Simeon had nearly reached the surface when he passed the wreck of a recently sunken barque clinging precariously to a shallow shelf. He was so close to the surface the color of the murky water around him had begun to lighten from the sun beating down upon the water from above. All at once, motion caught his eye but not in time. He felt the restriction before he realized the cause as a large net was thrown over him and tightened in the hands of a half-dozen aggressors.
Caught off guard, Simeon had no time to strategize his escape. He thrashed about in a vain attempt to free himself. The more he fought his captors, the more he became tangled in the mesh of the net. The water around him clouded, having grown murky despite the light streaming down as his efforts stirred long-dormant algae and aquatic debris clinging to the wrecked ship.
Elicorn!
He had nearly reached the cave where he’d left the waterhorse to graze, and he shut his eyes and hummed the mantra, sending far-reaching vibrations rippling through the water that would bring the animal. But when Elicorn pranced alongside, he was not alone. Alexia was mounted on his back.
“Do not struggle, my lord,” she said, motioning the others to cinch the net in tighter. “You cannot escape. What? Did you think you could just kick us aside and disappear here at the Pavilion with your mortal whore without a word to us, your loyal consorts who have served you so faithfully? Did you think we could not follow you such a distance? You forget the coral reefs, the rocks along this coast, where a selkie—many sekies—can take refuge. You are a fool, Simeon, to think you could escape us.”
“You sealed your fate when you attacked me in my sleeping chamber. You nearly killed Megaleen. Can you possibly imagine such a vicious attack would go unpunished? You do not rule the deep—
I
do. As it stands now, you are outcast. Carry this further, and you leave me no choice. Treason is punishable by death. Now let me out of this before it’s too late!”
Fury ruled Simeon’s posture as he struggled within the confines of the net. Twisted as he was on his back, it was impossible to right himself and get a grip on the others who had become visible now—female selkies in their human incarnation, their naked skin glowing with underwater phosphorescence.
“You brought a
mortal
beneath the waves!”
“I have had many mortals in the past, Alexia.”
“But this mortal is…different….”
Even Alexia noticed a difference in Megaleen. None of the others had ever posed a threat…until now. “Let me out of this net!” Simeon thundered. “You have no authority over me. Stop this now, while there is still time so save yourselves.”
Alexia ranged the waterhorse closer. Anger set the blood boiling in Simeon’s temples. How fickle was the beast beneath her to allow such a traitorous assault? The animal was beyond redemption. He would have to set it free. Or it could serve these treacherous cows that it abetted now. A waterhorse was what a waterhorse was—a great deceiver, even of its master. Vega could unwind that coil. Right now, Simeon needed to deal with the situation at hand. He needed to break free from this herd of disgruntled selkies and keep his rendezvous with Megaleen. By the dull color of the water overhead, which not so long ago had seemed brighter, the sun was already sinking low. There wasn’t a moment to lose, and he punched his fist through the mesh of the net and seized Alexia’s long, black mane.
“Let…me…go!” he seethed, giving her hair a wrench.
Alexia shrieked. “’Tis enchanted, the net,” she cried. “I cannot!”
“I will show you enchanted,” Simeon breathed, jerking her hair again. “Loose these bonds!”
All at once the net began to move, taking Simeon with it. Through the bleak, fading light filtering down from above, he watched the wreck slip away. The consorts were dragging the net through the water to a small cave, where the light nearly failed altogether. There, the net was loosened, but before Simeon could untangle his limbs from it, Alexia had slipped off the waterhorse’s back and mounted him instead.
“What can she give you that I cannot?” she purred, tearing at his eel skin suit.
Simeon groaned as the skin ripped. Vega would not be pleased after all his hard work making it, and he loosed a roaring bark not unlike what he might have uttered in his seal form, struggling with her beneath the loose, floating net.
“Enough!” he demanded. “Give it over, Alexia. I do not want to hurt you. You cannot win.”
“I have already won,” the selkie crooned, ripping the rest of his eel skin suit down the front. She seized his cock. “I have this in my hand, and you cannot tell me I do not still excite you.”
He was what he was. A selkie’s libido was legend. But even if her touch did arouse him, he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction. He was on fire, but not for Alexia, or the dark young beauty, Risa, or any of the others who had serviced him over the years. His mind, body, and soul burned for Meg with such a drenching, all-consuming passion, it had built a wall of fire around his heart that would admit no other. Even if Alexia were to take him—to drain the seed of his body—there would be nothing but emptiness in it. It would signify nothing more than a mundane bodily function. If this was love, it fostered loyalty—
monogamy
—and that was totally foreign for a selkie and not a comfortable thing. But there it was.
Their bodies entwined beneath the net, Alexia tore the rest of his eel skin suit away and ran her hands over his naked torso. Seizing his cock, she worked its silken shaft in a way that had always aroused him—twisting her hand in a spiraling motion up and down along its thick, veined surface, bringing him to full arousal. Relentless, she twisted it deeper with each stroke, meanwhile flicking her forefinger over the silky smooth mushroom tip in teasing, fluttering passes like the kiss of a butterfly’s wing.
With her free hand, Alexia reached between her thighs and spread her nether lips. Finding her bud, she moaned and began fondling it, sliding her fingers along her fissure, slipping them inside her vagina, moving them in and out as she undulated against them.
“Deny me now, Lord of the Deep, if you can!” she triumphed. “Tell me that which I hold in my hand has not come to life for Alexia!”
Simeon loosed a bitter howl. Anger and lust welled inside him. He hated his traitorous member for rising in Alexia’s hand—hated the eons-old force that drove the selkie to fulfill his sexual desires. Most of all, he hated Alexia for taking advantage of that inherent drive to serve her own ends. She certainly wasn’t serving his. His longing was for Meg, in a way that Alexia could never sate no matter how she took him.
“What you are holding there would come to life in any hand that strokes it, you stupid cow,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “It is the nature of the beast and signifies naught but that it is in good working order. I could have done the same myself—and better.”
He had nearly forgotten they weren’t alone until the net was lifted slightly and the others began crowding close beneath it. Alexia hissed at Risa like a viper when she attempted to nudge her out of the way, and several of the others wriggled underneath the net. Their hands were everywhere, stroking, mauling, violating. But Simeon had a plan.
He laughed; the sound was so cold echoing in his ears it chilled him to the bone. “You see?” he said. “Their hands are just as effective. You overrate yourself, Alexia.”
The net was spread out wide, floating overhead, and he encouraged the others to glide underneath it. Then clearing his voice, he loosed a vibrating mantra into the water, humming what he hoped they’d think was his contentment, while he had quite something else in mind.
Risa’s nipple found his mouth, and Alexia slid down his body until his cock rested between her breasts, mimicking the twisting motion she’d done with her hand earlier as she undulated against him. Simeon had reached the point of no return all the way around. His engorged shaft, trapped between the voluptuous globes of Alexia’s breasts would not be ignored. It had throbbed to life, but so had the burgeoning seeds of his plan. He bided his time until all of the consorts had crowded under the net. He waited until all hands were stroking him, exploring the hills and valleys, every orifice, every erogenous inch of his hard-muscled body—waited until they began pushing and shoving, trying to usurp one another, vying for his attention, and taking credit for his pleasure-moans.
First he stroked one’s bottom, then another’s nipples, and another’s slit, just long enough to cause contention, and a power struggle soon began as they fought over his sex, slapping and pinching and pulling hair.
Alexia, still in control, raised her body above him with intent to impale herself upon his hot hardness, but Simeon was too quick for her. That he would not allow. Sliding out from underneath the literal blanket of females scrapping like cats over possession of his body, he released one last humming mantra into the water, seized the cinch rope that edged the net, and gathered it shut around the unsuspecting females.
Simeon could not prevent his climax. The minute he reached to soothe his aching, bursting cock, it pumped him dry, but none had the satisfaction of feeling him inside her. He had trapped them with their own device, and no sooner had he tied the knot that secured them, than an army of sirens, sprites, nymphs, and mermaids surrounded them.
“You called, my lord?” Muriel, their leader, said.
“Dispose of these,” Simeon charged. “I would see them no more.”
“As you wish, my prince,” the siren said. “Is there to be an inquisition?”
“If I set eyes upon them again, there will be an
execution,
” Simeon said. “It will suffice that they are sent from the archipelago, never to return. There are plenty of islets off the mainland where they can find a home…but not with me. I will not sleep with vipers. Take them away….”
“You cannot do this,” Alexia hissed, like the snake he accused. “To the others, perhaps, but not to
me!
You cannot put me from you just like that. We are one—we have always been one. Let me out, my lord…Let me out, I say!”
Simeon stared at her through narrowed eyes. Around her, the tangled snarl of struggling, shrieking female selkies were thrashing about inside the net, their naked bodies stretching the mesh. “You cannot even be loyal to your sister selkies,” he observed. “And you have just demonstrated your treachery against me. Your betrayal has brought you to this punishment.” He turned to the siren and her legions. “Take them away.”
Offering a respectful bow, Muriel signaled the others, who began hauling away the net filled with shrieking, battling females. But one being waiting on the sidelines remained. From the shadowy depths of the cave, Elicorn pranced forward, bobbing his proud head in what seemed to Simeon a penitent posture.
He turned cold eyes upon the animal. “Well? What are you waiting for?” he snapped. “If I can change my nature—defy what is
in the blood
—what are you that you cannot do likewise? Think upon it, and if you cannot, then you belong with these in their exile. So go, if that be the case, I never want to see you again. Decide! I have no more time to waste on you.”
And without a backward glance, he sprang from the shelf and swam off toward the surface.
D
arkness came quickly on Shamans’ Mount. The copse was too sparse to elude pursuit for long, though Meg ran the shaman a merry chase. The spirits he’d drunk soon had their way with him, however, and it wasn’t long before he tired of the game.
Standing behind a sturdy pine her pursuer had just checked, Meg held her breath, her eyes upon the shaman reeling off toward the scrying pool, certain he could hear her heart pounding; it was making such a racket in her ears.
“All right, little witch,” he snarled, waving a wild arm in the air in a rough gesture of dismissal. “I give you over to the mists.” His
cote-hardie
was still gaping open in front, and he spun in a staggering circle, exhibiting his flaccid member in a lewd gesture. “It tires of you in any case,” he rambled on. “But do not let that give you false hope of dismissal…only a reprieve. So! Run your pretty legs off! They will take you nowhere. Like I said…you cannot escape the Mount, lest you sprout wings. You cannot scale the wall, it is too steep. It gets cold in the mists in the dark, and you half naked in that rag—you’ll come a-knocking soon enough, little witch, and you had best pray when you do that I am still this drunk!” He spun again, jutting his pelvis and exposing his penis roughly. “You will pay for this!” he snarled. “Never doubt it.”
Then he was gone, swallowed up in the fog, and Meg sagged against the ancient tree trunk, hugging it as if to absorb its strength into her trembling body. Exhausted, she slid the length of the trunk to the mossy ground and leaned her back against the rough bark. It was running with sap, and it caught on the flimsy gown, but she didn’t care. It was long known that sitting thus against one of the ancient trees evoked its spirit to enter the body. If ever she had need of ancient strength, it was now.
It was even said in hushed whispers that the greatest of such trees were able to move about when all was still in the dead of darkness. She dearly wished that the one she leaned on now was not a species of that variety, though a little of such magic would be welcome now, and the Mount was reputed to be magical, after all. If in truth and fact it was, she knew in her heart, though untapped, she possessed the gift to summon it.
Meg closed her eyes, praying it was safe to do so because that was part of the summoning. Taking deep breaths, she intoned the supplication:
“Sacred spirit in this tree,
Come forth now and bond with me,
Arise! Give ear! Awaken!
Leave not your servant here forsaken,
Ancient spirit in this tree,
Come forth now and enter me….”
The rest was prayed in silent meditation. It was only a childhood rhyme, something learned at her mother’s knee. But that was where she’d learned of her other gifts, and they were real enough to see her banished from the mainland for evoking them. The Mount was a place enchanted after all. If she only was able to tap into that magic…
All at once, the ground beneath her began to throb like a heartbeat. It seemed to shift, like a person turning in bed, and sigh, or was that the wind in the boughs spreading the heady scent of pine? But there was no wind. Was it the tree’s sweet breath inhaling life that she felt whispering through her hair, warming her skin beneath the flimsy kirtle? She drank it in deeply.
The mulch of grass, dead leaves, pine needles and boughs peppered with pinecones shifted underneath her as the tree seemed to sigh again. The ground heaved, as long-dormant roots trailing tendrils sprung out of the forest floor like snakes and held her fast. Meg sucked in a hasty breath as the roots crawled over her body. Had she evoked the spirit in the ancient pine and brought it to life? What other explanation could there be? Strangely, she did not fear it. She had conjured it after all. She did not struggle. Sitting very still, she allowed the roots to explore her body.
It began with her tousled mane of hair that drifted about her like a veil, having dried as she ran through the wood to escape her pursuer earlier. A vibration began to hum through her body from below ground. A strange warming sensation accompanied it as the hum spread from the tips of her bare toes to the tips of her fingers. New trails of sensation spread to her breasts, then settled at the epicenter of her sex, causing a quickening of her heartbeat and breathing. Something fluttered through her loins. She was aroused, scarcely breathing, as two of the roots plucked her bodice aside, baring the orbs of her breasts to the cool mist, and twined their tendrils about her nipples.
Meg cried out, unable to contain the outburst as the root tendrils tugged at both her nipples at once. She dared not break the spell. The magic was too great. Break it now, and she would surely shatter. She had heard of such, of trees that took this sort of liberties in exchange for favors rendered. According to legend, only those with the greatest gifts—the truly endowed—possessed the power to entice a tree to bond in such a way, and never was it ever heard of except on the Forest Isle in the realm of Marius, Prince of the Green.
Its touch was sweet torture as the tiniest hair tendrils on the tree’s root arms flicked the tips of her hardened nipples. Fisting her hands in the mulch she sat on, Meg groaned. Thick as milk with mist, the very air had a pulse. When one of the roots left her nipple and groped at the hem of her gown, she gasped again, digging her hands deeper in the fragrant mulch at her sides. But another root sprang up from the ground displacing the pine needles, sending pinecones rolling in all directions, and took the place of the other root at the nipple it had discarded.
Inch by inch, the tendrils at her hem began to draw the skirt up along her leg, over her thigh, feeling for her pubic curls. She could have sworn she heard the tree sigh again. She could bear no more, and a troop of orgasmic cries escaped her throat as the tendrils found the bud at the top of her fissure and began fondling it. Ripples of pulsating sensation riddled her deep inside as other roots sprang up, tethering her closer and explored every inch of her, burrowing beneath the sheer gown, spreading her legs, her nether lips—lingering on the edge of her slit, spread open to receive penetration.
Wet with arousal, Meg arched herself to receive one root that had joined with another and twisted into a spiral. The ground beneath her shuddered as the twisted roots moved in and out of her, riding the rhythm of her pelvic thrusts. Overhead, the pine boughs swayed in an imaginary wind that spread their scent. Needles rained down, slick with sap and dripping dew the mist had spent on them. They felt cool against Meg’s hot skin, and she groaned again as her hips jerked forward, bringing her release.
Wave upon wave of searing fire flooded her loins with riveting contractions, as the rough textured tendrils addressing her erect bud rubbed and scraped and palpated the tiny erection between her thighs to rock hardness. Shuddering helplessly, she sighed when she climaxed once—twice—as the roots withdrew on the silk of her juices and burrowed back into the ground with the others that gave up her nipples and vacated her hot, moist skin.
Then the forest floor was as it was before she invoked the tree spirit—as if it had never happened. But this was no dream. It had been a bonding. Whatever strength, power—advantage—she had gained from the union would manifest itself in time. Whatever enchantment was afoot would one day make itself known. This, she would not confide in Simeon. It had no bearing on what was between them. It was something magical for her alone to know. A secret she would take to her grave, like touching herself in the dark, for if the mainlanders branded her a witch for looking into people’s hearts, they would surely burn her at the stake for
copulating with a tree!
She would be put to death for unnatural practices.
Her eyes were open now, though hooded with the last dregs of desire. Her heart was hammering in her breast, her breath coming short and in spurts. She rotated her hips and squeezed her sex to still the palpitations, only to reach orgasm again. Grown weak and docile, she waited for the searing waves of drenching fire to subside, then straightened the gown around her, covering her flushed nipples, and staggered to her feet using the tree trunk for support.
All around, the little copse was very still. No woodland creatures spoke—no bird chirped. There was no human sound. Ordering herself, Meg thanked the gods that the shaman had tired of the game and gone back to the temple and his real whores—if his parts had recovered from her attack upon them. She glanced in the direction of the scrying pool, where she’d last seen him as he staggered off….
The scrying pool!
Could it be possible that he hadn’t left her at all—that he had seen what had just happened in the pool. Frantically, she strained the mist with narrowed eyes for some sign of his hulking bulk in the flowing black
cote-hardie
. For a moment, nothing met her gaze, only the swirling, eddying mist that seemed to pick and choose its hollow and had settled in around her. Her posture had barely collapsed in relief when a firm hand clamped around her arm from behind and reeled her along into a little clearing at the edge of the wood.
“So, little whore,” the shaman said, jerking her to a standstill. “Did you really think I would leave you out here all on your own?”
“Let me go!” Meg shrilled, prying at his fingers that made deep imprints on her arm—so deep they’d nearly stopped the circulation.
“Gazing in the pool always sobers me,” the shaman said, “and after what I’ve just seen, you have no case to plead.” He ran the back of his hand down the V in the front of her gown, over her bare skin, lingering upon the voluptuous swell of her cleavage. “Um,” he hummed. “You are like a succulent grape that has just been peeled, all moist and blushed, and aching to be sucked dry of all your sweet juices.” Jerking her close, he ground his penis into her groin through the thin gauze gown. “I am the best you’ll get here,” he boasted. “No dried up prune, this. Accommodate me, and no one need know about the tree. You are not simpleminded. Such sorcery is condemned—even here. You know you cannot escape. This is what must be, and the sooner you accept the reality of that, the better.”
His hands were upon her then, pinching, mauling—molesting. Meg screamed as he tried to work his way beneath her skirt, but he shook her to a standstill. “Open to me!” he thundered, trying to spread her legs apart. “By the gods, I will take you right here where you stand, and you will know you’ve been taken. You are more trouble than all the others in my household put together but well worth the battle, eh? Open, I say!”
All Meg could think of was that it was nearing midnight. Simeon would be at the cove, and she would not be there to meet him. Anger roiled in her at the circumstance that prevented her from keeping their assignation. She turned it upon the shaman. With all her strength, she beat him about the head and face with her free hand, meanwhile raising her knee to deliver another blow to his groin, but he was prepared this time and seized her leg before it reached its mark.
“Let go of me!” Meg demanded.
The shaman shook his head. “No, little sorceress,” he seethed. “You will take this inside you, and it will revenge itself on you for the swelling in it that is not result of this arousal. Believe me, it will whip you into shape from the inside out!”
Frantic at the rabid passion he exuded, Meg raised her hand to strike him, but he dropped her leg and countered the blow. She was just about to strike at him again when a whoosh of displaced air and loose feathers raining down halted her hand midstroke as a winged man descended out of the misty sky and came to ground frighteningly close beside them.
His eyes, as black as onyx chips, sparkled in the defused light cast off by the mist. He glanced between them and spoke but one word to her:
“Decide!”
The shaman’s hands fell away from Meg’s arms. “What do you here, bastard of the gods?” he snarled.
“Their will,” the winged man responded. He was clothed all in black in a skin-tight suit that left nothing to the imagination. A shock of hair the color of raven’s feathers combed by the wind fell across his brow. His eyes were riveted to Meg’s as he flexed his silver-white wings and said again, “
Decide!
”
There was something vaguely familiar about him. Meg gasped. Could it be the same winged man she saw circling the little skiff? She gasped again.
“You have no jurisdiction here, Gideon,” the shaman barked. “Take yourself off and be gone. You are not welcome here.”
“Small wonder,” Gideon ground out through a wry chuckle, his eyes snapping toward Meg again. “Decide now!” he charged her.
Meg hesitated. She couldn’t stay, but how could she go with this creature? Still, he possessed the wings to liberate her, and she ran into his arms.
In the space of a blink, Gideon stretched his wings and soared into the star-studded night sky. “Hold on to me,” he said.
Those words were wasted. Looking down at the half-naked shaman railing and shaking an angry fist at them from the clearing below was enough for Meg, and she buried her face in the dark lord’s shoulder. She didn’t open them again until she felt him touch down on sparkling black sand.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Where is this place?”
“I am Gideon, a friend,” he replied, “and this is my island. I mean you no harm. I am also a friend of Simeon, Lord of the Deep, though he doesn’t know a whit about gratitude. But that is neither here nor there. You will come to no harm here, under my protection.” He raked her with familiar eyes. “And though you are a sight to tempt a eunuch, you are quite safe with me in that regard. That is enough for you to know…for now.”
“Th-thank you for rescuing me from that place,” Meg said low-voiced, scarcely meeting his eyes in sidelong glances. They were boring into her. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks crimson; she needed no mirror to see it. Hot blood raced through her veins and throbbed through her temples. Could he have seen her bond with the tree spirit? If he had, it was the second time he’d seen her nearly naked in similar circumstances. What must he think of her? She shuddered imagining it.