The Mermaid's Mate (4 page)

Chapter Six

When Marian came to, she was lying against something warm. Something that she yearned to nuzzle against, though she couldn’t understand the longing. Her legs were covered with something soft that brushed against her skin. Her knees were tucked beneath her. Her feet were dangling over something hard...

“Little bit farther,” Timber said.

His voice was so close to her ear. So close. She could almost taste the words coming out of his mouth. But she couldn’t muster the strength to open her eyes.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said, his voice somehow soothing away her worry. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you again.”

Marian got the feeling she was bumping along an uneven road. She was swaying, walking, though her legs weren’t moving. And then the unmistakable
thump-thump
of a heartbeat that wasn’t her own beat against her.

She was in Timber’s arms.

He was carrying her.

Awareness seeped through Marian’s stupor. Timber’s arm was roped around her back, his hand flattened protectively on her waist. His other arm was beneath her legs, cradling her softly. Her head was against his chest, her arms draped around his neck. He was warm. Bare chested. His skin was slick with rain, and it only amplified his natural masculine scent. She breathed him in and tightened her hold around his neck. They could travel all of Feralon this way, Marian realized, and she’d be the happiest mermaid on the isle.

“Are you awake?” he asked, pressing her more closely against him.
As if they could get any closer.
“Say something if you’re awake. I need to hear your voice.”

She couldn’t speak. Her thoughts were too at war with her feelings.

She shouldn’t be getting used to how Timber’s arms felt embracing her this way—although the path his hands traveled might as well have been emblazoned on her skin—because whatever the rogue pack was doing on the southern edge of the isle, it wasn’t good. And Timber was undeniably tied up in it. Once she reported their acts to her Emperor, Timber would take the fall with his pack. She couldn’t be caught up in it, too, no matter how she wanted to be caught up in him.

For now, Marian took comfort in the fact that they were safe.
She
was safe. Timber was going to make sure of it. As her eyes pinched closed, and the soft rhythm of his heartbeat lulled Marian to sleep, she dreamed of being whisked away by a knight in shining armor—one who would protect her, no matter the cost.

* * *

“What do you think, Sapphric?” As Timber kneeled beside the bed where Marian lay, he kept his eye on the Were healer across the room who was stirring a foul-smelling concoction. “How fast will the wound heal?”

The teeth marks on Marian’s neck had changed from disgusting shades of black and red to a pinkish hue that made Timber believe the skin was healing quickly. But he was no doctor.

“The wound is already healed, thanks to the Feralon River water you put on it, and there won’t be infection at the site. I’m not sure we can prevent a scar, though.” The old man turned from the back wall of the den, a crude bowl cupped in his crippled hands. “We wouldn’t want this mermaid going back to her colony with a bite mark permanently etched into her skin, so I’ll do everything I can but—”

“That’s the last thing I want,” Timber said, holding Marian’s hand. She was so delicate. So fragile. She could be permanently scarred thanks to his inability to protect her. How could he have let this happen? His heart lurched when he thought about the horrors that could have happened. He cared for Marian, more deeply than he originally thought, and couldn’t deny it any longer. It was too bad Marian had to get hurt for him to realize the truth. “What is that stuff?” he asked.

Turning her head to the side and raising her right arm over her head, Sapphric dribbled some of the green liquid onto Marian’s neck, then smeared it around with his fingers. It absorbed instantly, leaving Marian’s skin a glowing shade of honey-tan. “It’s a combination of mud from the riverbed, Feralon Hot Spring water, salt, lavender, mint leaves and a few drops of water from the bay in Merfolk territory.”

Before Timber could speak, Sapphric looked up from his work and said, “Did your father ever teach you that the waters in Merfolk territory have magical properties?”

“Not my father.” Timber brushed a blond lock of hair out of Marian’s face. She moaned as if she was coming to, but her eyes remained closed. “But I’ve heard that somewhere before.”

“Yes, yes. Judging from the work I’ve done on some of your pack mates, the liquid seems to strengthen both physical and mental weaknesses.” Sapphric continued to dabble the liquid on Marian’s wound, rubbing it in until it disappeared into her skin. “Where did you rescue this mermaid?”

Timber scrubbed his hands over his head. “On the southern edge of the isle. She was bitten by a member of Ryder’s pack.”

He was probably saying too much, but Sapphric was a holy man as much as he was a healer. Things spoken to him were kept in strict confidence, which was part of the reason Ryder visited him. It was the sole reason Timber brought Marian here. Sapphric was a peaceful Were and wouldn’t harm a hair on Marian’s head.

“She must’ve gotten too close to Ryder’s stash of chips,” Sapphric said simply.

“Chips?” Timber felt his brows puzzle.

“Off the old block.”

What the hell was he talking about?

“You do your job well, Timber. I’ve heard you can sense an enemy coming before they are upon you. But it is a poor man who closes his eyes to the things that are not an immediate danger.” Sapphric pulled a rag from his robe pocket and dabbed Marian’s neck dry. “Ryder is blasting away rock to get to the diamond chips buried in the banks of the river. He’s been collecting for years, though they’re so tiny I doubt he has enough to sustain himself yet.”

A sense of foreboding prickled the hair on Timber’s arms. “What the devil would Ryder want with diamond chips?” he asked, more to himself than Sapphric. The answer struck him. “They’re not just diamonds. They’re chips off the Mer stone...the stone that allows other shifters to breathe underwater like the mermaids.”

“Yes, yes.” Sapphric dunked his rag in the water, wrung it out, then blotted Marian’s tan skin one last time. “You got it now.”

“Each stone allows the user a few breathable minutes underwater. If Ryder’s hoarding the chips, he’s going deep...”

To find the trove rumored to be at the bottom of the bay in Mer territory.

Timber didn’t know for certain if that was the reason, but Ryder wanted power. He wanted wealth. He wanted territory to be able to make his own place on the isle, separate from the main wolf pack. The trove was rumored to hold the largest chunk of the Mer stone, along with other priceless gems that the Merfolk had hoarded over the centuries. Nothing would allow Ryder to bargain for more territory than those treasures.

Suddenly, the urge to get Marian back to Mer territory and away from Ryder and the rogue pack overtook him. “I need to get Marian back home as soon as I can. How much longer?”

“An hour hike through Were territory will get her to Lover’s Leap. The water is deep enough there for to her dive into the bay.” Sapphric nodded, his eerie white eyes glazing over. “Her sisters should have warned her not to swim this far inland. They should’ve learned how dangerous the territory is the last time they dipped their fins in these waters.”

Timber’s gaze snapped to Sapphric’s. “You know Marian’s sisters?”

“Aye.” Sapphric emptied the bowl and turned from the bed. “Her older sister, Mary Elizabeth, passed through here about, oh—” he set the bowl on a small wooden table “—three years ago? Maybe two. So hard to keep track of the years when you get to be my age. Anyhow, she and one of your pack mates had a fling until he fell into a deep part of the river and was never heard from again. Dangerous waters through here. Those maelstroms pop out of nowhere and
wham!
Suck you right down to the bottom of the sea.”

One of his pack mates.
Maelstrom.

“Who was the wolf?” Timber asked, though he feared that he knew the answer.

“I think his name was...ah, well, now I can’t think of it.” Sapphric brushed his hands across a beaded cloth, then spun around, facing Timber. “You should know the fellow’s name. It was Ryder’s brother.”

A clamming, cold wave hurtled into Timber’s chest, nearly knocking him backward.

“Rison,” he said, memories flooding him.

Sapphric clapped, smiling with gaping teeth. “That’s the one!”

Lost in thought, Timber dropped Marian’s hand and approached Sapphric. The old man was four foot tall, thin as a wisp with a brain like a sieve. Yet in his frail, old body, he held everything.

The
truth.

“Rison and Marian’s sister were a couple?” Timber kept his words as gentle as he could. “Two years ago?”

“Yes, yes.” Sapphric clasped his hands in front of him. His skin was oddly white, wraithlike, blending with the ethereal white gown draped over his body. “That’s what I said. Do you need me to mix a potion to help with your hearing?”

“How do you know this for certain?” Timber couldn’t believe he was asking this. “That they were a couple, I mean.”

Sapphric strode across the room to an open cabinet, and started fidgeting with the bottles inside. “They came to me one evening asking for a truth serum.”

Timber shook his head disbelievingly. “I don’t understand.”

“Ryder’s pack was meddling in things they shouldn’t have been meddling in, much as they are now. Rison wanted to administer the serum to himself, so he could prove his intentions to Mary Elizabeth, the mermaid he loved.”

This was all sounding too familiar: a mermaid who didn’t trust and a werewolf who had things to hide.

“Did they get it?”

Sapphric spun around, a tiny amber bottle clutched in his crooked fingers. “Get what?”

“The truth serum. Did you give it to them?”

“Of course I did. It’s what they asked for.” He laughed, but it sounded more like he was hacking up a chunk of lung. “I healed your mermaid lover when you asked, didn’t I?”

Timber froze. “She’s not my—”

“Oh, shut your mouth before a lie sours it.” Sapphric tossed up his hands. “I don’t need young eyes to see young love.”

Timber’s gaze flipped to Marian. She was lying still in bed, in the same position she’d been before. But she was awake. Timber could sense her stirring. Could almost hear her thoughts. Something struck him then. A vision of Marian in mermaid form, cerulean lights flaring off her tail as she swam down Feralon River, around a bend, and out of sight.

Fin colors ran in family lines.

The night Rison and Timber were on watch, the night Rison died... Could it have been Mary Elizabeth’s fin colors Timber spotted fishtailing through the water, and not Marian’s?

“But why would Mary Elizabeth report the position of our lair to her Emperor?” Timber mumbled to himself, scraping his hands across his jaw.

“If the one you loved was in trouble, and you knew you could only count on your own kind to save her, wouldn’t you seek help?”

“Yes, but by reporting our position, she was betraying him and condemning the pack. There had to be another way to—”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures and not everyone thinks logically in situations of the heart.”

Could Mary Elizabeth really have reported the position of their lair in an attempt to save Rison? Even in a storm surge, she wouldn’t have been able to swim back to the bay and bring back help in time.

“You’re right for thinkin’ the way you are,” Sapphric said softly, his expression bright with awareness. “But as your mermaid is the truest scout in the Mer colony, her sister was the fastest swimmer.”

“Still...” Timber felt like he was swallowing nails. “I was right there, and still there was nothing I could do to save him.”

“Yes, but you are not Mer. Her brothers were at the mouth of the river, waiting for her to return. She’d planned to bring them back. It’s the only explanation.”

No, there was another explanation. Timber remembered the one he’d ruthlessly clung to all these years: Marian’s betrayal.

But if Sapphric was right...if Mary Elizabeth and Rison were a couple and she’d reported their position to bring back help, maybe Marian had been telling the truth all this time. Maybe she hadn’t betrayed him after all.

With so many uncertainties knotting and twisting in his brain, there was one thing Timber had to know for sure. One thing that would determine whether he mistook the cerulean lights shining off Marian’s tail for Mary Elizabeth’s.

“I’ve got a question for you, Sapphric,” Timber said slowly, his feet firmly planted on the hardwood.

“And I’ve got an answer.” Sapphric stood in front of Timber, the amber bottle extended in his shaky fingers.

Timber’s stomach tightened. Everything hinged on this. His feelings for Marian. His past, present and future happiness. “Are you sure Mary Elizabeth and this mermaid are blood sisters and not just mermaids from the same colony?”

Nodding slowly, Sapphric slipped the bottle into Timber’s hand. “Truth.”

Chapter Seven

Marian had heard everything. She hadn’t been the one who swam back and squealed the position of the lair, and it’d always bothered her that she couldn’t figure out who did it.

Suddenly, it all made perfect sense.

Mary Elizabeth had sunk into a deep depression a few years back. It had to be because she couldn’t save Rison. Marian would’ve felt the same way if she hadn’t been able to save Timber when she’d found him wedged beneath that rock in the river.

Mary Elizabeth must’ve felt heartbroken.
Helpless.

Irritation pricked at Marian like a thorn. All along, she’d wanted Timber to believe that she wouldn’t have betrayed him that night. It didn’t matter now though, did it? He had a truth serum to make his mind up for him. When would he give it to her? Marian wondered. When would he depend on a stupid enchanted mixture to tell him the truth he should’ve known in his heart all along?

But the thoughts tangling in her mind weren’t about Mary Elizabeth, Rison, the wound on her neck, or the truth serum...they were about Timber’s rogue pack. He’d made it sound like he didn’t know about what they were doing on the southern edge of Were Mountain. Could he have been that oblivious? Could he have remained in the dark while Ryder blasted away and stocked up on Mer Stone chips or did he fake his surprise in front of the healer?

She had to get back to her colony and report what was going on to her Emperor.

The Emperor would report the information about Ryder and his plans to the main pack inside Were Mountain. They would deal with Ryder and the rest of the rogue wolves in their own way, leaving the Merfolk out of the mess completely.

“Time to wake up,” Timber said, the edge of the bed registering his weight. “Marian, can you hear me?”

Opening her eyes, Marian met Timber’s dark, seductive stare. She shivered, though her body blazed with warmth. “I’m awake.”

“How do you feel?”

“Fine.” The wound on her neck didn’t hurt at all. And if there was a scar, so be it. She had worse scars on her heart that she’d endured well enough. “I should go. I have to get back to my colony.”

As she tried to sit up, Timber grabbed her arm. Though his touch was gentle, it stopped her, stunned her, as it always did.

“Here, take this first.” He handed her a glass of water. “You need your strength before the hike. We have an hour to trudge across Were Mountain before we’ll reach a place deep enough for you to dive into the bay.”

Marian eyed the drink carefully. He must’ve put the truth serum in the water. Why couldn’t he just believe her? Why did he need the truth to be proven this way? Although it was foolish, Marian felt betrayed.

He had no faith in her, in them, and he never had.

“I’m not thirsty,” she said, removing her arm from the warmth of his grasp. “But thanks.” She stood, pulling Timber’s shirt down. It draped over her hips, swallowing her frame. “Thanks for the pants. Are they yours?”

“No, they’re from Sapphric. He keeps extra clothes stocked for his patients.” He set the glass on the table beside the bed. “He stepped out to collect more herbs, but should be back in about an hour if you wanted to thank him personally.”

She did want to thank him for healing her, but she had to get back before Ryder went after the Mer stone. Though she couldn’t leave yet. She had to know if Timber knew about Ryder’s plans....

“You don’t have to take me back to the bay. I can find the way back myself,” she said, facing Timber as he rose off the bed. “Won’t Ryder be expecting you back at the lair?”

“Let me worry about Ryder.”

“And what about Slater?” Mindlessly, she rubbed the mark on her neck. “What will you say happened to him?”

“Let me worry about all of it.” He closed the distance between them, making Marian hyperaware of how alone they were. Heat flowed from Timber’s body, evaporating all the breathable air from the den. The look in his eyes was electric. “The most important thing is getting you back to your territory safely. Since the storm has ended, we’ll be easier to track, so it won’t be long before Ryder sends other rogues to look for you. We’re ahead of them, probably only by about half a day, but there’s no telling how quickly they’ll move.” He paused, and something possessive ignited behind his dark eyes. “Let me escort you safely back to your territory.”

He wouldn’t answer a damn question directly, though it was clear Timber wanted her out of werewolf territory. Was it because he was genuinely worried about her safety or because he didn’t want her around when Ryder exposed him as a thief, equally to blame for the plot to steal the Mer stone? She hated that she doubted him—hated that he made her do it. But if Timber wasn’t involved in Ryder’s plan, then why was he a part of the rogue pack in the first place? Why didn’t he just go back home, to the heart of Were Mountain with the rest of the Alpha’s loyal pack mates? He might not have been guilty, but he sure as hell wasn’t innocent.

“So what will you do when we reach the bay? You’ll just turn around and show up in the rogue lair? No explanation about where you’ve been or what’s happened?” She poked his bare chest teasingly, wanting to create some kind of rise of out him, and watched the golden muscles twitch beneath her finger. “I’m surprised you don’t have a better plan than that.”

“I had a better plan, but it’s gone to hell now.” He encircled her wrist, then turned her hand away from them, stroking her palm with his thumb. “I’d planned on letting you leave Were territory. I thought I’d go back to the lair and take the heat for Slater’s death—say we got into it over a female and he slipped off the rocks into the river. I’d have to pay for what happened, but I’m already indebted to Ryder anyhow. Though now things have changed. I can’t let you leave. Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m an ignorant ass.”

She laughed. “I can’t go home because you’re an ass?”

“You can’t go home...not until you know how sorry I am for not believing you. You weren’t the one who told the Emperor about Ryder’s lair. At the time, it was easier to jump to conclusions than to trust you.”

Her gaze flicked to the full glass of water by the bed—the one she hadn’t touched.

“After all this time,” she asked softly, “what makes you believe me?”

“My heart.”

As Marian’s own heart lurched, Timber bent her against him and caught her mouth. The kiss was sensual and powerful, making every other kiss they’d had pale in comparison. Threading his fingers through her hair, Timber pulled her face to his, his thumbs on her cheeks, his palms cupping her chin. His tongue danced with hers in an erotic caress that made her legs tremble and her stomach wrench.

Finally, after all this time, he believed her. It was all she’d ever wanted: this man, his trust and his heart.

Marian’s hands found Timber’s shoulders, and gripped them tightly. She pulled him down over her, drawing him closer, until there was no air between them.

Groaning, Timber skated his hands down her back, stirring something primal inside her. She wanted—
needed
—his hands covering her body, roaming up her shirt and flattening over her stomach before cupping her breasts. She craved his touch, his mouth.

“You make me so dizzy.” He pulled back, resting his forehead against hers. “Is this a part of the seductress’s spell?”

Marian bit her lip, causing another groan to slip from Timber’s throat. “I thought you were the one who was seducing me.”

“No, you seduced me the first moment I met you, and I haven’t been the same since.” He kissed her, then sucked at her bottom lip. “You seduced my mind until I couldn’t think of anything but the softness in your eyes and the gentle call of your laugh. You seduced my body—it aches for you as if you’re an integral part that’s gone missing. And now you’ve managed to seduce me into feeling something for you that I’ve never felt for anyone else.”

It was too much. Everything she’d wanted to hear. Her heart hurt, burning with the need to tell him that she loved him right back. That she always had and always will. But her mouth wouldn’t move and the words wouldn’t come.

“I never wanted to send you away,” he said, brushing his hands over her cheeks. “I wanted to see you every day for the rest of my life. It nearly killed me to watch you swim away, knowing you’d never come back.”

“How could I return when I believed there was nothing waiting for me here?” Marian got the feeling she was falling. She slid her hands up Timber’s neck and pulled his mouth down over hers. She’d always dreamed he’d say these things to her and hold her like he never wanted to let her go. “All that matters is that I’m here now. But I have to know what you expect from this...what you want from me. Is this a one-night stand, a fling—what? I have to hear you say the words to replace the ones that still swim in my head.”

“I don’t want much.” He swept her into his arms and tossed her onto the bed. “Only everything.”

He was on her before she caught her breath, his hands on either side of her shoulders, his hips pressed against hers. His body was heavy, giving the pressure her body craved. She gasped, laughing as her head hit the pillows and her body stilled beneath his.

She stroked the dark stubble on his head. “I don’t know if I can give everything.”

He rose up, the candlelight on the armoire making his skin glow and the angles of his face shadow over. “Then I’ll have to convince you otherwise.”

She laughed into a kiss that blazed a trail of molten heat down her body. He assaulted her lips, feasted on her mouth and devoured her tongue with more passion than she could handle. Warm wetness pooled in her center as Timber’s hands became needy, palming the flat of her stomach, then sliding around to her backside. He smudged kisses down her neck, her collarbone, and jerked the shirt aside to reveal her shoulder.

“You can—” her breath hitched as he ripped her shirt from top to bottom, then tossed the shreds aside “—take this off.”

“Sorry.” He spread her legs open and wedged himself between them. Even through his leather pants and the sweat pants she’d borrowed, Marian could feel the strength of Timber’s arousal. He pressed it against her, his head at the entrance to her core, and ground his hips in a gentle, swirling rhythm. “You make me want to rip all your clothes off. You take me to the very edge—you make me feel like I’m losing my mind. Jesus, I could bite you.”

As both of his large hands cupped her breasts, he dropped his head to her stomach. He licked from her breasts to her belly button, little sucks and nibbles and kisses that made Marian’s hips squirm. He hadn’t even touched her center yet, and she could feel a familiar pressure rising inside her.

“Then do it,” she said. “Bite me.”

He stilled, and looked up, catching her gaze. He looked hungry, a man starved.

“You can’t say those things.” He lightly pinched her nipple, then rolled the aching nub between his fingers. “You have no idea the things I want to do to you.”

“Show me.”

With a throaty moan that vibrated from his chest to hers, Timber slinked up Marian’s body and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth. The heat from his lips and the wetness of his tongue drove her wild. She gripped his head, scraped her hands over his stubble and lifted her hips in subtle invitation.

He didn’t need another invite.

Keeping his mouth on her breast, Timber rose to all fours and unzipped his pants, then jerked them down and kicked them off. He tugged at her pants impatiently. She slinked out of them and sucked in a clip breath when he settled between her hips.

He was large. Larger than any other man she’d been with.

“I won’t bite you, and I won’t hurt you,” he said, lifting his head to meet her eye to heavy-lidded eye. “And if you let me, I’ll make up for the time we lost.”

Marian gasped for air as he waited, inches above her, hovering on the brink of their joining. She drank him in, from his massive chest and shoulders to his sublimely grooved abs. He was a warrior, strong and cunning, someone who men feared and women wanted to bed. His scent was masculine, spicy. It floated around her, drugging her. He was danger personified, wrapped in the body of a sex god.

Desperate to touch him, Marian reached between their bodies and gripped Timber’s shaft. She stroked the long, hard length of him. He was firm, yet covered in a smooth sheath of skin. Silk over steel. He twitched in her hand, and when she squeezed harder, his dark eyes hazed over.

Marian had a vision of them together. An image that shot through her mind—she and Timber building a life together in a den off the coast, somewhere close enough to both of their territories for their relationship to work. They could be this way every night....

But when his hand trailed from her breast down the span of her stomach and dipped between her legs, all of her thoughts vanished. He palmed her mound and slid his fingers between her soft folds of flesh, causing her back to arch and the air to whoosh out of her lungs. He moved his fingers slowly. Teasingly. She twisted her hips, writhing beneath the skill of his hand.

“Baby, you’re so wet.” He sucked in a breath so tightly, he nearly hissed. “You’re so wet for me.”

Racing toward a climax she couldn’t fight, Marian pulled her hips back. She didn’t want this to end. Didn’t want to stop what they’d just started. “Wait.”

“No waiting.”

Timber sucked her nipple into his mouth while his hand went to work driving her wild. Between the wet heat of his mouth on her breast and the skill of his fingers swirling against her, Marian lost herself. Molten ecstasy lurched through her veins as tingly sensations gathered in her center, building to a violent crest. And when Timber slid his fingers into her core, she lost it all, crying out his name as a rush of white-hot heat flushed through her body and bloomed over her skin.

Her body sagged, spent and boneless, her hand still on Timber’s cock.

“You’re delicious,” Timber said, drawing his fingers into his mouth. “I wish we had more time, I could pleasure you all night.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

He kissed her tenderly, silencing her. “Believe me when I say that there is absolutely nothing you should be apologizing for when we’re in bed. You’re more perfect than I could’ve dreamed...we’re perfect together.”