Page 4

W e trudged in silence up the narrow track through the trees to the cabin.

I was right.

The problem was definitely that Sayan himself had never actually learned to swim.

His ease in the water was as much a part of him as the beat of his immortal heart. To me, it was utterly foreign. Not just in terms of knowledge, either—while our bodies might look similar from the outside, we weren’t built the same.

Sayan was an ancient being, born to last the full span of Time itself.

I, on the other hand, was a man. Born to quietly wear out as the decades passed, my time in this world already set with my first breath.

I was fortunate enough to be more or less as fit and healthy as I had been in my thirties, but the flexibility of my youth was long gone.

Sayan’s flexibility, on the other hand, was a sight to behold. In my bed, it was dazzling. In the water, it was something else.

In the water, he moved like smoke, like light, as if he was one with the currents.

As if he couldn’t even imagine things like creaky knee joints, or stiff shoulders, or a neck with a crick in it from sleeping too hard in the wrong position.

Our muscles didn’t work the same.

Our buoyancy wasn’t the same.

Our willingness to be bobbing about in a frigid lake for hours on end wasn’t the same.

“Perhaps I should ask someone else to teach me,” I said as we made our way through the cheerful mix of ash, oak, birch and hazel that grew on the fringes of the old pine forest.

Sayan whirled to face me with a sound of absolute outrage.

“Let me explain,” I said.

“No!”

“I could ask Henrik Berglund to give me lessons. Or his nephew, Mikko Jonasson.”

I was confident that both men knew how to swim, having been born and raised in the small town of Laskeld that hugged the lake.

“ I will drown them if they try .”

“That’s not very polite,” I said mildly, hiding my amusement. “And you would not.”

“I would! You know I would! You have heard the stories?—”

I glanced up at him. “Those stories weren’t about you.”

Before Sayan had claimed the lake as his own, it was held by a nix, who certainly would—and did—drown many people. Enough that the memories had echoed down through the generations to this very day.

My sweet naiad didn’t have it in him to hurt a single creature alive.

Apart, I amended, from the many fish he delighted to catch and bring to me.

He scowled.

“You could be there while I took lessons,” I said.

“No. I do not wish for them to see you naked.”

“In that case, I will keep my drawers on.”

It didn’t appease him. He stopped us to skim a possessive hand from my collarbone to my groin, which he cupped. “They will still see you. You must keep all of your clothes on. Your coat and your breeches. And your boots.”

“That will make it hard to swim, don’t you think?”

He pondered this for a moment before he said with reluctance, “I do not want you to struggle.” He thought for a second more. “You must blindfold them.”

I laughed, pulling away and continuing up the path. “This feels like something of a double standard, my love.” I glanced over my shoulder.

He raised a haughty, questioning brow.

“You are always naked,” I said.

He tutted and strode after me. “They can look at me all they want. I do not care.”

“But you care if they look at me?”

“They cannot have you. They cannot . They will see you and they will want you. They will…they will try to take you.”

I heartily doubted it.

Henrik was happily married to his wife of many years, Agnetha. Mikko was single, yes, but he was a serious and kind man in his early thirties, and surely not lacking for suitors.

While I didn’t want to dismiss Sayan’s concerns—or his double standards—out of hand, I also didn’t think that either of them were in any danger of losing their hearts or their heads if they were to see me naked.

“If you are there,” I said, “no man would be able to take his eyes off you long enough to even notice me.”

He tipped his head consideringly. “You are right, of course.” He slid his hands sensually down his long torso to frame his erect shaft, and lowered his lashes. “I would make sure of it.”

“Not too sure, though. If they’re completely distracted by you, they might forget that they’re supposed to be teaching me to swim.”

He grunted.

“I will ask Mikko,” I said.

“No.”

“Very well, Henrik.”

“Not Henrik.”

“All right.” Sayan was smug until I added, “I will wait until Lars visits, and he can teach me.”

At Lars’ name, Sayan’s scowl returned.

There was no hiding my smile this time. When he saw it, Sayan scowled even harder.

“Not Lars ,” he said, the name on his lips scathing.

“Why not Lars?” I asked.

He growled low in his throat. “Because you are mine .”

I stopped and turned to face him. He kept walking until we were toe to toe, our bodies almost touching, and tilted his head down.

He was using his greater height in an attempt to dominate me.

He lifted his chin and looked down the length of his elegant nose, let his long hair swing forwards to demonstrate that he had to look down in the first place, and held his shoulders stiffly to emphasise how wide they were.

It was adorable.

I curled a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him close to bite his plump lips with a quick, loving nip.

His hips bumped forwards reflexively.

“Never doubt it,” I said.

He followed my mouth with his when I pulled away. I shot him a smile and turned back for the cabin.

He caught up with me in two long strides and took my hand, holding it tightly as we walked on. After a short silence, he said, “Very well.”

“Very well?”

He was already shaking his head. “No. Forget it. I changed my mind.”

His grip grew tighter, almost to the point of being painful. I didn’t say anything.

He heaved a big sigh and drooped a little.

“Very well,” he said again, tacking on another sigh.

I hummed inquiringly. We were almost home.

“You can…he can…”

We walked up the porch steps, still hand in hand. Sayan turned me and pushed me back against the door. His beautiful eyes bored into mine.

“Oh, Sayan,” I said, reaching up to cup his cheek. He was such an expressive creature. “There is no need for this. Lars is a friend.”

“You love him.” A large hand settled over my heart. He flexed his fingers, spreading them wide and digging them in lightly. “If I could, I would pluck him from your chest.”

I gave a shocked little laugh.

“I mean it.”

“I believe you do. Hopefully, one day you won’t. When you meet him?—”

He gave a disgusted snort.

I laughed again. “When you meet him?—”

“I do not wish to meet him.”

“That’s unfortunate, because meet him you will. As soon as he stops sending me letters five times a week and comes here himself.”

“He should stay in Hallevalt. Where he belongs.” Sayan sank his weight against me, pinning me to the door. He was mostly dry now, while my clothes still clung to my damp body. I was beginning to feel clammy. “Where he belongs, and you do not.”

I had visited Lars and Hallevalt not that long ago.

Sayan hadn’t taken the separation well.

I caught his hips and eased him back.

He frowned but he didn’t complain. Letting us in, I headed for the bathroom and a clean, dry towel. He stopped me with an arm around my waist before I got very far.

I pulled at his forearm. To my surprise, he didn’t unwind it. Instead he squeezed tighter, nosing at the back of my neck. He brushed my hair away, exposing my nape, and set his teeth to it. He scraped lightly, then licked. A slow, wet drag.

The muscles low in my abdomen tightened.

“Tell him to stay in his city,” Sayan murmured, his breath warm against my skin.

“All right,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

He purred. “It is.”

“I will simply visit him there instead.”

Sayan stiffened behind me, then whipped me around and glared. “No.”

Over the winter months he’d been sleepy, soft and gentle with drowsiness.

Perhaps—and oh, how I hated to think of it—perhaps because he usually spent the season locked beneath the ice-bound lake, lying all alone at the very bottom in a death-like hibernation.

His body still expected it, even if his heart wanted to stay with me.

As the green tide of spring had rolled slowly in from the southern lowlands, however, he’d grown more demanding in his lovemaking. His possessiveness had increased.

I couldn’t deny that I was flattered by it.

In my former life, I’d been married to my childhood sweetheart and dearest of friends, Nils.

We’d had many happy years together before I lost him to a wasting sickness.

During our marriage I’d been satisfied with him alone, but Nils had needed more and, with my blessing, he’d sought out other people and experiences.

I’d never known jealousy, either towards him or from him.

My bond with Sayan was as different from my bond with Nils as it could possibly be.

I sometimes thought that it was the very reason I’d been able to allow myself to love him.

One of the last things Nils had said before he left me forever was that I should find someone who could give me all of the things he’d never been able to.

Someone to dote on, a man who would soak up all my attention like he needed it to live.

Someone who drove me wild with passion, and wanted only me.

I’d certainly found that in my naiad.

Nils would approve.

Sayan’s possessiveness, then, was both novel and flattering. His jealousy over Lars, while also novel, was concerning rather than flattering, and it had only sharpened over our time together.

Lars and I had a brotherly bond and nothing more. I’d tried to explain this, knowing that Sayan at least had experience of siblings even if he couldn’t grasp the concept of a non-sexual friend. It hadn’t seemed to clarify anything.

I could only hope that Lars would hurry up, stop writing me letters complaining that he missed me, that the city was a barren wasteland to him now I’d abandoned him for my wild naiad and the north, that neither feast nor wine nor fucking would satisfy the hole I’d left in his life, and just visit .