Forgotten Sea

by Virginia Kantra

  “For you. I’m probably screwing up—hell, I know I’m screwing up—but cut me some slack. I haven’t had a lot of practice thinking about other people.”

  Her lips curved, but she didn’t look happy. “You know, I’m getting pretty tired of other people deciding what’s best for me.”

  He sucked in his breath. That’s what she was running away from. Asshole Axton and his angel horde. He didn’t want to be like them, didn’t want control of her life or her choices.

  He didn’t want the responsibility. But . . .

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

  This time her smile reached her beautiful eyes. “I think you underestimate yourself.”

  She reached out, her fingertips tracing the shape of his lips, the sensitive skin at the corner of his eyes. The tenderness of her touch clogged his throat.

  “So, do you want to . . . sleep with me?” she asked.

  “Really sleep.”

  The hesitation in her voice nearly did him in. Hell, yes, he wanted to sleep with her. He wanted to peel her out of that T-shirt and get his hands on what was under it. He wanted her on him and him inside her for whatever was left of the night. For however long they were together.

  He looked into her eyes, shining with trust, and knew he couldn’t do it. She might say sex wasn’t that big a deal, but women often said that. In his experience, most of them felt differently in the morning.

  He wasn’t taking advantage of her. He owed her too much, liked her too much, for that.

  “Sleep would be good,” he said.

  She nodded and scooted down on her pillow, making the mattress and everything under the T-shirt shift. He closed his eyes briefly. He must be out of his mind. He settled next to her, tucking her alongside him, her head under his chin, her arm across his chest, her smooth legs against his thigh.

  Torture.

  Her hair smelled fresh like rain and clean like soap. It was also, he discovered quickly, still damp.

  Sleep was hopeless. He lay staring at the ceiling, trying not to disturb her, forcing himself to breathe slowly and steadily in and out. He could feel the faint vibration of their connection, the beat of her heart, the whisper of her breath.

  In and out . . .

  He dreamed again. Dreamed and remembered.

  *

  Three of them boarded the ship in the gray dawn light. Four, if you counted the dog. Iestyn, his arms full of ninety pounds of wet, excited deerhound, definitely counted the dog. If not for the prince’s hound Madagh, they might all have Changed into seal form instead of leaving Sanctuary by boat.

  Or maybe not. Iestyn boosted the shivering dog onto the swim platform at the back of the boat before hauling himself, dripping, from the cold sea.

  How did you outswim the end of the world?

  The dog’s claws scrabbled on the smooth deck. Roth set down the sea chest and turned to help.

  At the ship’s rail, Kera stood, her gaze fixed on the rocky shore where the sea lord Conn stood with Griff, the castle warden, to see them off.

  Kera’s face set in lines of mutinous distress. “I should stay.”

  “The prince commanded us to leave,” Roth said.

  Kera raised her chin. “I could help in Sanctuary’s defense.

  I am Gifted.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass.”

  Iestyn ignored their squabble. The three of them had been raised together since before the age of Change. The magic of the island that kept their elders from aging prevented the young selkies from reaching maturity for a very long time.

  Once there had been enough of them to fill a classroom.

  But he and Roth and Kera were the youngest.

  The last.

  Seabirds clamored around the southern cliff face, disturbed by the fretting wind or the tension in the air. Small waves slapped the rocks below the towers of Caer Subai.

  Iestyn eyed them anxiously.

  Miles away, outside the wards that protected the island, demons labored under the crust of earth to turn the sea itself against the children of the sea. When the ocean floor erupted, the quake would create a tidal wave, a roaring wal of displaced water that would crest and fal on Sanctuary.

  Unless the sea lord stopped it. Somehow.

  A white bird, its wings sharply angled as a kite, circled the mast like a portent.

  Madagh caught sight of Conn on shore and whined, pressing against Iestyn’s thigh. Iestyn rubbed the dog’s bearded muzzle. He knew exactly how the dog felt.

  Lucy might have stopped the destruction of Sanctuary.

  In the brief time she had lived on the island, Lucy Hunter had channeled the flood of the wardens’ power and tapped a well of feeling in the cold, proud sea lord as deep as it was unexpected.

  But Lucy was gone now.

  When the demons threatened, she had turned her back on the prince and her selkie heritage to protect her human family in Maine, half a world away.

  No one dared speak of her desertion to the prince. But among themselves, Iestyn and his friends could talk of little else.

  “Traitor,” Kera denounced her.

  But in the weeks Lucy had been on Sanctuary, she had been Iestyn’s friend. She stood with him back to back against the demons. She had healed his wounded arm.

  Iestyn tightened his fingers in the rough fur of the dog’s back, his throat constricting. He would have gone with her, if she had asked. He would have followed her if he dared.

  The cold wind whipped through Iestyn’s clothes and tugged at the rigging. On shore, Conn’s face was set like stone, his eyes like ice.

  “You are our hope and our future,” the prince had said that morning to the three young selkies before ordering them away.

  Iestyn had wanted to argue. Lucy was the important one. He wished Prince Conn would go after her and find her before it was too late.

  The earth rumbled. Iestyn’s heart pounded as he bent to secure the barking dog to the rail.

  Unless it was already too late.

  *

  He woke suddenly, his heart drumming in his ears and in his chest. There was somewhere he had to go, something he had to do. “You are our hope and our future . . .” “Who’s Lucy?”

  Lara’s voice. Lara’s face hovering over him, revealed in the crack of light from the bathroom. Her side pressed warm and soft against him, breast, hip, thigh. His body reared awake.

  He cleared his throat. “Who?”

  Her gray eyes narrowed. “You were dreaming about a woman. Lucy Something.”

  “Lucy Hunter.” Memory engulfed him like a wave. He couldn’t breathe. “Lara . . .” He gripped her shoulders too hard, his fingers denting her smooth flesh. “What happened?”

  She caught her full lower lip in her teeth. “I’m not sure.

  It’s this connection thing we’ve got going. Like I was in your dream, but watching it, you know? I could see you—you were younger in the dream—and I could sort of hear your thoughts, but I didn’t understand everything that was going on.”

  Neither did he.

  Seven frigging years. Gone. The realization was as sharp as a knife, the loss as new as yesterday.

  And Sanctuary . . .

  He shook his head to clear it. “What happened to Sanctuary?”

  “That’s the island in your dream?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re telling me your lot wouldn’t notice if the demons sank an island into the sea?”

  “This isn’t Star Wars,” she said with a flash of spirit.

  “It’s not like we feel a disturbance in the Force. Or maybe the masters would, but they wouldn’t tell me about it. I’m only a novice Seeker.”

  “Well , that’s just fucking great,” he said.

  She looked at him with those big, clear, wounded eyes, which made him feel like an even bigger piece of shit for taking out his frustration on her. “Sorry.
It’s not your fault.

  There’s nothing you can do.”

  Nothing he could do. If Sanctuary was gone, everything was over, had been over for seven years. His skull throbbed.

  The only difference was that now he knew. He felt gutted, hollowed, as if everything worthwhile had been stripped from him, leaving nothing but bones and skin.

  Not even skin.

  His seal pelt was gone, too.

  He covered his eyes with his upraised arm. Swallowed the ache in his throat. Nothing had changed, he told himself.

  Nothing had really changed. He was still just a yacht bum, a drifter, without ties or responsibilities.

  “Why would the demons destroy Sanctuary?” Lara asked.

  She lay on her stomach beside him, her warm hip against his thigh, comforting. Distracting. “The merfolk have never sided with Heaven or humankind. What did the demons hope to gain?”

  Reluctantly, he focused on her words. “We had something they wanted. Something our prince would never give up.”

  “What?”

  He lowered his arm, irritated by her persistence. “Lucy Hunter.”

  He watched her turn over his answer in her mind. “I can understand them hating her because she’s human,” she said slowly. “But . . .”

  “Half human, half selkie. Lucy’s mother was the sea witch Atargatis. There’s a prophecy that a daughter of her mother’s lineage would change the balance of power among the elementals.”

  And if Sanctuary had fallen, the balance of power had shifted in ways Iestyn couldn’t begin to imagine. Didn’t want to think about.

  Maybe the demons had initially attacked Lara because she was nephilim. But if they’d declared open season on his kind as well, she was in more danger than ever. He couldn’t be responsible for her safety.

  “I’ll rent you a car in the morning,” he said. “You can go back.”

  Lara rose to her knees, making the mattress and everything under the T-shirt bounce. “Wait a minute. I’m going with you.

  To help you find your people.”

  He looked up, into her eyes. “My people are gone.

  You’ve got nothing to prove anymore. You can’t help me.”

  She sat back on her heels, dragging half the covers with her. He made a grab for the sheet. Nudity didn’t bother his people, but he was exposed enough already.

  “There must be other merfolk,” she said.

  “Not many. Our power and our population have been declining for years. Centuries.”

  “But you’re immortal.”

  “In the sea,” he said patiently. “To live on land, to live in human form without aging, we need the magic of Sanctuary.”

  Instead of arguing, she nodded. “So at least we know where we’re going now.”

  Hadn’t she heard a word he’d said? “I’m not dragging you halfway across the world looking for Sanctuary.”

  “We’re not going to find Sanctuary.”

  “Good bet. Seeing as it probably doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “We’re going to find Lucy Hunter.”

  Her eyes were so fierce and bright, her voice so clear and determined, he didn’t have the heart to tell her she was pinning her hopes and his future on a wild-goose chase.

  Or maybe he didn’t have the guts. He still felt oddly hollow inside. Empty. As if he wasn’t completely inhabiting his own body.

  He was conscious of hers, though. The pressure of her knee against his hip. The quick rise and fall of her breasts.

  Her weight beside him pinning the sheet, anchoring him to the bed. With her beside him, he wasn’t drifting. Wasn’t lost.

  His blood began to flow and pound in his chest, his head, his groin.

  She was so damn beautiful, those dark winged brows setting off her incredible eyes, her straight, delicate nose, her full, pink, soft lips.

  Their eyes met and clung. She must have registered the change in his expression, the charge in the air, because her long black lashes swept down. Even in the dark, he could see her blush. She had to see his reaction, too, standing up stubbornly under the sheet. But she didn’t back down or push away.

  “Maine, right? Didn’t you say . . . In your dream, you thought about her family in Maine.”

  She wouldn’t leave him alone.

  He really liked that about her.

  But now his head hurt and he was tired of arguing.

  When a beautiful, nearly naked woman was in your bed, maybe it was better to go with the flow, to avoid confrontation. “Could we talk about this in the morning?”

  “There’s nothing to discuss. We’re going to Maine.”

  Maine. Why not? His own personal compass needle had been swinging north for a while.

  So instead of telling her right this minute that there was no way in hell he was taking her with him, he said, “If we don’t get some sleep, we won’t be fit to go anywhere.”

  She smiled, flushed and triumphant. His heart lurched.

  She settled beside him, sliding under the sheet. He put his arm carefully around her, and she nestled against him, her breasts squashing the side of his chest, her clean hair tickling his chin.

  She felt warm. Smooth. Solid. Gradually, the empty ache in his chest eased. The noise in his head faded away.

  We flow as the sea flows.

  But when he was with her, the turbulence calmed. He would be content to lie with her like this, motionless, for hours.

  Maybe even forever.

  Her fingers spread across his chest. Her warm breath teased his nipple to attention. His cock stirred.

  He grimaced. Okay, not completely content. Not entirely motionless either.

  She moved her leg, getting comfortable, and then froze, her thigh brushing his erection.

  “Ignore it, and it will go away,” he forced himself to say lightly.

  “Really?”

  Despite the ache deep in his balls, the disappointment in her tone made him grin. “Eventually.”

  She slid her smooth leg down his hair-roughened thigh and back up again, watching him through her lashes. “How long?”

  His mind blanked. She wanted to know how long he . . . Oh.

  “Minutes.” Hours. Maybe for as long as she was next to him.

  “Unless I, uh, take matters into my own hands.”

  “Like this?”

  Her soft, warm hand closed gently around him, zapping his brain and sending a wave of molten heat pouring through his veins. He started to sweat.

  “If you pay it attention, you’ll only encourage it,” he warned.

  She chuckled.

  He loved making her laugh. Loved that she was lying with him, warm and pliant and unafraid.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

  “What question?” He wanted to talk to her, to reassure her, but her hand on his dick made conversation difficult.

  She stroked him lightly. “You didn’t tell me if you like this.”

  Okay, that was an easy one.

  “Love it.”

  Although in truth, she was almost too gentle, her tentative touch promising more than it satisfied. But those were her fingers, skating over the broad head of his cock. Her palm briefly cupping his balls. Her sweet incompetence was searing pleasure and teeth-grinding agony.

  “I’ve never been particularly . . . handy,” she said, and even with his blood throbbing he appreciated that she’d actually attempted a joke. “Is this right?”

  He grinned over her head in the dark. Angels and their fucking rules. Maybe they had rules for fucking.

  “Whatever feels good to you,” he said hoarsely. “Whatever you want.”

  Her smile flickered. She drew the covers down his body.

  He caught his breath as the sheet dragged over his erection.

  With flattering concentration, she explored him slowly, thoroughly, tracing the ridges and indentations of his torso, the narrow trail of hair below his
belly button.

  She was beautiful in her absorption, her lashes fanning her pink cheeks, her lips parted. Moist. She raked her fingers up his inner thighs, combed the crisp, short hair at his groin, taking him to Heaven and to Hell. He was desperate for her, his shaft pulsing in time with his heart.

  Her exploration was arousing her, too. He could see the stiffened peaks of her breasts against the soft cotton of her T-shirt. He could smell her sweet desire.

  His cock jerked, demanding her attention. She fit her hand around his hot length, cupping the underside of his shaft, and he shuddered, hips arching off the mattress.

  Her hand froze. “I’m sorry.”

  He dropped his head back on the pillow— See?

  Harmless—and forced himself to smile. “I’m not.”

  She bit her lip. “Did I hurt you?”

  His grin came naturally this time. “You’re killing me. In a good way,” he said hastily when she looked at him with those big, uncertain eyes. “My junk’s not fragile,” he added, trying to ease the tension, to tease another smile to her beautiful face. “You can tug on it all you want.”

  “Even here?” Her hand squeezed delicately.

  His grin spread. Never in a thousand years had he imagined giving whack lessons to an angel. “Whatever you want,” he repeated. “Whatever you do feels good to me.”

  *

  Lara trembled. Iestyn might claim he had no experience thinking about the needs of others, but with those words he’d given her exactly what she needed. Safety to experiment and explore.

  Freedom to indulge her curiosity and desire.

  And she did desire him. Her yearning tightened her breasts, weighted her womb. Her sensory world shrank to this bed, this moment, this man. She touched him, reveling in the velvety expanse of his torso, marveling in his hard-muscled abs, his solid thighs. His erection jutted thick and tall from its nest of rough curls.

  Her breathing quickened. She could do whatever she wanted with him. Whatever felt good.

  Impulsively, she leaned forward and nuzzled him, enjoying the glide of hot satin over stone against her cheek.