Forever(6)

“So it could end up on our face or something?” The thought was frightening.

“It could,” Thayde was being very nonchalant about the whole thing. “What are you afraid of?”

“What if it looks terrible? I mean, what if it’s all over our faces and it’s green and we look like, I don’t know – frogs or something?”

Thayde stifled a laugh. “It won’t make you ugly.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Oh! Well, that’s comforting.” I shrugged my shoulders in sarcasm.

“It’s alright,” Thayde averted his blue eyes, “you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Morgan.”

“Thayde,” He looked back to me and I leaned forward to make sure he understood I meant what I said. “I know that. I’m just nervous, okay? I love you and I do want to do this. It’s just something new.”

He reached for my hand and I gave it to him. “We can do it some other time.”

“No, let’s do it now.” I stood, pulling him to his feet. “What do we do?”

A sly smile crept onto his face. Without a word, he gently shoved me into the water. The warm seawater closed over my head and I dropped several feet until my feet touched the sandy floor.

Darn it Thayde! I’m going to kill you! I was wearing my best dress!

A light splash, the clearing of a curtain of bubbles and a joyful grin made me change my mind. Thayde was clearly elated. Ripping off his white linen shirt and black dress pants, he phased.

“Come on, you have to phase for it to work.” He urged, practically giddy with excitement. He lunged for the surface, throwing his wet clothes onto the dock. By the time he was back, I had changed. There was one slight problem though: not expecting to swim, I had not brought my bikini top.

“Um, so what do we do about this?” I asked, covering myself with my long hair.

Thayde attempted to stop from smiling. “You do what we used to do in the old days babe, you go au-natural!”

“That’s not fair!” I complained, although the feeling was really nice against my skin.

“What? You’re with me!” Thayde reached for my hand.

“Yes, but I’d like to remain decent.”

“But I’m your husband,” he pulled me closer.

“Say that again,” I ordered in a playful voice.

“I’m your husband,” he repeated.

“Mmmm…” I relished the thought and enjoyed the way his deep voice ran through my body. Closing my eyes, I relaxed into his arms and lay my head against his chest. This was home.

“We don’t have much time left tonight if we want to do this.” He whispered into my hair.

“Okay,” I agreed. “What do we do?”

“Follow me.”

We swam until we reached a cliff that plunged straight down, a few hundred feet. My stomach dropped out from under me as we perched over the edge.

Thayde looked up at the pinkish glow of sunset that trickled through the water. “We need to drop about fifty feet more.”

He pulled me over the side of the cliff and my grip on his hand tightened. We could still see quite far, but I knew it was getting darker by the minute. I hated dark water.

When we reached the depth he needed, Thayde stopped and looked around. We were alone. Not one solitary fish accompanied us.

Now what?

“This is a love bond,” he began, “so we entwine our tails,” he wrapped his tail around mine, “and I hold onto you like this,” he placed both hands under my arms, sliding them up my back, cupping his hands over the top of my shoulders, “and you drop your hands around my waist.”

I clasped my hands around his waist and we hung in the water, feeling our love circle us. The red glow of my aura began to surround us, but then, something strange happened – something that had never happened before. A dark blue glow appeared.

“What is that?” I whispered.

“It’s my aura, Morgan.” He whispered back, watching our auras meet in a semi-circle around us. “Repeat what I say: I, Thayde, do bind myself to you, Morgan. You are my love forever and always. To you I shall be true.”

“I, Morgan, do bind myself to you, Thayde. You are my love forever and always. To you I shall be true.”

The moment I finished speaking, the auras combined and Thayde leaned forward, placing his soft lips against mine. I closed my eyes against the heat of my fire as it battled his icy blue aura. They created a tornado effect in the water around us, picking us up into its funnel, lifting my hair straight up, twisting and tugging it. We held on together through the storm until there was complete silence. Not sure of myself, I stayed in Thayde’s arms and waited for him to make the first move.