by Marcy Lynn
“Maybe a spot here or there.” He shrugged. “I don’t understand most of it.”
“Did he tell you how he makes his magic and talks to the spirits?” She tried her hardest to sound causal. To ask questions that weren’t obvious but by Derek’s expression, she’d already went a question too far. He teased but the questioning in his expression was more than that.
“What’s this? Planning to curse me are you?”
She leaned forward, to squint her eyes slightly and pursing her lips.
“No I just wondered if he- well if he practiced dark magic here on the Island?” There, she’d said it. But by Derek’s obviously surprised expression she took it as a no. Then out of shear desire to continue that look she followed it with a quip. “And yes, I believe a sore or two would be deserving.”
He leaned to close the gap, only mere inches between their faces.
“I have long been cursed, Miss. With a wretched conscious that keeps me up long hours of the night with an aching need every time you sigh or shift in our bed.” She could feel the warmth of his breath fanning her face. He didn’t stop there, but railed on in his soft dangerous voice. “But fear not. That curse is lifting more and more from holding me prisoner. I just might act the next time your body draws so very close to mine in the night.”
Her throat constricted from the obvious promise of him not holding himself back much longer from bedding her again.
The kiss on the beach had assaulted her senses; made her into a mindless puddle. And that, had only been a kiss. The thought of it warmed her belly and tickled a pulse into a steady quick beat. Derek knew magic, even if he didn’t realize it. His words often invoked so many things in her, even when she didn’t want them to.
“You wouldn’t force-”
“Hardly forcing, my darling.” He said, his fingers tracing along her forearm with a charming smile and smoldering grey eyes. His new way of assaulting her resolve disturbed her because of the affect it actually did have.
“Derek…” She warned pushing his hand off her arm. He wasn’t discouraged by the action though, the sensual light to his grey eyes caressed with their gaze instead.
“Derek, there’s people around us.” She scooped the sides of her dress and shuffled her bottom away from him on the log but he held the chain connected to her ankle with his foot. Elanor leaned back from him when he closed the short distance between them by leaning towards her with a playful grin.
“Derek, would you tell my wife that we really did get attacked by a sea monster?” Caspin said sitting down on a log nearby with Leelah settling next to him.
Saved! She couldn’t help the wide grin from ear to ear.
“A little busy here, Mate.” Derek muttered.
“You do have a house you can make use of.” Caspin reasoned.
“Right, we’ll be heading there now.” Derek said reaching for her arm. She kicked him in the shin with her free foot sending him to sit hard back on the log.
“Ouch, you little ruffian.”
“Serves you right.” She said, giving him a haughty lift of her chin.
“If you two love birds could wait just a moment,” Caspin interjected again. “And explain to my wife that I have not been filling my children’s heads with cotton. That we did get attacked by a sea creature!”
“It could have been a large fish?” Derek answered before Elanor could tell Caspin they weren’t love birds. His hand moved in a wiggle like a fish does when it swims.
“It wasn’t a fish or a sea monster. It was a water dragon.” Elanor said speaking up.
“A what?” Both Caspin and Derek asked, all three of them staring at her expectantly.
“A… water dragon.” She felt a bit uneasy voicing the answer. It seemed like they were tolerant and some even seemed to be part of the old ways. Still, she found it hard to trust speaking easily.
“You mean a fire breathing, virgin eating, treasure collecting, dragon?” Derek teased. “I don’t think that is going to help Cas sound any better.”
She felt her brows crease with the narrowing of her eyes. Who would know better than her about water creatures. He should know better than to challenge her on this subject.
“Of course. Because none of that makes a bit of sense does it?” She ticked each absurd point off her fingers. “An animal that breaths fire whom lives in the water? Defeats its purpose wouldn’t you say?” He started to answer but she cut him off this time. “And virgin eating. How silly is that line of tripe? Why would an animal care if food were intimate with another? Does the meat taste differently?” She shot the questions out rapid fire, glaring at him. He’d unwittingly walked himself into a spar of words. She glared at him, daring him to insult her intelligence more.
“Depends on how many they were intimate with, I would say.” Leelah elbowed Caspin in the ribs after his quip.
Elanor gave no notice to any of it; continuing her barrage of questions for Derek.
“And a treasure hunter? What would it need gold and jewels for? Greedy humans are the only creatures who covet those things. Not beasts. What value would it be to an animal who only knows about surviving?” He’d been accepting of Zo’s beliefs but condescending about calling the creature what it actually was, a dragon.
“I was only making a jest.” He scowled at Caspin for laughing.
“Well, is it really worth the jest? What are you going to do the next time you have to cross its territory? If you had reasoned it yourself, it wouldn’t seem so funny to you.” She raised her brows. “You shouldn’t tease the children either. They should know about the dragon. There are some things that aren’t within our understanding, but they still exist.” She lectured. It seemed once she’d started feeling brave enough to speak; the words just poured from her.
His bewildered expression made her pinch her lips.
Caspin and Leelah caught the frustrated static between them. Looking to one another awkwardly.
“Well, there is this turtle off the reef. He’s about as big as one of the dingy boats.” Caspin offered.
“He’s big enough to feed everyone for weeks, but no one has the heart to kill him. He’s lived for a long time.” Leelah said.
“I read that turtles can live long lives. Seventy or more years.” Elanor supplied, joining the change of conversation. Derek didn’t add to it, he’d gone quiet next to her on the log. Leelah’s face changed with her comment, an accusing look about her. “You can read?” Surprised by the sharpness in Leelah’s voice.
“Yes, though I didn‘t have a formal tutor. I was tutored by my Mother and older sister, Araminta.” Leelah’s arms crossed over the front of her chest, a slow hard glare turned on her husband.
“I said that men are tutored more often than women. I didn’t say women weren’t educated at all.” Caspin said lifting his hand in defense to his wife’s unhappy glare.
“He’s right, women aren’t exactly encouraged to do more than sew and carry a polite conversation in Port NewLlyn.” Elanor agreed. Of course that wasn‘t the way of the whole world; the Empire hadn’t caught up to it, but was slowly getting there. In the country side, behind the veil of magic, they read and write, everyone. Men, women, and children. They kept journals and the like to share healing, planting and knowledge of spells. She’d found her voice enough to talk about the dragon however, sharing more made her reluctant.
“I do not like the idea of Rowin being taught to read but Breeze is not.” Leelah said to Elanor. “Caspin’s Father has decided to place Rowin in his will but only if we agree to have him tutored. But he won’t tutor Breeze because she is female. And no one on the Islands will tutor Breeze because she is too dark skinned and they’re afraid the slaves will rebel.”
Elanor knew her surprise gaped on her face.
“Breeze isn’t Caspin’s?” Elanor said without thinking.
“By blood, no.” Caspin all but growled. Elanor winced.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend with such a rude question. It surprised me,
I’d never have known, if it wasn’t mentioned.”
“It’s alright, Elanor.” Caspin nodded; his demeanor rigid still though. “Leelah and I met when she was pregnant with Breeze. Actually,” He said looking thoughtful. “I think that was right after Derek introduced me to you.”
“No, you didn’t meet Elanor until after you were married.” Derek said. He was now sitting on the ground with the log supporting his back, just listening until then. “I started working for my Father, doing the triangle trade for awhile and then ventured into other businesses. That‘s when you and I started our own trades.” Elanor winced. Each time Derek came back from one of those trips, he had looked haggard and terrible.
He’d tell her of people they’d gotten from Aprica; the terrible conditions. The money in the slave trade had been alluring but the actual trading itself had been too much for Derek. When he’d admitted this to Elanor, she hadn’t hesitated in urging him to find something he could live with. They had talked a long time about it before he’d made a choice for their future. That was when he went into sailing for merchant goods only. It didn’t pay as well as the slave trade, but it had eased his mind.
“I remember,” Elanor said. She didn’t like where the conversation was heading. A tight feeling started in her stomach.
“Ah, that’s right.” Caspin said. “I remember now. Leelah agreed to marry me when Breeze was a year old. That’s when you and I decided we didn’t want anything more to do with our Fathers businesses and found this place.” Derek nodded to Caspin’s retelling. “Honest enough work we do. Well, as honest as selling a person for money I ‘spose.” Caspin chuckled.
“Did Breeze’s father die?” Elanor tried to redirect the conversation. That was answered with a few gruff laughs from everyone.
“I have often hoped for that.” Leelah answered. “No, he’s alive.”
“You didn’t get on well with him then?”
“I was his slave until his wife made him sell me in a fit of jealousy.” Leelah said bitterly. “I hate the man.” Elanor’s eyes rounded in surprise.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…I didn’t know you-” She had cleverly avoided her own past and stepped right into Leelah’s unpleasant past.
“I thought it better if you shared your past with Elanor.” Derek explained. “She doesn’t know anything about you.”
“It’s alright.” Leelah assured them both leaning into Caspin.
“I’m sorry for asking so many questions. It’s not my business.” Elanor apologized again. She felt every bit of the improper young lady that her Father used to chide her for.
“Really Elanor, it is fine.” She smiled kindly. “My Mother was an Inglish lady living on her parents plantation. My father a slave there. From what I have been told she was terrible and cruel to all slaves. Ordering them to be whipped for absurd reasons.”
Leelah’s face changed slightly in the fire light, a twitch at the corners of her mouth.
“No one would have ever suspected her to lay with a slave. But, she from what I am told, got great pleasure in ordering a man to do whatever she wished. That carried on for months until she realized she was pregnant with me. But when my Mother went to her Father, she told him a tale of a brutal raping. That the slave had been the one to overpower her and ruin her. My Father was whipped until he no longer had a back. They left him for a day to suffer before hanging him.”
Elanor’s hand covered her mouth, horrified.
Leelah continued after a moment of pausing. “Then, when I was born she sold me. I was owned by different plantations working in the kitchens until I was seventeen.”
Elanor could sense some of the story had been skipped. And she suspected the filler was as horrific as Leelah’s father’s death.
“When I turned seventeen I was sold to another.” Leelah looked at Caspin; he held her hand giving her a reassuring smile.
“Breeze’s Father is another plantation owner. When I got pregnant with Breeze and it showed, his wife became….angry.” Leelah closed her eyes a moment before carrying on.
“I was sold to Caspin’s family plantation then. I worked in the kitchen until Caspin, freed me and Breeze.”
Caspin kissed her hand. “Then I asked you every day for weeks to marry me.” Leelah laid her head to her husband’s shoulder smiling lovingly. “And I finally said yes.”
“You met Elanor after that.” Derek interjected the happy ending.
“Yeah Mate, we sailed for Inglid a few weeks later.” Caspin agreeing with an uncomfortable shift of his body. He looked at his wife and then away at the fire.
“You remember don’t you Elanor? When you met Caspin?” She’d expected the question to come. Knowing his path of thought as well as his first mate. Only she couldn’t avoid further discussion. He would push until he got what he was looking for.
“Yes, I do remember.” She answered softly but tried one last time to change the subject. “I could tutor Breeze if you like Leelah.”
The other woman’s smile widen, nodding. “I would appreciate that very much.”
“Do you remember when I came to Port NewLlyn to see you?” He prompted again, making both women look at him.
“I… We-” Just starting to say it made her stomach squeeze. She wouldn’t go through this story again. “Please don’t ruin the night, Derek.” Her words just tumbled out like shards of glass cutting her tongue.
“Ruin the night? That day was beautiful, why should it ruin tonight?”
Elanor couldn’t bear to look at Derek turning her attention to Caspin and Leelah.
“I met you twice I think, Caspin. I’m sorry for the briefness of both times.”
“You left out a very large part of that story!” Derek spoke up again. “It had been all planned out. Your sisters made sure that you weren’t obligated to attend the party. Constance even covered for you faking feeling ill! And then you and I stole away to where your Grandmother waited to preform our hand-fasting ceremony. Tied the knot. It had to be the most beautiful thing we’ve ever shared together, that promise. Not a year and a day. Forever and a day.”
Her shoulders sank looking to her lap feeling the heat of embarrassment burning her cheeks and sadness milled in colors over her face. “My father and I thought it the safest-”
“Your Father be damned, Elanor. We were already hand-fasted and the engagement for the legal marriage in the King’s law would all that was left.” Her eyes snapped to his. Having enough of the barrage of words all over again. Would he ever acknowledge the loss of that night?
“Since when do you care about laws! I was in mourning for my family! We were afraid that more would come and try it again. No one knew if we were discovered or not.”
“And the second time you met Caspin, it had been a year since that happened! The mourning period was well over. And you know damn well I can protect you from anything.”
She stared at him unbelievingly.
“Is that what you think? That it took just a year to mourn my Mother?” She shot to her feet, standing over him with her hands balled into fists. Anger had come in like a storm. Confusing and electric with many swirling thoughts. The vibration he created with his words built the magical energies that threaten to burst from her. For whatever reason he’d decided to rehash the same raw arguments. “Every day I miss her! I still mourn her! I have to live with the fact that she is gone! Every day I have to remember that Maegan is gone! Every day I have to remember that I wasn’t with them that night, I was with you! Every single day I face a reality that I know hardly anything about my elemental magic and people want to hurt me still!”
She ripped her hand away from his when he tried to reach for it. Elanor didn’t want his regret. If she hadn’t been with him that night, she might have been able to help. The vivid memory still burned in her mind but he didn’t care. He only cared about what he wanted. Why wasn’t he sorry? Why didn’t he feel regret about that? Did he even care the anguish they’d all been put through?
“Have you
even written my Father? Have you sent word that I‘m not dead or in some pirate’s harem?” The energy built inside her, steady, pulsing with each word punctuating from her lips, demanding he answer for the added trouble to her family.
“I told you,” He’d gotten to his feet, reaching out again. “I’m not going to contact them unless you stop being so stubborn and listen to-”
He reached out to touch her arm, she ripped back from him.
“Don’t! You will contact my father and let them know I’m not lost too!” A burst of misting wind spray over those sitting by the fire. The light waned from the wood getting damp and then the heat drying the logs came back to life. The fierce energy that pulsed within her increased too much and used the nearest outlet; moisture in the air and around them.
There were shouts of surprise all around as they area began to light up again.
“Damn me! What the hell was that?” Caspin hollered getting off the ground where he had tumbled back with Leelah to stand. Zo laughed, pointing to Elanor while saying something she didn’t understand.
“You don’t know the half of it, Mate.” Derek said to Zo, his hands on his hips. He looked down then back at Elanor. “I think it’s time to head home.” His voice quieter but not calmer. “I think that’s quite enough for tonight.”
“Of course, now that you’ve gotten the spectacle you were aiming for.” She could feel her nose flaring; air lifted and dropped her chest roughly. He hadn’t answered her question which told her everything. Derek hadn’t sent word to her family nor did he intend to. She had to get away from them all; the energy had sweltered to proportions she knew she couldn’t cover. Old wounds had been reopened to raw memories shifting through her troubled mind.