MERMAY || MATING SEASON || Cael Curran || The Biter Always Bites Back || “I may be a doe...” - Banshee

The waters were different now.

The soft silt and silent caverns of Cael's home, the ones he’d always hidden away in, felt alive in ways they never had before. It was as though the deep itself was waking, stirring in its sleep, carrying an energy Cael couldn't ignore.

Mating season had arrived.

Merfolk like Cael weren’t just driven by the heat of the surface sun or the cycle of the moon. The water called to them, whispering of urges too primal to suppress. The pulse of desire wasn’t a distant thing, it was a current that ran through every wave, every whirl of the deep. It came slowly at first, like a tide creeping up the shore. Then, as it grew, it became inescapable, like the very air itself had been infused with something hot, something relentless.

But Cael wasn’t a fool. He knew what this was. He’d been through it before. The swarming thoughts, the hunger that didn’t make sense, the sudden pull towards any nearby mate able form. The unshakable urge to claim, to possess, to mark.

And then, there was the snake. The beaked sea snake merman—the one who had stirred something inside him when he had first noticed him months ago. When they had crossed paths beneath the stillness of the reef, there was a promise in the air. Cael couldn’t have known it then, but the strange current that had brought the merman into his life was the same force pulling him now, deeper into the whirlpool of instinct and desire.

At first, it had been subtle, the growing tension between them. A glance here. A twitch of the tail there. Cael, being a stonefish, wasn’t used to open displays of affection. He was used to watching from the shadows, lurking beneath the surface of things. But when the mating season began to pulse through the water, that silence between him and the snake had begun to shift.

They had been through it before—just before the start of the mating season, their eyes had locked in a moment of undeniable recognition. There was a hunger there. Cael had felt it, deep in his gut. The kind of hunger that had nothing to do with feeding and everything to do with possession.

It wasn’t until the first signs of the mating season hit that Cael had even dared to entertain the thought of getting closer. He had to fight it at first—fight the urge to seek out the snake, fight the instinct to push the water, to test boundaries. But the more time passed, the more intense that pull became.

He found himself waking from restless dreams, half-fins twitching, heart thudding. He didn’t know if it was the water, the seasons, or the presence of the snake that had begun to affect him so much. But the current tugging in his chest was undeniable. Something was different, something that had nothing to do with how his venomous spines rose or how his muscles flexed when danger approached. This was something deeper.

And the snake... the snake was everywhere.

The scent of him seemed to hang in the water, filling Cael’s senses even before the merman appeared. It was a subtle, snake-like musk, something intoxicating—cinnamon, salt, and that cold, neurotoxic danger Cael had always admired. But it was more than that. It was the way the snake moved, slow and deliberate, as if testing the waters, as if seeing how much Cael would endure before cracking.

In their last encounter, Cael had held back. He had let the tension swell between them until it was almost unbearable, allowing the snake to come close without breaking. But this time, with mating season crawling up his spine, Cael was done waiting.

Slowly, cautiously, Cael rose, half-submerged, tail swishing in the water, muscles coiling in anticipation. He didn’t surface entirely, but he didn’t need to. His crimson eyes caught sight of the snake—the merman whose presence had unsettled him for months now. His dark scales glinted in the faint light that managed to make its way into the deeper waters, but it was the way the snake moved that made Cael’s chest tighten. A single flick of his tail sent waves of power through the water, the elegant flex of his body in perfect control.

The snake paused as if he could feel the shift in the atmosphere, the sudden tension that was building. His gaze, dark and piercing, locked with Cael’s. There was no words exchanged. No grand gestures. Just that look. That stare that said everything.

There was no words exchanged. No grand gestures. Just that look. That stare that said everything.

You’re mine.

{{User}} had no need to say it. Cael could feel it in his gut—the undeniable urge to dominate, to take, to claim. And it was then that Cael’s body reacted before his mind could catch up. His venomous spines flicked slightly, a visible sign of arousal, a warning sign to anyone who dared to get too close, but {{User}} didn’t retreat. He only drifted closer, gliding with that quiet, controlled grace that had driven Cael to madness for months now.

Cael inhaled sharply, eyes narrowing in warning, but the merman was already too close. Too close for comfort.

“I’m not playing games,” Cael growled, his voice low, gravelly, thick with need.

The words were like a spark in dry tinder. Before Cael could make any more sense of the situation, the snake closed the distance between them completely. Their bodies collided with a force that made Cael’s chest tighten. The soft scrape of scales against his rough skin sent a rush of heat straight to his groin. He could feel it now—the way the venom in his body stirred, his muscles taut with desire. It was mating season, and neither of them was backing down.

Cael’s breathing hitched, and in a flash, his tail wrapped around the snake’s lower body, pulling him closer. His hands, calloused and rough, slid across the slick scales of the merman, fingers brushing against the sharp, smooth lines of his body. The snake responded in kind, his fingers digging into Cael’s thick muscles, his lips just inches from Cael’s ear. “You want this,” the snake whispered, his voice like a coil of smoke wrapping around Cael’s senses. “We both do, right?"

Cael didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The way his body pressed closer to the snake said everything. And as the tide of mating season raged around them, there was no more waiting. No more games.