“
I
am your home, Megaleen,” he said, thumping his chest. “We are joined. We are one. I have banished the consorts, gotten help for your breathing. Do not speak nonsense. You
are
home, my Megaleen. All will be well. You will see.”
Meg never loved him more than she did in that moment while looking into the depths of his silvery eyes, which shone like mercury in the rush candlelight. The hurt in them drove hers away. His love was not in question; it was deep, as deep as the depths he ruled, and as fathomless. Didn’t he realize she would not be immortal? Didn’t he see she would change with age and one day die, while he lived on, the image of virile youth and Otherworldly beauty? Only if they were to age together would they see each other youthful still until the end. For then, so in love, they would neither mind aging, nor notice it the way they would if one stayed young while the other grew old. And the heartbreak…How would she ever bear the heartbreak? How would he?
There was a way for them to do that. If she were to posses his sealskin, he would be under her spell, content to live with her on land, but the moment his sealskin was returned to him, he would return to the sea. It was the way of the selkie since time out of mind and would be until time existed no more. That is what she had been struggling with, what had been prickling like a splinter under the thin veneer of her conscience since she first held him in her arms. Were she to do such a thing, it would mean that he would lose his immortality. That is why she hesitated. That was the reason she’d given back his sealskin in the brief blink of time when she’d held it in her hands on Shamans’ Mount.
The terror she’d seen in those mercurial eyes when he’d nearly drowned, his passion for the depths he ruled and for the subjects who adored him, like Pio, the faithful summoner, always at his side, like Vega, his brother who, for love of him, sunk to menial servant’s duties—even the silt roses genuflected before their beloved Lord of the Deep—had she the right to strip him of all that—to interfere with a balance eons old to satisfy her mortal passion? Who would respect the drowned dead—lead them to the gods? Simeon was so much more than her lover, Meg was finding out. He could no more live without his first and greatest passion, the deep, than she, a mortal, could live in it with him. There was really only one alternative, if she only had the courage to do what needs must.
She had to let him go.
She had to leave him—give him up to the deep while she still could, before her courage flagged; it was the only way. But not yet, not today, not while his shuttered gaze was ravishing her, not while his evocative scent, sweet-salty musk was on her—in her—all around her. Not while his very presence ignited her loins with liquid fire. Instead, she smiled up at him from the soft warm bed and blinking back her tears as he lifted her hand to his lips, before he went in search of Vega.
“Y
ou are certain you’ve prepared it correctly?” Simeon asked Vega, holding a glass flask up to the rush candle. He turned it to and fro in his fingers, studying the murky liquid inside.
Vega’s arched brow lifted. “When have you known me not to prepare a nostrum correctly, hum? Pio was very specific.”
“The gods bless Pio,” Simeon said. “Where is he now?”
“Out searching for news of Seth,” Vega said. “I assumed you would not be needing him for a little.”
“No, I shan’t, or you either…for now,” Simeon said. “Once she is rested, we shall test that elixir. I mean to take her to the Pavilion for a sennight to see how she fares. I will need you and Pio for that, so prepare. Have Elicorn ready at the noon hour. I should like to reach the Pavilion by dusk. I need to go in any case. There may be drowned dead to send to the gods there. The storm still rages, though the rain has stopped. I fear more ships than we know floundered in this gale.”
“As you wish,” Vega said. “All will be in readiness. Shall I bring your sealskin?”
“Yes,” Simeon said. “I shall have need of it. It has been too long since I’ve gone about in my selkie skin as I used to do.”
“Has she seen you thus?” Vega asked.
“Briefly.”
“I see.”
Simeon’s posture clenched. The edge on Vega’s voice suggested sarcasm, and he rose to the occasion. “What are you on about now, Vega?”
“Only that it may be somewhat of a shock, don’t you think?”
“She knows what I am.”
“Perhaps it’s best,” Vega mused. “One of you needs to come to your senses. I am counting upon her. You are beyond hope.”
Simeon narrowed cold eyes upon his brother. “If you have something to say, out with it! I’ve felt an undercurrent for some time between us. So…?”
“I have never seen you so careless before, and it worries me, Simeon. You are besotted with love madness. I fear it will do you in if not gotten in hand quickly. This woman—”
“My mate,” Simeon corrected him. “What of her?”
“Your ‘mate,’” Vega awarded, sketching a bow, “is
mortal
. How in the name of the gods to you propose to introduce her to our ways? Can you not see there is nothing but heartache in it? You belong with your own kind.”
“Who are you to preach that to me?” Simeon thundered. “You, who have never loved a woman in your life! You, who cock a leg over a consort now and again to relieve yourself like you would any bodily function—out of necessity, not passion!”
“I am the
only
one qualified to preach it to you, Simeon,
because
of who I am. I am the spawn of what you are about to commit yourself to, if you haven’t already done so—the damned result of our father’s weakness.”
“You call love a
weakness?
” Simeon was incredulous.
“Love of the Lord of the Deep—a selkie prince—for a mortal female, when he has access to any female of his own race at his beck and call, yes! That is weakness and madness and foolishness, and you must be made to see that, even if it brings about the end of our relationship.”
Siemeon stared, his stiff jaw muscles ticking, his broad chest heaving with rage. This was not what he wanted to hear, and if he wasn’t very careful, their relationship would indeed be in jeopardy.
“Our father was a fool!” Vega went on. “And I am the result of it—a half-breed, neither mortal nor selkie but a cursed mistake. I have the best of both worlds at my command, I will allow, Otherworldly powers, immortality, mortal good looks, and capability of rational thought, but what good is any of that if neither mortal nor selkie will have me…if I am shunned by both races but for servitude? Do you imagine this is a pleasant existence? Well, let me assure you, it is not. You fault me for not having a mate of my own. How can I, when I am shunned by both races and you have banished the only female flesh that will have me, your leavings?”
“Vega, you have never been denied a female companion.”
“No, but who will have me? Never mind that now, we digress. This is not about that—about me—it’s about
you.
You are my brother, and I love you, but I cannot claim you as such, because the rest would be outraged, so I am your valet. This is what you have condemned your offspring to, Simeon—this is what could already be in her belly—all in the name of
love.
”
Simeon stared at his brother. He dared not speak. He had not been privy to Vega’s innermost thoughts before…Or if he had been, he’d paid them no mind. What Vega was saying did not alter his feelings for Meg, but it did open his eyes to his brother’s pain. They were so close…How had he not seen it before? It didn’t matter, he saw it now. It had no bearing upon his relationship with Meg, no matter how hard he pled his case. That was in the lap of the gods.
“It isn’t too late,” Vega said more softly. “Send her back—now, while you still can. Bring back the consorts, you were happy with them, before Megaleen—with Alexia and Risa—you could be again. Or find another among the selkie females to take as your mate. If you must have your mortal, visit her on land like you’ve done with your mortal lovers for eons, but be true to your race, Simeon. Your subjects expect it—your nobility demands it.”
Simeon gripped the bottle containing the tincture with almost enough force to shatter it in his hand. “You have had your say, and now I will have mine,” he ground out through clenched teeth. He brandished the bottle. “This will allow her to breathe longer under water,” he said. “There really is no other place for her to go. She cannot return to the Isle of Mists, where her own kind sold her for a whore, and she cannot return to the mainland, where she was cast out to begin with. To return there would be sudden death….”
“There are other islands…You could visit her. She’s going to age, Simeon. You aren’t thinking clearly. The contents of that bottle will not give her immortality. If that were possible, there might be a chance, but it is not, and you need to see reason. Keeping her here or at the Pavilion is not the answer. She would be safer among her accusers on land. She will be resented and disrespected at the very least. I shudder to wonder how far it might go beyond that with her at the mercy of the jealous selkies who have set their sights upon you for their life mate. Already there are murmurings. But do not listen to me, with my mortal rationale. See for yourself. I wash my hands of it.”
“Are you quite finished?”
Vega nodded. “And I can see I’ve wasted my breath.”
“I could no more sever my ties with Megaleen, than I could sever my right arm. We are one, Vega—joined by the ancient tree spirit in an ancestral pine upon Shamans’ Mount on the solstice. That cannot be undone, even if I wanted it to be, and I do not. We are one, and I shan’t set her up on some island like a whore or another consort. But there
is
another alternative, you know. I could burn my sealskin and spend the rest of my days as a mortal with her, couldn’t I? Which would you rather it be, hm?”
Vega made no reply. It almost seemed as if he hadn’t heard a word. He seemed far away of a sudden, deep in thought, and Simeon went on quickly. “No answer? I thought not. Now then, I am going to collect a cake of night lily soap and see to my mate. When I was captured by the shamans, I was chained to a wall and made to bathe Megaleen while Seth watched, playing with his cock, else he rape her before me. I mean to wash those ugly images from her mind with something infinitely more pleasant in the way of a bath. For what it’s worth, your views are duly noted. And if you truly want to preserve our ‘relationship,’ we will not broach this subject again.”
Meg was still awake when Simeon reached his master bedchamber. How beautiful she was with her soulful blue eyes that saw only him, that spoke volumes without need of her lips. They were speaking now, proclaiming her love. How could Vega imagine he would ever leave her?
Standing over her as she lay bundled in the sea grass quilts, he held out his hand. “Come,” he said. “You need to sleep, but first, something to relax you…to relax us both.” Raising her up alongside him, he uncorked the bottle and offered it. “Take a swallow,” he said. “We test it tomorrow when we go to the Pavilion, but you need to drink some now.”
Meg complied, and Simeon set the bottle aside and led her to the subterranean pool where he’d made love to her when they returned to the palace. Stripping away the quilt she’d cocooned herself in, he led her to the edge and peeled off his eel skin suit. Producing a large oval cake of fragrant soap and a sea sponge, he passed the soap in front of her nose, then raised it to his own.
“Night lilies, dark and mysterious,” he said of the scent, “flowers of the night sea. They will soothe and restore you. I am going to bathe you again. This bath is the only bath I want you to remember.”
Scooping her up in his arms, he descended into the pool and took her in his arms. The tide was going out, and her feet touched bottom now, where they hadn’t before. She squealed as her toes met the rippling cress, and Simeon smiled.
“Your innocence delights me,” he murmured against her hair.
“Innocence?” she said. “How can you say that of me now?”
“Because ’tis true,” he replied. “Despite the passion in you, the worldly knowledge of your sex and mine, you are innocent still, unjaded by circumstance that should have hardened you, but didn’t…able to take childlike pleasure in the simple touch of watercress beneath your toes.”
“It tickles,” Meg said through a giggle. This is what he wanted, to put her at ease. To bathe her as she should be bathed, not as he had been forced to do for the shaman’s lecherous pleasure. This was to be his most powerful seduction, for it had to erase all memory of the shaman’s lewd foreplay—wipe it from her mind for all time.
“I want you to relax,” he said, working up a lather with the soap. The combined scents of night and ordinary lilies wafted through the air on the steamy mist rising from the pool. One fragrance coming from the soap and the other drifting from the lilies floating all around them made each breath an aphrodisiac, each whiff an intoxication. “Put everything from your mind except what I am doing to you, Megaleen, and when I’ve done, I want you to do it to me.”
Working in slow concentric circles with both his hands, Simeon began with Meg’s slender arched throat, slathering on the creamy lather until her skin was white with it. His hands slid lower, capturing her shoulders protruding from the water, and in one motion, he lifted her out of the pool and sat her on the quilt he’d laid at the edge of it, while he continued to lather her arms. When he reached her breasts, her sharp intake of breath excited him, and his erection stirred the water. Taking great care to barely graze her puckered areolae, he deftly avoided her turgid nipple buds, though she writhed under his touch and leaned into his circular strokes. When she reached for his hands with the intent to force his fingers to work the lather into her hardened tips, he returned her arms to her sides.
“You must let me,” he said, “all in due time.”
Soaping her middle and the small of her back simultaneously, he fitted his hands around her waist, marveling at the way his fingers met in the middle. “So perfect,” he murmured. “You are exquisite, my beauty.”
Adding more water to the soap until the lather creamed over his wrists, he continued to soap her sides, then her belly and thighs, working from the outside in until he approached the V of golden curls at the top of her mound.
“Lie back,” he said, easing her down upon the soft woven quilt. Spreading her open, he began massaging the lather over her quim, over the curls and the hard nub of her clitoris poking through them.
Meg writhed against the pressure of his manipulations. Her pelvis jutted forward as his strokes became more rapid—more urgent. Her breath was coming short as he took up the sea sponge and began stroking her slit with it from the hard feminine erection to the tight pucker of her anus—slow, light strokes at first, then faster until she arched her back leaning into his rhythm.
“The sea sponge is a living creature,” he said, “one of the oldest in all the worlds. Mankind dries them for use in mortals’ baths and then, of course, they die, but while they live in the water, if you are in tune with their nature, you can feel their pores expand and contract. It is like breathing.” He slowed his stroking rhythm. “There!” he cried. “Feel it flutter against your quim? Even this poor creature is enamored of you.”
She was almost ready to come when he dropped the sponge and began palming her breasts. The breath left her lungs in one continuous tremor as he squeezed and rubbed and strummed her hardened nipples. Inching closer, he leaned the shaft of his rock-hard erection against her mound, grinding the length of it into her clitoris until she came, her hot juices laving his cock.
Sliding his soapy fingers inside her, he traced the contours of her vulva, penetrating her with his fingertips at first, then to the first digits, then the second, then all the way, plunging them in and out of her until she came again. He could feel the pumping thrusts of her spasms, the involuntary pulse of her release, and the slick silky wetness of her come.
Lifting her into his arms, he eased her into the water and sponged all the soap from her skin, filling the sponge and squeezing the water from it onto her quivering body until all trace of the lather had been washed away.
“I want to see every inch of your beautiful body when you do it to me,” he said, his voice husky with desire, as he eased himself up on the edge of the pool where she had lain and handed her the soap and sponge. “Do it,” he murmured.
Standing on tiptoe in the water that didn’t reach her nipples, Meg reached up and began soaping his chest, concentrating upon his nipples. Simeon narrowed his eyes. He wanted to make this last, but she was so beautiful with the rush candlelight playing on her wet and gleaming, smooth white skin. Her nipples, hard and tall, teased him, peeking out of the water through the ripples her motion created. He fought the urge to reach out and touch them until he could fight no more, moaning as he reached out, working them between his thumbs and forefingers.