Page 2 of The Naiad's Wish

“As if I could forget.” Erik swept my hair from my face and gathered it up, holding the mass of it back in one hand. “I will think of you the whole time.”

He would if I had anything to say about it, I thought grimly.

Keeping my eyes on his, I set my mouth to his stomach and kissed my way down.

2

That had been two whole days ago and now here I was, floating in the small bay by the fallen willow tree where Erik liked to sit and drink his coffee in the mornings.

I was waiting and waiting.

It already felt as if ten hundred winters had dragged by.

I would know. I’d lived through at least as many.

In all my thousands of years, though, I’d never experienced a winter as I had experienced the one with Erik that lay behind me.

It was the very first time I’d been awake for the season, rather than sleeping it away down at the bottom of my lake.

Instead, I’d tended to my waters during the day, and every night I had returned to Erik’s cabin through crackling frost and deep, frozen snow. I’d slept in his arms. I’d woken in them, too, wrapped up tight with my head resting on a warm and solid chest, hearing his strong heartbeat and surrounded by his lovely scent.

The ice and snow had since receded from my lake, and from the fields and meadows all around Laskeld. It still lingered inthe misty distance as a light dusting of white over the slopes of the smooth and greening hills. Beyond, the soaring mountains were thick with it, standing stark against the blue sky of day and glowing pale at night. The mountain peaks would keep their white caps even during summer, but down here in the valley, winter had truly passed.

Daffodils had already bloomed and faded in a slow, bright tide of yellow. Bluebells now hazed the meadow and the fringes of the forest, and I watched for the arrival of the sand martins who built their nests in the high banks of my lake to the east. I looked forward to walking with my Erik through the quiet meadows on cool misty mornings, or on long sunlit evenings as the swallows skimmed the long grass around our ankles, clacking their little beaks and snapping up insects to feed their young.

Most of all, I looked forward to teaching Erik how to swim.

He’d made excuses whenever I suggested it last summer, and by the time he agreed to join me in my lake, it was far too cold.

He’d waded into the water as far as his hips, jaw clenched tight and teeth chattering, and he’d been so utterly miserable andblueabout it all that I’d released him from his promise and chased him straight back up onto the shore.

I suspected that he’d put me off for so long because he was afraid.

Imagine being afraid of water!

As if I would permit it to harm him in any way!

I did not laugh at him for his nonsense, though. I didn’t want him to be afraid. I resolved to be patient with him, to coax him in as soon as it was warm enough. I’d teach him to love my lake almost as much as he loved me.

Almostas much.

But that lay a few weeks into the future.

Today, even though the willows that clustered along the bank of the bay were fully in leaf and the air was mild, the water held the chill of winter close.

I floated on the calm surface, watching the morning sun sparkle through the leaves and cast dapples of light and shadow over my body. A gentle breeze hissed through the long grass beneath the willows and rushed small puffs of clouds through the sky.

Erik would be home soon. I felt it.

I felthim.

I’d never expected to feel a connection to a human. To the land, yes. To my lake, of course.

But never to a human.

It was, I’d decided, because my Erik was truly extraordinary, for all he complained he was plain and old and worn out.

I didn’t understand him when he said such things. I couldn’t see how he was plain. I adored his earth-brown eyes and his silver-threaded dark hair, his face with its rough stubble and its large nose, and the strong lines etched around his eyes and his lovely mouth.

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