“When,” not “if.” Progress, Morgan thought. His Elizabeth was getting her bearings again and her confidence. He was glad.
He nodded.
Throughout the morning, people came and went, Nancy from the front desk, the dour female mayor, the woman who sold Elizabeth her house. Morgan listened as Elizabeth offered explanations, reassurances, lies, watching each effort deplete her resources a little further, increasingly annoyed on her behalf.
“. . . drug usually used to treat seizures . . . didn’t realize until he fell and cracked his jaw on the coffee table . . . Thank you, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
Dylan and Caleb pieced together a full report, augmented by their own suspicions and speculations.
“So this demon possessed Zack when he left the beach last night,” the police chief said. “Used the boy’s energy to free himself.”
Dylan nodded. “And used his body to get through the island’s wards.”
The brothers exchanged a look.
“We’ll need to run by the island and check the orb,” Caleb said. “Confirm the demon really was Tan.”
“He could have been acting as an agent of Gau,” Dylan said.
Caleb shook his head. “More likely, he saw an opportunity and took it.”
“We don’t know how well the demons communicate. If—”
“Enough,” Morgan interrupted suddenly, roughly.
The Hunter brothers glanced at him, surprised.
“Elizabeth doesn’t need to be bothered with this now, in our son’s sickroom. I will speak with you tonight. Or tomorrow. Right now, Zachary needs quiet. And Elizabeth needs a break.”
“Well.” She studied him when they were gone, a smile tugging the corner of her mouth. “That was forceful.”
Morgan scowled, aware she was about to scold him for treating her as the . . . what was it? Oh, yes, a weak and pampered woman in need of his protection.
“Thank you.” She put her arms around him and held him, just held on. She sighed, her head fitting in the hollow of his chest, their bodies perfectly aligned.
It felt good.
It felt like home.
He stroked his hands lightly up and down her back, tipped back her head. She smiled up at him mistily.
“Go,” he ordered gently. “Wash your face, catch your breath, get a cup of coffee.”
Her smile trembled. “I do need to use the bathroom.”
“Then go. I will stay.”
He watched her leave the room, his heart so huge he thought it would burst the bounds of his chest.
I will always stay, he thought.
He turned and saw their son watching from beneath half-closed eyes.
“I really screwed up, didn’t I.” The boy’s voice rasped. It wasn’t a question.
Morgan was surprised. “You were unprepared. This is my fault, not yours.”
“I let him take me.”
So he did remember, Morgan thought with a flash of pity. “You fought.”
“I didn’t win.”
Morgan chose his words with care. Zachary was still fragile. He needed reassurance. But he deserved the truth. “Sometimes the victory is in holding on.” To a woman, he thought. Two children. A life. “You remembered who you are. You did not let Tan touch your mother. You resisted. You were strong.” Morgan was forced to clear his throat. “I am proud of you.”
Zachary’s pale face colored to the roots of his hair. He smiled crookedly. “Gee, thanks, Dad.”
Not a hook, Morgan thought dizzily. A harpoon, straight through the heart. “Congratulations, you have a son.”
He went to the bed and awkwardly, for the first time, squeezed Zachary’s hand. The boy turned his palm over and clung.
He heard a sound behind them. Elizabeth, standing in the doorway, her eyes shining with joy and tears.
“If you’re both feeling better now,” she said, “we should think about going home.”
Epilogue
MORGAN OF THE FINFOLK STOOD BEFORE A PILLAR at the front of the small church, chafing against impatience and his suddenly tight collar. Zachary, beside him, wore the formal clothing with awkward dignity, the dark suit setting off the pale glitter of his newly shorn hair. Stephanie, sitting several rows back, kept glancing at Zachary as if she barely recognized him.
“The whole island must be here,” Conn murmured on Morgan’s other side.
Morgan stirred restively. As long as Elizabeth showed up soon, he hardly cared who was in attendance. But he was pleased for her sake that her parents had come, that the community she longed for had embraced her.
And he was glad, after all, to have their son standing with him. To feel the press of angels as even the children of air blessed this celebration. To see Dylan waiting with Nick in the front pew, daughter Grace gripping his thumbs as she practiced standing on his lap. Margred, Caleb, and their newborn son occupied the row behind with Lucy.
“We are honored by your presence, lord,” he said to Conn.
“Lucy was glad for an excuse to see her family and meet her new nephew.” Conn’s gaze rested briefly on his consort, his silver eyes inscrutable. “She talks much of weddings these days.”
To Morgan’s knowledge, the selkie prince and the targair inghean had never wed. The children of the sea did not require the sacraments of men. But in this moment, waiting at the front of the church for Elizabeth, Morgan understood the importance of the promise made before God and witnesses.
He shifted his weight, his eyes still focused on the church doors. “I thought you might have come to remind me of my duty.”
“Your duty is here,” Conn said.
Morgan’s attention was diverted from the back of the church. “Not on Sanctuary?”
“Griff has the work of rebuilding in hand. Lucy was able to use her power to relieve many of your people, and I have released others from my service.”
Morgan felt as if a fist had been released in the center of his chest. “Then you have no objection if I stay.”
“Hardly.” Conn smiled thinly. “Why do you think I left you behind when Lucy and I returned to Sanctuary?”
Morgan frowned. “To recover from the crossing.”
“I am not so tenderhearted,” Conn said. “Dylan needs you here. I want you here. One warden is not enough to guard the next generation.”
The next generation. “Hope for the future,” Conn had called them. Dylan’s child. Margred’s child.
Zack.
Whatever future Zachary chose for himself, he needed to be trained in survival and in magic. In the past few months, he had proven himself a focused and determined pupil.
“I want options,” the boy had explained seriously when his father had complimented his progress.
Morgan looked at Conn and raised his eyebrows. “I could hardly have been your first choice. Given my prejudice against humankind.”
Conn smiled coolly. “It was my hope that World’s End would provide an opportunity for you to change your mind.”
“Or an opportunity to rid yourself of a troublesome rival?”
Conn met his eyes in acknowledgment. “Either way, my strategy worked.”
Morgan flashed his teeth. “Indeed.”
But it wasn’t his mind that had changed.
It was his heart.
Still, he forced himself to ask, “What of the northern deeps?”
Conn’s expression was bleak. “The deeps are wounded almost beyond repair. On our return, Lucy and I go north to seal the seas around Yn Eslynn. After that . . . Any thoughts on who might replace you there?”
Morgan considered the wardens who sat on the council. “Enya.”
“She is not finfolk.”
“But she is fierce.”
“Yes.” The sea lord’s gaze strayed to his consort in the second row. “Enya, too, might benefit from time away from Sanctuary.”
Music rolled from the organ. Conn took his place beside Lucy as the congregation stirred and the air quivered in anticipation.
>
Morgan’s heart raced. Yet his face remained calm, his gaze fixed on the door. He had not let himself feel anything, even hope, for such a long time. And now . . .
Light spilled from the back of the church. Emily appeared in the widening crack, dressed in seashell pink, a crown of flowers pinned securely to her halo of dark curls. Bodies shifted. Necks craned. A murmur rose. For a second, the child froze, rehearsal forgotten.
Morgan caught her anxious gaze and slowly winked.
Her stiff little face relaxed. Clutching her posy, she tripped forward.
Morgan’s gaze moved beyond her to a grinning Regina, vivid in a deep rose sheath that hugged her post-baby curves.
The music changed, flowed, sure and triumphant. Morgan was aware of Zachary beside him, compulsively patting his pocket for the rings. The doors flung wide.
And framed against the light was his heart, his hope, his love.
Elizabeth.
She walked alone, a vision in silk the color of sea foam, its shades shifting from gray to pink to pearl. But it was the glow in her eyes that stilled his breath, that warmed his blood.
So beautiful she was, strong and beautiful.
He would love her as long as he lived, until the seas ran dry.
Liz was glad now she had let Regina and Margred talk her out of the sensible suit she’d first selected for her wedding.
Walking toward Morgan, she felt beautiful. Like a bride. She felt loved.
She held her bouquet—lavender and wild beach roses—a little more tightly. Her misty gaze flickered over her friends and family in the pews to find Zack beside Morgan, tall and assured, a younger version of his father. Emily had forgotten where she was supposed to stand and was clinging to Morgan’s pant leg.
Liz’s eyes met Morgan’s. Her heart leaped. He smiled at her crookedly, his face transformed by trust and tenderness, companionship and commitment.
By love.
Elizabeth smiled back and stepped forward into her future.
TURN THE PAGE FOR A SPECIAL PREVIEW OF THE NEXT CHILDREN OF THE SEA NOVEL
Forgotten Sea
BY VIRGINIA KANTRA
COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!
1
THE MAN ON THE BOAT STRIPPED HALF-NAKED, exposing a lean golden chest and muscled arms.
In the parking lot across the street from the dock, Lara Rho sucked in her breath. Held it as he dropped his shirt to the deck and began to climb.
The top of the mast swayed, stark against the bold blue sky. Her stomach fluttered. Nerves? she wondered. Recognition? Or simple female appreciation?
The sun beat down, forging the water of the bay to a sheet of hammered gold. The air inside the car heated like an oven.
Beside her in the driver’s seat, Gideon stirred, chafing in the heat. His corn silk hair was pulled into a ponytail, his blue eyes narrowed against the glare. “Is he the one?”
Lara leaned forward to peer through the windshield of their nondescript gray car, testing the pull of the internal compass that had woken her at dawn. They’d driven all morning from the rolling hills of Pennsylvania through the flat Virginia tidewater, wasting precious minutes in the traffic around Norfolk before they found this place. This man.
Are you the one?
She exhaled slowly, willing herself to focus on the climber. He certainly looked like an angel, hanging in the rigging against the bold blue sky, his bronze hair tipped with gold like a halo.
“I think so.” She bit her lip. She should know. “Yes.”
“He’s too old,” Gideon said.
Lara swallowed her own misgivings. She was the designated Seeker on this mission. Gideon was along merely to support and defend. She wanted her instincts to be right, wanted to justify their masters’ faith in her. “Late twenties,” she said. “Not much older than you.”
“He should have been found before this.”
“Maybe he wasn’t meant to be found before.” Her heartbeat quickened. Maybe she was the one meant to find him.
“Then he should be dead,” Gideon said.
The brutal truth made her shiver despite the heat. Survival depended on banding together under the Rule. She was only eleven when they brought her to Rockhaven, but she remembered being alone. Hunted. If Simon Axton had not found her . . .
She pushed the memories away to study her subject. He must be forty feet above the gleaming white deck. Snagging a rope at the top of the mast, he fed it to the two men waiting below, one old, one young, both wearing faded navy polo shirts. Some kind of uniform?
“He’s been at sea,” she murmured. “The water could have protected him.”
It could do that, couldn’t it? Protect against fire. Even if the water wasn’t blessed.
“I don’t like it,” Gideon said bluntly. “You’re sure he’s one of us?”
She had felt him more with every mile, a tug on her attention, a prickle in her fingertips. Now that she could actually see him, the hum in her blood had become a buzz. But it was all vibration, like listening to a vacuum cleaner in the dark, without shape or color. Not only human, not wholly elemental . . .
“What else could he be?” she asked.
“He could be possessed.”
“No.”
She would know; she would feel that. She was attracted, not repelled, by his energy. And yet . . . Uncertainty ate at her. She had not been a Seeker very long. The gift was rough and raw inside her, despite Hanna’s careful teaching. What if she were wrong? What if he wasn’t one of them? At best she and Gideon would have a wasted trip and she’d look like a fool. At worst, she could betray them to their enemy.
She watched the man begin his descent, his long limbs fluid in the sun, sheened with sweat and sunlight.
And if she were right, his life would depend on her. She shook her head in frustration. “We’re too far away. If I could touch him . . .”
“What are you going to do?” Gideon asked dryly. “Walk up and ask to feel his muscles?”
There was an idea. She gave a small, decisive nod. “If I have to.”
She opened her door. Gideon opened his.
“No,” she said again. She needed to assert herself. Gideon was five years older, in the cohort ahead of hers, but she was technically in charge. “I can get closer if you’re not standing next to me.”
A frown formed between his straight blond brows. “It could be dangerous.”
She had chosen their watch post. They both had scanned the area. It was safe. For now. “There’s no taint.”
“That’s not the kind of danger I’m talking about,” Gideon muttered.
She disregarded him. For twelve years, she had trained to handle herself. She could handle this.
She swung out of the car, lowering her sunglasses onto her nose like a knight adjusting his helm, considering her strategy. Her usual approach was unlikely to work here. This subject was no confused and frightened child or even a dazed, distrustful adolescent.
After a moment’s thought, she undid another button on her blouse. Ignoring Gideon’s scowl—after all, he was not the one responsible for the success of their mission—she crossed the street to the marina.
It was a long, uneven walk along sun-bleached boards to the end of the dock.
The man descending the mast had stopped halfway down, balanced on some sort of narrow crossbeam, staring out at the open sea on the other side of the boat.
She tipped back her head. Her nerves jittered. Surely he wasn’t going to . . .
He jumped. Dived, rather, a blinding arc of grace and danger, sending up a plume of white water and a shout from the younger man on deck.
She must have cried out, too. The two men on the boat turned to look at her, the young one with a nudge and the old one with a nod.
The one in the water surfaced with an explosion of breath, tossing his wet hair back from his face.
Cooling off? Or showing off? It didn’t matter.
He stroked cleanly through the water, making for the sw
imming platform at the back of the boat.
Show time, she thought.
Pasting a smile on her face, she walked to the edge of the dock. “Eight point six.”
He angled his head, meeting her gaze. She felt the jolt clear to her stomach, threatening her detachment. His eyes were the same hammered gold as the water, with shadows beneath the surface.
“Ten.”
She pushed her sunglasses up on her head. “I deducted a point for recklessness. You shouldn’t dive this close to the dock.”
He grinned and grabbed the ladder. “I wasn’t talking about my dive.”
Heat rose in her cheeks. No one under the Rule would speak to her that way. But that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For him to respond to her while she figured out what to do with him.
“Thanks.” This close, she could feel his energy pulsing inside him like a second heart. She tried again to identify it, but her probing thought slid off him like a finger on wet glass. He was remarkably well shielded. Well, he would have to be, to survive this long on his own.
She cast about for a subject. “Nice boat.”
He shot her a measuring glance; hauled himself out of the sea, water streaming from his arms and chest. “Yeah, she is.”
She tried not to goggle at the way his wet shorts drooped on his hips, clung to his thighs. “How long have you had her?”
“She’s not mine. Four of us crewed her up from the Caribbean for her owners.”
“So you’re staying here? In town.”
He shook his head. “As soon as she’s serviced, I’m on to the next one.”
Apprehension gripped her. She arched her brows. “You’re still referring to the boat, I hope.”
He flashed another grin, quick and crooked as lightning. “Just making it clear. Once I line up another berth, another job, I’m gone.”
“Then we don’t have much time,” she said with more truth than he knew.
He stood there, shirtless, dripping, regarding her with glinting golden eyes. “How much time do you need?”
Her heart beat in her throat. Her mouth was dry. He thought her interest was sexual. Of course he did. That’s what she had led him to think.
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