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And then he was so close that I could barely breathe.
His gaze slid down my body, carefully soaking up every obvious detail of my desire—my parted lips, the flush of my skin, the heaving swell of my breasts—until embarrassment flared hot against my cheeks.
Oh, the way he looked at me, his lips twitching as his eyes raked over the lines of seaweed that bound me… He knew exactly how I was feeling, what I needed. That thought sent my blush spreading down, igniting the spot where I could still feel the phantom weight of Leander’s lips caressing my neck.
A studying gaze veered toward my needy slit, the flesh there still gaped and yearning to be filled, and I sucked in a salty breath as the crease between his eyebrows tightened.
“Careful.” That smoky voice again. Just one word had the hairs on my neck prickling. A dark curiosity settled over him as one of his tentacles crept up, idly plucking at a strand of seaweed that stretched low across my belly. “One might think you like being bound.”
I couldn’t tell whether it was my realization of the truth that he’d spoken or the tight movement of the band across my bare skin that caused me to tremor, but I whimpered as another strand plucked, vibrating dangerously close to my engorged slit.
The trident tapped on the bindings above me, and I startled, my head tilting just as he leaned in. His pale lips cocked. “I can add more if you’d like, little captive.”
The dark promise in his voice left me completely disoriented and gasping for what to say. “I—” I stuttered, but it came out as more of a whine than an answer.
“No?” Knuckles tightened over the trident, and misty strands of seaweed materialized on the stones underneath us. I strained against my bindings as the ribbons reared up, reaching for me, slithering through the water like charmed snakes, but the dark strands still connected, sliding over my belly, teasing up between my breasts, dancing, spreading, forcing me to bear down on my tongue to keep from crying out.
“This isn’t what you want?” He let out a dark chuckle of amusement. “Well, all right.”
The trident sliced three quick slashes above me, sending the entire weave plunging from the ceiling. I gasped as I fell from the wall, but a chest, solid and smooth as marble, was there to catch me. Tentacles wrapped over my arms, plucking me up off him and easing me down to the seafloor. Thankful that their firm presence didn’t linger, I watched, stunned, as the magic of the seaweed ropes dissolved into stringy black globs in the water.
It made no sense. Was he letting me go?
I wrapped my arms around my torso, trembling at the thought of somehow making it out of this prison and back to the others alive.
But why would he free me?
It was strange. His tentacles were so gentle compared to the squeezing hold of the brute who’d thrown me in here. His actions, his eyes, his magic… Nothing about him made any sense to me at all. Shaking my head, I turned all my questions up at him. “What are you?”
The cecaelia’s expression remained unreadable while he studied me, and seconds, then minutes seemed to pass by in contemplative silence. I was already convinced he wouldn’t answer when his lips parted slowly, carefully, like he wasn’t sure if he should even be answering at all. “A sea wizard.”
That… was not what I was expecting.
“A sea…wizard,” I repeated, feeling oddly bewildered by the answer he’d taken so long to construct. I’d heard of witches and slugs and cucumbers, but sea wizards?
A low hum rolled through his chest, bringing with it a cloud of mist that puffed up from the tips of his trident. “You doubt?”
Of course, I knew he had magic, but that was because all tridents held magic, right? Even so, I couldn’t help but flinch at his display.
“Sorry, it’s just… I’ve never heard of a sea wizard.” I blinked up at him, not sure what to think. He’d bound me, teased me, then freed me from my confines, but surely he wasn’t actually going to let me go. Was he?
He shifted nearer, his tentacles closing around me like they might swallow me up underneath them, and my body went rigid, all too aware of his proximity.
“You now know what I am, but I am more interested in you, little captive,” he said clinically, and a narrow tentacle stroked over the frills at the end of my tail. “And this.”
“My tail?” I choked out, and he leaned ever closer, as if he was preparing to reach out and feel for himself to see if it was real.
A round of laughter reverberated through the dungeon, and he slunk back with a quick jerk, his spine going as rigid and straight as his trident in an instant. Chest heaving, he smoothed back his hair like he was trying to compose himself. “But it seems we’ve run out of time.” Black hair swept around him as he turned back to the corridor. “I hope you enjoyed being caught up in my strings as much as I enjoyed seeing you in them, little captive,” he murmured. “It has been a delight.”
Strings? Could that make him the shadow puppet the soldiers had referred to?
“Wait,” I gasped. Was he leaving? Magic smoke was already spilling down around him. Just as I thought he was going to vanish, unexpected ropes of seaweed reared up from that magic mist, catching one of my wrists and then the other, joining them together behind my back, and boy, did I feel foolish for ever thinking he might let me go.
But before he disappeared into the darkness, he looked back at me, just a quick glance, and it was enough to spark a memory.
White eyes, black hair, carrying a trident…
I still didn’t know him, but I knewofhim.
