Lord of the Deep (14 page)

“What do you mean, ‘they’ve found him?’ How could you know that?”

“One just came from the stronghold. He speaks with two others, and they are studying all here. They are looking for us. Act natural…Follow my lead, and do not look behind you. What must be done I must do quickly….”

He kissed her in earnest then. Her closeness demanded it. Her scent was like a drug, wild clover and honey mingled with herbs and hazelnuts from the bath. He was undone by it, a captive of her innocent abandon to his ardor. He deepened the kiss and she responded. His shaft shot up, its bulk swelling against her belly through the taut eel skin suit that fitted him like a second skin. It would be so easy to let the rising tide of emotions in him carry him away like the others, but a glimpse of the three men running off in the direction of the stronghold set him in motion, and he let her go abruptly.

“Now!” he gritted through clenched teeth. “Unless I miss my guess, they will soon return with Seth. We must be well away and concealed before then. Look sharp! We can ill afford to be caught out here now.”

Leading her past the scrying pool, Simeon moved to the rock pool and began searching the ground.

“What do you do?” Meg said.

He straightened up holding a shard of rock. Digging it into the soft flesh of his thumb, he bore down until a drop of blood welled up, and then another and squeezed it, taking great care that the drops of blood dripped into the water.

“More than enough,” he said. Taking her arm, he led her behind the bonfire out of sight of the others, and took her into the grove. By the look of the revelers, there wasn’t much chance of generating their interest. Those that weren’t besotted with spirits were engaged in orgiastic couplings around the bonfire to the beat of the music that held them enthralled. Had they drunk the same wine Seth had given Meg? By the look of things, he imagined so. The clearing was carpeted with naked bodies entwined, reminding him again of the mating on the strand on the Isle of Mists that had won him Meg what seemed a lifetime ago for all that had occurred since that fateful night. He had drunk none of the drugged wine, except for the stingy swallow he’d taken from the young shaman’s wineskin. His passion was pure and would be denied no longer. Having taken her deeply in among the ancient trees, well out of sight of the drunken revelers, he rushed her against the rough bark of an ancestral pine and tore open his eel skin, releasing his throbbing cock.

A terrible thought drifted across his mind as he folded her in a heart-stopping embrace. If all his efforts failed, this could well be their last time together. The strange image he’d seen in the scrying pool was testimony to that. He’d seen himself, but aged slightly, his hair frosted with gray at the temples. Was that the present? Had he seen nothing but his reflection in the water? If that were so, he’d already lost his immorality. Or was he seeing the future in the mystical pool—his future. Either way, it did not bode well, but what mattered then was the beautiful woman in his arms gazing up at him with eyes dilated with desire.

Lifting the skirt of her kirtle, he ran his hands along her sides. How soft she was, her skin like eiderdown. His fingers strayed as they always did to the V of golden curls between her thighs, moistened with arousal. Parting her nether lips, he reached into her, his fingers riding on her warm wetness, like liquid silk inside her. Casting off her cloak, he opened her bodice and feasted upon her breasts with hungry eyes. His hands became rampant, anxious things he no longer controlled, moving over her body as if they were possessed of their own will. Fueled by her moans, he tore at her kirtle until he’d lifted it over her head and tossed it down with the cloak.

Her hands tore at his eel skin until she had slid it down over his torso. He had no recollection of when his cloak fell away. Her tiny hands captured his cock and flitted over the shaft from mushroom tip to turgid balls. He cried out as she reverenced him, for that is what her tiny fingers were doing as they played with him in innocent abandon, exploring, fondling, worshiping—making him harder still.

Swooping down, he took one taut nipple in his mouth and laved it—scraped it with his tongue until she writhed beneath his lips and begged him to take the other. Her honey sweetness filled his nostrils—his mouth—his very soul. He would make this wonder last, and yet every pore in his skin—every cell in his turgid body—cried for release.

The wind had risen sharply, but it hadn’t deterred the revelers. Sounds of their lewd antics reached them even deep in the grove. The beat of the strange orgasmic music had risen in competition with the gusts that whistled through the pine boughs overhead spreading their spicy scent. The sensuous rhythm thrummed through his body, igniting the fever in his blood. His whole body throbbed in concert with the pulse in his veins as he drank in the sight of her, with her head thrust back in mindless oblivion against the tree trunk. The moon had disappeared behind dark scudding clouds, the only light a distant glow from the raging bonfire shooting showers of sparks into the sky in the clearing beyond. Flames danced in her eyes and highlighted her hair. How very beautiful she was in surrender. She was his—all his. Oh, how he loved her.

His fingers still moved inside her, riding her wetness. Her swollen labia gripped them in rhythmic contractions, keeping time with the beat of the strange evocative music and the revelers’ chanting. He could bear no more. Gripping the perfect rounds of her buttocks, he lifted her onto his bursting shaft and plunged into her in one long, shuddering thrust that siphoned the breath from her lungs. Her groan was bestial—primeval—as he filled her, hammering into her to the root of his sex again and again. He watched her release glaze her eyes, watched them dilate, shining like two glowing coals in the fire-lit darkness. Spiraling in and out of her, Simeon held his breath as he came, his heart hammering against her breasts as he froze inside her, the hot lava rush of his semen spilling into her—out of her. Their thighs were wet with the juices of his palpating climax.

So great an upheaval mounted inside him, it seemed to move the ground beneath them. At first he thought it was his legs shaking with release or the vibration from the revelers dancing which shook the ground, until something tenuous, though strong as steel, crawled up his leg, snaked its way around his waist, and flung him to the ground. He struck the mulch beneath him hard as another vinelike tether sprang out of the ground and seized his cock in a painful stranglehold.

“
No!
” cried Meg, as more roots shot up from the forest floor. One circled her waist, another probed her sex, still more held Simeon down, probing every orifice none too gently.

“What sorcery is this?” he ground out through clenched teeth. The roots had bound his arms to the ground. He couldn’t move, though he struggled with all his strength.

Meg sank to the ground. “No! I beg you, stop! Let him go!” she pleaded, embracing the tree trunk. “Spirit, please…He is my love…
my
roots…my home….”

Simeon’s jaw sagged as he watched the tree’s roots and tendrils stroke her sex and tweak her nipples, exploring her body familiarly. One long, ropelike appendage caught in her hair, driving her head against the tree’s bark. Was it embracing her? It certainly wasn’t embracing him. It had his penis in a viselike grip. Making matters worse, it had wrenched him out of her before his member could go flaccid, and the way it was moving on him—painful though it was—brought him to the brink of coming again.

“Please, ancient one,” Meg sobbed. “He is my mate…I beg you, let him go!”

A trickle of sap ran down the tree’s trunk, picking up golden glints from the fire glow. Was that its tear? The ground beneath him heaved and settled. The pine boughs seemed to sigh as the wind ruffled the needles. One by one, the tree’s roots receded back into the ground, all except the one stroking Meg’s nether parts and the one fondling Simeon’s erection

Meg crawled to Simeon’s side and embraced him. “Do not resist, my love,” she murmured in his ear. “It is beyond our comprehending, this, a mystery known only to the Arcan gods. The spirit in this ancient one is eons old and so lonely. These here have stolen it from its home when it was no more than a sapling and treated it cruelly. I beg you, do not harm it….”

Other roots seemed to nudge them closer together. All at once they were in each other’s arms as the roots of the ancient tree had their way with them. The ground beneath them seemed to breathe, spreading the heady scent of mulch and pinesap. Simeon could no more prevent the orgasm than he could prevent his next breath. It was a powerful eruption that drained him dry, coming simultaneously with Meg’s release. He watched it in her shuttered eyes again and kissed the tears from her cheeks. When had they come streaming down, and why? Were they tears of joy or sorrow? It didn’t matter. They were gone now that he had gentled them all away.

Silently, the tree’s roots slipped down beneath the forest floor and disappeared as though they had never risen out of the ground. Simeon looked deep in Meg’s misty eyes for a long moment before speaking.

“How can this be?” he said finally, brushing her hair back from her hot face. “It is rumored that such things occur on the Forest Isle, but I have never believed it.
Are
you the witch they accuse? What has just happened here?”

“The ancient spirit in this tree has bonded us. It has given us its blessing, Simeon. It has married us in the ways of the wood on the solstice. There is no stronger bond. We are one.”

“We have always been that, Megaleen. We did not need that tree to bind us.”

“Shh,” she murmured. “Do not anger it. You are from the sea. You know nothing of these mysteries. Take the gift. The giver has the ear of the gods.”

A loud uproar rose above the music. Some new merriment was taking place around the bonfire. Scrambling to his feet, Simeon pulled Meg up alongside and steered her to their clothes where they’d shed them on the ground. No mean task, since his eel skin suit was tangled around his ankles.

“Hurry and dress,” he charged. “Soon the storm will come, and we must find my sealskin and be away before it does.” He snatched up her cloak and slapped the dead leaves from it. She had wriggled into her kirtle, and he slipped the cloak about her shoulders and pulled the hood about her face. “Keep well hidden,” he said. “And pray to your gods that Seth is not among these now. He will recognize us both.”

The naked revelers celebrating their ritual around the bonfire were being led by one whose chanting rose above the rest. His worst fears realized, Simeon froze in his tracks at the edge of the grove, pulling Meg up short.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Simeon nodded toward the drunken orgy taking place in the clearing. “Seth,” he said. “We do not need to search for my sealskin further.”

“Why?” Meg said.

“Because he is wearing it!” Simeon seethed.

“O
h, Simeon!” Meg shrilled. “Suppose he throws the sealskin on the fire!”

Simeon studied the shaman who flaunted the sealskin draped over his head and shoulders and trailing down his back like a cloak, and gritted his teeth at the sight. “He knows we’re here somewhere. He’s using it for bait. He wants to ferret us out—bring us into the open. Not all these are in their cups. See”—he pointed to a naked trollop close beside the shaman—“and there”—he gestured toward a robed cleric upending a wineskin nearby—“no doubt there are more.” He looked to the heavens. The wind had continued to rise, and the sky was blacker than sin. Dry lightning speared down over the grove. “Come away from the wood,” he said, steering her clear of the trees. He knew well the power of the selkie maelstrom. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

“The ancient one!” Meg cried, pulling against him toward the grove.

Simeon held her back, shaking a slow head. “It is too late,” he said. “Before the dawn, Shamans’ Mount will be no more, Megaleen. The old one evidently knew that when he bonded us. There is nothing we can do for him but pray for a quick and painless death to free his spirit.” Still she struggled, and he shook her gently. “Go to him now and you will die with him!” he snapped. “There is nothing you can do.”

“He spent his whole life a captive in this awful place,” Meg argued. “I cannot bear to see him die thus.”

“Tree spirits are the oldest creatures in the world,” Simeon reminded her. “As you said, they possess wisdom beyond our comprehending. He did not give us his blessing because we were about to die. What use to marry the dead? He meant for us to live, Megaleen.”

Another lightning bolt struck the heart of the grove, and Simeon turned her away. He could have sworn he heard a human cry as the wood caught fire in a hissing, cracking blaze of flame and sparks that raced up tree trunk after tree trunk until the whole wood was ablaze. A great roar rose above the sounds of the fire as towering waves rolled up the granite wall that enclosed the Mount. Giant clouds of diaphanous spindrift rose high into the sky, telling that the waves that spawned it soon would flood the isle. The revelers were running helter-skelter over the clearing, over the courtyard, and through the temple gardens. Even Seth had ceased strutting. He looked bewildered, scanning the devastation that had begun.

“He is falling-down drunk, Megaleen,” Simeon observed. “Do you trust me, my love?” His original plan would not work now. Gideon would not risk his wings to the holocaust Shamans’ Mount was fast becoming. The alternative was dangerous if it could be managed at all. That would depend upon Meg, and he pulled her into his arms, a close eye on Seth through the rippling heat of the bonfire, where the shaman still staggered in his drunken confusion.

Meg nodded that she did. She was terrified. He could see it in her horrified stare—hear it in her rapid breathing. Her eyes were still fixed upon the burning wood, still glazed with sorrow for the ancient tree.

“Then you must do exactly as I say,” he told her. “Seth has drunk much wine. Between that and the blow to his head earlier, I can wrest the sealskin from him easily enough with the help of this”—he held up a rock he’d snatched from the ground—“if I do not have to worry about you. His minions have fled. Once I have it, we must go below the waves. Within the hour, this place will be no more. It will have disappeared and all its evil with it. The sea will merge with the bay. Enormous waves the like of which you have never seen will flood this place, and the rain will drive it down, until all that you see is no more. Come. No matter what occurs, stay close to me.”

Except for Seth and a few who had drunk themselves into a stupor lying strewn about, the revelers had all fled to the temple and the tower. Seth was reeling in that direction as well when Simeon confronted him just as the rain began to pelt down on a slant driven landward from the sea. Wrestling with the drunken shaman, Simeon soon won back the sealskin, which he handed to Meg. He did so without hesitation, while he delivered a blow with the rock that brought the shaman to his knees and another with his fist that drove Seth to the ground unconscious.

Staggering to his feet, Simeon took back the sealskin from Meg, who stood clutching it, threw off his
cote-hardie,
and stepped into the sealskin to the waist before turning to her. “Now is when you must trust, Megaleen,” he said. “There is only one way out of here….”

“How?” she murmured.

“This is how,” Simeon said, and blowing into her mouth and nostrils, he shrugged the rest of the sealskin on. “Hold fast to me!” he charged as he dove into the rock pool and took her down beneath the waves.

Meg shut her eyes and tried to ignore her terror. That was what had nearly cost her her life the last time Simeon took her below the waves thus. But he hadn’t warned her about the undertow being so strong in a storm, and this was no ordinary storm. He hadn’t warned her that the heaving swells would dredge up the silt on the ocean floor and make visibility nearly nonexistent. And he hadn’t told her to expect bits of wreckage raining down—whole ships and bodies, staved hulls and spars and rigging, with sheets and sails furled fast, as they would be in a storm. But it hadn’t been enough to save the ships or the poor souls floating down, down, down to a watery grave.

She shut her eyes, for the fine sand stung them, and clung so fiercely to Simeon’s neck she feared her pinching fingers would draw blood. He’d donned all but the head of the sealskin. Otherwise, she would have had precious little to cling to on the seal’s sleek body. He was talking to her as they plummeted below, but she had no idea what he was saying. Her heart was hammering so violently in her breast she couldn’t hear anything above the noise. His voice was soothing, though, meant to reassure, and she loved him for it.

There was strain in that voice; not the kind that comes from ordeal. Had he noticed her hesitation when he took the sealskin back from her by the rock pool? She thought not then, but now…There was something in his bearing that nagged at her, a dull ache that wouldn’t be relieved no matter how she tried to convince herself that it was all in her imagination. It was a natural enough reaction after all. Whoever possessed a selkie’s skin had him under their spell for life or until he had the skin back. Simeon was under Seth’s power until he took his skin back from the shaman. Once a selkie loses his skin he loses his immortality as well. Meg knew that to be so firsthand, for now stains of gray frosted Simeon’s temples that hadn’t been there before. For that brief time while he was divested of his sealskin, he had become mortal, to live and age and die just as any human being upon the planet…Just as she would live and age and die.

Simeon would lose his immortality were she to possess his sealskin, but what of her? Was there a way for her to gain immortality for herself? If there was, she’d never heard of it. She was a witch, so everyone said. Did she have it in her power to cast such a spell, to live in his underwater world with him forever without aging, or was she doomed to die a mortal death no matter where she lived with him? This was not the time or the place to worry over it. Simeon had just loosed a vibrating mantra into the water. Who was he summoning? Her heart leaped. Her breathing became labored. Vertigo starred her vision, and she clung to him with all her strength.

“Just a little farther,” he whispered in her ear. “We are almost there….”

He hummed the mantra again and a swordfish appeared, swimming around them in joyful circles. Did that fish nuzzle him? Tears welled in her eyes that a mere fish could feel such joy in the presence of its lord. It spoke volumes to what wonders lay beneath the surface of the man she loved and to what mysteries lay beneath the waves.

“Bring Vega, Pio,” Simeon charged the summoner.

In a blink, the swordfish streaked off through the murky waters, and Meg found her voice.

“What is it?” she murmured.

“We are halfway to the tunnel that leads to the palace,” he answered. “I need to know if it is safe to take you there.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Sometimes in storms such as this, the air pockets flood. It doesn’t matter for me, but you need the air until we can sort that out with the Waterwitch.”

“And…if it isn’t safe?”

“Then we must try the Pavilion or one of the outer islands until the storm subsides. Do not worry. All will be well.”

“You need Vega to tell you this?” she said.

Simeon nodded. “He will let no harm come to you, Megaleen. He will see you to safety while I attend to this here.”

“Attend to what?” she cried.

“Do not excite yourself. It will cancel your breathing!” he warned her. “You saw the dead falling all around us with the wreckage of their ships. They must be respected—prepared for their journey to the gods. This is my responsibility, Megaleen, as Lord of the Deep. No soul that falls beneath the waves must go unreverenced. It has been thus since time out of mind, and it will be so until time exists no more.”

“But why must
you
do it?”

“Because I am Lord of the Deep, and I alone have the power to prepare those who die beneath the waves. It is even more important here now, because I am the one who caused their deaths. Who better to make reparation and give them a proper introduction to the gods?”

When he put it to her that way, Meg couldn’t very well oppose him. She was fast becoming familiar with new facets to her beloved’s persona. She was quickly finding out that Simeon, Lord of the Deep, was deeper than the seas he commanded. This was his world—his very life. How could she take him from it? She was very close to remorse for having even entertained the notion of keeping that sealskin. But then, there was her fierce love of him…a love without which she would surely wither and die, old before her time.

Minutes later the swordfish returned with Vega, whose look of relief extended to them both and warmed Meg’s heart.

“Thank the gods!” Vega cried. “We thought you were lost—the pair of you.”

“We nearly were,” Simeon said. “Is the palace flooded?”

“No,” Vega said. “But that is not to say it won’t. Three vessels are down already; two in the ocean off the mainland and one in the bay.”

“We saw many,” Simeon said. “I must attend them. I want you to take Megaleen to the palace and stay with her until I return. If it floods, see her to the Pavilion.” He turned to the swordfish. “Pio, you will come with me.”

The summoner sketched a graceful bow, dipping his sword low. Vega, who was not hindered by his sealskin but wore an eel suit, pried Meg’s arms loose from Simeon’s neck and moved off in the opposite direction from that which Simeon and Pio had taken without so much as a farewell.

“He cannot bear to part with you even for a moment, much less put the separation into words,” Vega said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “Have no fear…You will come to no harm in my keeping. Though, I daresay you would benefit from a good trouncing after your behavior on our last meeting.”

“Would you have let me go otherwise?” Meg queried.

“Probably not, but only because he would not have wanted me to, and he is Lord.”

“He has his sealskin back,” Meg reminded him.

“For now,” Vega said.

Even if Simeon didn’t know her heart of hearts, it was clear Vega knew she’d entertained the thought of stealing Simeon’s sealskin herself.

“I had it in my hands briefly,” she said, answering Vega’s thoughts accusingly. “I could have possessed it easily.”

“And yet, you risked your life…nearly lost it getting the sealskin back for him,” Vega said. “I do not understand mortals.”

“You should, being half-mortal yourself,” Meg snapped at him. “How do you do that…read people’s minds like that?” They had entered the tunnel that led to the coral reef shelf and the air pocket, where the palace stood. In familiar territory, she had become bold.

“It is a trait some of us have,” he replied.

“Does Simeon have this trait?”

“Sometimes,” Vega said. “But you are safe enough. He is too besotted with love for you to read his own thoughts clearly, let alone yours.”

“You do not like me very much, do you, Vega?”

He shrugged, causing ripples in the water between them. “On the contrary. I wish I had seen you first,” he said through a wry chuckle. “Be thankful, my lady, that you cannot read
my
thoughts.”

The rest of the distance was traveled in silence. Soon they reached the end of the tunnel, where it spilled into an underwater ledge with a pool—one of many air pockets, where the palace stood in all its rambling glory, decorated with shells and pearls and gifts of the sea that the selkies gleaned from wreckage after the storms. Great riches lived here, treasures of silver and gold, cloth of silk, wine, and precious jewels. True, it took only three of the steps hewn in the rock to reach the palace, where before it had taken twelve, but it hadn’t flooded as Simeon had feared.

Air rushed into her lungs, and she gulped it greedily. It was thick with the taste of salt and went to her head like May wine. She knew the way to Simeon’s apartments, though Vega led her there anyway. Meg shuddered, remembering the lumbering sea cows that attacked her the last time she was in Simeon’s bedchamber.

“The consorts are not here now,” Vega said, answering her thoughts. “They are exiled. You are quite safe here.”

Meg glanced around. The silt roses growing along the perimeter genuflected from their coral beds. There was comfort in the gesture, as if she’d been accepted or at the very least recognized, and Vega smiled.

“Fickle creatures,” he observed, “but they seem to like you.”

“I will never hurt him, Vega,” she murmured. His posture clenched, clearly surprised at her words, and she laughed. “No,” she said, “I cannot read your mind, but I can read your countenance. You wear your thoughts on your face and, I suspect, your heart on your sleeve. He is fortunate to have you.”

Vega did not take compliments well. He sketched a bow and began fussing with the furniture. He obviously felt out of place chaperoning her until Simeon returned. As uncomfortable as he was in that guise, he would perform his duty to the last detail, keeping watch that the palace didn’t flood, staying alert to Pio the summoner’s reports, meanwhile falling into his valet’s role, straightening and ordering in obdurate silence.