She murmured, acquiescence or protest. “Justin . . .”
He raised his head to look her in the eyes. He wanted to give her something. A piece of himself. “Iestyn,” he told her.
“My name is Iestyn.”
*
She didn’t think, didn’t want to think. No time to consider, no opportunity to be afraid. Only this, his mouth, his touch, his broad shoulders over her like wings. Only now, lying on a riverbank in the rain, free from the Rule and its consequences. She was submerged in sensation, her senses brimming with him, his tang in her nostrils, his taste on her tongue.
His leg was heavy over her thighs. His erection pressed hard and urgent against her hip.
This. Here and now.
He said something—his name?—and she raised her hand to trace the shape of his lips in the dark.
She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to feel. To feel him.
He said it again, softening the J, swallowing the vowels.
Yess-ten. “My name is Iestyn. I am . . . I was a child of the sea.”
She struggled to surface. “You . . . What?”
His calloused fingers feathered her hair. She couldn’t see his expression, only the outline of his head against a backdrop of flame, and the shape of his shoulders, shielding her from the rain. “I was an elemental. Like you.”
An elemental. Like . . .
She blinked. Not like her. Not really.
His lips were warm against her neck. She shivered and closed her eyes, her mind slowly returning to her body.
“Are you sure?”
He smiled against her throat, making the nerve endings there jump in delight. “It’s not the kind of thing I’d make up.”
She lay still, thinking hard. Thinking back. Had he been lying before, then? To her? To Simon?
She opened her eyes. “How long have you known?”
He shrugged, apparently unfazed by her questions. “I just remembered. When we went into the water.”
That moment. That one wild moment of terror and glory, when they’d plunged from the bridge and she’d felt like she was flying.
Not flying. She willed her thoughts back to earth. She didn’t have that power anymore. But he . . .
If he were a water elemental, a child of the sea, that would explain everything: his unfamiliar energy, his impressive shields, his resistance to Miriam’s drugs and Zayin’s magic.
“So I was right,” she said slowly.
He kissed her collarbone. “Right about what?”
Her mind whirred. What if there was nothing wrong with her judgment, her discernment, after all? What if . . .
A trickle of excitement slid down her spine. “I was Called to find you.”
He raised his head. “I don’t think so. I’m no angel.”
“But you defeated the demon in the alley. You saved my life on the bridge.”
“By jumping over the side.”
“It was more than that,” she insisted. “Something happens when we touch.”
“Was happening.” His tone was wry. She felt him, warm and hard against her hip. “Until you got distracted.”
She ignored him, resisting the humor in his voice, the tug of temptation in her blood. She had to think.
She’d always been taught that the children of the sea were neutral in Hell’s war on Heaven and humankind.
Simon had dismissed the merfolk as untrustworthy, irrelevant to the nephilim’s struggle for survival.
But suppose that together, they could be more? The possibility quivered inside her. She could be more. What if her Seeking was in response to a greater purpose, a higher calling? Simon would have to acknowledge her value to him. She would be pardoned.
Vindicated.
“Don’t you see? This changes things. Now that we know what you are . . .”
“What I was,” Iestyn corrected harshly. “I’m nothing now.”
She frowned, reluctant to relinquish her brief fantasy of being welcomed back to Rockhaven, problem solved. Sins forgiven. “Don’t say that.”
“Lara, when we jumped . . .” He rolled off her and sat staring at the burning river. “Nothing happened.”
She struggled to sit up, recalling the shock of his touch, the burst of rain and power as they shot from her element into his. “How can you say that?”
“Because nothing happened to me.” Emptiness echoed in his voice. Her heart squeezed in instinctive sympathy.
“The children of the sea are shape-shifters. But in the water, I did not Change.”
The fine hair along her arms rose. Shape-shifters.
Well.
She hugged her knees for warmth, regarding Iestyn’s profile in the sullen light of the fire—strong nose, firm lips, hair flattened to his head by rain and the river. Too beautiful to be merely mortal.
She’d known he was different. She hadn’t considered how different. “Change into what?” she asked cautiously.
“I am selkie. A man on the land, a seal in the water,” he explained. “But I need my sealskin to Change form.”
Her throat thickened. The nephilim could spirit cast into birds. But nothing in her training had prepared her for an elemental who turned into a seal. Or who, um, didn’t.
She swallowed. “Where is it? Your sealskin.”
“I don’t remember.” He turned his head to meet her gaze. In the orange light of the fire, his eyes were like the eagle’s, fierce and bright. “Without a pelt, I am trapped in human form. If I were finfolk . . . But I am not. Not elemental. Not immortal. I’ll grow old and die.”
She sucked in her breath. Some of the nephilim lived two or three hundred years—more than twice as long as humans.
But eventually they, too, aged and died. “You mean, like me?”
He didn’t answer.
She rubbed her arms. Not quite like her, she realized.
She was Fallen. He was merely . . . lost.
She licked her lips. “I want to help you.”
“You’ve done enough already.”
The echo of Simon’s rebuke made her wince. “That’s cold.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” His warmth, his regret, sounded sincere. “You got me out of there. And at least now I’ve got my mind and a piece of my memory back.”
“I can do better. I want to help you go home.” The rightness of her decision settled in her stomach.
“I have no home.”
“Back where you belong,” she clarified. “With your own kind.”
He went very still, his head lifting, like a dog on the scent or a man hearing his favorite song come on the radio.
And then he shook his head.
“Look, I appreciate the thought. But Sanctuary is gone.
Destroyed. If any of my kind survived, I don’t know where they are. I don’t belong with them anyway.”
Her heart thrummed. “I’m a Seeker. I could help you find them.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“You saved my life. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“For you to risk your life?” He shook his head.
“I’ll be safe with you.” She hoped. And you will be much safer with me.
“You’ll be safe if you go back.”
But not trusted. Not valued. Disgraced. Dismissed.
Demoted.
“If I go back now, I’ll be cleaning birdcages the rest of my life.”
“Better me than bird shit?”
Amusement. She stuck out her chin, determined to convince him. “For the moment. Or would you rather hear I can’t live without you?”
“Don’t say that.” His voice was suddenly serious. “If we find them, I’ll be gone. Even if we don’t find them, I won’t stay.”
His earlier warning echoed in her head. “Once I line up another berth, another job, I’m gone.”
It was more than a sailor’s excuse this time, she thought.
Simon w
arned that the children of the sea were changeable as the tides, fickle and unsteady.
She bit her lip. “I don’t need you to stay. I just need . . .”
What? “A chance to prove myself,” she said.
“To Axton?”
“To Simon, yes.” And to myself. She shrugged and slid him a sideways glance. “Of course, if you insist that I go back to him . . .”
Iestyn made a sound very like a growl. “Fine. We better get moving, then.” He stood, looking down at her. “Unless you plan on waiting for the fire truck.”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a dare.
She scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding in her chest.
She’d won. For now. She was leaving Rockhaven—not for a brief mission in the company of a Guardian, but truly leaving—for the first time in thirteen years. The thought was liberating. Terrifying.
She trudged after him, her shoes squelching and slipping in the mud and grass. At the top of the bank, he waited and offered his hand.
She didn’t need his help to get up the slope. She must not depend on him. They were as different as . . . as air and water.
But they were allies now. She would help him find his people. And maybe in the process she would find herself.
She grasped his lean, strong hand, a flutter in her chest like hope.
*
“Where are we going?” Lara asked.
Good question. Iestyn took her elbow to help her over the ditch at the side of the road.
Right up there with “What happened to your sealskin?”
And What the hell was I thinking bringing her along?
He glanced up the long, curving driveway flanked by stone columns—the kind of driveway that promised a big house at the end. No gate. But this close to Rockhaven, he was taking no chances. “You know who lives here?”
She shook her head.
“Then that’s where we’re going,” he said.
He could tell from the look on her face that she had more questions, but she kept them to herself. Maybe she realized he didn’t have any answers. Or maybe she was out of breath.
She pulled her arm free. “I’m okay.”
His jaw tightened. “You look beat.”
She was soaked and shivering, the angles of her face too sharp, her lips too pale. But for the past three miles, she’d put one foot in front of the other without complaint like the angel she was.
He’d heard sirens tearing up the night ten minutes ago.
He should have left her on the riverbank to be rescued by some gung ho fireman. Some smitten volunteer who’d wrap her in blankets and take her back to Rockhaven. Back to that cold, controlling son-of-a-bitch Axton and a lifetime of cleaning out birdcages.
He felt his lips pull back in a snarl and adjusted his expression.
Not his problem, he recited silently. Not his responsibility.
She was a grown woman. Barely. She could make her own choices.
And she’d chosen him. He just wished he didn’t feel so damn good about that.
She pointed to a circular sweep of brick and concrete, where skinny trees in black pots were placed at intervals like sentinels around a castle wall. “Don’t we want to go that way?”
“Nope.” He steered her down a gravel path off the main drive. “Big house in the country, probably has a security system. What we want is . . .”
The smell of mulch and gasoline. A low roof-line against the trees.
“There,” he said in satisfaction.
An open-sided shed sheltering tools and a wheelbarrow, a riding mower, and a rusting ragtop Jeep. He leaned in the open side, searching for keys. In the glove box, under the floor mat, over the visor . . .
The keys jangled as they fell onto the driver’s seat.
He held them up to Lara. “Magic.”
Her eyes widened before she caught herself. “Guesswork.”
And then, “How did you know they were there?
That any of this was here?”
He shrugged. “Owners usually like to hire somebody else to do their dirty work. This is probably the caretaker’s Jeep.”
“And we’re just going to take it?”
He slanted her a look. “Unless you want to drive the lawn mower.”
The engine chugged to life. He checked the gas. Half a tank. Good enough.
Lara’s teeth chattered as she climbed in beside him.
“Are you okay to drive?”
He had the mother of all headaches, his magic choker burned like a son of a bitch, and if he didn’t lie down soon, he was going to fall down.
“I’m good,” he said, trying to sound confident and cheerful instead of insane. “You?”
Her eyes were bruised with exhaustion, her pretty lips blue with cold. She squared her slim shoulders. “I’m fine.”
“You’re amazing,” he said honestly.
She smiled and ducked her head.
The Jeep bumped onto the road, picking up speed as they hit the asphalt. He fiddled with the controls, swearing as a blast of cold air shot from the dashboard.
“Heater’s broken,” Lara observed.
Figured.
The long dark road was going nowhere. At the next intersection, he turned right, relieved when a gas station appeared and then a route sign. The Jeep leaned around a ramp and rattled onto a highway. Rolling hills and country estates were broken up and swallowed by train tracks and subdivisions, strip malls, and overpasses sprayed with graffiti.
The white mile markers flashed by. Lara huddled in her seat, hugging her arms. At this speed, the Jeep’s rag top and open sides didn’t offer much protection.
“Pull that tarp over you,” he ordered. “It’ll cut the wind some.”
She twisted around in her seat to drag the tarp from the back. The heavy canvas released the sharp scent of bark, which mingled with the lingering smells of smoke and river mud. Lara wrinkled her nose as she adjusted the tarp around her. Mulch trickled from her shoulders to the floor.
She plucked a fold from her knee. “There’s enough here for us both.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get cold.”
She looked at him sideways. “Is that a guy thing?”
“A selkie thing. Warm blood,” he explained.
Webbed feet. No pelt.
His smile faded.
“At least it stopped raining,” she offered.
“We didn’t need it anymore,” he answered absently. “All it takes is one good downdraft to cut off the moisture flow.”
Lara left off fussing with the tarp. “Weather control? Is that a selkie thing, too?”
His skull pounded. His head split like a tearing curtain, revealing . . .
Mist. Gray stone walls with the damp running down, and a fountain playing in the center.
“Weather working is the simplest gift and the most common,” the castle warden lectured in his deep, burred voice. “The first to come and often the easiest to master.”
The boys sprawled on the bench and on the courtyard grass, watching the clouds, bored with a lesson they’d heard too many times before.
“It is the water you cannot see that creates the rain and clouds,” Griff droned on, “that cools and warms the earth and sustains all life. This is the water you must know and control if you want to work the weather.”
The fog swirled. White lights pierced the gloom.
Yellow lights, coming toward them.
A blare of sound. A horn.
The wheel jerked in his hands as Lara grabbed it and the Jeep shuddered and straightened. The oncoming truck roared by in the opposite lane.
Shit. His hands shook. He eased his foot from the accelerator, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“Pull over,” Lara ordered.
“What happened?”
“You blacked out.”
“No, I . . .” He inhaled, willing his hands and his stomach to settle. �
�Maybe.”
“What else could it be?”
The Jeep’s tires rumbled onto the shoulder and coasted to a stop. He clicked on the blinking hazard lights: warning, warning, warning.
“Flashback. I thought I remembered . . .” But the vision was gone, lost in the mists of his brain. “It’s nothing. One too many knocks on the head.”
“Miriam said you’d had a concussion before.”
“From the shipwreck.” He struggled to pull himself together.
“At least, that’s what the freighter captain thought.”
“So maybe the second injury shook things up.” Her voice soothed, talking him down. Her hand touched his knee, giving comfort. “Maybe that’s the reason you’re starting to remember.”
“Could be.” He blew out his breath and faced the truth.
Every spark of memory, every jolt of power, had followed some contact with her. The touch in the bar. The kiss on the cellar stairs. The embrace on the riverbank. Maybe she had been sent to find him. Maybe she was meant to save him.
He recalled the oncoming semi.
And maybe his returning memories would get them both killed.
“Iestyn?” Her fingers tightened. “What is it?”
“It’s you,” he said. “You . . . affect me.”
“You think I’m helping you to remember?”
He met her eyes. “Not only that.”
Whether he wanted it or not, whether he left her or not, he was tangled up in her, snared by the way she made him feel. When they touched and when they didn’t. When she moved. When she breathed.
Christ.
He put his head down on the steering wheel, feeling like he’d slammed into the semi after all.
After a moment’s silence, she got out of the Jeep.
Good. He listened to the sound of her footsteps as she rounded the hood. He needed a moment. He needed . . .
She nudged his shoulder through the opening on the driver’s side. “Move over. I’m driving.”
“Pushy, aren’t you.”
“I never have been before. It’s you.” He raised his head to look at her. Her clear eyes were dark, uncertain. A smile trembled on her mouth. “Apparently you affect me, too.”
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