Chapter 24

Kal quietly slipped back into his cabin the following morning. After gently closing the door behind him, he leaned his head against it and took a deep breath. Of the entire crew, only Naivoo acted happy to see him. The rest just glared as he walked to and from the head.

“You’re upset,” came Kashka’s voice from the bed.

“I don’t like being the bad guy,” he mumbled into the door.

“Is everyone still mad about Emru?”

The mage nodded

“So, our fight with the sandworms has some unexpected lingering effects. It’s not like you aren’t willing to work through this for her sake.”

“I don’t like feeling ... damaged. I know what the right thing to do is, but I can’t convince my head to cooperate.”

“Think of the stories you’ve heard from the girls on this ship. Even with your help, there are some of life’s pleasures they may never experience again because of what the slavers did to them.”

He turned around, his expression cold. “I’m not as damaged as them, so I should just suck it up and give Emru her daughter?”

“I don’t think you’re damaged, Kal. I think you’re wounded. We both know wounds can heal and leave barely any trace of a scar. You will get over this the way some of them can’t. What’s more, you want to get over it because you are a good man and like making people happy.” Seeing his face soften, she patted the bed next to her. “Why don’t you come over here and make me a happy woman.”

Kal stripped off the trousers he slipped on for the short walk to the ship’s toilet and kicked them to the side as he approached the bed.

“You didn’t get enough last night?” he asked.

Instead of answering, Kashka sent an image across the bond of them entering Kal’s magical tent. Once inside, she pounced on him, pinning him in the entryway. With a swipe of her claws, his clothes vanished in shreds of fabric, and in one smooth motion, she impaled her pussy on his cock.

“I’m looking forward to having you all to myself again once we get back on land,” said the cat-girl while rolling away from him and pulling her tail to the side.

Crawling into bed behind Kashka, the mage scooted forward and wrapped an arm around her. The cat gasped as he bent down and began kissing the back of her neck while his fingers lightly teased a nipple. As Kal covered her neck and shoulders with kisses, Kashka lifted a leg and reached down to softly play with the lips of her sex. When she felt the head of his cock nudge her fingers, she dipped two inside her pussy and used them to coat the head of his prick, then repeated the process a second time to slicken his shaft before guiding him to her entrance.

Both of them moaned as the head of Kal’s cock slipped inside Kashka’s pussy. The mage let go of her breast and just held her as he sunk the rest of the way into her sex. The cat’s low purr vibrated arm her head rested on as her fingers moved up to tease her clit.

The purr cut off suddenly as a heavy fist hammered on the cabin door. “All hands on deck! We’re coming into port and dropping anchor. You’re needed in the rigging, cat!” Roka shouted before stomping off and repeating the call for all hands.

“That. Bitch.” Kashka snarled. “She snuck up to the door and waited for this—”

A hand across her mouth silenced her as Kal’s other hand knocked hers away from her sex. The cat grabbed his wrist but quickly lost strength as the mage slammed his cock into her and his fingers began vibrating her clit.

After a few minutes of hammering into the tightness of the cat-girl’s pussy, he growled in her ear, “That’s it, Maris, be a good girl and cum all over my cock.”

Kashka’s eyes opened wide, and the cat’s sex clamped down on his shaft as her climax crashed into her. The mage slowed and shortened his strokes but continued fucking her as Kashka’s eyelids fluttered and she wailed into his hand. Kal’s fingers glided softly over the top of her sex until she jerked his hand away.

The cat shook off the hand covering her mouth and shot an accusing look back at him. “That was mean,” she panted.

Kal chuckled. “You needed to get off quickly, and the only man you’ve fantasized about more than me is Stormhammer.”

She glared at him for a moment, then wiggled her hips. “You didn’t finish.”

“I’m not needed to maintain and run this ship. I’ll be fine.”

“You know I like having a little bit of you inside me while I work.”

“I do. But this was for you, and I’m not even close yet.”

“Fine,” she grunted. Slipping off his cock Kashka crawled over him and retrieved her clothes from a cubby in the wall at the foot of the bed. “On your back,” she ordered, throwing her shirt, shorts, and belt down next to him. Once he settled into position, the cat straddled Kal and sank down on his prick. The mage groaned and put his hands on her hips as Kashka began rocking back and forth while nonchalantly, and very slowly, getting dressed. Once her shirt was on and belt in place, she raised up off him and then rocked her hips forward until the head of his cock nudged her back entrance. Smiling mischieviously, she pressed down a few times but never quite hard enough for him to slip into her backside. Kashka leaned down and kissed him hard before hopping out of bed and slipping her shorts on.

“Love you,” she said before heading out the door with a final wave.

Kal’s cock was hard as steel from the cat’s teasing. He gripped it at the base and briefly considered stroking himself off. Groaning with annoyance, he let go of his prick and threw his legs over the side of the bed. Maybe he could use his frustration to help his situation with Emru. Kashka radiated approval of the idea over the bond.

“Since you like the idea of fucking my ass so much, maybe you can use it as a reward for getting over your feelings about Emru,” she sent.

“Don’t you mean you can use it as a reward?”

“My bottom is yours whenever you want it, Master. You would be the one to make it your reward.” She accompanied her thoughts with the thrill of excitement she felt as his cock nudged her rear entrance minutes ago.

“You’re making it hard for me not to get off before getting dressed.”

“And making it hard for me to focus on my work. I’ll stop.”

After letting himself calm down enough to put his trousers on, Kal dressed and stepped out of his cabin onto the main deck. Above him the main and mizzen masts were furled for the first time since they left Calfera, leaving only the partially open foremast to bring them slowly into shore. He caught his first glimpse of and Azumbahan city but all the activity was happening on the opposite side of the ship.

Roka explained earlier in the journey that most of the Azumbahan ports were too shallow for The Scarlet Bitch to dock. Instead, they launched the two longboats secured on either side of the deck and used those to transport cargo to and from the ship. The smaller boats were stored upside down so they didn’t collect water and unnecessary debris that would add extra weight and make them unusable in an emergency.

He asked if it would be wiser to collect rainwater for drinking with the boats. The bovine explained that Tavorah took care of their drinking water. They lowered barrels into the sea to fill them or placed the barrels beneath the masts to collect rainwater. The elf then cast a purification spell that gathered the salt and impurities into a hard pebble they returned to the sea.

Roka stood between the open cargo hatch and the mainmast supervising the crew. “Need help?” he asked.

“Drop anchor, First Mate,” Scarlet called out from the quarterdeck.

Roka dipped her head to acknowledge his presence before stepping over to the cargo hatch and bellowing the captain’s command to those below. The entire crew paused what they were doing. Over the bond, Kal felt Ratt put a hand on Kashka’s arm to stop what she was doing and direct the cat to hold tight to the yard they were on.

Seconds passed with only the striking of heavy wooden mallets belowdecks disrupting the stillness.

The ship shook, and the bow of The Scarlet Bitch pitched upward as the anchor broke free and dropped into the water. The motion wasn’t as sever as he expected, though Kashka didn’t agree, but the suddenness could have easily made someone stumble and fall. Once the vessel settled, everyone started moving again as if following a silent cue.

The current task completed, Roka glared down at him. “I’d say no if I didn’t know how useful you are.” Dipping her head toward the longboat, she said “These need to flip over gently so they don’t put any extra stress on the yards. Some extra strength would help.”

Kal stood in front of the bovine and drew the strength spell in the air. “You aren’t going to use this to throw me off the ship, are you?”

“Yesterday I would have, but Naivoo said you were willing to give Emru a chance, so I’ve calmed down a little.”

He gave her long look filled with suspicion, then finished drawing the spell and activated it.

Roka smiled and posed as the magical strength ran through her. “I could get used to having you around,” she said before pointing at the starboard longboat. “When the girls remove those securing ropes, Emru will lift it,” she explained, directing his eyes to the pulley hanging from the yard above them. “The boat’s anchor points are off-center to make sure it lifts and flips the same way every time.” The crew secured the ropes to the longboat’s bow and stern as a second pulley with a hook dropped down to the deck. “As Emru lifts, the bottom will kick out. The boat is too heavy for us to stop, so we slow and smooth its swing to keep it from jerking on the yards.” The girls tugged on the lifting lines to make sure they were secure, then stepped back as Roka picked up the bottom pulley and dropped them into the hook.

“Tension!” she called out. A crewmate repeated the order, shouting it over the ship’s rail. The pulley and hook gradually rose until the entire line drew taut.

Roka stepped up next to the longboat and indicated Kal should take up a similar position.

“Lift!” she bellowed.

The side of the longboat closest to Kal and Roka lifted free of the deck. As it rose higher, Roka slipped beneath and beckoned Kal forward. The bovine dropped into a crouch and held out her hands in anticipation. Positioning himself similarly, the mage watched the First Mate out the corner of his eye. The far side of the longboat shifted toward them and the bovine tensed.

The boat’s side rail chattered as it scraped across the deck before swinging free. Its far side caught Kal and Roka in their stomachs. Their outstretched hands cushioned the blow but still lifted them into the air for a brief moment. When their feet hit the deck, the mage and First Mate hauled back on their side of the longboat to keep it from swinging wildly.

“Slack!” Roka yelled, then guided the boat back to the deck with the mage’s help as the whale stopped pulling.

Kal and Roka stepped back, and the other crew members rushed forward to retie for the second lift. Above them, Ratt and Kashka began moving the upper pulley out to the ends of the yardarms.

“This seems like a lot to go through if there is an emergency on board,” said Kal as he looked over the ship’s rail to see at Emru’s entire body for the first time. He had no idea fish could get so enormous. Nor had he seen a fish with a sideways tail before apart from the ship’s resident mermaid.

Emru floated to the surface, and a blast of air erupted from the two side-by-side holes on the top of her body, reminding him that she breathed air and wasn’t a fish, despite looking like one. He frowned as he remembered Kashka and Naivoo’s description of Emru as a ‘gentle giant.’ It didn’t fit the sleek form below. That felt strange to say about such a massive creature, but he felt like a couple of flicks of Emru’s giant tail could have her flying through the water.

Up near the whale’s head swam the mermaid near a metal contraption with a lever on the side attached to the end of the rope. The device’s other end held onto a large loop of rope that ran down and around Emru’s mouth

Roka stepped up next to him. “In an emergency, everyone lifts the boat’s outer side, and we shove some planks under it and brace them on the rail. Then we push it over and into the water as if our lives depend on it. Which they probably do at that point. But launching such a heavy boat like that is hard on the wood, and a longboat that shatters and sinks when it hits the water isn’t much use, so we do things the slow way any other time.”

Kal pointed at the buckle. “What’s that?”

“The lever releases the rope around Emru. We tried just using loops, but the knots became too tight for Hali to untie,” she explained. “Emru didn’t like being attached to the ship if she ever needed to escape, and Red didn’t like the damage she might do to The Bitch if that ever happened. With that thing on the rope’s end, no matter how hard Emru pulls, Hali can release her with a tug on that lever. Tavorah designed it and made the first out of wood here on the ship, but it fell apart on its first use. A Calferan blacksmith made that one.”

“What do you do when Emru isn’t with you?”

“The same thing, just with the entire crew on the other end of the rope.”

“Why not do that instead?”

“Because the rest of the crew can be doing other things besides hauling on a rope, and Emru wants to help. She sees us as her best and safest chance at a child and wants to give something back in return.”

“Safest? Helping you dodge and outrun pirates is her safest option?”

The other crew finished readying the longboat for the second lift. Roka waved Kal over into his previous position at its side. “She thinks so, and we appreciate the help.” The First Mate pointed up. “When Emru lifts the boat, the pulley’s position will make it swing out and over the rail. We need to steady the longboat and make sure it doesn’t slam into the ship’s side. Watch out for those planks,” she said, pointing at the pieces of wood propped up between the longboat and the rail. “They’re to protect the rail and will flip up as the boat swings out.”

Kal nodded in understanding, and Roka shouted for Emru to pull again. The smaller vessel slid up the planks and over the rail just as Roka explained. The planks dropped into the water below as Kal and Roka strained to maintain control of the longboat when it swung free of the ship. At the first mate’s command, Emru stopped swimming and let the rope drag her backward. The whale’s mass and the water’s drag on her body acted as a counterweight to slowly lower the boat into the water.

As Kal watched the longboat slowly descend, large hands grabbed his waist. The mage shouted and flailed his arms as Roka picked him up and held him over her head. “Since you are so interested in Tavorah’s contraption, you should help Hali unhook Emru,” she said before stepping forward and pitching Kal over the rail. Her enhanced strength ensured he would splash down well clear of the longboat, but Kal instinctively activated the featherfall rune. He soon realized it would only carry him further from the ship and make the swim back longer. He had the flight rune pressed against his back, but the mage still didn’t want to reveal he could fly without good reason. Using his cloak, Kal spun around and made a rude gesture at Roka before canceling the featherfall spell and dropping into the water.

The mage surfaced to see the bovine woman’s head thrown back in a full-throated laugh. “That makes us even for yesterday, and I’ll take that as a promise on my next turn!” she shouted. Roka continued laughing until a very excited Naivoo ran up to her. Kal was too far away to hear their exchange, but moments later, Roka picked up the squid-girl and launched her out into the water as well.

The squid-woman’s body seemed to unravel. Her mantle stood straight up from the top of her head, and the fins on either side flapped like sad little wings. Her arms and legs untwisted into their individual tentacles, then flattened and curled backward to catch more air as she attempted to glide. Finally, she used her ability to shoot water jets from her tentacles’ tips to get even more distance.

“Wheeeeee!” Naivoo screeched before dropping headfirst into the water just short of him. Kal was astonished at how far she flew without the help of a featherfall spell.

The squid-girl jetted toward him underwater and wrapped a ‘hand’ tentacle around his arms before towing the mage toward Hali and Emru. Despite her ability to let Kal breathe underwater when they touched, Naivoo made sure his head stayed above water as they swam. Halfway to Hali, another happy shriek echoed off the ship’s side as Roka sent the otter-girl sailing through the air.

Naivoo used two tentacles to hold Kal and two more to propel them through the water. Another two slipped beneath the belt of his trousers and wrapped around his cock. The tiny suckers at the tentacles’ tips felt dozens of tiny kisses along his shaft. She only got the mage half-hard in the short trip to the mermaid and whale, but after this morning, it was enough to make him groan in frustration as her tentacles slipped out of his pants and formed back into human-looking arms. Without a word of explanation, Naivoo released him and jetted back toward the ship. Kal watched her for a few more seconds as the suckers that were so gentle with his cock let the squid-girl effortlessly crawl up the side of the ship and onto the deck.

“Aren’t human men supposed to bring gifts when they visit a woman?” asked the mermaid. Swimming in front of him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her bare chest against the mage.

Hali’s breasts were smaller than average for monster girls, and she lamented not having more to offer him during their tryst earlier that week. Though small, they were extremely sensitive, and Kal thoroughly enjoyed lavishing attention on them to show he didn’t care how big they were.

When they returned to the ship later, she explained most mermaids were small-chested like her. Kal asked the mermaid if her race’s propensity for small chests was natural or if there was a specific reason. Hali spent the next couple of hours giving him a rough account of her race’s early history.

Like elves, merfolk predated monster girls, and Prentas’s spell proved disastrous to them. Merfolk had an unusually high number of males in their population compared to most other races, with only a quarter of eggs hatching into females. This worked out in the past because the sea was a dangerous place, and it wasn’t uncommon to lose several men a year while out hunting or defending the village. Within a decade of the monster girl’s appearance, their male-centric society found itself without sufficient hunters or defenders, and no more eggs had been laid to replace the men’s waning numbers.

Before this time, the women were the gatherers, farmers, and child-rearers. As they took on more of the mermen’s roles, it quickly became apparent that larger breasts males preferred offered no advantage when hunting for food or defending their underwater villages from predators. The sleekness of smaller-chested mermaids made them faster swimmers and more nimble in the water. While all of the merwomen took up the defense of their villages, large-breasted merwomen generally continued as farmers and child rearers, while those less endowed became the village’s hunters.

The hunting patrols were the first to encounter fishermen and discover their newfound attraction toward human men.

Instead of laying eggs and covering them with the male’s seed like a fish, merfolk had sex to produce offspring. When a mermaid felt the urge to have children, she and her suitor would find a quiet place to couple. There was no thrashing or thrusting that could attract predators searching for an easy meal. Sex for them involved as little movement as possible.

The mermen had thin, tapered manhoods that swelled when inserted into the mermaid. At the same time, the mermaid’s sex clamped down around the base of the merman’s shaft to help keep him in place as he deposited his seed. Depending upon their emotional attachment to one another, these couplings could last from a few minutes to a few hours. Both parties found this satisfying and pleasurable, but not orgasmic.

A few adventurous mermaids finally gave in to their curiosity and offered themselves to the human men. They were entirely unprepared for the humans’ frenetic thrusting followed by an orgasm that looked horrendously painful but left the men happy, relaxed, and satisfied.

Unexpectedly, some of these couplings led to pregnancies.

Merfolk communities believed the spawn from these initial couplings to be deformed. Until then, merpeople followed the typical pattern of near-white, softer fronts, or undersides, and darker backs to hide from predators above. Membranes stretched between clawed fingers to help with swimming, though many merfolk trimmed their claws to avoid accidental scratches. Flat discs on either side of their head acted as ears and behind them sat large fins that directed sound inward. The merfolk’s eyes were larger than humans to help them see in the underwater darkness they called home. Wide mouths and small, backward-facing teeth indicated an ambush predator as a potential ancestor.

In the new hatchlings, human ears replaced the disc and fins suited for hearing in the water, yet mysteriously worked just as well. The only remnant of the old ears appeared in small, soft spines along the ear’s back edge. The children had a second, crystal-clear membrane that slid sideways over their human-sized eyes and helped them see underwater. The faint red glow of natural darkvision made their sight just as good, if not better, than their mothers. Human-sired mermaids lost the color variation between front and back, trading it for a human-like pinkish hue that changed into scales at their upper thigh instead of waist. The general changes seemed strange enough, but each child’s lower half also took on the characteristics of a random fish species. It could look like anything from a barracuda to the brightly colored fish found on the southern reef. Thankfully, this mostly affected coloration and some changes in fin shape. As with other monster girls, if the fish type had a more colorful male for the sake of mating, the little girls took on the brighter coloration.

Sadly, Hali’s ancestors suffered the heartbreak of dozens of infant deaths after discovering their new compatibility with humans. Before the change, merfolk young hatched from their eggs further along in development and were immediately able to eat the tiny fish, shrimp, and sea flora their parents brought. This meant the original merwomen never breastfed and never developed nipples or the means to produce milk. Areas on the front of the mer-woman’s breasts were highly sensitive and brought them great pleasure but served no real purpose. Only the mermen’s preference for the mounds of flesh kept the trait alive.

Upon hatching, the new infant mermaids ate what their mothers offered and enjoyed the taste, but the food often made them violently ill. Or worse, the child slowly wasted away as though starving, despite their full belly.

As one mermaid watched in despair as her newborn slowly starved to death, she finally noted an important difference between her and her daughter. The little girl had the little dark bumps on either side of her chest like the humans. She also noticed that when holding her daughter close to her breast, the child often began sucking on the soft flesh as though driven by instinct. The mermaid swam to the surface and approached some human fishermen for help, hoping they could explain her daughter’s behavior and this wasting sickness.

The desperate merwoman was initially met with disgust and rejection. Merfolk of the time had developed a mutual respect for the humans who lived off the sea’s bounty. But that relationship had become strained with the emergence of the monster girls. Many humans now lumped the merfolk, especially the mermaids, with these sexually aggressive half-breeds.

Eventually, calmer heads and compassion won out. The mermaid followed the boat back to shore, where the fishermen brought out a human wet-nurse who agreed to feed the mer-child.

The human woman cradled the baby mermaid and lifted her out of the water as she began to suckle. It was then they discovered the next generation of mermaids could also shapeshift. The child’s lower half split and transformed into human legs as her scales and fins disappeared. The only indications of her true form remaining were the spines on her ears, the webbing between her fingers, and the gill slits on either side of her torso, which promptly expelled the water in her lungs so she could breathe air and completely soaked the wet-nurse.

Within a handful of minutes, color returned to the mer-child’s face, and she stopped showing signs of distress. The mermaid later returned to her village to tell them of her discovery. Other mermaid mothers followed her example, and the fishing village reached out to its neighbors for wet-nurses to help save the mer-children. Understanding this would likely be a long-term arrangement, the fishermen built an underwater creche from poles and nets to protect the growing girls from predators. As Hali’s ancestors sent out word of this change in their children’s needs, an envoy from another village arrived with a similar revelation. The milk from a nursing monster girl could also save this new generation.

The envoy’s village captured a monster girl near the water’s edge shortly after she gave birth. Using their innate magic that let others breathe underwater, they brought her and her baby back to the village’s moonpool. Although visitors from the surface were rare, many merfolk villages maintained these for housing or imprisoning air-breathers. The monster girl was kept healthy and well-fed as long as she continued nursing the village’s babies. Though able to understand and speak common, the woman was almost feral, and withholding food proved the only way to get her to cooperate.

Hali’s ancestors relayed their findings to the visiting mermaid before she continued on her way, then sent out their own messengers to inform other villages how to save their daughters. The mermaids returned with news that many other communities had already reached similar conclusions with varying degrees of success.

When the first generations of the mer/human hybrids grew into adults and eventually became pregnant, they discovered that their breasts functioned like a human’s and were not just for show anymore. Within a handful of years, mer society no longer needed the assistance of humans or monster girls to keep their daughters healthy.

A few generations later, the last of the original mermen and merwomen passed away, leaving the future of their race in the hands of the new mermaids. However, even centuries later, the disproportionate number of hunter merwomen who had children compared to the larger-chested farmers and gatherers made large breasts among mermaids a rarity, and Hali was not one of those lucky few.

Kal smiled at the mermaid and placed his hands on her hips. “It seems like I was just delivered to you. Perhaps I’m the gift?”

“For her or me?” she asked, glancing at Emru.

The mage’s smile faded as he looked over at the huge monster girl next to them. “Just you, I’m afraid. I’m still working on how I feel about her.”

Hali flicked her tail and slipped out of his hands, her face falling in disappointment. “That’s too bad. I heard what Roka said before she threw you off the ship. You have two women willing to let you ravish them, and you want to know about this?” she asked, pointing at the buckle.

“I am frustratingly curious. It’s a mage thing.”

“Frustrating at least,” said the mermaid as Emru made a sound much like a low chuckle. “Push the lever up to the first click to unlock it. The second click opens the buckle. Since the boat is in the water, it’s safe to release Emru.”

Grabbing the rope above this strange buckle, Kal pulled himself partway out of the water to examine it. The first thing he took note of was the scent. The contraption smelled delicious. Wiping a finger along its side, he realized they coated it with oil to protect the metal from rusting in such salty conditions. The oil must have been from the galley because the device smelled a lot like bacon. Ignoring the scent, Kal saw metal rods running through the steel plates on the front and back. The plates held all the inner workings in place and extended downward with cutouts for the rope to slide into. A flattened hook below the rope kept it from falling out. As he lifted the lever, the first click moved a rounded piece attached to the lever’s bottom out of the way, freeing the mechanism inside. As he continued to lift, a long metal connector inside pivoted and pulled the hook at the bottom of the buckle to one side, releasing the rope.

The buckle dragged him through the water as it swung toward the longboat and the pulley above, but Kal hardly noticed. The mechanism seemed so laughably simple that he could hardly believe this was his first time seeing it. The mage committed what he could see to memory so he could make a drawing of it later. He planned on asking Tavorah for a diagram, but considering the crew’s current opinion of him, he thought it best not to keep his hopes up.