Torun awoke to his Lucy’s soft hands stroking his abdomen. Her brown eyes were focused on his hardening cock. Her gaze flew to his face. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

This was his beautiful wife, in his arms, sharing herself with him. “It is an awakening I have waited for my whole life.”

Her smile softened. “Me too.”

“Then, continue.”

Her fingers curled around his hard cock. She stroked.

Lucy.

He slipped a hand between her sweet, succulent folds. She was slick for him. He pressed his fingers into her. Her eyes unfocused and her lips parted. She moaned.

An invitation he could not refuse.

He fitted his cock to her and entered her in one fluid stroke. She arched her hips and wrapped her legs around his buttocks. This was the way to greet every period of wakefulness. Husband to wife. He thrust, matching his rhythm to her moans. She escalated and gripped his ass. He felt her tip over the edge and explode with beautiful light, sucking him over with her a thrust later. His seed poured deep into her womb. She held him so close.

He stroked her flowing brown hair as their heartbeats returned to normal. He provided her with a castle, with a house guardian, with anything her heart desired. Surely she would be happy here, like this, with him, forever.

Her stomach growled.

She laughed with embarrassment. “I guess I’m hungry.”

He disentangled. “Let me feed you.”

“Now we’re talking. I’ll never let you go.” Her smile faded as soon as the words were out and her eyes took on a hunted cast.

She still feared the Life Tree would reject her. That Torun would reject her. He needed to ease her fears.

“We will collect the Life Tree blossom today,” he said.

Her expression froze. He took her hand reassuringly. “It will have blossomed, Lucy.”

“Oh, I know.” She tried and failed to laugh. “Let’s check later. Okay? That blossom’s not going anywhere. Right?”

At her request, he led his queen through her castle, spreading her radiant blessing across the courtyard, passages, and chambers.

Yes, she did this to delay visiting the Life Tree.

That was fine. Her castle responded to her inner glow. Lucy and Torun had joined together and united their souls. Her own bright burning light now resonated even more clearly to the gardens and creatures that lived within the walls. Even the walls themselves bent to her presence, absorbing her radiance and gleaming.

Had a castle always responded to its queen like this? He could not remember it with the last bride. The celebration, vibrance, and life had faded from his memory.

Lucy burned a new memory into his soul.

Bringing her had been right. Just. No matter what the Council said.

They visited the house seed. She approached reverently, as before, and caressed it. She glanced at him, blushed, and tilted away to whisper something for only the seed to hear. He heard it too, though.

I hope your tree healed me. I want to stay.

His heart thumped hard in his chest. He leaned against the doorway, struggling to control his feelings.

She would stay. No one would take her from him.

His mission until now had been only to bring her to his castle and make her his queen. Now he had accomplished it.

Once she carried his young fry, the Council would be forced to let her stay. By the time she birthed his son, he would have convinced them that she was the future for their city. She chose this life of her own will, and would not leave him or their young fry.

“Of course I won’t leave you.” She left the seed on its small dais and bounced over, snuggled against him, and traced her fingers across his wide abdomen. “Stay or go, we’ll do it together. Right? So, how about breakfast?” She patted her rumbling stomach.

He followed her to the pantry, absently helping her tidy as they swam the canals and corridors in between.

How odd. He had never considered leaving permanently. He had refused to leave Sireno for Atlantis. This castle was his family home. Yet, the idea of leaving with her did not repel him.

As they approached the pantry, the house guardian bolted from his hole and twirled around the chamber.

“Lassie!” She giggled at his antics.

The pleased house guardian spun like a parasol. The entire room glimmered a deeper, healing green.

This was his family castle, and the city of his blood, and the house guardian of his ancestors. Torun cared for it as any steward. Pride pushed him to remain. They were his responsibility, one he had neglected far too long as he sought a female to repair the deeper problems and bring them all, himself included, more to life.

So long as he had Lucy, however, he could go anywhere. Onto her boat, or onto the land, or anywhere in between.

“We’d always come back,” she assured him and plopped her gathered garden greens onto the cleared eating area in the cozy pantry.

The house guardian examined the greens with tentacle-curling skepticism and then pouted.

“Go do your job,” Torun told Lassie, shooing him from the eating area. “Catch parasites and spider crabs.”

“You don’t eat crabs?” she asked, crunching the vegetables.

“No more than you eat spiders.”

“Ugh. But crabs are delicious. Especially boiled and slathered in butter.”

“I will take your word for it.”

“No way! We’ll go crabbing sometime and I’ll get some for you. Fresh is the best. Oh my god, you’ve never had anything so good. Lassie!”

The house guardian snatched a small crab hiding in the harvested greens and passed it into its beak.

“Hey, that was Torun’s!”

The house guardian scurried away with what seemed like a smirk on his face. Lucy paddled after it on her human feet, demanding the crab be regurgitated.

Torun couldn’t stop the smile from plastering across his face for the rest of the meal, or the welling of deep satisfaction in his body.

The previous meal, their wedding feast, Torun had been nervous and eager. This meal was more relaxed and filled with happiness. Perhaps it was the best meal of his life. Better even than the one he had shared with his father after passing his adult trials and earning his place with the other warriors. This meal was better because Lucy had made his castle a home.

His father had not lived to see him become a highly respected warlord. Now, he would never meet Lucy or see Torun’s future young fry. But his father would have been proud to welcome her as queen.

After Lucy gave up chasing the house guardian, they finished their meal peacefully. She determined to clean up the castle.

He installed her in an outside-facing chamber. The Life Tree tinkled in the distance. It called to him with an unstoppable siren.

“I will go to the Life Tree,” he told her. “Remain here until I return.”

She stopped sorting and dusting off his family’s armor and bent tridents, historic pieces deemed too useless to be confiscated after his last punishment. “Don’t I have to go with you?”

“I will confirm there is a blossom and then we will go together.”

She frowned.

Other warriors may have returned while they slept. He couldn’t tell; the waters were quiet. Better to risk himself twice than Lucy once. His gut tightened. Any outcome was better than risking Lucy.

“You do think there might not be one?” she queried, concern setting in and dampening her light.

Ah. He drew her to him. “Brighten your light, please. Now we are united. I feel your doubt as a dampening of mine.”

She gasped and her light immediately brightened in concern. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“That is better.”

He stroked her, taking comfort from her smooth skin. Under the water was slicker than in the air, but it was still all her, and his desire pulsed. How soon until he could return and take her in the chamber, in their safe, protected place?

“I will bring news of the blossom to you.”

Doubt dimmed her again. “We really should go together.”

“It is safer here.”

She retreated to study him. “What’s the game? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I play no game,” he said. “You think I have changed my mind, and believe the Life Tree has not blossomed, and that I intend for you to leave here without drinking the pure elixir. But the opposite is true. I am afraid someone may see you and force you away from me.”

“But they wanted a bride. I’m here. I’m a bride.”

“They fear any bride who is not of the sacred island. Some claim a modern woman could break the Life Tree and destroy us all.”

“Break the Life Tree?” She gazed out the window at the giant, sturdy, eternal tree as old as the city itself. “I didn’t exactly bring a chainsaw.”

“Breaking the covenant with the sacred island brides could destroy us all. If the Life Tree fails, then we share its blood in our veins, and so we all die.”