I will not do that, Ariel thought. I would rather succumb to this burning desire, use mervoice to have her, give up the cure, give up my life rather than become anything like that evil, twisted bottom feeder.

  Her blood pounded in her veins, swelling her tender flesh and flushing her skin.

  I am lost in this fire, with no hope of its easing. I can no longer hear any dream song except hers, which twines with such hunger and despair that I don’t want to listen. It begins to match my own song, as if we sing different parts of the same tune. The song will not end and no amount of singing or listening will stop it. My prison is hers is mine.

  Chapter 10

  Darkness came swiftly and with it a deepening of the chill. The country road had not yet led to civilization, though she could feel its pulse over the next set of wind-brushed hills. Her feet turned away, still seeking Erica in the rolling coastal landscape.

  She had selected the left-hand route at a fork in the road several miles back. The increasing dark was not a problem—mer vision had its uses, even out of water. She was still startled, however, when her path rounded a curve and was completely blocked by a wide golden gate. It was obviously electronically locked and secure, though still decorative. The narrow bars were wide enough to peer through, but only a cat could have slipped past. She could see no house or lodgings beyond the curving drive, but Erica was there, somewhere.

  The drive was gravel, but marked by clumps of weeds. What she could see of the gardens was unexpectedly wild. Bushes looked as if they had once been clipped and manicured, but more recently left to grow freely.

  There was no sign or street number, just a telephone box she presumed would announce her presence to the occupants of whatever remote manor lay out of sight. She could not speak so that was useless to her. She could probably entice the gates to open but humans and mer alike did not care for unwanted guests. Perhaps that was not a bad idea, she thought. If she could get arrested, she would be prevented by force from being with Erica.

  There might be a time when she was desperate enough to try that, but she had to at least see Erica first. She had to know if it was possible to touch and not fall into bed.

  She didn’t know what to do about the locked gate. She waited for an hour for a car to come or go, any sign of life to offer her a legal way to get inside.

  Ruefully, with what was left of her humor, she acknowledged that Ariel, Seventy-Seventh Daughter to Queen Vellia, was not equipped for this situation.

  The cold worsened and fog settled around her, quieting even the sound of wind moving the branches overhead. She felt the cold, too, which surprised her. Mer swam with icebergs and relished it. It had to be the infection, the unending desire, and her ordeal in the grotto. She had been drained, and felt so empty except for the ache.

  Erica was close and she could feel it. To walk away, even for the night, would take more strength than she had.

  She was as imprisoned as she had been in the grotto, only this time the echoes were the song of her longing matching the song she could feel inside from Erica.

  I need you, Ariel, want to be with you. To feel your touch again, drown in your voice.

  Ariel could not help but respond with her own deep wishes. I’m here, Erica. Look for me and you will find me.

  The scuff of a shoe on the drive brought her to her feet. There was a figure in the darkness, wrapped in black.

  Her body knew it was Erica.

  She sprang to the gate, unable to keep herself from thrusting her hands through it. So close…so close. To touch…so close.

  Out of the dark, Erica said calmly, “Go away.”

  Ariel wanted to call out, to beg. She did not care one whit that mer weren’t supposed to beg. She would beg, if only she could use words. She stretched her arms as far as they would go, reaching. She couldn’t bear being so close and not touching. How could Erica just stand there?

  “I don’t want you here. I don’t know what you did to me, but I will have no more of it.”

  Ariel turned her hands palms up and slowly slid to her knees, a supplicant, pleading. Erica’s words were firm and she meant what she said, Ariel could tell. But her face was in shadows, and Ariel still heard the inner turmoil and longing that was at odds with her order for Ariel to go away.

  “I’m sick to death of you. Of thinking about you, wondering where you went, how you could leave me like this, addicted to you. So go.”

  If only she had words, Ariel could explain, could at least answer the questions. She fought down a tearful moan. Open the gate and take me in your arms. We will both feel better for it. We have to, because feeling the way we do now is unbearable.

  Erica took a step closer. Ariel could almost make out the strong line of her nose and jaw. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

  Ariel shook her head violently.

  “Then why are you here? Why can’t you just leave me be? I was better this last little while. Getting over it finally.” Erica’s voice thinned with unshed tears. “You have no idea. No mercy, do you? Leave! Or I’ll call the cops.”

  Ariel slumped back on her haunches, and held the bars of the gate in her hands. Every moment she could see Erica and not actually touch her seemed to double the agony. Her brain felt as if it was boiling.

  Another scuff of shoe on the cement made her look up. Erica had moved closer, and her face was now visible in the dim light.

  Ariel held in her gasp, but just barely. Erica’s face was etched with pain, the hair at her temples stark white. But it was her eyes that shocked Ariel most. The sharp, tantalizing green was gone. Silver for age, silver for madness, Ariel thought, now she has my eyes and I have hers. My recklessness or Laveena’s spite, what does it matter?

  I should go, leave her. Let her at least believe she can overcome this. But Ariel could not make herself go.

  “Why won’t you leave?” Erica took another step. “Why does it hurt so much to remember you? Why does it hurt to look at you?”

  Ariel could only shake her head.

  “Answer me!” Erica came two steps closer, her heartbreak transmuting to anger.

  Answers wouldn’t comfort Erica for long. Ariel rested her forehead on the cold bars. How had she thought Erica would happily accept Ariel into her life, into her arms—and take no for an answer? She couldn’t think. Her mind overflowed with images of Erica’s hands on her body. Her mouth watered at the memory of Erica’s wetness in her mouth.

  The queen had said the whole point was for Ariel to break. Something was breaking. She was just a salmon. Maybe if she threw herself hard at the very thing that would destroy her she would find a way to go on, to save herself.

  She rose slowly and opened her court jacket. She let it fall to the ground around her feet. She grasped the hem of the shirt and pulled it roughly over her head.

  “Oh please Please don’t.” There were tears in Erica’s eyes to match the choking sound in her voice. “You really don’t have any mercy, do you? What do you want from me?”

  The cold bit into Ariel’s already chilled body. She kicked off the shoes and winced at the cold pavement. She heard Erica whimper as she unbelted the too long trousers, and another whimper as she pushed them down her hips.

  She stood naked, offering only one thing as she pressed her body to the frigid bars. She extended her hands as far beyond the bars as she could reach, fighting the shivers that were making her knees threaten to buckle.

  “No, no,” Erica was repeated, “please no. Don’t do this, please. I can’t. I can’t.”

  Ariel tried to say with her eyes, her offered body, her pleading hands, that she needed Erica to touch her. Touch was the only comfort they could have.

  “Go away!” Erica knocked Ariel’s hands down as she lunged at the gate. Ariel braced herself for Erica’s strike.

  Erica cried out when her fingertips touched Ariel’s face. Ariel felt a wave of faintness at the effort it cost her not to scream.

  Not pain…ecstasy.

  Erica’s hands cupped her face and then Erica was kissing her hungrily through the bars, her mouth nearly savage. Ariel filled her hands with Erica’s hair, holding back the moans building in her throat. Her mervoice wanted to sing, but Ariel held that in as well. She touched Erica’s cheeks, her neck, her shoulders. After the torture, any pleasure was welcome. After the day of infection, touching Erica was clearly the only thing that would help.

  She felt Erica’s hands on her breasts, fondling them where they pressed between the bars. Her pelvis arched and she longed for Erica to have her again. All her thoughts circled in a whirlpool of need until the only focus was her desire for Erica. She could not even remember what it had been like to have control over her body.

  Erica’s hands left the exploration of her breasts, her ribs, her hips, and in the minute it took to open the gate all the pain returned. Erica caught her hands and pulled Ariel into a full embrace, and the ecstasy came back, heady, driving, inescapable. Then Erica pushed her away.

  “Get dressed.”

  Numbly, Ariel obeyed. Erica wasn’t saying she had to go. She would do anything to stay. She dressed quickly and looked hopefully at Erica as her heart pounded against her ribs.

  Erica’s eyes were burning with a mixture of lust and despair. Ariel could read it easily because her own gaze matched it. Finally, Erica said, “Follow me.”

  Chapter 11

  “Are you hungry?”

  Erica’s question brought Ariel back from her intense study of Erica’s home. The driveway ended at a very large house. All the windows were dark except one. A single, wan light burned over the wide double doors.

  When Ariel didn’t answer, Erica looked over her shoulder. For a moment Ariel could only think of that night, and Erica’s face framed by the collar of her white tuxedo. The rose had been there, she knew it had been. The light flashed on the white at Erica’s temples and the silver of her eyes. What did it matter, Ariel thought. Erica was infected and dying, and now she was as well.

  “You haven’t said a word.” Erica studied her in the light over the entry. “You said plenty that night.”

  Ariel nodded. She remembered everything they had sung between them.

  “Can you talk?”

  Without thinking, Ariel truthfully nodded yes.

  “You can, but you won’t?”

  Ariel realized then that lying would have been easier. There was so much she wanted to tell Erica, so much truth, it just hadn’t occurred to her she might need to be ready to lie. It was too late to change her story, so she simply nodded.

  Erica’s eyes flared with sudden anger. Her nostrils flared slightly while her lip flared with contempt. “So you’re somebody else’s toy now, is that it? Then why are you here?”

  Ariel shook her head, trying to say with her eyes that she wasn’t playing a game. Perhaps doubt showed in her eyes, because she abruptly remembered the way Laveena had made her feel, like a puppet to be enjoyed.

  Erica turned away, and her question did not seem directed at Ariel. “Why do I want you?”

  The sound of the door swinging open echoed through the seemingly empty house. The foyer was barren of furniture, and the walls devoid of everything except the outlines of paintings no longer there. From somewhere in the dark came the solitary drip of water.

  Ariel felt washed over with the memory of the grotto. If she stepped over this threshold it would be another prison, one her body would not let her leave no matter how the ground shook.

  Erica turned to look at her and their silver gazes locked.

  Was it pity that she felt? Or was she as weak as the queen had said, unable to resist? Weak for staying, or weak for going? Was she really thinking that she was here for Erica’s sake? She should be honest with herself. Nothing she had done had ever been for Erica’s sake.

  Erica lowered her gaze and turned away. “Go then.”

  Ariel stepped inside and let the future claim her.

  * * *

  She drank the offered water thirstily and ate the cheese and crackers, though both tasted like sawdust. At least Erica had turned on more lights. It was the kitchen faucet she had heard dripping, but now it had stopped.

  The house was quite large, and quite empty. That much was obvious. The table where they ate was so far the only place to sit that she had seen.

  “Ariel.”

  She looked up at Erica.

  “Why are you here? Drop the silent act. Whoever she is, if she treats you this way she doesn’t deserve your slavery.”

  Ariel gave Erica a puzzled frown.

  “I’m talking about this.” Erica leaned across the distance that separated them and yanked up the hem of Ariel’s shirt. “You didn’t have these that night. Anyone who beats you like this, who cuts you—how can you stay? How can you go on playing their game?”

  She shook her head, though she knew there was no way to make Erica understand any of it. Was she the queen’s toy—yes, maybe so. But it was no game, it was her life.

  It wasn’t Erica’s life, though. Erica was already doomed. At least one of them would live. You should have gone, she told herself. You should have left. You can’t save her. You can only make her hurt more.

  She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, shaking her head. Even if she had words she wasn’t sure Erica could understand.

  Erica’s hand was still on her ribs, hot and shaking slightly. The fingers tightened and Ariel swallowed hard. Then Erica was pulling Ariel over to her lap, and Ariel felt drunk on the pleasure of it weaving with the memory of Erica’s strength that night, the way Erica had carried her into the back, and held her against the wall.

  Erica kissed her hungrily as she pushed the shirt up to expose Ariel’s breasts. “I can talk for both of us, baby. I know you feel this.”

  Ariel nodded. It was hard to hear over the pounding of her heart.

  “Do you remember my favorite word?”

  Again, Ariel nodded.

  “I need it. I won’t have you without it.”

  She wanted to moan, deeply from her chest, when Erica’s fingertips lightly circled her nipples and tweaked gently. Her pelvis arched.

  “I know you want this. I want it, bad. I can’t get you out of my head and my entire life is gone. I know somehow it’ll all be right if I can have you. Just say it, and we can go to bed.”

  Ariel wanted to push Erica’s hands away. Wanted to push them down. Wanted to pull Erica’s shirt off and feel their breasts shocking alive against each other. No sound, no climax, but everything else they could have. But did everything else matter without peaking, without their mutual song?

  She didn’t know how long she writhed on Erica’s lap. She was soaked and aching to feel Erica’s hands between her legs. Erica had buried her face in Ariel’s neck, breathing hard and fast. Their chemistry had merged and was stripping away all of Ariel’s resistance.

  Ariel had thought nothing could match the echoes for torture, but being so close to Erica and yet not singing with her was worse. She had not thought she would survive another year in the grotto and yet an hour of Erica’s chemistry was unraveling every intention. If Erica stroked her, she would use her voice. Give up her life for the pleasure of Erica’s touch.

  “Dear heaven, what are you?” Erica surged to her feet, tumbling Ariel to the floor. For a moment, Ariel thought Erica would kick her, but instead Erica twirled toward the door. “After what you’ve done to me, is one word too much to give?”

  Chapter 12

  Erica did not ask her to leave. Maybe she didn’t have the strength. Maybe she thought Ariel would break down. If she’d had any pride left, Ariel might have thought that pride was what kept her silent and out of Erica’s bed. But she had no pride. It was fear of losing the cure that had her huddling in blankets on the chilled floor of the bedroom next to Erica’s. She chose the wall closest to Erica’s bed and slept little, hearing the song of Erica’s dreams churning with the anguish of wanting Ariel.

  At night there was Erica’s song, during the day Erica’s anger at Ariel’s silence. She’d left pens and pads of paper for Ariel’s use, and been livid when Ariel had pointedly sat on her hands. How could Erica possibly understand the subtlety of Queen Vellia’s mind? No words silent or aloud. Writing would not have escaped her intent.

  Ariel’s attempts to ease Erica’s anger in other ways all failed. Erica didn’t want to eat, to dance, to play. She didn’t want company, not Ariel’s company. Sometimes she would stay in her room all day. Then she would quit the house from dusk to dawn, prowling the grounds and the overgrown garden, always returning in a mood more foul than the one she had left in.

  Deeply lonely, Ariel found herself sleeping at odd hours or sitting miserably in the garden. She would suddenly realize it had gone dark while she was maundering. One day Erica stormed passed her, dropping a blanket on her lap. Only then did Ariel realize it was bitterly cold. For a long while, it was the only contact she and Erica had, and Ariel slept with the blanket every night after that. The steady pulse of her need was the only way she marked time.

  She had never been truly alone. Even the echoes had been a kind of company. It was a novel experience to be studiously ignored. It hurt to feel Erica’s desire, to hear her ever-continuing song, and not give way. It hurt, but she breathed in enough of Erica’s chemistry to get through the day without weeping. Well, most days.

  * * *

  On a bleak, gray day that was nearly spring but felt still caught in winter, she was walking the estate’s perimeter fence when she made a most marvelous discovery. Her path had become a familiar one, and the gentle motion had slowly restored some of her health. She was never too far from Erica that the pain ruined the pleasure of the walk.

  At the midpoint she realized she had been so depressed that morning she hadn’t eaten and her body was refusing to go on much further. She cut across the middle of the small wood, thick with eucalyptus and oak, to return to the house. To her surprise, she found herself on the edge of a good-sized pond.

 

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