Awakening by Kitty Thomas Page A

party? There will be several nobles from Eusebes. Mermaid fin would please them very much. It would make trading go more smoothly.”
    I moved my arms away from my chest and looked up at him. While I didn’t like the idea of being touched in that way , breasts hypnotized human males, and it was either the possibility of being touched like that or becoming an appetizer. I fought back the wave of nausea at thinking of the latter option. And although the former held no real thrill for me, at least it wasn’t death.
    Kyros stared at me, his eyes darkening more—if that were possible. His nostrils flared, and I think I stopped breathing while he weighed his options. Finally he said, “That won’t be necessary, Aric. The menu is already set, and I’m afraid introducing such a delicacy at the last minute is bound to end in mistakes. Cook is already stressed enough. If only she’d been caught a couple of hours sooner.”
    I shuddered, thinking of how I’d wanted to go for a swim earlier, but my mother had stopped me, needing help watching some of the young in our school. It may have detained me for just the window of time necessary to spare my life. At least for now.
    “Then what shall we do with her, sir? Toss her back in?”
    Yes, please. Oh, please please toss me back in. I’ll never swim this close again. I’ve learned my lesson.
    He watched me, his eyes sweeping over my chest before I could cover myself now that the immediate threat of death seemed over. “No. Take her to my chambers. I’ll decide what to do with her after the party.”
    He looked at me for another long moment, then turned and made his way back up the hill, the red haze finally swallowing him until it was as if he’d disappeared from the island altogether.
    The fishermen set to work immediately unwrapping the net. One of them carried me by my arms, the other by my tail—the one near my head—occasionally brushed his fingertips over my breast. I knew he’d done it on purpose. It felt so strange and wrong. What was the matter with these people? How did the females of their kind stand all that pawing? There were rumors among the merfolk that some of the female humans even liked it. We had a word for them. Slut.
    I didn’t know exactly what the word meant, except that it was an insult and we applied it almost unilaterally to human women. At the time, I didn’t know some humans used the term as well, and that not all females seemed to like sex. The ones who didn’t maybe would have been happier as mermaids.
    When we reached Kyros’ chambers, they dropped me unceremoniously on his bed. The one who’d held me by the tail was already on his way out the door, but the other looked on me with dark interest. He stroked his chin, sizing me up.
    I tried to squirm away as he moved closer, but the other fisherman interrupted. “Aric, come on. We’ve got too much work to do for this. Leave her.”
    He grumbled in irritation. “I’ll be back for you, pretty thing. More than one way to taste you.”
    I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. He looked at me for another long moment in a way that made my scales crawl, then I was left alone. For the first half hour I was in shock. It took me a while to orient myself to my surroundings.
    The room was nice and clean at least. Paintings of goddesses draped in white fabric adorned the walls. In the sea, we focus more on the deities associated with the water, but I knew there were many others. In the ocean we are pretty primitive; many of the technologies humans have on land just won’t work in the water. On land they have a sense of the ancient with their large stone castles and simple fishing nets. But there is also a lot of technology.
    From the beach, I’d noticed things that seemed to work by magic, but I’d heard rumors that it was really electricity, like what the storms make. Evidence of their ability to harness lightning was clear by the lights on the wall. Even fire is fairly foreign to a mermaid, but I