Beauties and Beasts Pt 2

Chapter 168

Hey y'all, sorry for the semi-long pause, I had an appendectomy! Yay! Apparently they still happen when high school is a distant memory, so that's fun. Shorter chapter than normal, but don't worry; we still give Orson hell. Poor guy.

"My Queen, please, tell these brutish land beasts to unhand me and we'll return to the sea together. There are many treasures under the waves that we've found for you, a pearl as large as your head to admire your reflection, as many sea horses as you desire for your gardens, all of this we have waiting and many other wonderful things- ouch!"

He yelped as Orson shook his head. "Your turn's over, now listen."

"Blue Pool, I'm not your queen."

"You must be! I've never seen anyone as beautiful as you. Your skin is so pure and white and your strong body is evidence of years of the finest fish we can offer. I've never seen a female more suited for mating!"

Tony frowned. "Don't look at her body." His hands moved more protectively over her.

"I don't know why you left, Qin, but we will do anything to satisfy your desires."

"My name is Neara. I'm not Qin, and you need to tell your king that it's not me." A sudden realization hit her. "You've... never seen your queen?"

He started to shake his head and yelped, thinking better of the action, he verbalized his answer. "No, I was not strong enough to mate when you disappeared; only the strongest mermen are allowed into your chambers. I have finally achieved my four marks, and was sent to find you that our eggs may be strong and help rule the oceans!"

Willem chuckled shortly. "You may rule the shallow seas, but that is a small part of the ocean's power."

"Who said that?" Blue Pool tried to twist again, jerking against Orson's closed fist. His hands scrabbled with Orson's, the gel-like blue substance covering his hands, webbing his fingers with limp fins at the wrists and long nails extending from slim fingers making an odd contrast against his glowing skin. Neara snuck a look at Willem's hands... relatively unchanged from what a normal beastman's looked like, maybe with more dark stripes near his wrists but those looked more like birth marks than beast marks. Her own hand nervously went to her collarbone where, once again, she felt nothing. Would he notice? She tightened her cloak around herself and leaned further into Tony.

"A Deep-Sea Merman, although I shouldn't be surprised you haven't heard of us; we prefer to keep to ourselves."

"Getting off-topic here." Orson shook Blue Pool slightly and the merman's blue hands clasped his again, eyes shut in pain.

"All right, all right, I confess I noticed our mermen disappearing near this part of the shore and thought they'd finally found her. I was chased by a horrid land snake but when I surfaced and found you..." His eyes became moist, his mouth open in a wide smile, arms beginning to stretch towards Neara before Tony kicked them away. His enthusiasm remained undeterred. "Qin, your beauty has only been hinted of and now that I am here, now that I see you, I understand why the king is so worried about you. Of course you found other mates to take care of you, but it's time to..."

Orson dragged Blue Pool to his eyes and glared at him. "I'm getting tired of threatening you so take a verb, any violent verb you like, and that's what I'm going to do with your insides. All. Over. The. Beach."

"Blue Pool, I'm not your Queen."

"But your beauty..."

"It's... not like that. I don't know what happened to your queen, or who took her, but I promise, it isn't me. I came from another ... tribe... and I'm terrified of water. I've never even been on a boat on the ocean, let alone deep beneath the waves."

"That is incorrect." Willem's voice monotoned across the sand like a ruler. "When I took you from your mates, you were indeed beneath the waves. So far, in fact, that you would have drowned without me passing air to you."

A shudder ran up her spine and she flinched. "Right, that. Well, before then, I'd never been..."

"Hey, Neara, care to explain why the jungle sounds like it's being torn apa..." Shay, held in the arms of Curtis, stopped mid-sentence.

Neara processed Curtis's half-snake form winding down the beach, sitting taller than normal as if he was trying to intimidate Orson, who didn't spare him a glance. Shay's mouth was open as she looked at Blue Pool, his own eyes filled with fear and desire.

"Who is that?" Shay's voice couldn't have been more envious if she'd literally turned green.

"Two beautiful females? Qin, you've found another queen! She pales in comparison to yourself, but what a mesmerizing shadow!"

Orson sighed and dropped Blue Pool with a thud, massaging his eyes with his other hand. "I'm... never sleeping again."