“Where did you go, Zack?”
“Out.”
“What were you doing?”
Stephanie.
Her breasts were so soft and surprisingly firm, the nipples a miracle under his hand.
He breathed through his mouth. Okay, that wasn’t helping. Think of something else. Do something else. He couldn’t stay here and jerk off in her swing. Suppose her parents came out? Or she did? He needed to move. Walk it off.
He pulled down the hem of his T-shirt and stumbled along the side of the house toward the street. A cool breeze washed his face. The sky pulsed with a billion stars. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, filling his lungs with sweet, clear, twilight air, willing his body to settle.
“So.” The man’s voice came out of the shadow of the trees, lazy and amused. “It was the sex after all.”
8
THE NIGHT WAS COOL WITH MIST AND MOONLIGHT, ripe with sex and frustration. Morgan surveyed the boy, his big hands restless at his sides, his oversized T-shirt hanging like a tent from his broad, bony shoulders, and felt a twinge of something warmer and deeper than humor. Sympathy, perhaps.
It had been a long time, centuries of time, but he remembered—didn’t he?—his first fumblings at sex. Fostered in a Viking household, he and his twin Morwenna had come quickly to adulthood. Even before Morgan was fetched away to Sanctuary, he had his first female, a human with curly pale hair and delightfully fast hands. He could not remember her name or, truth be told, her face. But he remembered the hot, sweaty anticipation, the primal, almost painful relief.
His son had found distraction, apparently, but no release.
“A swim would help,” Morgan observed.
Hectic color stormed the boy’s face. “Water’s too cold.”
“The colder the better, I’m thinking.”
The boy jerked his shoulder, neither yes or no, and started to walk along the road.
Morgan fell into step beside him.
Zachary glared. “What are you doing?”
“I told your mother I would bring you back.”
“I don’t have to go anywhere with you.”
“No,” Morgan agreed. He felt the boy’s start of surprise and pressed his advantage home. “But I’m not facing your mother without you, so you must decide how much of my company you will bear.”
“I don’t want to talk to her. Or you either.”
Morgan was half tempted to drag the boy to the water, dump him in, and be done with it.
But it was not enough to prove the boy was finfolk. He wanted him as an ally, a willing tool. Dylan was right. The situation here and on Sanctuary would be easier if there was some understanding between them. It would take time to win the boy’s trust.
“Your conversation is not so highly prized as you imagine,” Morgan said dryly.
“You don’t know my mother.”
Morgan lifted a brow.
“She’ll ask things,” Zachary said desperately. His voice cracked on the word.
“She does not need answers,” Morgan said. “Only reassurance. And perhaps . . . an apology.”
“You’re telling me to apologize.”
“You worried her.” And me, he thought. A new, disturbing notion. “The more you show yourself sensitive to her concerns, the less concerned she will be.”
“You mean, the more I tell her, the less she’ll ask,” Zachary said shrewdly.
Morgan smiled a shark’s smile in the dark. “Precisely.”
Liz read to Emily and tucked her in, both of them comforted by the familiar bedtime ritual. She missed the years when Zack was small and could be protected with a nightlight and a kiss, when the only monsters were imaginary and could be banished to the closet.
She padded downstairs to switch on the porch light, her bare feet silent on the wooden treads.
The porch was empty. The yard was dark. The incessant whir of crickets filled the night.
The words of the storybook wrapped her heart like barbed wire, leaving a dozen tiny, bleeding punctures. “And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”
Closing her eyes, Liz leaned her forehead against the cool glass by the side of the door. “Zack, come back,” she whispered like a prayer. “Come home.”
Where was he? For that matter, where was Morgan? She hated being stuck in the house with no way to reach them and no way to fix this.
Zack still hadn’t answered her calls.
She took a deep breath and forced herself away from the door. Turning on another lamp, she settled into a deep chair and booted up her laptop. Work was a good antidote to worry. So she would work. Fifty-three-year-old Henry Tibbetts had come into the clinic after an unexpected fall on his boat. Listening to the lobsterman’s halting explanation, Liz suspected he might have had a seizure. She took a careful medical history and ordered him to the hospital on the mainland for an EEG. In the meantime . . . The clinic stocked phenobarbital, but surely there were newer drugs with fewer side effects? Frowning, she pulled up the research online.
She was making notes when she heard a scrape on the porch, a rattle at the door. Her head rose. Her heart constricted with hope.
“Zack?” She uncurled her legs, sliding the laptop to the floor.
The front door opened.
Zack. Thank God. Relief crashed over her in a wave.
Her son loomed in the opening to the living room, shoulders hunched, watching her from under his thick, fair lashes. She jumped to her feet, barely registering Morgan coming in behind him.
Her son didn’t want her touching him anymore. She didn’t care. She grabbed him hard and hugged him tight. So tall, she thought, with a man’s big bones and a boy’s lean chest. When did he get so tall? His T-shirt smelled of young male sweat and grass.
He patted her awkwardly on the back with one arm. “Sorry, Mom.”
Foolish tears, angry, grateful tears, filled her eyes. “Where were you?”
Zack’s arm dropped.
She stepped back and saw him exchange a look with Morgan over her head. Unease brushed her spine like a cold hand in the dark.
He cleared his throat. “I went to Stephanie’s. Stephanie Wiley? Her family owns the grocery store. She thinks her dad can maybe give me a job.” Another quick glance at Morgan. “Stocking shelves and shit.”
The fist in her chest loosened. “Zack, that’s wonderful.”
“Yeah.” He shuffled his feet. “I should turn in. Got to be rested for my big day tomorrow.”
“What time do you need to be there? Do you have clean—”
“ ’ Night, Mom. Good night, um . . .”
Morgan’s gaze met Zack’s. Their eyes were the same, exactly the same, gleaming gold with thick, pale lashes. “Good night.”
Zack practically bounded up the stairs, moving with more energy than he’d exhibited in months.
Liz faced Morgan. “Who are you and what did you do to my son?”
The gleam spread to a smile. “Perhaps he is simply growing up.”
“You think?” Liz asked doubtfully.
“And perhaps it is the girl’s influence.”
“Stephanie,” Liz said, committing the name to memory. “He must have met her at the grocery store. I didn’t know he had any friends on World’s End.”
“You are surprised.”
“Thrilled, actually. And grateful.” She reached out and squeezed his forearm. “Thank you. This whole thing turned out better than I expected.”
His muscles were rigid under her touch. His gaze dropped to her fingers, pale against the black cashmere; lifted to her face. Her heart stuttered.
“Much better,” he murmured and dipped his head.
Her bare toes curled on the hard floor. His voice was so cool, his body so warm. His heat infected her, spreading from her hand on his arm to the pit of her belly and the soles of her feet. She felt his swift inhale against her lips and then his mouth covered hers.
Hot. His kis
s was hot and urgent. He didn’t seduce, he devoured, licking at the seam of her lips, thrusting his tongue inside, blanketing her brain with heat.
This was wrong. Her children were upstairs. She should stop him. She would stop him.
In a minute.
For now she gave herself up to gratitude, relief, and lust, gave herself over to him. He bit, licked, sucked at her mouth, devastating her with liquid fire until she was soft and open, until her body was wet and clamoring for his. His hands found and claimed her breasts. His fingers plucked the tight little points.
“I want to taste you. Here.” His breath seared her lips. His touch glided over the curve of her belly, along the crease of her thigh, and pressed between her legs. His palm circled slowly. “Here.”
Her body strained toward his. She squeezed her thighs together, struggling to speak. To breathe. “I . . .”
He watched her face as his fingers rubbed her through her slacks.
“I’m not that grateful,” she choked out.
“You would be.”
Oh, God.
Laughter, shocked, excited, broke from her. She stepped back firmly, away from his touch, out of temptation. “The children,” she articulated carefully, “are upstairs.”
He shot a glance toward the empty steps, the darkened hall. “We are down here.”
She ignored the thrill that ran through her veins and along her bones. He’d never married, she reminded herself. He didn’t have kids, except for Zack. He couldn’t understand.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I need to set an example.”
I need to be in control.
He stood very still, watching her, his eyes dark and considering between those thick blond lashes. Tension rolled off him in waves like heat from an oven. She could feel herself melting.
“You are in earnest,” he said finally, flatly.
She inhaled. “Yes.”
“Why? You are ready for me.”
“Not ready for this.”
“You are. I feel it. I smell it. Your body weeps for mine. Let me satisfy you.”
Temptation almost overwhelmed her. “You can’t. I need more than a quick grope on your way out the door. I need trust and tenderness and companionship and commitment. Can you offer me all those things? Or any of those things?”
“I am offering you sex.”
“That’s not enough.”
His gaze met hers. “It was once.”
His words thumped low in her midsection. An exquisite shudder went through her as she remembered the earth moving and the stars wheeling and his body plunging into hers again and again.
Remembered how she’d waited for his call the next day and all the days after, the sick realization she was pregnant as the result of a one-night stand.
She raised her chin. “It was never enough.”
His eyes blazed. His mouth curled mockingly. “You have changed your tune. You sang a different song when you were open and under me.”
She sucked in her breath. But before she could respond, he tugged on the door. The night swirled in, and he was gone.
The moon breasting the clouds left a wake of broken silver. The fog flowed, a cool current from the sea.
Morgan welcomed the chill in the air, for he had a burn in his blood that would not be satisfied this night.
His own fault, he acknowledged.
He had miscalculated Elizabeth’s resistance. But then, he had not expected resistance. He had never had a female reject him before. Never known a woman who demanded more than her pleasure as her due.
“I need trust and tenderness and companionship and commitment. Can you offer me all those things? Or any of those things?”
Of course he could not. Would not.
He was not bloody human.
But he should have worked harder to gain her trust, he realized now.
A hunter must think like his prey. He had managed well enough with the boy, observing from a distance, anticipating his moves. But with Elizabeth, Morgan had blundered badly. He had allowed his hunger to compromise his skill. Betrayed by appetite, he had struck too soon.
Something to think about when his blood was cooler.
He left the road, plunging down a slope thick with huckleberries, beach roses, and tall weeds.
The scent of the sea, cod and kelp, birth and decay, rose like the mist to fill his lungs and head. The heavy surface shone, opaque in the cloudy light. The tide sighed and murmured over the rocks, leaving behind bowls of rich water brimming with life.
He rolled his shoulders, the tension leaching from his muscles. Head erect, he strode over the deserted strand, shedding the things that constrained him in human form: shoes, sweater, pants, worry, conscience. The finfolk were powerful shifters, and he was their lord. He could transform even his outer garments. But tonight he wanted nothing between him and his element.
He splashed through pockets and pools of water, his world revealing itself in stages, blue-green algae clinging like shadows to the rocks, small, complex fortresses of periwinkles and barnacles, rubbery mats of sea wrack and Irish moss.
The water seized his ankles like cold manacles in the dark. His balls tightened. He grinned fiercely and waded forward, the warden’s medallion at his throat shining like a second moon.
The ocean surged to receive him, rustling around his knees, lapping at his thighs. He shook back his hair and dived, holding his breath against the shock of cold, the painful ecstasy, into the clear salt dark, into the pulse and surge and curl of the water, letting the joy take him, letting the water take him, one with the joy and the water.
Home.
Free.
His boundaries blurred and dissolved. His bones melted, stretched, fused. The pulse of the waves became his pulse, the heart of the ocean, his beating heart. He felt the Change rip through him like another pain, another ecstasy, tearing, convulsive, consuming as climax.
He retained just enough of his human mind to shape the Change as the hand of a potter shapes the clay. He was speed, size, strength, he was death in the water. He was the wolf of the ocean, Orcinus, seal killer, whale killer, killer whale. Scent disappeared. Sound enveloped him, vibrating through his bones, echoing in his head.
He plunged and breached, his breath a cloud, exhalation and exultation. He rocketed through the rushing dark, out-racing human thought and the oily taint of humans in the water, propelled by cold and energy.
Home.
Free.
The lash of heat flicked like a whip across his belly. He reared, rolled, fearless and confused. He was predator, not prey. Yet even in orca form he recognized ENEMY.
Human? No.
He reached out with questing thoughts and rapid clicks, received them back as echoes in the dark. He felt the heat rising like a plume, like a stain, like blood from the broken breast of earth. A sea vent, he realized, on the ocean floor, seeping heat and malice.
“I feel your frustration, finfolk lord, even in the depths of Hell. Why do you not take what you need?”
Gau. He recognized the source of heat, the voice in his head. The demon lord Gau, Hell’s emissary to Sanctuary, an old acquaintance and sometimes adversary who served the prince of Hell as Morgan served the prince of the sea. They knew each other well, fellow elementals equal in age and power, pride and position. They understood each other.
Perhaps too well, Morgan acknowledged. For in the demon lord, Morgan recognized his own lust for survival, his own personal ambition.
He bent his thoughts downward to the vent. “Gau. I thought we buried you.”
The demon’s amusement curled upward like smoke. “I am immortal. Remarkably hard to snuff. Didn’t I see you go down with the wall on Sanctuary?”
The previous winter, the children of fire had attacked the merfolk’s island. Morgan had stood with Conn on the walls of Sanctuary when an eruption of the earth’s crust had turned the sea itself against them, sending a great wave down like a hammer on the castle.
“I am finfolk,
” he returned blandly. “Remarkably hard to drown.”
“Ah, yes, I remember. You saved your lord that day and got small thanks for it.”
Surprising the resentment that stirred. Or not so surprising, Morgan reflected, trying to shield his thoughts. Gau was very good at his work.
“Better thanks, I am sure, than you received from your lord for your defeat.”
A hiss of fire, another flash of heat.
“Your lord is weak,” Gau spat. “He allies himself with weakness to the detriment of all your kind.”
“We make no alliances. The children of the sea are neutral in Hell’s war on Heaven and humankind.”
“Not so neutral when your prince is fucking one.”
Morgan had thought the same. But despite her human heritage, he respected the prince’s consort Lucy, targair inghean, promised daughter of the merfolk. He gave a mental shrug. “Neutral enough until you moved against us.”
“We seek only to restore the balance of power to what it was. To what it should be.”
“Enough games,” Morgan snapped. “What do you want?”
“Only your welfare and ours. Your people are dying.” Gau’s voice grated like sandpaper in his skull. “Beset by humankind and neglected by the selkie pretender. Ally with us and you will survive. We can have primacy again.”
Temptation struck, sharp and shining as a hook.
He dived deep, fighting the pull of Gau’s voice. “Water and fire make poor allies.”
“Are we not both elementals? Our interests are the same. Our quarrel is with Conn, not with you.”
“I am the prince’s warden.”
“He does not deserve your loyalty. Why do you think he put you to work hauling stone? Because you are expendable to him. He would not care if you and all your people vanish beneath the wave.”
In his chest, the warden’s medallion pulsed like a heart. He needed to surface, Morgan realized dimly. He needed air. “I pledged him my fealty.”
“A promise to his father, long past and easily forgotten. You are lord of the finfolk. You are more fit to lead than he.”
“You promise me rule over the children of the sea.”
“Ally with us, and together we can take back the world from the human vermin.”
Immortal Sea Page 10