Lord of the Deep (16 page)

Meg hesitated. The answer to this was her greatest fear. “Very well,” she said at last. “Tell it, then.”

“Simeon is immortal as long as he is in possession of his sealskin,” the witch began. “He lost it for awhile and lost his immortality for a brief time with it—”

“How do you know that?” Meg interrupted.

“The gray at his temples. It is a sign of aging. He did not have it before. He has aged slightly for the loss of his selkie skin. Have you not noticed this?”

“Yes, I have, but his immortality
has
been restored now that he has the sealskin back…hasn’t it?” Meg begged, hungering for the spoken words that would ease her conscience.

The Waterwitch nodded. “Until he loses it again,” she said her voice like a whip. “The selkie’s powers of seduction are legend, daughter. They are a lecherous breed, and conquest is all to them. It is not a criticism I speak; it is a madness in the blood that makes them so. It is inherent. They cannot change what they are any more than you can change what you are. I have seen him with mortals before. Seducing specimens of the human race is a selkie’s greatest triumph, because they flirt with death when their sealskins are at risk, and that makes the conquest sweeter. It is a cause of much woe beneath the waves. Are you certain what you presume to be love on his part is in reality nothing more than mere lust?”

“I know only what I feel in his arms, ancient one. I cannot speak for him, but—”

“You do not have to,” Simeon interrupted, parting the aquatic vine curtain at the door. He strode into the room and raised Meg up in the custody of his strong arms. “I am well able to speak for myself.”

“You eavesdrop, impudent one?” the Waterwitch shrilled, banging her scepter on the floor of the cave. “You may be Lord of the Deep, but
I
am the
Oracle,
and you will respect me.”

“With due respect, Elna, I do not need to eavesdrop. I have the gift of extraordinary hearing. I do love her, and while I do admit it is not a comfortable thing, it is true.”

“It will be the end of you,” the witch decreed.

“Then so be it!” Simeon countered.

“No, Simeon…Let her speak,” Meg said. Something in the woman’s cryptic hint of death would not be beaten back.

“She has spoken,” he returned. “It is not up to her to moralize with me. That is not why we have come. We came to ask a question—only that.” He flashed narrowed eyes toward the Waterwitch. “Do you have a remedy that will allow Megaleen to breathe for longer intervals beneath the waves than is possible now?”

The Waterwitch rose from her chair and moved into the shadows, where she took down two bunches of what looked to Meg like herbs that had been hanging to dry and thrust them toward her. Then reaching into a niche in the coral, she produced a round bottle with a cork stopper and handed that over as well.

“Steep a pinch of each of those water herbs in the boiled contents of this bottle and a pint of water,” she said. “Then strain it and take a swallow at will. Take another each month thereafter when the moon is full.”

Meg examined the bottle, holding it up to the light. The glass was mottled, cloudy and clear in intricate swirls, quite beautiful, and its contents were the color of amber. “What is this?” she said.

“You would not drink it if you knew,” the Waterwitch replied. “Suffice it to say, all things come at a price. With this tincture it is a foul taste, but worth the result.”

“Thank you,” Meg murmured, sketching a curtsy.

“Um,” the woman grunted. “You may rescind that one day, daughter. And now, since your impetuous lover has insinuated himself in what was meant to be a private conversation, let him hear the rest! Drinking that will give you longer times beneath the waves, but
nothing
will give you immortality. If you chose to live in the deep, you will whither and die nonetheless when your time comes, like the mortal you are—nothing can change that—while Simeon will live on through eternity, young and virile, as you see him now. Think upon it.” She shed her transparent mantle and padded toward the pool. The minute her webbed foot touched the water, her head became the grotesque head of the fish again—a shock in juxtaposition to the exquisitely formed body beneath it. The perfect breasts, with their large, dark nipples, the thick, hairless slit and exposed nub were the only parts of her anatomy that weren’t spangled with scales. Meg couldn’t help but wonder who or what creature of the deep serviced her? The Waterwitch grunted as if she’d read those thoughts and turned to Simeon. “And you,” she said. “Guard your sealskin well, for more than one covets it, Lord of the Deep, and you are too blinded by
love
to see it.”

E
licorn was still where Simeon left him. While Meg waited nonplussed, Simeon collected several vines like those that served as a partition in the Waterwitch’s cave, slung them over Elicorn’s back, and began plaiting the ends of them into foreshortened makeshift stirrups.

“What do you do?” Meg asked as he tested them, earning him a disapproving glance from the waterhorse.

“For what I have in mind, we can ride bareback, but not without stirrups,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

Simeon smiled. “You will,” he said. Taking the herbs and little bottle of mysterious liquid from her, he wrapped them tightly in a night lily pad and hummed the mantra that would bring the summoner. Always diligent, Pio’s sword soon broke the surface of the water beside the cave, and Simeon slipped the parcel into the swordfish’s mouth.

“Take it to Vega,” he said. “Tell him one pinch of each and the contents of the bottle in a pint of water. He will know what to do.”

In a blink, the summoner was gone, and Simeon swung himself up on to the waterhorse’s back and lifted Meg up facing him, settling her astride. She sucked in her breath as he lifted the peach muslin round gown over her head and cried out as he tossed it in the pool.

Simeon laughed. “Have no fear,” he said. “Pio will retrieve it for you, just as he did that first night. He is ever with us.”

So that was how she’d gotten her kirtle back after Simeon tossed it into the bay that fateful night. It seemed like all that had occurred in another lifetime.

Simeon wriggled his arms out of the eel skin suit and opened it down the front, exposing his hot hard shaft and testicles. Meg gasped again as he snugged her up against him. “We will fall off!” she cried.

Again Simeon laughed. The sound warmed her heart. “You cannot fall from a waterhorse, you know that,” he said, “not until it drowns you or its master compels it to let you go.”

“But is there room?” she said. The words were barely out, when Elicorn stretched his back to accommodate them. “What’s happening?” she cried, clinging to Simeon.

“A waterhorse can stretch its body to accommodate many,” Simeon said. “Remember when you and I and Vega all fit comfortably upon him? I have seen one stretch its back to fit a dozen unsuspecting passengers before plunging them all beneath the waves to their death at once. It is their preferred method and their most effective. When mortals see one rider upon the horse’s back, or two, it gives them confidence to climb on as well. It is all part of the waterhorse’s power to mesmerize.”

“He won’t…I mean…he isn’t going to…?”

“No, he is under my command, Megaleen. He is simply making us more comfortable. You are quite safe.”

He ran his hands along her sides, and his thumbs grazed her nipples, which had grown hard in a surge of gooseflesh that rode the thrill of his touch. Blowing into her nostrils, he urged the waterhorse beneath the waves. The water was an eerie shade of iridescent green misted with silt particles dredged up from the bottom by the storm. Meg could scarcely see, and Simeon pulled her close.

“Only for a little,” he murmured in her ear. “There are so many things I want to show you…so many ways to pleasure you. Tonight…We ride the storm…”

Meg wasn’t sure what he meant, but she wasn’t given time to contemplate it. Seconds later, Elicorn was climbing. The water became wild with heaving swells and undulant motion. They broke the waves on a high-curling comber that spilled white water onto the breast of the bay. The waterhorse beneath them was in his element then, plunging and diving through the steamy air that somehow had become warmer despite the storm. Or was it the heat of their passion that warmed her?

The rain had ceased falling, but the wind whipped the water into a wild froth that broke over Elicorn’s head, laving Meg’s buttocks and rushing up the crease between the perfect rounds as it surged around her, past Simeon, rushing over the waterhorse’s back. Facing Simeon thus, she could not see what was ahead of them, only what they’d come through—towering waves that raised them up two stories high, then plunged them into valleys of ebb and flow, for they were heading into a wicked offshore wind.

“Touch me,” Simeon murmured. His hoarse voice seemed to have a direct link to her sex. It leapt at the sound.

Meg reached to stroke his penis, and it jabbed forward as her fingers ringed it from base to mushroom tip with long, spiraling strokes. Her slit was spread on the horse’s broad back, and the leafy vines rubbing against her exposed clitoris brought her to the brink of climax. Some of the leaves slipped inside her, driven by the base of his thick veined shaft grinding against her, reminding her of the roots of the ancient tree that had formed a shaft and moved inside her mercilessly until she came. She was nearly at that point now, and he hadn’t even entered her.

“Touch yourself…the way you did that first night beside the window,” he said gravel-voiced. “Touch your nipples…Make them hard for me to suck…”

She’d forgotten he’d seen her at her loft window at the cottage, playing with her nipples. Blood surged hot to her temples despite the water crashing over them.

“Not so deep!” Simeon commanded the horse. “Let the water tease our parts not drown them you stupid cob!”

Meg worked her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers, meanwhile writhing against the root of his sex. The whitecaps creaming over her bottom, rolling up her spine like the spindrift had rolled up the wall on Shamans’ Mount. Again and again the waterhorse plunged. He was in his element again, riding the waves, his whistles blowing back on the wind, his sleek, wet hide rippling with excitement. Simeon was in his element, too, just as he always was whenever water played a part in their lovemaking; his moves were fluid, like the sea that spawned him—he
was
the sea. But
this
…this was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It recalled to mind that first night, when she’d watched his consort climax as the creaming surf washed over her in Simeon’s arms. She remembered how she’d so bitterly wished she were the woman in his strong arms riding the thick hardness of his shaft as the water surged around them. She was that woman now, and every pore in her body ached for him to take her—to fill her with his throbbing thickness.

“We must both come at least once…before I penetrate you,” Simeon panted as if he’d read her thoughts. “It is…too intense…I want this to last…You will never experience anything like riding the storm….”

Meg scanned the horizon. It seemed vacant of boats, but the nagging fear that they were not alone out on that turbulent bay would not leave her. “Suppose someone sees?” she said,

“I see no one,” Simeon responded, “but the threat that someone might will only add fuel to our fire.”

He was right. Meg could hold back no longer. Her release was sweet, pulsating against his shaft until he came in heaving spurts, his hot bulk shuddering against her. But no sooner had he come than his sex grew hard again.

Meg gripped him relentlessly. It was difficult for her to relax for fear of falling off the waterhorse’s slippery back. Though she knew she would not from firsthand experience, the nagging fear that the fickle horse would play his Otherworldly tricks and cause her harm would not be stilled. That, coupled with the nagging fear that they would be seen by some ill-fated mariner caught in the maelstrom only served to heighten the sensation that brought her quickly to the brink of another shattering climax. She held back, testing her seat. No, the animal held her securely, just as Simeon said he would. She could move upon the creature’s back, but not fall from it. The stark terror and delicious sensation of captivity washed over her like the waves that laved her sex, until she feared her bones would turn to water. He was right…there was nothing to compare with riding the storm. Her parts were charged like the dry lightning that speared down all around them.

“It will not harm you,” Simeon crooned in her ear. “My blood has brought the storm. It will not harm the Lord of the Deep.”

Meg searched his face, ghostlike in the lightning’s glare, his eyes like bottomless wells of ink-black water, shuttered with desire. The root of his shaft was boring into her pubic curls, scraping her clitoris. He coaxed her legs around him, seized her buttocks, and lowered her down upon his straining erection, parting her swollen crevice in excruciatingly slow revolutions until he filled her. Her quim seized him. It was a swift, involuntary contraction that thrust her pelvis forward and gripped him hard, wrenching a cry from his lips as he bore down upon the stirrups and raised her up and down upon him.

Oh, how he filled her, like never before, releasing her juices until they spilled over onto the leafy vines beneath her. For all the water surging over their sexes, she could feel the hot, slippery flow of her come seeping out of her nonetheless. Her bones were surely melting. Her heart was hammering so violently her breasts were trembling to the meter of the vibrations. And when his hot lips closed over her nipple and tugged, she came again.

“Do you see what pleasures I can give you?” he murmured huskily. “A lifetime of pleasures, my Megaleen…”

Something in the last flagged danger. What was he saying…That he would fill her short life with him beneath the waves with such excruciating ecstasy as this? Had he already decided her fate and his? His words nagged at her, but she beat them back. Her need, her blind passion had crowded out all thoughts of future until that moment. Now, they came creeping back like an unwanted guest, but still her need suppressed them. There was more to
riding the storm
. He had yet to reach orgasm again, but it wouldn’t be long. He lifted her off his shaft, countering his release, and turned her around to face away from him just as his penis began to pulse.

“Lean forward…over Elicorn’s neck,” he panted.

Meg did as he bade her, fisting her hands in the animal’s tousled mane. His hands on the rounds of her wet buttocks, rubbing, stroking, massaging, took her breath away. His hard, hot shaft riding the crevice between those rounded cheeks all but stopped her heart. When he fingered her slit feeling for her opening, she cried out. One finger then two slipped inside her, feeling for her juices, spreading them the length of her quim, along her nether lips to the delicate skin between vagina and anus until she shuddered with delight, raising her bottom even higher. Standing in the stirrups, Simeon wrapped one arm around her middle, while he eased her into position, parted the swollen lips, and slid into her, all the breath in his lungs rushing out of him as he reached deep inside her—deeper than he had ever gone before.

In that primeval position, he touched the magic spot that brought her to climax again. The riveting palpitations rushed through her belly and thighs as the titillating whitecap lace broke over the waterhorse’s head and withers washing her parts over and under. It rushed into the crack of her buttocks and laved her anus with cool salt spray that should have calmed her contractions and her ardor. But it didn’t.

Meg writhed against him inside her, milking the last shuddering pulse beat of her release. He was still hard. He hadn’t come. He continued to undulate inside her, but softly, gently, meanwhile stroking her anus, teasing the tight rosebud open with his fingertip.

“Do not be afraid,” he murmured, sliding one finger inside the opening he’d created—then two. Meg groaned, her voice so foreign she scarcely recognized it as her own as he withdrew his shaft from her tingling vagina and slipped it into her tight anal cavity.

The position forced her mons area against the vines beneath her mound. Her breath came short as the wet leaves on the vines scraped her spread vagina, rubbing her erect nub to life again. This time, the orgasm came from so deep inside her she nearly swooned; the little death, when all sanity and reason fled with time and place and conscience. His hands had found her breasts, and his fingers rolled her nipples simultaneously. Her parts convulsed as he deepened his thrusts—slow, pulsating undulations until he came in the turgid confines of her rear, her muscles gripping him relentlessly, milking him of every drop until it rushed out of her and mingled with the spindrift spraying them in diaphanous clouds.

Lightning danced in the water all around them—great snakelike spears of glaring white light raining down, as if the heavens had climaxed also. The seed of the storm; the air crackled with it.

Simeon withdrew himself, leaned back and pulled her back against him. His ragged heartbeat thumping against her back and resonated throughout her trembling body. “My Megaleen…” he whispered “You have ridden the storm….”

Cupping her breast with one hand, he reached with the other and turned her head back to receive his kiss, his tongue laving hers, his hand buried in her hair. His breath was hot and salt-sweet as he blew into her nostrils and kneed the waterhorse as they plunged beneath the waves.

Dazed, Meg clung to him as they drove toward the palace. When they reached the cave, he dismissed Elicorn, and the waterhorse rose toward the surface again, where the seas were still running high with plenty of white water to frolic in.

The water hadn’t flooded the chambers. Soon the tide would turn and what had risen to challenge the cubicles would begin to subside. The master chamber was just as Meg had last seen it when they entered. She wasn’t cold, but Simeon snatched a woven sea fern throw and wrapped her in it before tucking her into bed. Shrugging the top of his eel skin suit in place, he turned to go, but Meg’s quick hand arrested him.

“I shan’t be long,” he said. “I need to see that Vega prepares your tincture.”

“What are we to do?” she said.

“Do?”

“About us…”

“There’s nothing to do. It is already done. It is the reason we went to the Waterwitch…for a potion so that you could breathe longer beneath the waves.”

“But…I cannot stay here, Simeon.”

“Where else would you stay? You cannot return to the Isle of Mists, to that woman who sold you to the shamans. You cannot return to the mainland else you be burned for a witch. Where would you go?”

Meg stared. There was hurt in his eyes, but his solution wasn’t the only alternative. “I…I hadn’t really thought,” she said. “There are plenty of islands where we…where I could make my home, Simeon.”