Bound by Sin (27 page)

No, the selkies were well protected from the Overworld. Sirens, sea monsters, and internal politics were what threatened them most.

“You have become invaluable to the empress,” Jileana said quietly. “She finds you to be indispensable.” She came up behind him and threaded her arms around his waist until her chest was flush against his back and her forearms were crossed over his chest. Her right hand settled over the thundering beat of his heart. She liked the feel of it, especially after a rigorous climb or after they made love. It was like being connected to what made him alive and vital. She couldn't get close enough to that part of him. She needed to know he was there with her—for however long she had left. Because even though she planned to go with him when he returned to the Overworld, she couldn't escape the sensation that she was living on borrowed time with him. It was probably because she suspected there would come a time when he would try to violently push her away from him. Better to push her away than to face his growing feelings for her. And she knew his feelings for her were indeed growing. He never said anything, but she sensed his comfort with her, sensed how much fuller his life was since she had arrived in it. He was coming alive before her very eyes. As troubled as he was by his brother's plight, he was equal parts freer and lighter in his interactions with her. It made her heart happy to see it.

“So, what shall we do now?” she asked, amusement in her tone. They both knew what they liked to do in that spot at that time of day.

“Let's do something different,” he said suddenly, turning about in her arms so he could see her face. It allowed him to view the immediate pout and disappointment in her features.

“Like what?” she asked, clearly trying to be polite but unable to hide her true feelings.

Jaykun threw back his head and laughed at her.

“What's so funny?”

“You could never lie to me,” he said with a chuckle. “Not about your feelings, in any event. You are far too open. Your emotions can be read as plainly as a book.”

“Not always,” she said with another pout.

“Always,” he assured her. “And I like it. I like knowing that what you are feeling is honest and clear. I like…I like being able to trust that.”

Suddenly her entire face lit up. It was the first time he had volunteered any kind of statement that laid a measure of trust at her feet. It was by far a better gift than anything else he could have possibly given her. She wanted to ask him if he truly meant it, she wanted to take delight in the victory and draw attention to it, but she knew it would be better to let it slip by unremarked than to risk him becoming defensive and possibly withdrawing the sentiment. So she simply basked in its meaning.

“What would you like to do?”

“I'd like to go inland,” he said.

Jileana's blood went instantly cold. “No,” she said flatly.

“No?” He lifted a brow and a smile toyed at his lips. “I wasn't asking for permission, merely a companion on the journey.”

“No! You can't go inland! What if you ran into a siren? One song and you would be lost forever! No! You cannot go!”

“So it is an entire song? Is that what it takes to fall in love with a siren?”

“Yes. The siren sings her special song, the one only she sings. She sings it, and by the time she reaches the end of it you are hers forever.”

“And if the song is interrupted?”

“Then the spell is broken before it sets in. But a siren is rarely interrupted!”

“I could easily fight a siren the moment she begins to sing and cease her song.”

“The moment she begins to sing, you will be enraptured. You won't want to fight her.” She shook her head. “No. I will not let you go.”

“You are very bossy,” he teased, not taking any great offense.

“This isn't a joke, Jaykun! We are talking about your free will! It would belong to the siren for as long as she is alive and breathing in this world, and sirens are just as long lived as you are or I am.”

“You seem quite distressed by this,” he observed, taking great amusement in her concern.

“Because I love you! It would kill me to lose you!”

All amusement fled from his features. “I never asked for you to love me! In fact, I specifically said otherwise!” he snapped at her.

“Well, I'm sorry, but some of us cannot help the power of our feelings like you can! Or rather, some of us cannot deny our feelings like you can!” She threw all caution out the window as she said those words and she knew it. But it was better to risk everything than to have nothing.

“To deny a feeling means one must have that feeling in the first place, and I assure you, I do not feel love for you! Not in that way!”

“But in another way?” she asked, hope unfurling in her chest. He may not have realized it, but she had found a way into his heart.

“That is not what I meant! How is it you can twist my words into knots just to suit your own purposes? Don't you get it? I do not and will not ever love you!”

He regretted the words and their harshness, regretted the pain that lanced throughout her features. It colored her beauty in unattractive and pale ways. She was devastated and it was clear. It hurt him to see it, but she had to know the truth. She had to be made to realize what a futile and stupid thing it was to love a man like him. A cursed man. A cold man. A man who did not deserve the love of such a woman, if indeed there was any such thing as love. But as he looked at her, he believed that if anyone could truly feel love, it would be Jileana. If any love could be believed, it would be hers.

No, he caught himself in the thought. No! There was no such thing as love! It was an illusion! A lie people told themselves in order to make life feel worth living. A lie he refused to live ever again.

“You're wasting your time on me,” he said hoarsely. “You're hurting yourself for no reason.”

“For me to be hurting, it would mean my feelings are true!” she countered.

“You only think they are!”

“I know they are! I feel them! You don't get to tell me how I feel! You can withhold your own emotions all you like, but you do not get to tell me how I feel!”

“I am not withholding emotions!”

“So you say!” she snapped at him.

“Why won't you believe me? Damn you, Jileana. Why do you have to ruin this by creating problems?”

“Ruin what? What do we have that is going to be ruined? You say you have no emotions, so what is being ruined just because I say ‘I love you'?”

“Our companionship. The fondness we feel for each other. The fun we have when we're not trying to look too deeply into things!”

“That's funny,” she said with a dry laugh, “because I've known I loved you for the better part of a week and it hasn't seemed to hamper us much at all.”

That took him aback and he stepped away from her. “The better part of a week? That's impossible. All of this is impossible. Love at first sight is a lie. You cannot love after only a week!”

“Oh, so it is possible to love someone, only not so quickly? Tell me, how long should it take before I know I love you?”

“That isn't what I meant!”

“It's what you said!”

“Stop it! Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“They are your words. I am merely trying to understand them!” she cried.

“I don't love you!”

“You don't want to love me! There is a difference!”

“I assure you, there is not!”

“Fine. I recognize that loving a man who is completely closed off from his emotions is my responsibility,” she said with sudden weariness. “It is as you said: I knew what I was getting into from the beginning. You made that clear from the start. I am not asking you to love me in return, only to leave me free to feel what I wish to feel.”

“You are setting yourself up for pain,” he said earnestly. “Please don't do this to yourself.”

“If there is no such thing as love, then there is no such thing as a broken heart…so you have nothing to be concerned over.”

“Just because I don't believe in the trueness of love doesn't mean one cannot deceive oneself into believing it. I should know. I took part in the same deception, and believe me, it hurt when I woke to the truth of the matter.”

“You were hurt because you loved a woman who was faithless and undeserving…but you did love her. You did love her or she would not have been able to hurt you so much. You are capable of love whether you want to admit it or not, and I am willing to wait until you figure it out for yourself.”

“You will be waiting a long, long time,” he said quietly. “You will be waiting in vain.”

“It is my time and my heart, and I will do with my heart what I will.”

Jaykun didn't think he could bear it, bear her waiting painfully for him to feel something he never would. It would kill her free spirit a little bit every day.

“Jileana,” he said hoarsely as he pulled her up against his body, reveling in the sweet feel of her for a moment before saying, “in another two weeks I am going to leave you and this place, and I will never look back.” He swallowed. “Even if I did love you, I am not free to do so. My goddess makes too many demands of me.” He cupped her cheek in his hand and ran a thumb under one eye that was wet with an unshed tear. “It wouldn't be fair to you. None of this is fair to you. But I do know that this is your home and that when these next two weeks end I will leave you here and continue on my journey…alone.”

“Not alone,” she said hoarsely. “You have your brothers. You let them follow you. Why should I be any different?”

“Because they are my kin…my blood…and they have obligations to their gods, just as I do, that happen to coincide. A war camp is no place for a woman.”

“You have female mems and other women for other reasons,” she said, her tone making it clear they both knew what those other reasons were. “I am a sea witch, like my mother. Not as powerful as she is, I grant you, but I can still use magic. I could be of use to you. I could—”

“Female mems and whores are not my concern! They are meant for war. The mems heal for me. And the whores keep the men in good spirits. None of those women can hold a candle to you. You are beautiful and generous, and your heart is so clean and free and untouched by the soils of this world. I would not see that end!” He took a deep, steadying breath. “In two weeks we will part ways, Jileana. I do not want to spend that time fighting with you.”

She wanted to argue more. She wanted desperately to grab him and throttle him, and she knew he could see it in her eyes. He knew the full measure of her pain, because once he'd had his love rejected. And yet it did not keep him from pushing her away; that was how deeply his pain and mistrust went.

But she knew that, for all of his protestation against the emotion, he loved her. She knew that even though he was a man who could slaughter other men by the hundreds and never flinch in the face of war, he was afraid to acknowledge the emotion.

Very well, she thought with a lift of her chin and determination steeling her spine. She had two weeks to change his mind. Two weeks to make him admit what he felt for her. And if she hadn't succeeded by that time…well, she didn't know what she would do. She would take that step when it came time to take that step.

“Yes,” she said so softly she could barely hear herself. “Let us enjoy these next two weeks as best we can.”

“There we go. That's better,” he said with a smile as he stroked her face with his fingers. “Let's enjoy what time we have left together. Come. Let's go to the sea anemone bed and watch their colors. We can swim with the schools of fishes, explore a little. You like to do that.”

“Yes. I do,” she agreed. It had always put a smile on her face and he knew it. He was trying very hard to please her, when all he had to do to please her was one thing.

And that one thing was something he was most unwilling to do.

Her time was short and she had to make the most of it. No matter what she was feeling inside, she couldn't let it choke the remainder of her time with him. If she failed to make him realize that he loved her, these could very well be the last days she would ever have with him.

It was a thought she couldn't bear to hold in her head, so she pushed it aside and steeled herself with determination. She would win this.

She would.

T
wo weeks flew by so fast it was unbelievable. Jileana had never known time to move so swiftly. Now the moon was almost full and that meant the gateway would be open for the next week.

Jaykun was ready to depart that same day. He was preparing his trunk for his return. He looked down at it and smiled. The entire time he had been there he hadn't touched a single stitch of the clothing he had brought. After so many weeks, he wondered how he would be able to bear the confinement of clothes, never mind armor. He had never been so free as he had been these past weeks, in more respects than one. He couldn't remember the last time he had had so few demands on his time. Oh sure, he had been busy overseeing Jalaya's council meetings, had danced hard to keep Horgon in his place as he contemptuously took a seat at the table and did exactly what they'd expected of him: hindered more than helped. It was clear that power was his goal, not the true will and needs of the selkie people. If he gave a damn about them, he would have stopped balking and started helping. In the end, Jaykun believed Jalaya would have no choice but to eliminate Horgon's influence and threat, and he believed the empress was realizing that for herself.

But this was no longer any of his concern, he reminded himself. He was heading back…Well, he could hardly call it home. He didn't have a home. He frowned. It was strange, but this place had begun to feel like home to him.

A dangerous thought. An unwelcome one. Home was merely an illusion of feelings. A sense of comfort meant to soothe one's soul whenever one was away. It was a place of belonging, and he most certainly did not belong here amongst the selkies. He was a man. Simply a man. A cursed man, an immortal man, but a man just the same.

He closed the trunk and looked around the cave one last time. Jileana was not here yet. She had said she needed to do something before they went. He had unpacked her dresses from his trunk for her, although he didn't really know what use she would have for them here. He felt a painful sensation in his gut as he came closer to realizing that he was mere minutes away from leaving her and never seeing her again.

The past weeks had been a whirlwind of unforgettable moments and lovemaking, and dozens of new and wondrous experiences in the world of the selkies. He did not deny that all of it had been made memorable and special just by Jileana's presence.

He had grown very attached to her. He wouldn't deny that. He would miss her when she was gone from his life. He did not examine too closely just how much he might miss her.

Then, as if his thoughts had conjured her, Jileana appeared at the mouth of the cave. He looked away from her, unable to figure out what to say to her now that the moment of his departure was at hand. He knew what she felt for him—what she believed she felt for him—and he knew that it would cause her pain to let him go. This distressed him because he wouldn't wish any kind of pain on her and he didn't know how to avoid it. Perhaps he should've distanced himself from her beforehand, but he hadn't been able to do anything of the kind. He hadn't wanted to color their time together with sad thoughts of the moment when he would eventually leave her.

It had been wholly selfish of him. But he hadn't been able to be a better man. Now he would turn his back on her, swim through that portal, and never see her again…all the while knowing how much pain she would suffer in his absence.

“These go too,” she said, making him realize she had come closer as he had wrestled with his thoughts. She picked up the dresses he had set aside and put them inside the trunk. He looked at her and raised an inquisitive brow. “I will need something to wear,” she explained.

He tensed from head to toe. “Jileana,” he said with warning in his tone, even as a part of him leapt with joy at the idea of her coming with him. A surprisingly large part of him.

“Just for the week,” she said quickly. “Until the portal closes. Then I will return home.”

He hesitated. He had intended to make a clean break from her, and that was exactly what he should do. Right here and right now.

But the idea of having another week of Jileana was too delightful to resist. His whole body relaxed as if a great weight had been removed from it and he gave her a measured smile. “Very well. But I think you might be making this harder on yourself in the long run. I do not wish to increase your pain.”

“My pain will not be increased by another week with you. It will be relieved by it,” she said softly as she moved into his arms. She reached to kiss his mouth, but he avoided her for a moment.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I would not wish to cause you hurt.”

“Then do not leave me,” she said simply with a shrug of a single shoulder. “That is the only way you will avoid causing me pain. But,” she said quickly when he opened his mouth to speak, “since you will not do that, I will gladly postpone my pain until a week from now. All right?”

He had little choice but to hesitantly nod his assent. So she packed the dresses and gave them a satisfied pat.

“Now come with me. The empress wishes to say farewell before you leave.”

“I had every intention of saying goodbye to her of course.”

“I know you did. Come.”

“What about the trunk? Is Dremu coming with us?”

As if the mention of his name had conjured him, Dremu appeared in the mouth of the cave. For the first time in weeks, he was wearing the clothes he had arrived in, having gone native himself sometime after the first week. But the sight of his clothing told Jaykun that Dremu was indeed going with them.

“Only for the week,” he explained. “I'm coming with my mistress and will return with her. I like it here, I do. I'm as different here as I was in the Overworld, but they don't seem to care none. They treat me with kindness and respect and fascination. I'm sure the novelty will wear off one day, that maybe one day I'll want to go back through the portal, back to the Overworld, but I can tell that day is a long time away. And, well, there's this girl…” He flushed. “I ain't never had a woman before, but she wants to be my woman. Her name's Luzi.”

Jileana beamed at him. “Oh, Dremu! I'm so happy to hear that! And I know Luzi. She's a very nice girl. I hope you'll be very happy together.”

Dremu blushed. “Seems like we might be,” he said bashfully.

Jileana gave him an enthusiastic hug, which only made him blush a deeper red. “Dremu, can you take the trunk and meet us at the portal?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Come, let's say goodbye to the empress.” She grabbed Jaykun's hand and led him to the ledge of the cave's exit. Then, without a second thought, she dived off. Jaykun had since grown used to her diving from such great heights, and he had grown used to taking those dives himself. So he followed her down, cutting cleanly into the water with hardly a splash to be had.

They arrived at the underwater palace minutes later, Jileana's father meeting them at the front gate.

“There's something of an uproar in council chambers,” he warned them. “Horgon and his usual nonsense.”

“I trust Jalaya can handle him,” Jaykun said.

“Indeed she's gotten quite adept at it,” Creasus agreed. “But it may mean she won't be able to say a proper farewell.”

“That's all right. We'll take what we can get.”

Jileana's father looked at his daughter with something like sadness in his eyes. “Take care, my daughter,” he said, kissing her forehead for a long moment.

“I will, Father. And I will return,” she promised.

“Good. Your mother would miss you,” he said. But it was clear he too would truly miss her if she did not return as promised.

They entered the council chambers a short while later to hear Horgon's voice booming throughout the open water of the room.

“You are a disgrace to your crown! I swear to you, I will rip it from your head as soon as I am able!” he hurled at Jalaya. She was sitting at the head of the table and Horgon at the foot. Horgon was standing, shouting at her the length of the table away.

Jalaya stood up slowly, outrage simmering in her eyes. “Enough! I have had enough of your insults! I am your queen! You will not treat me thus!”

“And who will stop me?” he demanded of her, his son stepping in to stand at his elbow, a show of force against her.

“I will! Guards! Take Horgon to the chains!” she said, a terrible tone in her voice warning them all she had been pushed too far.

“For what?” Horgon demanded to know, although he didn't seem so cocky as the guards closed in on him.

“Treason,” Jaykun said. “Anyone who disrespects or threatens the empress is a traitor and should be punished because of it.”

Jalaya turned grateful eyes onto Jaykun, but the expression was fleeting as suddenly Horgon drew the blade attached to his side, his son doing the same, and they faced off with the guards advancing on them. Jaykun swam forward in a flash, leaving Jileana behind and insinuating himself into the fight, grabbing up a sword that had been taken from one of the guards. Jaykun dodged a deadly swing by Horgon, and in a flash of movement that proved how well used to moving in water he had become these past weeks, he was holding Horgon by his hair from a position behind him and had the blade against his throat.

“Stop!” he commanded Barban, who was still fighting the guards. “Stop or I end this contention with your father once and for all!”

Barban had no choice but to stop. The guards disarmed him and seized him by his arms.

“Take him to the chains as your empress commanded you,” Jaykun said to the guards he handed Horgon over to. “Chain him well.” He turned to the empress. “And what of the son?”

“He made no threats to me. He can go as long as he promises not to raise arms against me.”

“I do so promise,” Barban said through his teeth. It was clear he had no intention of keeping that promise, but that was a matter Jalaya was going to have to handle when it presented itself. She knew the repercussions slapping Horgon in chains might have, and an uprising was one of them. The families that supported Horgon might easily come to his aid, fight to depose her of her crown, and start a civil war amongst the selkie people. It would be the worst possible outcome. But the fact was, Jalaya could not let Horgon's threats and insults slide a moment longer. His behavior was just as damaging to her crown as a war might be. People watching her sit idly by as a man disrespected her would lose all faith in her ability to control those around her. If she could not rule a single man, then how would she be able to rule them all?

The guards dragged Horgon off and Barban stood seething in a corner of the room before turning to the empress. “You may come to regret taking the advice of this…this Overworld creature over the advice of my father!”

“Is that a threat?” Jaykun asked mildly. “Because that too would be treason.”

Barban blanched. No one liked to be threatened with the chains. And if Barban ended up in chains as well, then all would most certainly be lost for his family. Jaykun knew it and so did Barban. It was clear by the contempt and rage simmering in his eyes.

“You see, Jaykun? You cannot possibly leave me,” the empress said with a tremulous smile. “Your council means far too much to me.”

“I am sorry, Majesty, but my world has awaited me far too long already.”

“Of course I know this,” she said with a shake of her head, “but I do not have to like it. You are ready to go, then?”

“I am,” he said.

“Then come with me for a while,” she said, swimming to the nearest door, which led into the farther reaches of the castle.

Jaykun and Jileana obliged her and followed her out of the room, leaving Barban and the council behind. After several long minutes of swimming in silence, they came to Jalaya's private chambers and the three of them swam inside, with guards left posted at the door. Jalaya settled into a pacing swim that crossed and recrossed the room.