A - Immortal Sea

In his chest, the warden‟s medallion pulsed like a heart. He needed to surface, Morgan realized dimly. He needed air. “I

pledged him my fealty.”

“A promise to his father, long past and easily forgotten. You are lord of the finfolk. You are more fit to lead than he.”

“You promise me rule over the children of the sea.”

“Ally with us, and together we can take back the world from the human vermin.”

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.”