Mermaid Hybrid Ch. 03

Thomas watched out the window of his tiny cottage. Becoming a father so unexpectedly had changed him in ways he couldn't have anticipated at the tender age of twenty-five. Of course there had been the whispers that spread through the village. Aquaville was a small place and the people had equally small minds. In those first days he had been glad for the distance that separated their home from the rest of them, but he had been on his own and with no idea how to handle the delicate bundle that had been thrust upon him it wasn't long before he had headed into the town in desperate need of help.

His own parents had died only two years before and his sister had long since moved on to better pastures. Everyone he tried to talk to turned him away. He was an unmarried man with an illegitimate child and he had long since been obsessed with the sea. He was different and any sort of difference was bad, at least to them. At the end of a long night, he had only managed to scrounge together a few meagre supplies from the few people who would still trade with him.

He remembered how it felt, sitting under a tree in a damp drizzle of rain with Amelia clutched to his chest. He had felt so alone, so horribly overwhelmed. It had been the first and last time he considered just going back to the sea and pitching them both overboard.

"Thom?" A silken voice asked, snapping him out of his reverie.

He smiled, turning towards the beacon of light that had snapped him out of that bleak place. Jessica had found him under that tree. She had never been someone he noticed all that much, quiet, shy, soft-spoken. Under that tree she proved that she was also something else. Kind. She took his hand and leaned into him, never saying a word as she freed one of Amelia's arms from the thick blanket and stroked her tender skin, quieting the fussing sounds she had been making.

"She's alright you know." Jessica said now, wrapping her arms around his waist. "No-one knows the coast like she does."

Thom nodded and melted into her touch. "I know." He sighed. "I just wish I knew what was happening to her."

"She's growing up. Give her some space, when she's ready she will come back and tell you everything." Jessica planted a kiss on his cheek and turned back to the fire and the pot that was simmering over it. Thomas shook his head at the out-dated method of cooking, but he didn't argue. It might have seemed like a lot of unnecessary work, but the meals were always delicious.

Jessica had been a god-send. She had collected together everything a growing baby needed to thrive; muttering under her breath the entire time. When he had finally gotten close enough to hear her rant over "the gall of people who go around fucking left and right to turn away from a baby who needed help" and how she "hoped they choked on their jumped-up, self-righteous hypocrisy" he couldn't help but laugh, the first sound of merriment he had uttered in close to six months.

When she came to live with him, he didn't question it. He was just so grateful for her help. And when the relationship became romantic it just seemed natural. Over the days and years she helped him raise his daughter and chased away the echoes of a foggy night out at sea. Slowly he began to forget the obsession that had dragged him day after day out onto the sea and for the first time in his life, his fishing trips seemed more like work than an escape.

She refused to marry him, not for lack of trying. His eyes slid over her body, bent over the cooking pot, and came to rest on the slight swell of her belly. Their child was still months away from arriving, but he couldn't wait. He missed the early days, spent around the fire and cheering on Amelia's first tentative steps. Things had been so simple then. Everything that happened to Amelia happened to all of them, they were all essential to each other, one whole. Now though...

When had she started lying to him? When had his little girl started sneaking off with boys from the village? Didn't she know that they were the same people that talked about them all behind their backs? The same people who would have left her to die as a baby? He shook his head, watching her slowly make her way up the cliff-side. He had seen her on the beach with, who was it? Robert? Roger? He watched her as she swam to the very rock that he had forbidden her to go to and, squinting, he had watched her tiny figure disappear into the hidden cavern.

Oh, he knew about it. He knew about what would happen to her in there. He knew that she was walking into a ritual that had been handed down from one generation to another for centuries. Mermaids giving their daughters to their King as soon as they came of age. It drove him mad knowing that he couldn't stop it, that this ritual existed.

A pang of guilt washed over him as he remembered the day he found out about the ritual. Her mother had found him, dragging him into the water and glancing around like she was afraid of being caught. She had kissed him, her voice ringing in his mind. She told him about her people, about that night. She was scared. Amelia shouldn't have existed and she didn't know what would happen next. She had told him that her kind went through a change when they came of age. Either their King would accept them and they would come into their full heritage, developing a power, or they would be rejected and slowly begin to descend into madness.

In his fear, Thomas had forbidden Amelia to go there and now he just wished he had been the one to go with her. She seemed sluggish as she wove her way back and he stopped himself from racing out to meet her. Jessica started humming softly, and he forced himself to go to her.

Amelia fell through the door and collapsed in a pile on the floor. Thomas and Jessica shared a look before lunging for her, rolling her onto her back. Jessica cradled her head in her hands as they watched her gasp for breath. "What do we do?" He asked desperately.

"Pick her up." Jessica ordered, scrambling out of the way. "Get her to her room, on the bed, now!" She walked over to the fireplace, running her hands over the brickwork above the hearth. Glancing behind her, she saw that Thomas was fully absorbed in his task. She pried at the loose brick that she had carved out herself one sunny afternoon when no-one was around and fished out the small black bag she had stashed in the hollow of bricks' underside.

Replacing the brick, she rushed to the others, unrolling the thick material as she ran. One of the glass vials nearly dropped in her haste, but she caught it before it could shatter on the stone floor.

"Out of the way." She ordered, squeezing Thomas into the corner of the room as she knelt by Amelia's bed.

Holding up the vial of deep red liquid, Jessica grabbed up a glass syringe, measuring out half the vial and sucking the liquid up through the needle. Thomas watched, panic shooting through his body. He didn't know what she was up to but he wasn't about to question the woman he loved.

Jessica stabbed the needle into Amelia's shoulder, wincing in sympathy at the rough treatment. Amelia started to breathe easier. "It won't last more than a day or two." She looked over at Thomas and smiled weakly. "You must have questions."

"Yes." He replied. "But first." He swept her off her feet and bundled her into their own room. He didn't know what was happening, how Jessica knew to do what she did or what it was that she injected into their daughter, all he knew was that he was vibrating with energy and he needed to connect with someone.

Jessica looked confused for a few minutes, obviously still expecting him to demand to know what it was she had done. Instead she stood still while he slowly stripped her of her clothes. First her top, revealing her swollen breasts. He latched on to a nipple, eliciting a breathy moan. His hands moved lower, brushing lovingly over the swell of her abdomen and then lower still, stripping her pants and underwear in one well-practiced go. Jessica stopped waiting for the yelling to begin and started returning his attentions. She pressed herself into his chest, arms going around his neck. She nuzzled into his neck, loving the clean scent of him. She pressed a kiss to his neck as his hands grabbed the backs of her thighs, hauling her up against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and found his lips with her own. They panted against each other, tongues duelling.

Thomas walked them to the bed, laying her down gently and stripping off his clothes before straddling her body. She was flushed, staring up at him with her orange hair spread out on the bed. He took a moment to study her, memorising the features that he had learned to love with everything he had in him. Her delicate bone structure, her upturned nose, her amber eyes. They were something he could never forget, everything about her was branded into his soul and he knew that his life would be next to nothing without her in it. She stared back with such love that he couldn't stay apart from her any longer.

Thomas dipped his head back down to her, revelling in the taste that was wholly her own. He nudged her thighs apart with his legs and nestled himself in the cradle of her body. He could feel her dampness coating his cock. He pressed the head of his shaft against her opening, thrusting lightly. He moved a hand down her body, finding her sensitive clit and rubbing it in just the way that she liked. As she moaned, he thrust forwards, burying himself in her heat. He let out a moan of his own and started moving, the friction driving him wild. He brushed against that spot inside her and she bucked, her pregnant belly grinding into his. He eased off a little, kissing his way down her belly.

Thomas pulled out of her, flipping her over and kissing her back as she found her way onto all fours. He found her sweet pussy again, thrusting forwards. She was tighter in this position and they both moaned at the sensation. A few more thrusts and some practised manipulations of her clit and she went off, her passage contracting around him, milking him. He gritted his teeth and slowed his movements, determined to get her to come again before he lost himself in her. He kept a hand at her clit and one on a breast, rubbing her furiously as he started to speed up again. He could feel tension coiling through the two of them, connecting them in a way that went beyond the purely physical sensations of pleasure. This was what he needed, what he always needed when upheaval hit their lives. He couldn't explain it, but he was sure this was what it meant to be in love. To be connected with someone soul to soul and heart to heart.

They came together, crashing into mindless pleasure. Thomas rolled them to their sides, still connected with her as their sweat stuck them together. Jessica stretched and rolled to face him, breaking their connection. "As much as I love our bedtime exploits, I think dinner might be burning."

She placed a kiss on his jaw and rolled out of bed, gathering up her clothes an slipping into them as she made her way back out into the living room. It wasn't quite burned, but it was still more overdone than she would have liked. Sighing, she took the pot off the fire and hauled it over to the small kitchen counter. Thomas followed her movements sluggishly and Jessica waited for the questions to start. Sure enough, she wasn't disappointed.

"What do you know about her that I don't?" Thomas asked, surprising her. She had expected a vaguer question like, "what was that liquid?" or "what's happening?"

"My sister was different." Jessica said slowly, trying to figure out what to say in her own mind so she didn't completely mess up her one chance to explain. "My mother kept my father's indiscretion quiet, pretending that she had been pregnant and simply hadn't known. No-one really questioned her.

"Then one day my sister vanished for a night, when she got back, she was sick. We didn't know what was happening to her. My father sat by her bed for three hours before getting desperate. He ran to the sea and we didn't see him again for two days. When he returned he was exhausted, but he had this." Jessica held up the half-empty vial of liquid. "It's not a cure, but it helps to ease the process."

"What happened to her?" He asked, leaning against the wall.

"I don't know." Jessica replied. "She seemed to be getting better and then one night she was just gone."

Thomas walked to her, wrapped her in his arms and held her close as her tears soaked into his shirt. "Thankyou." He said.

That was it, no incriminations, no accusations, no bruised and hurt ego. He just responded to her pain with love, certain that she would have told him with time.

Together they checked on Amelia, who was sleeping soundly. Her skin was glowing in the growing darkness and her fingers twitched as she dreamed. Whatever was coming, they would face it together, no matter what, or who, they would have to deal with.