Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (24 page)

So she went and drew up another chair, set it beside his, under the warming yellow lights situated around the skylight. An odd setup, but for some reason, it comforted, as if it would always warm whatever gray light might come through the glass. She reached for his hand, then paused, staring at her blue skin and four-jointed webbed fingers.

Then he took her hand with his own even lighter blue and more delicately webbed hand—the color and fineness from that tiny bit of air elemental nature he had.

“What?” he asked.

She glanced at his face and caught the smile that had returned. She reckoned her next words would banish it. Cradling his larger hand in her own, she stroked the backs of his fingers with her thumb. “Tell me about yourself.”

His expression shuttered, his muscles tensed—not a lot, but enough that she could sense it when a human, maybe even a mer who didn’t know him, might not.

“Come on,” she persuaded, then shook her head ruefully. “You know a lot about me, both good and bad.”

“There is very little bad in you,” he said, and she wondered if he contradicted her automatically or really believed it. In any event, she snorted.

“I have my share of faults.” She was deceiving her best friend, and that chafed like sand under her new skin. Keeping her eyes on his and her voice the same soft tone as his, she said, “I don’t know enough to...be intimate with you, Lathyr.”

Pain spasmed across his face; his hand tightened around hers. “I am no one.”

Irritation flashed through her and she squeezed his hand right back. “That’s not true. You’re a full Lightfolk magic being, a merman...of the ocean?”

His nose frills were out and rigid, but he nodded. When he turned his head to look at her, his eyes were covered by the protective nictitating lid.

“What I know of you, I like.” She kept stroking his hand. “You’ve been kind to me, and treated me with respect.” She took a stab in the dark, lowered her tone even more. “It doesn’t matter to me that you are part air elemental.” She shrugged and the fins along her arms fluttered. Huh, she didn’t know they were that sensitive to emotion, or that flexible. Don’t be distracted, this is important! “I think that bothers you?”

“Waterfolk believe I have tainted blood,” he said emotionlessly.

“Because you’re eight percent elf?”

His head inclined.

“Then the Lightfolk must dislike Tamara, who is half-elf and half-dwarf, and really hate Jenni, who is half-human.” Kiri laughed. “Now me, human-become-Lightfolk. Mystic Circle should be called Misfit Circle.”

That tugged a wary smile from him. “You don’t mind.”

She rolled her eyes. “Lathyr, anyone with a bit of magic awes me.” That was still true. Bottom line, she’d wanted desperately to have magic, and she’d paid the price for it, and here she was. She should count her blessings.

“And my blessings in being magic include having a very sexy merman interested in me,” she murmured.

His shoulders relaxed and his fins along his arm did a tiny quiver, a good sign, she supposed.

He lifted her fingers and brought them to his mouth and laved the backs of them with his tongue, sending shocking desire straight to her core. Whoo!

Chuckling, he did it again, then separated her fingers and touched his tongue to the webbing. Zowie, a little more of that and she’d be as hot as Jenni.

She yanked her hand away. “Stop that,” she said as he grinned. “I really do want to know more about you.”

But his mouth stayed straight. “I have no home.”

“What?”

He looked down at his hand in hers, but didn’t withdraw, then met her gaze again. “I have no home. My mother gave me to a high noble for a servant soon after I was born. I did my duty, but when I was of an age to leave that noble, I did. But I do not, did not, have the blood or the power to earn my own place, my own estate as a grant from the royals.” His mouth flattened.

And that mattered to him. He needed a home, as she had needed one. She swallowed down appalled anger on his behalf, kept her nose frills rigid inside her nostrils so they wouldn’t give her emotions away. Reacting would have him shutting up.

His gaze cut to her, then away. “So I made myself a charming guest, and lived on the sufferance of others for...centuries. I am a professional guest, a reluctant drifter.” Again his fins rippled as he shrugged. “Most of my time is spent in small, dark estates in the deep oceans. Occasionally the water royals found me useful for a decade or two at a palace here or there.” He lifted her hand, and this time his kiss on her fingers was chaste, and his smile seemed more easy. “For a while, I even lived as a human in a French coastal town, though most of my compatriots were Lightfolk.”

Kiri nodded. “All good experience for when your new talent appeared,” she said stoutly. She thought that a home, to him, would show he’d been accepted, worthy of not being abandoned ever again. Also sort of like her. They had those feelings in common.

“Perhaps.” He stared into her eyes, and she kept her own gaze steady. “I may be essential for this new experimental project of Jenni’s. If all goes well...”

“You’ll get your estate.” Kiri nodded decisively.

“Perhaps,” he repeated, then he stood and stretched, and Kiri admired the view. He scooped her up, she felt air pass through her as her body followed his lead in changing to droplet form, then they were legged-mer again and in the large swimming pool in the conservatory and Lathyr grinned, eyes with a certain gleam. “Let’s play. I’ll teach you some Waterfolk games.”

Kiri figured that “play” really meant “foreplay,” but that was all right with her.

Chapter 25

THEY PLAYED, AND
she learned more about Lathyr as he taught and she interacted with him. Well, she confirmed more. He was generous, he was competitive, but not so that he
had
to win, and as they played, they shifted form and she practiced, practiced, practiced until she was almost waterlogged.

Then they ate and twilight came and they walked around the Circle. Lathyr seemed to have caught her habit. When they stood at the koi pond, he just shook his head at the colorful fish. “They are so ugly.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “Someday I will show you the true beauty of the seas.”

“Um-hmm.” She rolled her shoulders. “I’d like that, I suppose.” Once back at the Castle, she stripped and soaked and swam, expecting Lathyr to come to her, but in the end, she dressed again and found him sitting in the living room, drinking brandy on the couch the farthest from the hearth and watching the fire pop with elemental magic colors.

Since she’d turned mer, even a contained fire discomfited her. Something else that had changed that she’d never anticipated when she’d made the decision to become Lightfolk.

Lathyr saw her at the threshold and set his glass down on a table and stood. The low-level sexual tension that had spiraled between them all evening ratcheted up. With slow steps, he walked toward her and when she raised her gaze, his own was intent, and his pupils were dilated, the blue of his irises so deep they looked black.

“Tonight I will sleep in the Waterfolk chamber, in the bed. Will you come and dance the dance of ages with me?”

Her mouth dried. “That’s a lovely way to ask.”

His lips turned up at the corners, but his gaze stayed steady. “Waterfolk usually...show affection in legged-mer form and underwater. It has been a very long time since I shared sex as a human, with a human woman, but I think you would prefer it?”

Her thoughts scattered. How long was a long time? Did he have something against human women as lovers? Would they ever have had sex if she’d remained human?
Underwater!

But she held out her hand. “Thank you. I would like to dance the dance of ages with you in a bed in human form very much.” She kept the same gentle, formal tone, and gestures, as if they were opening steps in some ancient pattern dance.

He drew her arm under his, and they walked from the library to the large staircase. Each movement attuned her to him. Their breaths began to hitch in, sigh out in the same quick rhythm, and she thought she could actually hear the thud of their hearts’ matching beat. They took each stair and it
was
like a dance, first her body would sway toward his, then he’d step away, hesitate and wait for her. Advancing, retreating, to the third floor and down the wide corridor.

Then they were in the dim room and the waterbed was turned down, showing smooth sheets, inviting. With a whisper, Lathyr’s clothes were gone and hers were, too, and his hands were stroking her and she touched him and they fell on the bed and tangled and danced and took each other.

Afterward, as they spooned together, he whispered, “You are a very special woman. Stay with me.”

“For now,” she mumbled, and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, she noticed vaguely the waterbed rippling as he left. Her heart squeezed with pain, rejection, but that eased when she realized that he didn’t go far, just into the huge bathroom. She strained her ears and all noise sharpened around her—another benefit of the transformation? Maybe, and, if so, most excellent. Anyway, she heard him slip into the water. He’d be sleeping as merman, then. The thought was enough that she awoke fully and rolled onto her back, the bed moving gently under her. She stared at the ceiling, deep blue and painted with constellations she didn’t know. How long would it be before she slept a full night as mer?

What would losing her humanity do to her? She hadn’t thought it would be different; she would be the same person as before. But she wouldn’t. She perceived things differently now and she’d change.

She could only hope that she would continue to be the best she could be—human or mer.

* * *

The next morning she and Lathyr were finishing up a good breakfast of omelets and croissants and cocoa in the circular breakfast nook when Melody came and stood in the doorway. Kiri jerked, still not used to the small creatures—beings—outside of the game.

“Princess Jindesfarne requests you come after food,” the browniefem said.

Lathyr dabbed at his lips with a cream-colored linen cloth and, leaving food on his plate and coffee in his china cup, rose. “Let us go.”

“When the royals call, you go immediately?” she asked.

“That is correct.”

“Because they have your future in their hands.”

He inclined his head. “And I am accustomed to the Water King, who must not be flouted.”

She shoved a last bite of rich melty-cheese-and-egg into her mouth and savored, then poured out a few swallows of cocoa from the carafe and swigged them down. They were too hot and burned the roof of her mouth. Dammit! She ran her tongue over her teeth. “I need to brush my teeth.”

Lathyr opened his mouth to show her his clean and gleaming teeth and puffed a breath of real mint at her. She frowned and hustled from the room. “I want to do it the old-fashioned way.”

Once they were outside, they walked hand in hand to Jenni and Aric’s place. The browniefem Hartha opened the door and showed them to the living room, where Kiri and Lathyr took a love seat opposite Jenni and Aric.

Neither of the Emberdrakes appeared happy.

“I’ll get to the point,” Jenni said. “We’ve been monitoring Kiri’s vitals.”

Not in the game but
now
they were doing that, and hadn’t told her.

“And though she is doing extraordinarily well with being Waterfolk mentally and emotionally, and learning her forms at an amazing rate, her physical body is not adjusting as well as it should be.”

Kiri stared at a scowling Lathyr. He said stiffly, “I have not seen that.”

“You are accustomed to Merfolk more than naiads and naiaders.” Jenni switched her gaze to meet Kiri’s angry stare. “We were told that your physical deterioration is minute, but ongoing. It must be stopped before it becomes a problem. We were also informed that the probable reason this was happening was that you are spending most of your water time in artificial pools.”

“By the great Pearl!” Lathyr put his arm around Kiri. “How do you know this?”

Jenni’s gaze shifted.

“I thought you were our friends?” Kiri said.

Jenni winced, glanced away, then back. “Ah, I believe the King of Water was in town last night and, ah, made a very discreet examination of you. As a royal, he has the magic to see what others might miss.”

Lathyr stiffened beside Kiri.

“He did a flyby of us when in droplet form,” Kiri stated flatly. She didn’t like being spied on, especially when she’d thought she was safe and private.

“He is a rude man and I have attempted not to make an enemy of him—” Lathyr began.

“Silence, Lathyr,” Aric ordered.

Jenni sighed, waved a hand. “The upshot of this is that we need to find Kiri a place to live sooner rather than later.”

Lathyr exhaled slowly, then held out his hand with a bubble on it.

“What’s that?” asked Kiri.

“It’s a Waterfolk memo. You have been invited to tour Maroon Lake near Aspen.”

“Really!”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like a good first step,” Jenni said. “Can you arrange something for today?”

“I will contact the naiader who lives in the lake,” Lathyr said.

Kiri hesitated, then blurted out. “I’d like you to go with us, too, Jenni. Please?” She gave Jenni a big-eyed look. Waterfolk
had
big eyes.

“For sure,” Jenni said. “If we go together, we’ll probably need a limo.”

“Driving,” Lathyr said sourly.

Aric said, “I haven’t been in that area. I can’t use trees and greenspace for transportation.”

“Not enough clouds here for lightning, might be different in the mountains, but lightning wipes me out. It’s about a four-hour drive.”

Lathyr said, “The naiader might give me enough information to
snap
to the lake with Kiri.”

She put her hand on his thigh. “I need the others, too.” She wasn’t afraid to admit that.

Aric looked at Lathyr. “We’ll go armed. The Dark ones have retreated...we hurt them last Thursday.”

Lathyr nodded. “We must not take any chances.”

Aric frowned. “We can hope that their unusual alliance fell apart.”

“And that they are blaming each other for defeat. They do not play well with others,” Jenni said.

Kiri barely heard the byplay. She’d collapsed against the soft back of the couch. Less than a week ago she’d been human, had no idea of the Lightfolk. So short a time for such a complete change in her life.

Jenni said, “I’ll call the limo service and set up hotel rooms for us in Aspen or Snowmass.” She looked at Aric. “Or does the Eight have any properties in the area?”

He’d already started checking his handheld computer. “Yes, there’s a mansion in Aspen.”

“Of course there is.” Jenni sighed. She raised her voice and Kiri felt the magic in it when Jenni spoke. “Do any of the Mystic Circle brownies know of the mansion in Aspen?”

To everyone’s surprise, Rock popped into the room, with an outthrust chest and a wide smile. “I do. I have moved things from the Earth Palace to the Aspen place. It is on a nice big mountain. Very pretty.” The tips of his lips quivered. “What will we be doing?”

“You will be taking care of the mansion for us overnight.”

“Are you going, too, Kiri?” asked Rock.

“Yes.” She smiled at him. “I’ll bring you chocolate.”

“Of course you will,” Jenni said.

* * *

And several hours later, in the bright noon light that Lathyr was becoming accustomed to, Maroon Lake appeared ahead of them. They drove as far as they could, then walked to the lake, where the hoary and tough-looking naiader Lathyr had spoken with earlier, Stoneg, rose from the water and changed from legged to human. The naiader clothed himself in falling-apart jeans and a flannel shirt.

He turned to Lathyr and Aric and Jenni and said, “Go, walk around my lake or something.” The naiader scowled and got even uglier. “I don’t like Firefolk and I don’t like mers.” He smiled widely at Kiri. “I like humans just fine. And I like very new naiads who come from humans.”

Kiri tilted her head. Lathyr didn’t know what she might be sensing from the guy, but he remained wary. She stepped close and kissed Lathyr on his jaw. He liked that—the affection rolling from her warmed him.

He stared grimly at the naiader. “Why are you doing this?”

The naiader snorted, and that told Lathyr the older one had spent some time in his legged form or even human.

“I pay my tithe to the royals.” He waved a webbed hand, his nail claws looked dark and gnarly and sharp. “Pink crystals. Fresh mountain trout—Rainbow and Cutthroat.” Finally a smile, showing Waterfolk teeth. “And when the Water Queen asks for a favor, like showing a brand-new, full-grown naiad around my lake—” he reached out and tugged a long strand of Kiri’s hair “—I do that, too.”

The Water Queen. Very interesting.

Kiri laughed, patted Lathyr on his shoulder. “Go on, enjoy the day and the view. Stoneg reminds me of my late grandpa. Crusty.”

Stoneg appeared pleased.

Lathyr bowed. “Thank you for helping us.”

Again the naiader snorted, but put an easy arm around
Kiri’s shoulder and said in an almost-gentle tone. “We’ll practice your changes and breathing and illusion, huh?”

“Sounds good.”

Walking around the lake, Lathyr kept an eye on Kiri and her new mentor that he shouldn’t resent, but did. She’d turned two-legged and hardscaled. She’d ducked in and out of the water—sometimes visible to his human eyes and sometimes not. Grudgingly he accepted that the naiader was a good teacher and didn’t seem to have any sexual interest in Kiri, two things that he related to Jenni and Aric when he returned to where they were waiting.

As they strolled in the sunshine, he said, “I did not know before this morning that the Water Queen had arranged this.”

“And the Water King checked on you both last night,” Jenni said softly. “Perhaps you should speak with the elf scholar, Etesian, about this, at the Earth Palace in Yellowstone.”

“I will think on it.”

Jenny handed him a small crystal ball. “This has his crystal image programmed into it so you can set up a meeting.”

“Thank you,” Lathyr said. He’d use it.

* * *

Kiri longed to just jump into the lake and zip through it. She’d already seen that it wasn’t very deep. But Stoneg was as meticulous as Lathyr in making her use her bilungs—and better at explaining how to bend minute water droplets around her to make an illusion that she was human, or even reflect stuff around her so it didn’t seem as if she were even there. Close to invisibility. Cool.

When he spoke, it wasn’t exactly like telepathy, it was more like Kiri understood the vibration of water against her skin and her temples and her ears from the sounds and vocalizations he made.

Eventually she made it fully underwater and into her completely tailed shape. With a flick of his fingers in easy sign language and a big smile that creased his face, Stoneg let her zoom around the lake.

It wasn’t deep, but it was fabulous—real plants and fish and silt and mud. The water so much more energizing than that in the Castle’s pools and tanks and tubs.

And she went
fast.
As fast as a motorboat, which wasn’t allowed here. There was a shadow on the water from a rowboat—humans!—and she swam back and grinned with glee at Stoneg, paddling in place.

“Well, lookit that,” the old naiader said as fish began to gather around her. “Huh. Swim a little distance.” He flapped a hand.

She did, slower this time. Still exhilarating. And returned to the naiader.

“The fish followed you.”

Kiri was delighted.

Stoneg’s nictitating lids clicked over his eyes; his expression sharpened. With a flip of his tail, muscles bunching, he lunged toward a
huge
fish
. I’ve been wanting to catch that canny old lake trout for decades.