A - Immortal Sea

“Zachary is male,” he pointed out.

“Zack is . . .” She bit her lip. “He‟s not ready for this.”

She wasn‟t ready for this.

“I am here. He must accept that.”

“Not now. Not like this. You said it yourself.”

“Said what?”

What was his problem? Sixteen years ago, he couldn‟t roll off her fast enough. Now, when she wanted, needed him to go,

he was stalling.

She stuck out her chin and looked him in the eye. “One night doesn‟t change anything.”

Zack found the beach, his private cove, even in the dark. There were some advantages to being a freak after all.

He shifted his grip on the grocery bags. Ten pounds of cat litter, seven pounds of cat food, a plastic litter box, and two

metal bowls, everything the kitten would need or his mom could want. But he couldn‟t face her yet, her anxious eyes, her too

bright smile, her questions. How was work? What did you do? What do you mean, think, feel, want?

His throat closed. He couldn‟t breathe. He dumped the bags at the foot of the trail where he‟d be sure to stumble over them

on his return.

He wanted to be left alone. Alone in his bed, listening to his music, with the Victoria‟s Secret catalog stashed under his

mattress. He grimaced. Not that he could beat off with his mother and Morgan downstairs. If Stephanie . . .

But Stephanie was seeing somebody. Some guy. Not him.

And now he would be stuck seeing her every day at work, knowing he owed her his job, knowing she liked him but not . . .

enough.

He sat on a clump of weeds to pull off his boots. Maybe he‟d just get his feet wet this time.

His heart beat faster with shame and excitement. His clothes chafed. Maybe not. Probably not.

He stood.

The night swam with stars and scents, throbbing, close. He couldn‟t pick out the constellations, but he recognized the

smells, pine and brine, kelp and loam. The sky was black and soft as velvet, the sea gleaming with reflected light. Zack

couldn‟t see where one left off and the other began. The waves ran over the rocks with a sound like chains. They called to him,

dragged at him hard. Pulling his shirt over his head, he dropped it on the sand.

His skin pebbled in the night air. His nipples poked out. So did his dick. The water chuckled and rustled closer as he

shivered with cold and energy and desire.

There was no one to stop him, no one to see. Anyway, he wasn‟t hurting anyone. He could do it once, once and get it over

with, and then he wouldn‟t come back for a long time. A week. He had a job now. He might not get another chance to come

back anyway.

He undid his pants, stripped off his underwear and socks.

The waves‟ chant filled his head. The cool air caressed his body. Inside him, needs twisted and stirred like eels in an

aquarium, like the monster in Alien , fighting to burst out.

He took a deep breath. It would be all right. He knew what he was doing now. He knew where he was going. Everything

would be all right once he got into the water.

Barefoot, naked, he padded over the narrow strip of hard, damp sand. His body tightened in anticipation. His mind drifted

to the slow, warm summer nights of childhood, fishing from the pier with his dad, the floodlights on the foam, the smells of

brine and bait, beer and blood, the sound of the surf and men‟s voices.

He raised his head, absorbing the stars and the murmur of the tide. He was a man now. This was his place.

He waded into the water.

Cold.

It seized his balls, locked his knees, jolted his blood. This was the worst part. Baring his chattering teeth, he slogged

forward, the waves surging from calf to thigh, from thigh to waist, grabbing at his balls, pumping through his veins. He

shuddered with tension and cold. His belly and legs trembled. Deep, deeper, almost . . .

There.

The Change ripped through him, convulsive as orgasm. His heart pounded, his lungs exploded, pain and ecstasy coursing

along his bones. So good. So hard. He let himself go, let everything go, as the spasms went on and on, milking his body. He

arched helplessly under the waves, under the water, flailed and felt the flat slap, the cool slide, of fins and tail.

He gasped, and salt flooded his mouth, pushed into his chest and choked him. He floundered, suffocating in the oxygenrich water. Oh, shit, oh, Christ, oh . . . Gills ripped from his throat, shuddered and swelled. Terror melted into triumph and

relief. All right, then. All right.

The water was in him, he was in the water, rushing, pulsing, free. Everything else forgotten.

He spiraled into the depths, and the cold clear darkness claimed him.

Morgan stalked along the broken asphalt in the dark.

He never stayed with a woman after sex. Over the centuries, he had left hundreds of lovers for spurious reasons or no

reason at all.

But he had never before left at the woman‟s insistence. Elizabeth‟s insistence.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. He‟d given her what she wanted, had he not? All he knew how to give. Yet still somehow it

had not been enough, or he would not be walking back alone to his room at the inn, pushed out of her house to accommodate

the whims of an adolescent boy.

“One night doesn’t change anything.”

But it had. She was inside him now like a virus, like a fever, an ache in his belly, a pang at his heart.

An irritable wind swirled around him. Shadows scudded across his path. Morgan glanced at the clouds threatening the

moon and realized he had allowed his foul mood to leach into the atmosphere.

His lack of control disturbed him. Weather magic was the first learned and most easily mastered of elemental powers. But

judging by the turbulent sky, those clouds would start spitting soon. He needed to cool his blood, to clear his mind, to calm the

turmoil inside him and above.

He turned left, following the track to the beach.

And nearly stumbled over some grocery bags dumped at the foot of the trail. Human litter. He almost passed it by, but a

familiar scent teased at his nostrils, tickled his attention.

Zachary?

Morgan‟s head snapped up. The boy‟s scent mingled with the weeds, lingered on the plastic.

Zachary had been here. Was here still?

Morgan‟s gaze raked the beach, found boots, shirt, pants. No boy.

His lips drew back in a silent snarl. Zachary had gone into the water alone and unwarded. Dangerous enough for an

inexperienced shifter with no guidance or instruction. But for Zachary . . .

Cold fingers traced Morgan‟s spine. There were demons in these waters. Gau knew the boy was finfolk, had threatened him

already. “We will take them from you. The boy and the woman both . ”

Morgan‟s throat closed. Swearing, he yanked at his boots, tore off his jacket. He ran for the water, breaking the surface in a

low, fast dive.

If Gau touched the boy, there would be Hell to pay.

The orb rested on the sea floor, glowing with blue green phosphorescence. It was the light—not warm, not cold, eerily

beautiful—that had attracted Zack the first time, almost a week ago. He‟d felt it flickering like a fallen star and followed it to

this crevice at the base of another island, hidden in the roots of the earth.

The glow spilled from a fissure in the rock. He felt a catch of excitement. Like when he and Ryan used to go into the