“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 tel me about it. I’m only a novice Seeker.”
“Wel, 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 skul throbbed.
The only difference was that now he knew. He felt gutted, hol owed, 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. Swal owed the ache in his throat. Nothing had changed, he told himself.
Nothing had real y changed. He was stil 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 fal en, the balance of power had shifted in ways Iestyn couldn’t begin to imagine. Didn’t want to think about.
Maybe the demons had initial y attacked Lara because she was nephilim. But if they’d declared open season on his kind as wel, she was in more danger than ever. He couldn’t be responsible for her safety.
“I’l 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 tel her she was pinning her hopes and his future on a wild-goose chase.
Or maybe he didn’t have the guts. He stil felt oddly hol ow 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 fal 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 ful, 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 real y 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 tel ing her right this minute that there was no way in hel 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 careful y 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. Gradual y, 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 wil go away,” he forced himself to say lightly.
“Real y?”
Despite the ache deep in his bal s, the disappointment in her tone made him grin. “Eventual y.”
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’l 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 tel 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 bal s. Her sweet incompetence was searing pleasure and teeth-grinding agony.