Let them explore

I lay perfectly still on the bed of giant velvet sponges. I was a mountain of grey muscle and rough hide, surrounded by a swirling current of pastel colors and soft, royal flesh.

The seven sisters of Atlantica hovered and settled around me like reef fish tending to a sleeping leviathan. Their fear had dissolved into a potent, vibrating curiosity. They were creatures of the palace, used to smooth marble, silk kelp, and polished gold. They had never touched a war machine.

Adella, the romantic with the shimmering yellow tail, was the boldest. She hovered over my chest, her fingers tracing the white scar the Heartless had left on my pectoral.

"He feels like... sand," she whispered, looking at her fingertips. "If you rub one way, it’s smooth. If you rub the other, it catches."

She leaned down and pressed her cheek against my chest muscle. She rubbed her face against my skin, a slow, feline motion.

"It tingles," she giggled, her yellow tail flicking happily. "It’s so much better than the mermen. They’re slimy. He’s... dry? No, just... textured."

Alana, the graceful sister with the pink tail, was focused on my arms. She wrapped both of her small hands around my bicep. Her fingers couldn't even meet on the other side.

"Look at the density," Alana murmured to Aquata, who was hovering nervously by my waist with her blue tail curled under her. "It’s not soft. It’s like squeezing a rock."

Alana traced the serrated fin protruding from my forearm. She touched the tip with her index finger. A tiny drop of red blood bloomed instantly on her skin.

"Ouch," she gasped, pulling back. But she didn't look upset. She put the bleeding finger in her mouth, sucking on it while staring at the fin with wide, dilated eyes. "Sharp."

"Everything on me is a weapon," I rumbled, my voice vibrating through the water and into their chests.

At my head, Ariel was preening. She ran her fingers through my silver hair, which flowed in the water like sea-grass. She traced the slits of my gills on my neck.

"Be careful there," Ariel instructed her sisters, acting the expert. "The gills are sensitive. If you stroke them... he shudders."

To prove her point, she ran a fingernail down the third gill slit. My body jerked involuntarily, a ripple of pleasure-pain shooting down my spine. My massive tail thrashed once, sending a shockwave through the sponge bed that made Attina and Andrina squeak.

"Whoa," Andrina laughed nervously, floating near my tail flukes. "Easy, big guy. Don't sink the ship."

Andrina and Attina were inspecting the business end of the shark, the tail. Attina, usually so composed, was running her hands over the peduncle, the thick muscular stalk that connected the body to the fin.

" The power in this..." Attina whispered, her voice filled with a warrior's respect. "I saw him hit the Heartless. One swing crushed a hull. And yet..."

She laid her hand flat on the massive caudal fin.

"...it’s beautiful. Like a sculpture."

"It pushes him faster than we can swim," Arista noted, moving from my waist to join them. She looked at the stark color change, from the dark grey of my back to the pale white of my underbelly.

"Why is he two colors?" Arista asked, touching the line where grey met white on my oblique muscles.

"Countershading," I explained, opening one eye to look at her. "Dark from above, to blend with the deep. Light from below, to blend with the surface. Camouflage for the ambush."

"Sneaky," Andrina grinned.

Aquata, the most timid of the group, had remained near my midsection. She was staring at the pelvic fins. Her blue eyes were glued to the area between them—the smooth, white expanse of my underbelly where the reproductive organs were currently retracted and hidden behind a heavy slit of muscle.

"Ariel..." Aquata whispered, pointing a trembling finger. "Is that where...?"

Ariel swam down. She hovered next to Aquata. "Yes," Ariel said, her voice dropping to a husky whisper that the other sisters strained to hear. "That's where the bond happens."

The sisters went silent. Seven pairs of eyes focused on my groin. The curiosity was palpable. They were innocent, yes, but they were also creatures of nature. They understood mating, but the mechanics of a shark, a creature usually feared, were a mystery they were dying to solve.

"It's... smooth," Adella whispered, swimming lower, her eyes fixated on the muscular slit between my pelvic fins. "Where is it? How does it come out?"

"I'm not like a merman," I growled, my voice vibrating through the water. "It only surfaces when I have a reason." I looked down at her. "It only comes out when I see something I want to breed."

Adella blinked. She looked at her sisters, then back at me. The taste of my rough kiss was still on her lips, and the phantom sensation of my hand crushing her breast was still making her skin tingle. She was emboldened. She wanted to win.

"Would you breed me?" she asked, a sultry smirk touching her lips. She reached behind her back. The purple seashell bra popped loose. It floated away in the current. The sisters gasped, but Adella didn't flinch. She bared everything to the shark. Her breasts were lush, heavy, and pale, the nipples hardening instantly in the cool water. They were perfect, royal and voluptuous.

She didn't stop there. She reached up and cupped her own tits. She squeezed them together, kneading the soft flesh, pushing them up until the nipples almost touched. "Does this do the trick?" she asked, breathless but daring. "Does this make the monster hungry?"

I groaned, a low, guttural sound that terrified and thrilled them. The sight of the Princess offering her body so brazenly triggered the shark's primal instinct. My hips shifted involuntarily. SQUELCH. The muscular slit parted wide. Two massive, bone-white claspers, rigid, spiked, and dripping with pre-rut fluids, shot out from their sheath. They extended fully, thick and threatening, twitching in the water.

The sisters shrieked, a mix of shock and awe. A collective intake of water. "Oh my Neptune..." Adella whispered, her eyes wide, staring at the double-pronged weapon. "It's... it's huge."

"It’s... bone," Alana breathed, floating closer.

"It’s an anchor," I corrected. "And a key."

I looked at them, seven beautiful mermaids hovering in a circle of lust and confusion. The water in the Royal Guest Grotto seemed to thicken, the bioluminescent moss pulsing brighter as it reacted to the sudden, massive spike in pheromones released by seven royal sisters simultaneously going into heat.

"You've touched the armor," I told them softly, gesturing to my chest. "Now you're staring at the weapon. Do you want to see how it works?"

Attina looked at the heavy oak door, then at her sisters. She saw Adella practically vibrating with need, her modesty forgotten on the floor. She saw Ariel looking at me with possessive pride. She looked back at me, her royal composure melting into feminine surrender.

"We... we have never seen a shark up close," Attina whispered, her voice trembling. "It is only right... for the sake of knowledge... that we understand the creature that saved us."

"For science," Andrina quipped weakly, though her eyes were dark with hunger.