The moment his lips touched hers, the ocean seemed to recoil.
A shudder rolled through the dark, a tremor that rippled along the coral wall and sent schools of tiny fish scattering in a burst of silver panic. The current stilled, heavy and expectant, as though the sea was holding its own breath—witnessing something ancient, dangerous, forbidden.
Kaelen didn't notice the stillness.
He was focused entirely on her.
Her lips were soft, already cooling, her mouth slack beneath his. He cupped her jaw with one hand, thumb brushing the curve of her cheekbone, forcing her mouth open just enough to seal against her. The gash on her temple released a final crimson ribbon, spiraling upward like a prayer no god would hear.
Na'reth-Al.
The Breath of Tide.
He hadn't spoken the words in years.
He hadn't dared.
But the instinct—older than language, older than even the myths of his kind—rose inside him like a tide reclaiming its drowned.
He inhaled.
Deep.
And exhaled into her.
It was not air he gave her.
It was life ripped from the marrow of the ocean.
A vapor poured from him into her lungs—warmer than water, heavier than breath. It rolled into her mouth with the density of fog and the heat of something molten. The transfer was intimate to the point of violence, a merging that went beyond touch. His essence slid into her, thick as silk, saturated with microscopic enzymes that shimmered blue against the dark.
Her body reacted immediately.
She jerked against him—once, violently—as if shocked back from the edge of death. Her arms flared outward, fingers curling, then slackening. Her back arched in his hold. A muted sound escaped her throat, swallowed instantly by the sea.
He held her tighter, one arm braced around her ribs, the other steadying her chin as the Breath forced its way through her lungs. It coated every alveolus, slipping into microscopic spaces, rewriting her biology with delicate brutality.
Her chest convulsed again.
Her body fought the new command.
Humans were not meant for this.
The sea did not belong to them.
They took from it, but they never belonged within it.
But he kept breathing into her, sealing their mouths together in an unbroken exchange. His lips did not leave hers. Not for a second. He felt the moment the change took root—when her lungs stopped rejecting and began accepting, the enzymes weaving through her blood like threads of cold fire.
Her heartbeat faltered.
Paused.
Then returned—slower, deeper, syncing with the rhythm of the sea around them.
His tail tightened beneath them, instinctively steadying her as her body shook again.
Her eyelashes fluttered.
Her throat spasmed around the incoming heat.
And then—
Her lungs expanded.
Not for air.
For water.
She inhaled.
A long, shuddering breath of the deep.
It slid down her throat, cold and briny, filling her chest with a sensation she had no name for—pressure without suffocation, cold without pain. Her ribs stretched wide, wider, almost painfully so. The enzymes coated each breath, letting her body process water as if it were air.
She breathed again.
This time less violently.
Her skin, pale moments before, flushed faintly at the neck and jaw. The bluish tinge at her lips faded. Her fingers stopped twitching. The wound at her temple stopped bleeding, pressure sealing the torn edges of skin.
Isla's mind screamed.
Her body obeyed.
Her eyelids snapped open.
The first thing she saw was not the reef.
Not the dark.
Not the endless void around her.
It was him.
Kaelen's face was inches from hers, illuminated by faint luminescence pulsing under his skin. His eyes—storm-silver, vast, impossibly bright—locked onto hers. His lips were still parted against hers, the last whisper of the Breath leaving him and entering her.
Instinct detonated.
She tried to scream.
The water swallowed it before it formed.
She thrashed. Hard.
Her legs kicked against the current, sending spirals of sand and silt upward. Her hands clawed at his shoulders, sliding across the slick, cool texture of skin that wasn't quite human. Her nails couldn't find purchase. Her limbs flailed, desperate for a direction, for a surface she could no longer sense.
Kaelen didn't react with force.
His grip tightened just enough to keep her from bolting upward—where the pressure difference would kill her instantly. His tail curved around her legs, not restraining... guiding. His hand braced between her shoulder blades to steady her.
She fought him anyway.
Her lungs screamed for air. Her brain screamed to surface. Her instincts screamed to run.
But her body—
Her body kept breathing water.
A sensation so wrong it felt like drowning in reverse.
Her consciousness flickered with panic, bright and jagged. She shook her head frantically, bubbles escaping her nose and mouth in panicked bursts. She clutched at her throat, expecting gills, slits, anything—but found only smooth skin. Smooth, unbroken, unchanged.
Her eyes widened in pure horror.
She was breathing water…
With human lungs.
Her terror hit Kaelen like a wave.
He moved.
Not fast.
Not rough.
Just decisive—an authority forged from centuries of instinct.
He slid one hand to her cheek, fingers cool and webbed, brushing gently along her skin. The touch was icy but grounding. Then he leaned forward until their foreheads pressed together, a gesture older than spoken language.
Stop, the touch said.
Feel. You're alive.
A faint hum reverberated from him—low, resonant, felt more than heard. The sound vibrated through her skull, soothing and terrifying in equal measure. Her lashes trembled. Her limbs slowed.
Not calm.
Not acceptance.
But the first crack in panic's grip.
Kaelen closed his eyes.
And for the first time in years… he felt fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
He had broken a vow.
He had tied his fate to hers.
He had given her something his kind guarded like sacred flame.
And there was no undoing it.
Her breath stuttered against his chest.
Her fingers slipped from his shoulders.
Her eyes flickered.
Her mind, overloaded by shock, pressure, terror, and biological upheaval, did what minds often do under too much pain—
It surrendered.
She fainted.
Her body went limp in his arms, drifting like kelp in gentle tide.
He caught her easily, gathering her close, her cheek resting against the cool surface of his collarbone. Her hair floated around them both in a golden halo.
He stared at her, expression unreadable.
But his heartbeat—slow, tidal—missed a rhythm.
Kaelen exhaled a long, aching breath into the dark.
Then he turned downward, holding her tightly to his chest.
The ocean shifted around him.
Not resisting.
Bowing.