by Dessa Lux
He couldn’t say where they had arrived, exactly. He couldn’t smell anything but the dark, deep sea, but there was a brilliant wash of stars overhead. When he looked down there was—darkness. Water, but it was solid underfoot even as he saw it moving.
“Sorry,” Mar said. “Ah—here.”
He reached out and unfastened the cloak from around Devon’s shoulders, laying it down with a whirl as if he were laying it over a puddle and not the fathomless ocean. Mar stepped onto it, guiding Devon with a hand just behind his elbow, not quite touching.
It felt solid, looked solid, and right now that was enough. Devon’s knees went weak and he folded down onto Mar’s cloak, hiding his face against Harry’s fur again. Harry curled half around him, whining softly and nosing at him, and Devon held on as his quietly leaking tears transformed into helpless sobs.
He hardly knew what had just happened, except that his beautiful, peaceful life with Lir was shattered, maybe past repair.
And despite everything Lir had done, despite the terrifyingly out-of-control storm and all the secrets he had kept and everything he’d done, Devon knew that all he wanted right now was Lir’s arms around him. He wanted Lir to tell him that it would be all right. He curled his fingers into Harry’s fur, reminding himself that he couldn’t trust Lir, that Lir had lied to him, lied to Harry, used Harry, used Devon, but...
He sobbed liked a child, and tried not to think.
Eventually he was cried out, and he became aware of Harry shifting uneasily in his grasp. Harry had never met Mar before; Devon had to at least introduce them.
He sat back a little, keeping one hand on Harry while he wiped his hot, swollen eyes with the other.
“Here.” Something soft and cool brushed the back of his hand and Devon took it without raising his eyes to Mar’s. The damp cloth smelled faintly of lavender under the ever-present salt, and it soothed his eyes and the dull ache in his head.
That left only the raw misery clutching his throat, but there wasn’t going to be anything Mar could do for that.
Devon lowered the cloth and dared to look at Mar, only to find that Mar was sitting a little distance away, his head tilted up as he looked at the stars. Much closer was a folded pile of clothes—two sets, he realized, when he hastily picked up a shirt.
“Here, Harry,” Devon said, forcing himself to loosen his grip on Harry’s fur. “There are things for you, too.”
He felt Harry cringe slightly, but he changed as soon as Devon let go of him to pull on the loose linen pants Mar had provided. Harry quickly dressed himself as well. Only when they were both fully clothed, sitting together pressed shoulder to shoulder, did Mar drop his gaze from the sky and look over at them.
He still didn’t come any closer. “Who is your friend, good-brother?”
Devon dropped his gaze at that, looking down to the swell of his belly, the evidence of his mating with Lir, and the reason Mar called him brother, even in that slightly skeptical tone.
“This is Harry, uh—”
“Presley,” Harry filled in. “Harry Presley. Omega, like Devon. Lost in the Artic in 1922, until a couple of weeks ago.”
Mar muttered several words in some fluid, lilting language Devon didn’t understand that were obviously curses. Harry’s eyebrows lifted slightly; Devon wasn’t sure if that meant he understood them, or just that he was confused by Mar’s reaction.
“Lir,” Mar said finally, on a sigh. “He—what, wanted you to have a friend?”
“I said that I wished we had a pack,” Devon confessed in a small voice, not looking at Mar or Harry. “A pack on the island. And then he said he had to go to see Father North, and the next morning, Harry washed up on the beach, half frozen.”
He heard Harry’s heartbeat respond, the way Harry went rigid at his side. Devon looked over at him pleadingly. “I didn’t know until tonight, Harry, I swear—”
Harry shook his head, looking anywhere but at Devon. “I know. And whatever wrong you might have done to me, I drew your mate’s blood tonight, so...”
Devon winced, remembering the awful moment when Harry leapt between him and Lir. Even with the storm howling, Devon had been sure Lir wouldn’t hurt him, that he was only scared and out of control, but throwing Harry into the mix had made everything terrifyingly unpredictable.
“You wanted to protect me,” Devon said quietly, putting his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “And Lir was... scary.”
Harry flinched under his touch and still wouldn’t look at him. “I was... that storm, I felt like I was back—back there in the north, losing my pack again, and it was like...”
Harry shook his head and fell silent, but he’d acknowledged enough of the distress Devon could feel radiating off him. Devon scooted closer, wrapping one arm around him and resting his cheek against Harry’s shoulder. He couldn’t fix what had happened tonight, and he couldn’t un-know the things Lir had admitted, but at least he wasn’t alone, and Harry didn’t have to be alone either.
Mar cleared his throat.
Devon jerked a little and felt Harry do the same, but they stayed pressed close together.
Mar shook his head slightly, flicking his fingers as if to say, Go ahead, I don’t mind.
“I just wondered what, exactly, inspired my brother to... that display back there.”
Devon bit his lip, studying Mar. “How much do you know about what he was keeping from me? He said he needed me—needed someone—because his father required it. Was all of this some... some hoop he was jumping through?”
Even as he said it, he could hardly believe it. Even if it started that way, Lir had been sincere with him. They had fallen in love. He had to believe that. But it didn’t change the fact that Lir had kept secrets from him, and he had no idea how far that went.
Mar winced, and Devon’s hand closed into a fist in Harry’s shirt.
“It’s... possible I know more than Lir does about what Lir hasn’t told you,” Mar said with a grimace. “Father North’s ultimatum was very serious—he threatened to banish Lir from his domain, out of the sea altogether. But I’m not sure even Lir understands why it came to that. I don’t think he remembers even now, what happened before. Did he ever mention the name William? Or say anything about Caroline?”
Devon frowned, remembering that odd moment in the midst of everything going so wrong, so fast. “When I went to grab my phone, to call you—before the storm started, I just wanted you to come and help me make sure he was telling me everything, to explain it—he asked if I was calling Caroline. I’ve never even spoken to her, but—”
Mar was rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Let me guess. That’s when the storm started? When he thought you were calling Caroline?”
Devon nodded.
Mar sighed. “That was about William, then. I don’t know if Lir even remembers his name, but he’s never forgiven Caroline.”
Devon rubbed one hand over his heart, trying to remember what he’d said, what Lir had said. If something terrible had happened, something that made Lir lash out when he remembered it, something Lir couldn’t even remember, and it involved someone named William... “I asked him if he always rescued people when they called to him, or if it was just me, and he—he couldn’t answer. But there was someone before me, wasn’t there?”
He felt a surge of jealousy and shame all at once. Was this Lir’s routine? Did he fish people out of the sea and build them islands all the time?
But no. It had ended badly, whatever it was, so badly that Lir couldn’t remember it and Mar was clearly still struggling to speak of it.
Mar nodded. “William. This was a long time ago. The ship he fell from had sails, and I don’t mean some pleasure-sailing thing. And Lir...” Mar looked up, his gaze moving over Devon thoughtfully. “He did learn something, even if he’s forgotten how he knows it. He didn’t build William an island. He changed William, so that he could live in the sea with Lir.”
Devon blinked. On the one hand, it was a familiar enough idea
—plenty of humans joined werewolf packs, and accepted the bite of a werewolf, to become one of their kind. But Lir had never offered him a bite, never even suggested that it was possible.
On the other hand, the way Mar said it, it wasn’t exactly normal among sea gods. “Changed him how?”
“Hardly anything that showed,” Mar said. “I don’t think he gave him the ability to change shape the way we can—none of us brothers could infuse that much power into a human, and I don’t know if a human could absorb it. But he made him able to survive the cold, and the dark, and the pressure... able to survive anything, in fact. He made William deathless, and took him under the waves forever.”
Sunlight, Lir called him, from the first day they were together. I’ll need my sunlight when it gets dark.
But Lir had deprived William of sunlight instead, and himself as well. He tried to imagine living down in the dark and the cold; there were stories like that, selkies and sea-horses who lured humans under the waves to their dark, damp homes.
“William hated it?” Devon guessed in a small voice.
“Not at first, I don’t think.” Mar was looking down now. “I didn’t know him. Lir and I... didn’t get on so well, in those days. I would have taken William from him, or gotten Father to do it, without a care for what either of them wanted. George was more understanding—Caroline, after all. She was the one who first noticed that William was becoming unhappy. He confided in her, asked her for her help.”
“She told you this?” Devon didn’t disbelieve Mar, but maybe Lir wasn’t wrong to distrust Caroline, maybe...
“She told Father North,” Mar said. “In the presence of most of us. For all she’s no ordinary human, she is human. She could not lie to him. It was... afterward, after Lir... well. Father thought it necessary to discover precisely what had happened.”
There was a silence after that, until Devon forced out the words. “Mar, what happened?”
Mar looked Devon in the eye. “Have you ever noticed what Lir calls your kind? Not werewolves, but werewolves and humans, all of you together.”
“Land-dwellers,” Devon said, wondering what that had to do with it.
“Land-dwellers,” Mar repeated, in such a tone that Devon knew that if Mar were an entirely different person, he would have made air-quotes. “As if that were the only difference, or the difference that matters, between us and you. That we are of the sea, and you are of the land. As if the main point were not that you are mortal.”
Devon pressed his hand to his mouth, though it shouldn’t have been a surprise. How else could the story end?
“She didn’t kill him,” Mar said, his voice low and rasping. “But she gave him back his mortality, which Lir had taken from him. She didn’t make him vulnerable; he could still survive with Lir under the ocean, for as long as he chose to. William did the rest himself, some time later. One of those volcanic vents along the ridge. There wasn’t anything left of him.”
Devon felt sick, and his hand dropped suddenly to his belly, feeling the little life that fluttered there. A piece of Lir, and of himself.
“And Lir... for a long time it seemed as if there was nothing left of him, either. He did not grieve or rage, he just vanished. He had no form at all, hardly any awareness, not for long, long years. And when he did begin to come back, it was as if he knew no world outside his own domain, and nothing that had happened before. And he cared for nothing, either, not mortals, not even to protect his own domain. He would only watch, and find it all terribly interesting, and do nothing.”
“And your Father thought it was a good idea to make him care more about mortals, when losing William did that to him?” Harry spoke for the first time, sounding outraged and sparing Devon from having to muster any words at all.
Mar looked over at Harry, studying him thoughtfully, then shrugged. “If a wolf ran mad after the loss of his pack, when he finally began to come back to himself, would you encourage him to stay alone forever? Or would you invite him into a pack? Little as we like it sometimes, there would be no gods of the water without the mortals; it is why we so often wear their forms. We have to be able to connect with you, or we can never be entirely what we are. And Father did not actually suggest to him that he repeat history in the particular way he did; he only said that Lir needed to learn to respect land-dwellers and care for their ways.”
“But he didn’t repeat history,” Devon pointed out, remembering the sand underfoot, the tent, the way Lir had braved Caroline to get food for him, clothes, a laptop... “He didn’t change me. He changed things for me.”
Mar tilted his head. “As I said. He did learn something, even if he doesn’t remember how. But, judging by tonight... he still has more to learn about respect, and care.”
Harry snorted softly.
“A great deal more to learn,” Mar amended, shooting Harry a dark look. His gaze softened considerably when it returned to Devon. “Which doesn’t make it your duty to teach him. From what I saw—you’d be justified in refusing ever to return, or to see him again.”
Devon pressed his hand in against his belly, feeling like he wanted to cry again at the thought of never. “I can’t—I can’t go back now. Or tomorrow. Other than that, I—I don’t—”
“No, of course,” Mar said, waving Devon’s words away. “It’s the middle of the night, and you’ve just had a shock. I can make a place you’ll be more comfortable, or take you to land, if you like. There’s more than one mortal who owes me a debt, and there are folk who will look after you on my word if I take you ashore.”
It would be easy to do as Mar suggested, to stay curled up in a sea god’s protection, even if it wasn’t Lir. But Devon had hidden away long enough, letting himself be protected and lied to.
“We’ll go ashore, yes,” Devon said. “And somewhere to stay the night safely would be appreciated. But just tonight. I’m sure my parents will be able to wire me some money in the morning.”
Mar and Harry were both staring at him, and Devon could only handle one of those at a time.
“You’ll be welcome to come with me,” Devon said to Harry. With a wry smile he added, “It’s my fault you’re here alone, so far from home, so I feel responsible for you, in your pack’s place. Even if you don’t want to join my parents’ pack, you’ll always have a home with me.”
Harry stared at him, his jaw working visibly under his scruffy beard. He shot a glance at Mar, and then his lips tightened and he nodded, focusing on Devon. “For now, at least. Until I can find my feet.”
Devon nodded.
Turning to Mar, he said, “Will the phone still work when I’m on land? If not—”
Mar shook his head. “It will work anywhere, for as long as you care to keep it, good-brother. It was a gift, given without condition.”
Devon bit his lip and nodded, touching the shape of it in his pocket. “Thank you, then. I’ll keep it. If you...” He couldn’t finish the sentence, shrugging and looking away.
Mar nodded once and then stood. “Come, I’ll bring you ashore, then. It’s late.”
It was little more than an eye-blink before they were standing on a pebbled beach by a stone structure that might have been a large house or a small hotel. Mar left them for a moment, walking up to the building alone to knock at the door and speak to someone; within minutes there were more lights being turned on, and Mar ushered them in and directly up a narrow flight of stairs to a room with two wide beds and an attached bathroom.
There was an electric kettle on a small table by a selection of teas, the water inside already bubbling, sturdy white porcelain mugs ranged beside it. Mar squeezed his shoulder, said something quietly that didn’t sound as simple as goodbye. Devon didn’t quite grasp the words, but he nodded, and Mar left him and Harry alone, shutting the sturdy door behind him.
Harry ducked into the bathroom, returning seconds later in his red wolf shape. He nosed at Devon’s hand, and Devon sank down to sit on the edge of a bed, in a house built of stone that stood on actual lan
d. He hadn’t been this far from the sea in months; he felt as if he never had, as if he had been someone else before he slipped off that boat and into the water, and now he was here all new, for the first time.
He pulled out the phone from his pocket and stared at it for a moment before he dialed the long-memorized main contact number for his parents’ pack.
The voice that greeted him wasn’t the old familiar auntie that he’d been hearing every time he dialed that number for his entire life. It was his mother.
You’ve reached the Griffith pack. If this is Devon, press one. Anyone else, press two.
Devon covered his mouth with his hand at the sound of strain in her voice. For so long, he hadn’t thought about what he’d done to his parents, what they must have thought. But here this message was, waiting for him; they hadn’t given up on him.
He pressed one. The phone rang just once, and then he heard his father’s voice—not recorded but live. “Devon?”
“Yeah,” Devon said, his voice cracking. “I’m... I’m okay. But I need your help.”
“Anything,” his father said. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart. Anything.”
Just that. No questions about where he’d been. No instructions on what to do, not so much as a suggestion.
“Okay,” Devon said, even though that wasn’t an answer. “Dad, I’m sorry.”
“Shh,” his father murmured. “Don’t worry about that, just tell me how we can help.”
***
Chapter 19
Sunlight touched his domain, and Lir fell still. The storm died away into nothing as swiftly as it had risen. For a time he drifted, feeling only the warming of the waters, but the awareness crept back in on him relentlessly: he had to go home to the island.
He had left Devon there alone in the night. In the storm.
At once he was drawing all of himself together, rising up out of the water in his land-dweller shape, but it wasn’t Devon, or even Harry, waiting for him on the beach by the flattened remains of the tent.