Sea Lord

by Virginia Kantra

  Impatience surged thick through Conn’s veins. He did not want to be here in the shadows of the courtyard listening to Griff.

  Lucy burned in his brain as she had in his visions, her long wary body and lean, composed face, her hair as ripe as grain. He carried her image in his mind—Lucy, waking and sleeping, naked and coming. With him. Under him.

  He was lost in her, as captivated by this mortal woman as his father had been by the sea.

  The comparison made him grit his teeth. He was not Llyr, to shuck responsibilities along with his clothes.

  And if he had not been so obviously preoccupied this morning—obsessed, besotted—perhaps Griff would not be carrying tales of his wardens conspiring in corners.

  “You think Morgan would negotiate with Hell behind my back?”

  Griff’s dark eyes were somber. “I do not know if he would go that far. It may be his pledge to your father still holds him.”

  “His loyalty must be to our people. Not the king.”

  “Which people? Morgan is finfolk.”

  “The finfolk are as much children of the sea as the selkie. If he serves one, he serves us all. We cannot survive if our loyalties are divided.”

  “Are you speaking of Morgan?” Griff asked steadily. “Or yourself?”

  Conn drew a short, sharp breath. “My loyalties are not in question. We need children. A child, a daughter of Atargatis, to fulfill the prophecy.”

  “Morgan is concerned a pregnancy would provoke further conflict with Hell.”

  The children of fire would not welcome a shift in the present balance of power.

  Conn’s hands clenched. His head throbbed. “I will not give her up.”

  “Because she carries the bloodline.”

  Because he could not contemplate his existence any longer without her, her quiet tenacity, her fierce sexuality, her eyes, deep and secret as the sea.

  “I will not give her up,” he repeated more quietly.

  Griff sighed. “Then you must speak with Morgan.”

  “Very well.” Another delay to keep him from Lucy. Damn it. “And you can talk to Enya.”

  “Enya, lord?”

  “Yes.” Conn smiled thinly. “Since you understand women so well.”

  “Not that one.” Griff cleared his throat. “Why not let your lady win the wardens over? Surely if they met her—”

  “They despise her because she is human,” Conn said. “All the meetings in the world will not change that.”

  “No human in the world can do what she can do,” Griff argued.

  “I will not subject her to—”

  “Conn.”

  His name. Her voice. The whisper sailed on the wind, snagging like a barb in his brain.

  He jerked, a fish on the line.

  Lucy?

  His heart hammered. He felt the spider touch of trouble on the back of his neck, a crawling fear inside his skin, as his gaze swept the courtyard.

  “My prince? What is it?” Griff asked.

  Conn’s head pounded. The shadows beneath the towers were empty. But the sound of her voice was fixed in his mind, a jagged silver hook connected to a line as fine as filament.

  His tongue felt thick. “Where is she?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Enya?”

  “My lady.”

  Griff’s face creased in concern. “In your solar, I assume.”

  No.

  Lucy.

  Something was wrong.

  Conn’s lungs constricted. He stepped into the slanting sunlight, into the warm current of air, following the tug of his whispered name. The line stretched over the castle walls and away, floating on the wind like a strand of Lucy’s hair. Fragile. Golden.

  Where are you?

  His questing thought spun along the bright thread, drawn from the marrow of his bones, spilling like blood from his heart.

  She was out there somewhere. Beyond the castle walls. He felt her trembling like a kite in the grip of the wind, a vibration in his fingertips and his mind.

  Griff stirred. “My lord.”

  The interruption almost yanked Conn back, but he clung to that spark of connection, pouring himself along the filament, spooling out his power, trying to reach her, desperate to touch . . .

  The thread snapped.

  His breath went. No.

  The contact broke.

  Lucy.

  She was gone.

  Conn’s blood roared in his ears.

  “My prince?” Griff’s voice, worried. “My lord, are you all right?”

  “Are you all right?”

  Iestyn’s strained voice penetrated the roaring in Lucy’s ears, pierced the fog in her head.

  The last attack had almost done them in. Done her in. She was reeling with shock, bone-weary with fatigue.

  “Don’t run,” Iestyn had ordered.

  Not a problem. She couldn’t move her legs. Could barely raise her arms. Her shoulders were on fire, her vision hazy with exhaustion.

  “Fine,” she croaked.

  Alive, anyway. Breathing. At least, she told herself the whimpering gasps that escaped her throat qualified as breathing.

  Madadh made the same sounds at her feet. Her nails curled into her palms. Somehow the hound had crawled to her, smearing an ominous dark trail behind him in the dirt. She had blasted the wolf that ripped open the dog’s belly, but she could not kneel to care for or comfort him, could not take her eyes off the snarling, snapping pack prowling the perimeter of their dead.

  She shifted. Trembled. Wolves attacked the weak. She had to be strong.

  But the evil they faced sapped her strength and drained her will. She felt its malice like a weight in her chest, a pressure in her head, pushing, always pushing against her mind’s defenses, poking cruel fingers through the chinks, searching for an opening, probing for a weakness.

  She blocked it out. Blocked everything out, the grief and the fear and the stench of blood and burnt flesh. She could no longer smell the orchard or the sea.

  Soon the pressure in her head wouldn’t matter. Each rush drew the circle tighter like a noose. Soon there would be no room left to strike, and she and Iestyn would go down under a mass of thrashing bodies and rending white fangs.

  Her eyes stung with sweat. With tears. Her shoulders ached. What more could they do, a bleeding boy and an exhausted girl against a pack of wolves? Her legs shook. How long could they stand?

  She blinked. Too many teeth. Too many eyes. Circling, with all the menace and none of the grace of wolves.

  She had never been a fighter. Caleb was the fighter, steadfast and strong. Like the lead soldier in the fairy tale he used to read to her. She would have liked to see Caleb one more time. Caleb and his gun. The thought made her smile. She would have liked to say good-bye.

  Her smile faded. Would her family even know what had happened to her?

  And Conn. She would have liked to . . .

  No.

  Her resolve was a lump in her stomach, plain and cold and about as heroic as oatmeal. But she was not ready to say good-bye to Conn.

  She licked her cracked lips. In her life, in her world, the cavalry didn’t ride to the rescue. Her prince never came. That hadn’t stopped her from trying.

  From surviving.

  She uncurled her bloody palms. She stiffened her wobbly knees. When the demons sprang again, she was ready for them.

  Conn smelled smoke.

  Seared flesh. Scorched earth. The sizzle of ozone. All carried on the wind like the stench of branding or the plume of a funeral pyre.

  Griff coughed.

  Brychan swore.

  They were already breathing hard, running hard. In the sea, they were all power and grace. On land, they ran, feet pounding, legs pumping, weapons hastily belted on, bouncing against backs and thighs. Sweat trickled down faces and chests.

  Conn had sacrificed stealth for speed, numbers for readiness. It took time to assemble; longer to arm. Time he did not have.

  Barely a dozen wardens f
ollowed as he bolted out the gate, as he trampled the orchard flowers and thundered up the slope, following the broken whisper of his name.

  The air felt viscous. Thick. Conn floundered like a mortal in the sea, carried on a wave of dread.

  The acrid smell of smoke and blood drifted from the rocks like the reek of a human battlefield. A bird cried in outrage, rising like a black flag in the sky.

  Air knifed his lungs. Please, God . . .

  The selkie did not pray.

  Please God, let her be safe.

  A wolf—not a wolf—materialized snarling underfoot, hot fetid breath, red, wet gullet, eyes filled with flame and hate.

  Demon.

  Conn caught the flash of teeth, the threat of claws as he swung, taking off its head in a single stroke. Blood spurted from severed organs. The wolf’s body fell, twitching, the spirit within extinguished.

  He heard an ululating cry, not animal, torn from an animal’s throat.

  Conn leaped over the corpse, aware of other shadows, other battles around him, growls, howls, the clash of bone and steel. Please, God. He ran up the track, between the standing stones.

  And froze at the tableau between the rocks.

  Lucy. And Iestyn. They were propped back to back like a pair of stick figures, looking as if a hard wind would blow them over. Their faces were sallow with fear or loss of blood. The boy’s right arm dangled, dark and useless.

  Conn inhaled. The smell of sulfur and singeing hair scored the back of his throat. Lucy’s torn hair rippled in the wind like a battle standard. Blood stained her skirt. She stood awkwardly, straddling a crumpled rag, a toy dog with the stuffing torn out.

  Conn’s chest tightened.

  She swayed like a tired horse, her naked hands raised. No weapon. Yet ringed around them, like the fallen apples under the trees below, was a black and bloody harvest of dead wolves.

  And beyond that . . .

  The rocks boiled with darkness.

  Conn shouted and charged up the hill.

  The scene wavered and dissolved in a rush of noise and heat. Adrenaline pumped. Time slowed. Conn swung and struck, slitting throats. Windpipes. Fast, hard, bloody work. Demons were immortal, but like the fire they sprang from, they needed oxygen to survive. They could not stay in a host that could not breathe. Around him he heard grunts, growls, and thuds.

  The wolves retreated.

  The wardens plunged in pursuit.

  Conn stepped over the ring of dead and pulled Lucy into his arms, desperate to touch her, to assure himself she was safe. She lunged at the same time, wrapping her arms around his neck, her body pressed tight to his. She was shaking hard enough to disguise his own tremors, her damp face buried against him. Her tears scalded his throat.

  His shaking hands raced over her, shoulders, back, ribs. She was whole. Unbleeding. Unbroken. Thank you, God.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled against his neck. “So sorry.”

  What was she apologizing for?

  “Ssh.” He petted her. “You are safe now.”

  He raised his head and met Morgan’s eyes. The fin lord’s lip curled. Conn was suddenly conscious of embracing his human lover in full sight of his assembled wardens. His hands tightened. He returned Morgan’s stare without expression. I will not give her up.

  His small force drifted back by ones and twos, the wolves slaughtered, the demons dispatched.

  Conn looked down at the top of Lucy’s head. How had she and Iestyn held off the wolves so long?

  “Iestyn . . .” she said.

  “Is all right. Everything will be all right. Brave girl.”

  She drew back. “I wasn’t brave.”

  “You fooled me,” Iestyn said behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, her eyes huge in her white face.

  Was she possessed? No. Then . . .

  Her gaze dropped to Madadh, motionless at her feet.

  Ah. Comprehension slid into Conn like a blade, scoring his ribs, piercing his heart.

  “It’s all right,” he lied gently.

  All things mortal died. At least he had not lost her. This time.

  He crouched beside the dog and laid his hand on Madadh’s head. The bones were sharp beneath the blood-matted fur. The dog’s breath rattled, warm and weak, its golden eyes already glazed. Its rear paws twitched, as if the hound dreamed beneath his master’s desk in front of the fire.

  Conn’s eyes stung, dry and gritty. He did not cry. The selkie did not weep. Only a dog, he told himself fiercely. One of hundreds over the centuries, loyal and replaceable.

  His throat closed with grief.

  He could not heal its wounds. That gift had been lost to his people since before his father’s reign.

  This much he could do.

  He stroked the stiff fur. He sent his power through his hands, through twisted entrails, torn flesh, and tortured nerves, taking the hurt into himself, easing the dog’s pain and its passage.

  Lucy kneeled beside him, her hair falling over her face and his hands, weeping the tears that burned at the back of his throat.

  “Good-bye, friend,” he whispered hoarsely. “Sleep in peace and dream of rabbits.”

  Lucy sniffed. A single tear dripped onto the back of Conn’s hand.

  And sizzled.

  He caught his breath in pain and surprise as the heat of that single drop pierced his hand like a nail and burned in his palm. Beside him, Lucy glowed, radiating waves like warmth. He grabbed her hand and set it on top of his, their fingers tangling in the dog’s bloody fur. He felt the magic pulse through their link, the scalding current that rose in her roll through him in long, low, billowing breakers, flooding all the arid, empty recesses of his parched spirit. He was drenched, drowning in power. It poured into him, stomach and lungs, mouth and eyes, flowing, filling, surging, spilling in a great golden wave. Dimly, he heard shouting, like rescuers calling from shore, as the flood of power caught and carried him away. He fought to channel the stream that thundered through him, shunting it along the paths of Madadh’s pain, feeling it foam and churn amid the welter of ruined tissue and failing organs.

  The dog yawned, shuddered, lurched. More shouts, more shadows, a flurry of movement along the edges of the current. Magic roared in his head, poured through his veins.

  The wave crashed and shattered in dazzling, jewel-bright splinters of azure and topaz. Lucy cried out and slumped. The ripples of magic drained away, leaving Conn blind and breathless in its wake, the hound whole and the girl unconscious on the bloody ground.

  Consciousness returned in chinks and chunks, like light fitting itself around a window shade. Lucy sighed. Her bed was lumpy. Her cheek pillowed against something hard. Hard and surprisingly comfortable.

  She didn’t want to move. Heck, she wasn’t sure she could open her eyes. She felt weak, light-headed, and empty, as if she had been in bed for days with the flu.

  “Shall we build a litter for the targair inghean?” someone asked.

  “No.” The deep voice stirred her hair. She smelled grime and sweat and the wild salt tang of the sea. “I will carry her.”

  She knew that voice. Conn’s voice. She was sitting on his lap, cradled in his arms. His hard chest moved with his breath, up and down, like the ocean.

  “My prince . . . your hand . . .”

  “I will carry her,” Conn repeated in his arrogant, don’t-mess-with-me tone.

  She smiled against his shoulder.

  The arm that was her pillow tensed. “Lucy.” A single word, hoarse with hope.

  She found she could open her eyes after all.

  His silver eyes blazed in his hard, haggard face.

  Her heart squeezed. Something had happened, she thought. Good? Bad? She remembered kneeling beside him, and the dog . . .

  She moistened her lips. “Madadh?”

  Conn’s expression flickered. “Here,” he said.

  The hound pushed forward, wriggling. Instinctively, she put out her hand, accepting soft, wet kisses on her p
alm. She rubbed the dog’s hard skull, patted its filthy, blood-encrusted side.

  She blinked. Its intact hide.

  “I don’t . . .” Understand.

  “You healed them,” Conn said, watching her closely. “Madadh and Iestyn both.”

  Her chest hollowed. Her blood drummed in her ears. “I didn’t ...”

  She stopped, remembering the great golden wave, the rush of power, too huge to contain or control.

  “Iestyn reached for you when you fell,” Conn continued, his face impassive. “And when he touched you, his wounds were healed.”

  Her mouth dried. She couldn’t speak.

  Iestyn knelt before them, his face white with emotion. He took her limp, damp hand in his uninjured right arm— she noticed the black half moons of blood under his fingernails—and pressed the back of her fingers to his forehead.

  “Targair inghean,” he said in a choked voice.

  Lucy bit her lip. “Um.”

  Iestyn’s words rippled outward, magnified by the rocks, picked up and repeated by several people—wardens—standing around. Waiting. What were they waiting for? She recognized Griff, who smiled at her with cautious pride, and the tall man with silver-blond hair who had called her Conn’s broodmare.

  She lifted her chin. He met her gaze. His eyes were gold, like Iestyn’s. An odd little smile touched his lips before he bowed his head.

  She tightened her fingers in Madadh’s wiry coat.

  Griff came forward. He didn’t kneel, as Iestyn had. But he, too, bowed, raising her hand and touching it to his forehead. “Targair inghean.”

  “Don’t you start,” she begged him.

  “He does you honor,” Conn said behind her.

  She turned her head to look at him. “Why? What are they saying? What does it mean?”

  “You are the daughter of Atargatis.”

  “So?” she asked, bewildered. “We knew that.”

  “The promised daughter,” Conn explained gravely. “The targair inghean. The one foretold by the prophecy who will alter the balance of power and save our people.”

  15

  LUCY PULLED THE TURQUOISE ROBE TIGHT. SHE didn’t like the way Conn was looking at her—not as the woman he wanted to take to bed, but as if she were a puzzle he hadn’t quite figured out.