And Aelynn had approved with glowing showers of fire. Lying sprawled on top of him, where he’d returned her, Mariel touched her forehead to his in acknowledgment of his god as hers. They were one and the same now.
He kissed her with warmth and understanding as he stroked her into readiness.
She rose to her knees, and he groaned in pleasure as she willingly sank down upon his arousal. With natural grace, she moved with him, riding him as she rode the ocean’s waves. He closed his eyes and fed on the sensation she projected, feeling her joyous uplifting as he thrust, and all thought ceased.
At the moment of their release, Trystan gripped Mariel’s buttocks and pushed, pumping deep inside until sparks flared inside his head as they had burst above Aelynn earlier. He felt her muscles contract and expand, felt her release spiraling higher, and then felt the explosion as his seed collided with the waiting life inside her.
A silver shadow slid between them, and Mariel cried out her surprise when it entered through him. Trystan felt the ripple along his still engorged sex, felt the sliding sigh as the spirit slipped inside the new life they’d formed, and he shivered in awe.
Instead of collapsing in his arms, Mariel pushed up on her hands to stare down at him. Their gazes locked, and wordlessly, Trystan wrapped his hands around her waist and pressed his thumbs into her flat belly.
“We created two,” he murmured in astonishment. “There are two lives in there.” Children of his own, to cherish and care for. The wonder of it awed him.
His new bride began to shake, and he hurriedly pulled her slender body into his arms and held her close. What had he done to her?
“Let us leave before we create a litter,” he whispered against her ear, before either of them could regret or fear the night they’d spent together.
She choked on a sob of laughter and nodded.
***
“I want you to see what Aelynn has to offer,” Trystan insisted eagerly, dragging Mariel through ripe vegetation and explosions of flowers. He was already making mental lists. They needed to legalize their marriage vows publicly in front of the Council and in her church. He needed to provide for two children. He was still staggering under that knowledge.
But most of all, he wanted Mariel to stay here, where he could take care of her and the two lively l’Enforcers they’d just created. His heart was beating so fast in anticipation that he could scarcely contain it.
He had a family. His narrow world suddenly widened and gleamed brand new again. He wanted to jump with joy like a lad of ten, and he couldn’t wipe the foolish grin from his face.
Mariel seemed somewhat shaken and silent at the enormity of what they had done. She had a right to fear the changes ahead. But Trystan was confident he and Aelynn could take care of her.
After washing in the spring water of the temple’s basin, they’d donned the matching wedding raiment Dylys had left outside the temple. Trystan’s tunic fell loosely over white trousers, trimmed in the same Roman border pattern as Mariel’s sleeveless gown. Fine white linen embroidered in gold braid flowed loosely over her breasts and down to her bare feet.
Her hand kept creeping to her belly as if she was not at all certain that the prior night had not been one of the Oracle’s incense-enhanced dreams. But the morning’s conception was clear in both their minds. Aelynn hadn’t erupted, but the ground had moved. Trystan had no idea what that meant. He’d have to ask Iason.
The smocked gathering at Mariel’s waist molded the cloth enticingly to her curves before flowing down over her hips. Her ring sparkled in harmony with his, and he smiled as she kept pushing at it in wonder. His fit perfectly and comfortably, but like hers, it could not be pulled beyond the knuckle. He could feel her ring, as he felt the bond between them. She was tied to Aelynn just as he was now.
And he was aware of her hunger.
Trystan laughed and halted, reaching into the tree above his head to produce a long yellow fruit. He held it upright for her to admire. “Is it not a large and naughty specimen?”
At sight of the thick, long fruit, Mariel blushed. From his warm gaze, she knew her new husband was remembering how she’d stared at his arousal the night before. It had been most impolite of her to stare, but she hadn’t been able to help it. He was a magnificent male, and she loved looking at him.
Unbalanced by all the strange sensations she’d experienced at his hands, she swiped the fruit and tried to determine if she could bite into it or must peel it. “Not so large as my husband,” she admitted, acknowledging his jest. “But this is a much prettier color.”
He coughed on laughter and outrage, swiping the fruit back and peeling the sides to reveal the ivory flesh. “The natives from the island where this comes from call it a banana. But it is too soft for any use but this.” He set the fruit between her lips and let her nibble.
She savored the sweetness, decided it was safe to eat, and took it back to munch on as they continued down the path, hoping food would steady her.
“Your lips are a pleasure that can be used for better purpose once we reach the house,” he murmured seductively, capturing her waist and tracing a finger down her breast.
Instantly, she saw the image he had in mind, and she nearly choked on the banana. She could do that? She stared at the fruit in wonder and tried to imagine it.
“Perhaps you might start with licking it,” he prompted teasingly, guiding her into a clearing dominated by a low, sprawling house and a yard full of goats.
“Stop that,” she replied, striving for annoyed but still too in awe of what was happening to manage it.
He’d taken her for wife. The immensity of Trystan’s sacrifice was overwhelming, and she did not fully understand his capitulation. She supposed there would be time to comprehend it in the years to come.
Their sexual bond had not diminished with lovemaking, but Mariel realized she could resist it a little easier now that the first hunger had been assuaged. She knew precisely what he had in mind and was eager to experiment, but she didn’t have to do it right this minute. Maybe in the next half hour, after she’d had time to explore. And eat.
“We really must try lovemaking without baby making,” Trystan insisted cheerfully. “We are married and free to try it anywhere.” Glancing toward some shrubbery, he rolled his eyes and murmured, “Excuse me a minute.”
Startled, Mariel halted where she was while Trystan strode—or leapt, his steps were so high—over an overgrown thicket of brambles. An instant later, he returned carrying a bleating small goat under his muscular arm. He briskly checked the animal for harm, tugged its silky ears, then returned it to the grassy turf. “Bitsy thinks the grass is sweeter if she has to work for it. We’ll never be able to use her hair for weaving if it’s full of brambles.”
Finishing the fruit, Mariel held out her hand to the brown-and-white kid, who sniffed tentatively and then tried to taste her. “She’s adorable. Is she yours?”
He gestured at a small herd nibbling the shrubs around the house. “They’re the largest animal we grow on Aelynn. Lissandra accuses me of making pets of them, and I suppose she’s right. We don’t have dogs, and they keep me company when I’m home.”
“You don’t eat them, then?” she asked out of fearful curiosity as the animals began bounding toward them. She had a hard time imagining a man who commanded ships sitting at home alone with none but his goats for companionship. Her heart grew softer at this side of her new husband, and she took his arm and leaned her head against it. His muscles tightened beneath her touch, and he pressed a kiss against her hair, proving that he would be a loving, thoughtful husband.
“We breed them for milk and for their fine pelts,” he said, easing her concern for his pets. “We buy most of our cloth from your markets, but we have women who can spin magic with goat hair.”
He gestured toward the low, sprawling house they approached. “This was my parents’ home, and now it is mine. I have a chair inside that you might enjoy. A quick lunch and a little practice session
, perhaps?” he asked with a convincing leer, dismissing the prosaic for more immediate interests.
“You are trying to seduce me into thinking I belong here, aren’t you?” And it was almost working. Her own home, plentiful food for her babes, and a man who would make everything easy for her. “But I’m like Bitsy and must work for my sweets. I must go home. I promised.”
She had promised not only Francine, but the Oracle. Dylys had been fretful after she’d come out of her trance, brushing off questions with clipped instructions and extracting promises. Mariel had been inclined to dismiss the predictions that had come to her through a haze of incense, but after the miracles of last night…
She thought perhaps her husband’s people were a little more in touch with what heaven wanted than she had realized, and she had better listen to their priestess.
Dylys had told her she must go home and guard the shores and the people of both Aelynn and Brittany against some unnamed terror. To not do so would be fatal.
Trystan had obviously not been given a glimpse of their fate. He still belonged here. Sadness tinted everything that passed between them now.
“I can take you to visit Francine and her child anytime you like,” he was saying, hoping to override her fears as he led her through the yard to the hand-carved door. No glass filled the windows, although the shutters would keep out rain and sun when closed.
Mariel stepped inside to cool tile beneath her bare feet, and sun spilling over an open room bigger than Francine’s entire cottage. “It is lovely!” she cried in surprise.
The trunks of tall, straight trees provided posts for the thatch of the roof high above their heads. Benches adorned in tile and elaborate painted designs circled the trunks. A large trestle table covered in a stone mosaic of bright red, yellow, and blue flowers gleamed in the sunlight from the long oblong window at the rear of the house. A cone shaped terra cotta fireplace centered on the far right wall with a pipe running up through the thatch to release the smoke.
Chairs and lounges padded so thickly they appeared to be pillows were covered in a sturdy fabric of a natural oatmeal color. She knew exactly which inviting chair Trystan had in mind for their lovemaking, and she had to tear her gaze away to explore the rest of the house.
He slid back a rattan screen to reveal a wide bed covered in the same oatmeal fabric and piled high in colorful pillows. Bamboo tables were littered with books and writing utensils, as if he spent many nights here at his studies.
“I thought you lived in the village,” she said rather than admire his home too overtly.
He lived simply, but more beautifully than even the house her father had once lived in. Sunshine and warmth filled every cranny instead of the gloom and smoke of her colder home.
“I prefer the space here for my pets, and for the children I hoped to have.” Standing behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and seduced her with promises. “I can bring you silks from the Orient, flowers from the tropics, all that your heart desires.”
“You will have to stay a trader merchant, because of me,” she said sadly. “You have lost your authority on this island, because of me.”
He cupped her breast and brushed kisses into her hair. He was taller and broader, and Mariel could lean against him and feel secure in his embrace. All should be right in her world. New life grew in her belly. A beautiful home lay before her. She had a husband who had given up duty for her and promised her the stars.
But if she believed his god and priestess, she had to leave this heaven.
“I have what I want right here,” Trystan vowed, rubbing his hand down her belly. “You and our children are more than enough for any man.”
And even more sadly, she knew he lied.
She turned and patted Trystan’s whiskered jaw and gazed into his silvery eyes. Storms of uncertainty battered there. “We are bonded now, husband. I will soon know you as well as you know yourself. You were made to lead men and run countries. You are a defender of justice. You are not a merchant trader. Come, let us eat, and then you will take me home. I cannot know how to rescue you from the life of merchant, but I do know I must go home.”
Trystan’s arms tightened around her. “You are being foolish. How can you give up all this for the turmoil you call home?”
She shoved from his hold and crossed to the cupboard of his kitchen. “In the same way you cannot give up what is yours to follow me. The Oracle said we had much in common. She was right in that.”
“You are mine,” he said stubbornly, setting his hands at his waist and not moving from where she’d left him.
Mariel flashed him a sunny smile. “As you are mine. And when I swim away from here, you are free to follow anytime you like.”
She prayed he would. But stubborn men didn’t like being thwarted.
Thirty
A hearthwitch appeared to wield her special brand of magic in the kitchen, then departed as silently as she’d arrived, leaving steaming bowls of scrumptious mussel stew and hot loaves of bread to fill their empty stomachs.
“I wish I could take her home with me,” Mariel said wistfully, savoring the stew and inhaling the yeasty aroma of bread. “I would never have to cook again.”
“You would never have to cook again if you stayed here,” Trystan grumbled.
She did not deign to answer that since he already knew her reply.
“If you insist on returning to your home, I will build you a house and dock by the shore where I can come to you more easily,” he said, stirring his stew while making mental lists.
“My father’s house is empty. If you can afford to build a house, you could afford to buy it back from the vicomte,” she suggested. The idea of living in that gloomy old house without family—or Trystan—to fill it with laughter did not interest her, but the easy climb to the beach did. She tried hard not to panic at the idea of living without him. When had she become so dependent on another? It was not like her at all, and she wasn’t certain she appreciated being left so vulnerable to heartbreak. She would spend the rest of her life wondering how her husband was doing, what he was doing. She lost her appetite just thinking of it.
He nodded grimly. “If that is your wish. We will sail my schooner back, so your people know that I am not a poor man. I will reimburse the money lender for the sloop, buy the house, and we will marry according to your customs.”
“You will have to tell the priest you are Catholic,” she pointed out. “You do not fear frying in hell for lying?”
“I am Catholic. I am all things. And I do not believe in any hell except on earth.”
Given the suffering she’d seen these last winters, Mariel was almost inclined to agree with Trystan’s cynical assessment of her home as hell. She assumed he did not include Aelynn in this hell on earth. “And after we’re married in my church?” she asked quietly.
His eyes looked bleak. “My crew can still use my talent for translation. I am still needed here once a month to replenish the shield and to sit on the Council. Since I cannot interfere in your world, I cannot see that I will have much to offer there.”
“Except to me,” she said softly. “Could you promise to see me once a month as well?”
“I want to see you every damned night.” He angrily scraped his chair back and stalked outdoors to greet a messenger who had just whistled his arrival.
The two men spoke while standing in the neglected gardens.
She could feel his love for his home and for his pets. She could feel his longing for a stable life, one where his intelligence, knowledge, and strong sense of justice could lead his people wisely.
But if she truly had been touched by his vision of god, she had to believe that her place was in Brittany. Would it make a difference if she told him what Dylys had predicted?
Or would it simply make him angrier and more unhappy? Was it preferable to have him angry with her or with his god?
After feeding his animals, Trystan strode back to the house with a determined gleam in his eye. She
met him at the door, threw her arms around his neck, and let him carry her to the big bed, where they made love instead of babies for the first time as a married couple.
***
The first rays of dawn tinted the horizon and lit the top of the main mast. Knowing that the tide was rolling into the shores of Mariel’s home, Trystan leaned his back against the schooner’s rail while Waylan steered toward the harbor.
Now that the island’s shield was reinforced, the ship was loaded and prepared to return to its trading. Trystan contemplated signaling Waylan to sail for England and their first port rather than stop here to leave Mariel behind, but it would be a fruitless command. His mermaid wife would simply leap overboard and swim ashore.
As if his thoughts had woken her, Mariel appeared in the hatchway. She clambered out easily enough, but not before Trystan recognized the difficulty she would experience in a few months with the unwieldiness of pregnancy.
Twins. It wasn’t unheard of on Aelynn, but it was rare. He wanted to shout the news to the world, but superstitiously, he preferred not to tempt the fates.
He could scarcely contain the chaotic emotions overwhelming him at this moment—pride, terror, sorrow, and this deep abiding connection with the beautiful woman gliding toward him, gleaming more brightly than the morning sun. He could endure the chaos, for her.
Mariel stopped to study the shoreline. She wore a sari he’d given her, one of midnight blue with silver stars woven into the edges. Perhaps after a few weeks in her company he would take for granted the lithe grace with which she moved, the way she tilted her head in delight when she looked at him—but he doubted it. The mating bond coiled tighter around his innards.
“We are almost there,” she murmured, coming to stand so close that the wind blew her skirts around his bare legs.
He’d donned the shirt and breeches of her home but had not yet encumbered himself with boots and stockings.
“I will understand if you tell me to jump off so you might be on your way,” she continued at his silence.
Mystic Guardian Page 27