Seascape Read online

  She shuddered gently, her emotions turning from keen interest to lust without her even thinking about the issue.

  Her hands moved up to lock onto his wrists and pulled his hands forward until they were almost touching her breasts.

  She groaned at the contact, lost in the hot water and his steamy touch.

  “Elanna,” he said quietly, shifting her forward a bit so that he could slip into the water behind her. “Do you have any idea what you are doing to me?”

  “I am saving you,” she purred, delighted at the contact. She shuddered at the unfamiliar feel of his lower body nestling against hers.

  “You are turning me inside out,” he said as his hands moved back to her shoulders to play with the foam that had begun to slip across her body.

  She trembled at the feel, arching into Storm and pulling his hand back around her so that she was enveloped in his arms, covered by his sea scent, nestled in the safety he offered.

  He moaned, finally voicing his desires as his hand slipped down that extra inch to finally cup her foam-slicked breasts.

  “Storm!” Elanna all but sang as thunder boomed within her body! Never had another’s touch on her breasts shaken her so.

  Her hands snaked down around behind her to grip his waist and pull herself closer to that mysterious bulge between them.

  “Elanna,” he hissed as he felt her hands slide around him, her move arch forward to explore him, felt his slit begin to part and her hand touching…

  “What are you doing?” A voice shrieked as a splash announced an intruder into his oasis of pleasure.

  Elanna jumped, her hand moving away from the intriguing orifice while his slit clamped closed, tight as a drum, trapping the bulge within.

  “Amadala,” Storm growled, a sudden wind blowing in the chamber. “What do you want?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Can I go to sleep now?”

  “Just a little longer.”

  “But I am so tired now!”

  “Just a little longer.”

  “And I am hungry.”

  “Just a little longer!”

  Storm sighed as Elanna sagged in his arms.

  It had been an hour since Amadala intruded in on their private moment, and Storm vacillated between anger, relief, amazement, and annoyance.

  “What are you doing with her?” Amadala shrieked, her skin melting into some strange pale red that almost matched her hair and eyes. “You can’t be serious, Storm! She’s a human! A human! You don’t know where she’s been!”

  “Yeah?” Elanna retorted, eyes shining like two dark moons of fury. “Well, at least I don’t smell like fish!”

  “Fish!” Amadala hissed as she narrowed her eyes at Elanna.

  Elanna prepared herself to leap at the Merwoman, ready to pull her hair from her head and rip out her eyes. Well, at least that’s what she wanted to do.

  “If the flounder fits!” Elanna hissed right back, readying herself for action, her Storm-lust turning into bloodlust.

  “Amadala!” Storm called as he wrapped his arms around Elanna, holding her back from attack, and realizing how strong she actually was. “You have no business here!”

  “But I do!” she cheerfully called out. “The four council members are here to approve your bride!”

  “What?”

  Storm went as still as death, and strangely, the water in the room did too.

  “I… Uh, I…” Amadala stammered as she suddenly mentally cursed herself for drawing the council in. She had misjudged that situation, overplayed her hand for emotional reasons, and now she had to accept the consequences.

  “You called that hell-spawned four to me? To judge the woman I have chosen?”

  He hunched his shoulders as his eyes began to swirl and glow. He pinned Amadala to the spot with the intensity of his stare, glancing straight into her soul, and finding it lacking.

  “I… It is tradition!” she tried to argue, but the winds began to blow softly, swirling around the room. Oddly still waters began to glisten with the rage illuminating his eyes.

  “Again, you expect me to put a woman I want under their castigation?”

  He slowly released Elanna and shoved her behind him. He was losing himself in his growing rage, but he knew enough to protect his woman.

  “They… I…”

  “Silence!” he roared suddenly, his loud booming voice just as terrifying as his silent hiss. “You overstep yourself, female!” he growled as he leaned over the lip of the crevasse like some great colorful, poisonous viper.

  “I…”

  “Remember, Amadala! You rule in my stead! If I so chose, I will bring this kingdom to its knees and hold you responsible for beginning the end!”

  “Storm,” Amadala pleaded, holding her hands out in supplication. Storm was losing himself in the past, in his memories, and that was dangerous.

  “And yet you bring those whom I despise more than anything else in this ocean, to my caves to assess my woman? For that you must pay!”

  Suddenly a quiet rumbling was heard, a noise so low and terrifying that Elanna was knocked out of her fury and into sudden fear.

  “Storm? What are you doing?” Amadala asked, fright making her voice tight. Her eyes widened as she gazed imploringly at him, then around the room, finally on Elanna. “What is happening?”

  There was a sudden wet whoosh, the sound of a waterfall roaring its power, of lightning striking the sea, of an underwater volcano erupting! But instead of liquid hot magma, a swirling, turning funnel of pure-white, rough water exploded underneath Amadala, catching her in its grasp, spinning her, twisting her, flipping her until the pink of her flesh had totally disappeared inside this cone of fury!

  Frightened almost beyond comprehension, Amadala tried to scream as she felt her body being tossed around and bounced off of an impenetrable wall of water!

  She grunted and shrieked as she felt her scales, her beautiful iridescent scales, being torn from her body, the rough fingers of water tearing at her hair, the awesome pressure that made her eyes feel as if they would pop from her very head.

  With a last desperate gasp of air, she sent out a silent signal to the only person who could help her, the first person who popped into her mind as she felt the seas turn against her.

  “Sting!” she chirped on a sound wave, sure that he would arrive in time to see her dying at the hands of the man whom she had befriended so many years before.

  “Amadala!” Sting called as he erupted into hell!

  He had been waiting in another nearby cavern, finalizing his plans for his mating on the morrow, when he had hear that short, frightened squeak, his name being called out in pain and fear! Almost instantly he recognized the voice as Amadala’s and knew that she had finally pushed the Child of Triton too far!

  But he never expected this!

  Storm was a true Child of Triton, controlling the seas with a mere thought, and now these thoughts would kill his chosen mate if he did not act!

  “Storm!” he bellowed, falling into a fighting stance while trying to garner the enraged man’s attention.

  “Away with you!” Storm hissed as he pushed Elanna farther back behind him and concentrated on the battle position the other Merman took, arms extended so that the deadly arm fins shone brightly in the artificial light.

  “She is my woman!” he argued, one hand reaching for his eye patch.

  “She will be the death of mine!” Storm bellowed.

  Never had he felt so out of control! One moment he was cuddly and frisky in his woman’s arms, amazed that he could still feel this way, and fearful of what this growing love would do to him! Anger that she was dying, that he could not help her, that he had so short a time with her.

  Then Amadala brought in the council!

  Those murderous sharks would never lay a hand on Elanna, would never putrefy her air with their presence!

  “Don’t make me hurt you!” Sting said with true regret! He realized that Storm, though hiding it well, had b
een pushed to his emotional limit, thanks to Amadala’s final plan. Never had a strategy so backfired.

  “Try!” Storm hissed.

  Then moving quickly to catch him off guard, Sting ripped off his shell eye-patch, his one hidden eye glittering and exploding in a rainbow of color. Raising one hand, he sought to lift Storm from the crevasse, thereby breaking his concentration and ending this nightmare.

  But Storm was a well-trained Triton.

  He easily increased the pressure around the stone bowl, increasing the wind so much that Sting’s power was useless.

  Hissing, Sting extended his arm and tensed!

  Two very sharp needles exploded from his arm fins, flying towards a non-vital part of Storm’s body.

  But these halted inches from his skin to melt into the water!

  “The Creator help me,” Sting whispered. “I don’t want to kill you!”

  He had a few more weapons at his disposal, but they would prove fatal if Storm let his guard drop, and he didn’t want to see the other man dead, his blood on his hands because of the actions of his woman!

  The whistling of the wind grew, the pressure built, and Sting knew that he had to make a decision between Amadala and Storm.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered as he raised his arm, his choice made, and focused his rainbow-hued eye on his arm fin.

  The end would be quick.

  He closed his eyes and then…

  “Storm, stop it!”

  It was Elanna’s voice.

  Elanna stood back and watched in amazement as the mild and long-suffering man she knew suddenly became a beast of Clive Barkerian proportions.

  She watched as a funnel of water swallowed up Amadala, and as Sting tried to stop him, her anger quickly melted away to concern.

  She couldn’t let Storm live with these deaths on his conscience. She was here to save him, so damn it, she would save him. If only from himself.

  “Storm!” she called again, and was rewarded when he turned in her direction.

  “Elanna,” he hissed. “They will not murder you, too!”

  “I know!” Elanna soothed as she stepped nearer.

  She reached out one trembling hand to caress his face. She was not afraid that he would hurt her. Storm would die before hurting her. This she knew in her heart.

  “I know because you are here to protect me.”

  She caressed his face, felt the unnatural cold, felt his body shiver at the warmth of her touch and moved closer.

  “I didn’t protect her enough!” he said quietly, the swirling of his eyes lessening.

  “You protected her the best you could,” Elanna improvised, not knowing who or what he was speaking of. “I know you will protect me.”

  The wind began to die back, though the funnel still spun, but slower so that a glimpse of pink could now be seen.

  “I’ll protect you,” he vowed as he let go of the edge of the stone and clasped her hands to his face. “If it is the last thing I do!”

  Just as quickly, Storm closed his eyes and the funnel abruptly collapsed.

  It was almost anticlimactic.

  “Thank you,” Sting said, having opened his eyes when Elanna had begun to speak.

  He slowly tied his patch around his eye as he stared at Elanna, cradling Storm’s body in her arms.

  The Child of Triton seemed to be wracked with shivers, emotional as well as physical.

  “I didn’t do it for her,” Elanna said with quiet dignity. “She’s an interfering, nosy bitch!”

  “Nevertheless, she is my bitch,” Sting sighed as he dove deep to find Amadala. He knew she was alive, because he could hear her frightened whimpers.

  Surely she had no equilibrium by now, and the fish she had consumed earlier would, by now, be feeding the fish.

  He shuddered at the thought, but dove after his maiden…fair?

  * * * * *

  Several hours later, Elanna had been scrubbed and primped enough to make her forget that she had ever longed for a full day at the health spa.

  As soon as Storm recovered himself, he sent a message to the council, his words terse and clear.

  Stay away!

  Then he proceeded to briskly wash Elanna’s body, rather impersonally.

  She groaned as she recalled she had ever desired her Fish Boy! He rushed through the cleansing, their earlier intimacies vanished along with Amadala’s pretty pink scales.

  Well, actually, a few of her scales were still floating in that chamber, but the point was moot.

  Now she sat on a stone outcrop, a finger actually—well, scientifically, an archipelago. She was waiting for the Life Binder, the Merman who would join her with Storm for the rest of her short life.

  Now she was so miserable, she wanted to cry.

  “I want to get this over with!” she whispered, and again Storm smiled at her with overly calm eyes and a steady demeanor.

  “Soon,” he whispered, just as a green-haired man emerged from the water carrying a rather large knife.

  “Storm?” she asked as the man made to approach them. “He has a sharp instrument!”

  “Relax, “ he whispered back. “It will all be over soon.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  For the first time since being diagnosed with death that she could recall, Elanna’s life flashed before her eyes. Oh, all of the things that she wanted to do, that she never got the chance to do, she could still do if that man wasn’t approaching her with that big assed knife!

  “Storm,” she hissed, gripping his hair as his head rested near her thigh as he treaded water beside her. “I would prefer having the powder kill me than having a knife make an intimate acquaintance with some major organ.”

  Storm looked up at her and blinked once.

  “That man!” she finally screamed, pointing with her free hand. “He has a knife, Storm! And a big one to boot! No marriage I have ever heard of required a knife! A broomstick maybe, but you don’t have feet so it’s a moot point!”

  “Oww!” Storm groaned as he glared up at her.

  “Oww! Oww?” She gave his hair another tug, easily moving his body with the buoyancy of the water as she pointed. “He has a knife and you are complaining? Storm, do something!”

  Reaching up and gingerly untangling her hand, and a few strands of his hair along with it from his head, he looked up at her as he rubbed his suddenly aching scalp.

  “Female, you have problems!”

  “I don’t have problems!” she nearly screeched as her gaze flew to the man with the knife approaching her and her future husband…mate! “I have issues, boggles, and dilemmas! And the major one is holding a knife! Storm!”

  She wailed the last as the knife-wielding man stopped in front of them.

  Sliding back as far as she could go on her stone seat, and that wasn’t far, she nearly lifted Storm out of the water in an effort to guard herself. Hey, she was brave, but even bravery had its limits. Storm was a Merperson; he could handle the man! Besides, he could make underwater funnels! He was better equipped!

  Rolling his eyes at her, Storm managed to move far enough away from her to extend his forearm.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed as she tried to pull his arm back, and having no success at it! Maybe he was still kind of mental, she thought, remembering his earlier episode. “You put your arm down now, mister!”

  “Are you sure,” the armed and dangerous man said, looking from Elanna to Storm, “you want to mate with this creature? Your offspring may prove to be…unstable.”

  “Unstable!” Elanna suddenly let go of Storm’s arm to glare at the man, never noticing that Storm almost went face forward into the drink as she released him. “Who you calling unstable, you jolly green…fish!”

  “Female,” he started, pulling himself up with great dignity and brandishing the knife like a pointer towards her body. “I’ll have you know I am the Life Binder, the one who shall perform ceremonies, both mystical and esoteric, to unite the two of you in…”

  “Bla
h, blah, blah!” Elanna cut him off, her fear swallowed up by her sudden indignation. Who did he think he was speaking to? She was Dr. Elanna Richfield! She was the foremost authority in oncology research and inventor of the…the… Damn! She forgot!

  “Blah, blah, blah?” the green-haired man said, looking at Elanna as if she were a creature under a microscope. “Blah, blah, blah? What is this blah, blah, blah?”

  “What is a broomstick?” Storm asked, finally pulling himself upright and smoothing down his hair.

  “It’s a stick, with a broom on the end of it.”

  The men just stared.

  “It’s a thingy, used to clean floors.”

  They glared at her.

  “Never mind! What are you going to do with his arm and that knife?”

  “I am going to unite you both in a holy binding state. You shall become one flesh, one being, one…”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Elanna closed her eyes, shook her head and waved her arms in front of him, sending him to a stuttering halt. “You are not cutting me with that thing.”

  “Oh, yes, I will!”

  “Oh, no, you won’t!

  “Why not?”

  “It’ll hurt! That’s why not!”

  Storm watched Elanna, this defiant Elanna, and fought the urge to laugh. This was funny, very funny!

  “What’s a little pain compared with the sanctity of life?”

  “A big deal, if you ask me!” she returned. “Life was not meant to be lived in pain! If it were, why would we hope for the better? I like a pain-free life, my friend. Circumstances and environments give us enough pain.”

  “Interesting philosophy,” the Life Binder said thoughtfully, tapping the blade of his knife against his lower lip.

  “Oh, there’s more,” Elanna said, moving out of her corner of the seat and getting closer to the green-haired man. “You see, life is ultimately meant to be enjoyed. That is why we were created with the capacity to enjoy it! Our senses, for instance. They give us a constant barrage of pleasurable stimuli. Our brain releases endorphins to mask pain and to heighten pleasure. Even the natural things around us provide pleasurable stimuli for our sense of sight. So why make pain? Pleasure is so much more civilized and enjoyable for all.”