Dear Tempting

Together

Everyone at the table stood abruptly, eyes wide. Capri looked like she would shatter in the next second, her hands shaking like a human high on cocaine.

Xavier struggled to keep upright. She wasn't serious. In all his years... nothing even close to this had slipped through his mind. She had to be kidding. She had to be. Was this a ploy of some sort?

His heart threatened to beat out of his chest, beating faster than it had ever beaten before. His body wanted to shake, but he couldn't move. It was like Reid had dumped a bucket of ice through his veins, frozen right down to the core.

He could remember many things. And even with the things he had forgotten he never recalled this emotion. He knew he had never been terrified.

Capri made her way around the table cautiously, like she was walking on glass. Her eyes never left Reid, and that hand on her stomach. If Reid was really pregnant that was it. They couldn't harm one carrying a descendant. It was their most sacred law. Fingerlings were so rare... so precious.

Let alone that it was Reid who carried this gem. Royal. They couldn't touch her now.

But this... What would be the result of this? This union...

Would it even be functional? They had no idea what to expect with this... not a clue on what would happen once this child was breathing.

Capri walked up to Reid, glancing at her face and that hand on her stomach. Her lips parted as she raised her own hand, placing it on the trim skin under her shirt. Reid looked like she was in pain.

Sirens didn't have a bump like humans. Well, not to that great of an extent. The children of the sea were born so much smaller than human children, their bodies unable to carry them for too long. Only on the last days would any bump appear. Perhaps the mixture would cause some changes...

Would it grow faster? Slower? Would Reid's body change? Would the thing be female like all sirens had to be? Or would Xavier's DNA tamper with the delicate balance? Would it be mutant? What about Xavier? What was his purpose to still be here? Why hadn't Reid gotten rid of him?

It didn't matter to her why he was still here. By the look on his face, he hadn't known either. He had followed her here blindly. Perhaps Reid used her voice on him.

As soon as her fingers touched the skin she felt it, felt that thing inside, squirming. Squirming at its grandmother's touch... Capri's eyes shot open and a smile fell upon her face. Unbridled pride.

"Capri," Artheena called from behind the table, "Is it true?"

"Come feel for yourself," Capri nodded frantically. She stepped away, that smile still on her face.

Xavier watched the creature come around the side of the table. It rolled its black tentacles along the dark wood floor, its jellyfish-like stingers floating in the air around her. As it neared Reid, he moved closer to her, pressing his chest into her shoulder, breathing on her neck. His body had kicked into predator mode. Something was getting too close to his... belongings.

Reid held her shirt up as it raised a single tentacle to her stomach. The ends of the powerful extremities were blue. Xavier thought back to the creatures on the dock when he had shot Natalia. They were crawling along the dock, unable to stand and they were much smaller than this one. This thing was the queen.

A single suction cup grasped Reid's stomach and she gasped at the coldness. He snarled lowly over her shoulder. He watched its black eyes widen in surprise, furrow in confusion, and squint at the ivory skin trying to study it.

"It is strong," Artheena said turning and heading back around the table. "It is growing at a rapid rate."

Reid stepped forward wanting to know more. Capri took her place on the left end of the table and Natalia ceased to move. "What else?" Reid placed her shirt back down.