Chapter Five
“Why do humanscover like this?” Ahtin picked at the folds of her skirt, rooting for the shape of her thigh hidden beneath the heavy wool.
Like the night before, they spent these hours together in the sanctuary of the cave lit by Ahtin’s magic. And like the night before, they kissed and explored, learning each other’s taste, the shape of leg and tail, shoulders and arms, cheekbonesand necks, chest and breast.
Brida stroked a hand down his side, contouring her palm to the ridges of muscles that laddered down his torso to his narrow waist and the smooth flesh that denoted the beginnings of his tail. The heat of his body kept her warm in the chilly cave. “For protection and warmth. Our bodies don’t get as hot as yours unless we’re sick. Clothing keeps us warm and protectsour skin from other things too.” She nudged his chin with her nose. He obliged her by bending to eagerly press his mouth to hers, cool lips against hers, warm tongue sweeping the interior of her mouth.
She had taught him that the previous night, and he’d been an enthusiastic student of what he called her “land magic.” Brida might have taught him even more were it not for the far-off hint of awhistle. Ahtin’s fluke slapped the water, and his features had pinched with annoyance.
“I must go,” he told her, leaning his forehead against hers with a sigh. “Come back, Brida?”
Caution dictated she should have said no, but she’d thrown that notion to the wind the moment she’d first seen him injured on the beach. “Tomorrow,” she’d agreed.
He’d led her out of the cave, staying by her sideas she waded back to the level, drier shoreline. No threatening dorsal fin raced toward her, nor had any appeared tonight, for which she was thankful.
None of this would last. She’d never been under the illusion that it could. Ahtin was a dweller of the sea and she a dweller of the land. They’d found literal common ground here, but her life was in Ancilar among her people and his somewhere inthe Gray’s liquid wilderness, with other merfolk and creatures savage and sublime. That he was even here now was a wondrous thing in itself.
She refused to think beyond this ephemeral moment, this hidden place where she and a fabled merman traded loving caresses. To him, she was simply beautiful Brida. Not Brida, alone and widowed, viewed by some as a woman to be pitied while they silently thankedthe gods they weren’t in her shoes. The memories she made with him would last her lifetime, gifts of value beyond measure, more precious even than the priceless pearl he’d given her.
He lifted her braid to wrap its length around his arm, letting it uncoil before catching it in his hand. He painted his cheek and the bridge of his nose with the end. “Swim in the water with me.”
She shuddered atthe idea. “The pool is freezing. At least for me.” It was bad enough that her feet were submerged. If she didn’t have them pressed to the sides of Ahtin’s tail, they’d be numb from the cold. Wading all the way in was out of the question, especially since she’d have to strip to her shift so as to have dry things to wear during the trek home. “Just how cold can it get before you start to feel it?”
He shrugged. “We can swim in the waters when ice floats there, and we dive deep where it’s dark and no sunlight can reach.” A troubled expression settled on his features, and the hand on her thigh tightened for a moment. “But we don’t stay in one place. Soon, all the mer will swim for warmer seas, where the women with child will birth their young.”
The bottom dropped out of Brida’s stomach. “Howsoon?”
“When theapssay so. They decide when the families make the journey.”
They were migratory, just like the dolphins and the whales. She guessed it might be so. The idea lodged in the back of her mind like a splinter, making her wonder each time she traveled to meet him if he wouldn’t be there.
Ahtin nuzzled her, rubbing his nose in the soft hairs that lay against her temple. “Swim withme,” he whispered. “My magic will hold back the cold.”
A tingling sensation spread across her feet, washing feeling back into her toes. Brida pulled away from him to stare at the pool. Ahtin’s palm rested atop the surface. Runnels of fiery light coursed along the tendons and veins in the back of his hand, spreading up his arm. The water grew warmer by the second until it turned tepid.
Bridalaughed, delighted, and kicked her legs so that water splashed behind Ahtin. “Amazing! So much good magic! Can all the mer do this?”
He grinned at her compliment, pale eyes glittering in the cave’s half light. “When we must. It helps the laboring merwomen and the infants when they’re born.” He tugged on her skirts. “Now will you swim?”
With the pool now more temperate than a bath, she had noreason to refuse. She’d learned to swim as a child. Too many who lived by the sea lacked the skill and had paid the ultimate price.
Brida stood and stepped farther back from the pool’s edge to shed her clothes. Ahtin watched her, silent, curious. Once she was down to her shift, she hesitated. The garment was thin and wouldn’t drag her down in the water the way her heavier garb might, but it wasstill long and restricted the movement of her legs. She played with the neckline, considering. None of the merwomen she’d seen in the group who had come for him and his niece wore coverings across their breasts. The trappings of such modesty were a land dweller’s concept, not that of the merfolk, who would find such covering not only unnecessary but also foolish. Raised within such a culture, Ahtinlikely wouldn’t make much note of her breasts if she bared them. Her legs though…that was another thing altogether.
Grabbing her courage with both hands and shrugging away her embarrassment, she stripped off the shift, letting it fall atop the mound of clothes at her feet. The cave’s chilly air raised goosebumps on her skin from her ankles to her scalp, and she scampered toward the pool, huggingherself in a failed bid to retain her body heat.
Ahtin caught her, hands on her waist, and lowered her into the pool. He smiled at her happy sigh, letting her go when she pushed gently against his chest to paddle the pool’s circumference. He joined her, sleek, and quick, and quiet.
As she predicted, his gaze flickered briefly over her torso before focusing on the wavering outline of her legsas she tread water. He reached down, grasping one of her knees to lift it for closer inspection. Brida grasped for the pool’s stony shore behind her to keep the merman from her tipping her backwards. He flashed her an apologetic look before returning his attention to her leg, exposed to the air from lower thigh to foot.
“Two tails,” he said, gesturing to her other leg still underwater.
Bridasnorted. “Legs. They’re called legs.”
He repeated the word, then nodded to show either his approval or his understanding.
She pointed to her toes, wiggling them for emphasis. “Toes.” Her foot jerked in his grasp while he counted the five digits with ticklish touches. At his inquiring taps on her skin, she revealed the name for each part of her leg. “Foot. Arch. Ankle. Shin. Calf. Knee. Thigh.”Every touch sent sparks shooting through her body. Was it possible to catch fire while immersed in water?
The tell-tale series of low-pitched clicks started low in his throat, a vocalization of his growing arousal. Her lessons in kissing had taught her as much as they taught Ahtin. In those interim moments when they’d come up for air, she’d caught a good look at his erection.
