A Pirate's Dream

by Marie Hall

  She frowned harder. “With him?”

  Nimue hadn’t meant for it to sound like such a spitting accusation, but just the thought of another maiden with her hands on him made Nim want to go feral.

  “Well, dear, no, not him. But he is no saint, love,” she said gently, as if trying to break the terrible news in such a way so as not to cause another eruption.

  Blowing out a raspberry, Nimue rolled her eyes. “Aye. Of course, in theory, I understand that he’s been with others. I simply do not ever wish to come face to face with a liaison.” She glowered. “Has Stygia sunk her claws in him?”

  “My love, you sound positively jealous.” Maiven chortled, sounding delighted. “As to Stygia, I couldn’t say for certain, but I’d bet my soul that he hasn’t dipped his snake in that pond.”

  “Eww.” She shivered, the analogy making her flesh crawl, especially considering she was fairly certain his penis might bite her if she got too close to it.

  “I’m sorry.” She laughed harder. Her entire body shook with it now. “I just couldn’t resist.”

  After several more minutes of wiping tears from her eyes before finally regaining her composure once more, Maiven sighed. “Great-daughter of my heart, you sound halfway toward being in love with him.”

  “I am,” she wailed, now feeling oddly as though she might cry.

  She never cried. She was a pirate. And pirates did not cry. But it seemed to be all she did here, and she hated herself for such weakness.

  Picking at the crumbs on her clamshell plate, she stared at the half-eaten slice of cake as though she wanted to murder it, knowing full well what her great-mother would say.

  Guard your heart, Nimue, and guard it well. For leggers and fish never mate. Arghhhh...

  Okay, so that last argh had been a bit of theatrical embellishment, but still she figured she had it about right.

  Maiven’s fingers grabbed hers and squeezed gently. “Look at me, great-daughter.”

  When she did, Nimue was horrified to feel the tear roll down her cheek. But Maiven didn’t look appalled or discomfited by it.

  “Long ago, Talia told me something almost similar to what you have. Do you know what I did?”

  Rolling her lips, she shook her head, not trusting herself to speak at the moment.

  “I told her that if she wrapped her tail to a legger’s, she was no daughter of mine and could never return to me.”

  Nimue sniffed when this time, her grandmother’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Those were the last words I ever said to her, Nim. She died believing I did not love her. But what she never knew was that I loved her too much to let her go.”

  The mood was suddenly too tense and fraught with emotion. The two women somehow found themselves with arms wrapped around each other and clinging as though for dear life.

  It took several more minutes before either one of them was able to speak. With a gasping, shuddering breath, Maiven drew her thumbs across her cheeks, drying the remaining tears there.

  “Much to my everlasting shame, Nimue. And had she not, had she not been willing to forsake my love for one far greater, I would not have you. Every time I see you, I am reminded of my terrible actions, and yet in some small way, I feel you are my redemption, too. I have come alive with you again. I am happy to see you each morning. To talk and share our days. To spend time out in the garden or playing with the children. I feel whole again, and I haven’t felt that for much too long.”

  “I love you, too, great-mother.” The words came out so easily that Nimue could not doubt it.

  She missed the above, her parents more than anything else, but she was also growing content. If she could only see them on occasion, she would never have cause to leave.

  “My daughter was proof that folk can and do rarely fall in love with a legger. So much so that the Great-mother cast her soul to the breeze so that she could find her Hook again. How does it feel when he is with you?”

  She chuckled, the sound still halfway watery. “Like I am alive. For so long, I’ve felt this aching, this yearning inside of me, and down here, I do not feel it. I miss my parents, but I am home. And that terrifies me, because I have given my heart to Sircco, and if he doesn’t return his, it will shatter me. I would be forced to leave.”

  “But why? You can be content without a man. I am.”

  “Great-mother, I am not like you. It is not that I need a man to be content, but I want him. I love him. I feel whole when he is with me, and if I had to see him smile and look lovingly upon anyone else, I could not bear it.”

  Patting her cheek, Maiven sat down once again, as did Nimue.

  “Is he your first love, dear daughter?”

  She nodded. “First. Last. And only. I know the truth of love on Kingdom, how when two like souls meet, it is forever. Bound one to another for eternity. I see it with my parents. I hear my fairy godmother talk of it. That is what I want and nothing else.”

  “And Sircco, he is it for you then?”

  “Yes.” Though she still felt weak of soul, her conviction that he had been crafted for her was strong.

  “Then, my dear, trust your instincts. For if you feel it, mightn’t he?”

  *

  Trishelle pumped her fist as she smiled fondly into the sea mirror. “I love that woman.”

  “Our daughter?” He rubbed his hook along the spot of her neck that always broke her out in a heated wash of longing.

  “Maiven. She is wise. Just like our Danika.”

  “Should you continue to spy, my love?” Hook bent over her shoulder, planting a kiss on her cheek before latching his teeth onto the lobe of her ear and giving it a gentle tug.

  Gasping, Trisha leaned her head back. “You know... I... worry about her.”

  Lifting a silver lid, he gently placed it atop the bowl. “I’ve no wish to see that ruddy fish mate her, and at the rate this is going, it is bound to happen soon enough. However—” He grunted when she stood and turned into him. “I can think of other things to discuss.”

  “Oh.” She lifted an arched brow, rubbing herself wantonly upon the heated thickness behind his pants. “Such as?”

  “I’ll make you pay for that.” Then, bending, he swooped her into his arms. He took two thunderous steps toward their bed, dropped her upon it, and ripped his hook down the center of her pretty dress.

  “Hook!” She smacked at his wrist. “That was my favorite gown.”

  “Shut up, wench. I’ll get you another.” Then with a hungry moan, he straddled her, and she sighed as he drew patterns upon her naked flesh with her favorite bedroom toy.

  Her life hadn’t been complete until she’d met him, and now soon, her daughter, too, would know the joys of being loved by a man who’d go to the ends of the earth and back just to see her smile.

  Sircco would make Nimue a fine husband.

  Trisha could hardly wait for the wedding.

  But then she stopped thinking when her lover nipped her in the one spot that always drove her wild.

  *

  Sircco waited for Nimue by the entrance of the dining hall. Brushing his fingers through his hair for the hundredth time. Would she come down? Or would she hide away as she sometimes did when situations between them altered?

  Sirenade, who he’d not seen approach, gave him a perplexed look. “Brother, you look as though you’ve swallowed a blowfish.”

  Crossing his eyes at her, he growled, “I am waiting for Nimue.”

  “You do realize the guests will not eat until you’ve arrived.”

  He knew. But he didn’t particularly care, either.

  She sighed. “Nimue isn’t home yet, brother. She is still out with Maiven.”

  Gnashing his teeth, irrationally angry with Talia’s mother for the first time in ever, he whirled on his sister. “And why is she still there? It grows dark out. It is not safe.”

  Sirenade laughed. “She is perfectly safe. Anyone knows to harm her is to ignite our wrath. None would dare harm her. And even if th
ey tried, I’ve no doubt that legger would stick a sword through their gut. What is the matter? Did the massage”—she winked—“not go according to plan?”

  “There was no sex, Sirenade!” he snapped, causing several heads to swivel on necks and stare at their king in startled wonder.

  Forcing himself to calm before he made a bigger ass of himself, he took several deep breaths.

  “I never said there was, Sircco. What a peculiar thing for you to say.” She batted her wrist at him as if he were the silliest thing she’d ever seen.

  Giving her a look meant to shrivel one’s soul, he snapped, “Do not play your games with me, Sirenade. I am not of a mood.”

  “No, you are not. You have been snapping at the help since you awoke. An. Hour. Ago.” Her straight hair sprang into tight coils, trembling at the very tips as though alive.

  Implied in there was that he’d overslept. Oh, well. It wasn’t often that he took a day for himself—he’d been due one.

  But she was also right. He was a horrible man to be around at present. “I think tomorrow morning, I should ride Thunder toward the star pool and check up on things.”

  Her smile was indulgent; her hair relaxed. “Fine, brother.”

  There was no need to check on the pools. Everything was as it should have been. He knew it, and so did she, but she made no mention of that fact.

  She moved as if to enter the hall, then she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “You should see if the little pirate wishes to join you. I believe she’d find it quite lovely and enchanting.”

  Blinking, he thought about it. Leggers were not allowed to walk among the souls of the folk, but Nimue wasn’t a legger.

  She was his. Her soul was folk.

  Just then he smelled sunshine and knew without even turning that she stood behind him.

  “Nimue,” he breathed her name, savoring every letter.

  “Sircco.” She touched the small of his back.

  Understanding without saying more, he swam for the hall, and she headed toward the stairs. She would join him in his room tonight, and he’d not even needed to ask.

  Chapter 14

  Nimue curled her toes into her plush carpet, staring at the door that divided her room. She’d done so a hundred times—if not more.

  Maiven had told her to trust her instincts.

  Instinct right now was screaming to get up, go in there, and make her beluga whale moan and groan as he had that morning. But her stomach and nerves were saying otherwise.

  She’d sat on the edge of the bed for the past hour, listening to the metrical chimes of the time clocks, each minute that passed making her feel more and more foolish.

  “No underwear.” She groaned, hanging her head. Dressed in the sheerest nightgown possible, she wore no underwear whatsoever.

  If that wasn’t an invitation to come feast, she didn’t know what was. But what if he laughed at her? What if he’d changed his mind?

  The servants were abed, or they should have been. But she sensed that all of them were awake and waiting for her to tiptoe out of her room to his.

  Cheeks flaming, she reminded herself that she didn’t care.

  And truly, she didn’t—not about them or what they thought of her.

  You know he’s the right one if you wake up the next morning and he still wants you for you, my darling Nim... that’s how you know its real.

  Mother had hugged her tightly and given her a kiss, and Nimue had clung to those words like a prayer. Digging her nails so deeply into her mattress that her nail beds twinged, she groaned. Hiding away in here all night wasn’t the answer.

  She’d get no sleep and suffer through more horrendous migraines—she grinned as she thought about the massages that would follow, then shook her head harder.

  “Nimue, stay or go. But make up your mind,” she berated herself as her mother would have. Gods, if she could only talk with her mother.

  If she could only hear her advice... what would she think of Sircco? It wasn’t that Trishelle didn’t know the merman, but he’d wanted her first. Would she think it bizarre? Would she be repulsed that he’d moved from her to her daughter?

  But deep in her heart, Nimue simply didn’t believe that mattered.

  Sircco was honorable. She knew it because he stopped. When she asked him to stop, he would. Even though she could read the desire licking like flames through his metallic-colored eyes, he would respect her wishes.

  She rolled on her bottom. Okay, this was what she would do—count slowly to ten and leave it up to her body to decide, since her mind was obviously made of mush at the moment.

  “One. Two. Thr—”

  “Nimue,” he called, followed by a knock at her door. “Are you in there?”

  Clutching her stomach, suddenly very much deciding she might need to puke after all, she shook her head. “No. Go away.”

  There was a long sigh, then her door opened. And her jaw dropped.

  “Sircco, you have legs,” she gasped, pointing at the long, muscular appendages poking out from beneath a knee-length robe that made him look utterly foreign to her eyes.

  Closing his eyes, he clung to her door as if for support. “I have been in this skin for neigh unto an hour, little pirate.” His normally deep baritone sounded strained to her ears.

  Fears lost in her sudden concern for him, she raced from her bed and pulled him in, and hugging his waist, she helped him to walk over to her bed so that he might sit. His gait was unsteady and unsure.

  Collapsing in a heap upon it, he swallowed. And she couldn’t help but notice how pinched his brows were.

  “What have you done to yourself, beluga?” She licked her lips, her heart hammering because though she was shocked, she was also terribly excited.

  Cracking a smile, he gave her a side-eye glare. “I thought my hagfish might like to see me as a man as opposed to a fish for once.”

  His normally tanned skin looked whiter than normal. He clearly seemed distressed by this form, and she wanted to ask him to please change back. She didn’t need him to wear legs to want to be with him.

  But just as she opened her mouth to say it, she snapped it shut, for once thinking before she spoke.

  He’d changed for her. He’d given up who he was—even if only temporarily—for her.

  “Oh, my Gods.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, jumping atop him so quickly that they toppled down in a tangled heap of arms and legs. “I lo...” No, best not to lead with that, she thought. “I adore you, my whale.”

  His palm was warm as he braced her tightly, and dear merciful Neptune, there was something hot, hard, and long poking into her side.

  Face contorting, as though with pain, he grunted, “I wish to see you, my pet. All of you.”

  Nerves coming back, she chewed on her bottom lip. Her thighs were a little on the soft side; her lower belly, a tad pokey. But he wasn’t looking at her as though any of that mattered to him. He was looking at her with a type of heat that threatened to melt the bones in her body.

  Standing, she whispered beneath her breath that she was pirate born and bred. The intensity of their gazes could have sparked an inferno as she unbelted the knot at her waist.

  The only light in her room came from the soft green glow of the palace’s kelp garden flooding through her window.

  His breathing hitched as she drew the edges down so that they slipped off her shoulders to her waist. The cool water brushing against her overly heated skin made her want to writhe, but his gaze transfixed her.

  “My Gods,” he breathed as the storm in his eyes began to rage.

  Feeling emboldened by his words, she let the rest of the fabric slide through her arms, to puddle in a silken heap at her feet.

  His jaw dropped, and anywhere his gaze touched, she swore she felt a flash of lightning burn through her.

  “Nim?” he said in a thick voice. “Would you feel me as I felt you?”

  Trilling laughter spilled from her lips, easing the thick knot of tension in her
belly.

  She’d never touched a man below his neck, not sexually anyway. And she’d never really wanted to, never having felt enough of an attraction for another to warrant it.

  But, oh, how she wanted to with him.

  Setting her knees on the mattress, she reached for his belt then hesitated at the first contact of his hot skin. She swallowed hard. “Where... where do you want me to touch you?”

  Groaning hard, he covered her hand with his. “Anywhere. Everywhere. I do not care, so long as you do.”

  Sircco had taken off his crown, and apart from the unique hue of his eyes, there was little about him that would make her think him anything other than human now.

  Undoing his belt, she shoved aside the pieces, exposing him completely to her curious stare. She focused on his chest first because it was big and muscular.

  Smiling, she traced the tiny buds of his nipples.

  His stomach sucked in swiftly, and she snatched her hand back. “Did I hurt you?”

  Instead of answering, he grabbed her hand and forced it back down on him. Lightning raged through his eyes.

  “Okay,” she murmured more to herself than to him. Clearly he’d not minded what she’d done.

  Not sure how to touch him, she simply did as she pleased. She flicked at his nipple with her nail then grinned when a sharp bark-like grunt spilled from his lips.

  She did it again. And again, she got the same reaction. “Do you wish me to stop, beluga?”

  “Not unless you want a crimson stain on your backside from my palm this time,” his thick voice rolled.

  Beaming, delighted by this new game, she moved to his other nipple. But instead of flicking at it, she pressed her thumb down upon it, watching as it sprang back to form the instant she released it.

  “They are just like mine,” she murmured.

  He still hadn’t touched her, and she sensed it was because he wanted her to continue in her exploration of his body unhindered, but it hadn’t escaped her notice that his fingers were digging into her sheets like a man in the throes of pain. But she refused to walk away from such a feast until she’d had her fill.