[Desperate ham of a researcher x aloof, haughty mermaid queen]
After dying suddenly in the lab, Lin Yan was reborn as the mermaid queen's "breeding stock."
"Awake?" A voice spoke directly into the room, cold and pleasant, without a hint of inflection.
She moved, and the clink of chains shattered the silence.
Lin Yan's scalp went numb, her heart pounded wildly, and her instinct to survive overwhelmed her terror.
More fragmented memories came flooding back. This was the deep sea. Mermaids reproduced through parthenogenesis and sat at the top of the food chain. Humans were kept in captivity and called "bait" or "mates." Their sole purpose was to be selected for "mating," then become the final nourishing course on the queen's birthing bed, completing the so-called "genetic restoration."
She had been reborn as the "mate" chosen by the mermaid queen, who was about to eat her.
The queen's tail fin had already wound around her upper thighs. Its cold, slick touch made every nerve in her body scream.
On the brink of death, Lin Yan, a former researcher who had died suddenly in the lab, spotted dark red moss on the wall.
Her scientific instincts stirred. That smell... that color... She'd seen it before!
Lin Yan spent the night making an aphrodisiac from the most primitive materials. She had meant to use it to make the queen give up on eating her, but instead, it triggered a massive heat among the mermaids.
"A lowly piece of bait..."
Cold fingers gripped her chin and forced her head up, making her meet those furious, inhuman silver eyes.
The queen pinned her against the edge of the mating pool, her tail coiling tightly around her.
"Every mermaid in the sea is in heat because of you. How do you plan to take responsibility?"
Cold lips pressed against her warm skin, and fangs pierced her neck. Gasping, she pulled out her last card.
"Your Majesty, would you like to taste... what true love feels like?"
She put all her acting skills from both lives to use, gazing at the queen with tender affection, all to survive the cold-blooded mermaid's sharp teeth.
(A lighthearted, sweet romance in a female-dominated world, where the mermaid race is entirely female.)
Theme: Freedom is oxygen to the soul.
