The Sea King

by C. L. Wilson

  She set her fork down and looked up at him. “My mother wasn’t a Siren, and I don’t want to talk about my father.”

  Her refusal was disappointing, but not unexpected. Gabriella had become an expert and refusing to face her fears.

  “What shall we talk about then? We have an entire evening to fill.”

  She scowled at him. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask you all sorts of prying questions about your life.”

  She obviously meant it as a threat, hoping to stop his “prying,” but he smiled with genuine delight. “That’s an excellent idea.” He spread his hands in invitation. “For you, moa liana, I am an open book. Ask me anything.”

  Chapter 15

  Summer pressed her lips together in disgust. Once again he’d baited a trap, and once again, she’d walked right into it. Clearly, he wanted her to ask about him, to show interest in his life, his history, his likes and dislikes. Because he knew that remaining ignorant about him made it easier for her to keep holding him at a distance.

  “Fine,” she bit out. “Since you’re so interested in fathers, let’s talk about yours.”

  She’d hoped to jolt him out of his complacency, but he merely shrugged. “What would you like to know? His name was Dillon, born of House Ocea.”

  “Your cousin Ryllian’s House.”

  “Ryll’s mother was my father’s sister. My father was a fine Calbernan. Excellent in battle, strong in heart. Wise in so many ways. Devoted to my mother, of course. They were betrothed from birth, and wed the day after he earned his ulumi-lia. They were expecting a second child—a daughter—when he was killed. My mother lost the baby. She would have followed him—their bond was very strong—but she had her twin, my Uncle Calivan, to help her survive her grief, and me as well, though I was still too young to be much help in that way.”

  “You mean she would have killed herself because he died?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” Melancholy curled around the corners of his lips. “My mother isn’t a Siren—not even now that she holds the magic of the Myerials as well the magic of House Merimydion—but she’s close enough to one that were it not for my uncle, her bonds to my father would have killed her when he died.”

  “Sirens don’t survive their mates?”

  “According to our histories, that was one of the prices of the power. Mated Sirens could not live without their mates—nor their mates without them. Their bond, once forged, became a sort of symbiosis, necessary to the survival of each of them. That was how the Sirens were slaughtered. The attackers discovered the secret, you see. They burst their own eardrums so susirena could not compel their minds, and they snuck into our palaces and villas and murdered the Sirens’ mates and children, severing their deepest links to the ones they loved the most. Even the greatest and most powerful of the Sirens—Myerial Maikalaneia—could not survive the slaughter of her family. It’s why her family was targeted first. Even if the enemy could not hear her Song, she could have Shouted the flesh off their bones, splintered every ship in their armada. She could have Shouted continents back into the sea, so great was her gift. But all they had to do to destroy her was to kill the ones she loved.” He reached across the table to take her hand. “I don’t need to tell you this is another of those Calbernan secrets that you must never reveal to another.”

  “No,” Summer murmured, reeling at the thought of what those ancient, evil men had done to destroy the Sirens they feared. No wonder Dilys was so adamant that she should never reveal the truth of what she was to anyone—not even her family. “Your father . . . how did he die?”

  “Thieves broke into House Merimydion’s warehouse. We keep a tight restriction on who sails into our harbors, but these thieves were smart. They smuggled themselves in aboard one of the vessels of our most trusted trading partners, then waited until most of the city was at the birthday celebration of our princess. My father and I were on our way back to our ship to sail home.”

  “You were with him when he was killed?”

  “He left me sleeping with our guards while he went into the warehouse to get a gift that had come in for my mother. He’d been having treasures brought in from all over Mystral in preparation for the celebration of my sister’s birth. That’s what drew the thieves—the many priceless items he had acquired. He walked in on them. They were armed. He had only his battle fangs and claws. He still managed to kill six of them before he died.” The words were matter-of-fact. The tone was anything but.

  “How old were you?”

  “Eight.”

  Her heart squeezed. So young. Barely older than she’d been when Mama had died, and she still remembered that horrible day as if it had happened yesterday.

  “I’m sorry. I know how awful that must have been.” She reached for his hand in an instinctive gesture of compassion.

  He clasped it gently and laid his other hand on top of them both so that her hand was surrounded with his warmth. His lashes were lowered, hiding his eyes, but when he looked up a few moments later, there was a gleam of something that made the emptiness inside her tingle and start to hum.

  “Thank you,” he said, and the tingle became a hum, resonating inside her. Soothing the ache. As if the resonance helped to fill the emptiness.

  She pulled her hand back. He did not attempt to stop her, but neither did he open his hands. His fingers applied the slightest pressure, so that drawing away from him felt like a slow, reluctant release. Even after she was free, it felt as if there were tiny filaments still tying them together, tugging harder at her the farther back she pulled.

  “In any event,” Dilys continued after a moment, “my mother very nearly didn’t survive my father’s death. She lost their baby, which made her grief even worse. Sometimes I think that even with my uncle and me there to anchor her, she would have Faded completely had the Myerial not died the following year.”

  He fell silent as the servants approached to clear their salad plates, and then came the parade of salver-bearing servants carrying out the various main courses of their meal. The dinner was a culinary delight. Not as over-the-top as a dinner of state, but just as exquisitely prepared. There were two selections of flavorful fish, a fruit-and-nut stuffed fowl, and a minced lamb pie with a perfectly baked golden crust. For vegetables, Ingarra had prepared light, crisp sea cucumbers tossed in a delicate sauce, roasted summer squash, a coconut and calava root soufflé, tiny roasted potatoes drizzled with garlic oil, and a tangy seaweed dish that Dilys said was a favorite among Calbernans.

  The minced lamb pie, squash, and potatoes were three of Gabriella’s favorite dishes. The others were Calbernan specialities she’d never tried before. Though Dilys did not push her to do so, she accepted a small portion of each of the Calbernan foods. Each time she did, a surge of warmth whispered through her veins. It took her a few minutes to realize the sensation was coming from Dilys—that she could physically feel his pleased approval flowing into her. It felt . . . nourishing, invigorating. Like rain falling after a long drought.

  She wanted to accuse him of working some sort of enchantment on her, but whatever this was didn’t feel wrong. It felt right. So incredibly right she didn’t want it to stop. The tension that had wound her up so tight this last week was flowing out of her.

  She took a bite of the first of the fish dishes, a lightly battered snapper in a delicious three-flavor sauce. The combination of sweet, sour, and spicy flavors, coupled with the crispness of the batter and the moist flakiness of the mild fish, was a complete delight to her taste buds.

  “This is gorgeous.” Her praise won her one of Dilys’s wide, approving smiles and another surge of melting warmth.

  “I am very glad you like it. I chose only foods I thought you would enjoy.”

  “You chose? You mean Ingarra didn’t prepare the menu?” She was surprised. Ingarra was quite particular about who she allowed in her kitchen, and even more particular about the dishes she would and would not prepare.

  “She chose the soup and salad courses
, but for the main course, I wanted to give you a taste of Calberna. We use many different foods and spices than you do in the Æsir Isles, but I selected the ones I thought you’d find most appealing based on the local cuisine you seem to enjoy most. The selection of your favorites I included in case you weren’t feeling adventurous.”

  “You chose well,” she murmured after giving all the other new foods a try. “It’s all delicious.”

  Waves of warmth lapped against her senses. “It is my pleasure to give my liana happiness in all things.”

  “I’m not your liana,” she retorted. But for the first time, the rejection felt more like a flimsy lie than an unshakeable truth.

  “You will be.”

  A choked laugh barked out before she could stop it. “Are you always this sure of yourself?”

  He smiled, golden eyes gleaming like a great hunting cat’s. “I am Calbernan.”

  “Ah . . . yes. Calbernan is the Sea Tongue word for arrogant, isn’t it?”

  His low, husky chuckle rolled across her skin, making her shudder. “As I’ve told you before, I have spent every day of my life since I was five learning the skills necessary to protect and provide for a wife.” One long finger flicked out to brush a long, soft curl of black hair behind her ear. His voice dropped to a sensual purr. “And every skill necessary to keep her happy in all ways.”

  Her mouth was suddenly parched. “Truly?” Her mind filled with all manner of images of Dilys keeping his woman—keeping Gabriella—happy in all ways. If what had happened between them in the grotto was anything to go by, he had mastered those lessons. Color and heat flooded her cheeks. She cleared her throat, shoved the erotic images out of her mind, and tried to force the conversation back on a safer path. “You’ve trained every day since you were five?”

  “As do all Calbernan boys. The day after my fifth birthday, I moved from the home of my parents to the training villa on our property and I resided there, under the care of my instructors, until I went to sea at age twelve.”

  “What sort of training did you receive?”

  “The usual. Military, naval, and survival training, of course. Hunting, sailing, fighting, land- and sea-based military strategy. Basic business skills such as how to read and negotiate contracts. How to use my seagifts. One day of every week was devoted to myeriasu, the arts of courting and caring for a liana. How to converse with her, how to put her at ease. How to understand what she needs and provide it for her.”

  Gabriella cleared her throat again. “When did you have time to be just a boy?”

  He shrugged. “There was plenty of time for that in the first five years of my life.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Far from it. I enjoyed my training, and excelled in every discipline.” A mischievous light entered his eyes. “Including my training in the erotic arts, which began when I reached seventeen years of age.”

  She blushed—violently—and quickly looked to see if the servants were close enough to have overheard his last remark. They weren’t. In fact, there weren’t any servants around at all. At some point after serving the main courses of the meal, they had disappeared, leaving Dilys and Summer alone in the garden.

  The sun was still several hours from setting, but it had descended far enough to cast this part of the garden in the shadow of the palace. The dining table beneath the arbor suddenly felt so much more intimate than before. Much more like a stage set for seduction.

  And though she’d unbent enough to share this private meal with him, she wasn’t ready for a repeat of what had happened in the grotto.

  “Sealord Merimydion—” she began.

  “Dilys,” he interrupted, his tone pleasant but insistent.

  She sighed, then decided this was one battle not worth fighting and surrendered. “Dilys, then. If you’re going to attempt to seduce me every time we’re together, I will make certain all our future meetings take place in the company of my brother-in-law.”

  He pressed a hand to his chest. “Ah, moa kiri, you wound me.”

  “I should be so lucky,” she grumbled under her breath.

  “Very well. No more demonstrations of or discussion about my outstanding talents in the erotic arts, until you decide otherwise. A great loss, to be sure, but I will abide by your wishes.”

  Against her will, laughter spluttered from her. Gods. The man was entirely too sure of himself.

  With obvious reason, a traitorous little voice whispered deep inside.

  No. She wasn’t going to be charmed by him. She wouldn’t be charmed.

  He smiled at her. Charmingly.

  Her heart began thumping against her chest.

  Picking up her fork, she dug into her meal. This time, she deliberately concentrated on the non-Calbernan dishes to avoid rousing any more will-weakening waves of approval.

  “I have to say,” she said after sampling the extremely delicious roasted potatoes, “I don’t approve of your country’s customs at all.” Her tone was belligerent. Picking a fight seemed much safer than letting her insides go all gooey and weak.

  His brows arched in an expression of mild curiosity. “Oh? Of which customs do you speak?”

  “All of them. Forcing all men into military service. Taking a child away from his mother at age five.” She scowled. “I thought yours was a race dedicated to the happiness of its women. Surely the Calbernan mothers can’t be happy to have their babies ripped from their arms at so early an age.” To drive her point home, she met his gaze full on and told him, “I know I could never be. Never.”

  I will never be your liana. I will go through the courtship motions if I must, but that is never going to change. You are wasting your time. She willed her eyes to say the words, willed him to give up and turn away.

  He did not.

  His smile disappeared, but that wasn’t the reprieve she’d hoped for. His dark, exotically handsome face became sterner. Stronger. Danger and strength and steadfast resolve wedded together in lines that looked much less approachable and yet more compelling than ever.

  Laughing, roguish Dilys charmed her. Stern, somber Dilys frightened her a little, even as his palpable aura of power and command drew her like a moth to a flame.

  “The women of my country understand what our men must be, for the benefit of us all.” His voice was low, soft, a dark whisper that set every nerve in her body jangling.

  She reached for her wine with a shaking hand and took a hurried sip. “Which is?”

  “Strong. Fearless. Capable.” He leaned towards her, invading her space with his raw power and overwhelming presence. “Willing to die for what’s most important to us.”

  Her pulse was pounding in her veins, throbbing at the base of her throat. “And what’s that?”

  “You’ve read about Calberna, about our history, our legends. You already know.”

  She swallowed and wet her lips. “Your women.”

  “Our women,” he agreed. The words breathed across her skin like a spell. His eyes gleamed, golden, mysterious, hypnotizing. “Our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. Most of all, our wives. The lianas who complete us. Many oulani believe there is no bond greater than that which exists between a mother and her child. Perhaps for them, that is true. Perhaps it is even true for the women of my own country. I do not know. But for a Calbernan male, there is no bond greater, no tie more vital, than the bond between a Calbernan and his liana. Whether she is imlani or oulani makes no difference to him. Only with her can he give everything that he is. Only from her can he receive everything in return.”

  It was there, in the dark magic of his voice . . . the promise that promised . . . everything. Everything she feared. Everything she yearned for. Everything that ached inside her like a terrible, gaping wound in the fabric of her soul, empty and unfulfilled.

  She took a breath, a gasp that shuddered in and shuddered back out.

  Just that quick and she was drowning again in that sunlit sea. Every word from his mouth was like a stone tied to her body, wei
ghting her down, dragging her through the darkest depths of the sea, to that frightening place at the core of her soul. To the volcano. That fiery sun that blazed in the center of her being, that molten inferno that moved inside her like a wild, caged thing, a dragon locked behind a lifetime of stony will.

  Call him. Claim him. Speak his Name. Make him thine before all others.

  The lure was so strong. To give him everything of herself . . . to share the burden of that frightening, deadly gift that lived inside her. To receive everything of him back in return: his strength, his fearlessness, his confident certainty that he was a master of the world in every way that mattered. To trust that he was strong enough to protect her, against even herself.

  What would it be like to live without fear? What would it be like to love so wholly, so completely? To love without restraint, without holding back the truth of herself?

  It would be madness.

  A beautiful insanity of self-indulgence.

  She knew whose blood ran in her veins. She had seen, firsthand, the madness that had befallen Verdan Coruscate when he lost what he had loved so dearly, so deeply.

  Dilys claimed that Sirens could not survive without their mates—but what if he was wrong? She wasn’t just a Siren, if indeed that was one of her gifts. She was a weathermage of Mystral, a descendent of Helos the Sun God. What if the rules and limitations that had governed the Sirens of old did not apply to her?

  What if she gave herself to him, let herself love him, only to discover that their bond did not destroy her upon his death?

  Summer knew her father’s madness was but a dim shadow of what would come if ever grief roused the monster that lived in her soul.