A Mermaid s Kiss

by Joey W. Hill

  He should heal her, take her for a flight and then send her sternly back home. He'd travel on to this shaman or not . . . Whatever happened, she would not be part of his destiny or downfall.

  "My lord . . ." That soft whisper of sound rippled over him, made him have the conflicting and yet equally fierce sudden desire to scoop her up, keep her close to him. He would let her travel in the soft nest where his wings met between his shoulders and never let her come to any harm. Devote himself to her care.

  But he couldn't protect her from himself. That much was obvious, right before his eyes.

  She probably thought she was helping a lost soul, her woman's heart turning the wounded lion into an injured house cat in her mind. As he recalled what he'd said about her ability to remove a thorn from a lion's paw, the terrifying thought occurred to him that maybe she did know she faced a lion. Yet stayed within range anyway, as if daring him to do his worst.

  Focus, damn it. A fledgling could handle something like this. What was the matter with him? Closing his eyes, Jonah called forth the source of light in his soul, built it with brutal force, feeling like a human using a knife to scrape at the last bit of mustard in a glass jar. Clatter, clatter, clatter, like he'd seen one of the humans do in the diner.

  There. A pathetic trickle, but it was there. The light came from his fingertips, a healing balm that spread out on her skin, sinking down to the nerves, cooling, numbing, repairing. As he saw it happen, the light strengthened within him, gained power, even as his mind castigated him for what was initially a weak flow. Thanks to her magic, you have less area to heal. Otherwise you might not have been able to do a damn thing for her.

  For a while now, he'd turned more and more of the postbattle tri-age over to his lieutenants and wing-soldiers, using the time to assess the next strategy. To clean and sharpen his weapons, until the slightest pass over his skin would draw blood, mesmerize him with how it ran down the blade . . .

  You need the Joining Magic. To heal you. He could almost see the words in the set of her shoulders, the underlying admonishment that raised his hackles.

  No. I don't. Though he couldn't deny something was broken within him. Every time he thought of trying the healing rituals, making their lovemaking into that, he turned away from it, sickened by the idea of letting that pure white light fill him. He'd stood in the Lady's presence before, and oh, by all the gods, what a feeling that was. So . . . complete. And yet, it seemed to escape him now. If She summoned him to Her presence, he wasn't sure he could stand before that white light without screaming in agony.

  Like a Dark One.

  It wasn't just that he didn't want the Joining Magic. He didn't deserve it.

  "My lord?"

  Opening his eyes at a brush of wind on his face, he found Anna was at eye level with him, hovering before his face. An iridescent, magical butterfly, one small hand brushing his nose like the passing touch of a spider's web. Though her eyes were far too knowing, and worried, he saw her offer him that shy smile. For some inexplicable reason, he took it as a gift, the small tendril of reassurance it unfurled in his belly. "I'm good as new," she said. "Better, in fact. Will you fly with me now?"

  Anna was fairly sure for an angel of his standing, what he'd just done should have been as easy as a child's trick. But he was sweating and trembling. She wanted to demand he perform the Joining Magic right then and there with her for his well-being, but she'd boxed herself in with the shift to her pixie form. If his healing was going to transfer to her larger form, it had to have time to sink into her core. Besides that, he had that obstinate look that told her he would still resist. So she would try something else. Be creative, as Mina might suggest.

  Before he could answer, she floated backward several feet, did an elegant somersault. "You see? I'll bet I can even outfly you. Old bird."

  Jonah blinked. "I know you did not just call me that."

  "Positively ancient." Her violet eyes danced. "You might not want to go above the tree line, in case you dodder right out of the sky."

  "Anna, you are trying my patience."

  Her eyes widened, all innocence. "Patience? You have patience?"

  When he made a playful grab for her, she slipped out of range. However, instead of starting the chase that Jonah expected, she floated down into a bed of purple wildflowers and rolled there, partially disappearing as she delighted in them.

  A smile tugged at his lips as he looked at her, lolling about in the flowers, still demonstrating her ever present grace as a mermaid with her sinuous movements. Then she was airborne again. When she twirled, she made a very fetching display of gossamer wings with the pink and blue markings on them. Her body had some of the same markings like the tattoos of her mermaid form. And not a bit of red, angry skin.

  When he made another mock grab for her, she spun away deftly. In this tiny form, he was too worried about hurting her, and he knew it gave her the maneuvering advantage. So did she.

  As she ascended so she was quickly above his reach, she was joined by several butterflies, a couple of pale gray moths. A dragonfly.

  "They tend to come when I transform," she explained, dancing among them, rubbing playfully against a butterfly, somersaulting over it as it flitted back. "I don't know why."

  He knew why. She drew life in its lightest, most fragile forms to her, with the matching lightness of her heart. He stretched out his wings, testing, getting ready to join her.

  Seeing his intent, happiness shone from her face, a sense of triumph that felt shared.

  As he launched, he balanced the weakness of the left wing with the right while still giving the left the opportunity to move, stretch, work the muscles. Wind ruffled through his wing tips, sparking along the nerve endings where the feathers joined to his flesh, his bone and muscle. He saw her look back, turn and rest in the grip of the air, displaying her open amazement at the unfurling of his wings, stretching out so far to either side of him. He liked her pleasure. Liked pleasing her. So he took off after her.

  She spun in her cloud of butterflies, sending the dragonfly darting off in a mad zigzag pattern she followed, turning and twisting. While she had to move quite fast to stay ahead of Jonah, he kept to an easy pace, following her maneuvers, even duplicating some to amuse her, spiraling up in the air with her, diving down, dropping a few feet, then catching himself. He felt the strain on the injured wing when he hovered or held the weight of the air beneath it, but he managed it without much pain, just a cursed weakness.

  She didn't let him linger long with his darkness. Darting beneath him, she tweaked one of his chest hairs, yanking it out with sharp, pinching fingers.

  "Ouch--" He flipped backward and managed to come up beneath her in a flash of movement.

  She altered course and skimmed down his leg, using one of his toes to swing around in an arc and shoot upward again, tickling the bottom of his foot with her wingspan.

  He was laughing now as he gave chase. He could have caught her several times, but chose not to, enjoying the wild, spiraling, tangled dance they did in the air, until a much larger group of butterflies was with them, a flock that made it feel as if they were in a multicolored cloud. Their many colors in the twilight sky blended with the wildflowers in the meadow below, even in the fading day's light, like a watercolor tapestry. At times she blended with them all so he had to find her laughing face, look for the paleness of bare skin.

  With some sense of embarrassment, he realized she was no less alluring to him in this form. When she dove down, skimmed across the creek and came back up to join him, water ran down her breasts, her stomach and thighs, the ends of her hair silken points against her skin. The tiny, round breasts were high, the nipples tight from the water. He was fascinated by the curved perfection of her bottom. The way the creamy white cheeks shifted with her maneuvers was only enhanced by the silver and pink markings that scrolled along them, etching the delectable shape. Her breasts wobbled with her efforts. Perhaps he couldn't have caught her as easily as he thought, for not on
ly was she quick, she was damned distracting.

  And intuitive. She paused briefly in the air, considering the direction of his heated glance. That mischievous look came into her face again. "These poor humans, thinking angels have all these virtues. Chaste, sexless, patient, tranquil . . ."

  "Why would chastity be considered a virtue? The Lady wants us to enjoy one another."

  "I believe it's the idea of doing without something we want, denying ourselves for spiritual clarity," she said primly.

  "You're baiting me."

  Spinning up in the air above his head again, she soared higher, but as they passed the top of a bristlecone pine, at about sixty-five feet, he could tell she was reaching the limit of her flight altitude. The butterflies veered off and she was soaring straight up, up, up.

  "Anna, what are you . . ."

  She floundered, fluttered and then turned in an abrupt dive, tumbling, the wings plastered against her.

  He shot up, curving his wings tight against his body, the pain forgotten. Coming up beneath her, he twisted so he caught her with precision in that soft nest of down feathers at the joining point between his wings, where his hair mingled with it. He felt her hands grip two fistfuls of strands as she righted and oriented herself, her wings beating a gentle tattoo against the arch of one of his as she made her way onto his neck, tangled in his hair.

  "That's as high as I can go, my lord," she said breathlessly.

  "You shouldn't have pushed it like that."

  "I knew you would catch me. That's why I tried. I've never been that high."

  The simple faith in her voice tore at him. "Let's go higher."

  "Oh. Should you do that, with--"

  "Hush," he said, and spread his wings to soar. "Hold on."

  He took her above the pine trees and more. Higher, higher, into a night sky where the stars were beginning to shine, the evidence of victory over darkness. Their light could not warm him, but perversely, her touch could, the tiny fingers against his jaw, her cheek against his ear as she wondered at the vastness of the sky, the way the world looked below, quiet and getting ready for bed. A bat moving erratically around them. An owl, who gave Anna a considering look but veered off when Jonah shifted, altering course to ensure that side of his body was between her and the predator.

  "I want to . . ." He missed the last part of her sentence in the movement of the wind, but then she'd loosened her hold and was drifting from his shoulder. He dropped so he wouldn't hit her with his wingspan and turned, hovering protectively as she held her own in the thinner air, her eyes glowing like sapphires. Her wings trembled with effort as she looked at it all, did a full, slow 360-degree turn.

  "How utterly marvelous," she whispered. "Look, my lord. The lights of that town, like a cluster of fireflies. And the trees, dark soldiers guarding the world. The space and room . . ." She spun, over and over, so that when she came to a halt, she was swaying in an alarming fashion, though her face was beaming. "It's the ocean, only it's the sky. The same, but gloriously different." Something soft entered her eyes. Like the two of us.

  He didn't know if the thought came from him or her, but it was there, the strength of it suggesting a truth he'd once known but had lost. Like so many things, so many truths that no longer felt true to him anymore, leaving him in the dark, mocking him as he blundered about. This moment alone felt clear. Strong.

  She'd drifted back to him and now her small hand touched his mouth, tracing his lips. When he parted them, she tapped a tooth, let out a startled yelp as he caught her arm between his teeth, holding it in a gentle clamp, teasing the skin beneath her forearm with his tongue. She giggled. "It's like a dog licking me."

  He snorted with mock affront, let her go and pushed her back with a finger to her abdomen, a flick she allowed to take her back in a series of easy floating somersaults until she was hovering, looking at him out of serious eyes. When he put out a hand, she stepped onto his palm and sat, the roundness of her bottom pressed into it as she drew her legs up and held them with her fingers looped over her knees.

  "Do you sleep in the clouds, my lord?"

  "Yes. Usually."

  She nodded. "I can only imagine what it's like to watch you fly when you are fully healed. It must be like watching Creation itself."

  He didn't know what to say to that, for all angels took fierce joy in flight. It was as necessary to them as the need of a wolf pack to run, a flower to feel the sun. . . . The muscles in his wings were burning now, and the weight of his thoughts was making it difficult to stay at this elevation.

  As he took them back to earth reluctantly, she didn't comment on the sudden decision to descend, simply looking all about them as they dropped.

  When his feet touched the ground, she fluttered back into the air. He lowered himself beneath a tree, arranging his wings to cup his body though he shifted to one hip to ease the pressure on the joint of the one wing. Anna settled at the top of his thigh, stretching out with him. Then she put her hand out, a light feather touch . . . on his semierect cock beneath the jeans.

  "Anna, what are you doing?"

  "Touching. It's so amazing, like this." She flushed a bit but looked up his body to his bemused face. "Does it bother you?"

  That wasn't the right word, but he gave a slight shake of his head.

  His mouth was unsmiling, gaze intent upon her. It made Anna shiver, but she couldn't help herself. Watching him soar through the air as he had . . . Well, it had stirred her. "Would you . . . take these off?" She tugged at the button of the jeans, finding she could do little with it.

  "You're going to destroy me, little one." But he obliged, sending her back into the air as he opened the jeans, took them completely off so he lay back down, long and lean, bare and beautiful beneath her, his dark eyes living fire, his mouth so tastable, even if she'd be forced to take many, many tiny bites.

  Desire consumed her. The lust she would experience in her human or mermaid-sized form all dangerously compressed into the smaller shape of her now. Descending beneath his penetrating regard, she landed on his upper thigh again, right above his hardening response. As she stretched out next to it, she ran her hand from the thick base, as far along the tall column as she could reach. And jumped when it leaped in response, for it was like confronting a large predator.

  She chuckled at herself, tilted her head. "It's different when it does that at close range."

  A strained smile twisted his face, his gaze glittering. "Do it again."

  Though he might have intended to be teasing, she heard the underlying command. It made her mouth dry, her heart pound a little harder. She obliged, doing it again. And again, watching his abdomen muscles tighten and ripple, feeling thigh muscles bunch beneath her as he tensed his buttocks at the light, barely there caress. At least, she thought of it that way in her mind. His reaction suggested it had the effect of a strong electrical current.

  Fluid gathered at the tip, like dew on a flower, fascinating her. She scooted up, touched it. It transferred to her hand, a gift from his body she could bring to her lips, taste its musky salt. Running her hand down her throat, she spread the slippery substance across her breasts, making them slick in a way that made the nerves beneath the skin hunger for . . . friction.

  "Anna." His voice was throaty, dangerous. And he was far, far bigger than her now. She was delighted by it, even as the place between her legs felt so empty and needy. "Rub yourself on me. Ride me, little one. Put me between your thighs and let me feel the tiny stickiness of you."

  She needed no urging. She'd had the desire since she'd fluttered back down, seen that growing ridge beneath his jeans as he'd looked at her with want in his eyes, even in this form.

  Even to her proportionate human or mermaid form, he'd been an impressively equipped male. Now it was like stepping over a fallen tree of massive diameter. She slid her leg over the base, brushing her foot against a firm, round testicle, and bent, purely on impulse, to press her lips against the taut, hot--oh, so hot--skin. The steel of him
was between her legs then as she settled astride his length, stretched out her body, bringing her breasts and aching nipples against him, rubbed their slickness along his shaft, working it between their bodies. She was already soaked herself, so dragging herself smoothly up the length of him was not difficult. She had to put her hands along the ridge of his broad head to slow her forward passage. And then she did take a tiny bite, making him groan.

  But, Goddess. When she'd touched him in her human or mermaid form, the pulse from his cock against the pounding between her legs had been proportionately pleasurable. Lying on him like this, sliding her body against this one powerful organ of flesh, she felt that pulse like the thud of drums reverberating through the cavern of her body, her throat, the insides of her thighs, vibrating against her bottom. Moving. Blood rushing, pumping. So alive, a needy beast she wanted to feed with every crevice of her body. While she cursed having to stay in this form until the healing was complete, there was a pleasure in the anticipation as well.

  For even if she brought him to a pinnacle this way, he would plow deeply into her when she shifted. She'd already seen that side of him. When she teased him, he would accept it but retaliate by claiming her, taking the upper hand again. She looked forward to it with a shuddering heat that almost compelled her to shift, damn the consequences.

  But she wouldn't let him draw on energy he needed for himself. She rose now, sitting upright, her hand braced on the ridged head of his straight, hard cock, and began to rock on the balls of her feet against his lower abdomen, dragging her slickness on him, feeling the friction against her clit that made her gasp, her womb clenched on emptiness. Bending forward, she sucked the moisture off his tip with her mouth this time, shuddered as he groaned and thrust up in reaction, nearly unseating her. She took a tighter grip with her legs, rocking, riding him in truth, her hair swinging forward. He gently pushed it back, fingers trembling at the effort to restrain his movements, not hurt her. His gaze was riveted on the sight of her straddling him like this. Then he increased her fever by reaching over his shoulder and bringing back one long feather. A wing feather.