A Nereid for the Titan (TITANS, #1) Read online

  A Nereid for the Titan

  TITANS, Volume 1

  Sotia Lazu

  Published by Acelette Press, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  A NEREID FOR THE TITAN

  First edition. August 10, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Sotia Lazu.

  Written by Sotia Lazu.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Prometheus heard the thunderstorm that carried the chariot of the self-professed Father of Gods. Zeus was closing in.

  Where was Pherusa?

  She promised to meet him here at dusk. They couldn’t hide from Zeus on land, but her father had Poseidon’s ear and convinced him to offer them asylum underwater.

  He looked around, though she wouldn’t come to him from the land. The shore was empty as far as the eye could see.

  They had to go now. Why wasn’t she here?

  Something glimmered in the darkness ahead, making the reflection of the moon ripple on the still waters.

  “Pherusa?” Prometheus tried to keep his voice low, but hope and relief made it waver. He waded into the sea, toward her, ignoring the cold. He couldn’t will himself to blink across the distance, since using his powers would catch Zeus’ attention, but he didn’t have to swim there, either. The motion he’d seen wasn’t that far out, and even at this fraction of his full height, he was easily as tall as two human males.

  Thinking of humans wrapped him in a veil of sadness. He and Epimetheus had such hopes for their creation. They’d teach them love and trust and honor and empathy. Now Prometheus’ twin was dead, destroyed before his eyes by Kronos, and the humans had been used both to feed the Olympians’ power and as meat shields in the gods’ fight against the Titans.

  Or rather, against Kronos. So many of the Titans refused to take Kronos’ side, yet with him defeated, Zeus turned against them all. One after the other, he’d found them and sent them to the depths of Tartarus, while he’d left the Titanesses finish their lives as mortals.

  Prometheus had watched from afar, hidden from Zeus, while his beloved Klymene grew old and perished. Tens of thousands of years had passed, yet he still remembered every line etched in her beautiful face.

  He’d buried her and run from the Olympian, mourning his lost love. For eons he had nothing to live for, yet he persevered, unwilling to let Zeus beat him.

  Until he met Pherusa—a Nereid as beautiful as Aphrodite herself.

  Now he didn’t want to run anymore. He ached to build a life with his Siren. A life that would begin tonight.

  Where was his love? The water reached his waist now, but her head hadn’t broken the surface.

  “Pherusa?” he called out, a little more loudly this time.

  Her tail sliced the water ahead of him. In the darkness, it seemed more gray than green. His little nymph wanted to play. Despite the direness of their situation, he found himself smiling. She was perfect, and would be all his tonight. Forever. With the approval of the god of the sea, he and Pherusa would be happy and safe together, beyond Zeus’ reach. Poseidon was known for being territorial; even Zeus wouldn’t dare attack someone his brother had granted asylum to.

  Bubbles fizzled in front of him, and Prometheus plunged both hands in the water, meaning to close his palms around his Nereid’s supple curves.

  Something burned his wrists, and he pulled his hands up with a wince, to see a golden rope wound around them, searing the skin it touched.

  Zeus’ lightning whip.

  Prometheus used his superhuman strength, trying to separate his wrists. To break free of his bonds. His hands could move mountains, but couldn’t break Zeus’ hold. All he got for his troubles was the smell of charred flesh, as the binds dug deeper. He lifted his arms over his head and roared his frustration—not that he’d been caught, but for Pherusa’s betrayal.

  She and her father were the only ones who knew Prometheus would be here tonight. She was supposed to take him under. Bring him to her father’s underwater kingdom, and mate with him. Instead...

  Pain speared his chest, and a bright blue light blinded him.

  He didn’t have to see, to know. Zeus had pierced him with his lightning.

  Prometheus’ arms were free now, but he couldn’t move them. Or his legs. Or even his tongue, to give Zeus a piece of his mind, when the Olympian ruler floated in front of him.

  He was frozen in place, and to add to his plight, his mind wasn’t affected by the curse disabling his body.

  “I’d take you to Olympus, to decorate my halls, next to Atlas and Hyperion, but I have enough statues there,” Zeus said with a smug smirk. “Besides, I heard you wished to live out your long life in the sea, so I’ll be magnanimous.” His shrewd expression belied his words even before a snap of his fingers sent Prometheus tumbling into the black, cold waters.

  It felt like an eternity before Prometheus’ back hit the bottom of the sea, but his fall didn’t end there. The ground shifted, sucking him into a crater, and earth covered his still form.

  He wasn’t doomed to Tartarus. He was buried alive, while inside he raged against the god who trapped him and the Nereid who betrayed him.

  Chapter One

  Three thousand years since Pherusa lost the only male she ever loved, yet the way Prometheus looked when she first laid eyes on him was emblazoned into her memory.

  He’d come to her father’s kingdom, Vythos, to request asylum, and Pherusa was instantly smitten with his coal-black eyes that shone gold when he met her gaze.

  Easily half a meter taller than Father, who was the tallest male she’d seen till then, he swam toward her with his dark mane swirling around his head. The humans’ sense of propriety hadn’t spread to Vythos yet, and he’d been naked and glorious. His body could have been chiseled into granite, from his wide chest, to his hard abs and strong legs.

  But something else had caught Pherusa’s hungry gaze.

  Vythos didn’t yet have the air bubbles that allowed her family and the merpeople to assume their human form, and while Pherusa had often visited the surface with her sisters, she’d never seen a disrobed human male. She was mesmerized by what hung from the thatch of hair between the Titan’s legs.

  Prometheus had caught her looking and smiled, and it was like dawn itself had forced its way into the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and warmed her heart.

  “Are you all right?” Palaemon asked, snapping her back to the present.

  Father and the sea hag hid Vythos in the deepest region of the Mediterranean Sea the very day Prometheus was taken from her, to protect the merpeople from Zeus’ wrath, if he decided to punish them for siding with a Titan. Nobody but the witch and sea daimons could travel between it and the surface unassisted since. Instead of a bespelled amulet, like Circe gave Father and Mother for that purpose, Pherusa had been assigned this sea daimon.

  “I’m fine. Thank you for bringing me.” She managed a smile for her old friend. Not his fault he was another painful reminder of Prometheus’ demi
se.

  Not dead. In Tartarus.

  Same thing. He was lost to her and to the world, either way. And such a monumental loss it was—not only had her heart gone with him, but humans also suffered the lack of his guidance.

  “Do you wish for me to wait?” Palaemon asked, same as every single time he brought her here. His eyes, blue like sapphires, glinted with pity she didn’t care to acknowledge.

  “No. Come back for me at dawn,” she replied, like she always did. She knew what he’d say when he returned too. Not much changed in her life after her hope for a happily ever after was snuffed out by Zeus.

  May he and Poseidon and the rest of their ilk be lost in Lethe forever. Though the last of the Olympians faded years ago, and she and her family were the only deities remaining in this world, she wouldn’t voice her thought aloud.

  Palaemon went under with a splash, and Pherusa turned toward the beach on which she’d once promised to meet her love. The waterline had receded through the years, and the persistent waves had worn the rocks into sand, but she still felt it as their place. Hers and Prometheus’, even if he wouldn’t set foot on it again.

  She slapped the water with her tail, until she was close enough to shore for her scales to give way to smooth skin and her green tail to split into pale legs. She walked the rest of the distance to the sand, and there she dropped to her knees and wept.

  Pain, raw and fresh as on the day he was taken from her, tore through her heart and made her stomach heave. It was a physical torment that squeezed her lungs like a vise and stole her breath. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks, until her eyes burned but could produce no more moisture, and her sobs were stolen by the wind.

  She sat up and gathered her knees to her chest. The sand was still warm, though the sun had set, but it did nothing for the cold void between her ribs.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the evening sky, although Prometheus wouldn’t hear her. He wasn’t up there. His gentle soul was locked up in the underworld, along with those of his brothers. And it was her fault. If she hadn’t listened to Father that night, if she hadn’t accepted his promise that the Ichthyocentaur Aphros would bring Prometheus to her...

  And she was wasting her night, thinking of Prometheus’ last day on earth, instead of their time together.

  She lay on her back and studied the stars above, searching for a new one. Titans might be condemned to Hell, but there had been whispers in Vythos that the earth itself was nudging them awake. If any one of them could escape Tartarus, it would be Prometheus. He was always so creative and smart. He understood how things—and gods and animals and people—worked, just by looking at them.

  And he was good with his hands, too. He’d had a wicked way of bypassing her defenses and making her ask for more. She’d beg him to caress her breasts, her belly, and lower...

  Not a moment passed when she didn’t begrudge herself the choice to wait until they had her parents’ blessing as a couple, before she gave herself to him completely. If she’d done it sooner, she’d have memories of his sculpted body pressed to hers, to keep her warm when loneliness and sorrow chilled her to the bone.

  She closed her eyes and spread her legs, for the lapping wave to reach the apex of her thighs.

  Prometheus had convinced her to let him taste her once. Sadly, the sea foam couldn’t come close to the sensations that had made her body tingle. Neither did her hand, when she slid her fingers through her short curls and along her slit. Nothing compared to him, and she’d forever be bereft.

  The future looked bleak as her present, so Pherusa once more focused on her past with him.

  Father didn’t have the power to grant someone asylum within Poseidon’s realm, but he’d offered the Titan a secret room, cloaked from the gods by the witch, so he could rest for a few weeks before he resumed running. Pherusa spent her free time trying to spot his hiding place.

  Heat spread from her cheeks down to her chest, as she recalled the day she finally found it.

  He left the door ajar, disrupting the cloaking spell, and was on his bed, spread legs dangling over the edge. Pherusa watched through the opening as he fisted his hand around the flaccid member between his legs and tugged. She was intrigued by how his phallus grew long and thick with his strokes.

  She barely breathed while he tortured himself, his beautiful face contorted in what she later found out was ecstasy. He turned and looked straight at her. “Like what you see, little Siren?” he asked in her head, the way sea creatures communicated underwater.

  She liked it so much, she forgot she wasn’t supposed to be there. Braveness or stupidity made her push the door open all the way, so he could see her nod.

  Prometheus smiled that sinful smile of his and beckoned her closer. “Come inside, and I’ll show you more.”

  She timidly swam a couple meters closer to his bed.

  Sitting up with a wicked grin, he opened his mouth and inhaled, filling his lungs with water.

  Immortals didn’t drown, but Pherusa couldn’t think, with his body turning hard again in front of her eyes. “Stop,” she screamed in his head.

  The oxygen bubble he blew out filled the room, displacing the water so fast, she barely had time to shift her position, so she didn’t fall when her tail was replaced by legs. A flick of his wrist, and the door banged shut.

  Before Pherusa could blink, he had her very human, very naked body pressed to the slick wood. “I’ve seen you watching me, little Siren,” he said against her cheek. His deep, smooth voice glided over her senses, adding to the ball of fire swirling in her belly. “Are you spying on me for your father, or is it curiosity, driving you?”

  She hadn’t felt desire this strong before. It took every ounce of willpower, for her to mutter, “My father has nothing to do with this.”

  Prometheus let out a growl that made her shiver, and crushed his mouth to hers. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, and at her gasp, thrust his tongue between them, to battle with hers. His teeth nipped at her mouth, as he swallowed her breaths.

  Her body was on fire, and he hadn’t even touched her. Yet.

  When he broke away from the kiss, she met his gaze. “You said you’d show me.”

  She cupped her sex now, on their beach, and circled her button with her index and middle fingers, pretending she was with him, in his room, more than three millennia ago, as he directed her hand first to please herself, and then to give him another climax.

  She’d been trying to wrap her mind around this new power she’d discovered—to drive a Titan over the edge with just one hand—when he’d pushed her back onto the bed and covered her body with his.

  If only she hadn’t stopped him...

  She moved her fingers faster, pressing down on her clitoris, while she pinched her nipple with her free hand. It wouldn’t do. She’d chased after her orgasm before, but without him, it never worked.

  Why hadn’t she let him inside her body when he asked? She’d let him into her heart and mind and soul in the days that followed, but insisted they should wait for when they were officially mated. Father had given his blessing when she went to him in tears and begged him to ask Poseidon for help. But it was too late.

  “Let me see you.” Prometheus’ words rattled in her brain, as vivid as if they’d been spoken aloud, and she spread her legs wider, in reality and in her fantasy. She stopped touching her mons and grazed her fingernails along her inner thigh, holding her breath as she served herself to the hungry gaze of her imaginary lover.

  “So beautiful. And all mine.”

  She startled when she felt a heavy weight settle on top of her, but she didn’t open her eyes. If her imagination offered her one single time with Prometheus, she’d do nothing to make it slip between her fingers.

  “Look at me. I need to see your gorgeous eyes.” The sea breeze caressing her cheek could be his breath, as if he whispered in her ear.

  She shook her head. “If I open them, you’ll disappear.” It wouldn’t be the first time he came t
o her in a vision, but she hadn’t been awake before, and she wouldn’t risk reality swooping in and taking him away now.

  Something blunt nudged her mound, and in her mind’s eye, Prometheus aligned his length with her entrance. “You haunt my dreams,” he said. “Why do I love you in my dreams?”

  Such a weird question, but Pherusa’s body was humming with need, and deciphering a phantom’s words would have to wait. “Take me,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Rough fingers dug into her hips, the sensation so vivid, she hitched a surprised breath. Lips, warm and soft, yet demanding, closed over hers and swallowed her moan. When his tongue wedged its way into her mouth, to tangle with her own, Pherusa gasped at the intensity of his kiss. Her fantasy started fraying at the edges, and she tried to return her hand to her clitoris, needing the friction to help her hold on to the tattered images.

  “No,” Prometheus said. “That’s mine.” He pressed his thumb to her clitoris and twisted.

  “Please,” she cried to the heavens, squeezing her eyes shut harder. “Please.”

  His form solidified again behind her eyelids, and she focused on his eyes. She hadn’t remembered how striking a gold they were when he called on his powers. She tangled her fingers in his long, dark hair, and the wet tresses felt so real, she half-expected him to be here, above her, if she dared look.

  “Are you sure, little Siren?”

  Oh, how she’d missed hearing him call her that. She nodded. “Yes. Make me yours.”

  She didn’t expect the sharp jab of pain when he pushed inside her.

  Her eyes flew open and teared up at the suddenness and force of the invasion. Her tight sex stretched around his girth as he thrust through her hymen. Her vision was blurry, but she wasn’t mistaken. The man pressing her to the sand and plunging into her body was the one she thought she’d lost forever. “Prometheus,” she whispered

  “Were you expecting someone else?” His smile was as bright as the sun, as he propped himself up on one arm so he could cup her breast with the other. “Play with yourself, little Siren. Like I taught you.”