Pitching a Tentacle, page 4
“I...I didn’t know. I don’t know if there’s more like me, and I was scared. Every time I get into the water, my tail comes out, and it’s weird and I don’t have boy parts and I feel gross.” Ripley’s face morphed into a mask of misery.
“Fish merfolk don’t tend to have boy parts as it were. All those parts are on the inside.” Cane drew them back toward the spot where they’d entered the lake, swimming lazy circles.
“I’m not a girl,” Ripley reiterated, and Cane reached down to ruffle his hair.
“’Course you’re not. You’re a kind of boy.”
“A kind of boy? I’m a boy!” Ripley’s cheeks reddened.
“Yes, but I’m a kind of boy, too. There’re many kinds of boys for merfolk. There’re alphas, betas, and omegas. I’m an alpha male. You’re an omega male. The typical male is a beta.” Cane wanted to keep it rather simple, but a jarring splash had him snatching Ripley and scurrying off, his chromatophores shifting to camouflage them.
“Easy, it’s me. Well, I’ll be. You don’t see many rainbow darters around.” Morgan came into view in a shaft of moonlight, his dusky skin all golden, richly Pacific.
A motherfucking dolphin. Cane should have known it from the beginning. The slick-skinned merfolk were elitist to the extreme, and Cane froze with Ripley in his arms.
“Oh my gosh! Mister Cane! Mister Morgan is a dolphin!” Ripley fought his way out of Cane’s grasp and darted up, swimming eager circles around Morgan until the current spun him lazily.
“Hey, easy.” Morgan laughed, lifting his hands up to avoid bumping the boy. Cane found himself staring at the male’s form, streamlined and sleek, every inch of his skin begging for touch, save for that mark on his wrist that named him as claimed.
“I didn’t know he was a dolphin, either.” Cane offered Morgan a polite but reserved smile. The omega had bedroom eyes and no right to stir the surrounding water so sweetly, almost begging to be claimed.
“Can Mister Morgan come swim with us, please?” Ripley flicked his tail and floundered a bit, still unsteady in his merform. Cane wondered how long he’d known he could shift.
“Sure. I would like for you and Morgan to have a heart-to-heart, maybe. He’s omega, like you.” Cane laughed, bubbles swirling his head as Ripley latched onto his arm and rode through the waters as they waded slowly.
“Aww, cutie. Do you not know about anything?” Morgan jetted forward and snatched the little mer, their forms more similar and swimming so streamlined.
“Kip thinks I’m a girl.” Ripley pouted.
“Alphas can be a little dumb when they see a cute omega. He wants to be friends and doesn’t know how to show it. He only knows how he thinks it should work. Sometimes, alphas can be a little cold or mean when they like an omega.” Morgan shot a cool and lingering gaze over his shoulder, making Cane falter back a few strides, the veil of his tentacles stilling.
“I think that’s a little unfair. Not every alpha that bullies an omega is showing interest. Sometimes they’re just an ass, or perhaps they’re being cold because they’re not interested.” Cane glanced pointedly at Morgan’s wrist, watching him go wide-eyed and bring his covered wrist to his chest.
“What’s wrong?” Ripley glanced between the two.
“I think after we’re done with our swim, Mister Cane and I need to have a little chat about assumptions and how to treat an omega, too.” Morgan twirled in the water, tail flicking obnoxiously at Cane as he swam between obstacles in the lake’s bottom.
“Mister Cane was real nice to me. He made Piper pee himself.” Ripley hugged onto Morgan’s arm and flitted his fins, as at home in fresh as Cane was in salt. He wondered how the boy would fare in saltwater. Wondered if the boy would want to come with him. Since all merfolk originally came from the sea, they all fared well in saltwater, but darters were their own problem. The boy needed to be protected beyond anything else, and Cane wanted to accept that duty.
“I see.” Morgan avoided Cane’s gaze and twirled with Ripley, promising him more late-night swims and an introduction to the world of secrets that came with being the wonderful creature he was.
When they reached the bank once more, they changed in a hurry, Morgan taking Ripley as they marched their way back toward the cabins.
“You guys have a runaway?” Kaycee whispered out as she came from behind a cabin, flashlight in her hand but not on.
“Kaycee is safe,” Morgan said, whispering over the little one’s shoulder.
“Ripley here needed to stretch his fins a little.” Cane picked the sleepy boy up, far too light for a boy his age. Frail. He wasn’t being fed right.
“Fins, eh? What do we got?” Kaycee approached and glanced over the little one.
“Mer, fish type.” Cane cut Morgan off and gave the male a stern look. The last thing they needed was word getting out to other darters. A child like this was given up for a reason, to protect him from losing his spirit, whether by fate or design.
“Aww, sweet little goldfish, I bet. Look at all that red.” Kaycee grinned, glancing between the three before offering a cheeky wink.
Ripley closed his eyes and yawned, nestling into Cane’s arms, comforted by an alpha in the most basic of ways, calm and knowing he was safe from all things terrible.
When Ripley curled into his blankets and nuzzled into his pillow, sighing so hard his body deflated a little, Cane slipped out and stared at the anxious omega leaning on a precarious pine, shedding needles too far in the dead of summer to be healthy. He drew Cane in with his dark eyes and equally ebony hair, throwing that glorious scent, skin a shade pinker than his own.
“You wanted to talk?” Cane approached, hands in his pockets, slouching a little so as not to loom. He preferred the water where everyone floated at face height, equally. Looking down grew tiresome.
Chapter Seven
Morgan
Cane sauntered out of the cabin, his shirt askew from hastily dressing, the scent of brackish lake water miring his natural salty alpha scent.
“I did. You’re acting cold to me, like I’ve insulted you. I get it that some cetaceans don’t treat your kind the best in some shimmers, but I’ve tried to be very welcoming.” Morgan stiffened, cheeks warming. “If not a little forward.”
“The forward part is my issue, omega. And I’m from a very liberal shimmer.” Cane snatched for Morgan’s hand and lifted his banded wrist, shaking it ever so gently, as a reminder.
Morgan snatched his arm away. “Why does it matter?”
“I don’t fraternize with mated omegas.” Cane crossed his arms, and Morgan’s rage flared. Before he could even register what he was doing, Morgan hauled back and slapped Cane across his face with a loud crack that echoed around the camp.
Cane halted, those sea-glass eyes full of hesitation, not anger. Not rage. Nothing Morgan was accustomed to. Schooling his face, he carefully rested his palm against the striking mark glowing across his cheek.
Morgan wrestled the leather band from his arm and held his wrist up. “Not mated. Never was.”
“That’s a mating mark, isn’t it?” Cane leveled his gaze at Morgan, slouching uncomfortably low so their eyes met. He wasn’t used to alphas being so accommodating.
“It would have been. My parents arranged a mating for me and he changed his mind. Said I wasn’t chaste and turned me down a week before my wedding. It’s crossed through, see?”
Cane studied the mark and frowned. “I’m not familiar with what the markings mean among cetaceans, just what they are.”
“So you were an asshole to me because you thought I was someone else’s property?” Morgan slapped Cane again but gasped when the larger male grabbed his wrists and stared him down.
“Maybe I liked the way you smelled, and I was mad at myself for sniffing at a mated male. Had nothing to do with property but respect for a mating’s sanctity.” Cane didn’t hold him tight, but relaxed his grip, thumbs roving slightly over his wrists, his tanned digit tracing Morgan’s marking.
“Don’t assume, then. Ask. Because I liked the way you smelled, too.” Morgan pushed closer to Cane, bringing their faces closer. Cane’s eyes dipped to Morgan’s lips, fixated. Closing the distance, Morgan pressed his lips in and whimpered as the male possessed his mouth in a hungry kiss.
Cane tasted like the sea, his tongue pulsing and warm, pushing deep, and textured. The slickness of it glided smoothly, curled unnaturally, and choked Morgan into pulling back with a sudden husky cough. Hazy eyes caught the tail end of his tongue like a dark-purple tendril, drawing back over full, warm lips.
“That’s new...” Morgan ran his thumb over his lower lip and swallowed.
“Never kissed a cecaelia before?” Cane smirked.
“Can’t say I’ve kissed more than a few men before, and definitely not a cecaelia.”
“So, what’s this about you not being chaste?” Cane raised a single perfect brow, the gesture oddly arousing.
“Arranged mating. When he proposed and I accepted, I got my marking, but I wanted to wait until the ceremony when what he owed my parents was exchanged, to have relations, as it were. This upset him very much, so he sent me home and called it all off. Made some claims that I wasn’t loyal to him.” Morgan cleared his throat and stared at the ground. “Utter bullshit, but my parents started searching for someone else that would take me with those claims, and the dating pool of men wanting to claim a rejected omega isn’t exactly rife with ideal specimens. I refused, my parents got angry, and I asked the council to move me someplace safe.”
“Why were they trying to sell you like that?” Cane reached his hand out and took Morgan’s, staring at the markings again. Morgan nodded.
“That line through it marks me as an adulterer.” Morgan’s lips twisted.
“Did you love him?” Cane stared, his pale eyes tracing the lines.
“Pft. No! Crusty old beta. He was a good choice for my father’s business and my mother’s estate. He would have given me a very comfortable life and, with the right precautions, we could have made children.” Morgan nervously tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, avoiding eye contact with Cane.
“Why didn’t he pick another beta? He couldn’t have satiated you. You’d have been miserable.” That sad expression softened Cane’s features, made worse by the red welt on his cheek.
“He needed an alpha heir. A beta and an omega have a greater chance at making an alpha or omega than two betas.” Morgan twisted his lips and shuddered. “What about you? Why are you here?”
“Helped some shipwrecked sailors get to land safely. My king’s son made a proposal to me, and I rejected him, so they sent me out here as punishment for the former.” Cane’s smile curled at the edges, proud of what he’d done.
“Was the guy ugly or something?” Morgan snorted. He couldn’t imagine Cane, the walking sex symbol that he was with his tapered hips and broad shoulders, being so cruel as to reject someone heartlessly. Then again, he’d brushed Morgan off without a second thought.
“My parents weren’t mated. My father found his fated mate when I was young. It broke our hearts when he left, and I’d never do that. I’m waiting for my true mate. And no, not ugly. He was lovely inside and out. I suppose his father held all his son’s bitterness.”
“Huh. Sounds like you’re a man-whore,” Morgan snorted, and Cane swept him up with a handsy hug. “Feels like it, at least.”
“Never once. But I’ve fooled around. You?”
“Nothing serious. I was a good boy waiting for my arranged mate. Playing my good little boy role.” Morgan snorted.
“Wanna go swim in the lake a bit and feel each other up? Let me apologize for being an ass. If you’ve never kissed a cecaelia, I suppose you’ve never fooled around with one. We’re seven times more fun to fool around with.” Cane grinned and Morgan shivered with the absolute wickedness of it.
“I thought you were eight times?” Morgan followed the grinning male back toward the lake, spellbound by his smile and scent.
“The eighth tentacle is special.” Cane pulled the male along.
“How special? What does a guy have to do to get number eight?” Morgan twirled in Cane’s arms, his feet splashing in the shallow water at the rocky edge of the beach.
“My hectocotylus. It’s my cock. I don’t go around needlessly debasing virgins.” Cane snorted and tugged his shirt off, revealing the ample sun-kissed warmth of his skin. Gods, that sea scent still lingers. Morgan mirrored his actions, and they kicked their shorts off, diving in with a hurried splash, legs transforming with that beautiful shiver.
“Please don’t refer to your dick as a heck-to-cocktapus or whatever, if we’re getting freaky. I don’t really want t—” Morgan’s breath hitched as Cane ensnared him with seven wandering tentacles, and silenced him with his expert kiss.
Cane’s tongue moved in practiced ways that made Morgan’s entire being curl with want. Moving his hands over Cane’s body, tongues thrusting against one another, breath would have been hard to come by on the surface, but down at the bottom of the lake, floating over the remains of a dilapidated barn, the goddess blessed them with other means to breathe.
Morgan wasn’t the best at anatomy, at least of cecaelia, but he did know they kept their siphons behind their ears, and merfolk kept gills there. But for cetaceans? Lower down his back, Cane’s hand wandered, searching out the opening, letting a finger stroke the sensitive orifice.
Morgan parted with a hiss as his vent grew tight, cock perking to life inside him. “H-hey. Nothing’s h-happening there.”
“Nothing? I have it on good authority that it’s sensitive. I’ve never experienced it myself. Is the rumor true?” Cane nipped Morgan’s lower lip and circled his fingers once more, being ever so gentle and careful not to obstruct his flow.
“Very sensitive. You were not led wrong. Never had anyone d-do this before.” Morgan’s vent met the cool water around him, the tip of his cock peeking free.
Morgan’s thoughts went numb as his body surrendered, lips locking with Cane’s once more. With a soft chuckle, Cane withdrew and mumbled over Morgan’s ear. “Would you like me inside you? Here?” Thin tendrils, warm and insistent, traversed the slick skin of his tail.
Being a dolphin and omega, he had certain anatomical differences from the average merfolk. He bit his lip when his cock, emerging slowly, entwined with a wandering tentacle, curling together as a second pushed into the slit from which his dick emerged. Tightly coiled heat welcomed his cock into the water around them. “Goddess, yes!” Morgan whimpered.
“And here?”
Another tentacle circled his vent, teasing the base of his cock, his opening, and down to his tight hole, teasing the rim. More tentacles circled him, and the world lit with filtered color, moonlight bathing them with rippling green cast beams. “Please. Yes!”
Morgan realized, working his hips and tail, that this was what he’d dreamed of in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t multiple males he craved, but one, a singular alpha with more prehensile appendages than Morgan could keep up with.
The first slow push of a tentacle was the most exhilarating, a tendril squirming into his vent beneath his cock. Where an alpha or beta male would have nothing there, Morgan harbored a mating channel meant to take his mate’s cock deep, locked in a slow swim of mating for long stretches of time.
He’d had fingers in his channel before, tongues, and on one memorable occasion, a cock in his tighter lower hole, but the prehensile feel of something so similar to a cetacean mer’s cock made his entire body hum and vibrate.
“Do you want rid of this?” Cane whispered into Morgan’s ear, wrapping a tendril around his marked wrist, tightening it with a slow coil.
Morgan could only nod and whimper, crying out as the tendril in his channel pushed deeper, another in his ass grinding in slowly. Two tentacles gripped and grappled with Morgan’s cock, pumping with vigor as the one on his wrist tightened.
“It may hurt a bit, but if I break enough blood vessels under the surface, it’ll scatter the ink and you can absorb it. May take a while.” Cane continued pumping Morgan’s shaft, tentacles prodding his channel, finger teasing the perimeter of his spiracle. Too much pleasure coursed through him until the sting and suck of tightly wrapped tendrils worked his wrist. “The only place a male need mark his mate is in his heart.”
“Oh! Oh fuck.” Morgan’s cock kicked and twitched, seizing up tightly with a shivering coil, locked in embrace with Cane’s tentacles.
“Shh. Calm down.” Cane chuckled and nuzzled into Morgan’s neck as his eighth tentacle unfurled from beneath him. “This one doesn’t go inside you.”
Morgan openly stared, his heart fluttering as the blunted tendril, pale from lack of exposure, sought out from his veil, trading places with the tendrils gripping his cock. His hectocotylus. Morgan’s entire body tensed up as their cocks entwined.
Cane knew what he was doing as he pumped his other tentacles so delicately, keeping Morgan on edge. His hectocotylus plumped, twitching with increasingly aggressive jerks until Morgan choked, keening out with a shrill noise that made Cane laugh until he grunted. Cane gasped, small bubbles cavitating around his mouth, eyes wide then clenched as his hips jerked and spasmed, the water around them clouding with thick spurts and pulses.
Easing their points of contact, Cane withdrew, drawing his hectocotylus to himself, the rest of his tentacles retreating. His arms didn’t waver, though, holding Morgan through the aftershocks of orgasm. Cane had kept his word, his mating tentacle never penetrated him, but Morgan would have let him.
Floating in the mired water, eyes half lidded, Cane was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. Even more beautiful than the dark bruising prickling over his wrist as scattered ink settled around suctioned circles.
“Thank you.” Morgan settled into Cane’s arms as his cock withdrew, sliding back into his body.
“For what? I think we both needed a little something.” Cane swam circles around Morgan as he released him, his throaty chuckle a bubble of delight.
