We flipped, and I was on top, straddling him naked. Rising from our kiss as I watched his heavy stare trace my body.
“You are unreal, Elowyn.” My name on his tongue was symphonic.
I lifted myself, his cock in my hand, and rubbed the head of him slowly, diabolically, against the entrance of my drenched core. Showing him exactly what he did to me. How wet he made me.
“Do you want this?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he breathed.
“I do too,” I said.
He shuddered, then pushed into me, his chin raised to the ceiling, that glorious, smart mouth gaping as he filled me. Stretching me beautifully.
My inner walls fluttered at the feeling of him.
He sat up quickly, eyes aflare.
“Please,” he begged, “do that again.” I clenched my core around him and he let out another moan into my ear.
“That?” I asked.
He nodded into my collarbone. I clenched around him again and again, riding him mouth-wateringly slow, the clenching and moving sending me over the edge. Drenched for him. For the captain. For Arlo. For the man who was here, below the sea, with me. For me. Who saw me, not my dead mother or king father. But me. Just Elowyn. Although he was not mine to keep, in that moment, he was mine to have.
My core flexed and grasped him with every rise and fall of my body. His eyes stayed on me as I leaned back, one hand seizing my breast, the other on him for stability. My head lolled back in pure paradise as he thrust to meet my apex and held my hips in place, speeding us to a sinister tempo that had me tumbling toward climax.
“Unreal.” His voice broke through another brilliant moan.
I leaned into him. His strong arms wrapped around me, understanding that I needed more of him, closer. Grasping that strong neck for balance, my body moved frantically as he paced into me. Until it wasinevitable. I spilled over again and again onto him as he spilled into me. We moaned in unison into the void, back at destiny, at circumstance, at all that tried desperately to destroy us both.
We roared back at it. In its face. Because here and now, we were together. Despite everything, we found pleasure in a sea of misery.
Winter 5343 AT
The news has officially broken that I am with child, no longer able to hide the growing swell of my belly. Reluctantly, I accepted the whispers and a physician visit confirmed it. Many are excited. My father is happy to make good on his debt to my husband on more children, and my husband seems to accept the pregnancy. But something in his demeanor tells me he knows the child is not his, and instead he schemes against me. A delicate nature, bastards are. If the babe is his, by some miracle, he would be the happiest man in the entire world if it was a male. An heir. But if it is not, and he waits too long, then it would be his burden.
Aegir begs me to flee, his voice weighted with urgency as he claims that every day closer to the birth, I place the child and myself in danger. He’s right. Who’s to even say what the babe will look like. Aegir is plain-featured, with dark-gray tresses and human-colored flesh, but sirens can be an array of utterly inhuman colors. There’s no telling what this child will look like.
Yet leaving my daughter seems unthinkable, and taking her with me? What life is there for a young girl below the waves? And what future does she give up here on land? Her father is powerful, affluent, and she is his only child. Women do not inherit property or title from men but maybe that could change. Perhaps her very existence couldherald a new world. I am uncertain what I should do, but I know for certain that I am running out of time.
Chapter 36
Iawoke in Arlo’s arms. We had fallen asleep naked and spent. But supper was nearing, and I needed to attend Hylos’s war council to evaluate his next moves.
I got up, brushed and braided my hair, and changed into a luscious evergreen dress that reminded me of spring. Tenderness between my thighs forced me to look back to the bed, where Arlo still slept perfectly, his back turned to me, the striations of muscle in his strong, magnificent body visible.
The urge to wake him throbbed through me. To kiss him and ensure that before wasn’t a dream. But he needed rest. Maybe there would be time to share beds and soft whispers when we escaped. If we escaped.
I walked out the door, and Nixie was there.
“Oh, Elowyn. Hello,” she said, still clearly hurt from my words the other day.
I thought of what Raylik said. That Nixie truly didn’t want anyone to be harmed. It was true. I knew that. None of them wanted this war besides their leader and his lover.
“I’m sorry for what I said the other day. It wasn’t fair for me to blame you for what happened,” I said.
“It’s fine. I know you were deeply hurt. I understand,” she said, offering me a small smile.
“Are you headed to Hylos’s study for the council? He called us all to attend. I’m heading that way too. Want to walk together?” I asked, lifting up my arm to loop into hers as we had many times before, like friends.
