Chapter Fifteen
Chapter 15
P ulled with great force into the depths by the heavy boulder, Kelyn focused his intent on the rope in hopes of severing it with sheer strength. Ah! He had no sigils to access his former strength. Water rushed into his mouth, nose and ears. The only way out of this was to swim to the boulder and shimmy the rope from around it.
And that would prove much harder than expected as the flap of a mermaid’s tail brushed his cheek and his ichor spilled out into the water.
* * *
Valor ran from the Jeep toward the ledge. She’d heard the crushing sound of rock breaking. And the abruptly muffled yelp of one very soaked and defeated faery. She stopped where the granite had broken and crumbled into the sea, stepping back to avoid the loose shards. She should have untied Kelyn immediately. Fool!
Kneeling at the rough stone edge, she studied the green water. The surface was remarkably smooth and calm. He must be quite far down already. She wasn’t sure if faeries could breathe underwater as vampires could. Would he be able to release himself from the harness? She slapped a hand to her pocket and palmed the blade. It would serve no good in her hand.
What could she do to help? She was no swimmer. And she did not practice water magic. Her expertise was air magic.
“Maybe...” Air could be used as a tool.
Standing, she planted her feet squarely and bowed her head to focus her energies. Spreading out her fingers, she slowly raised her arms as she chanted a powerful spell to summon the wind from within the nearby forest. And to harvest the misting rain with that wind. Focusing her vita out through her fingers, she channeled the air elements. Lifting her arms high, she dashed her hands in a swirl that plucked out a tail from the air, collected the rain and swirled it into a tornadic spin of energized magic.
The tornado spun above the water, faster and faster, until the force of it began to open up the waters as if drilling down into rock. And when a column of open water had formed within the sea, Valor sent the tornado down, spinning, spiraling, mining deep, until she felt it connect with the boulder. Like a suctioned tentacle, the end of the tornado grasped the boulder and she commanded it to rise.
Water splashed up over her body as the wind tunnel carried the rock high into the air. And in the next moment, Kelyn stepped onto the broken granite ledge beside her, dropping the frayed rope that tailed behind the boulder.
With a sweep of her hand, she sent the boulder off into the sea and dismissed the tornado. A heavy fall of water that had been corralled into her weapon now released and beat upon their heads. Kelyn’s knees buckled. He collapsed and splayed onto the stone.
And then all grew calm. Even the sky seemed to suddenly brighten, thanks to a thread of lingering sunlight. Valor looked over Kelyn’s body; ichor covered his face and had started to puddle below his head.
“Dr. Bombay, this is not good!”
She dropped to her knees beside him and pressed an ear to his chest. She didn’t feel his chest rise. That couldn’t be right. He’d stood next to her, had even smiled. He couldn’t be dead. Closer inspection saw the cuts on his face, from which all his ichor flowed. Had he lost too much? The man must have battled with the mermaid within the depths.
Talk about a fickle kisser.
Frantic, Valor clutched her hands before her as she scanned Kelyn’s inanimate body. The charms at his neck were still there, the mouse alicorn and the—whatever the thing was that only the Wicked could use. Did it connect him to something? She reached to touch the black circle, but then did not. Now was no time to get curious.
But how to help him? Her healing magic wasn’t able to bring back life, not even lure life to remain in a dying body. She could fix boo-boos and even mend the occasional broken bone. But how to give a man back his breath?
“CPR,” she muttered. “Yes, how did that go?”
Years ago Mireio had convinced Valor to attend a CPR course with her. Said it would be a good skill to learn if it was ever needed at the brewery for a customer. Because they certainly couldn’t whip out the healing magic with a crowd of humans observing.
Pressing her palms over Kelyn’s chest, she pumped once. Then again. Then a few times more rapidly. Bowing over his head, she tilted it back and, clamping her fingers over his nose, breathed into his mouth. Once, twice. Listened for breath. She repeated the sequence over and over, crying out to all the television doctors she had a habit of invoking when life pissed her off or challenged her.
“By all the TV doctors and Dr. Bombay, I will save him. I can’t lose him. Not this guy. He’s the nicest man I know.”
He was the only man who’d ever given her a chance when she least deserved one.
Placing a palm over her other hand, she compressed his chest a few pulses. And this time, when she breathed into his mouth, she invoked all her powers of air magic and infused his system with her vita, her life. Conjuring a violet essence of vitality, she breathed that into him, blessed air that had originated from the universe, representing centuries and millennia of existence. Everyone breathed and walked in the life-giving elixir.
Gasping, Valor pressed her hands to Kelyn’s chest again. This time when she pumped, her wrists weakened and her palms slipped from his wet chest. She was growing weak. Had expended too much magic. And...
“No, gotta keep going.” Another breath escaped from her exhausted lungs. Valor lingered at Kelyn’s mouth, her lips brushing his. “Please...”
A seabird soared overhead, cawing out a mournful cry. Rain spattered his eyelids, and Valor thought maybe she saw one of them wriggle...
Kelyn choked up water. His body jerked and pulsed upon the wet stone. He groaned and with a choking contortion, rolled and spat out more water to the side. “Oh...scales.”
“Oh, yes, thank you!” Pulling him to lie on his back, Valor hugged him across the chest. His fingers grasped at her wet hair, but he didn’t move much more than that. “You’re alive. I’m so happy. I thought... No, I knew you’d survive. Blessed be!”
“Valor,” he said as if in a prayer. “I’m not dead.”
“No, you’re not. You’re lucky I remembered CPR. That came in handy more than I ever expected it would.”
“You gave me your...breath.”
She shrugged. “It was the least I could do. But know this. That is the last time I let you kiss a mermaid, buddy.”
His chest bucked as he laughed and then the faery wrapped his arms across her back and hugged her tightly to him. “No more mermaids. Promise.”
* * *
Eyes closed, Kelyn lay on the wet, cold stone for a long time. The misty rain continued, and he didn’t care. He’d gone beyond soaked. So long as he was not strapped to a big rock and tossed in the ocean again? He was good.
Valor’s heat snugged his side. She hadn’t said a thing after he closed his eyes. She understood he needed to restore, get back his meager strength and process what had occurred. He’d been dragged to the depths—so close to death—yet he knew Valor’s air magic was what had brought him to the surface.
As well, the air from her lungs had ensured he did not die. She had literally given him a kiss of life.
He also sensed that such rescue had fatigued her. Magic extracted a price each time it was used.
But they’d done it. And now elation surged through him as if it were an electric current. He clasped Valor’s hand and kissed it.
“You’re amazing,” she said. They both lay on the granite outcrop, looking up at the gray sky streaked with silver clouds and stitched with the flight of a dark bird soaring beneath the clouds. The moon held reign above the tree line somewhere behind them. “You feeling any better?”
“I am.” He rolled onto his stomach and peered into Valor’s eyes. Her hair was wet and looked like violet silk. He felt like a soggy piece of seaweed, but that didn’t lessen his attraction to the witch’s soft, parted lips. “I feel revitalized, actually.”
She nodded. “The whole elation-following-death thing?”
“That’s a thing?”
“Apparently. Guy gets close enough to kiss death. He survives. He embraces life with gusto.”
“If by embracing life you mean this...” He stroked his fingers down her neck to her breast above where the soaked fabric highlighted her tight nipple. “Then I’m in.”
She tilted her head to eye him. Moonlight glinted in her big beautiful browns. “You think so?”
He leaned over to kiss the hollow curving at the base of her throat. She swallowed against his lips. Tasting of the sea and air, she felt warmer than fire. The need to devour her so that he could feed the energy that had been taken from him was strong.
“I want you,” he said softly, and tugged at her shirt with his teeth.
“Yes. I want you, too. Right now. Here, at the edge of the world.” The witch pulled him down for a kiss.
Kisses salted with their fear and a new dose of accomplishment, they greedily took from each other. Kelyn peeled off her wet T-shirt and unbuttoned his jeans. The denim was soaked, but he managed to shove them over his hips. Valor pushed his chest and he rolled to his back. She straddled him and bent to kiss his chest, nipping at his skin and nipples as she did so. The erotic sensation and the sudden rush to grasp pleasure rocketed all feeling to his cock. He sat up, and she slid her legs about his hips. His hands clutched at her hips, then at her breasts and then her hair as he frantically sought to touch all of her, know every part of her.
Then he decided now was not the time for a thorough and detailed exploration of her body. Right now he simply wanted.
“I want to be inside you,” he said. “Can we do that?”
“Yes.” She shuffled off her boots and pants, then knelt before him, naked. A wet witch had never looked more appealing. “Let’s take life and crush it between us.”
“Now, that sounds worth the dive.”
So he dived for her, gently laying her down on the granite. His heavy erection landed in the soft nest of her curls and he groaned at the sweet, tickling sensation. She wrapped her thighs about his hips and ground her mons against him. He wasn’t going to take his time. Already his body trembled in anticipation of release.
“Come inside me,” she whispered urgently, reaching for his cock.
Ah, that firm grasp was what he needed right now. Bowing his head to her breast, Kelyn licked at the tiny swell as, with her guidance, he glided between her legs and inside her tight, squeezing heat. She might have whispered a doctor’s name; it might have been some other name entirely. Didn’t matter. He felt much the same. This was bliss.
She wrapped about him, embraced him, consumed him. And he didn’t ever want to rise from such a place. Pumping slowly within her, he drowned a second time, only this time he enjoyed every gasping breath of it.
Her fingernails dug into his back. The pain sweetened everything and he thrust faster, seeking oblivion.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Do it. Fly us both into the stratosphere. Oh, I’m so close, Kelyn. Faster!”
Being told what to do by a woman had never felt more right. Kelyn crushed himself into her, against her, about her. They crushed life together. Let the mermaids wail in jealousy, he’d chosen the woman he desired. And with a few more thrusts, they came together on the granite ledge overlooking a dangerous sea that he had taken on and defeated.
* * *
The rain picked up, forcing them to seek a different, less exposed, place for their sexual antics. The granite ledge was fine, but it was growing slick and cold. Welsh summers were never tropical.
Tugging up his jeans so he could walk, Kelyn hoisted Valor over his shoulder and bent as she gathered their remaining soaked clothing into her hands. He raced back to the Jeep, confident they had this little cove by the sea to themselves, but not caring right now if anyone had spied their naked gyrations.
The Jeep was open, though it did have a roof. Still, the rain had blown diagonally for a while and much of the vehicle was wet inside. He set her down and Valor began to sort through their clothes. Kelyn dipped his head to kiss her on the neck. She giggled, and that giggle ended in a snort.
“I love that laugh!” He picked her up and she wrapped her legs about his hips. Leaning her against the side of the vehicle, he bowed to lick her rain-slick ichor-bedazzled skin. “I also love the taste of a wet witch.”
“Oh, yeah? I can take that so many ways.”
“This is the way I meant it.”
Opening the back door, he laid her inside on the seat, but kept hold of her legs to pull her to the edge of the seat before she could sit up. He stretched out a leg and didn’t quite kneel on the ground to get a good position. Valor hiked up one foot onto the open door top, the other she put on his shoulder. Dashing his tongue along the inside of her thigh, he licked away the rain and ventured higher, seeking the treat he desired to taste.
She squirmed but didn’t push him away. Instead she scrunched her fingers through his wet hair. Everything was wet. The car, the dirt squishing between his fingers, her skin and, mmm...right there.
“Oh, Kelyn, yes. Just a little lower. And to the left.”
He smiled against her thigh and kissed her there quickly. He appreciated a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to tell him how to get her there. And since his navigation skills had been lacking of late...
He suckled her swollen nub, tasting it, luxuriating in the moans and rocking hips that resulted from his intense ministrations. And that was the thing that sent the witch reeling. Now, with both feet hooked at his shoulders, she used the leverage to tilt up her hips. He followed her demanding movements, tending that sensitive spot with as much focus as she deserved.
She muttered another doctor’s name. Should he be jealous? No. The crazy witch.
And when she cried out a triumphant “Yes!” that was followed by a quick, gasping “Inside me now, faery!” he popped up his head and flashed her a wink.
As the witch wished.
Kelyn stood and shoved down his wet jeans. His hard-on stood at full mast, ready to please. Grabbing one of her legs to pull her closer, he guided himself inside the hot, groaning witch. The wicked tightness of her, and her heat—she was molten—lured him to the edge, where he met her in an orgasm that surely the mermaids would be jealous of for their shouts of ecstasy.