Delmar
Three Years Later – Delta Airlines, Flight 1046
The metal bird soared through the skies, its narrow body trembling ever so slightly as it cut through the clouds, ferrying dozens of land-dwellers toward destinations written on their fragile boarding passes.
Two flight attendants, garbed in crisp navy uniforms and the illusion of politeness, had taken to peering through the cabin curtain in intervals of faux routine. I felt their eyes long before I saw them, humans didn't get how sensitive our kind were to the intent of gaze. Their glances weren't fleeting; they lingered, cautious yet unrelenting, as if I were some magnificent predator caged among them.
And perhaps, in a way, I was.
I didn't belong in their world. Taller than any human male I'd passed in the terminal, limbs carved with an elegance not born of gym routines but fluid motion beneath leagues of sea. My skin, though mostly concealed beneath layers of human clothing, was a hue too lifeless to be tan, too iridescent to be albino. My eyes...well, those I could never disguise. A brilliant green, too luminous, to be natural. For them I must look like a ghost of some long-forgotten god. Alien perhaps
The stewardesses were making more than frequent trips to the lavatory, their paths taking deliberate detours past Row 14, Seat A, my seat. The whispers were not subtle.
"I don't think he's single though..."
"Did you see the woman beside him? She's clinging to him like her life depends on it."
"With a man like that? I'd cling tighter. Make sure no one steals him." Giggles followed, high-pitched and shallow.
I didn't need to strain to hear them. My hearing, like everything else in my body, surpassed human limitations. I'd learned early on that their senses were muted, dulled by evolution or circumstance, I wasn't sure but what passed as a murmur to them rang in my ears like sea glass scraped across coral.
Beside me, K'liira clung to my arm with both hands, her body stiff and small. Her grip was desperate, like a hatchling ripped from her coral nest and thrust into open sea, where nothing smelled familiar and everything wanted her dead.
Her breathing was shallow, her pulse erratic. I placed a hand over her trembling fingers and squeezed gently. "It's fine. We'll be there soon," I whispered, not aloud, but in the way of our kind. The quiet hum of ultrasonic frequency shaped into language, a ripple of thought that would sound like nothing more than errant clicks to the ears of the humans seated nearby.
The humans assumed much, as they always did. They took one look at us, our similar skin, our green eyes that glowed like deep-water alga , and mistook us for siblings. Or lovers. Or something vaguely familiar enough to ignore. In truth, K'liira and I shared nothing but our species. She was young. Frightened. A child of the reef who had never set fin on land before the circumstances made it necessary.
"Does she need anything?" One of the flight attendants had finally summoned the courage to speak, crouching beside us with a tray and an expression torn between curiosity and concern. Her voice was laced with that careful tone humans used when speaking to someone they didn't quite understand.
K'liira flinched, her pupils dilating, her heartbeats thudding in her chest like a storm drum. She turned her face away from the woman, her spine stiff, lips pressed together as though to keep her emotions from spilling out.
"No, we're fine," I answered in the human tongue.
The flight attendant blinked, the tiniest gasp escaping her lips. Of course, she wasn't prepared for my voice. No human ever was.
The words came human but the sound like a blaring conch. My voice had once been a treasure among my people, resonant enough to calm a impress the highest of Faringue queens. Here, outside water, it was monstrous. Misunderstood.
I watched the hostess shrink back a little, smile strained, eyes flicking once more to K'liira before she nodded and scurried down the aisle.
"You need to relax, K'liira," I whispered, my voice no louder than the hum of the plane. The caution in my tone wasn't for her benefit, but to prevent another dozen pairs of curious human eyes from turning our way. We had already drawn too much attention, my appearance alone ensured that, and I couldn't risk more. Not today. Not when I had waited so long, fought so hard, to finally be on this flight, on this journey, to the address etched into my mind like scripture. A promise I refused to break.
I hadn't intended to bring her with me. She was not part of the plan. If circumstances were different, I would have left K'liira to the sea. Not out of cruelty, but mercy. The land was no place for someone like her, fragile in her state, raw from from what she was going through. Vulnerable. Alone. A queen without her harem.
When Dr. Berry requested me, voice taut with urgency, telling me they had captured one of our kind, a female of high lineage, tortured, to be sold off to the authorities I did not hesitate. I hadn't been a beta in years. I had forfeited that title the day I swam away from the queen's reef. Alphas did not protect queens. It was the duty of her betas, her bonded males, her chosen protectors. But she had not made any. She hadn't gone through her first nesting yet. And I could not let her die at the hands of humans who didn't know her worth.
K'liira whimpered beside me now, her distress thinly veiled. "I don't want to be here," she clicked, her native tongue slicing through the muted hum of the cabin like a fishbone lodged in a throat.
The sharp rhythm of our language, whistles and clicks honed for underwater resonance, was like a siren's call to human curiosity. Heads turned. Eyes narrowed. Lips parted in half-formed questions. I reached out and squeezed her arm gently, a silent reprimand cloaked in comfort.
"Please," I whispered, not in sound but in ultrasonic pulses. "Hold on. Just a little longer."
She scowled, her face drawn tight, but nodded.
I'd spent three years adapting to the human world, this dry, heavy, chaotic realm of humans. I'd broken my body on fishing boats, stacking nets with bloodied hands and hauling crates under the hot sun. I'd planted crops with men who stared at me too long and spoke too little. I'd learned their currency, their rituals, their brutal pace of living. All for a name spoken like a prayer against my lips.
Kash.
The human who had turned my world inside out with a single glance. I had seen his photo on Dr. Berry's desk, a photo frame that meant nothing to anyone but everything to me. His eyes, so alive. His mouth, caught mid-laughter. My mind and body had clicked in that moment, a biological lock slipping into place. A recognition as old as our species: mate.
And yet he was not Faringue. Not alpha, not beta. Not even omega. Just... human. But something in me had chosen him anyway.
"I... I... d-don't feel w...well," K'liira stammered suddenly, her voice rough with effort, her words broken like waves on jagged rocks.
My heart clenched. She was trying, forcing herself to speak in human tongue, to make air bend in unnatural ways across her throat. I knew how exhausting it was. But she did it for me. For this journey. And the guilt of it settled like salt in an open wound.
"Just a few more minutes," I murmured, leaning in and placing a kiss to her crown. Her body stilled almost instantly. Of course it did, physical contact had always been the key to calming Faringue females. As a former beta, I'd once known the language of their bodies as intimately as my own heartbeat.
I ran my fingers through her soft pink hair, long and curling like the seaweed of the inner reefs. With every stroke her breathing slowed, until at last her head rested on my shoulder, her eyes drifting shut in quiet slumber. The tremble in her limbs faded. For the remainder of the flight, I kept my hand on her, not just for her sake but mine.
The plane shuddered. A mechanical growl vibrated through the floorboards.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent. Please fasten your seatbelts."
The captain's voice boomed through the speakers. K'liira stirred, blinking herself awake, and I felt her arms wrap around my chest. Not out of affection, but terror. Her face buried in my side, eyes squeezed shut, she held onto me as if I were the only stable thing in a sky full of shifting clouds.
I sighed, leaning back into the seat as the pressure in the cabin hummed around me. We were nearing land.
"Shhh..." I whispered, gently pulling K'liira closer, shielding her body with mine as the passengers surged forward like a school of frenzied fish released from a net. The cabin had barely stopped vibrating before humans began clawing at overhead compartments, tugging bags, brushing shoulders, and elbowing through the narrow aisle like this was some ritual of chaos they relished. K'liira whimpered, low and guttural, a wounded sound only I could hear over the din. Her fingers clung to the hem of my shirt, and I could feel her trembling. Crowds unsettled her, especially crowds of men. Their scent, their postures, the careless way they occupied space reminded her of what had been done to her. The months of captivity. The starvation. The beatings. The leering, grabbing hands. The cage.
They had treated her like a beast, not a queen. And she might have died in that filth if they hadn't finally thrown her, half-dead and broken, into the arms of the only human with a conscience, Dr. Berry.
When the last passenger shuffled past, I finally stood. The duffel slung over my shoulder was light, just the essentials. A few changes of clothes. Some dried salt packed tightly in a glass vial. The weight of hope did not count in luggage. I glanced once at the flight attendant near the exit. She gave me a smile too broad to be casual. I didn't return it. I had learned by now that smiling was a social tool for humans, not always a mark of sincerity.
Despite three years among them, there were still things I didn't understand. Like why they insisted on staring directly into each other's eyes. In Faringue culture, such an act was intimate, sacred, even. Only mates locked eyes like that. It was foreplay. A prelude to deeper bonds. But these people stared freely, like it meant nothing. Their gaze slid over skin, over eyes, over mouths, without consequence. It made me feel naked in ways I wasn't prepared for. K'liira hated it even more. She kept her head bowed, her pale lashes fanned against her cheeks, her small body coiled inward to hide.
We stepped out into sunlight. It was sharp against our skin. I raised a hand to shield my face and hailed a taxi. A nondescript yellow car pulled up, and the driver barely blinked when he saw me. Perhaps this was the gift of America, their famed diversity. Here, I might pass for a foreigner. Strange, but not alien.
"Where to?" the man asked, fingers tapping impatiently on the steering wheel.
"812 Pine Bluff Court. Cary," I said evenly, each syllable carefully pronounced.
He looked up through the rearview mirror. I saw his eyes narrow, surprise flashing across his features. The sound of my voice always did that, deep and layered, threaded with notes human throats could not mimic.
"I had a throat surgery," I lied.
"Damn," he said with a grin. "Well, it still sounds sexy, man. No complaints here."
I gave a polite nod and leaned into the seat. Outside, the world unfurled in motion, cars, trees, children with popsicles. Suburbia in full bloom. But inside me, everything was still. Tense. Focused. I could feel my hearts, both of them, pounding unevenly in my chest, each beat an echo of a name.
Kash.
He had whispered it to me once, just before walking away. "Find me if you can." Three years I had done in my power to make this day possible. And I had. Gods, I had.
The taxi came to a stop in front of a modest house shaded by tall trees. I stepped out, then reached back for K'liira's hand. She clutched me tightly, her claws, trimmed to avoid suspicion, pressing into my palm. The walkway to the house stretched endlessly, and yet my legs felt weak, my spine loose. The tendrils at the base of my neck twitched in restless anticipation.
"Knock," K'liira murmured, squeezing my hand.
I did. Once. Twice. The third knock was answered. The door creaked open and a woman stood before us, her face unmistakably familiar. She was older now, tired perhaps, but the resemblance was immediate, she shared Kash's high cheekbones, the same slanted hazel eyes that caught the light like ocean glass.
"I'm here to meet Kash. Kashton," I said, my words stumbling from lips unused to hope.
Her brows shot up in recognition, then horror dawned across her face. "You?" she gasped. "I remember you, from the hospital." Her voice turned sharp. "What are you doing here? Why are you looking for Kashton?"
I faltered, cursing myself for not thinking ahead. I must have seemed deranged, turning up on her doorstep like some ghost of her son's past.
"I was in the area for... work. I thought I'd see how he's doing." I kept my voice neutral, eyes low.
Her expression hardened. "He doesn't live here anymore. Moved out two years ago. And if you know what's good for you, you'll walk away. Don't make me call the police."
And just like that, she slammed the door.
The sound echoed. Final. My hands stayed frozen mid-air, as though my mind couldn't yet process what had just happened. Hope, foolish and tender, crumbled beneath my feet like a sandcastle beneath a storm tide.
Beside me, K'liira made a small sound. "Now... wha-at?" she stuttered, her gills fluttering with distress.
I had no answer.
I hadn't considered this possibility. That I would arrive at the edge of a dream only for the door to shut in my face. Why had the gods of the deep brought me this far, only to deliver me to nothing?
I stared at the closed door. My fists clenched. The wind was still. Even the birds had gone quiet.
This could not be the end.
It wouldn't be.
I had crossed oceans. Betrayed my kind. Walked on land for three years with aching feet and a burning throat. All for a boy who once looked at me like I was the only creature that mattered.
I would find him.
Even if I had to tear apart this entire land to do so.
***
They're just about to do the deed on my Patreon
Read the early access spicy chapters right now! (https://www.patreon.com/RHRose)
For just $4.99, you'll unlock a whole month of access to all my uncut MM scenes, bonus content, and exclusive story updates!
📱 iPhone users — subscribe via browser instead of the iOS app to avoid extra charges!
🔗 Link's in the comment! Come join the chaos