Gwenith, the fairy siren, was his mate.
He’d known when he’d heard her sing, but hadn’t been ready to accept it. But her very presence in his space drew him. She was like a magnet and he was pulled inexplicably to her force.
The problem was, he didn’t like it.
Loch had bigger plans for his life, none of which included him settling down with anyone long-term. He had watched as other fae had partnered up, watched as they had compromised on their choices in life, and he wasn’t willing to do so. As a sorcerer, Loch had a higher calling – to serve his people and the royal fae above him.
No, he didn’t have the time or inclination for a partner in his life, so it would be best if he kept Gwen at a distance. No matter how much he itched to hold her, to touch her, even to make her laugh, it was not to be.
He’d protect her and see this quest through. But after that, he’d knock any stars out of her eyes.
And move on alone, as he was destined to be.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gwen couldn’t help herself. She slipped to the bow of the boat, her body still thrumming with the intensity of the kiss. It was her first real kiss, and it shamed her to realize that, even to herself. Though she shouldn’t feel shame, Gwen lectured herself as she leaned against the railing; Gran had often reminded her that many women were late bloomers.
Oh! But to be kissed by a man who knew what he was doing and not some fumbling schoolboy. Gwen grinned and pressed her hand to her lips again, tracing them and doing her best to commit the sensations to memory. No matter what happened, she’d have this moment in time – a passionate kiss on a boat to a magickal island after a fierce battle. She supposed as first-real-kiss stories went, it was pretty damn good.
Gwen wondered what he was thinking about her. Did he have feelings for her? Or was this just his way of having fun and passing time? She’d been warned about men who stole kisses from all the girls. They had a different woman every night of the week and not a speck of honor. It didn’t seem likely that Loch was a man like that, but she was certain he’d had many lovers in his past. Would he be the type to love and walk away? Or would he have long-term relationships with women – no, fae? Gwen couldn’t see him as the boyfriend type. He struck her more as a lone wolf than anything. Even traveling with this group seemed to make him antsy and she remembered how surprised he seemed every time one of them jumped in to help.
“Just lovers he’s had then,” Gwen muttered, staring down into the blue water where the light illuminated the depths. “But not love. Not really. I can’t think a man like him would give love easily.”
She watched the waves slap the hull, delighting in the way they seemed to curl and dance, almost mesmerized by the beauty of the water. It had always been this way for her around water. It called to her, soothed her, entranced her. Perhaps that was why she’d begun playing with the ice concept, she mused, staring dreamily at the water, the sky dark above her with low cloud cover.
When the water reached up and pulled her in, Gwen barely had time to squeak before she was plunged into the freezing waters of the Atlantic and pulled beneath the boat, her head narrowly missing the blades of the propeller as she was dragged down into darkness. Invisible hands bound hers, keeping her from swimming, and Gwen watched the light of the boat sail away as she was forced into the depths toward her inevitable death.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He’d been watching her on the deck camera. Loch would have been embarrassed to admit it if it hadn’t signaled to him that she’d gone over the edge. In seconds he had the engine off and was stripping his boots, his shouts of alarm rousing Seamus and Bianca.
“What’s going on?” Bianca raced onto the deck, followed by Seamus, both pulling sweaters over their heads.
“She went over. Man the helm. They’ve taken her into the ocean,” Loch shouted, then went straight over the railing into the dark water, barely flinching as the icy water shocked his system. Instead, his mind raced to run as much magick as he could, starting first with the spell that let him breathe underwater. It was something he’d been working on for a while, and as of yet he’d not taught it to any of the other fae. It would last him but minutes before the spell wore off, which was why he needed to perfect it before he revealed it to his brethren.
Slanting his eyelids slightly open, he spied a dull glow and sped as fast as he could through the water, his fingers becoming webbed as he furiously worked magick after magick to drive himself closer to where he could feel Gwen was.
Impossibly deep.
His heart thudded in his chest as he raced closer and, sending out his magick, he began to try and pick off anything he felt was bad energy around where he could sense Gwen’s heart pulsing. Loch’s mind raced furiously as he worked to fend off the Domnua and also send Gwen pockets of air so she could breathe – anything to keep her alive, just until he could get there.
But he feared it was too late. They’d been down too long, and too far. He felt a scream building inside him as he worked nearer to where she was, seeing the dull light of her magick begin to fade, the icy water crushing her life spirit to darkness.
Something flitted past him, so fast he barely caught the movement before more mirrored it, the power of their motion pulling Loch along like he was caught in a riptide. He had but a moment to fear for his own life before he realized what was happening.
The sirens had come to save their own.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Inexplicably, Gwen stopped feeling afraid. The closer she slipped toward death, the less scared she seemed to feel. Here, in the darkness of the icy water, she found that she could still take little sips of air, as if she was absorbing bubbles of air from the water itself. Was she filtering the water into oxygen? She realized that she must be nearing death – if she was calmly contemplating how she was breathing and not all that concerned about the Domnua still pulling her deeper into the water, then certainly she’d accepted her fate.
How silly of her to let her guard down, Gwen thought, then twisted when she felt the bonds holding her hands tight to her body break. That was interesting. Had she lost the Domnua? Stretching her arms out, she gasped, choking back water that did enter her mouth this time, shocking her into realizing she was still very much alive and this wasn’t a dream. Arms looped through hers, carrying her briskly higher and higher toward, she presumed, the surface.
It was strange; in this darkly cold water, she couldn’t visually tell what was up or what was down, but her gut told her they were heading toward the surface. It was the ‘they’ part of the equation that was tripping her up. Who had her arms and was saving her – rocketing her at a speed far past safety for her to surface?
When they broke the surface, Gwen gasped for air, her lungs screaming in pain, dots playing across her eyes as she was held above the waves that threatened to crash into her face again. Looking around, her gaze met eyes of a similar color to her own.
Gwen froze.
There in the water, glowing faintly with otherworldly magick, were what she presumed to be sirens. Or mermaids. Perhaps both? With almost translucent skin the color of moonlight and luminous blue eyes, they swam around her, singing and singing, songs of such joy and such calm that Gwen was immediately warmed from within. No longer did the cold touch her, no longer did her body gasp for air. They were healing her with their song and Gwen never wanted them to leave.
When Loch broke the surface next to her, his eyes wild, the song reached a crescendo of such joy it was as though the ocean thundered with it. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her to his chest so that her head stayed above water. Gwen closed her eyes for a moment, blissfully, almost mindlessly content to have his arms wrapped around her, knowing that in this one moment everything would be just fine.
Her heart pounded in her chest as, one by one, the mermaids began to swim away. Gwen didn’t want them to leave yet. She had questions – she needed them to stay.
“Wait,” she croaked, beginning to shi
ver as they took their warmth with them.
“Shh, save your energy, my child.” The last mermaid, a woman of unusual beauty, pressed her lips to Gwen’s, blowing air straight into her lungs and sending the breath of life – of love – through her until she was warm straight through to her toes. “Know that you are loved. We’ll fight this battle with you. The fae from land, and the sirens from the depths. Have no fear of the water. We’ll always be here for you.”
With one more gentle kiss, the siren disappeared, forever changing Gwen’s definition of family, of beauty, and reshaping her understanding of the world. When a life ring splashed by her head, she realized they had been delivered back to the yacht.
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” Gwen asked Loch as they both hooked an arm to the ring. They were pulled to the swim platform at the back of the boat, where a terrified-looking Bianca stood, her arms wrapped around her body as she rocked back and forth.
“A bit chilly, but I’ll make it,” Loch grumbled against her neck. “Friends of yours?”
Gwen found herself laughing, turning so that her forehead bumped his, though she refrained from kissing him like she found herself desperately wanting to do.
“It seems so.”
“Good friends to have, I’d say. I wasn’t sure I’d reach you in time.” Loch scrambled onto the swim platform and pulled her easily from the water, reminding her once again of his great strength.
“What happened?! Were those mermaids? Oh my god, I honestly thought you both were gone. We couldn’t see you. It was so dark and you both were just gone. We had nothing to go on,” Bianca chattered away, dancing from foot to foot in her fright, until Gwen reached out to pat her arm.
“I’m okay. But I’d dearly love to get out of these wet clothes. It’s a mite bit cold out here, no?”
Glad to be tasked with something, Bianca all but dragged Gwen inside to the kitchen quarters, where Gwen soon found herself divested of her wet clothes and wrapped in heavy woolen blankets, a cup of hot tea steaming in her hands.
“It’s amazing how tea is always the answer for anything,” Gwen mused. She took a sip to find another bracing shot of whiskey in the mug. Bianca only shrugged when Gwen tilted her head at her.
“If you can’t be enjoying a tipple of whiskey after a moment like that, then I’m not certain what’s the point of having whiskey around anyway,” Bianca pointed out.
Gwen nodded her agreement. “Cheers then,” she said, and smiled when Seamus and Loch clambered down the stairs – Loch in flannel pants and a sweater, and Seamus grinning when he saw Gwen’s face.
“It’s pleased I am to be seeing the color back in your cheeks. You were frightfully pale when you came up from the water,” Seamus said, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek before moving to snuggle up next to Bianca.
“Thank you,” Gwen said, her gaze on Loch as he sat across from her at the table – close, but far enough away that they weren’t touching. She wondered if that was intentional or not.
“You’re welcome, of course. I couldn’t let you go down without a fight,” Loch said, then picked up the whiskey and took a long pull right from the bottle.
“What happened?” Bianca demanded.
“I… I don’t really know. I was at the bow just looking into the water and it was like the waves reached up and pulled me under. I couldn’t do anything – I was quite literally bound. I think the Domnua had my arms pulled behind my back. I couldn’t move at all – couldn’t bring my bracelets up, nothing. And they were so fast! I swear I was down fifty meters in a second,” Gwen said, shaking her head in disbelief.
“That is terrifying.” Bianca shuddered and Seamus rubbed her back. “How did you not die though? I mean, is it because you’re part siren? Can you breathe underwater?”
“I don’t really know, to be honest. It was like I was able to inhale these little pockets of air or something. I can’t say. I’ve never really tried to breathe underwater before. I always assumed I couldn’t, so I’ve held my breath anytime I’ve gone swimming.”
“I may have helped with that,” Loch said, and explained about one of the spells he had been sending to her.
“Good thinking, especially in a stressful situation like that. Were you able to do the same for yourself?” Seamus asked, and the two men launched into a discussion of spells. Loch looked animated for the first time in a while as he explained some of the thought processes behind the magicks he’d been working on.
Incredibly, Gwen felt her eyes beginning to close.
“So… what happened then? Like, how did you get rid of the Domnua?” Bianca asked, pulling Gwen back to reality before she dozed off.
“My family. The mermaids. They saved me,” Gwen said, mumbling a bit. Now that her adrenaline had spiked, she was crashing, and crashing hard.
“Mermaids! I want every detail,” Bianca began, but then she saw Gwen’s droopy eyes. “Tomorrow, that is. You’ve had quite the ordeal. Loch, can you carry her to bed?”
Gwen wanted to protest, but found she had no strength to do so. She needed to be prone and out – now. She meekly said her goodnights as Loch cradled her to his chest, his warmth enveloping her as he took her to her tiny cabin. He stretched her out on the bed, and Gwen moaned in pleasure at the comfort of the small bunk and the warmth of the blankets. Feeling cocooned in safety and warmth, she smiled up at Loch.
“Thank you,” Gwen whispered, her eyes closed.
Silence answered her.
But she felt the whisper of a kiss – so light it was like a butterfly had breezed past – before the door to her cabin closed.
Gwen smiled as she slipped into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was as though she’d been in a coma, she’d slept so deeply, Gwen thought as she blinked awake and rolled to stare at the clock. She wondered briefly if Loch had worked some sort of magick spell for her to sleep so soundly or if it had been the shock of the whole experience that had knocked her out.
Gwen stretched and pulled the blanket around her, knowing she would need to get up soon to pull her weight, but wanting a moment to snuggle into her warm cocoon of blankets and relive the events that had transpired.
And to think she’d been content with her day-to-day life when there was so much magick in the world.
Gwen almost squealed in delight when she thought about all the spells that Loch could do – something she didn’t yet understand but planned to grill him on at some point. She couldn’t even bring herself to fully unpack the awesomeness of seeing the mermaids without filling in Bianca about it as well. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in god knew how long, and Gwen jumped up to leave the bunk just as the door opened.
Seeing Loch’s mouth drop open as he stared at her reminded Gwen that she’d been divested of her sopping wet and torn clothes the night before. Which meant she once again stood before him naked. This time, she cocked a hand on her hip and glared at him.
“Have you ever heard of the concept of knocking before?” Gwen scolded.
Loch had the decency to blush. “I’m sorry,” he said, but he didn’t leave. His eyes drank her in and Gwen felt the mood in the room begin to shift, like an undercurrent of energy that seemed to pulse between the two of them.
“And yet… you’re still here,” Gwen pointed out, her mouth having gone dry.
“I… I just… You’re stunning.” Loch swallowed and then ducked out the door, slamming it behind him. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d locked her in the room once more, simply to keep himself out.
For the first time ever, Gwen began to feel a thrill of feminine power. Even if she found it hard to believe that Loch would find her ‘stunning,’ she realized he was kind enough to compliment her, seeing as she was standing naked in front of him.
But still… there had been something there.
Remembering the kiss from last night, Gwen traced her fingers over her lips once more before pulling a blanket around her and cracking the door to p
oke her head out. A pile of clothes sat in front of the door on the floor of the small hallway and Gwen snatched them up, grateful that she wouldn’t have to walk around all day in a blanket.
Happy to see that her pants had made it, she pulled them on, but scowled at the rest of the clothes. A shell pink long-sleeved scoop neck shirt and a fleece jacket were the options. No bra, and no Star Wars shirt or cardigan to be found. Sighing, she pulled the pink shirt over her head and glared down at where it hugged her breasts. She could only imagine what a sight that was with no bra on. Still, it was better than a blanket, she reminded herself. Picking up the coat, she made her way to the toilet before venturing to the galley to sniff out something to eat.
Bianca whistled her appreciation when Gwen walked in. Loch turned from where he was preparing tea, dropping the packet on the floor when he caught sight of her. With a curse, he picked it up and all but fled from the kitchen.
“Bad?” Gwen asked, grateful to see a tray of toast on the small table.
“Amazing,” Bianca said, casting an eye over the shirt and whistling once more. “Girl, I did not see the curves you had hiding under all those baggy clothes, but hot damn. Loch doesn’t stand a chance. Plus the pink goes great with your red hair.”
“It’s not a color I normally wear,” Gwen admitted, trying not to gobble down the piece of toast in one bite to calm the growling in her stomach.
“You should. But wow, we may need to find you a bra or keep your coat zipped up. I’m thinking even Seamus will be distracted.”
Immediately feeling guilty, Gwen pulled the fleece jacket on. Though it was fitted as well, it at least provided another layer of coverage.
“I’m sorry. It was the only option. I wasn’t trying to, you know, show anything off.”
“Trust me, I know. You should show it off. All the time. If I looked like you, I certainly would,” Bianca said, cheerful as ever.
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