Swirling vapors licked his feet as he stepped up to the threshold. To his surprise, the door came open to him before he had a chance to knock, and he faced a short, plump woman garbed in the long white robes of her order, her face all but hidden behind a crisp white wimple. Even the light spilling out onto the sand was the color of the mist. The nunnery was indeed well disguised.
“Good lady,” he said, “I am come seeking one of your sisters…One called Glenda.”
The woman swept her arm wide to signal him to follow and led him to a small cell off the corridor where the light was less acute, then bade him wait. No words passed between them. He understood the woman’s meaning exactly. Praying it was not a silent order, he waited somewhat less than patiently for his mother to join him.
His mother!
How could it be…and yet it was.
Mercifully, he wasn’t left waiting long. He’d just begun to fidget when a tall, handsome woman floated into the room. She was similarly dressed to the other sister, though her headgear was more like a shawl that reached to her fingertips. For a moment, she hesitated, then crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her.
“I am not come for myself,” Vega said, breaking the awkward silence. “I am come for my brother, who finds himself in the same situation you did so long ago….”
Glenda heaved a mammoth sigh. “The sins of the fathers,” she murmured on the wane of it. How sweet her voice was, and how beautiful she was after all these years, but how could it be? He would not rush right into that.
“I was brought up believing you were dead,” he said.
“’Twas best,” she returned almost before he’d finished speaking. She could not meet his gaze then. Looking down, her long dark lashes left dusky shadows on her cheeks. It was uncanny. She looked no older than a girl of twenty. This should not seem odd to one coming from his world of immortals…but she was his
mother!
“Why was it best?” he asked her.
“Seal hunters abounded,” she began. “Baby sealskins brought high prices. Half-breed sealskins were most prized of all because of their rarity. Many were slaughtered. I could not stay with your father. He already had a mate. You would not have been safe with me alone. I could not have protected you, Vega…but your father could.”
The sound of his name upon her lips ran his heart through like a javelin. His had been such a lonely life, and now this! He almost hated Simeon then, but he couldn’t even do that. They were brothers of the blood.
“So you came here,” he said, answering his own question.
“Your father loved you, and he loved me. Selkie men often love more than one woman fiercely. It is the selkie way, and they see nothing wrong in it. Neither do their selkie mates, like Meriwyn, Simeon’s mother. She raised you like her own, under your father’s protection, and you have grown…so handsomely….” There were tears in her voice, though none fell asshe took his measure. “They both died by the seal hunters’ clubs, but you were older then, and you were spared. The selkie storms that followed their murder changed the face of the archipelago—wiped out hundreds of islands formed by the great cataclysm when time began, and they drove the seal hunters away.”
“And Father shut you up in here?”
She smiled. It did not reach her eyes. “Your father gave great sums to the sisters to house me here, where I would be safe.”
“But how is it that you have not aged? This is what I must know?”
“Why must you know?”
“Because of Simeon.”
“Ah! Simeon…”
“And his woman…He is so smitten, I fear he will leave the deep to be with her. She might leave her own kind and live beneath the waves with him, but she will age and he will not. I fear that may deter her, and he would die upon the land. When I learned that you still lived—”
“Who told you?” she interrupted him. “How long have you known?”
“Elna, the Waterwitch, told me today.”
“Do not trust her! She is an evil, odious crone, Vega.”
He ground out a gritty chuckle. “And well I know it, but I am not here about me. You are not selkie, and yet you have not aged. How so? The Waterwitch told me many who take sanctuary here live longer lives as long as they do not leave this place. Is that so?”
Glenda turned away. It was clear she was weighing her answer. Vega did not press her. After a moment, her posture collapsed, then became rigid again, and she turned back to face him.
“Some whom the gods reward with such privilege do,” she said, “but I am not among them. They would hardly venerate an adulterer.” Again she hesitated. “This is something I would not have you tell Simeon,” she said. “It would only hurt him for naught. I must have your word.”
“You have it.”
She nodded. “Your father has raised you well and taught you honor and loyalty. I have followed your progress from my distance, and I am well pleased. I will take you at your word.”
“Please then, how is it that you are immortal?”
She swept her arm wide. “This was only to be temporary,” she said. “Even selkie immortals can take sick and die if they contract diseases of the human race. Simeon’s mother was such a one. She was sickly, and your father feared that she would one day die of the lung fever that had weakened her. When that day came, he was to come for me and unite us—all three. There was a sorcerer of dubious repute on the Isle of Fire in those days. Your father paid him a staggering tribute for a charm that would give me longer life. That was another reason for incarcerating me here, for if the world at large knew of it, my life would have been in grave danger, as you can well imagine.”
“And the sisters took you in.”
She nodded. “They gave me sanctuary, yes. It was only supposed to be temporary, and as I said, they, too, were well paid. This is a holy, restful place, not like the evil sham of Shamans’ Mount. I have been happy here. So you see your father did not abandon me, and I did not abandon you, not really, Vega, my love child. He meant for us to be together one day, and we would have been, but then…he died.”
“The charm Father purchased, do you have it still?”
She hesitated. “What sort of person is your half brother?” she asked him, obviously avoiding the question. “His reputation speaks well of him, but is he worthy of a great sacrifice?”
“I would lay down my life for him,” Vega said.
“And this mortal woman?”
“If he had not seen her first, I would be inquiring for myself,” he confessed. “They are very much in love, just as you and Father were.”
There was a long silence.
“Do you hate me, Vega?” Glenda said at last.
He met her eyes. They were glazed now with unshed tears. “No,” he said. “I only wish I had known all this…before, when it would have mattered.”
“One sacrifice deserves another,” she said, reaching inside the throat of her habit. Her tiny fingers closed on a silver strand. “Give your brother’s lady this,” she said, handing him the necklace. “Once she puts it on and accepts the gift, it cannot be lost or stolen. Only her hand can remove it. Tell her to wear it always and it will give her length of days….”
“But what of you?” Vega said, for already her smooth white skin bore traces of wrinkles. She was aging right before his very eyes. “You cannot do this! There must be another way!”
She shook her head. “I am tired now, let this be my reparation. Your father is dead, Vega. Our dream can never be, but there is hope for Simeon…and
his
lady. You must take it. Your father would want it this way.”
“You still strive to please him…even now,” Vega marveled. “Curious.” Such a love was incomprehensible to his selkie side, and with no one to mentor his mortal side, it boggled his mind. “But if that is so,” he said, “if as you say you are tired of immortality, why did you wait so long to seek the afterlife? Father has been gone for eons.”
“I think I was waiting for this night,” she said. “for you. Do not let the Waterwitch know of this amulet. She has powers, but they have their limits. She has no access here. Let her continue to think I have gained immortality through veneration among the chosen ones. If she knew of the existence of this charm, she would move the moon and stars to get it, and neither Simeon nor his lady would be safe. Take it, my son, and go. You have given me the greatest gift…my peace at last….”
Vega didn’t get a chance to speak. She spun on her heels, and in a blink, she was gone.
M
eg found the opening that led from the pool into the bay without difficulty. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn the sea life guided her there, for all manner of fish—large and small—swam with her. As they guided her, their silvery phosphorescence caught glints of reflected light from some unknown source above the waves and reminded her of Simeon’s mercurial eyes. Even the underwater plants seemed to point the way, waving as she passed. Her breathing was natural enough, and when she surfaced, she made the transition from breathing water to breathing air as naturally as if she’d done so all her life.
The light source that had silvered the fish had come from the waning moon, which was shining down upon the breast of the bay in all its misshapen glory. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The storm was over, and though the waves were running high with heaving swells and white-capped curls, their voices were soft sighs now rather than the deep-throated roars she’d heard during the storm.
Their voices.
Had the deep adopted her that she could hear the voices of the waves? It seemed so. A twinge of remorse washed over her, for she had grown to love it, just as she loved Simeon, which was why this must be. Meg needed to keep reminding herself of that, for it was breaking her heart to leave him.
She brushed her long wet hair back from her face, and scanned the horizon, letting the waves buoy her, bellying the skirt of her dove-gray kirtle. Before her, the islands fanned out in a wide, sweeping arc. Which one? It only took a moment to pick out the Isle of Mists. It was the only one half-hidden in the ghostly veils of its namesake, an odd phenomenon when all the other islands were mist free. She started to swim toward it, following the arrow-straight line of moon shimmer on the water that seemed to point the way.
Halfway there, something nudged her under the waves. She ducked beneath the surface but saw nothing. She hadn’t swum much farther when it happened again, harder this time, like a kick in the stomach, then something sharp pricked her. It did not break the skin, though it stung, and she cried out as Pio broke the surface in front of her, his long sword gleaming in the moonlight.
“It’s no use!” she said. “I have to go, Pio. I have to know if they are still alive.”
The swordfish nudged her again, but she paid him no mind. Pushing past him, she continued to swim toward shore, though the summoner swam back and forth in front of her, making her progress difficult. When that didn’t work, he broke the waves and danced on his tail on the breast of the water. Meg had often seen fish break the surface and do this, but there was a sense of urgency in the swordfish’s antics that almost frightened her.
“Shoo! Go away!” she shouted. “I am going to the Isle. You would have to spear me through with that dreadful sword to prevent me. I have to know if my aunt and uncle live before I leave this place. Then I will be gone to trouble you and your master no more. Now, let me pass!”
If ever a fish could be frustrated, this fish was frustrated now. Meg would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so grave. One thing was certain: what she had planned to do had to be done quickly. Pio the summoner would go straight to Simeon with his failure, and he would surely come after her. The swordfish tried twice more to change her course, and when that didn’t work, he disappeared.
Minutes later, Meg stepped out of the surf on the Isle of Mists. The moon at her back was barely visible now in brief glimpses through the mist. For a moment, she thought she saw the shadow of a large bird silhouetted against it, but in a blink it was gone. All was still—too still—as she parted the mist and climbed what was left of the dunes toward what remained of the little cottage where it had all begun. As she approached it, waves of déjà vu washed over her like the waves washed over the strand, reeling her back in time to that first night when she’d touched herself in the dark as she watched Simeon performing for her alone with his main consort Alexia—taking her in shameless abandon as the waves crashed over them where sea met seaweed, pebbles, and sand.
How he’d known she was watching that night was still a mystery. There was no logical explanation other than the fact that selkies were perceptive enough to simply know such things—to sense sexual excitement in humans as well as their own kind. He had evidently watched her on the beach for some time from the rocks and boulders off shore where the selkies sunned themselves by day. She’d often watched the seals cavorting there, wondering if the selkie tales were true; secretly hoping they were.
Try as she would to beat those thoughts back, they would not leave her. She remembered how he’d flaunted his engorged sex in the moonlight. How he’d entered the female selkie, impaling her upon that hard, curved shaft as the creaming surf crashed around them. How he’d played with her nipples, teasing, taunting, but not touching the tall dark tips silhouetted against the surf in the moonlight.
Meg’s female parts were wet and tingling. It had nothing to do with the wetness of the sea she’d just come from. She was aroused just thinking about Simeon’s dynamic body—about her first time in those strong arms…and the last. He had the power to bring her to the brink of climax with naught but a memory. How could she ever live without him, her Lord of the Deep?
A captive of the haunting recollections, Meg felt deep spurts, like liquid fire, begin to surge through her moist sex. It was as if she were reliving that fateful night all over again as she had so many times since, only the memory was more acute here, where it all began. Gripping the mound between her thighs with pinching fingers, she tried to no avail to still the scalding heat waves that had drenched her with desire. Not even the sight of Adelia’s cottage, ravaged by the storm, standing wounded against the mist could still her need.
There was no one about. If Olwyn and Adelia had survived the maelstrom, they had taken shelter elsewhere. Mindful of her bare feet, Meg picked her way over the debris left by the storm and stepped inside the dilapidated shell of what once had been her home. She turned back toward the beach half hoping she would see Simeon there—even reveling with his consorts, so hungry she was for the sight of him.
Tears welled in her eyes. Her sex was on fire. Staring into the waves crashing on the strand through the drifting mists, she inched up the hem of the kirtle clinging to her body until she’d exposed herself to the midnight damp. Opening the wet bodice plastered to her breasts, she freed them as well, peeling the thin fabric back until her nipples were clear of it, and she began strumming them in concert with the other hand fingering her slit. But it wasn’t her hand palming her breast, teasing the hardened bud, it was Simeon’s. And it wasn’t her fingers parting her pubic curls, exposing her hardened erection, stroking the steely bud to life, parting her nether lips—entering her velvety softness, slick and wet and ready to come. It was the hot bulk of Simeon’s anxious flesh—hard as steel—pumping into her. If her mind’s eye must conjure him thus to the end of her days, so be it. Apart or together, they were one. There would be no other for her…ever.
The orgasm came quickly, lifting her out of herself as if she had wings. She floated in mindless oblivion as the riveting contractions rippled through her sex, through her belly and stiffened thighs. It was excruciating ecstasy until a man’s arm snaked its way around her waist and pulled her hard against a real arousal, hard and thick and eager. His warm breath puffing against her ear raised the fine hairs at the back of her neck.
“I knew you would come,” he panted. “I knew you would return to me. It was only a matter of time. You’ve run out of it—time—but mine has just begun….”
It was Seth.
Simeon readied Elicorn himself, which was no great feat, since the waterhorse was already frolicking over the waves, the high seas being the animal’s passion. Simeon drove him straight for the Pavilion. Meg had never been there, and even if it wasn’t too far for her to reach, she couldn’t know the way. But he was counting upon the sprites, nymphs, mermaids, and sirens under Muriel’s command, not to mention the mermen that inhabited that quarter and traveled the archipelago, to know if she had come into their domain. Without his faithful Pio or Vega, he had no other alternative. He couldn’t sit idly by without running mad.
That she might have died, that she had drowned, was a paralyzing fear for him then. The elixir hadn’t been tested, and she’d left it behind. There were so many pitfalls in his water world that she knew nothing of—that could threaten her life—he dared not imagine them. He was like a madman as it was. And then there was Seth.
But for Muriel and her sister sprites and sirens cleaning up after the storm, the Pavilion was deserted. The trappings there were even more sumptuous than those at the palace, for it was larger and closer to the open sea where most of the wrecks occurred. It had been the main residence when his parents were alive. It wasn’t until after the tragedy that they moved to the palace, where less maintenance and fewer servants were needed.
Simeon found Muriel in the Great Hall sweeping up debris from the floor with her sprites.
“Did it flood?” he said. “It wouldn’t be the first time the subterranean air pocket has flooded in a gale.”
“No, it did not, my lord,” she said. “All this is from the wind. It played havoc with our plant life. We were knee deep in seaweed once the wind ceased to blow.”
“I am come—”
“Forgive me, we know why you’ve come,” she interrupted him. “She is not here, nor is she among the dead, but we are on the lookout for her. I doubt she could reach this far, but if she does, we will know what to do to keep her safe for you.”
Simeon climbed the dais and sank into the counsel seat, taking his head in his hands. “She is not among the drowned dead?” he pleaded.
“She is not among them, though there are many to be respected, my lord, and much salvage to be brought in, though our men folk are handling that.”
“And they will be respected, Muriel, once I have found Megaleen. She is in graver danger than she knows. At least now I know Pio hasn’t abandoned me.”
Muriel smiled, laying a soft hand upon his shoulder. She snapped her fingers and the others fled. “Why?” she said. “When you could have had any one of us as your mate, why did you take a
mortal?
”
“I do not know,” he said, “except that the madness in the blood the mortals call ‘love’ has possessed me. It is not a comfortable thing. You have always been a friend to me, Muriel, which is why I can confess it.”
She knelt beside the counsel seat, gazing into his eyes. How beautiful she was, with her long spiral curls that shone like polished copper cascading to her buttocks. Her exquisite body was barely concealed beneath the barest of garments as sheer as spider silk falling from one shoulder. Her tawny nipples stretched the cloth across her breasts, and from her position kneeling there, her hairless mound and perfect slit were clearly visible. There was a time when he would have reached beneath that filmy skirt and parted those perfect nether lips, a time when he would have risen to the occasion of her obvious seduction.
Sirens were just as notorious when it came to sexual prowess as the selkies, and they did cohabit. Their Otherworldly presence transcended all worlds in the universe, as did all sea creatures. Arcus had its fair share of them, and many an unsuspecting sailor had succumbed to the sirens’ song through the ages. He would not join their ranks. He was smarter than that. He wasn’t fool enough to get caught in the siren’s snare. He was too drunk with the madness of love and too paralyzed with fear of losing that love to think of anything else.
“What of the consorts?” he said, rising from the counsel seat. “Could they have something to do with this, Muriel?”
She shook her head, rising alongside him with dignity and no loss of stature for the rejection. “No,” she said. “They are very closely watched. Whatever you decide, my lord, we are loyal to you, our prince. Nonetheless, the offer had to be made.”
He nodded his understanding. “I must go,” he said. “There is no time to lose. I will return to respect the dead, and with the help of the gods, introduce you to my mate.”
Muriel sketched a demure bow but laid a hand on his arm as he moved past her. “There is one thing,” she said.
“Yes?”
“The consorts are content in their exile. Alexia has found a suitable mate among the mermen, as have most of the others, except for one…the young consort called Risa. She pines for your brother, and I fear for her health over it, but I cannot let her go without your permission. Will you give it?”
“No,” Simeon said. “It is not up to me to speak for my brother. If he does not share her feelings it would be cruel to give her hope. I will tell Vega, and if he is of like mind in the matter, you have my permission to release her to him.”
“As you wish, my lord,” Muriel said, satisfied.
“If there is any sign of Megaleen…”
“You will know of it at once, my prince,” she said, with a curtsy. “And she will always be safe among us, you have my word.”
That, Simeon believed. Of all the creatures of the sea, sirens were the most patient, willing to wait eons for their heart’s desire. It was clear she had set her cap at him, and she would bide her time. He could easily read her thoughts. Humans soon faded into the mists of time. She would wait. She would be there when that time came, with only good and loyal servitude to recommend her. He almost felt sorry for her.
He left her then, and he had scarcely broken the waves astride Elicorn when Pio leapt out of the sea and danced before him, every frazzled scale on his shimmering body trembling.
“Where in the name of the holy gods have you been?” he railed at the summoner.
All voiceless sea creatures communicated with the Lord of the Deep through telepathy, a form of mind-speak that needed no spoken words. Usually, Simeon spoke with his subjects in kind, but not tonight; he was too deranged to still his voice for fear his mind would burst.
“What?” he cried. “
The Isle of Mists?
But you said you’d tracked Seth there!”