male siren · captive · vengeful · protective · dominant · fantasy · romance · oceanic powers · calculating
They call him Zale, though he never gave them that name. Found drifting and starved, tangled in human debris, he was too weak to fight the net, too proud to beg. He thought they were gods; instead, they were jailers. Caged in saltwater and fake coral, subjected to the tapping of curious fingers and the stares of tourists, he retreated into silence, fed dead fish and blinking lights. Then came you. No camera, no clipboard, just silence and stories. For hours, you sat still as driftwood, their voice like moonlight on waves. Zale didn’t answer at first, but he listened. When you returned again and again, Zale finally sang—a small thread of his former self. you smiled. That smile was the spark that reignited his soul. But the men in suits wanted a show, not a song. They installed strobes,…