Chapter Thirteen
Garlon tied the sealskin tightly around his waist, stepped up upon the rim of the well and dived in after Anya. Down, down he plummeted through blackness that rivaled the fabled Outer Darkness. A sane man would have been terrified, but Garlon considered that he’d gone mad or died long since. Convinced that he could not die twice, he swam on, expecting to meet the gods head-on at any moment.
He was a skilled swimmer, but his breath waned, and he had no idea where he was going. It was an enchanted well, after all, Analee did preside over it, and she had warned him it was fathomless. All he could think of was finding Anya, the gentle Selkie who had given him back his life. He had to believe that the gods weren’t so cruel as to take that life away from him again now, after all he’d been through.
Suddenly, the water brightened overhead. His lungs felt as if they were going to burst as he broke through the surface of choppy water that was roiling and swelling. The surf crashed toward shore beneath leaden skies and lightning streaking down. Flotsam and jetsam bobbed all around him. Crates and spars, lines, sheets and timbers struck him glancing blows as the waves carried them where they would. Even bits of bedding and clothing washed over him. The shipwreck! He had come back to the midst of the shipwreck?
Or had he truly ever left? All was naught but a delusion of his mind?
All at once soft, slender arms slipped around his neck, and a rippling cloud of coppery hair fanned out about his shoulders. It smelled of ambergris. Supple female curves, petal-soft and smooth as satin, leaned against his skin. He blinked the salty water from his eyes and stared. The last thing he saw before consciousness evaporated were the dreamy eyes, gazing into his with something akin to worship.
• ♥ •
Garlon awoke to the gentle touch of a woman’s hand. At first, he thought he was dreaming, again. But then, he focused upon the same extraordinary eyes he seen before he’d lost consciousness. She was lying beside him, her head resting upon his shoulder. For a moment, he thought it was Analee, for she was so like her. But there was something different in the eyes, something soft and serene, a wide-eyed, child-like innocence that had so melted his heart.
“Anya?” he asked.
She nodded against his shoulder.
“Why did you run from me?” he said, slipping his arm around her. Her skin was warm, and as soft as silk against his raw male roughness. “Surely you knew I wouldn’t harm you?”
Her smile trembled. “I was not running from you—never from you,” she said. “I was running from the centaur. He is the one who put me in that cage. I feared he would kill me! That is what she wanted. It would have been sacrilege for her to do it herself. I feared she’d convinced the centaur to do it for her.”
“The centaur helped me find you,” Garlon said. “I questioned his motives, but he only wanted to free you and be rid of me, so he could have Analee all to himself again.”
“I did not know that,” she said. “All I could think of was escaping those deadly arrows of his.”
He pulled her against him, trying to reassure her. “You need never return to the Otherworld again.”
“I cannot return without my skin,” she said.
“You could have taken it back while I was unconscious.” Garlon said, fingering the sleek, soft pelt tied around his middle.
“I did not want to take it back,” she said softly. “I want to stay here in your world—with you. I knew I wanted to the moment I first set eyes upon you,” she confessed.
“In the swan boat,” he recalled. “I remember your touch. I’ve never forgotten it. It has haunted me ever since.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “We met long before the swan boat. I am the cause of all your woes. I love the storms and I was swimming in the sea when your galley broke apart upon the rocks. Did you not feel me nudge you? Did you not feel me keeping you afloat?”
Garlon stared into her beautiful eyes, so full of admiration. “I did feel…something,” he said.
“You are so beautiful.” A tear formed in her eye. “I could not let you die in the water with the rest, so I took you home with me. But I didn’t have enough power to heal your arm, so I left you near the dream well for my sister to mend. I didn’t want to, but if I hadn’t, you would have died. But then, she would not give you back to your world. She wanted to keep you for herself.”
“That is now behind us.” He glanced about. They were in some sort of shelter as far as he could tell. It was unfamiliar to him, lit only by fractured beams of diffused light filtering in from above. “Where is this place?” he asked her.
“A cave” Anya told him. “There are many along the Land’s End shore. Selkies love to play about in them and sun ourselves upon the rocks on golden days. Here, we collect the gifts of the sea. Some are very beautiful, and some are very sad. The saddest would have been your poor broken body dashed against these rocks. I could not allow it. The caves flood at high tide, so we must be away by then, my lord.”
“Your sister is Analee?”
“It will be hard for you to understand, being mortal,” she responded. “The Selkie are eons old. Analee was once one. She seduced the gods to favor her with divinity. The price was sacrificing all in her that was innocent. All the love and gentleness, all the virtue, conscience and soul in her was left behind in me. It is why she hates me so. I am the reflection of all she lost. She has passion, but only the passion of the flesh. She is incapable of love. All such emotions are beneath her now. That was the price she paid to walk among the gods. She remembers how love once felt, and believe if she finds the right mate she will discover the magic again.”
“It grows late,” he said. Untying the sealskin from his waist. “Are you sure you wish to stay here with me in my world?”
“I am sure,” she said. She snatched the sleek pelt from his hand, and then flung it far into the waters. Turning she smiled, “Come my lord, they light the balefires on the high tor to keep back the night of Yule.”
“Wait,” he caught her hand. “We are—” He had started to say they were naked, that they could not join in the joyful celebration of burning the Yule log, but suddenly, they were both clothed in the most beautiful raiments. “How—”
“Magic, my lord. Shh! Just accept.” She raised up and brushed her lips against his. Taking his hand, she put something cold into the palm. “I thought you might wish this back.”
He looked down to see his golden sigil that he had tossed into the enchanted pool. He almost had the impulse to toss it into the sea, but held that in check. “This time, I think I will put it where it shall serve me best, my heart—my love.” He took up her left hand and placed the ring on her middle finger.