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and a cart had been rolled in. There were two plates with meat and many fruits and a couple of flaky biscuits shaped like half of a moon. I sat in the chair that had been brought up to the cart and just stared at the plate and flatware.
    I’d watched my Master using utensils, but he’d never fed me that way. When he’d fed me it had been straight from his hand. These smooth bits of silver with prongs were too impersonal, and I couldn’t imagine eating that way.
    “Nerina?”
    I looked up at him, feeling the tears well in my eyes about to spill out again. I didn’t say anything in reply. What was there to say? He didn’t push the issue; he just got up from the table and went to the closet. He came out with a black silk robe.
    “Come here,” he said.
    I couldn’t walk on my own without his help, so I went down to my hands and knees. Crawling was easier. I looked up at him about halfway there and was taken aback by a dark hunger in his eyes, and somehow I realized that watching me crawl did something carnal to him.
    When I reached him, I could see his erection tenting his pants. He gripped underneath my elbows and brought me to stand, then helped me into the robe. He tied it around my waist, and I tried to memorize the way he did it with the loops and wrapping the belt around them, then pulling it tight into a bow. In the sea we didn’t have anything we tied like that.
    “Go to the pool, I’ll be right behind you.”
    “I … ” Did he expect me to crawl? What about the stairs? I reasoned that I’d slithered on my belly to get down a set of stairs the first night when I’d still had my fin, but that was different. I lived here now.
    “Crawl.” he said.
    He’d been holding on to my waist, steadying me after he’d tied the robe shut. Now he let go and stepped out of my reach. I went immediately to my knees, too unsteady to stand and walk without assistance. I imagined with a wall nearby I could have started learning to walk, but at the moment, a wall was too far away and the fierce look in Kyros’ eyes stopped those thoughts in their tracks.
    Obediently I turned and started to crawl from the room. I heard a sound catch in his throat, and I knew this turned him on, and that whether I could walk or not, he’d ask me to do this again. The slow, answering throb between my legs made clear that he wasn’t the only one who found this somehow erotic. I tensed, wondering if he’d lose all control and fling the robe up over my back to kneel behind and take me.
    I didn’t know how I felt about that. Despite not having an orgasm during sex, there was an odd sort of comfort in being possessed by someone.
    I could hear his footsteps behind me as I made my way downstairs. I let my arms do most of the work on the descent, much as I had that first night. When I got to the room with the pool, I crawled to the edge and waited, my body humming as I sensed his approach. He shut the door softly and brought the plates over to the edge.
    “Get in and swim.”
    I stared at the pool for a good minute. I’d been mourning the loss of the sea and now that I was looking at a piece of it, being allowed to swim in it, I didn’t know what to do. With a fin and no ability to drown, it had been natural. Now I wasn’t sure.
    “I don’t think I know how.”
    He raised an eyebrow at me. “You’ve swam your whole life, and you’ve watched me. Get in and try.”
    “I … can’t even stand well.” As a mermaid the idea of not being able to stand in the water, of even standing at all, had been so foreign it had been laughable, but now I was desperate for my legs to work because I needed them to support me.
    “Nerina. Do as I say. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
    The look in his eyes was so fiercely protective that I became more afraid of disappointing him than of the water. I eased myself in and gripped the side of the pool for balance. I could stand in this depth but still feared falling and going under. I was torn