Twenty-One
Penelope’s disapproval weighted heavily on Margareta. Penelope simply didn’t understand the risks inherent in what Margareta was. If she touched the man, she could harm him.
"You danced with him just fine at the harvest ball," Harvest Ball , ” Penelope said. "Touched his hand and everything, so don’t tell me there wasn’t skin contact. And if he really is the boy you knew all those years ago, you definitely didn’t hurt him then."
Margareta shook her head. Penelope could never understand. She was human, and –
"So are you!" Penelope exploded. "As human as I am! All right, you swim more often than most, but what’s a little magic, when it’s in your blood? There is no law that says you’re not allowed to love, or touch people or…do any of the things normal people do! How many people have you killed?"
Margareta knew as well as Penelope did that the answer was none.
"You’ve saved one man’s life, and killed no one. That makes you pretty safe to be around, in my opinion. Why don’t you just let things happen the way they should, and worry about the consequences later?" Penelope asked.
If one of the consequences was Erik’s death, Margareta didn’t want to just let things happen. She wanted to protect him, not kill him.
"Well, he wants to protect you almost as much as he wants to kiss you, so that’s a good start," Penelope said.
Kiss her? He wanted more than that. He wanted what every man wanted, Margareta was certain.
"Perhaps," Penelope said, "but that’s not what he keeps thinking about. Not even what he dreams about. The only thing I’ve seen in his thoughts is visions of him kissing you. His eyes are fixed on your face. Except for the moment he first saw you, when he looked at your whole body, his focus is your eyes. Apparently, that’s how you’ll tell him whether his kiss is as perfect as he plans it to be."
A perfect kiss? Was there such a thing? The very idea intrigued Margareta. What would it be like to press her lips against Erik’s and…
NO!
Margareta forced the thought from her mind. A kiss could lead to more and it was immodest to have such desires. If her father knew, he would only say it was her siren nature coming to the fore. No human girl would have such desires.
"Your father is a prude. Most girls dream about their first kiss, the same way he does about you. You could do worse, you know," Penelope said.
Of course she could. She could kill him.
"Just as long as you get the kind of kiss other girls only dream about first," Penelope said. "He’d die happy, you know. He’s afraid of you, and that’s one of the things he tells himself to bolster his courage. That if he died after kissing you, he would die happy."
No he wouldn’t, Margareta thought angrily. He would die screaming, because sirens enjoyed the pain of their victims. She would –
"Now I’ll go see that some breakfast is sent up, and leave you two alone," Penelope said, striding out of the library as Erik entered it. "And if she doesn’t let you kiss her before I return, I’ll see that the whole island knows she’s an ill-mannered sea-cow!" she threw over her shoulder before vanishing from sight.
Margareta’s face grew beet red.
Erik took pity on her embarrassment. "My apologies, my lady. Despite our history together, we have not been properly introduced. Allow me to correct this terrible oversight. I am Prince Erik, and I am honoured to meet you, Lady Margareta. Never have I met such a fair lady, who is also a graceful dancer and a learned scholar. I am quite entranced." He held out his hand.
A hand Margareta knew she should cover with her own. Custom demanded it. So did Penelope, who would know if she did not. She’d touched him before, as both a human and a siren, and he was still alive. If she could control herself for a few brief seconds, he would live to see tomorrow, too.
Margareta stretched out her arm, biting her lip as she saw her fingers shaking. If only she didn’t have to touch him. She didn’t want to hurt him. She wanted…
Erik captured her trembling fingers and brought them to his lips. Warm and soft, his lips made her fingers tingle as he kissed each one. Her mind screamed at her to pull away, but Margareta could not. Her own lips parted as she stared at him, eager to know what he would do next.
"Lady Penelope was right to berate me for being so unkempt. I was so caught up in my research, I forgot myself. Now, perhaps, I am in a fit state to greet you as I should have on the day we met. If I meet with your approval, then perhaps…" Erik swallowed, then lifted her hand to his now smooth cheek. "If my lady would permit, I would like to offer you a kiss of peace."
As her father’s vassals offered to him, Margareta knew, and the captains who sought his favour. It was a religious thing, a chaste thing, a ceremony of power. It shouldn’t send her heart racing like hers did now.
And yet…to refuse would be churlish. He honoured her, for such gestures were for leaders like her father. Not his youngest daughter.
Shakily, Margareta gave a nod.
Erik lifted his hands to touch her shoulders.
A fountain of butterflies erupted in her belly. This was dangerous, she shouldn’t…
Margareta brought her other hand to his cheek so that she could cup his face. She took a deep, steadying breath, then stretched up to lay her lips against his.
For one brief moment, their kiss was a chaste thing. Then Margareta forgot everything but the feel of Erik against her, the taste of his mouth and the hardness of him between her thighs as he pulled her closer, closer, still kissing her as if she was the very air he needed to breathe. She needed more than air from him, more than the deep, gasping breaths she drew in as she tugged at his tunic, sliding her hands inside to feel soft skin over firm muscles, stroking every bit of him she could reach until she wrapped her fingers around the hardest part between them and –
Her eyes on fire with desire, Margareta met Erik’s gaze. God, he wanted her as much as she wanted him. She wanted, oh how much she wanted…
"Oh God, Margareta, I love you," he groaned.
Love? What she would do to him wasn’t love. Hers wasn’t a kiss of peace. It was a kiss of death.
Margareta tore herself away from him and ran.
Twenty-Two
Erik buried his head in his hands. He shouldn’t have said it. Shouldn’t have admitted that he’d loved her for years, since they first met in the boat, because no girl could ever compare to her. And turning a kiss of peace into one of raging lust with a woman who was already frightened of him…he deserved to be scourged for such blasphemy. No wonder the girl had run.
But the feel of her hands on him, stroking him in exactly the right way, as if she was as overcome by her own feelings as he was by his…
No. He’d imagined it, surely. No woman in creation would be so bold. A woman who could control the ocean could certainly control herself.
Whereas he was…an uncontrolled mess.
Cursing himself, Erik set off to find some cold water to douse his desire.
Twenty-Three
Margareta slammed the door behind her, then put her back to it, breathing hard. She wasn’t sure if it was because she’d sprinted from the library to Penelope’s chambers or whether it was the strange siren heat that still coursed through her that made her heart beat so fast within her chest that she could scarcely catch her breath.
"That good, was he?" Penelope asked calmly, wetting the end of her thread before inserting it through the eye of her needle. "I would have thought you’d have taken your time, but it’s hard to savour your first."
Margareta tried to calm the jumble of images in her head so that Penelope would understand, for no one could be so calm in the face of what she had just experienced.
"I remember the day I first kissed Godfrey," Penelope said dreamily, as if she wasn’t paying attention to Margareta at all. "We’d met at some of my father’s feasts, but I’d never been able to exchange more than a few words with him. He’d told all sorts of stories about war and what he’d seen, stories
I could listen to for hours, but my father never allowed me near enough to tell him so. But our eyes met across the hall enough times for him to start seeking me out, or find excuses to visit my father at home. One day, he brought an urgent message for my father when he was out, and only I was home. As was proper, I offered him refreshments, and suggested he wait for my father. He paid me some pretty compliment about how he’d wait forever for me, or some such thing, and he stumbled over the words as he never had in his stories. That’s when he first kissed me. Well, I pushed him against the wall and kissed him, actually. Didn’t take more than a moment before he was kissing me back just as eagerly. We kissed for quite a while, long enough for him to get good and excited so I could assess the goods, so to speak, which I admit were quite impressive, before my father’s arrival interrupted us. The bustle at the door was enough for us to straighten our clothing and for me to whisper an invitation to meet me in the garden later that night, and the rest, well…" Penelope laughed. "By morning, I wanted no other man for my husband. Though from the way that man looks at you, he might be cut from the same cloth. My advice is to make sure he’s as good with his hands as he is with his mouth before you agree to more. A good lover should give more pleasure than he receives."
Margareta’s mouth hung open. Penelope had to be jesting, surely. No woman…
"No woman wants a bad lover," Penelope finished for her. "I’d rather join the nunnery permanently than share a bed with a man who doesn’t absolutely adore me, or at least love me."
A fleeting memory of her mother’s people, and what they did to men who didn’t please them, fluttered through Margareta’s mind. She didn’t want to see sharks devour Erik. She liked him. At least a little. He spoke to her face instead of her chest, and seemed to care what she thought. No one else except Penelope did that – not even her father. All he cared about was getting his sons back, her bawdy brothers who would go back to their violent ways the moment they regained human form, she was certain of it. At least she could save the people of Beacon Isle from them, if the island belonged to her. Or her husband, which was almost the same thing.
"Your brothers don’t deserve the sacrifice you’re making for them," Penelope said sadly. "But the prince you left in the library? Why don’t you give him a chance to show you what kind of husband he’d make?"
Margareta regarded Penelope for a long moment. She might not want to admit it, but her friend was right. Her brothers didn’t deserve what she was doing for them, but that didn’t matter. She had given her word, and the people of Beacon Isle would suffer if she broke it.
But if she hadn’t given her word…then she could speak to Erik, and tell him why he couldn’t possibly be in love with a sea monster, for that’s what she was to him. A creature in a book that sank ships and killed the prince she now knew was his brother. Who could kill him just as easily if she lost control and gave in to her siren nature.
One thing was certain: she didn’t want Erik to suffer his brother’s fate. She didn’t want to watch a man she knew and perhaps even liked be ripped apart by sharks.
Never mind that she’d wanted to rip his clothes off earlier. It was a small miracle she hadn’t ripped off his head, or any other part of him.
Margareta turned on her heel and left the room. She knew what she had to do.
There was only one thing that would stop her from turning into the most lascivious siren ever to step out of the sea: immersing herself in the ocean for a swim. Surely that would cool her desire.
She hurried down the stone steps to the now deserted great hall, making her way out the gate with her head held high to forestall any questions. None of the guards would dare stop her – they knew who she was.
A flock of ravens flapped over the high walls of her father’s house as she left its shelter, but Margareta paid them no heed. The only ravens she cared about were her brothers, and as long as she maintained her silence, she was doing all she could for them.
Her private cove was empty, as it should be. Margareta lost no time in removing her clothing – all of it, this time.
The waves kissed her skin as she trudged through the sand, until the water reached her waist. Then she lost all pretence of humanity and shifted into her true form, extending her fins past what had been her toes as cool skin enveloped her legs, turning them into a powerful tail as blue as the deep ocean waters where she was headed.
Twenty-Four
Erik splashed himself with cold water until the ewer was empty, before he dressed and headed to the highest part of the house, the passage that looked out over White Harbour to the sea. The waves were as turbulent as his own thoughts today. Though he hated to admit it, he had the answer his father sought: Beacon Isle paid tribute to no one, for it had no lord or monarch aside from its Master, who was a rich man indeed. The contents of his father’s treasury were nothing to the port duties Master Nicholas collected in a single year.
Beacon Isle would be a rich prize to anyone who could conquer it, but the very nature of the island made it near impregnable. Master Nicholas had a neat navy of merchant ships that could turn to war as easily as they did to trade. Erik’s father would never win the island by force.
And so he lingered here, pursuing his real quest – twin quests, truly. His pursuit of the mythical creatures who had saved him, and the girl who commanded them. A girl who drove him to insanity, so that he kissed her and professed his love in the most awkward way.
No wonder she’d left, undoubtedly disgusted that he would do such a thing.
He must have imagined her hands on him.
Even just the thought of it heated his blood to boiling again. Erik cursed and headed back to his chamber for more water. No, he’d go to the sea for a swim. Immersing his whole body in cold water would be a much better idea.
He reached the stairs, then stopped when he heard voices. Male voices this time.
"Did you see her again last night?"
"I see her most every night. She swims into the shallows in that cove just past the breakwater, lays herself down on the sand, and sleeps."
"Why haven’t you taken her for your own if she’s so pretty, then?"
"Oh, she’s pretty enough, but she’s a mermaid, man. What use is a woman who has a tail where her legs should be? Waste of a pair of tits if she has no legs to dive between."
"I heard of a brave man who tamed a mermaid once. They say she was the sweetest lay who ever lived, and she was his, because he tamed her. See, the trick is to stop her going back to the ocean – she’s powerless on land. What he did was cut off her tail, I heard. Not like you would with a fish. No, she’s got legs beneath those fins, and if you want to get between them, you have to cut her legs free. Do that, and she’ll be your slave for life."
"A man took a sword to a mermaid and lived to tell the tale?"
"On my honour, though I heard it was just a knife. And the man was no ordinary man, but the Master of Beacon Isle himself."
"The Master? Master Nicholas?"
"Maybe. Might explain that daughter of his. Proud and beautiful as the day is long, not like normal girls. Wouldn’t surprise me if she was half mermaid."
The other man laughed. "But which half? Now we know why the Master hasn’t married her off yet."
"Maybe. Hey, when does she come ashore? Maybe I should try my luck, if mermaids are such sweet wives."
"Just after sunset."
At sunset he could see a mermaid? Without hesitation, Erik took the stairs three at a time, but he saw no sign of the men who had spoken. Only a pair of ravens perched on the window ledge, which flew off as he approached. Never mind, he told himself. If he could see a real mermaid with his own eyes, he could show the creature to Margareta. Then she might trust him with her secrets, or at least stop thinking he was a fool.
He felt for his knife, closing his fingers reassuringly around the hilt. A mermaid was a wild creature at best, and all the stories agreed on one thing: she would kill him without hesitation if she felt threatened. The kni
fe was for his protection.
Twenty-Five
Erik reached the breakwater, and only when he stood on it could he see the small cove he’d heard the men speak about. Small, private, and empty. On a hot summer’s day, he’d love to take a dip in the water himself. Now, though, he had no intention of entering the sea. Not if a mermaid lurked close by.
Feeling like a coward, he climbed a tree, hoping its branches would hide him from sight. None of his research suggested that mermaids could climb trees, but Erik didn’t let himself feel too secure on his perch. Research and myths were one thing, but facing a mermaid in the flesh was something different entirely.
For what felt like forever, Erik clung to his branch, watching and waiting. He’d spot a shadow in the waves, only to realise it was a piece of seaweed or flotsam. His eyes began to grow heavy as he squinted into the sun, straining for even a glimpse of the mythical mermaid.
When she did appear, he almost missed it. A wave washed further up the beach than its fellows and when it retreated, it left behind what Erik at first thought was the decoration from the bow of a ship. A stylised fish-woman, stretching her arms and her breasts before her while her tail fanned out behind.
And then….she moved, flicking a piece of seaweed off her tail, before she combed her fingers through her dark hair.
Erik almost fell out of his tree. A mermaid. A real mermaid, not fifty feet from him!
With care to make as little sound as possible, he climbed down, creeping through the shrubbery to get a better look at the mythical creature he’d sought for so long.
Slowly, slowly, he raised his head above a bush. He saw her dark hair, then the pale skin of her back, and his breath caught in his throat. Legs. She stood on two legs, just like him, though hers were bare.
In one moment, she’d shredded half the tales he’d read about her kind. Erik grinned. He’d write his own book, perhaps, and give Master Nicholas’ library a copy. Or give it to Lady Margareta as a gift. Now that was an idea.
Silence: Little Mermaid Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale series Book 5) Page 6