by May Sage
But after trying the creek a number of times, he'd come to the conclusion that Ariena hadn't want to be found, and he'd moved on.
See? Bad decision.
She only took one look at his new girlfriend before turning around, leaving their child behind.
It was years before he got over the fact that a woman – a mother – could just abandon a newborn; if females were that cruel, he didn't want anything to do with any of them.
But then, there had been The Woman.
In hindsight, he realized that she had been a mermaid, too. It explained Sebastian's instant attachment as well as his own attraction: at this point, there was no denying that he had a thing for sea creatures.
But her nature didn't make her immortal. After the years he'd spent researching everything to do with their breed – to be better prepared to raise his halfling child – he knew the extent of their power and there was no doubt that she had taken a risk by helping them.
A very big risk.
First, there was a law against denying nature its dues: if a man was to drown, the merfolks believed that he should. It wasn't out of vice: there just was a balance in nature that non-humans had to respect if they wished to maintain their longevity.
Secondly, the storm had been brutal, easily tearing through metal and flesh. Mermaids were quite resistant to the powers of water, but protecting humans against it was dwindling their own defenses – which meant that dragging him to shore had taken a humongous toll on her. There was a possibility that she might not have survived it; that theory would explain why he hadn't managed to track her down.
His effort, this time around, had been very different to his half-hearted attempt to reach Ariena at the creek: he'd sailed every sea, spoken to every mercreature he was in contract with, had even appealed to the King of Atlantis, despite their differences; but without a name – or at least, a decent description – they'd had little to say.
Even if he never saw her again, she'd completely changed the course his life had been taking: a woman – a stranger, at that – had risked her life to save him and his child. She'd instantly reopened his heart to the female sex, without even trying.
He wanted nothing more than a do-over, a chance to try and actually speak with her – get a name out of her, at least; but three years later, he had to give up.
And, for his own sanity, he had to date.
Vanessa was a suitable option. She'd helped them find the closest village after the shipwreck, given them water and food; marrying their “savior” was the kind of romantic crap that went down well in history books.
She also came out of nowhere, which meant that there were no politics to consider; and she was intelligent as well as gorgeous. The bulk of his advisors approved.
“She's fond of sailing,” he pleaded on her behalf.
Some parents would have given their child a fait-accompli, but that would have been completely counterproductive. It wasn't only a wife he was after, but also a mother for Sebastian.
Vanessa apparently liked children – her CV had motioned something about volunteering with various charities on behalf of underprivileged kids.
“Dad, you don't have to try and sell it to me. Invite her, if you must; we'll she how she fairs.”
It got harder and harder each passing day to tell that the child was, in fact, only eight.
Erik often glanced down, just to make sure. He still looked like a child – thankfully – but when that mouth opened, all bets were off.
Sebastian seemed bothered by something and it wasn't hard to hazard a guess. Erik had been plagued by the same doubt: was he doing the right thing? Was it too soon? And above all, was there a chance he might find The Woman, if he’d only wait?
“You know, she might not have survived that day, right?”
They'd sank a couple of miles off shores and their various recollection of the incident suggested she'd made the journey not once, but twice. The Woman could very well currently be lying at the bottom of the ocean with the rest of the passengers of the Siren.
Sebastian just shook his head.
“Dad, don't be silly.”
Chapter 3: Choices.
Silvia bit her lip. She knew she needed to say something but now, however she presented it, she would be blamed.
Ella had run from the palace without leaving any clue as to how she could be found and Dane was getting desperate.
Knowing information about her past was weighing quite heavily on Silvia's conscience; but she really didn't want to see Dane’s expression, if she confessed to keeping it to herself in the first place.
While she was used to Sandro's disgust, contempt, disapprobation and disappointment, she'd never had to face Dane's. She would – and soon, too. No explanation was going to change what they'd believe: that she'd willfully attempted to keep him in the dark about the woman he was in love with.
The thing was, how was she to know that Cinderella had been his freaking childhood sweetheart? It wasn't her fault that he'd confessed it to Sandro and excluded her. Again.
Silvia had more knowledge – the name of Ella’s two best friends, their address, and other trivial things – but it was useless; she'd checked every lead, turned every stone herself.
Cinderella had well and truly disappeared.
Which meant that there was no harm in keeping her mouth shut while she could.
“There is no way in hell I can deserve her after what I’ve done to her,” Dane said, shoulder hunched, his head hanging low.
Silvia just snorted. Her brother might be a bit gruff and ever so slightly conceited, but he was good, to the core. He deserved everything he wanted and more.
Sandro immediately caught her gaze and narrowed his eyes. Was she ever going to get a break in this place? She wasn't allowed to freaking snort now?
She really had overstayed her welcome.
“What's her wish, again?” she asked.
Silvia recalled the gist of it, but fays loved to play words around.
“Do you really have to bring painful things up all the time, Silvia?”
It was fortunate that she and Alessandro Primerius were actually related. Otherwise, she would have murdered him, buried the body and washed away the evidences by now.
She might meddle and bring up issues when they arose, but there were two valid reasons for it.
The first one was the fact that guys were generally stupid, and a woman's touch helped most dilemmas – Chantelle might have offered her assistance, if she hadn’t been on a payroll; butting in wasn't going to keep these end of year bonuses rolling.
And the second was that when they were dealing with their pain in front of her, she ingested it all for them.
Problems had to be faced eventually; wasn't it better to sort them out around someone who could actually help?
“Yes, I must. Do you mind, Dane?”
“She said that while she hides, only those who deserve to could find her.”
Silvia did her best to hide her smile, and failed, which – of course – fed Sandro's animosity.
Whatever.
She'd surprised everyone when she'd announced her departure; she hadn't left Court for years – since her altercation with the merfolk. There was nowhere she wanted to be, save for the waters and lands her blood yearned to go back to, and they weren't an option.
This time, her trip wasn't about her, though. She headed south, riding without so much as a thought as to where she was headed.
Turned out, the experience was quite liberating; the high speed made her weightless, thoughtless, free – she could leave every single worry behind and just enjoy the humming of the engine between her legs.
It didn't hurt that she'd taken Sandro's bike without asking: he'd be absolutely livid when he found out.
The third day, she'd reached a nondescript burb when she felt like stopping – not questioning it, she did just that.
She was in front of a small cottage without much charm – the gardens had seen better days,
the door needed repainting and hell, did the owner ever put the trash out? It stank at the back.
She'd parked and had been about to walk up the driveway when the door opened in front of a knockout.
Yes, that term was usually reserved to women but if anyone had ever caused a wave of fainting spells, that was him.
It wasn't windy out, yet his soft ashblonde hair was gently swaying, as though a fan had constantly been pushing them out of his face. His eyes were dark grey and sprinkled with little diamonds inside. The very worst was the lips. There was no creature alive who wouldn't either wish to possess or to kiss these lips.
Damn. He wasn't even her cup of tea – she'd always had a thing for muscular, tanned southerners – but she'd have his babies. She'd have to call them something along the line of Pretty and Gorgeous.
There was exactly one man who had ever held a stronger hold on her libido; a stranger she hadn’t quite managed to stop dreaming about. It had been three years now, but he still popped into her fantasies here and there – more frequently than she’d care to admit.
She wondered if the knockout was going to haunt her now but the idea seemed ludicrous. Of course he wouldn't; he wasn’t him.
“You're Cinderella's fay,” she told him as he passed her by.
That caught his attention; the man turned to her, one eyebrow raised.
“I do find the antithesis somehow more accurate, but yes. What is it to you, Siren?”
Ah, defensive. The fay had a thing for the girl. What was it with her anyway? First Dane, now Mr Hot Pants!
But Cinderella was Dane's – there was nothing else to it.
When she opened her mouth, Silvia didn't talk, nor did she sing; she did the siren thing. There were no words to her sounds, but those they addressed understood them nonetheless. Often, when someone was submitted to these waves of soul shattering, earth quacking noises, they understood it was the very last thing they'd ever hear.
“Well fay,” she told him, “her absence is affecting my brother. He's rather upset, which makes me upset. Do you know what sirens do, when they are upset?”
Her melodic voice wrapped around his mind and the man fell to his knees, his spirit instantly broken.
She could have made it last, but it was a mere warning today and she knew for a fact that he would take it at face value.
Most creature on Gaia were repulsed by her race without understanding why; they'd forgotten, as there were less than ten pure Sirens left in the entire world, but that gut feeling was born of fear.
Silvia understood it: they were right to fear her. What Sandro – along with all those who had judged her for her nature – failed to grasp, was one simple fact: if she'd actually desired to cause harm, she could have, effortlessly. It was in her genes. Accusing her of trying was ridiculous.
“You're to bring her to the palace before the week is out,” she ordered, mounting back on her brother’s bike.
Her work here was done and she had a case to pack. When Ella was back, there would be no reason for her to linger where she wasn't wanted.
•
Vanessa wasn't what one would call aggressive: regardless of how the intercourse started, she always somehow managed to end up on her back. It didn't bother him, sex was sex. What was getting to him was the noises.
Fake. As. Fuck. Was he really that bad?
Attempting to make her sound like she was actually enjoying herself was the main reason why he’d tried every single position under the sun.
Today, it had been the Ape, designed to hit the right spot; he lied on his back, knees to his chest and she, sitting backward on his legs, was meant to enjoy the ride of her life as he hit the front of her vaginal walls at the depth and speed of her choosing.
She'd risen and fallen on his cock about three times, before sighing in a pitiful imitation of delight and landing on her back next to him, spreading her legs wide apart.
A shame.
The issue was, everything else worked. His advisors only had praises for her accomplishments, and although Sebastian wasn't making things in any way easy for her, she tried. She'd even offered to take him out this weekend.
Vanessa had been at the palace for three months now and Erik knew it was time to propose.
It would have seemed hurried in anyone else's case, but he was King: at the moment, she was seen as the courtesan, the mistress, and his people didn't like her for it. When she became his consort, they'd learn to accept her presence. Seb would stop sulking every time she entered the room.
Going to pick up a ring in town wasn't an option – the talk would have reached the palace before he'd made his way back – but regardless of how many times he’d looked at the royal jewelry, he hadn't found one piece that might befit her. It was too old for her. Vanessa was about the latest fashion; she wore rectangular, sharp emeralds and harsh stones.
He'd picked up his mother's ring – a princess cut sapphire, circled by a bed of diamonds – and immediately put it down. Just no.
So he'd gone online; when the ring arrived, he was going to ask.
“Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.”
Erik sighed, wondering if he could write something along the line of “shut up while I fuck you” in the prenup.
He closed his eyes and thought of the seas.
The recollection of wild, untamed waves soon brought other images to his mind.
Hers.
It may have been more of a product of his imagination than an actual memory, he’d been unconscious and close to dead when she’d brought him back to shores.
But there she was, her long wet hair falling on his skin; she brushed it away from him before plunging to his face and drawing her lips to his, to breathe in his mouth. While he appreciated the effort, it was obviously her first time: she sucked at this.
When it failed, she cursed, punched the ground and held her face in her hands to hide her tears.
But then, she turned back to him, determination written all over her features. Her hands didn’t touch his skin, but she held them out over his body, and started to sing.
Erik’s pace picked up, and he knew his thrusts were getting a bit too abrupt; there was nothing gentle in him now. That was a problem, because he wasn’t on the small side of the scale, but for once, he didn’t give a damn. He nailed Vanessa, again and again, keeping his eyes deliberately closed and doing his very best to ignore her whimpers.
They weren’t fake at all, now, but to be frank, he didn’t care. This wasn’t about her, she was just the receptacle.
“Holly shit, Erik!”
So, she liked it hard. Good for her.
He flipped her on her back without bothering to withdraw and immediately resumed his frantic rhythm, now allowing himself to take a look.
That was better. He didn’t have to see her face.
The view was quite pleasing from here: he was holding on to the hips as his length pumped in and out of her folds. Erotic, but also not entirely satisfying. The woman wasn’t very firm, or wet, come to think of it.
No matter.
He pulled out of her and pushed his length a peg higher, between her small butt cheeks. If he was going to have a dry ride, might as well make it a tight one.
He’d expected that she would need some coaxing, a slow, measured entering, but she expertly pushed as he thrust in, and he was completely lodged inside her ass in no time.
There. They’d come to an agreement, it seemed.
Chapter 4: Home.
“You want me to seal your voice,” the fay repeated, dumbfounded.
“Not permanently – I'd like some sort of an out, in case I need it back. But yes. If it's sealed in me, no one can take it, right?”
It had been three years and she still recalled the glint in Morgan's eyes when he'd spoken of her voice. Oh, how he wanted it.
The one thing true in physics, chemistry and magic, was that matter was defined and limited. Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.
There was a
specific amount of magic in the world. In the past, that amount had seemed humongous, compared to the number of thinking creatures, hence the existence of those who were the very essence of magic – those they called Gods. Then, there were fays, humans and everything in between.
When living species became so populous, they didn't lose it: they shared it. Every single human had a little piece of it, but it was so minimal that most never got in touch with it.
It was also the case with merfolks, to a lower scale: they were an older race, so they retained some skills, but the bulk of their power had been depleted generation after generation.
Silvia didn't exactly have that problem: her mother was old. As in, very, very old. She wasn't exactly sure, but there was a chance that when she said her name was Amphitrite, she'd meant that she actually was the daughter of Oceanus and wife of Poseidon.
Every now and then, she'd explained, as soon as Silvia had been old enough to understand words, people like her had to find a partner with whom they was compatible and create a child, to ensure that the world stayed balanced.
It had been fifteen years since she heard it, and Silvia still failed to get that bit, but one thing was certain: Morgan didn't want her voice because she might be a threat. He wanted to make use of it.
She couldn't tell what for, but Silvia had a funny thing against being use, so it meant that if she was to go to sea, she had to safeguard it.
“Fine,” Rumpelstilskin agreed. “But I can guarantee that you'll regret it. In exchange, you'll have to vow to never cause me harm. Deal?”
She didn't respond immediately: it seemed too easy. The fay only rolled his eyes, saying:
“An exchange isn't like a wish, siren. If I break my word, the deal is off: you'll get your voice back and with it, the ability to use it against me. You may not have had a taste of your medicine as yet, but take my word for it: I don't want to feel it ever again.”
