Deep Hydra by Michael Formichelli

Author:Michael Formichelli [Formichelli, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Steam rose from the water and collected in droplets on the sandstone dome above. The air was as thick in her nostrils as it was difficult to see through, and smelled like wet grit. She identified three dark shapes in the sweltering air ahead of her in the middle of the pool, but though she was close enough to tell they were all around her height the steam obscured any hope of identification. There was a fourth being to her right seated on the submerged pedestals by himself.

Meia gritted her teeth when she plunged her foot into the waist-deep water. The heat sent needles of pain racing up her skin but she didn’t let it stop her. She sat down on the stone edge and briefly enjoyed the rough, cool touch on her derriere before pushing herself all the way in. The heat and pain shot up to her waist intense enough to feel like it was running though her, but she grimaced and kept going.

“Impressive,” Sanul said from his perch as she approached. “I’ve never seen a human just jump right in like that. I thought they kept these pools too hot for your kind.”

“For some of my kind, maybe,” she responded. Her body was already adjusting. The scalding heat became something that was just uncomfortable.

She saw herself reflected in his large, geode-like eyes when she reached between her legs and hoisted herself up on the pedestal beside his. She squatted on the balls of her feet, mimicking the position he held on his crystal hooves as best as her anatomy allowed.

“You know our etiquette, and it looks like your tracker works.”

“My father took me many places as a girl. I learned a lot—and yes it does,” she said in Volgothic and took pleasure in the flickering of his ears against his horns.

“Nice chains.” Sanul indicated the tiny links running over her shoulders, down through her cleavage, and out over her hips. In addition to the traditional bathing necklace, she fashioned several rings on her fingers and toes, an anklet, and metallic silver hair from which now dripped beads of sweat from her scalp.

“Thank you.” She didn’t feel the need to tell him they were made of armacorium instead of real silver.

“What brings you to me today? Is it time to pay up what I owe you for freeing me?” His tone was melancholy.

“Time to start.”

She turned at the sound of hooves on the stone and watched a light-brown confectioner, who had rather obvious musculature beneath his fur, enter the chamber. Meia waved him over and unabashedly looked between his legs as he squatted down in a way that only someone with two knee-like joints could. She let her eyes linger, then her attention to the metal tray he carried with an appreciative smile. She picked out a roll of the dried phytrophor leaf and a rope of black candy, taking each between her fingers and paid for it with Carina Starblood’s account. The handsome Volgoth gave her a nod and climbed into the pool heading for the group in the middle.

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