Awakening by Kitty Thomas Read Free Book Online

between crying and laughing over the absurdity. Me, afraid of water.
    “You’ve watched me swim every morning. You know what to do,” he said, his legs now in the pool, brushing against my hip.
    “What if I can’t? What if I go under?”
    “Then I’ll come get you.”
    I knew he would, but even so, I didn’t want to risk it.
    The door opened and a servant walked in. Her eyes widened when she saw me in the pool, obviously with legs now. Or perhaps it was my nudity that startled her. Like Estella, the woman who had brought linens, this woman, though younger, seemed equally prim and proper. She held two glasses of juice, sat them beside the plates, then averted her eyes from me and left.
    I can’t recall how I moved my arms or how I breathed or held my breath, or how I kicked out. I just did it. I didn’t think. It was as natural as it had been in the ocean, which made me feel silly for worrying about it. The water was my true home and always would be. Legs or no legs.
    Even so, the salt water wasn’t a necessity for life. We were now two separate things, Nerina and the water. Where before we had been one, blending and merging together until I could never tell where I ended and the sea began. Once I got past this new sensation, I got used to the way my legs sliced through the water, so different from how I’d moved with a fin, but no less enjoyable.
    Finally I swam back to Kyros. When I gripped the edge of the pool for support, he pressed a strawberry into my mouth. For the first time since I’d lost my fin, I smiled.
    I assumed after breakfast that he’d go off and leave me for a while. Maybe in the pool, or maybe in the bedroom. Surely he had other business to attend to besides seducing me. But instead he left the plates and glasses behind for the servants to clean up and ordered me out of the water. When it proved impossible under my own steam and I started to panic, he lifted me out, then wrapped a towel around me and led me to the stairs.
    “What about the robe?” I asked. It still was crumpled on the stone floor next to our abandoned meal.
    “Leave it. You won’t be needing it.”
    This made me apprehensive. I was well aware of what he intended to do with me if I wouldn’t be needing the robe. I still wasn’t sure if I really liked sex. I liked all the things that had led up to it, and the pleasure he’d produced in me, but sex itself had hurt and I was afraid it would continue to hurt every time we did it.
    This time he helped me walk. It was slow going, but he was patient. I watched my feet the whole time. For the first time since the transformation I was able to bring myself to look at them. Really look at them. They were a marvel of bio-mechanics. I’d always thought my fin was special, but I couldn’t comprehend the number of bones and muscles that must make up the human foot. Maybe I could learn to appreciate my new legs and feet. There were so many new things I could learn to do. Walk, run, climb, dance. Then my mind started to go down less pure paths, imagining all the different positions Kyros could get me into now that I had legs.
    When we got back to his room, he looked me over, assessing. “Are you cold?”
    “No, Master.” I blushed because while I was aware of the faint trembling that had started in my limbs, I’d thought I’d successfully kept it concealed from him. Now, my first full day as a human, I was even more afraid than I’d been back when I could be put on the dinner menu.
    After several days with him, I’d convinced myself I wouldn’t become human and he might not kill me. I’d go back to the sea eventually, so the idea that being with Kyros was going to be a long-term situation hadn’t really entered my mind. When events had played out in my head, it was always a few weeks at most. Either I’d be killed or released when he got bored with hoping I’d change into something that could never be.
    But now that it had happened, it was finally sinking in just how