They did not fight to the death but to the skin, although often the flesh was nicked in the heat of battle. Even with an Aelynner’s natural swiftness, it took years of practice to fight with naked swords without causing lethal accidents to equally naked flesh.
Trystan’s bare companions lolled in the grass, accepting his authority for any decision that must be made. As usual, his position as leader remained uncontested.
“So, how do you choose?” Waylan demanded, sheathing his weapon before picking up the remnants of his clothing.
Flinging his arm around Waylan’s brawny shoulders, Trystan shoved his friend toward the tavern. “I choose for you to buy the next round.”
“Bah, it’s just your long arm that makes the difference.” Waylan knotted the remains of his tunic around his hips, staggered to a seat, and circled his fingers at the serving maid. “I still know more moves than you.”
Kiernan collapsed on the bench beside Trystan, and rather than swing to sit properly at the trestle table, he leaned his back against it and stretched out his long legs. “Remind me again why we continue this primitive form of entertainment.”
“Because it makes us good with a needle?” Trystan suggested. “Since there isn’t a woman on the island who will repair our garments after a fight, we’ve all become skilled at repairing sail.”
“To exhaust swaggering bachelors and keep them from rutting among the women and producing far more children than the island can bear.” Unfazed by a room full of brawny masculine nakedness, Lissandra slapped a tumbler of mead upon the table. “I trust you are now enlightened as to how you will deal with your intruder.”
“I won. I choose,” Trystan replied gruffly. It had taken hours to defeat his comrades. The sun was setting behind Aelynn, and he was no closer to a conclusion than before.
“Then choose, and send the loser after her,” Lissandra hissed. “While you’ve been playing your silly games, she has escaped.”
Abruptly alert, Trystan swung his legs over the bench. “Which way did she go?”
She looked at him in disbelief. “Where do you think a mermaid would go? And I thought you the smart one.”
So had he, but obviously they were both wrong. The mermaiden had truly addled his brainpan. What in the name of the gods had possessed him to bring Mariel ashore?
Possibly, the gods.
Meeting Lissandra’s gaze, Trystan felt his gut knot. Her eyes had turned the color of regret. What had she seen with her inner sight?
That Mariel could die upon the reefs?
“Who goes with me?” he shouted with controlled panic to the room at large, but without his direct command, his so-called friends merely lifted their tankards in surrender.
As Guardian and leader, he could not force his friends to accept what he would not.
Cursing the fates, Trystan raced for the door. There were several accessible beaches on the island, but if Lissandra had just “seen” the mermaid leave Erithea’s home, his stowaway wouldn’t have had time to reach any shore except the one she’d arrived on—the dock beach. The paths would lead her directly there, although if her descent of the bluffs of her home was any indication, she was capable of climbing rocks like a goat instead of following any path.
Not wanting to imagine her pitching off one of the towering black cliffs that guarded the island, Trystan applied all the powerful speed within him, praying Mariel did not possess the same swiftness.
He shouldn’t have lingered, playing at games in hopes of finding someone to take her off his hands. He’d expected her to act like any Outsider woman and wait for him to choose a husband for her. In his observations of other lands, their womenfolk seemed submissive sorts who did as they were told and liked nothing better than to tend hearth and home.
Except Mariel was a Crossbreed, not an Outsider. A woman with Aelynn blood would always be different from one who had none. Judging from this incident, submissive was not in the mermaid’s nature.
Even a mermaid could not survive the island’s reef. And if his shield hadn’t killed her earlier, it had knocked her unconscious. She could drown should she swim into it again.
Heart pounding in fear that he should so endanger an innocent creature who had done no more than foolishly believe him a god, Trystan raced to the top of the path where he could see the dark sea swirling across the darker sand in the early twilight.
He cursed at the sight of a white figure fleeing down the winding lower half of the path to the shore. She’d apparently left behind the coat and scarf she’d been given and was down to the rags in which she’d arrived. He should have provided her with proper garments.
Berating himself, wishing he had Iason’s more useful trait of reading minds, Trystan took a shortcut—straight over the cliff boulders to the beach.
He didn’t have the power of flight, but he had the agility of a goat and the experience of a boyhood spent on these rocks. He hit the black sand just as a splash that wasn’t a wave sounded not feet away.
Curse Hades and thrice damnation! Kicking off his sandals, grateful he wore little more than a loincloth, Trystan dove into the waves.
She swam like a fish, but he knew the undertow, and his strength was greater. He admired the smooth way her limbs cut the dark water. Her long hair rippled to guide her, much as a cat’s whiskers sensed its surroundings. She belonged in these waters, free as the porpoises. He would have loved to return her to that freedom, but he would not risk his home for a wild creature, no more than a man who admires lions would allow one to attack his village.
Especially not for a woman who did not keep her word.
She knew he was there. She cast a challenging glance over her shoulder before diving deep beneath the waves where he could not go for long. He followed her down and circled one slender, kicking ankle in his hand and held tight.
She swirled around to fight, swatting uselessly at him as the waves crashed over their heads. She could breathe down here. He could not. But his lungs held a large capacity of air, and he had experience in underwater fighting. She could not surpass his strength.
Taking advantage of her new position, he grasped her waist, kicked hard and hauled her upward. He found his footing on the sloping shore and gasped for breath as his head broke the surface. Before the slippery mermaiden could squirm away, he wrapped an arm around her throat and pulled her head back.
“I could snap your neck right now and no one would be the wiser,” he growled against her ear. He struggled to keep her trapped while trying not to notice the enticing wiggle of curvaceous buttocks pressed against the wet linen that barely covered his groin.
“Then snap it,” she shouted. “Snap it and be done! You cannot hold me prisoner on this accursed island!”
“Why waste a sacrificial virgin?” he mocked. “Aelynn’s volcano will be happy to take you. We haven’t thrown a maiden into her fires in decades.”
That shut her up. He knew his kind well. Their strengths all had natural weaknesses. Fire had to be a natural anathema to a sea maiden. Fire and water created steam, he conceded, and as Aelynn’s conductor of heat, he was fire to her water. They were both nearly naked, pressed tight against each other’s bodies, and despite the cold water, steam was definitely forming between them. If he weren’t so infuriated at her senseless risk of life and limb, he’d have her here on the beach before either of them knew what they were doing.
“We have no other choice,” he said implacably, forcing down the temperature between them. “If you would spend one moment thinking of someone other than yourself, you would realize the danger to my people if we let you go.”
He clamped a hand over her mouth before she could argue.
“You would have to explain to your family where you’ve been,” he continued. “Why should you lie for us? You’ve found a people much like yourself. When would it occur to you to come looking for us again? How would you keep from being followed? Wouldn’t it be tempting to tell your sister or her child of the island, where you really be
longed? How do you think legends begin? There are already enough foolish tales out there to have idle men killing themselves on the shoals in search of a treasure that doesn’t exist.”
He swung her drenched form into his arms and carried her up the beach much as he had done earlier. This time, he wouldn’t make the mistake of letting her run free.
“I’ve found no one else wishing to take you off my hands, no easier person for you to get along with. We have no choice left. If you’ll share the rites with me, wear the ring of silence, I will return you to your sister. If you won’t take the vows, you’ve already proved you cannot keep your word, so I must fling you into the volcano. If the choice is between you and my home, my home and my people will come first every time.”
He released her mouth now that he’d had his say. She could scream to her heart’s content, and no one would sympathize. Even his sister had berated him for potentially losing his chance to wed Lissandra and rule the island. The prestige did not interest Erithea so much as the security of knowing the island was safe in his hands.
He might salvage both their hopes by taking Mariel as amacara, praying that eventually, Lissandra would see reason and marry him. The island needed another strong Guardian. If the gods promised that Mariel could breed one, then it would be a sin to kill her.
Mariel was not likely to understand the difference between physical amacara and legal wife, and he saw no reason to explain. Both were bonded for life.
“Fine, I’ll say your vows, wear your ring, and then you will take me home, and I will never see your face again,” she said with scathing anger tinged with tears. “You hold me prisoner, refuse to help my family, treat me as a piece of poisonous trash you don’t know how to be rid of, and you think vows will make it all better? You are crazier than people think me.”
Satisfied he’d made her see reason, Trystan didn’t argue with her. He didn’t explain the nature of the vows—or their consequences—either. Amacara matches always created children. He had her agreement, and that was all that mattered for the moment.
She’d agreed before and promptly attempted escape.
He would make certain she could not run again.
“There are preparations to be made,” he said calmly. “I’ll leave you with Dylys. She will explain them to you. I will have to make my offerings and say my prayers, then we’ll sail the day after next. Your impulsive pursuit of a foolish prophesy has caused no end of trouble for many people.”
“My mother could see the future!” she cried. “Her promise was not foolish. I believed you to be the golden god she predicted. Times can be no more desperate, and there are no others like you. It should have been you she spoke of.”
“It cannot be me. My place is here. You are welcome to stay as my…mate. Perhaps that is what she saw—that you lived safely here on Aelynn. If you insist on returning home, however, we will, after the ceremony.” He already knew he wanted to keep her, but he couldn’t for the life of him imagine how he could persuade her to it.
“I’ll swim home,” she replied sullenly.
Trystan still held the images of her bloody body caught on the reefs, and he shuddered. “The straits are guarded by coral that will scrape your hide raw should you try,” he warned. “Take my word that I am a far preferable fate.”
“You threaten me with torture and death, and you think I should take your word?” she asked in outrage.
“Every other man on this island would have thrown you into the volcano’s maw. Even Dylys would have done the same. You will benefit from our vows far more than I shall.”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
As they traversed the path to the temple, her silence left Trystan free to contemplate his grim future. If Lissandra refused his offer of marriage after this, he might as well stay at sea and continue his duties as Translator.
They said Aelynn never gave a man burdens greater than he could carry. That didn’t mean it was much of a life living beneath the weight of a mountain.
Six
“Where’s Dylys?”
Soaked, defeated, chilled by the cold evening breeze, Mariel heard her captor’s question with only half an ear as he lowered her to the ground. She wrapped her arms around herself, missing his warm, naked chest.
She didn’t know why the dratted man insisted on ruining both their lives because of the commands of one old woman. She’d heard his despair when he’d told her that he would take the vows. His vows meant little to her since they weren’t of her church, but judging from Trystan’s gloom, they meant a great deal to him.
Not that she had any notion of how to escape while she was starved and half-frozen. Apparently gods didn’t feel cold, if she was to judge by Trystan’s lack of shivering. Of course, normally, she didn’t feel the sea’s cold either. Fear made her icy, perhaps. Or the warmth of that strikingly wide, muscled chest had stolen her stamina.
She carefully kept her gaze from straying lower. For whatever reason, his trousers were in tatters, revealing far more of his masculine physique than she was prepared to acknowledge.
“There’s a birthing on the other side of the mountain that she had to attend.” From the jungle’s darkness a warm, masculine voice replied to Trystan’s inquiry.
The voice seemed to hold all the assurance and compassion of a man of God, and Mariel’s hopes rose. Surely a priest would not allow such a travesty of justice. Or at least, he wouldn’t profane the marriage vows.
Mariel tossed her hair out of her eyes so she could stare into the forest’s shadows and find the newcomer. Trystan had returned her to the temple.
Even chilled as she was, her insides knotted in fear and anticipation. He could use all the polite euphemisms he liked about vows and rings, but she’d seen the way he’d looked at her. He had only one thing on his mind, and that involved her near-nakedness and the strange cushion which had bound and left her helpless earlier.
She would be ravished by midnight, thrown back home to starve by dawn, and no doubt left to bear a child who would be ostracized by his peers, provided she lived so long.
“My amacara has agreed to share our vows,” Trystan said as she struggled to be free of his grasp. “We need the Oracle’s blessing.”
“I can see that,” the rich chocolate voice replied dryly. “You might release her and treat her with a little more respect, if she has willingly agreed to join us.”
“Mermaidens are slippery. I would see her safely contained first.”
Despite his words, Trystan released his hold on one of her wrists, although Mariel was certain he’d break the other before he’d let her go. She tried to cover the thin wet cloth clinging to her breasts with her free arm, and heard her captor’s low curse.
“She needs food and clothing. Is there somewhere safe I can leave her until I gather them?”
“My mother’s sanctuary should suit. She keeps food and clothing and a bed there.”
Mariel finally located the owner of the soothing voice. His silhouette filled the space between two of the temple stones. Tall and lean, he wore brown robes that concealed all but his bare feet. His hair blended with the darkness, and his face was little more than a blur. She had only his voice on which to judge his character.
She thought it wisest to hold her rash tongue for a change.
“Is there a lock for the door?” Trystan asked wryly.
“She has to agree to the vows,” the voiced warned.
“She’s agreed, if she can find no means of escape first.”
Her captor was not a stupid man. Mariel managed a grin despite her chattering teeth. At least neither of them harbored any illusions.
“Trystan has spent the better part of his life aboard a ship of men,” the voice said apologetically. “Will you excuse his uncouth manners until he learns more grace?”
“He’s no more or less than I expect of any man,” she replied bravely, but her chattering teeth weakened the response.
“Then we understand each other.” Without war
ning, Trystan swept her into his arms, warming her against his chest again. “I repeat, are there locks and bolts? I have never been inside your mother’s private quarters.”
“The seals work both ways,” the figure said, hurrying to keep up as Trystan carried her across the clearing. “My mother likes her privacy.”
Her captor smelled of salt water and incense and male musk. His arms cradled her. She had the urge to slide her hand over the back of his neck, to comb her fingers through is golden mane. Hiding her shocking reaction, Mariel buried her cold nose against his shoulder. She could feel his heart pound beneath all those solid muscles, so perhaps he really was a flesh-and-blood man and not a god. That did not make her fate any easier to accept.
“My name is Iason. My friends call me Ian.” The warm voice chuckled from beyond Trystan’s shoulder. “Feel free to call for me if our friend is too crude.”
Iason lit a taper, and Mariel lifted her head in time to glimpse striking angles and planes and dark eyes that held wells of wisdom and pain, before she was carried into a dungeon.
She stared at the smoke-darkened rock walls in disbelief. They’d descended no cliffs. She’d seen no mountain. But this was a cave, nevertheless.
A fire abruptly leapt to life in a small hearth.
“My mother keeps fruit, bread, and spring water here. Please help yourself,” Iason said from a cool distance, unlike his earlier warmth. “She will not mind if you borrow her blankets or cloaks. When she returns, she will instruct you in the rituals. I think she will want to hear your vows privately, without Trystan’s intimidation.”
“He doesn’t intimidate me,” Mariel muttered as the barbarian lowered her to the ground. But the magical fire did. Had Trystan ignited that? Or Iason? Neither man had gone near the grate. Neither man voiced surprise at the fire’s origin. She’d assumed the islanders had special skills like hers, but this was the first obvious and frightening example of them. Lissandra’s uncanny knowledge of Mariel’s ability to milk goats didn’t count as frightening.
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