The Water Thief

by Jane Kindred

  “How do I get these off?” he growled as he reached the next layer, trying to find a way into the very proper bodice.

  I shrugged out of the jacket and tossed it aside. “The back,” I said breathlessly. “Hooks and eyes.”

  Macsen rolled me over and worked his way through the prissy little hooks while I gasped against the bedspread, shocked at myself, shocked at him, and willing myself not to be a fool and stop him.

  He reached the next layer, baring me to the corset, all thumbs with it.

  “You have to unlace me. Loosen it little by little starting at the center, and—” I covered my mouth to stifle a squeak at the feel of metal sliding against my back. Macsen jerked up against the laces with his blade, and the corset came away.

  “I hope you have another,” he murmured. I didn’t, but the laces were easy enough to replace. I didn’t bother to go into it, pulling away the gummed tape from the front that gave me false cleavage while Macsen unhooked my skirt and pulled it down.

  “By hell,” he swore in irritation. “How many layers are you in?”

  “Just the usual.” I stifled a giggle, fearing the peculiarity of the situation would send that impulse toward a fit of nervous laughter that would ruin everything. His hands on my waist, pushing down the crinoline and drawers, eliminated the threat instantly, and I gasped at the cold touch against my skin. Now I was naked beneath him, and he was fully clothed, his clothing damp, and his body unequivocally hard beneath it.

  Macsen rocked against me, arms wrapped around my shoulders. “Do you want me, Sebastian?”

  “By the Fates,” I gasped. “Please. Yes. Please.”

  He unbuttoned swiftly behind me, and I shivered at the stroke of his cock against the cleft of my ass. And then I realized he likely knew nothing of what he was doing and gasped, “Wait!”

  Macsen froze for an instant and then rose onto his knees. He was buttoning up, thinking I was saying no.

  “I said wait, Macsen. Not stop. You need the oil in the drawer in the nightstand.” I scrambled for it and turned my head to look over my shoulder as I handed it to him. He was white as a sun-bleached canvas, arrested in the act of putting himself away. I rolled onto my back and reached up to unbutton him once more, my hand around his cock. “Leave everything to me,” I said, and drew him down to my mouth.

  Macsen groaned, bracing his arms against the bed beside me as my tongue circled him and I sucked the sensitive head. A musky bead of moisture spilled into my mouth, making me moan with need around his flesh. I couldn’t wait to do things properly, to put him at ease, and I was afraid he’d run away if he had a moment to think. Or I would.

  Reluctantly, I released him. “On your back,” I urged, pushing him.

  “My back?”

  “Don’t argue. Just do it.”

  His brows lifted at my tone, but he obeyed. Rising and straddling his hips, I rested on my knees and opened the bottle of oil to pour some into my hand and baptize his startled cock with it. While he stared up at me with a mixture of heat and misgiving in his eyes, I positioned myself above him and reached my arm behind me to guide him inside. Macsen grasped my waist in both hands, groaning softly as I pushed myself down his length.

  I rested my weight on his hips and began to rock into him with a light, rolling motion, my skin tingling from head to toe at the delicious pressure of being filled by him.

  “By the Fates,” he whispered, staring up at me. “You’re bloody gorgeous.”

  Though I was naked and mounted on his cock, I lowered my eyes like a coquette as the blood rushed to my cheeks. My own cock was blushing equally, bobbing in my lap, and I needed to feel him against it. I leaned over him, knees bent, with my chest against his and my erection trapped between us. Macsen’s hands roamed over my back and buttocks as he began to fuck me—tentative at first, but encouraged by the soft groans I was making at his ear. I unbuttoned his shirt and stroked my hands over his chest, needing to touch him, and thrust my innervated flesh against the firm muscles of his abdomen that tensed with contractions as he began to use them more vigorously.

  Delightful friction, both inside and out, was sending me swiftly toward climax. I bit his shoulder lightly, trying to hold off, but he was fucking me rapidly, hitting that spot inside me that made it impossible not to give myself over to the building pressure I could no longer contain.

  Macsen gasped at the slick stream of semen that shot between us, and it was all I could do to hang on to him and moan into his shoulder. He held my head in his hands when I’d finished and kissed me with a look of wonder in his eyes. Then he closed them and groaned against my lips, jerking as he emptied inside me. His arms wrapped around me once more, and he held me tight.

  I stroked the stubble at his jaw. “Well, that was unexpected. My dearest brother.”

  Macsen laughed, his voice husky with postcoital pleasure. “Shut up.” He pulled the bedspread up over the side of the bed and covered me with it, cocooning us together. It didn’t seem the action of a man regretting a moment of passion with another and contemplating flight. Still, I huddled against him, afraid to move, afraid it would all unravel, the magic dissipate, and he’d realize what he’d done.

  “You’re quiet,” he murmured, and kissed my hair.

  “You just told me to shut up.” I lifted my head and gave him a tentative smile. “I know you’re not…like me…but I gather the experience wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Was it much different?”

  His muscles tensed slightly beneath me. “Much different? Than what?”

  I rested my cheek against his chest, afraid to see the look in his eyes. “Than being with a woman. I’ve never done it.”

  “Sebastian.” Macsen fingered my hair, the long pause following my name indicating he was carefully formulating an answer.

  Dread settled over me like a weighty cloak. I tried to think of a way to extricate myself—literally and figuratively—that would be the least awkward.

  When he spoke, it was the last thing I’d expected him to say. “I’ve never done it either.”

  “What do you mean?” The incredulous tone as I raised my head made my voice comically high.

  Apparently, Macsen thought so as well. He laughed. “Is there more than one meaning? I’ve never been with a woman. Not fully. Emrys hired a whore for me on my eighteenth birthday, and I let her pleasure me orally so she wouldn’t return to him with tales of my lack of virility. I found it perfectly awkward.”

  “But you said—”

  “I’m sorry for what I said.” He stroked his thumb over my lower lip. “I didn’t know what I wanted. I mean, I did—I wanted you—but I wasn’t sure why. I was afraid it was the magic. That I was that far gone with my use of it that I…would do anything to get more.”

  I stopped his hand, taking it in mine. “And would you?”

  Macsen averted his eyes with a slight blush. “To get more of you? Yes, I would. But not for the magic.” He met my eyes once more and smiled. “This was better.”

  His smile enticed my mouth to his, and I kissed it, astonished at us both. “What are we doing? What are we going to do?”

  “Do we have to think about it? Can’t we just enjoy it?”

  I folded my arms on his chest to prop myself up. “Do you still think I murdered August?”

  Macsen sighed and kissed my cheek, though my hair had fallen in his way, and gingerly separated himself from me. I was afraid I’d spooked him after all, but he turned us both onto our sides with an easy motion and pushed my hair behind my ear. “No. Of course I don’t. I suspect Emrys and Elen may have had a hand in it. But if they did, I didn’t know of it. I promise you.”

  That much I believed. “But you still have doubts about my mental state.” I stopped his objection with a finger to his lips. “It’s all right. I have them too. I have to tell you something.”

  He waited patiently, which disa
ppointed me a bit. I suppose I’d been hoping for a vehement denial. But I was who I was.

  “I’ve been having…hallucinations. I think it must be all the laudanum Emrys has given me over the years. At least I hope that’s why. But ever since the night I escaped from All Fates, I’ve been seeing things that can’t be there. Hearing someone speak to me who can’t be speaking. Someone…dead. I thought I was haunted, but others would see her if she were a ghost. Wouldn’t they?”

  Macsen propped himself on his elbow. “August?”

  Before I could answer, someone pounded on the inner door and threw it open. I was expecting Sven, prepared to chastise him to cover my embarrassment, but was mortified to look up into the furious face of Emrys Pryce.

  Chapter Sixteen

  If I was mortified, Macsen was nearly catatonic.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Emrys stood in the doorway, fists clenching and unclenching convulsively. His eyes were on Macsen.

  I clutched the blanket to my chin. “It’s not his fault. I—”

  “I’m not asking you, you little harlot.” Emrys spat the words at me. “Either you’re an incestuous whore, or Sebastian has given you the impression he isn’t your brother. Either way, you’re a whore.” He turned his furious gaze on Macsen once more. “And either way, I’m going to have you strung up and whipped while your whore watches. If you think I’m going to let you sully the name of the lord of Cantre’r Gwaelod and ruin everything I’ve worked for as your guardian, you’re a bigger fool than I thought. If I won’t tolerate my own mother meddling in the affairs of this cantref, I’m certainly not going to let you spoil it all.” He turned and slammed the door on us and I listened as his angry footsteps dissipated down the corridor.

  “Macsen—”

  “Get your clothes on,” he snapped, flinging the bedspread off us both. I shivered, sitting up and hugging my arms to my chest while Macsen buttoned up. “Dammit, Sebastian, move!”

  A startled squeak escaped me as he grabbed me by my upper arms and swung me bodily from the bed. I backed up against the wardrobe, alarmed by his intensity.

  “My corset needs new laces.”

  “You don’t have time for corsets and crinolines. Where are your clothes? Your real clothes.” He moved me out of the way with the same forceful motion and flung the doors wide on the wardrobe, yanking feminine garments out and tossing them aside.

  “I don’t keep them in there.” After crouching to drag out the little bag that held my masculine change of clothing from under the bed, I turned toward him. “Macsen, let’s just slow down and think for a moment. We don’t need to do anything rash.”

  “Rash? For fuck’s sake, Sebastian! We’ve done something rash.” He grabbed the bag and tossed it on the bed, taking the clothes out and shoving them at me. “Put them on. We don’t have much time. He’s fetching his men.”

  “His men?”

  “Stop arguing! Get dressed!” His fury nearly matched his father’s, and it was enough to frighten me into obedience. Macsen opened the door and peered out while I dressed, turning back as I was fastening my braces.

  “Macsen, he’s not really going to whip you—”

  “Shut up and put your boots on.”

  I cringed. This was not the same playful tone he’d used to tell me to shut up when I’d teased him while we lay together basking in the afterglow of our rash behavior. I shoved my feet into my boots, and Macsen grabbed my hand, heading for the door before I’d even laced them.

  “Where are we going?”

  “As far as we can.”

  Starting down the stairs, we met Sven coming up, and he stopped and gaped at us. If things were as bad as Macsen thought, it wasn’t safe for Sven or Abigail here either.

  “Get Abbie,” I whispered. “Get out of here. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Sven stepped in front of Macsen and blocked his path, using his size to intimidate. “Let go of the lady,” he demanded.

  “Step out of my way,” Macsen snarled. “Or I swear I will cut you, diawl.”

  I put my hand out between them and stopped Sven from coming closer. “It’s all right. He’s not hurting me. I’m going with him willingly. But you and Abigail have to get out before Emrys discovers we’ve gone.”

  “He’s not leaving with you,” Sven insisted. “You’re under my care.”

  I could see Macsen was ready to do him serious harm. “Then come on,” I said. “Get Abbie and follow.” I swept him out of the way and let Macsen drag me down the steps at the awkward pace of his broad stride.

  Macsen headed for the stables, and Sven arrived on our heels with a flustered Abigail as Macsen slipped a bridle on his favorite horse and lifted me onto its back. “Take the sorrel,” he said to Sven. “And keep up.” He swung up onto the horse behind me and galloped her out of the stable and straight on toward the headlands.

  The wind sent the moisture in the air flirting around me. I closed my eyes, feeling Macsen’s body pressed close behind me, as strong and firm as the one beneath me. I forgot for a few minutes that I didn’t know where we were going, or that Macsen’s behavior had so disturbingly echoed Emrys’s. I merely let the damp air whip through my hair and clothing, the whistling of the wind as it rushed past my ears almost like mournful bells.

  After a moment, the discordant notes became more distinct. Not the wind. Those were bells. I opened my eyes onto a view of a desolate stretch of rock I didn’t recognize, high above the coast. I clutched Macsen’s arm, afraid we were going too fast over such a treacherous drop, but before I could protest, an unfamiliar stone ruin appeared around the curve of the coastline we were galloping over, and Macsen slowed the horse to a trot. Birch trees deformed by the unforgiving ocean winds seemed to bend around it, branches curving like ancient arms to hold the stone in its grasp but not quite touching, as though the crumbling stone eluded it.

  “What is this?” I had to raise my voice against the wind. The sound of bells I’d been hearing jangled out of the pointed tower at the building’s peak, something heavy loose inside and clanging against stone in the wind.

  Macsen brought the horse to a halt and dismounted. “I’m not sure exactly what it once was, but it’s from the time before.”

  “Before?”

  “Before Cantre’r Gwaelod sank beneath the waves.” As he helped me down, we heard the pounding hooves of Sven’s mount. Macsen tensed and turned, relaxing only slightly when he saw it was the sorrel. “They can’t come with,” he murmured to me, his tone hard.

  “With, where?”

  “The other realm.”

  I searched his eyes, incredulous. “You can’t be serious. I’m not going to run away from Emrys like this to an entirely other world, chased out of my own and my inheritance.”

  “I don’t have time to argue with you, Sebastian. Emrys will make us pay for our betrayal in ways you can’t imagine. You just have to take my word for it. I’m done. I’m leaving. If you don’t trust me enough to come with me, then I’ll need some more of your magic.”

  “Macsen!”

  “I mean it. And if you won’t give it to me—I’ll take it.”

  Angry tears sprang to my eyes. He would assault me, after what we’d just shared, if I refused to give my consent.

  Sven rode up the rocky path to where we waited, Abigail looking green behind him, her head turned away from the drop while she pressed her cheek against Sven’s back, clinging to him for dear life.

  “What’s this about?” he demanded. “Why’ve you brought Sly out here?”

  “Sly?” Macsen raised an eyebrow.

  “Sebastian. Guess we’re not pretending you’re him anymore.”

  Macsen wrapped his hand around mine possessively. “Sly is about to decide whether he comes the rest of the way with me or goes back with you. If he goes with you, I want your word you’ll tak
e him anywhere but Llys Mawr.”

  “So you’ve been caught out as a fraud and you expect Sebastian to give up his birthright.”

  “Emrys will do him far greater harm than he’s been doing. The extractions are nothing to what he’ll do to Sebastian to punish him in my stead.”

  “Extractions?” Abigail had loosened her grip around Sven. “What’s he talking about, milady?”

  Sven’s eyes narrowed, the reddish-blond brows drawing together. “Sly?”

  Macsen glanced at me. “They don’t know?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t want to tell you about it, Sven. I knew you wouldn’t take it well and I couldn’t risk you doing anything to damage our position.”

  “Tell me about what?”

  “It’s complicated—”

  “We don’t have time to be delicate,” Macsen interrupted. “Sebastian has inherited the water magic of Cantre’r Gwaelod, and Emrys has been harvesting it from his body for years through a rather unpleasant—violent—ritual.” The same violence Macsen had just promised to do me himself if I resisted him.

  “Water magic?” Abigail and Sven exchanged glances of baffled disbelief.

  “You said you came here from somewhere else,” I said to Sven. “There’s a passage back, and I have the power to open it. At least that’s what Macsen tells me.”

  Sven still looked dubious, but the mention of the passage back had resonated with him. “How?”

  I looked to Macsen for an answer. I still wasn’t sure, myself.

  “He has to drown,” said Macsen.

  Sven gave him a black look and swung Abigail down from the horse so he could dismount. “You’re coming with me, Sly. That’s enough of this bastard.”

  Macsen stepped in front of me. “He drowns every night. That’s how Emrys performs the extraction. He survives. And he’ll survive this. I’ve done it myself.”

  “You’ve done it.” Sven’s laugh had a dangerous pitch to it. “I suppose you’re magic too?”