Beauty, the Beasts and Other

Chapter 43

Trigger warning: mentions of violence, gore, and miscarriage.

Riley swam out of the cave towards the region of the clan settlement where the outsider was sighted with Bluepool and the other mermen that were watching over Marissa. It was communicated through the use of various high frequency sounds that the intruder was a red snake that seemed to hold a vendetta towards the merfolk. He was ripping the clansmen to shreds brutally and without hesitation.

Riley fought the urge to pause his movements and clench his chest, right where his heart lay. Since the pearl was broken, all he had been feeling from Marissa was pure, unbridled, and visceral hate towards him. He understood why, of course. The way he went about mating with her was improper and feral-like of him. He tried to justify his actions by saying he was only collecting what was promised to him, but deep down he knew the female wanted nothing to do with their clan. He just chose to ignore the blatant truth.

Regardless of the past, they were now a mated couple, and he would sooner die than allow her to turn him into a rootless beast.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, pain unlike anything he has ever felt erupted from deep within his heart and spread throughout his entire body in waves. He had to stop swimming towards the commotion as his entire body seemed to be frozen as pain rocked every fibre of his being.

Just like that, he was a rootless beastman.

No redemption.

No talking it out.

No reconciliation.

Riley wondered if what he had done truly warranted such a rash reaction.

'She said she would do it,' a small voice reminded him.

Yes, that's right. As he was about to commit his heinous act, she told him she would cut ties with him. It was just a matter of when. This shouldn't surprise him. It didn't, not really. But why does it hurt so fucking much?

Curtis relished the opportunity to release all his pent-up anger and frustration of the clan of overgrown guppies that disrupted his happy home life. He wanted every one of them erased from existence as if there had never been there to begin with.

Limbs, hearts, lone fish tails without upper bodies, and heads floated in a sea of red. The snake grinned maniacally as he continued his assault. The small waves of calm he felt from his Ari encouraged him to spend a bit more time making the clan suffer.

Just as he easily took care of a group of fifty by crushing them within his coils, he felt something peculiar. A similar feeling to the one he gets when he is around Ari's other mates. The feeling of a shared connection. This one felt wrong though. Damaged beyond compare and brimming with pain and contempt.

The red snake quickly scanned the crowd of mermen rushing toward him and carelessly stabbed them through the chest with the end of his tail as he tried pinpointing his new target. In the distance, was a merman that seemed to be in a daze. He wasn't focusing on his surroundings and looked to be in a great deal of pain.