Page 26 of Music of the Ocean

Yes. They are here, still. The city is their home. Yours, now, too. Your world will not take you back. The change is irreversible.

Then, more emotions rolled through Saxby. Surprise, relief, hunger, need, and the memory of Indigo’s loneliness compressed into a single pulse.

As soon as you touched the water, I knew you were my mate. Something that I thought I would never have or find. I didn’t know a bond of this sort could exist between two different species. You are mine, and I am yours.

Saxby knew there were some species who had some sort of mental or chemical connection within their kind, but humans were not ones who did. Hell, there were even animals on Earth that had pair bonds, so it wasn’t that far-fetched.

It was something Saxby never thought would happen to him. He liked sex as well as the next person. Plus, he wasn’t a human who only stuck to his own kind. He’d had sex with other races.

Male? Female? Neither? Both? Different kind of body parts? Didn’t really matter to him as long as both parties were consenting and their biology didn’t pose a threat to anybody’s health.

Yeah, he was adventurous like that.

Saxby eyed Indigo. He wasn’t sure what gender Indigo was, but he was going with male. At least, he thought he was male. And Saxby found him attractive. The tentacles, the breathing under water, and the weird eyes didn’t bother Saxby. Hell, he’d read tentacle porn like the rest of humanity.

Keyword here was consent, though.

Saxby certainly hadn’t consented to any of this, not that it seemed to have mattered. Sighing, he glanced back out the opening again. He noticed, for the first time, a current pressing gently at his back.

It wasn’t Indigo’s doing. The entire city was pulsing with a kind of rhythm, like a heartbeat. Maybe he’d been hearing it all along.

Apparently, Indigo saw his attention shift. In the link, a faint echo of amusement. The city is alive. Like the ocean. Like me.

Saxby ran a mental inventory. Lungs, gills, webbed hands, the strange density in his bones that made the pressure here bearable. He wasn’t sure where he ended and the mutation began.

His mind was still his, but the rest? Adapted. Or hijacked. He couldn’t decide which. He tried to swim away, just to see if he could. The tentacles holding him loosened their grip, letting him drift.

Okay, it was good that Indigo gave him the freedom to explore. The question was how far could he push that? The new muscles in his shoulders flexed as his arms propelled him forward.

He overcorrected and spun, nearly slamming into a wall of living coral. Holy shit!

Saxby steadied himself, oriented, and looked back. Indigo hadn’t moved, but there was sympathy in his eyes.

What do you want from me? Saxby asked.

A life together, of course. A relationship. A sharing of thoughts and plans.

Saxby goggled. Seriously, his mouth was wide open. His eyes bulged. Was Indigo serious? Saxby peered at him. Stars above, he absolutely was serious. Have you been in a relationship? Ever even dated? You plucked me out of my life and—

You touched the water. I did nothing.

Saxby wanted to scream. Could he scream under water? He didn’t know, but he was willing to find out. Semantics!

No, not really. You would have belonged to this planet no matter what, but me claiming you as mine is indeed a step further, I admit. I tasted your essence on the water and knew immediately. Faking that is impossible. Everything about you calls to everything about me. Nor do I want to ignore this call. And it is just that, Saxby. A call. A need.

But. I. Did. Not. Consent, Indigo.

That was the thing, the core of everything. A pulse of raw anger shot through him, burning off the last vestiges of sleep. He trembled, gills flaring, every new muscle clenching against the current.

All his life, he’d prided himself on being adventurous, experimental, and ready to try anything once, just so long as he chose it. He’d always been the first to volunteer for a wild night, a risky mission, a new experience.

But every time, every single time, the adventure had been his to claim or reject. Not this. This had taken him and run through his boundaries like a starship through an unmarked minefield.

Alien water had seized him, remade him, stitched him into the living fabric of this world and Indigo’s life without so much as a warning or a question. Saxby’s hands, webbed and trembling, curled into fists.

Indigo hovered there, silent, watching. He didn’t look away, didn’t flinch. There was no shame, no apology. Just patient, unyielding presence.

A low, hard ache radiated behind Saxby’s sternum, a pressure that would’ve been tears if he was the sort of person who cried when he was angry, which he decidedly wasn’t.