“She chose to live as human.” Liz grabbed the phrase like a life raft.
“That’s right.”
“What about your husband?”
“Well, sure.” Regina considered her a moment and then said, “Look, I don’t know what Morgan told you about your son, but he’s a lot like Dylan. Which means he has a chance for a normal life. A human life. With you.”
Liz wanted to hug her in gratitude. But she couldn’t afford to lose her head. “If that’s what he wants.”
“What does he know what he wants? He’s fifteen.”
Liz flushed. “You’re talking about Zack.”
“Who else would I . . . Morgan?”
Liz dropped her gaze to her wineglass. “You said they were alike.”
“Dylan and Zack,” Regina clarified. “They’re both half-human. Morgan is a coldblooded son of a bitch.”
Liz shivered.
“Because of you,” Morgan had said, his eyes alight with intensity, his body throwing off heat. “Because of my feelings for you. As soon as I knew the boy was finfolk, I would have taken him and gone. For no other woman—for no other force on earth—would I have stayed.”
He hadn’t seemed so cold then. Or last night on her porch.
But he wanted to take their son away.
Liz straightened her spine. All her life, she’d had to fight for what she wanted. Med school. Her baby. Ben’s life. Sometimes she lost, but she didn’t give up.
Just because her world had changed in the past few hours didn’t mean that she should.
“I need to talk to him,” she said, not sure if she meant Morgan or Zack.
“You want to leave Emily here?” Regina offered.
Liz looked at her, surprised and grateful. She hadn’t expected an ally. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“You won’t. Let her stay for dinner. It’s family movie night at the community center. Popcorn and a double feature. Dylan can take the kids and bring Emily home afterwards.”
“That would be great. Thank you. What time?”
“Ten, ten-thirty?”
More than enough time to have things out with Zack. Her head pounded.
“I’ll have to ask her,” Liz said. Her seven-year-old had spent all day at a new camp. She might object to spending all evening away from her mother and a new kitten.
Which meant any serious discussions with Zack might have to wait, Liz thought, and tried to feel disappointed instead of relieved.
Summoned from her video game, however, Emily showed no sign of separation anxiety.
“Cool. Thanks, Mom.” Her smile flashed. “Thanks, Mrs. Hunter.”
“Hurry up!” Nick shouted. “You’re going down.”
“Bring it!” she yelled.
She turned back at the door to his room, her big dark eyes seeking reassurance. “You won’t forget to feed Tigger.”
Liz’s throat ached. They were growing up, growing away from her, both her children. “I promise.”
She watched her daughter bounce off before turning back to Regina. “You’re sure this isn’t a problem for you?”
“Not at all. Nick’s thrilled. He needs more people his own age to play with.”
“Don’t we all.” She walked with Regina to the landing outside the apartment. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Then don’t. You good to drive?”
Her obvious concern touched Liz. “I’ll walk. It’s not far.”
A walk would give her time to clear her head and plan her strategy. She thanked Regina again and went home, preparing to fight for what she wanted.
A future where she wasn’t alone.
Stephanie set her hands on her hips. “Zack, when I said the next move was up to you, I was expecting a little more than, ‘Hey, can I come over tonight.’ ”
Zack’s face heated. “Okay. What do you want to do?”
She tilted her head, considering. “There’s a movie at the community center tonight.”
No movie could be as interesting as her backyard swing, but he wanted to make her happy. “You want to go?”
“I am going. Seven o’clock.” And then, apparently taking pity on him, she smiled and added, “Maybe I’ll see you there.”
That smile—and the hope that she would sit with him, be with him, in the back, in the dark—was enough to lighten his mood on the walk home. When he thought about Stephanie, her smile, her eyes, her small, firm breasts, he didn’t have to think about anything else. He didn’t want to talk to anyone else.
Maybe now he wouldn’t have to.
They barely had time for dinner before the movie started. Mom would be careful what she said in front of Emily, and Morgan wouldn’t be around. Not two nights in a row. Mom was careful about stuff like that, too, with the guys she dated—or didn’t date—since Dad died. She didn’t want them getting ideas, or she didn’t want him and Emily getting ideas about anybody taking their father’s place. She’d made an exception for Morgan, but only because Morgan was Zack’s . . .
Father.
He shook his head. Not thinking about that. Think about Stephanie instead, her sharp blue eyes, her red and black hair, the smooth silver ring at the corner of her mouth. “The next step is up to you,” she’d said.
Which took him back to Morgan and his mother. Shit.
He pushed open the front door, planning to escape to his room.
His mom was sitting where she always sat, in the corner of the couch by the reading lamp, cradling her open laptop. She worked all the time, making patient notes or doing research. When his dad was alive, they would sit together, not really talking. Every now and then, his mom would read something out loud about drug interactions or complications from herpes and his dad would reach over and pat his mother’s foot.
Good times, he thought sarcastically. But the memory, so ordinary, so clear, clogged his throat.
“Hey, Mom.”
She glanced up from her monitor, her face lighting in that way that made him feel loved and annoyed at the same time. “Hi, Zack.”
He waited for the familiar litany of questions. How was your day, your lunch, the walk, your life?
When it didn’t come, the tension leaked out of him like air from a balloon.
“Mom.”
She looked up again, her eyes dark and questioning.
Morgan thought he should tell her.
But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
He cleared his throat and took the coward’s way out. “Is it okay if we eat early tonight?”
“Hungry?”
“Yeah.” He was always hungry, so that wasn’t a lie at least. “Actually, I’ve got to be someplace at seven.”
“Where?”
He hunched his shoulders. She was always after him to get out of his room, to go out. What did it matter where he went? “Some movie. At the community center.”
Her face cleared. “Maybe you’ll see Emily there.”
“Em?”
“She’s going with a friend from day camp. His parents are taking her. Do you want a ride?”
Stephanie was sixteen. All the guys she dated probably had their driver’s licenses already. Hell, they probably had cars.
“I’ll walk.” He heard the sullen note in his voice and made an effort. “Thanks, though.”
“No problem. I’d better get started on dinner, then.” Her smile flickered as she uncurled from the couch. “So you won’t be late.”
She set her half-closed laptop on the coffee table. A minute later he could hear her in the kitchen, banging cupboards, opening drawers.
He hovered in the living room, caught between coming and going, between his past and his future, between what he had and everything he wanted. He could follow her and talk to her. He could go upstairs and hide.
He flopped on the couch, thumbed the remote for the TV, and picked up his mother’s laptop, prepared to dull his mind into quiet.
His mom was still online. He ran his finger over the keypad to s
hut the application. Froze, with his finger raised and his heart thudding in his ears.
THE FINFOLK OF ORKNEY, he read. These sorcerous shape-shifters of Scotland are frequently confused with the more benign legend of the selkie. While some scholars have argued that the tales have roots in the invasions of the Viking longboats, Hallen’s Scottish Antiquary of 1886 refers to . . .
Tuna melts, Liz decided, grabbing the can opener out of the drawer. Simple and quick. And Zack liked them. Tigger mewed as the opener bit into the can, releasing the smell of tuna. Adolescent boys were like strays. As long as they were eating, they didn’t run away. She’d set his plate in front of him and say . . .
And say . . .
“You Googled me,” Zack accused behind her.
Her heart sank. Not the opening she was searching for.
“Like I was a disease or something,” he continued.
She turned. “Zack.”
He stood in the middle of their new kitchen, a skinny, black-haired version of Morgan with stormy face and glittering eyes. “He told you, didn’t he? My . . . Morgan.”
“Someone had to.” His head snapped back as if she’d slapped him. She bled for him, her man-child, her firstborn, struggling with a fate and a secret too big to bear. “It doesn’t make any difference,” she said gently.
“It does to me.”
“You’re still my son. I love you.”
“I’m a freak.”
She shook her head. “You’re unique.”
“Mom. That’s what they say to kids they put in special classes.”
Despite her heartache, she smiled. “Nothing wrong with special classes.”
Except that Morgan wanted to take him away. For training, he’d said.
A pang struck her heart.
She dumped the tuna into a bowl. Tigger quivered at her feet. “You’re the same on the inside,” she said firmly. “Anybody who cares about you will see that.”
“I turn into a shark. Did he tell you that?”
Her throat closed. A shark. Well. The skin on her arms prickled.
“I chose the forms most likely to be acceptable to you,” Morgan had said. “The closest to human of the creatures of the sea.”
Bending, she set the nearly empty can on the floor for Tigger. The kitten’s vibrating little body pressed against her ankles. “He said you were a shape-shifter. An elemental. A child of the sea.”
“A shark. It’s fucking scary.”
“I imagine it is.” She straightened and faced him. “Especially for you.”
His chin thrust out. Trembled. The glitter in his eyes was tears.
She melted. Stepping over the kitten, she crossed the kitchen, reached up, and put her arms around him. His shoulders were broad and bony. His head loomed above hers.
His arms, his chest, his whole body stiffened. And then he made a sound deep in his chest and sagged against her. His forehead leaned against her shoulder. His body shook.
She closed her eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said, the way she had when he was a little boy, with a little boy’s hurts and fears. She stroked his black-dyed hair. No matter what he was, what he could become, how old he got, he was still her Zack. “Everything’s going to be all right. It doesn’t make any difference.”
She hoped.
“Why did you sleep with him?” Zack asked when the meal was done and they were clearing the dishes away.
Her heart bumped guiltily. “What?”
“Morgan. Did you know what he was before you . . .” Zack ducked his head. “You know.”
She exhaled in relief. He wasn’t referring to last night. But where was he going with this? “No, of course not. I didn’t know until today.”
“So it would have made a difference,” Zack said. His eyes were bleak and curiously adult.
“Oh, sweetie.”
But he didn’t need a child’s reassurances now, she realized. His tears earlier had steadied him, strengthened him somehow.
“The point is, whether your father was finfolk or not, I should have known better, I should have known him better, before I slept with him. We can’t always know the consequences of our choices. But we can try to learn as much as we can so we can make informed decisions.”
He twisted his mouth in a smile. “You mean, by looking stuff up on the Internet?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “And sometimes we just need to talk.”
He absorbed that for a beat, maybe two. “Is it okay if we talk later? Because the movie starts in like ten minutes.”
She stared at him in disbelief. How could he even think of going to the movies with so much undisclosed, undiscussed, and undecided?
Because he was fifteen, she realized. Still a child, still a boy, no matter how “unique” he was.
She was glad, relieved to have any evidence he was still a normal teenager.
“That’s fine.” She dried her hands on a dish towel. “You have a good time. Be home by eleven.”
“Mom. It’s Friday.”
She draped the towel over the bar on the oven door. “And you have work tomorrow.”
“Not until noon. Noon to six.”
He was growing up some, if he remembered his work schedule.
“Eleven,” she repeated.
“Fine.”
“I love you, Zack.”
He met her gaze. His eyes were Morgan’s eyes, pale gold with deep black centers, but his smile was pure Zachary, sweet and careful. “Yeah. Me you too.”
Her heart swelled.
Maybe love would be enough, she thought when he’d said good-bye and the house was empty.
She filled the kettle and set it on the stove to make a cup of tea. The gas flared, too high, too fast. She frowned and adjusted the dial.
Maybe love was all you had, and all you could hold were the moments snatched before the ones you loved were gone.
As Ben had gone.
And Morgan.
Blue flames jumped and licked at the kettle’s sides. The spout burped water as if it were boiling already, which it wasn’t. Odd. Fat drops sizzled against the steel. The little hairs lifted on the back of her neck.
She adjusted the heat again carefully. Old stoves could be temperamental. Nothing to worry about. She’d had this one inspected with the rest of the house before they moved in.
Tigger mewed, plaintive, insistent.
She opened a cupboard to get a mug and the tea canister. She smelled . . . Not gas. Something fecal, something fetid, something rotten.
A hiss, a whoosh behind her made her turn.
A sheet of blue and orange flame shot upward from the stove.
“Shit,” she yelled and dropped the mug and lunged for the burner control.
The fire reached greedily for her, a flash of heat, a howl of glee. She ducked, twisting the dial. The gas snapped off. The fire wavered. Dropped. Died.
Heart hammering, she backed away. The broken mug rolled at her feet.
Tigger cried.
“It’s okay,” she said shakily.
The burner was black, the kettle quiet. She glanced down and saw the kitten puffed with fright, backed against a table leg.
She blew out her breath. “It’s okay, baby.”
She stooped to comfort him, and the dish towel hanging on the oven door burst into flame.
16
THE PREMONITION OF DANGER TRICKLED THROUGH Morgan like smoke.
He raised his head from his whiskey like a wolf testing the wind, his hunter’s instincts alert. But he could detect no threat in the quiet bar at the inn.
“Can I get you another?” offered the waitress. She shifted her weight, her hip brushing his arm. “Or anything? Anything at all.”
“No.” He remembered human manners and added, “Thank you.”
She was young, clear eyed, smooth skinned, and eager. But he did not want her. He did not want any woman but Elizabeth.
The realization made him almost as uneasy as that sly tickle on the back of h
is neck, in the pit of his stomach. For the first time ever in his existence, he was uncomfortable in his own body. Not because he needed sex or the sea, but because he wanted her. Elizabeth. He worried about her.
How did humans bear it? This edge of impatience, this itch of anxiety, this awareness of another like the slide of water over his skin.
She wanted time alone, she’d said. To think.
The lingering bite of whiskey could not dispel the bitterness in his mouth.
She needed to pick up her daughter, service her car, resume her life.
And Morgan, moved by her pale face and huge dark eyes, aware he had pushed the bounds of her acceptance enough for one day, had acquiesced like a besotted fool.
A mistake, he thought now. Like any warrior, Elizabeth would use the respite to count her losses and regroup. He should have stayed with her.
He should be with her. Now.
The thought cleaved his skull, sharp as an axe or instinct.
He stood.
“Can I add that to your tab?” the hovering bar girl asked.
He nodded, thanked her, and left, driven by an urgency he could not explain and did not question.
The parking lot stank of gravel and gasoline, the moist loam of the neglected gardens, the pervasive tang of the sea. And under it all, an acrid taint like ash.
His nostrils flared. Like demon.
His lips pulled back from his teeth. The premonition of danger flooded back, stronger than before. Elizabeth.
Before he reached the end of the drive, he broke into a run.
Red flames shot to the ceiling. The burning towel fell to the floor. Liz’s heart hammered against her ribs. She dropped to her knees, fumbling in the under-the-sink cabinet. Dish detergent, garbage bags, cleaning bucket . . . fire extinguisher.
Thank God. She grabbed it.
She’d never used one before, had no idea if it had expired. Could expire. She stumbled to her feet, yanked the big round pin, and aimed the nozzle at the fire.
Nothing.
Sweat broke out on her face and under her arms. Her pulse raced. Do not panic. She was a doctor, trained to respond calmly in crisis. She squeezed, pressed, prayed. A burst of chemical foam shot out, smothering the stove. Flames and foam collided in an oily, stinking mess. She coughed. Sprayed. The fire subsided with a sullen hiss and a flicker of orange. She sprayed until the canister sputtered and died, until the stove and surrounding floor were coated with greasy, caustic foam. Her hands trembled. Her legs shook.
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