I stood, my body bouncing against the sand, and I wobbled as I tried to stay upright, almost tumbling into a summersault again.
Jason chuckled and gripped my hips to center me, my feet touching down on the sand.
I looked around at their near naked bodies and a little naughtiness rose up and tampered down my shyness.
“Actually…I would love to see your tails first,” I grinned devilishly.
The guys shared a look with one another before shrugging and with grins of their own began to slowly remove their boxers. I mentally strong armed myself into not turning away and committing every moment to memory. Just before any of them completely undressed, hands covered my eyes from behind, effectively blindfolding me.
“Hey!” I whined, pulling at the hands.
I felt a chest press hard against mine. “Now, now, don’t ruin our chastity.”
Theseus.
“That’s not very fair. You undressed in front of me before.” I grumbled.
He chuckled. “I hope you realize your complaining falls on deaf ears.”
“I don’t care if you can’t hear me! I’m still going to complain!”
“I’m assuming you’re still complaining so I’ll just stop you right there,” He said before tilting my head back and kissing me squarely on the mouth.
This was my first time kissing someone upside down and it was no less amazing as his cool lips sent tingles dancing over my body. All too quickly he pulled away, but not before licking my bottom lip.
I growled and was about to pull him back towards me when he rushed over my head, a large mass of green scales filling my vision.
Blinking rapidly, I swiveled my head to watch him kick his powerful tail and speed through the water until he was only a speck in the distance before he rushed back towards us. He was breathtaking. They all were.
Strong bodies with scales in similar patterns to mine, covering the tops of their arms, making patterns at their hairlines. Unlike me, they didn’t have scales covering their whole torso, just a large diamond in the center of their chests, tapering up from their waist line and encircling their belly buttons. I guess nature felt I needed more protection
Their tails looked just like the ones I’d seen in photographs. Each one of them had their own color scheme, which was interesting as I had only ever seen Ajax’s scales…no, wait, that wasn’t right. They had shown me their scales when I had first woken up.
I shook my head, brushing away my confusion. I pushed off the sand and swam closer to them.
Hip was the closest and most noticeable with his bright silver scales that shimmered as he moved, almost reflecting the other colors around him. His tail fin flowed, almost looking like a thin cloth which came to two points, swaying back and forth in the water. I swam around him, seeing that he had long and wispy dorsal fin that began at his shoulder blades and ran down along his spine, tapering off near the tip of his tail. He also had two ventral fins at the points on his hips where skin became scale.
I paused for a moment and giggled to myself. I was sure they would be calling me a nerd if they heard my inner thoughts and realized I actually knew the different fins on a fish. Having a father who often masqueraded as a fisherman came with at least a little knowledge of marine life.
As my gaze moved up his tail and settled on his face, my jaw dropped. His eyes! The whites of his eyes were gone, replaced with the pure color of his irises. In this light they looked blue, but if I knew Hip they would change again the next time I looked. I glanced at the other guys to see that they all had the freaky eye thing going on— except Ajax, who’s eyes still looked human beyond the eerie glow they gave off.
I marveled on this discovery for a moment before moving on to study Theseus. His scales were green, and unlike Hip’s solid color, his green was static, flowing from one shade to the next, but predominately a deep emerald. His ventral fins were further down his tail.
I put my hand to my chin, mentally debating with myself before deciding his were more like pectoral fins, as unlike Hip’s, Theseus’ fins rounded at the tips. My eyes moved lower to study his tail fin. It was much more like the classic fin depicted in drawings and in Disney.
I snorted. “Oh my god, you’re the little mermaid.”
“What?”
I looked into his eyes, unable to resist smiling. “Red hair and a green tail. You’re Ariel from The Little Mermaid!
His mouth fell open, his face flashing in horror. “I am not!”
“Oh, this is fantastic.” Hip sniggered.
Theseus’s head whipped back and forth between the guys. “Don’t you dare start!”
Hip shrugged, feigning innocence. “We didn’t say anything.”
“Oh, I’m so sure you didn’t, you little shrimp.”
“Shrimp? Who you callin’ a shrimp, Princess?!”
I rolled my eyes and ignored them. They were all steam. I doubted they would do anything more than bicker. I moved on to inspect Ajax. His scales were amazing to look at: jet black, shimmering with iridescence as he moved, very much like an oil slick. His tail was similar to Hip’s, with black ventral fins at his hips and a wispy curtain-like tail fin.
A shimmering of gray caught my attention. The diamond of scales on his chest, right over his heart, had a patch of gray scales encased by his black ones.
My hand reached out and touched the lighter scales. I thought of my own spattering of light scales which covered the scar tissue on my body. Were these scales also covering scar tissue? If so, what could have caused such a horrible wound?
I gritted my teeth and looked into Ajax’s eyes, gathering up the courage to ask him what caused his injury. I halted when I realized how sad he looked as he stared down at the spot I was touching. I pulled my hand back and hugged it to my chest. It wasn’t my place to be digging into his past and I scolded myself for thinking I should.
I inhaled and moved on, not wanting to linger any longer on that sad gaze. I turned to Jason, my trouble boy, the one who had saved my life that night by turning me. His coloring was similar to my own, but his scales had more blue in them than mine. Still, the purples and near pink patches of scales I spotted were not what I expected on such a masculine guy.
I gave him a smile as I swam closer to him.
Jason reached for my hand and pulled me closer. "Are you enjoying yourself?"
“Maybe, just a little."
"We figured you would want to study us at some point. You're too curious not to. I will say, it is hard to tamper down my jealousy when I see you starting so intensely at other men like that."
I instantly felt guilty. I had been so focused on myself that I hadn't considered them. We hadn't spoken much about it since I had woken up, but it was clear they all knew about my feelings for each of them now. They had seemed to settle in around me without much of a thought. Shouldn't they be mad? Fighting with each other, or at the very least angry with me for stringing them along like this? And, oh, my God, Theseus had kissed me in front of them! They had clearly seen that, there was no way they hadn’t.
What was I doing?
Whore.
Slut.
"Hey, hey," Jason gripped my chin between his fingers gently and drew my attention back to him. ”I can see your mind spiraling. I know we have a lot to talk about where all of us are concerned, but one thing at a time, okay? First, we want to get you back on your feet, and then we will talk."
“But…” I glanced at the others, who were looking at us now. Though, I didn’t see Percy in my line of sight.
I began to look around for him when Jason’s voice drew my attention back to him. "You've been through an ordeal. Some things can wait. For now, why don’t you finish checking us out and then we can see about getting you a pretty tail of your own?”