I looked at the ceiling instead and took a long swig of ale.
Chapter Five
Wrindel
Gods forgive me. Talwyn was in my bedroom and the fact of her existence was like a dream turned to reality. It was hitting me how badly I had always wanted her.
The image of her clamping those legs together was like a challenge. It was all new to her, even the sensations of having legs at all. I wanted to split her open. And by the look in her eyes, I don’t think she’d complain when I did it.
A whole new world had opened up to us.
I took the stone from my pocket. I knew that damned witch had tricked me and every moment, I was falling into her trap. What was the trap? Simply to keep Talwyn with me forever? Maybe the witch and Talwyn had some sort of dispute.
Whatever it was, I couldn’t ignore that the witch had granted Talwyn legs. She could take them away again.
Talwyn doesn’t belong in the ocean. She belongs with me. It seemed I might lose my father too young, and I had never known my mother. For so many years, I’d been happy to amuse myself with courtesans and maids, women passing through town at the tavern, and the flirts of the court. Now my brother was getting married, and something inside me was changing, growing unsatisfied with fleeting pleasures.
I hurried up the stairs to a storage room containing dusty artifacts of kings past that were too important to give away and too ugly to pay attention to: everything from dull books, to gold-plated armor, to a clock that was particularly painful to look at, with no less than six naked cherubs. I opened a drawer to a chest with painted dragons that could only be described as foppish, and shoved the stone under some old papers. No one would ever look here. I don’t when foppish dragons were in fashion, but not in my lifetime.
Guilt coursed through me. As if I was stuffing a piece of Talwyn’s soul out of her sight.
Talwyn always told me she wanted to see more of this world. The look on her face when I brought her through the palace was worth more to me than gold. Is it so terrible if I made Talwyn my bride? I’ll have to prove to her that this place is worth leaving her old world behind.
I told one of the maids to find Talwyn some clothes, and returned to her, locking and bolting the door behind me. Whatever older-and-wiser-brother lecture Ithrin wanted to give me, I didn’t want to hear it.
When I opened the door, Talwyn was perched on the bed rummaging in my all my bedside drawers and drinking the ale.
“I never knew books had so many pictures,” she said. “But who is this?” She flashed a neatly framed pastel portrait of a lovely girl that she had found.
I frowned. “It isn’t polite to poke in a man’s drawers.”
She laughed. “Oh no? I’ve heard that men like to have their drawers poked in.”
“I mean—as much as I appreciate a good double entendre—” I took the picture from her, tossed it inside the top drawer, and slammed it shut with my fist. “I might keep private things in there.”
“Private things? Like what?” She laughed as if it was a joke.
“You don’t have any private things?”
“No. What do you mean…? Like hiding your valuables from thieves?” She seemed to realize this was not what troubled me. “In my world, it’s very special to own rare things. Most things don’t survive under the sea. When merfolk visit each other, the first thing they do is look around to see if their host owns anything rare. It’s rude not to do that; it would indicate that I didn’t think you had anything of value.”
“Is that so? I suppose most things of a private nature are printed, so you wouldn’t have them. Books, letters, diaries, pictures of loved ones… Now, that picture is of my favorite dancing girl in town.”
Her brows briefly slammed downward with adorable chagrin. “Dancing girl?” she demanded.
I chuckled. “My late mother, actually.” I edged closer to her and dared to slide a hand around her waist. She was still keeping her legs clamped together. “Have you no secrets at all, among the merfolk? No private possessions or places…no clothes, even…”
“No,” she breathed.
I slid a hand up her thigh, bunching up her dress, slipping my fingers under the hem until I found the place where her legs met her sex. She had done nothing to stop me. My hand curved down until I found her slit, her lips smooth and already slick as could be. Her eyes widened. “You have a private place now, Talwyn.”
“I feel different,” she said. “I don’t know if I like it.” But then she shot me a furtive glance that said the opposite. “When we were riding…the horse…” Her breath came quick as I very gently stroked her there. “Wrin…”
“I know what you’re trying to say. But don’t tell me you don’t like it, sunshine.”
“A secret,” she murmured. “It feels like having a place of my own—but you’re the only one with the key.”
“That’s right. It is just for you and me. We can unlock things in each other that no one else can…” And even if I was far from being a virgin, that felt entirely true. Being with Talwyn was so different. “I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you now, Tal.”
Chapter Six
Talwyn
I couldn’t breathe. This was like nothing I had ever experienced before.
I was not myself. Having legs and clothes made everything different. In my world, sex was very straightforward. We had a season for mating, like animals do, although unlike animals, we had more self-control to resist the call and choose a mate for life. Despite my loss of memory, I felt sure I had never mated before. Our sexual organs stayed hidden behind an almost invisible slit of skin until the time came; I vaguely remembered a friend telling me “a man has a horn that comes out and goes into your cave”, which was news to me at the time. Some humans thought we reproduced with our minds, or some strange magic, or that mermaids laid eggs.
I had heard mating was pleasurable. It was a fact of life no one was ashamed of. But I had gotten the sense that it was sort of like eating a nice meal. You did it, and it was enjoyable, and then it was done.
The pleasure I was feeling now was entirely different, as Wrindel’s hand forced its way into the hollow where my legs met my body, immediately finding that center point of incredible sensation. It had been stirred just a little before. But his fingers were blatant. I had no control over what I felt now; all the ale I’d consumed seemed to rush down there, a hot and unbidden feeling. His other hand was steady on my waist. The clothes I was wearing made it all seem secretive indeed; his hand shielded by the fabric so I didn’t know quite what he was doing to me.
I kept my legs tight together, but it didn’t matter; he could still fit his hand between them and get to such places that made me whimper.
“What is this?” I whispered as I felt something hot and wet spill out of me. For a second I was afraid I had peed on his hand. But it didn’t actually feel like that at all. His fingers just felt even more slick as they rubbed against me.
“This is life on the surface, sunshine. What do you think?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“I won’t hurt you. I told you I’d take care of you.”
“It feels good. But my body is so different… I don’t know if I like it.”
“You want me to stop?”
I paused. “I do not.”
He laughed. “I thought not. Sunshine, now that you have legs, I know exactly what to do with you. And I want to do everything to you…so badly. Even with legs, you’re not like any other woman. You’re my water spirit. I can smell the sea on your skin…in your hair… I want to show you every kind of pleasure.”
I felt his steady hand on my rib cage against my heaving breaths. I shut my eyes. This is not my world, not my body. But I wanted to succumb so badly that I couldn’t find the words to stop him. And I felt so comfortable with him, like he was the one person I could trust myself to be vulnerable around.
He pulled me onto his lap.
“It’s okay to part your legs, sunshine. You
know very well that you won’t break.” He tried to nudge me open wider but I did feel like I would break. He put his hands on my knees, his grip firm, and pushed the bony appendages apart until they bumped into the edge of the bed.
“Stay like that.” His voice was commanding, but also soft. It instilled a sense of trust. “Let me see you.” He pulled my dress up over my waist, and I lifted my arms to help him get it off my head. It was so strange and confining to wear clothes that I wasn’t entirely sorry to be rid of them, even though it meant I could see my legs. His hands ran slowly up and down my thighs, his grip just firm enough to tell me that if I resisted, he would immediately push me open me again. I chewed my lip, hungry for something I couldn’t quite define.
“You were always the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about,” he said. “Tail or legs. It doesn’t matter. But…this.” He slipped a finger within the slit between my legs again. “This is beautiful just for the promise of how many delights I can bring you.”
“Is this…? I—I—” I stammered. I didn’t know what to say.
He rubbed his fingers rapidly over the sensitive spot deep inside the folds, and what had been a delicious stimulation suddenly turned into sparks of almost agonizing desire. “Wrindel…oh—oh, what are you doing to me?”
“Talwyn…” He suddenly pressed his mouth to mine, and I opened my lips readily. His fingers drew away from my center, leaving warmth behind—but also emptiness. I practically sucked his tongue into my mouth, wanting more of him. I heard the intimate, soft sound of his breath drawing in sharply, close to my ears. I had never experienced sound like this, either. Underwater, sounds were soft and wavy and traveled differently. On the shore, everything was drowned by the sound of the roaring water.
This was so quiet. I could hear every rustle, every little catch in his breath—and my own. His hand in my hair, the brush of strands against skin. The rougher texture of his clothes as I plucked at his collar, the sound of his hand sliding on my smooth skin.
“You’re so sleek,” he said, his voice rough with lust. “I want to show you my world, Talwyn. Gods, I want to make you happy. I want to spread your lovely legs until you can hardly bear how wide I’ve split you open, and then I want to spear you deep.”
“It—it sounds painful,” I said, but I felt that strange hot wetness rush out of me.
“Do you think I want to cause you anything but pleasure right now?”
“N—no.”
“The only pain I want to bring you is very sweet. If you don’t enjoy it, you can tell me to stop. Is it better if you can’t see your legs?”
“Maybe.”
He swept a hand around my waist and deftly flipped me onto my stomach. His bed was so soft, it was almost like floating. He climbed over me and his fingers traveled down my stomach. He found that sensitive place again, his hand teasing and caressing, but now I really couldn’t see him or anything he was doing.
His knees planted on the inside of mine. I felt his legs, large and muscular compared to mine. Now he pushed his legs outward, forcing my knees apart on the outside of his, spreading me open against all my instincts. Just as he promised, my muscles were strained almost to the point of pain—but stopped short of that. My hands were spread out on the covers, my head pressed into his pillows. I felt his rigid manhood pent by his trousers, but resting against my ass. Now both of his hands reached around my front and gently pulled the folds wide apart.
“Better now?” he asked again.
I was trying to gather my thoughts, and I couldn’t. I could only moan. He was overwhelming me. “Wrindel…”
One single fingertip firmly flicked across the bud that was now as exposed as could be. Once, twice…again and again.
I screamed, my hips bucking as I tried to flee the intensity of the sensation. That finger was unrelenting. My legs couldn’t close. Two of the fingers on his left hand kept me spread wide while that other finger, large and rough the way the hands of surface dwelling men always were, just kept stroking and stroking. And then a second joined in. Now they both stroked faster as I rode waves of sweet torture like nothing I’d ever felt. Soon I felt like he could have done anything to me and I wouldn’t have cared, just as long as this feeling broke before it killed me.
I was split like a shell and my skin was burning, especially where he touched me. His warm body was comforting even as his finger gave me the most agonizing pleasure. Slow pulses shot down to my core, and then they came faster and faster.
Suddenly my whole body rushed toward a finale, and my scream pitched higher like I was underwater. I couldn’t help it. I had lost all control as my body throbbed against his touch. His touch gentled as my screams died to whimpers. I drifted back to earth slowly.
I shuddered, limp against the pillow.
He sat up and flopped beside me instead, pulling me against him, smoothing my hair. “Talwyn…gods, that was lovely, and that was just the beginning of what I can do to you.”
I felt very tender in that secret place, but also strangely unsatisfied. His hand caressed me, down my arm and the planes of my stomach. His fingers rubbed my inner thigh, as if reminding me that I was not a mermaid anymore, that I had been transformed into something else, something that felt as if it belonged to him.
I’m not sure I had ever felt so peaceful, so present in the moment.
“I didn’t realize how nice it was to have things…done to me,” I murmured.
Someone banged on the door.
“Not now,” he called.
“Your highness, I beg your pardon—I have a dress I believe will fit the lady?”
“Damn it, all right. Wait here,” he said, as if I would do anything else.
Chapter Seven
Wrindel
I opened the door to take the dress—and a larger hand than I expected shoved it open. The maid was standing there looking nervous, while my brother peered past me and got a good look at Talwyn’s naked body. Then he grabbed my arm. “I want to talk to you—now.”
I stepped out, shoving him off, straightening my shirt. “Whatever you want to lecture me about, it’s not your business.”
Ithrin lifted up a book called “Enchantments of the Sea”. It was never good news when anyone carried a book around just to prove a point. I shut the door on Talwyn, giving my brother an impatient look while he said, “You just stole a mermaid bride. Didn’t you?”
“She’s not my bride.”
“If she’s just your dalliance, that might be even worse. What did you steal from her? You need to give it back.”
“Calm down. What does this book of yours have to say? It looks like it’s about two hundred years old, for starters.”
“It is…let’s see…” He opened it to the frontispiece and said imperiously, “Eighty-two years old.”
I shrugged.
“‘Many men are lured by these beautiful creatures, despite their fish tails,’” he read.
“Fish tails? Not exactly,” I said. “Mermaids are mammals.”
“Mm-hmm,” Ithrin said, with an annoying lift of his brows. He continued, “’It is possible to make a bride of them. Some merfolk carry an enchanted talisman such as a necklace or comb made from a shore-stone. If a man steals the talisman, the mermaid will become his forever, with her tail split into legs. If you manage to capture one of these rare creatures and wish to keep her, you must never return the talisman to her. She will snatch it up in a moment and return to the sea.’ Sound familiar? You said a witch had a hand in this…”
“I just wanted to protect her. I had little choice.”
“You stole her,” Ithrin said. “You have to give the talisman back so she can go home.”
“It’s not that simple. The witch wanted me to steal her. If I send her back to the sea, she might be in danger, and by then the magic is broken and I wouldn’t be able to protect her even if I needed to. It would be too late. I can’t send her back to the sea unless I know she’s safe there.”
“And what if you find out she
is safe?” Ithrin asked. “What then? Will you send her home?”
“Of course,” I said, but admittedly without conviction. “Unless she wants to stay. And then I’d move mountains to let her stay.” I knocked the side of one fist into the unyielding stone wall. “I’ve been getting to know to that girl for months now,” I said.
“Months? I thought you just met the other day.”
“No. When I walk on the beach sometimes, I often see her there.”
“Why didn’t you mention her earlier?”
I rubbed my head. “I don’t know. I think it’s because I liked her more than I wanted to admit. It was easier not to tell anyone. But we talked a lot. She travels around, picking things from shipwrecks. She’s seen interesting things; shipwrecked galleons with chest of gold still locked inside and old, old longships from the Northland raiders. She asked me a lot of questions about my life, too. It was just…very enjoyable.”
“Yes,” Ithrin said icily. “You could try talking to women on land a little more before you try to get under their skirts.”
I shoved the book back at him. “I don’t always like who I am. I don’t need you to remind me. At least I wasn’t talking to the dead. That could’ve gotten you killed.”
“And I’m done with that now.”
“I’m trying to move on, too. But I want to move on with her.”
“And yet I see that you’ve moved past the talking already, now that she’s got the right parts. You’re back to your old ways the second you’re presented with the opportunity.”
“Ithrin—get out of my business,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.”
“No, you don’t.” He jabbed a finger toward the door. “You’re risking her happiness. If it’s true that you really know the person she can’t remember being, and you have feelings for her, you can’t just resort to the same old tricks, or it’s going to be a relationship as pointlessly superficial as all the rest.”
The Mermaid Bride Page 5