Ever since the dreaded Red Dust had been served throughout the wedding party, Azul knew that his business dealings would have to be cut short. All around him, merfolk and humans alike were losing themselves. He watched as a notoriously ruthless crab-kin formed a scandalous liaison with the daughter of a noble catfish family famous for their exports of krill. The crab-kin made an absolute fool of himself in front of several potential bounty-hunters, and hardly even minded when the giggling little duchess, or whoever she was, fell right into step with him.

  Across from the pool, a married couple of thirty years witnessed their son swear a duel-date with a rival meant to be his superior on an employer contract they’d only just negotiated. Lower-class farmers cavorted with higher class kingpins. It was social chaos.

  Members of the Banejaw family themselves were the only ones who never touched the red dust, and Azul, sensing a means of self-preservation, did the same…until Yuu found him, and was still in control of herself to want to rid herself of the stuff.

  He should have run. He should have left in the next mirror. But, he hadn’t, and he’d helped her, believing foolishly that even if the rumors were true, that someone who touched the red dust would find fated persons, it wouldn’t work on himself. And he had been right, it certainly hadn’t worked as it had on the other merfolk. Instead, when Yuu touched him, he’d felt…life.

  In the last hour, Azul had felt every bit of his natural senses come firing to the forefront of his tired person. The world was clearer. He had more perfect control of his limbs, his senses, his ability to simply see! For a few precious moments, he possessed a clarity, a wakefulness, that he hadn’t felt in years.

  Then, as he searched the part, elated that none of them were somehow primordially destined to cross paths with him, he’d reveled in the fact that his future would be entirely of his own making. That glorious sensation of freedom and control had taken him over so completely, that he realized the only thing he didn’t control, was Yuu.

  Because when he’d looked at Yuu, she was bright, too. In fact, she was the brightest thing, the brightest person at this event, and suddenly nothing looked, smelled, or felt better than that soft tingling he’d felt along her skin. Before he realized what he was doing, he’d tried to pull himself to her, and it was only when he’d looked away that the feeling had lessened, and at last, when she’d submerged him in water, there was more of him to spread the dust’s effects out. He’d been in control—he was always in control, until she touched him again.

  Damnable fool, you are, Azul, he scolded himself.

  Because he had behaved like a fool, and instead of pushing her away, as self-preservation demanded, he’d brought her closer. Because Yuu had been the bright spot in his stress-filled haze for the last few days—days that had felt like weeks. She was here, making him feel wanted in a crowd full of people who avoided even looking at him. She was here, making him a curiosity instead of a spectacle. She was here, insisting that he belonged.

  It was a novel feeling for him, to be so wanted, and of course, he dismissed it outright until she’d talked about his family—the girl who hardly remembered her own—as though it was something valuable. She’d shown concern, when in truth, she should be fleeing from himself, a dangerous creature that was losing his self-control.

  Wake up, Azul! Where are your manners? he practically screamed at himself as she tugged him closer in the waters of the peaceful lagoon, no longer surrounded by giggling, chattering, mumbling crowds.

  “I’ll swim away, if you’d rather—” she offered quietly.

  The cool evening air blew over his face, and it should have soothed him, but Azul only felt the tingling burn of where her dust-coated fingers touched his cheek, and the cheeky breeze that spread the sensation down his neck and exposed torso. It was agony.

  “Don’t,” the dust hissed for him. If she swam away, he would pursue, and even on his cumbersome tentacles, he was faster than her skinny little human legs. “Don’t, just… just give me a moment.”

  He could get this under control. He’d been controlling himself for so long…but that was the problem, wasn’t it?

  So she didn’t swim away, but she didn’t stay put, either.

  “You said it made you act on instinct?” she said quietly, leaning in to see his face. She peered up at him from just below his chin, the breeze carrying her scent to him on the soft evening air. It was lovely, floral and sweet. A comforting scent, not a riling one.

  “So it makes you want to…what? Fight me? Eat me?” she asked.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He should have laughed. Fight her? But that last one sounded…somewhat closer to the truth.

  “Something—” he breathed hard, letting his forehead fall onto hers.

  Move away, a voice in his head, growing more distant, insisted. Oh, but it was so peaceful, so satisfying to be this close to another person.

  “—Something like that,” he said, taking in every inch of her skin, glowing in the winking starlight.

  This was enough. He could be content with this, he lied to himself.

  Then, Yuu did something that utterly shocked him, that would later make him doubt if the dust had truly only been formulated to work on merfolk.

  She pulled herself up and into him, her mouth brushing his, infinitesimally briefly.

  “Ah.”

  He said aloud, the surprise and longing jumping from his chest like a living thing.

  And suddenly, the peaceful nearness he’d enjoyed a second ago was nowhere near enough. He didn’t have to do more than lift his chin to connect their kiss again.

  The feeling that coursed through his mouth and into his limbs at the contact was…exquisite.

  Hands already around her waist, he secured her there in the water, kissing her slowly, every taste satisfying the heated burn that crept along his skin where she touched. At the same time, some distant voice in his head was screaming at him to stop, that something should, would go wrong, and yet every heartbeat of indulgence pushed him farther from remembering why.

  Then, he felt her kiss him back, and the last shreds of doubt he had so carefully manufactured over the years fled him like so many sardines before a beast of the hunt. She was responding to him—him! And oh, he wanted her to feel what he did. He wanted her to writhe; to want; to sing! He could hardly remember his own name, until she said it against his lips, setting his marine blood on fire—and oh, how good it felt to finally burn for something tangible.

  Azul had spent years chasing prey that didn’t exist. A higher profit margin. Grades. Respect—ephemeral, meaningless things that could never last. He could never touch them. He would never hold them. He would never keep them. This, however. This feeling was something that he could keep, and he dove into it to the beat of every bit of charged instinct in his person.

  He pulled her face along his own, pressing his mouth into every crevice she would let him reach, and with every touch, his merman senses returned to him in the rush of his blood. His scent sharpened, telling him everything about her that he couldn’t see in the dim lighting. The soaps she used, the perfume she wore, and where. The pull of her breath, and at last, setting his teeth on edge, the evidence of her body’s response to his.

  He felt his eyes change and sharpen, blurred not by the absence of his glasses, but by the absence of water. Even without it, however, he could see details in her skin, and hazy, half-shut eyes that he’d never noticed before. The length of her lashes, the gray specks in her irises, the hot flush creeping down her neck.

  It occurred to him, distantly, that the Yuu he knew should be resisting this sort of bold advance. He very nearly pulled back to ask, but that burning, seeping feeling in his limbs angrily demanded the opposite.

  That feeling bloomed like a red cloud in his stomach, searing his insides.

  He was starving for her.

  With a groan, under the last of his willpower to stay gentle, he pulled her waist against his body, his lower tentacles curling their way down her legs, sending him sensations from areas across her thighs and behind her knees he’d never dreamed of feeling so heavenly.

  Suddenly, he understood why his cousin had chosen the mate he had. Humans had novelties to offer that mermaids never could. This human was beating her way into his veins by the second, humming her way along his senses, and into the kiss that finally landed deep into her mouth.

  She made a sound into that kiss that sent bubbles fleeing through the last of the thoughts in his head.

  He pulled her in tighter, and she sighed.

  It was a beautiful sound. Better than undines. Better than sirens. Better than any singer in his fuzzy recollections. He repeated the motion, and her arms wrapped around his neck and her fingers singed their way through his hair. His limbs moved them both, without conscious command to where he could anchor them to the poolside wall, pressing their bodies tighter together—and making it easier to keep her head above the water.

  She raked her fingers down his scalp, and he snarled, changing the kiss from something gentle, to something deep, hard, and faster-paced. The answering sound from Yuu’s throat only encouraged him. His tentacles curled further up her legs, wrapping all the way to her thighs.

  Azul felt the want spike, in both of their veins, but he was not all gone. He wasn’t all fool, either. Everything in him wanted this to last, and the rushing in his limbs agreed with his head that he would do anything to keep himself from losing this—from losing Yuu. It was truly a miracle that he was still able to form words, much less pull away from her mouth long enough to say them. He trailed the kisses down her jaw as he said the words that had to be said.

  "What do you want from me? Jewels? Potions? Information? Ask me,” he demanded against her skin. Because if she didn’t need anything from him, then this was a contract he could never make.