Lord of the Deep (2 page)

“Hold on to what?” Meg shrilled. “He has no bridle—no reins!”

Again his sultry voice resonating in her ear sent shivers of pleasure thrumming through her body. “Take hold of his mane,” he whispered.

His voice alone was a seduction. He was holding her about the middle. Her shift had been hiked up around her waist when he settled her astride, and she could feel the thick bulk of his shaft throbbing against her buttocks, riding up and down along the cleft between the cheeks of her ass. The damp sealskin that stretched over the animal’s back like a saddle blanket underneath her felt cool against Meg’s naked thighs, but it could not quench the fever in her skin or douse the flames gnawing at the very core of her sex. The friction the waterhorse’s motion created forced the wet sealskin fur deeper into her fissure, triggering another orgasm. Her breath caught as it riddled her body with waves of achy heat. She rubbed against the seal pelt, undulating to the rhythm of the horse’s gait until every last wave had ebbed away, like ripples in a stream when a pebble breaks the water’s surface.

In one motion, the selkie raised the night shift over her head and tossed it into the water. Reaching for it as he tore it away, Meg lost her balance. His strong hands spanning her waist prevented her from falling. Their touch seared her like firebrands, raising the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. The horse had plunged into the surf. It was heading toward the open sea, parting the unreal phantom horses galloping toward shore.

Salt spray pelted her skin, hardening her nipples. Spindrift dressed her hair with tiny spangles. The horse had plunged in past the breakers to the withers. Terrified, Meg screamed as the animal broke through the waves and sank to its muscular neck.

“Hold on!” he commanded.

“I cannot,” Meg cried. “His mane…It is slippery with seaweed.”

All at once, he lifted her into the air and set her down facing him, gathering her against his hard, muscular body, his engorged sex heaving against her belly. How strong he was! “Then hold onto me,” he said.

“W-who are you?” Meg murmured.

“I am called Simeon…amongst other things,” he replied. “But that hardly signifies….” Heat crackled in his voice. Something pinged in her sex at the sound of it.

He swooped down, looming over her. For a split second, she thought he was going to kiss her. She could almost taste the salt on his lips, in his mouth, on the tongue she glimpsed parting his teeth…But no. Fisting his hand in the back of her waist-length sun-painted hair, he blew his steamy breath into her nostrils as the horse’s head disappeared beneath the surface of the sea.

Meg’s last conscious thought before sinking beneath the waves in the selkie’s arms was that she was being seduced to her death; another orgasm testified to that. Weren’t you supposed to come before you die? Wasn’t it supposed to be an orgasm like no other, like the orgasm riddling her now?

The scent that ghosted through her nostrils as she drew her last breath of air was his scent, salty, laced with the mysteries of the deep, threaded through with the sweet musky aroma of ambergris.

M
eg groaned awake and opened her eyes to eerie green darkness. The sound of rushing water echoed nearby. She tried to raise herself, but her limbs felt weightless, as if she were floating. But she wasn’t floating. Something was holding her down. She waved her arms about in the water…
water!
She was immersed in water. But it couldn’t be. How was she breathing?

Frantically, she groped her body. She was naked. Where had her night smock gone? Oh yes, the selkie lord had flung it into the sea. But he couldn’t have. That was just a dream…Wasn’t it?

Something snaked its way between her legs, and she cried out. How strange her voice sounded under water. Why didn’t she choke on it when it rushed into her mouth? Why hadn’t she drowned?

She swatted at whatever was groping her thighs and cried out again when it probed the V of golden hair curling between, parting her nether lips. This was no eel…no creature of the deep, and sea vegetation did not move with the deftness of fingers. She shot her hand out and gripped a wrist…a man’s wrist…
his
wrist!

His warm mouth covered her scream.

In spite of herself, Meg groaned as his pointed tongue plunged in and out of her mouth, filling her the way his penis had filled the woman on the beach. It felt like hot silk, moving with the same ebb and flow of the sea. She was dead; she had to be. She had drowned and this was the entrance to the Netherworld the elders spoke of, the purification by water the dead must endure that the shamans held in such high regard. But if that were so, why had he entered it with her, this enigmatic lord of the selkies?

Reason returning, she fought the human tether he had become. “Let me go!” she cried, slapping at his arms and kicking her feet. “Take me back. I will be missed. There will be reprisals. My aunt Adelia and my uncle Olwyn are shamans. They are mentoring me in the Witching Way. I am to become a priestess of the Isle of Mists! Take me back, I say, and no harm will befall you!” Why was the water so murky? Why couldn’t she see?

He slipped one arm around her waist, threaded the other between her legs, and stroked her buttocks. “Every man, woman, and child on the Isle of Mists practices shamanism,” he said. “They are nothing to me. You are in my world now, Megaleen, and here I am Simeon, Lord of the Deep. You summoned me, remember?”

“When did I do that?” Meg snapped at him. “How? I never summoned you. This is some wicked nightmare—some vicious trick of my subconscious mind. I will awake in my loft, in my bed of feather quilts, and you will be what you really are…a wet dream; a figment of my imagination…”

A deep gravely laugh lived in Simeon’s throat. It resonated through Meg’s body, sending little tingling shockwaves along her spine. She stiffened in his arms as his deft fingers traced the cleft between her buttocks. Her quick intake of breath rang in her ears as the finger slid lower, ever so lightly flitting over the taut pucker of her anus, then moved on to explore her virgin skin. The finger traveled higher, reaching for the tiny bud at the top of her vulva. Rolling it between his fingers, he pressed down upon her nether lips until he had exposed the hardened erection to his tongue, and he laved it until she cried out in excruciating ecstasy.

Meg gripped his shoulders. She should struggle—push him away. She could not. Instead, she threaded her fingers through his long wavy hair. Carried on the underwater current, it flowed about him like strands of silk. It was beyond bearing. Never had she dreamed such ecstasy existed. As if they had a will of their own, her hands fisted in that cool dark silk and held his head against the tender spot he nipped and laved and sucked until her body shuddered to a riveting climax.

The moan that left her throat echoed through the underwater labyrinth, through her body—through her very soul.

“This is only the beginning,” Simeon murmured in her ear.

Taken with a sudden wave of remorse, Meg stiffened in the arms that pulled her closer. “I did not summon you!” she got out. Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper. “Take me back! I beg you…Take me back to the Isle….”

His deep throaty laugh shot her through with gooseflesh. She had heard tales of the selkies’ hypnotic power over women, of their prowess in the art of seduction. What else had she heard about them? Why couldn’t she remember? Why couldn’t she think? There was more to the legend, so much more…But his hands were exploring her body again, playing with her nipples, just as he had played with the nipples of the woman on the strand—rolling them between his thumbs and forefingers, making them hard and tall for his lips to suck on, first one and then the other.

“Did you not come to the strand…and watch the seals…sunning themselves on the rocks?” he said between tugs upon her aching buds, meanwhile laving the pebbled areolas mercilessly. He was going to drive her mad.
Please the Powers, let this be a dream!
she prayed.

“The seals, yes,” she said. “Many times, but I don’t see how—”

“Did you not lament your lot, little fledgling witch? Did you not wish the kind of love your situation denies you, for you know no priestess of the Isle can marry, Megaleen?”

“I-in my secret heart, perhaps, but that does not mean—”

“Did your condemnation as a witch not make an end to your betrothal on the mainland?” Simeon interrupted. “You are not simpleminded. You know a witch of the Isle’s mystery—her very power—lies in her maidenhead, in the taking of it by the shaman high priest in her right of initiation….”

Meg had all but forgotten about that, and cold chills riddled her as she remembered what fate she’d resigned herself to when she escaped to the Isle of Mists. These traditions were eons old, rooted in the mists of time that gave birth to the Isle and created the mystical priestesses who ruled it.

Simeon’s sultry voice cut into her thoughts. “Was that not the reason you were whisked away from your marriage bed before the conjugal quilts were laid out upon it?”

Meg gasped. “How could you know that?” she cried.

“We selkies are perceptive entities,” he responded. His hands were everywhere, flitting over her skin, exploring every orifice, every crevice and fissure. It was as if he was memorizing every contour of her body with hands that knew just how to touch, to arouse, to tantalize in ways not even she had fantasized in her wildest dreams, waking or sleeping.

Whatever sea plant she was lying upon was as soft as satin, caressing her in places he could not reach since his hands were occupied elsewhere seeking out her pleasure zones. The broad, flat ribbonlike growth swaying in the water seemed an extension of him, as alive as he was and of like mind with his advances. How far did control of his water world extend, this Lord of the Deep—even to the exotic plant life? She beat those thoughts back along with the nagging recollection of her destiny among the shamans on the Isle. Right now his control of her was paramount, for she was losing hers. Her only weapon was her tongue, and she used it like a knife blade, though it cut her as well.

“The only way you could have known that was if you’d read my thoughts,” she snapped at him. The outburst left something to be desired, coming at the precise moment he had her on the brink of yet another climax. “And…and that is preposterous!” she flung at him. “Even if you did read my thoughts, I gave you no leave to act upon them.”

He drew her closer. “Not your thoughts, Megaleen; your
heart
,” he whispered seductively. There was a strange tremor in his voice that spoke of sorrows too terrible to probe. It passed in the blink of an eye. “Did you love him, your intended?”

“What does it matter?” Meg said wearily.

Simeon shrugged against her. He was aroused, his thick hardness throbbing against her middle, the velvety head probing her navel. “It does not,” he said, “because all that is in the past. You cannot return to the mainland…ever, else you face sure and sudden death. If you remain with the shamans on the Isle of Mists, you will whither and die slowly…emptily. Celibacy is not for you, and that is what must be once you have become high priestess.”

“How do you know what is and is not ‘for me’?” Meg hurled at him. That was the wrong thing to have said. She knew it the minute the words were out. His guttural chuckle laced with derision testified to that.

“I saw, that is how I know,” he said.

Meg lurched in his arms. “How could you have?” she cried. “I mean…I do not know what you’re talking about.” Hot blood rushed to her temples with the lie. Not even the cool water surrounding them could quell the fever in her cheeks. He had seen her! Somehow, he had seen her touching herself in the dark!

“Then I must show you,” the selkie crooned. There was no mistaking his intent now. Again she strained against him, but it was a halfhearted attempt to free herself. How could she? Even if she did break his hold and escape, where would she go? How could she find her way back unless he showed her the way?

She would wake soon, in her bed of eiderdown quilts, and this delicious dream would fade away in the shadow of whatever glimpses her memory would allow. It was induced by what she’d seen from her loft window earlier, from her longing for a life she could never have. There was no other explanation.

“As I told you,” he whispered. “You have no idea what you have unleashed by invoking me. So! Which shall it be…deflowering, then celibacy among the withered shamans on the Isle of Mists, or will you become consort of the Lord of the Deep? Decide!”

“You have other consorts, my lord,” Meg snapped. “You hardly need me.”

“Ah, but it is not what I need that has brought us to this pass. It is what I want, little witch, and I always satisfy those urges.” He ran his hands over her body, following the contours of her breasts, her waist, her hips and thighs. “Why waste all this?” he said, his voice crackling with inner fire. “Why save it for naught but the moon to view as you chant your witching rituals. Will it pleasure you, your cold, dead moon?” He slipped his hand between her legs and stroked her vulva. “Will it enter you—fill you—give you what I have already given you even without this that you feel on your belly entering your exquisite body?” He rubbed his shaft against her quivering sex in illustration, and Meg lurched as if she’d been lightning-struck by the silky touch of its mushroom head against her erect clitoris. In spite of herself, she groaned. “Do not dare deny what you feel in my arms, little witch,” he said, husky-voiced. “Your pleasure-moans betray you.”

Meg could not deny it. She was no match for his prowess. Truth to tell, she didn’t even want to be. What did it matter? It was only a dream, wasn’t it—an escape from the cold reality of her very real nightmare? It had to be. No one could breathe under water. What harm to let him pleasure her? He was only a figment of her imagination.

It suddenly occurred to her that not once had she touched him as he was touching her now. Not once had she explored his body as he did hers. She reached for his erection. It was rock-hard and massive, the ridged head fully exposed, veins distended. He shuddered as her fingers flitted across it, causing drops of something warm and thick to ooze from the tip. Meg drew her hand back as if she’d touched live coals.

Capturing her wrist, the selkie crimped her hand around his penis. “Touch it,” he murmured. “See how my life lives for you, little witch. You have beguiled me….”

The underwater fog had begun to lift. She could see him now. The silt their motion had churned up was settling again on the ocean floor. He rose to his feet and drew her up alongside. How magnificent he was, but then he would be since she had created him in her mind. His long dark hair was fanned out on the gentle water current that caressed them. His eyes, almond shaped with long dark lashes, shone like mercury in the eerie diffused light. How broad his shoulders were, how narrow his waist. Her hand still rode along his shaft. His Otherworldly eyes were riveted to it—to her fingers playing it the way a skilled musician plays a treasured instrument—cherishing, reverencing. His breath caught, and Meg hesitated.

“Don’t stop…” he said. “Pull harder, little witch…work your magic….”

Meg could feel the pulse throbbing through his erection. She quickened her pace, pumping him—milking him. He leaned into her caress. His hips jerked forward driving rapid, pistoning thrusts, and he groaned as the phosphorescent stream of his seed squirted into the water.

He drew her to him through the milky flow drifting between them, his breath coming short. “Take no comfort in what you have just done,” he murmured against her hair. He drove her hand down to his sex again. “See?” he said. “See how it lives for you even now, little witch?”

“Any one of your handmaidens, the creatures I saw you with on the strand, could have done as much,” she said. There was no use denying she had seen him now. He
knew.

“Ah, but they are not pure,” he pointed out. “They are cold, selfish vixens, like their sisters, the roanes, like the
Morganezed
and the sirens, even unto the Lorelei. They live in many worlds and fornicate with one and all. The sex act means no more to them than relieving themselves. I tire of their games. I want…more, and you did summon me, Megaleen, whether you want to believe it or no.”

“I did not!” Meg insisted.

“The desires of all creatures’ hearts ride the wind and reach the ears of all who would hear,” the selkie said. “Your heart’s desires rustle the beach grass and sail the surf. If you listen, you can hear the water sigh and moan as it reaches shore. And if conditions are just right, someone will hear and answer, as I have done. Do not trouble yourself with such mysteries. There are limits to the powers of the mortal mind—even the minds of witches. It is enough for you to know that your heart reached out, and I was here to answer.”

With no more said, he swept her up in his arms and swam into a tunnel. Sea grass groped them familiarly as they passed, and schools of tiny fish flitted around them, nudging and nipping and tickling their skin, their scales gleaming like silvery shards of mirror glass as they streaked by. How strong his arms were, buoying her. His taut muscles were rippling against her naked skin. What an odd sensation it was, having been made weightless by the water, to feel those muscles flexing against her. She clung to him as they approached the threshold of a subterranean shelf, an air pocket where a coral palace stood. At least that is what it seemed to be, its sprawling architecture was only half visible from her vantage beneath the waves. It was enormous, glittering with reflected phosphorescence from the water and from the schools of silvery fish that had followed them through the tunnel. The effect was dazzling.