S. Welles - To Ocean's End

Cancer looked at his watch. “Fifteen more minutes.”

I was dimly aware of who I was and where I was going. I was Dyne Lavere, Captain of the Pertinacious , a cursed skipper, and on a collision course with the palace where the water gods dwell. And since I’d been forcibly transformed, I was overloaded with hormones. A small part of my mind was aware enough to feel humiliation and dread. The rest of me could think of nothing more than finding Amphitrite and bedding her over and over. I swam in my secondary demon form, a serpentine water dragon with no legs and instead a tail over twice as long as the rest of my body, making it possible to swim as fast as a race boat from the days before the Purge. Yep, my hormones were hell-bent on uniting me with her as soon as possible.

My mental haze made it impossible to tell how long it took to arrive at the underwater mountain range rising up before me. Could’ve been months. Could’ve been days. The small, humiliated part of me was curious, but the rest of me focused on navigating the mountainous seascape so I could hurry up and copulate. Two spires of lava rock jutted out among the range, a sign that I was close. I slowed my hellish pace and hunted for the next landmark.

Two more spires guided me deeper in the water. Rays of moonlight lanced all the way down to the seaweeds and anemones rocking back and forth in the current. I passed between the second set of spires and the reef below me became geometric in layout, like it was hiding a Greek temple underneath all that growth. Schools of various tropical fish flourished among the reef.

The water darkened as I swam into a pitch black tunnel without hesitation. My heightened senses kept my course visible. Soon I would be there. Soon my body would rock with hers. Very soon.

The underwater tunnel ended at a small pool—well small to my demon form—that sat at the beginning of an air-filled tunnel. Bioluminescent fish illuminated the pool and hall. My serpentine head broke the surface and paused to take in my newest surroundings. Two large veins of water lined the walls, and a third at the apex of the domed ceiling. Old divine powers held the water in place while schools of glowing fish swam to and fro inside. The place smelled like saltwater and rock.

I slithered onto shore and down the hall like a cobra with its head up and ready to strike. At the end of the hall, I braced my clawed hands on the ground while I reformed my legs. The partial transformation tingled and felt like I was peeling apart sticky fingers. I needed legs so I could better balance my weight while I had my way with Amphitrite and her body. I rose upright and began jogging.

The hall ended at a gargantuan chamber that dwarfed me like the earth does the moon. I was a mouse inside a Greek-looking temple. Countless pillars stretched into the gloom of a ceiling I couldn’t see. Every pillar had a pictogram story carved into it, chronicling the divine past. More veins of water spiraled up the pillars and at intervals in the floor, casting the chamber in a pale blue light. I paid no mind to any part of them but their general shape, which made me think of aroused males. I jogged faster. The stone floor was blanketed in flat carvings of every creature living in the sea, plant and animal. Ancient Greece, though beautiful, was just a cheap knockoff by comparison.

I sped along the carved floor, an instinct guiding me across the chamber like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn. No one but me occupied the chamber. Even the giant throne at the end opposite the pool was empty. I jogged down another tunnel just big enough to allow me to remain upright, then flung open the double doors carved with coral patterns. They groaned, announcing my arrival.

Amphitrite lay on her bed at the far end of the room, naked. Smiling. A tiny part of me begged my demon form to turn around as I crossed the room, my eyes tunnel visioning on a body of divine perfection the same size as me. I stopped at the foot of the water bed, instinctively waiting permission to join her, my muscles taut with eager anticipation.

“Welcome, Dyne Lavere,” Amphitrite said in a sensual voice as she ran a hand along her voluptuous curves. “I’ve been waiting for you. It’s time for you to please me.”

The tiny part of me yelled in protest as I climbed onto the bed and up to her body, each touch of the bed under my clawed hands soft as a woman’s breast. She smelled delectably of sand and an ocean breeze. My hands began to explore her body, eager to find ways to make her moan in ecstasy. She held my reptilian chin with two fingers, making me go still. I looked into her dark eyes and could barely contain my need to take her as her lips flushed with desire and parted slightly.

“Eat of my honey, my pet, and be energized. You have swam a long way to unite with me.” Her fingers slid away from my chin as she reclined on her mound of silk pillows.

I gently parted her legs and lay down to my feast. The tiny part of me tried to block out what my demon form was doing.

Regrouping in Darwin didn’t have the positive impact Jessie had hoped for. She and Mido had spent the whole week trying to relax, but not knowing where Dyne was, what had happened to him for pissing Amphitrite off so bad, or when he’d be back killed her ability to think about much else. On top of that, Mido couldn’t move or breathe without causing pain. Making love was out of the question; she’d spent most of the time paying attention to his breathing to make sure he didn’t come down with pneumonia. Her constant nagging and his constant pain made them both a little cranky but they still spent every waking and sleeping moment together.

All that aside, something just plain felt wrong to wait around for Dyne to return.

When the vacation came to an end, he still hadn’t showed. Sauna secured a shipment to New Zealand, so once the whole crew gathered on the bow, Rammus announced that they’d cross to South America, work their way up whichever coast generated more business, then head home for some family time, unless Dyne appeared and decided to change plans.

Since the thought had been weighing on her mind all week, Jessie stepped forward from the semi-circle. “Rammus, are you sure you don’t want to try looking for him?”

Rammus fell silent and bowed his head, deep in thought. The rest of the crew remained quiet too, even Jacobi. He scowled from the other end of the semi-circle, Ed and Ted guarding him closely on either side. He’d been royally pissed when he woke up chained inside the lockdown container. His concussion had curbed his rage but they hadn’t let him out until they reached Darwin, just to be safe, and they hadn’t let him disembark until Jessie and Mido had sent Ed and Ted back with the name of the hotel the rest of the crew was to covertly ban him from. The plan had worked well enough to push him from Jessie’s mind until now.

Jacobi said, “Don’t do it. It’ll mean more trouble.”

“Shut it,” Rammus snapped. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you unless I tell you to speak.”

He lowered his gaze and fell silent, scowling at the deck.

Rammus took a calming breath and faced Jessie. “I must confess the idea to look for him has crossed my mind. However… the more I thought about it, the less appealing it became. Where do we look for him? How will we even find him. Is he even in a place we can reach? On top of that, would Amphitrite do anything to us for trying to find our Captain?” He took in the crew. “I think this is something us mere mortals need to stay out of for now, so let’s just work our way home to our families.”

As relieving it was to know she wasn’t the only one who’d considered the idea, she still felt crestfallen.