Chapter 177

The water had become my second skin.

I spent my days submerged in the lagoon, floating weightless, my belly round and heavy beneath the surface. Caelion stayed with me, always. He held my hand when I needed anchoring, released me when I needed freedom, and watched with worried eyes when I dove deep, following the flicker of fish or the sway of underwater plants.

The water was soothing in ways I had never imagined. It cradled my swollen body, supporting the weight that grew heavier with each passing day. The pressure eased my aching back, the coolness calmed my overheated skin, the silence beneath the surface quieted my restless mind. I was five months pregnant now, halfway through this journey, and the Mer child within me grew stronger, more demanding, more at home in the water than I was on land.

Being on land had started to become uncomfortable. The air felt too thin, too dry, scraping against my lungs. My skin itched with the need for moisture. When I walked on the sand, my feet felt heavy, clumsy, wrong. The baby needed the water, and my body responded to that need, craving the cool embrace of the lagoon, the weightless relief of floating, the soothing pressure of the depths.

"I should be a prune," I said, looking at my hands. "Human skin in water this long. I should be wrinkled and shriveled."

Caelion swam close, his eyes gentle. "But you’re not."

I looked at my skin, smooth and supple despite the hours submerged. "The baby," I said, understanding. "The Mer blood. It’s changing how my body responds to the water. Not transforming me. Just... adapting me. For now."

"Well," Caelion said, his voice thoughtful, "technically since we’re mated and bonded, your body is nearly one with the water. Except you just don’t change genetically."

I turned to look at him, processing this. "So I can keep this? Even after the baby is born? The ability to stay in water without pruning? The comfort of it?"

"That’s good news then," I admitted, floating weightless, relief washing through me. "Because I’ll miss this if I no longer can do what I do now. The freedom. The coolness. The quiet."

"You can always return," he said, pulling me close. "Visit. Swim. The water will always welcome you. But you were made for the land, Krys. For the sun and the soil. Not the depths."

"I know," I said, and I was glad for it. I loved the water, needed it now, but I was human. I would always be human. The water was a gift, a necessity, a temporary home. But the land was where I belonged.

He held me tighter, his arms around me, and I let the water hold us both.

Eryx had been my salvation during this time.

While my mates managed the chaos of our household, the endless needs of children who seemed to multiply their energy daily, Eryx took it upon himself to care for me. He brought food to the water’s edge, fresh fruit and cooked fish and the strange sea vegetables that Caelion assured me were essential for the baby’s development. He would wade in to hand me the food, his eyes carefully avoiding my transformed body, his expression carefully neutral.

"Eat," he would say, his voice gruff. "You need strength."

Then he would wade back out, return to the house, and help wherever help was needed. He repaired the roof when a storm damaged it. He carved new bowls when we ran short. He played with the children when their fathers were exhausted, his patience endless, his gentle nature a surprise to anyone who didn’t know him.

He was everywhere, doing everything, asking for nothing.

I watched him sometimes, floating on my back, my belly breaking the surface like an island. I watched him work, watched him play, watched him avoid my eyes when I tried to thank him. And I wondered, as I always wondered, what he wanted, what he needed, what he dreamed of in the quiet moments when he thought no one was looking.

---

The coilings were five months old now, growing as fast as their Mer sibling in my womb. They had started talking in earnest, their small voices hissing and lisping, their words coming clearer every day. They were clever, my serpent children, too clever for their own good and certainly too clever for their fathers’ peace of mind.

They had discovered hiding.

Not just hiding, but the art of hiding, the strategy of it, the joy of watching their fathers search with increasing panic while they remained perfectly still, perfectly silent, perfectly concealed in some impossible crevice or shadow.

Soryn had aged ten years in the past month, I was certain of it. His eyes were permanently bloodshot. He had taken to checking every corner of every room before entering, calling out soft warnings to his serpents, receiving only silence and muffled giggles in return.

"They’re going to kill me," he told me one morning, his voice hollow. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday, I will die of worry, and they will dance on my grave."

"They love you," I said, floating in the water, amused.

"They’re testing me," he corrected. "They’re conducting experiments on the limits of paternal endurance. I am their subject. Their victim."

He wasn’t wrong. The coilings had learned to climb, to squeeze through impossibly small spaces, to hold their breath for alarming lengths of time. They were keeping their father on his toes, quite literally, as he jumped at every sound, searched every shadow, and aged prematurely before my eyes.

***

Lark had become a fixture in our yard.

Rhonda’s son, the boy who had blushed at Levy during the ceremony, had found his courage. Or rather, he had found a way to be near her without actually approaching her, which seemed to be the best compromise his shy heart could manage.

He came to play with Atlas, Chase, Ryder, and Jasper. He brought shells, he brought stories, he brought his eager, hopeful self. And while he played with my sons, roughhousing and wrestling and running through the sand, his eyes would find Levy.

Always Levy.

He couldn’t help it. She was so pretty, my daughter, with her golden hair and her bright eyes and her laugh that sounded like bells. She was unaware of her beauty, unaware of the effect she had on the poor boy who stumbled over his words and dropped his shells whenever she looked his way.

I found out about the warning on a night when the chaos had finally subsided, when the children were bathed and fed and tucked into their beds, when the house was quiet except for the sound of waves and breathing.

I was putting Jasper to bed, smoothing his hair, when he spoke up, his voice drowsy but determined to share his news.

"Mama," he said. "Lark looked at Levy today."

I paused, my hand on his forehead. "Did he?"

"Three times," Jasper reported, his eyes serious. "When we were playing swords. He kept looking at her instead of us. Atlas saw."

I sat on the edge of his bed, intrigued. "And what did Atlas do?"

Jasper yawned, his voice dropping to a whisper. "He warned him. He said, ’Don’t look at my sister.’ He was very scary, Mama. Even I was scared."

I tried not to laugh. "And what did Lark do?"

"He stopped looking," Jasper said. "But then he looked again when Atlas wasn’t watching. So Chase stepped on his foot. Accidentally. But not really."

"Not really," I repeated.

"Ryder says we have to protect her," Jasper explained, his eyes closing, his voice fading. "From everyone. Forever. Even from boys who bring good shells. Especially from them."

He fell asleep then, his breathing evening out, his small face peaceful in the moonlight.

I sat there for a long moment, watching him, feeling the weight of the day settle on my shoulders. It had been chaotic, full of water and children and the endless negotiations of sibling relationships and parental boundaries. My sons were forming their protective instincts, their walls of aggression, their determination to keep their sister safe from the world.

And I was floating in water, becoming something other than human, changing in ways I was only beginning to understand.

I left Jasper’s room and walked to the lagoon, drawn by the cool embrace that had become my sanctuary. I slipped into the water, feeling it close over my head, feeling the immediate relief as my skin drank in the moisture, as my body relaxed, as the weight of gravity released its hold on me.

Caelion found me there, floating in the dark, the moonlight filtering through the water to dapple my skin.

"I have characteristics like a mermaid," I said, my voice wondering. "Except for the tail."

"Would you want one?" Caelion asked, swimming close, his hand finding my belly under the water. "A tail? To swim like us? To belong to the water completely?"

I thought about it, floating there in the dark, my mate’s hand warm against my skin, my child fluttering within me. I thought about the freedom of the water, the weightlessness, the beauty of the world beneath the waves.

"I belong to the land too," I said finally. "To our family. To the life we’ve built. I don’t want to give that up. Not even for a tail."

Caelion smiled, his teeth white in the moonlight. "Good," he said. "Because I like you with legs. They’re very useful. For walking. For dancing. For wrapping around me when we sleep."

I laughed, the sound bubbling up through the water, and he pulled me close, his arms around me, his lips finding mine in a kiss that tasted of salt and love and tomorrow.

The water held us, cradled us, promised us everything we needed.

And for now, for this moment, that was enough.