Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

who made his living from the sea and a demon who dwelled in the fire.
    “Or a poacher who wanted your pelt.”
     
    “And so he waited until I conveniently stepped out of my skin before throwing it onto the fire? How does that make sense?”
     
    “More sense than this notion that another elemental wants to end your very existence.”
     
    “I smelled a demon,” she insisted.
     
    “And what did it smell like?”
     
    “Like fire.”
     
    Dylan sneered. “Your pelt is burning, and you smelled fire. How extraordinary.”
     
    She hit him, hard, across the face. His head snapped back. Her palm burned.
     
    She did not care. Her heart was on fire. “Mock me at your peril, Dylan. I die a little every day, trapped in this place. In this body. When I am gone, I am gone forever. Without my sealskin, I am not immortal anymore.”
     
    The red imprint of her hand stood out against Dylan’s cheek. The rest of his face drained of all color. All emotion. “And if you had it, would you be content to let these accusations go?”
     
    If she had her pelt . . .
     
    175
    Hope unfurled inside her. She would be free. Free to return to herself. To the sea. Free to—
    Leave Caleb .
     
    The thought lodged like a stone in her chest. She could not breathe.
     
    This was what she wanted, she reminded herself. The sweet, deep, cloudy sea, brimming with form and color and life. Swaying forests of kelp, carpets of anemones, swathes of coral and sponges. Who would crawl over the crust of one quarter of the world for a span of years when they could have the world’s oceans and centuries of freedom to explore?
     
    Would you be content ?
     
    She opened her mouth, but the answer would not come. Her fingers tangled in the necklace at her throat.
     
    Dylan’s gaze shifted to a point beyond her shoulder. He went still with a kind of coiled energy, like a moray eel whose prey is in sight.
    “Hello, brother,” he said silkily.
     
    Brother, my ass .
     
    Caleb leveled a checkpoint glare at the asshole crowding Maggie, itching for an excuse to cuff him and drag him to the station. He could take him. The guy was younger and taller—longer reach—but he didn’t carry much weight. Untrained, probably. Unarmed. Unless he had a knife in his shorts pocket.
     
    Caleb had watched them as he came over the hill, Maggie practically on tiptoe, getting in the guy’s face, talking with him, arguing with him.
    The unconscious intimacy of their pose had stuck in Caleb’s throat.
    Struck at his heart.
     
    And then Maggie hauled off and slugged the guy, the sound echoing off the rocks like a rifle shot.
     
    At least he hadn’t tried to hit her back.
     
    Yet.
     
    “Who the fuck are you?” Caleb asked.
     
    176
    Those flat black eyes widened slightly. “Don’t you recognize me?”
     
    Something about that taunting tone, that twisted smile, got under Caleb’s skin. A splinter of doubt worked its way toward his heart.
     
    He used to dream his brother would come back. Show up at a ball game or ring the bell one Christmas morning or be there by Caleb’s hospital bed when he opened his eyes.
     
    Not appear half-naked on his island, threatening his woman.
     
    Caleb shook his head. If Dylan lived, he would be— what now?
    Thirty-six? Thirty-seven. This guy couldn’t possibly be his brother.
     
    “Nope,” Caleb said.
     
    “I’m crushed.”
     
    Caleb didn’t smile. “Can I see some identification, sir?”
     
    “I don’t have any.” The guy jerked his head in Maggie’s direction.
    “Ask her who I am.”
     
    “Maggie, do you know this man?”
     
    “Yes.” Her chin went up. Her big dark eyes hit him like a punch in the gut, harder than the realization that she must have been lying to him, playing him from the start. “And so do you.”
     
    “The Prodigal Son returns,” Asshole said lightly. “Wasn’t that the story Mrs. Pruitt liked so much? Aren’t you supposed to kill a fatted calf or something?”
     
    Caleb felt like killing something, all right.
     
    Mrs. Pruitt . . . God, he hadn’t thought of her in years. Growing up, every kid on the island had been forced to attend her week-long vacation Bible school at least once.
     
    Every kid on the island, Caleb told himself.
     
    Not just the Hunter brothers.
     
    177
    His gaze switched from Asshole to Maggie, standing between them, drinking in every word.
     
    “I’ll have to ask you to come down to the station, sir.”
     
    “No,” the guy said.
     
    “Why do