Free Lord of the Deep by Dawn Thompson Page B

the Pavilion,” Vega said. “It has surely gone to ruin. And if you think to take me along to put it to rights, think again. I am your valet, your horse master, your protector, and your friend—not to mention your brother, though that is best left to speculation in the minds of the masses before we start an insurrection. Nowhere in the long list of my duties do I find the word ‘slave’ mentioned anywhere. Besides, you waste your time. Judging from your last misadventure, your Megaleen could not live long beneath the waves.”
    “You saw that then?”
    “I see everything that concerns you, Simeon; that is my function.”
    “You might have intervened.”
    Vega uttered a wry chuckle. “What? And risk castration or worse at the mercy of those vicious cows? The fog of love has addled your brain.”
    “When the consorts attacked, fear broke the spell,” Simeon said. “That can be remedied. Spells can be countered….”
    “And you fancy yourself the sage to take that on, do you? The Pavilion, indeed! You need reining in now and then. I’d hoped you’d see reason. Evidently not. Now you think fleeing to that godforsaken outpost is going to spare you the consorts’ wrath? Not that lot, Simeon. You dream.”
    “I do not need your lecture; I need your help. Who will tend my sealskin? I can hardly entrust it to Megaleen.”
    Again Vega laughed. He swept his arm wide. “And for the likes of that—a woman you cannot trust—you give up all this!” he marveled.
    “You overrate ‘all this,’” Simeon seethed, avoiding the first part of the question. “I have known something in Megaleen’s arms that I have known in no others’. You call it ‘love.’ I do not know. Whatever it is, I have not ever known it before, and now that I have tasted it, I do not want to live without it, Vega. She makes my cock sing. She brings me to life in ways I never imagined possible. I have drunk her essence. Hah! You scoff at the Pavilion. I would take her to the ends of the world—to the Netherworld itself—if needs must to keep her.”
    Vega gave it thought. “I never would have expected…this,” he mused.
    “I tried to do the right thing. I took her back to the Isle. I thought in time she would forget…But then Gideon intervened, the gods rot him!”
    “The gods have already dealt with Gideon. He has fallen, but he is still what he was, at least in part, despite that he is outcast with his lesson learned too late. I pity him his lonely existence. I cannot imagine it. And you cannot fault him in this. You would have reached this mad decision without his interference. He is not your enemy.”
    Vega was right, of course. He was always right, and Simeon heaved a sigh. “I need you at the Pavilion, old friend,” he said.
    “There will be sprites and sirens aplenty to stroke your vanity and your cock, I assure you.”
    “It’s not my cock that worries me, Simeon. Yours, on the other hand…”
    “Never you mind about me. Make ready. I collect Megaleen on the Isle of Mists at midnight.”
     
    It was cold and dark in the bait shack, where Adelia had locked Meg while she went to the cottage to fetch her a fresh kirtle. Why didn’t her aunt just take her back to her loft chamber? What was the purpose of barring her inside the smelly little shack naked, in the dark…in the cold? Adelia hadn’t used the willow switch, except to prod Meg along, but the threat still lingered. Adelia wasn’t a cruel woman, just a difficult one. Meg was counting on past performances to prevail, but there was no set precedent for being caught out naked in the dead of night cavorting in the water.
    While her actions soothing herself were innocent enough, and quite therapeutic, they could have easily been construed as sexual in origin to one of Adelia’s strict sensibilities. Did she know? It was highly likely, considering her aunt’s extrasensory powers, though Meg prayed against it while she waited and listened to the squishing sound the