Chapter 2

"This will prepare you for the three days you'll be spending here."

Ja Lia watched Poseidon walk down the aisle. The torrent of the sea at this depth wasn't as unbearable as he had thought it would be. He was loving it here, and he wished he could stay forever.

They had been walking from one end of the room to the other. He couldn't remember how many days he had spent here. All he knew was that Poseidon loathed Lailah and wanted to use him against her.

Of course, Poseidon had promised him untold riches, including one of the gold statues he was standing in front of at that very moment. Why wouldn't he agree to Poseidon's terms? He knew full well how happily he could live off that gold.

All he had been asked to do was get rid of Lailah. Lure her into having sex with him. That was all. That wouldn't even be difficult.

Lailah was a sex addict. If he could make her pay for all the trouble she'd caused him. If he could make her pay for having sex with both his younger brothers. He would gladly do it.

"I used to think you would dress me in armor to go fight her," Ja said as he followed Poseidon out of the room.

He had been told that he could only ask questions pertaining to his reason for being abducted. Poseidon had once told him that if he wanted to know more about the ways of the ocean, he should come on a tour.

Ja walked briskly to keep up with him. He loved everything about this Poseidon guy except how assertive he could be. And his bluntness. And his long face. Damn. He didn't think he'd ever seen him smile.

Ja Lia walked through a door, and the gate shut automatically behind him.

He wasn't surprised. He was already used to such magic. Nothing seemed to impress him anymore, not after he'd seen a lady eat an enormous live adder. That had been a spectacle.

But he always wondered why he wasn't being swept off his feet by the current. Plus, he could breathe under the water. It felt natural. Like he was living and walking on the earth.

He was sure that something had been done to him to make him adapt so easily to underwater life. He had been told that he was unconscious for a month.

But he shook away those thoughts as he walked up beside Poseidon.

Poseidon's arms were so huge that they could lift Mount Everest and toss it into the Nile. You might call that an exaggeration, but Ja Lia knew what he was seeing.

"What if something goes wrong?" Ja asked, touching the right arm of the eight-foot-tall monster.

He removed his hand immediately. A jolt of electricity had shot from his arm into his hand and shocked away all intelligent thought. He was brain dead for the next few seconds.

When Poseidon noticed that Ja Lia was sane again, he snorted and commented, "You seem to learn the hard way."

Ja Lia kept his face down. He felt violated, but he knew that he had overstepped his bounds.

They were standing before Poseidon's castle, and there were numerous ladies attending to several sea creatures. None of the creatures paid any attention to Poseidon and Ja. Ja felt they were much more civil than humans.

Poseidon looked around for a while and said to him, "If you want something to go wrong, it surely will."

He walked straight towards the castle, his long robe swaying to the rhythm of the current. Ja watched him lift a baby Nymph belonging to one of the ladies standing at gate.

He looked away. He felt crushed. He felt cursed. But he knew that if he made the right choices, things would turn out for the better.

Poseidon had installed what looked like a horn in Ja Lia's body. He didn't know how it had gone through his skin.

Poseidon had often told him, "Do not try to understand."

He had been told that the semen would come from the horn and immediately find its way into Lailah. Then his job would be done.

The current began to whisper and sweep past the fall of his nose. He raised his head up to sniff at it.

Then he heard a giggle coming from beside his leg. He looked down. One of the Nymph babies was a few steps away from him. She was looking at him and gibbering between giggles.

He smiled down at the baby, and she began to crawl towards him.

"Bad idea, baby. Bad. Stay. Don't come any closer," he was throwing out as many negative words as he could think of, hoping the baby would understand at least one.

But they all fell on the baby's deaf ears. She kept crawling closer.

He began to move back. He shouldn't touch the baby. He shouldn't touch any of the living creatures here. He shouldn't.

The baby stopped crawling. She pouted. She seemed to have figured out that he was avoiding her. But she was way too young to understand why. Well, at least that's what he assumed.

The baby put her hands out to him. He grimaced and muttered, "Not on your life."

He had barely finished speaking when the baby started crying. Tears inspired by a bully. And, before he could utter another word, all the ladies descended upon him.

He had no clue how to explain. Everyone seemed to be against him.