Vermin. The word stuck in Morgan’s throat, a small indigestible lump that made the rest impossible to swallow.
Elizabeth was not vermin.
Zachary was not vermin.
He tried to turn his thoughts away from them, but Gau was too quick for him.
“The boy is finfolk,” the demon said.
Not a hook, a harpoon this time, straight to his gut. Somehow Gau knew what Morgan had only suspected.
Or, Morgan acknowledged, the demon merely said what he knew Morgan wanted to hear.
“The future could be his,” Gau continued. “And yours. Only say the word, only pledge us your support, and you can have everything you desire.”
He could not breathe. “And if I decline?”
Gau’s response scorched the water. “Then we will take them from you. The boy and the woman both.”
9
MORGAN STOOD ON THE MOON-WASHED LANDING outside Dylan Hunter’s apartment. The restaurant downstairs was shuttered tight. He pounded on the door, rewarded when a light sprang on inside.
A lock clicked.
“Morgan. Jesus.” Dylan scrubbed his face with his hand, blocking the entrance to the apartment. “It’s after eleven. What do you want?”
“I thought you warded this fucking island.”
Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “I did.”
“Who is it?” A woman’s voice rose from behind him. “Is everything okay?”
Dylan turned his head. “Fine, sweetheart. Go back to bed.”
An infant’s thin wail wavered and fell.
“Shit.” Dylan grimaced. “You better come in. Keep your voice down.”
Morgan followed him inside.
The rooms were small, shabby, and warm. Morgan thought the entire apartment would probably fit inside the great hall at Caer Subai. Instead of English wood and Spanish iron, French silks and Italian marble, the place was littered with the debris of human existence, shoes under a table, bright throw pillows on the couch, bits of sea glass dangling in the windows. A child’s artwork covered the refrigerator. Photographs hung on the walls.
The woman in the photographs stood in a darkened doorway, wrapped in a long red robe, a fussing infant on her shoulder.
“You remember my wife, Regina,” Dylan said with obvious pride.
Straight, cropped hair; thin, angular face; dark, expressive eyes. Not a beauty, Morgan thought. But fertile and formidable, if what he had been told of last summer’s events was true.
He inclined his head.
Regina cocked hers. “Kind of late for a social call.”
“I am here on business.”
She looked at her husband. “Selkie business?”
Dylan shrugged.
“Well, you can fill me in later.” She soothed the infant, a pink scrap with her mother’s cap of dark hair and her father’s bold black eyes. “I’ll feed Grace in our room.”
Morgan noticed the shadows under her eyes, a faint bruising that reminded him of Elizabeth’s fatigue. “I am sorry to have intruded,” he said stiffly.
“’Sokay.” Her quick smile transformed her face. She was not as lovely as Elizabeth, but he could see now what had attracted Dylan. “Grace usually wakes up about now anyway. If we’re lucky, she’ll go down until I have to get up at five.”
Dylan rested a hand on the small of his wife’s back, ran a finger down his daughter’s cheek. “I’ll make you some tea. You want that herbal stuff?”
“That would be good.” She leaned into him a moment, a yielding, graceful gesture that made Morgan blink. And wonder. There was more between the selkie and his mate than sex and progeny. Was this the trust and tenderness Elizabeth sought?
“Can you offer me all those things? Or any of those things?”
No. Why would he want to? He was not half-human, as Dylan was.
Yet Dylan now bore little resemblance to the moody adolescent Morgan remembered. He seemed stronger, more self assured, more . . . Satisfied, Morgan thought with a twist of envy.
Regina adjusted the infant’s weight on her shoulder and disappeared into the bedroom.
“So.” Dylan grabbed a tea kettle, filling it at the scoured white sink. “What drags you to my door at midnight?”
Morgan prowled restively in the tight space between kitchen and living room. “I saw the demon lord Gau. Heard him, rather.”
Dylan banged the kettle on the stove. “When? Where?”
“Not an hour ago, two miles east.”
Dylan clicked on the gas. Blue flames licked at the kettle’s sides. “Two miles east,” he repeated. “You’re sure it was Gau? We defeated him last winter.”
“I recognized his voice.” A whisper like fire, a taint like oil in the water.
“There are other demons.”:,So near?“
Morgan raised his brows. “So near?”
“Margred bound one in the waters last summer, near where you think you saw Gau. And we’ve had attacks since then. Not on the island, not since I set the wards. But you know as well as I do it’s impossible to shield every inch of the sea bottom.”
Morgan knew. The northern deeps around Yn Eslynn were literally a hotbed of demons seething beneath the crust, testing the limits of earth and the merfolk’s powers and patience.
His lips drew back in a silent snarl. The island was not his territory. A week ago, the demons were welcome to it. But they would not touch what was his.
“What I can do, I will do,” he said. “For as long as I am here.”
“I appreciate that,” Dylan said. “Before they left, Conn and Lucy strengthened the protections on the island. But there are places the finfolk can go the selkie can’t.”
Morgan had not considered there was more to Conn’s visit than his consort’s whim. He did not like knowing he was not fully in the prince’s confidence. Or that he might have misjudged him. “He did not tell me.”
The kettle whistled. Dylan removed it from the fire. “Conn probably figured you didn’t give a damn. He wouldn’t know you had a personal stake on the island.”
“Neither did I.”
Dylan took a mug from a cupboard, shot him a glance. “You’re sure, then, that this kid is finfolk.”
“His name is Zachary,” Morgan said. “No, I do not know. Gau said he was.”
“You can’t believe everything a demon says.”
“I do not need your instruction,” Morgan said coldly. “I was battling demons in the deep before your grandfather was born.”
Long enough to fear that Gau, for once, might have spoken truth.
An unfamiliar fear crawled up his back. The island was warded. But once Zachary entered the water, once he was beyond the wards’ protection, the boy was vulnerable. What would happen then?
Gau’s threat burned in Morgan’s brain. “We will take them from you. The boy and the woman both.”
He mounted her, pushing her thighs wide as she strained toward him, wet and open and aching under him, their joining sharp as orgasm, shifting as a dream.
In one shocking, glorious thrust, he shoved himself full length inside her, thick and hard. Filling her. Stretching her. She had never been so full. Only once. Only . . .
She moaned in pleasure and in need as he ground against her, seated deep inside her. She ran her palms down the line of his back, dug her short nails into his buttocks, pulling him closer, urging him on, reveling in his hot, smooth, bare skin, in his strength and weight pressing her into the mattress. It had been so long. Too long. He slammed into her again and she arched, shuddering with sensation, delighting in the power of his body, the scent of his sweat, the healthy slap of wet flesh on flesh.
She panted. “More.”
He reared up, his odd, pale eyes with their deep, dark centers gleaming golden in the dark.
Morgan.
She woke to the rasp of her own breathing and the emptiness of her bed.
Oh, dear God.
Liz lay on the damp sheets, willing her heartbeat to return to normal.
She was married. Had been married. After three years, she was resigned to rolling over at night reaching for Ben. Wanting Ben. She missed her husband beside her in their bed, the intimacy of touch and breath that was deeper than sleep, more satisfying than sex.
This was different. Dangerous. Disloyal.
This was Morgan, Morgan’s face she had imagined over hers in the night, Morgan’s weight on her, Morgan’s flesh in her, Morgan filling her. Fucking her.
She drew a sharp breath.
“I am offering you sex,” he had said to her.
“That’s not enough.”
Maybe not.
But the prospect, the promise in his voice and in his eyes, left her empty and aching for him.
The foggy remnants of her dream lingered the next morning, clogging her brain, pounding like a hangover in her head. She rummaged in the back of her drawer for underwear. She needed to do laundry. Her hand closed on a folded square. She pulled it out. Stared at it blankly.
And was transported back sixteen years in time.
Morgan, standing in the light of early dawn, the scratches of her nails on his shoulders. His face calm, composed, polite, as he turned to offer her something. His hand? A handkerchief.
She managed to sit up and take it, pleased to notice her hand was steady. Evidence of her awesome self-control, she thought, and winced.
Then he hadn’t simply invaded her dreams, Liz reminded herself. He’d trampled them.
She finished dressing, dabbing concealer on the bags under her eyes. Her familiar reflection stared back from the mirror, pale, resolute, in control.
It bothered her she could not control her dreams. She felt betrayed, as if her mind and body were in collusion against her.
Stumbling downstairs, she fumbled through her morning routine, fueled by coffee and the need to maintain a pretense of normality. She packed snacks and a peanut butter sandwich for Emily, propped a note in the middle of the kitchen island where Zack would be sure to see it when he woke.
Walking into the front hall, she felt Morgan’s presence from the night before like a ghost brushing her skin.
Steadying herself with a hand on the banister, Liz called up the stairs. “Emily! Time to go!”
It was a relief to get to work, to slip on the authority and armor of her white doctor’s coat, to concentrate on her patients’ needs and problems instead of her own.
Margred Hunter, in Exam Room 2, could be a problem.
Liz glanced down at her notes; up at her patient. Sitting upright on the paper-covered table, Margred certainly appeared healthy. Glowing dark eyes, abundant hair and breasts, slight, mysterious smile. Like a poster model for pregnancy, Liz thought, or some pagan fertility goddess. Her physical exam confirmed her blood pressure was normal and she had only mild edema. Her baby was head down and settling nicely into her pelvis.
But the woman was less than two weeks from her due date. She could go into labor at any time.
“About your birth plan,” Liz began.
Margred looked surprised. “We went over that at my appointment last week. When Caleb was here. He wants me to have our baby at the hospital.”
“Which is great,” Liz said promptly. “They have a wonderful birthing center there and the best neonatal unit outside of Portland. The thing is, you’re already thirty percent effaced. Of course in an emergency, we can call LifeFlight or the Coast Guard. But given your progress, I wonder if you had considered staying on the mainland until after the baby is born.”
“No,” Margred said simply. “Caleb cannot be away from the island. And I will not be away from Caleb.”
“As long as you understand the risks. We’re a good ninety minutes by ferry from the mainland.”
“Less than an hour if Caleb’s father takes us in his lobster boat.”
Liz blinked.
“That’s how Regina got to the hospital,” Margred explained.
“Right. All right.” Liz blew out her breath. “I’m still learning how to live on an island. Just promise me you’ll call if you have any questions or concerns.”
“Or contractions.”
“Those, too.” Smiling, Liz put a hand under Margred’s elbow to help her down from the exam table. “You can make an appointment with Nancy for next week. Assuming you make it that long.”
“I had better. My baby shower is Tuesday night.” Margred cocked her head. “You should come.”
“Oh.” Warm pleasure caught Liz unaware. But the situation was awkward. Margred’s husband had picked up Liz’s son for questioning yesterday. Automatically, she retreated behind her familiar doctor-patient barriers. “Thank you, but it’s hard for me to get away in the evenings. I have a little girl.”
“I saw her, I think. In the waiting room?”
Most people didn’t see a resemblance. Liz felt the tension in her shoulders relax. “That’s right. Emily.”
Margred shrugged. “So bring her. Lobster bake at the point, seven o’clock. There will be plenty of children. Regina’s son Nick is about your daughter’s age.”
“I . . .” Liz bit her lip. Why not? Obviously any awkwardness was mostly in her own mind. And wasn’t this why she moved to the island? To form connections, to be part of a community with her children. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.” Margred’s mouth curved with sly humor.
“Now if I go into early labor, I won’t have to leave the party.”
Liz was laughing as she escorted her out front.
While Margred scheduled her appointment, Liz scanned the waiting area. Her daughter was camped in a cluster of chairs pulled seat to seat into a makeshift fort.
And crouched on his heels at the entrance, his white blond hair even with the top of the chairs, was Morgan. He looked up, eyes gleaming, golden, intent, like the eyes of a predator or the eyes in her dream.
Hot color swarmed her face.
“Elizabeth.” He rose to his feet with smooth, animal grace. He nodded as Margred finished at the front desk and came up behind them. “Margred.”
“Morgan. I did not expect to find you here.”
“Nor I you.”
“Then what . . .” She looked from Morgan to Liz. Speculation glinted in her eyes. “Ah.”
Liz cleared her throat. There was an odd resemblance in the two faces that were otherwise so different, male and female, dark and fair. Something in the expression or the eyes maybe, something fierce and proud and primal. “You two know each other?”
“Not well,” said Morgan.
“Years ago,” Margred said at the same time.
Which? Liz wondered. Not well or years ago?
Margred shrugged and smiled. “I remember so little.”
“I am pained to be so forgettable,” Morgan murmured.
“No doubt you have improved with time.”
He threw back his head and laughed. Liz felt an absurd flutter that might almost have been jealousy. Totally unprofessional, she thought. Inappropriate.
Terrifying.
“Mom.” Emily tugged on her white doctor’s coat. “Are you done yet?”
Liz knelt, grateful for the distraction. She hated making Emily sit through her clinic hours, but there hadn’t been time this morning to make other arrangements. “Not yet, honey. I still have a couple of patients to see.”
“Then can we go to the beach?”
“We’re going to the community center, remember? To enroll you in summer camp.”
Emily’s bottom lip poked out. “I don’t want to go to summer camp. I want to go to the beach.”
“I can take her.”
She looked up. Margred was gone. There was only Morgan, staring down at her with those knowing yellow eyes. Her heart jumped. Her brain blanked. “What?”
“I will take your daughter to the beach,” he repeated, his tone patient and amused.
Emily jigged from foot to foot.
“No,” Liz said. “Thank you, but we can’t impose.”
“It is not an imposition.
I came to see you in any case, you and your daughter.”
“Why?”
He hesitated. “Companionship,” he said finally.
“I need trust and tenderness and companionship and commitment,” she had said to him last night. “Can you offer me all those things? Or any of those things?”
Her breath escaped. “Emily isn’t your child.”
“No, but I will keep her safe.” He met her gaze. For once his eyes weren’t distant and amused but warm and direct. “Let me do this, Elizabeth. For you and the child.”
“Please, Mom,” Emily begged.
“I get off in two hours,” Liz said.
“I will have her back to you before then,” he promised.
She looked from her daughter’s eager face to Morgan’s inscrutable one, feeling herself teeter on the edge of a decision, on the brink of a precipice. “What’s your cell phone number?”
“I do not have a cell phone. Not . . . with me.”
There was simply no way she could let her daughter go off without any way to reach them. “Then . . .”
“You could give him yours,” Emily said. “Pleeease.”
“Trust must go both ways,” Morgan said quietly.
He was right, damn it. Of course he was right. But she hadn’t counted on anyone but herself in a long, long time.
Slowly, she unhooked her cell phone from her belt. “The clinic’s number is already programmed in. Just hit the contacts key.”
He glanced curiously at the phone before slipping it into his pocket.
“Yay!” Emily dragged her backpack from under the chairs. “Thanks, Mommy.”
Liz swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “You should thank Mr. Bressay.”
His gaze locked with hers. “You can thank me.” Her chest tightened as a corner of his mouth curled in a smile. “Later.”
“Where’s your car?” Emily asked.
“I do not have one.”
“Why not?”
Morgan glanced down at the bobbing dark curls on a level with his waist. “I do not need one.”
He was finfolk. He had no use for human technology and little patience with human questions.
The little girl beside him chattered on, unaware of either predisposition. “Can’t you drive?”
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