reach softness.
Your skull is an unlocked door. I'm not breaking anything.
Her stomach twisted.
"Get out," she mouthed fiercely.
No.
No hesitation.
No adjustment for her fear.
Just the truth delivered like a tide coming in.
He drifted closer, letting the faint algae-light spread across his features. Shadows clung to the hollows of his cheeks where sharpness lived, where inhuman symmetry carved beauty into something predatory. His hair floated around him like dark smoke, lifting with each shift of the water. And those eyes—silver storms, lit from within—studied her with a weight that made her feel peeled open.
Her back pressed harder into the cave wall. "What are you?" she mouthed again, the question collapsing into a tremor.
This time he didn't ignore the words.
He moved until the water around her knees pulsed with his presence. The glow from the algae caught on the scales dusting his shoulders, revealing impossible patterns—fractals, almost—like the sea had etched its oldest maps into his skin. His hand rose from the water, webbing stretching faintly between long fingers as droplets drifted upward around him like suspended stars.
His voice landed inside her again.
Kaelen.
The name struck her like a memory she had never lived. She felt it ripple through her ribs, settle in the hollow of her throat, carve itself into the water inside her lungs. It didn't belong to English. It didn't belong to any human language. It belonged to pressure. To tide. To the deep.
Her lips parted before she could stop them. "Kaelen," she mouthed.
His voice slid through her again, this time with a depth that vibrated behind her ribs.
Names travel with the Breath. Mine to you. Yours to me.
A pause. A ripple in the meaning.
Isla.
She gasped, gripping the stone at her sides so hard her fingers burned. "How—how do you know my name?"
A slow roll of current lifted his hair again.
You told me. Without speaking. When the Breath entered you.
"The what?" Panic splintered her voice. "What did you do to me?"
He drifted closer, and the water responded, rising higher over her thighs, caressing her skin in soft pulses that weren't her own. The pearls at her collarbone glowed faintly, reacting to something she couldn't see. His gaze flicked to them briefly—curiosity, or recognition, or something darker passing behind his eyes—before returning to her face.
I saved your life.
A beat.
Or what could be saved.
She shook her head, lips trembling. "No. No—you changed something. My lungs—my heart—this water—"
His hand reached for her face.
She tried to recoil, but the stone held her in place and the water dragged at her limbs. His fingers brushed her cheek with a cool, silk-smooth pressure that made her gasp. The webbing between them slid gently across her skin as he cupped her jaw. She expected ice. Expected roughness. Instead, the contact was devastatingly tender.
I gave you the Breath. The sea in its pure form. The ability to take it in, keep it, and let it keep you.
Her pulse tore through her. "Take it back."
His expression sharpened, something almost predatory flashing across it.
No.
"Take. It. Back." Her voice shook. "I don't want this."
Want has no weight here. Only survival.
He traced her jaw lightly, as if studying the way her skin reacted beneath his touch.
Your life was leaving you. The reef below you was ready to take what remained. I intervened.
She didn't know whether to scream or sob. "Without my permission."
His eyes darkened.
You were dying. Permission is a luxury for the living.
Her breath broke. A sob rattled through her—even though no air existed to carry it—and his hand steadied her automatically, palm cool against her cheek, thumb brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
He was reassuring her.
A creature not human.
Comforting her like she was something fragile.
Like she was something claimed.
Isla shoved his chest with both hands.
Her palms met skin slick with salt.
Strong. Too strong.
He didn't move an inch.
But the bioluminescent veins beneath his skin flared—blue sparks firing beneath her hands like her touch was igniting something in him.
His breath hitched.
Actual breath.
The reaction was so sudden, so involuntary, that she froze. The scales across his collarbones glimmered brighter for a beat, as if the water inside him had surged.
Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. "What are you?"
He drifted closer. The water climbed higher over her ribs. His tail curled slightly, brushing the stone beneath her feet. She felt its power through the rock—a pulse of force coiled and waiting.
His hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck with devastating gentleness. The webbing brushed the sensitive skin behind her ear, sending sparks firing down her spine despite the fear knotting in her chest.
I am what the deep made.
A breath.
A confession.
And now you are bound to it.
Her stomach dropped. "Bound?"
His forehead almost touched hers now. His eyes glowed, silver deepening to storm-slate. His pupils dilated with a hunger she didn't understand but felt everywhere—across her skin, her lungs, her pulse.
The Breath ties our lives. You carry part of me in you now.
"No…" Her voice broke. "No, I didn't choose this. I don't belong here. I don't belong to you—"
His expression didn't soften. It darkened.
The sea keeps what it wants.
A pause—so slight she might have imagined it.
So do I.
Heat flared under her skin—anger and terror sparking together. She grabbed his wrist, trying to pry his hand from her neck, but his strength was absolute.
He didn't tighten his grip.
He didn't restrain her.
He just let her try.
When she stopped, shaking, breath fractured, he lowered his gaze to her mouth—slowly, deliberately—and then back to her eyes.
Meaning pushed into her mind again, sharp as a bite.
Hungry.
The water around them stilled.
The cave held its breath.
And Isla understood, with sinking dread, that hunger didn't mean food.
Not here.
Not with him.
Not anymore.