All I can see are bubbles and scales, and all I feel is the air leaving my lungs and terror.
A flash of purple skin tugs the camouflaged male away from me. He uncoils and lashes out at Aura. But my Amphiran doesn’t relent. He’s firm, forceful, and gets control of the other male.
But I’m so turned around I can’t tell which way is up or down until a hand pulls me up.
The nice pink-banded woman tugs me against her and looks me over as I splutter and suck in air.
“Are you okay?” Eira asks.
I nod. “Thanks.”
She gives Cora a dirty look. “I might be a pink, but I don’t understand her grudge. She should have warned all of you. But I guess entitled bitches are used to their daddies cleaning up their messes with money.”
Aura surfaces with the male in a chokehold and growls with a ferocity that makes me tense. “She doesn’t want you. You need to stay away from her!”
“She looks like she has scales,” he rasps. “My Siren wants her!”
“Tough shit, you glittery gremlin. Go coil up around your own little eel and suckyourself.” Aura pushes them apart.
The scaled male looks at me.
“Don’t even think about it.” Aura places himself between us in two strides. “I held back this time. Next time, I won’t.”
The woman next to me shoulder-bumps me. “Ooh, you got a good one. It’s nice to be protected, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, especially when I can’t really swim.”
Eira’s look of surprise reminds me I should practice more. “You can’t?”
“Sort of. I did when I was a kid, but my thruster manufacturing job had me handling a lot of tech. Electricity and water…” I lift my hands, mimicking a scale.
“Ah. That makes sense.”
“You get a good one?” I ask her.
She nods and points to the complex. “Work called. So he had to get out.”
Aura makes his way to me, collects me against him, and kisses me. I don’t need words to know he was worried. I feel it in the desperate way he holds me.
“Did he hurt you?” I ask.
“Naw, he’s delightful. I miss a good fight now and then.” Aura grins.
“Aura…”
“He’s about as threatening to me as a wet sock. Uncomfortable and annoying because of how clingy he is to you.”
“Thanks for freeing me for a second time. I don’t think he realizes how much he scares me.”
Aura hoists me up by my hips and sets me on a ledge in the pool as my friend eases herself into another corner. “Then I’ll make sure he never touches you again.”
He leans close to me and whispers in my ear. “And we’ll get her back, too. Nobody fucks with you, babe, and gets away with it. Not on my watch.”
Babe…I rest my forehead to his, disbelieving I’ve found such a catch.You can’t be real.
He whips a hand into the water and lifts up a squirming tentacle. Aura looks down and then sideways, tracing the tentacle to its owner.
A redhead crests the pool’s surface with two huge gray eyes and a grimace like Aura’s hurting him.
