Low Tide Offering, Part Two

The hum kicked in on day two. Buried in my bones. Sub-audible throb, like the generator but inside me.

Dr. Marston got back from the mainland. Coffee breath and bluster. I smiled. Nodded. Watched him poke the shredded netting with his pencil.

"Remarkable abrasion pattern," he muttered. Snapped photos. "Must have been a large ray. Or a very disoriented, very strong cephalopod. Did you get a look at the coloration?"

"It was dark," I said. Voice flat. Steady. "Just a sense of movement. Lots of limbs."

Total lie.

I remembered everything. The slick coolness of his skin. The impossible gentleness of his strongest limbs. The way the smaller ones had traced my inner thigh with intelligence that was anything but disoriented. I remembered the heat of him filling me. A warmth that never truly left. Just banked itself into a low ember in my belly.

Marston bought it. He always did.

He saw a quiet, diligent intern. He didn't see the girl who now carried a secret map on her skin. When I showered, steam fogging the scratched plastic, I'd catch it: a faint pulsing blue tracing the veins on my inner wrists. A soft smear of light lingering on the tops of my thighs. It faded in direct light. In the dark, though, my body remembered his touch like a brand.

The worst part, the best part, was that I always knew where he was.

Not a thought. Not a guess.

A knowing.

A tug in my gut. A compass needle pointing seaward. All through the day, labeling samples, entering data, I could feel him out there. A patient presence just beyond the reef.

Waiting.

Tonight, the pull was a physical ache.

Marston's snores grated through the thin plywood wall. A dry, human sound that made the hum in my blood feel like a scream. I threw off the sheet. Night air cool on my skin. I didn't bother with clothes. Just the long cotton nightshirt I'd slept in. Bare feet silent on the worn floorboards. Out the door. Down the rocky path I could navigate blind.

The tide was high. Sloshing against the pylons of the dock. The moon was a sliver. He provided his own light.

The deep pool off the eastern point, usually dark as ink, was lit from within. A shifting, living kaleidoscope of blue and green. He wasn't waiting under the dock anymore.

He'd come closer.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Frantic counter-rhythm to the deep, patient pulse I felt from the water. I didn't hesitate. The rocks were slick under my feet. I waded in. The cold a sharp shock that vanished the moment the water reached my knees. Replaced by that pervasive, welcoming warmth radiating from him. My nightshirt floated up around me. Transparent. Useless.

Hip-deep.

Chest-deep.

I took a breath, preparing to swim, but I never got the chance.

He rose to meet me.

Not a surge. Not like the first time. An uncoiling. A graceful emergence. The water bulged. His main form broke the surface. Not fully. Just enough for me to see the familiar, otherworldly shape of his head. The large, dark eyes that held a terrifying, ancient calm. A limb, thick as my thigh and sleek with iridescent mucus, slid around my waist.

Not restraining.

Supporting.

"I'm here," I whispered. My voice swallowed by the lap of water against rock.

The limb tightened gently. Lifted me. My feet left the sandy bottom. He drew me away from the shore. Into the deeper, darker water where the bioluminescence was brightest. I clung to the strong, muscular appendage. My body pressed against its cool, firm surface. He held me cradled against his main bulk. Half-submerged. The fear was still there. A sharp little stone in my gut. Outweighed by a craving so deep it felt like coming home.

Smaller limbs, dozens of them, emerged from the shimmering water.

They didn't grab. Didn't probe.

They touched.

A feather-light stroke along my jawline. A delicate tracing of my collarbone. One, tipped with a soft, sucker-like pad, brushed over my nipple through the wet cotton of my shirt. I gasped. Arched into the touch. The shirt was in the way.

It felt like a blasphemy.

As if reading my mind, a trio of slender appendages, finer than fingers, found the hem of the nightshirt. They didn't tear it. They gathered the fabric. Peeled it upward. Slid it over my head with an eerie precision. It floated away. A pale ghost on the surface. The night air hit my bare skin. I shuddered. His touch was warmer now. The bioluminescence of his skin flaring brighter where it made contact with mine.

He knew me now.

This was different.

The first time was frantic. Glorious. A claiming. This was slow. Deliberate. A rediscovery. A limb, the one that had driven me insane before, slick and questing, slid between my legs. I was already wet. Wetter than the sea around me. My own heat a beacon for him. He didn't push inside immediately. He circled my clit. Applied a perfect, steady pressure that made my thighs tremble. The smaller tendrils attended to my breasts. Suckling. Kneading. Each suction sending jolts straight to my core.

"Oh, god," I moaned. My head fell back. The stars spun overhead.

He took that as permission.

The tip pressed against my entrance. Slid in. Smooth. Deep. I cried out. A short, sharp sound as he filled me. It was thicker than I remembered. Or maybe I was just more aware. He began to move. A slow, rhythmic pulsing that was pure, undiluted pleasure. He'd learned. This wasn't just an in-and-out fucking. Inside me, the tip seemed to flower open. Delicate filaments brushing against spots that made my vision white out. That coiling warmth in my belly igniting into a bonfire.

And then I felt the second one.

A different texture. Slightly thicker. Knobbed. It nudged at my other hole. A place no one, including me, had ever touched. I tensed for a second. A flicker of panic. A tendril stroked my cheek. A soothing gesture. The pressure increased. Insistent but not forceful. I was so open. So pliant from the pleasure coursing through me. I let out a shuddering breath.

Relaxed.

He pushed inside.

The stretch was immense. Unbelievable. A sweet, burning fullness that should have been pain but wasn't.

It was just... more.

He filled me completely. Front and back. The two limbs moving in a counter-rhythm that shattered my thoughts. I was just a body. A vessel for this sensation. The hum in my bones became a roar. The phantom glow on my skin erupted into a visible, pulsing light. My veins running with liquid sapphire. Matching the rhythm of his bioluminescence.

I came. Screaming soundlessly into the night. My body seizing around the twin invasions.

He didn't stop.

The pleasure built again. Faster this time. A tidal surge with no trough. I was babbling. Begging. Words without meaning.

"Yes, please, more, don't stop, fuck, I'm yours, I'm yours."

It was during the third peak, when I was boneless and trembling, that I felt the shift. A deep, internal pulse from the limb buried in my cunt. Not the pulse of movement.

Of release.

Something else.

Something solid.

A rush of warm, viscous fluid. Within it, a series of small, smooth, egg-like spheres. They pressed deep into me. A sensation so alien and raw it triggered another, deeper orgasm. A convulsion that felt like it was turning me inside out.

He was breeding me.

Planting his strange, oceanic seed deep in my womb.

The thought should have horrified me.

It didn't.

It felt like the most natural conclusion in the world. Like a contract being sealed.

The limbs inside me slowly, gently, withdrew. I felt emptied and yet more full than I had ever been. He held me afloat. The smaller tendrils cleaning the salty sweat from my brow. Stroking my hair. I floated in his grasp. Spent. The afterglow a physical warmth radiating from my core. The blue glow on my skin brighter than ever. A permanent tattoo of his claim.

In the distance, a light flicked on in the station's main cabin.

Marston.

Probably getting a glass of water.

The danger was a cold splash of reality. The creature sensed my tension. With a final, tender squeeze, his limbs released me. He sank below the surface without a sound. The brilliant lights of his body fading as he descended into the black depths.

I swam to the rocks on trembling arms. Hauled myself onto the cold stone. Lay there for a long time. Panting. Seawater and other fluids dripping from my body. The hum was quieter now. A satisfied purr in my marrow.

I knew, with a certainty that went beyond thought, that the changes had only just begun.

And I knew I would be back tomorrow night.