Archive of Our Own

Reyn freezes in the port hole entryway, eyes wide and jaw tight, already her hands move subconsciously to grip the concaved steel rim in preparation. 

In fear.

The shadow he casts is large, his body eats up the space around him, and not one fish dares to brave the open waters from the safety of the corals and reef kelp. It is a warning from those that know better, of instincts undiluted by evolution, a whisper of water current in her ears. 

Run. 

Hide. 

But it's too late for that, she knows because his black eyes, fathomless and abyssal, have locked on her. Reyn takes a breath, tenses, knows she cannot fight him, and if she hopes to outpace him, she needs to stall to secure a route and a weapon. 

So against her better judgment, she works her mouth open and ignores the tightness in her spine, aiming to portray a sweet and docile persona. 

He beats her to it.

Shatters any illusion she could have concocted. 

"Tell me, little one, was it you?" 

His voice is like a storm overhead, the crashing of waves when she watches from the shelf of the beach, low and rumbly and dangerous. 

"Was what me?" She chirps carefully, but it is enough, the answer he must have needed, because like a great claw, his eight inky arms unfurl and spread in the water, making him impossibly larger. 

"Ah, it was." 

Fear is refreshed in her brain. 

The Ceph peoples do not mingle with hers, and for good reason. Already she has recalled the countless bedtime stories, and then very real warnings when she was old enough to venture on her own. They are nomadic, usually solitary, and very dangerous. Their solitary nature makes it difficult for them to understand social cues and changing laws. Often, when their people meet it is first met with hostility, sometimes death, and communication is short, clipped, and done with bartering than any currency. 

They are creatures of the deep, driven by a need to hunt. Drifting aimlessly without a companion. 

Though, Reyn heard the rumors like any other, that the occasional Mer got too curious, too friendly with the Ceph people, and went missing. 

She knows better than any, as a tracker, what happens to them.

"You can run, if you want," he seems to whisper, in tune with the merciless pounding of her heart. This permission, however, gives her pause. 

"But?" She lifts her chin, furrowing her brows in defiance. 

"You would not like it... when I catch you," he has not come closer, but it feels as though his words are a threatening caress regardless. 

"Why tell me this?" She hisses, recoiling, gripping the port hole metal like a vice. His expression does not change, does not shift, as though this choice of staying to die or running and being slaughtered was much of a choice at all. 

As if it were reasonable. 

"You have sealed your fate, already, little one," He speaks slowly, as though he must think very carefully about how to do so, but it makes her wary of what he isn't saying.

Reyn dislikes how smooth and simple this is for him, submit or die. It goes against her very nature. 

She knows the moment she met his figure, fell under his shadow, and allowed herself to be seen, that she was dead. 

"You do not have to fight it, too," Reyn grits her teeth, headache blooming, and snarls at him,

"I will not have a death lying down, monster," she pushes back from the port hole, the space too small for him to enter brazenly, and unsheaths her bone knife. His eyes flash at her, but she cannot tell with what, "Try, then," she hisses and pushes away from his sight in an instant. 

She only sees his shadow move to know he's taken pursuit. This running, fleeing for her life is an old music, old like the song of her bones, the chime of her people's tongue. She coils and springs and lashes through the water like one of those human machines, cutting pathways through currents, forcing herself along slipstreams and rip tides in the sunken ship to the cave she entered from. 

Ducking and twisting around debris in haste, she is not smooth enough, not focused enough to avoid snags and scratches, but she is fast and sure. 

As the darkness of the ship engulfs her, and conceals her in shadow and sand and murky human items, she wonders if she'd intruded on his territory. 

Nomadic as they were, the Ceph had regular hunting grounds, it was rare to have them so close to the surface, but they existed. Reyn thought back to the darkened and vague shape beside the kelp forest on the map she stole, and wondered if this was it. 

If he had killed all other intruders, just as he wanted to her. 

Reyn struggled against her memory, the images surfaced unbidden in her fear-fueled brain, the severed parts of the Mer she was tasked to find. Blood had long since faded from the water, attracted a number of other animals to gorge on their body. But there was enough methodology and savagery to some wounds to determine cause of death. 

The Ceph were monsters, lacking compassion, lacking understanding, they were monsters, unthinking, driven by base needs and instincts. To hunt, to kill, to defend territory, no matter the adversary. 

Reyn was huffing through her gills, gasping by the time the mouth of the cave came into view, the light of the outside so far from her now, she could scarcely see more than her arms could reach. 

But this darkness was safety, this space small and cozy and concealed, she could brandish her knife and catch her breath before she ventured back through the cave system. 

Reyn gasped through her nose as silently as she could, and twisted her back to the cave, watching through narrowed eyes for any signs of the Ceph. In her minds eye, his figure surged, great and powerful, propelled by those strong and capable arms. They were black, so dark they reminded her of the night, though they shined in the light, beautiful and deadly. She shivered against her will, picturing all eight of them working against a Mer, how easy it would be for him, effortless to rip one of her people apart. 

If she escaped, she would never return here. She would give up her solo charting and tracking, and stay in a party with her friends like they wanted. 

Sucking in slow deliberate breaths, the taught string of her spine began to slacken, Reyn could detect no movement, no evidence he followed her through the dead ship. No evidence he knew where she was, and so, she had made it. 

A warning told her she would be truly safe once within the guarded walls of the city, and that she should keep an eye over her shoulder until then.

Reyn let out a slow sigh, relieved, and turned for the mouth of the cave. 

A scream shot from her mouth, the caress of his tentacles gentle only a moment before they snared around her wrist. Instantly, her other hand shot out, knife catching the side of his face and spurting fresh blood into the dark water. 

He was so close, so silent, so much larger than her that he hardly flinched. Instead, his hand snapped around her wrist, twisting it until she cried out, disarming her with lethal ease. It was so simple for him, like her fighting was futile, to maneuver them to the soft sandy floor of the ship. 

Reyn squirmed and coiled and bit at whatever she could, and only stilled when his large hand settled firmly around her throat, squeezing into her bottom gills. 

Her confident fight against his movement switched to a frantic battle to lessen the pressure around her gills. She screeched and squeaked, not once noticing how silent and still he became in her struggle. 

In an instant, when she truly began gasping for breath, he flattened her body out on the silky sand, truly pinned her beneath him. In the darkness, she could barely make out his strong twisting arms, like shadows themselves wrapping tightly around her body, and she prepared herself for death. 

The shockingly clear images of dismemberment came to mind, and she nearly gave in to hysteria. 

"Why fight so hard, little one?" His voice was murky, seeping into her brain. She clawed at his hands, wrists, his solid forearms, but he did not lessen his hold. 

How could she speak? With his hands so tight around her throat, his thick fingers hooking into her gills. 

What could she say? Nothing could convince him to slacken his constricting hold on her ribcage. 

Would it matter? She would die in the dark belly of this war-torn human vessel, at the hands of a Ceph she knew better of. 

She was caught, nothing more, nothing less. 

His backward freedoms in choice seemed to make more sense. Perhaps if she surrendered the suffering would end, and her death wouldn't be so slow. 

Her feeble attacks ground to a halt, energy sapped from her limbs and forced to burn in her lungs instead. She opened her mouth to let out a wail of despair that would not come. 

When her fight to survive became biological, cellular, her hands trembled and fell slackened into the soft sand beside her head. Her vision spotted, darkened, dimmed, and at last, his face came into view. 

She'd cut him good.

She could see his dark blood slowly seep into the water beside him, but the way he ignored injury in the face of this fight scared her, it reminded her that he was an entirely different beast from her people. 

Too different. 

"I answered you," He spoke in that same slow tone, but before where it fed fear into her body, now it was like a heavy blanket settling over her tired bones. 

In the darkness, one of his arms reached out to stroke her cheekbone, down to the slope of her ear, almost gently if he weren't still crushing her with his fingers. 

"Your song reached more than me," He leans in closer, she would bite him if he were not so heavy, if he did not hold her so securely. There's a buzzing in her brain, as though she wants to answer but cannot. 

"Already, I have fought others for you," His eyes are without light, smooth and dark, as though she were peering into sockets, "Why must I fight you, too, if you sang for me?" 

Her vision flutters and blinks in and out, and it takes her too long to realize that her eyes are drooping, rolling to the back of her head as she arches in one final attempt at escape. 

"I'm here, little siren," It is a dark comfort, his voice, like the waves. 

She feels the cage of his body around hers, threatening to devour her, and decides that she wants to surrender. 

Her eyes fall shut, her mouth slips open, a final gasp, and her head falls back into the sand. 

It is soft, this sand, like silk.

Fine and delicate. 

Like the sand she was born in. 

A return. 

Coming home maybe? 

That is death. 

Going home in the dark. 

There is a pressure, in the darkness, at her navel, at her throat, at her mouth, and she slams back into her body unhappily. 

Her teeth sink down, and there is a moan, blood spills into her mouth and she twists as breath rushes into her lungs, gills burning with effort and abuse. She digs clouds of sand into the water as she claws at the ground, gasping and coughing, not realizing until too late that the blood is not hers, and that she is not alone. 

At once, she is slammed down into the sand again, hands in her hair and on her sternum, she hisses and coughs, mustering the fiercest glare she can, and lobs it at the Ceph above her. 

His lips bleed, her teeth marks evident in them. But he doesn't wince or complain, and his eyes hold a glossy awareness to them that unnerves her. 

"Worthy," He murmurs, and she watches with horror, how his mouth spreads into a satisfied smile, his much sharper teeth flashing at her. 

"Stop," A command, and his smile widens, his tentacles squeeze around her as if he were reminding her of their positions, and she nearly snarls. 

"You sang, because no others would dare answer," He touches her face again, thumb pushing on her lips, skimming her own serrated teeth, "I understand, now, little siren," 

"You don't," She retorts stiffly, hoarsely, because now his babbling makes sense. 

Her people have a song, as old as their blood that calls out when lonely. 

Calls out for a mate. 

Reyn is not searching, does not want one, is content alone. 

But her body betrayed her. 

"I do," He shushes, smile settling into a close-lipped smirk, "Your males could not handle you," She tries to shake her head, deny him, tell him he's wrong, but it makes him lean closer, press his body firm to hers, "You fight with every breath, even after death," His lips skim her temple as he murmurs his backward compliments, "You are worthy, little siren, and I will show you," 

"No," She frees her hands, raking her nails up through the sand to his skin, "I do not want you," She hisses, clawing into his biceps when his lips glide over the sensitive flaps of her gills,

"Don't you?" He shakes above her, a broken sound falling from his chest, and it takes her a moment to realize he's laughing, "Even now, you sing," 

Reyn's eyes widen and her mouth slackens, searching herself, she feels her blood racing through her veins, she can scent the sweetness of her. She winces, shaking her head, and denies it with a cry of dismay. His hold does not waver, but it explores, his voice so close she trembles at her fate, "Tell me your name, little one," He noses at her collar, tongue dipping down to taste her, she squeaks and screws up her face, "Let me give you praise," 

"R...Reyn," It is a helpless stutter, her mind imploding into the truth of her body, protecting itself. Thinking, harriedly, that if she gives into his requests, this will somehow be over faster. She trembles and tenses, squirms both away from and into his touch. 

He humms into her skin, mouthing down her chest, twisting his grip in her hair tighter, his lips and tongue laving over the swell of her breast. Her nails draw blood, it clouds the water, saturates it in his earthy, metallic taste, "Dont-" 

"You may fight me, if you wish," He pauses his gentle, sickening assault, and peers up at her with that blank lethal expression, "But you will only scream for me, Kylo" 

"No," She hisses in despair, body tight and stretched thin under his hold, under his weight. 

She searches his face, blank as it is, for any remorse, for any uncertainty, and finds none. 

Here it is again, a choice that isn't a choice. 

He will take her if she fights, he will take her if she surrenders. 

She's at his mercy, and they both know it. 

He must see some sort of decision behind her eyes, because he nods to her, just once. 

"Fight then, little siren, call my name in surrender," Fury fuels her, and she screeches, thrashes and rakes her claws down his face, aims for his throat with her hands and teeth, all while the breath is forced from her ribs. 

Kylo stares down at her through his lashes, black eyes reflecting nothing, and constricts her body until she arches and gasps, squirming to get away instead of attacking. His mouth is back on her skin the instant she slackens, nipping and licking and kissing the abused skin of her gills. It's a horrible sensation, such a vital and sensitive part of her to be at the mercy of his killer teeth, Reyn knows this, she does, and yet- she keens and arches when his tongue slips over a bruised slit. 

"There it is," his voice has dipped to growling, that rumble that comes from his chest, that crashing and breaking sensation of danger puts her on alert, "That sweet song," 

"Stop!" His hands encircle her waist, thumbs pressing down on the slope of her hip bones, and she knows instantly what he's feeling for. Reyn screams and scrabbles away, claws through the sand when she realizes he relishes every cut she gives him. 

It horrifies her, that bodily harm doesn't deter him. 

"No!" She shouts, his thumbs massaging specific muscles at her pubic cup, the seam of her scales threatening to relax open against her will, to bare her sex to him. His mouth ventures down to her breasts, streamlined and incapable of producing milk like the humans, and he gives the mounds undue attention. 

Electricity jolts up her body and through her bones, his teeth nipping at the flesh, and she sobs at the feeling. Never has she paid attention to the useless swells, but now she wishes she covered them, protected them somehow from his tongue and lips. She looks away when a shadowy tentacle replaces his mouth, ignoring the gentle massaging motion, the tweak and squeeze of the suckers on her skin. 

Reyn twists and digs through the sand while he works her, clawing in search of the familiar bone knife he'd carelessly knocked from her grip earlier. His other inky arms make quick work of her, simultaneously holding her down and giving her pleasure, they draw her focus away from him enough for his large hands to focus on revealing her sex. 

Her breaths come quick and labored against his horrible touch and his constricting hold, his delight is palpable, and she feels the instant she's parted for him. She grits her teeth and snarls in his direction when his thumbs trace the seam of her harder copper scale plating. 

In the next moment, several things happen at once. 

A black tentacle snakes and secures around her throat, squeezing in warning. 

His fingers dip into her slippery sex, and drag against her sensitive walls, evoking a choked moan from her mouth. 

Their eyes meet, her hand secures around the hilt of her knife, and he becomes aware of her triumphant glare. 

In the next moment, Kylo grunts and shouts in pain, the water between them is clouded by dark blood.

And Reyn finishes cleaving off the tentacle around her throat with a vicious hiss. 

She feels the moment he questions her, and quickly slips free from his loosened grip.

Reyn slithers through the water with a gasp, and makes it almost an arms length away from him before he catches her again. 

His laughter grates on her, it is a sharp dagger up her skin and the bruising press of his hands on her gills, and even missing an inky arm, he smiles as he wrangles her back down to the sand. 

Reyn grunts as he presses her roughly to the floor, twisting the knife from her hand when she tries to slash him, breaking it with his teeth. He laughs and presses his bleeding body closer to her, rubbing against her sex so precisely that she gasps in white pleasure, baring her throat as her head tilts back. Kylo speaks roughly to her, properly restraining her, "Perfect," He grunts, frantic in his movement, continuing in his promising undulating, Reyn pants heavily and shakes her head, "You're perfect," 

"Don't-" She says weakly, watching in terror as his tentacles spread her apart, as his hands anchor on her waist. Reyn winces and fights the urge to sob when her sex spreads open, the sweet scent of her mingling with the tang of his blood. 

Kylo speaks brokenly to her, at a pace she cannot follow, "Give them to me, Reyn," his words are pleading, broken and fueled by a lust she doesn't understand. She tries to fight, twists and squirms against him, and gasps when a seam of hardened velvet skin splits open at his pubic bone. Her eyes widen when his cock slips from the seam, hard and proud and producing a slick sort of gel. 

"No, don't-" Reyn hisses, pleads, when his body angles naturally over hers. The look on his face is focused, sure, and absolute. His lashes flutter at her, his lips part to sigh a sort of relief, before he plunges his thickened shaft into her. 

The breath is knocked from her lungs. 

Her nails dig into the meat of her palms. 

Reyn grunts and keens the deeper he seats himself. 

And then she arches and cries out, his cock withdrawing before plunging in again.

After a few forceful thrusts, Kylo leans over her, and latches his mouth over her gills once more, his lips are plush and gentle on the bruised skin, his tongue a sin as it slips over and along the slits. 

A broken moan rips through Reyn, her body clenching at the mixed sensations, Kylo makes a similar sound at her before a particularly hard thrust, and then stills. 

She takes the chance to catch her breath, and almost thinks it's over. 

And then she feels it, the obvious pulse of his cock inside her, and she can't help but wail when thick gel pumps into her. 

It is viscous and congealed, slippery over the slit of her sex, fogging the water a strange hue when he parts from her.

A vicious rebuke is on her tongue, the thought of escape racing through her mind, until it suddenly isn't.

Everything in her seems to clench up in a sick paralysis, a toxin rushing through her and seizing everything it can, from her breath, to her sex ,to her thoughts.

Her head hits the sand, mouth agape. No sound falls from her as he withdraws, staring down at where they meet. 

Waiting for whatever he did to her to take effect.

Reyn stares blankly into the darkness, faintly registers the gentle circling of his thumbs on her hips, on her pubic muscles to massage the stuff in, and she feels as though she's being pulled from her body when she speaks, "Wha... wha'd you do...?" Her brows furrow, thoughts slipping away from her rapidly, she reaches with her hands to catch them, but finds she can't move.

Slowly, Reyn shakes her head, a tremendous effort that makes her wince. Listening as someone speaks to her, and opens her eyes to find the Ceph peering lovingly at her. 

His face looks nice, like this. Gentle. 

Her brows furrow again at the blood clotting on his cheek and brow, but blinks the tugging sensation away when he leans in. 

His turgid length slips inside her once more, slower, gentler, and a sultry whine pours easily from her, "Yes," Kylo hisses slowly above her, "Sing for me, little siren," His hands are tender when they cup her face, his lips seek out hers, but he simply pants against her mouth, raptured, "Open for me," He sighs, nuzzling her, kissing her softly, slowly. 

The taste is blood and salt and darkness, his teeth slice at her mouth, his tongue dips in to lap up the fresh cuts.

Then he consumes her, his thrusts are languid, lazy, and slow, hilting deep inside her to a point that makes her grunt and push her hips against him. His mouth eats every sound, every breath, his tongue tastes her, savors her teeth, her lips, her tongue. His cock delves beyond her final ring of sex, coaxing a clenching from her she cannot stop if she wanted. His inky arms are not left idle, skimming and caressing and pinching every bit of her body, fins, and flesh he can. There is not a part of her he does not devour. 

Reyn revels in every inch of it. 

She is an endless pool, and he will fill her. 

"Give them to me," He says to her, massaging her with his hands, thrusting harder, enjoying the forced gasps she makes. 

"What?" she slurs mindlessly, undulating against him, 

"Give me your clutch, Reyn," His tongue licks a slow stripe up over her gills, she shivers in delight, her body clenching around him, he grinds against her, seated all the way in, forcing his own gel out of her and clouds the water between them. 

"What?" Sharper, this time, and she registers her hands, she has them digging into his shoulders. 

"I'm going to fill you," He moans, his thrusts growing harsher, and Reyn frowns, "Be mine, little siren, be mine," 

"But I'm..." Thoughts are quickly lost when his teeth take root in her throat, as if he aims to rip it out, and he grips her with a strength that triggers fear. 

"Take it," He snarls, and Reyn slams back into her body,

"Don't-Kylo!" Reyn sobs, pushing against his chest as he slams deep inside her, stilling and spearing her in place. Reyn whimpers and shivers when his cock pulses, forcing thick globs of cum inside her, no doubt intended for a clutch of eggs she refused to release. There's so much that it spills into the water between them, fogging it up, but still, he pushes inside her, grinds when he has the mind to.

It must be the toxin, she pleads, the teltale flutter bunching in her abdomen.

She could not possibly derive pleasure from this.

She fights, thrashing her head, speared on an impossibly thick member that yet still empties into her.

She fights it, and still it comes.

Against her will, Reyn experiences a body tremor, and her eyes roll shut to back of her head, her teeth clenched against the wanton sound on her tongue. 

When her body settles, Kylo lays her flat to the sand, gingerly pulling his cock from her sheathe, globs of spend still slowly oozing from the flared head. He pants heavily above her, reaches out and caresses her face, but his hold on her remains tight and firm. His eyes move from her face to her sex, where his cum has begun to settle. 

She can't help but look down too, when he starts to massage the area, gliding his palm over the seam of her, occasionally dipping a finger in. She hisses at him and watches, defeated and spiteful, the urge to rip his throat out remains, but he has gotten what he wanted from her. 

Reyn decides she hates him, she hates his face, his full lips, and strong nose. She hates his eyes, and how difficult it is to read when he chooses. She hates his body, strong and capable and sculpted from years of hunting and use. 

She hates herself, for coming here, for getting caught, for choosing to attack and then submit rather than take her own life to prevent this. That she cut off an arm instead of her throat. She hates her body, for betraying her with its siren song, for giving in to physical pleasure at the behest of his biology. 

As her anger mounts, she opens her mouth to tell him her thoughts when his expression changes. 

He smiles. 

But not at her, at her sex. 

Alarmed, Reyn looks down as well, and to her deepest horror, she spots tiny white ovals gently rising to the top of their shared fluids. 

Her mouth falls open, and her mind blanks, Kylo appears overjoyed by this discovery and looks up at her with misplaced affection. 

"Little siren," He humms slowly, "You gave them to me, after all." 

No, she shakes her head slowly, blinking, separate from her body. 

She didn't give him anything. 

He answered a call she never wanted to make. 

He took from her. 

And seeded her.