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shaft was still with her—in her—all around her in the very salt-drenched air.
    She had reached the first marker—a little cork float tied with a strip of red cloth—and she shipped the oars, dropped anchor, and leaned back against the neatly stacked eel pots in the stern bundled beneath a tarpaulin to keep the birds at bay. Raising the hem of her shift, she exposed her genitals to the morning haze. Tugging the drawstring at the neck of her shift, she lifted her breasts free to the gentle breeze skimming the surface of the water and began rolling her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers, just as he had done. The gentle breeze rippling her pubic curls called her hand there, enticing her fingers to part the hair at the top of her slit and probe for the nub beneath. How strange to find no virgin skin to bar her way. Two fingers slipped inside riding her slick wetness; how inadequate those fingers were now…after him .
    Meg shut her eyes. All things were tactile—palpable—then, especially the gentle breeze fanning the fever in her flesh, playing with her nether parts, whispering across the milk-white skin of her breasts, puckering the areola of her nipples, making the tall buds hard to the touch. They still ached from Simeon’s kiss, from the sucking and nipping, and from bites just sharp enough to bring a twinge of pain that heightened the pleasure. The warm sun beating down and gilding her moist skin turned up the heat, making her whole body throb like a pulse beat—even her scalp. The tang of the salt-laced air seasoned the rest. She licked her lips, tasting it, tasting him . A groan escaped her throat. It was no use without him. He’d loved her so well. Why did he bring her back? Why did he abandon her? Why ?
    Meg opened her misty eyes to the seagulls circling the skiff—and something else…. Another winged creature that had been hovering with the rest suddenly soared high aloft—so high it seemed to ride the clouds. It seemed to have caught a zephyr, for it glided, its huge wingspan spread out from its body, but it wasn’t the body of a bird. It was the body of a man . She blinked and rubbed her eyes, for the sun suddenly blinded her. When she opened them again the creature was gone. It had vanished.
    Meg bolted upright, a cry upon her lips so shrill it scattered the gulls. A winged man? How could it be? But it was, and he had seen her trying to pleasure herself.
    Groaning her embarrassment and utter frustration, Meg leaned over the side of the bobbing skiff, pummeled the waves that rose almost to the oarlocks with punishing fists, and shed her seven tears, and then some, into the bay.

4
    S imeon paced the length of the bedchamber in his shimmering underwater palace, attended by six selkie handmaidens in human form. Fawning and hovering over him, they matched him step for step until he threw himself upon the bed made with quilts of sea moss and woven seaweed. That was unwise. No sooner had he touched down when the bed began to undulate with eager consorts thrashing about with all the lumbering aplomb of the seals they had sprung from. Alexia, who had been his main consort since time out of mind, barked at the others. She never could keep her entities separated, Simeon reflected; very unattractive. How was it that he never noticed the harshness of that bark until now?
    She had hold of his cock. Alexia knew how to bring him to life. She knew how to stroke and suck and tantalize. Why wasn’t she able now? Her skilled fingers were gliding over the long, curved length of his shaft, flitting over the mushroom tip. That always drove him mad, but not now—not even with the others mauling him, stroking his hard muscled chest, lapping at his nipples, fondling his balls. They had covered him like a blanket.
    Time was when he would have had them all. He was a selkie, and a noble at that. Seduction was in the blood, and he was the Lord of Seduction—Lord of the Deep. There had been a time when he would have