Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

doubt.
    For the rest? He was not sure. He had ruled for nine centuries. He had lived much longer than that. But Lucy was young, even by human standards. To her, even Dylan was old. She could have no idea of real age, no clue what was required of her.
    His gaze dropped to her narrow feet, bare beneath her cuffed pants.
    And suddenly she was in his head, the air ripe with sweat and sex and the scent of growing things. Her long body rising from the earth to meet him, mate him, take him. The tiny jewel glinting against her smooth belly. The sun searing his shoulders as he plunged into her, male to female, sex to sex, power to power . . .
    Stunned, he stared, stirred to the heart and the root. His pulse drummed in his ears.
    The wind slipped his distracted grasp. The boat veered. The boom swung.
    “Look out!” she cried.
    The heavy boom swept the cockpit as the wind, freed from the force of his magic, shifted direction. Conn ducked, cursing the sails and his loss of control.
    The deck pitched.
    He grabbed for the wind and the main sail, pulled the jib sheet on the leeward side. The breeze surged.
    The sails rattled together and swelled. The boat heeled, collecting itself like a skittish horse, and leaped forward into the waves.
    Lucy staggered toward the bench and sat down hard. Water shot over the side. She recoiled from the spray like a cat.
    Conn winched the main sail taut. “Thank you.”
    She stared at him blankly.
    “For your warning,” he said.
    “Well, I could hardly let you get knocked overboard.”
    He was gratified. “Indeed.”
    “I mean it,” she said. “I can’t sail. Or swim.”
    Ah. He remembered. She was afraid of the water. Unthinkable, for a daughter of a selkie.
    “You must learn to live with the sea,” he said.

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    She straightened inside her bulky clothes. “I’m fine with the sea. As long as it stays on its side and I stay on mine. I only get nervous when the boundaries get crossed.”
    He recognized her challenge. Very few dared to challenge him.
    He should have been affronted. He found himself oddly pleased instead. She was not without spirit, this daughter of Atargatis.
    He looked down his nose. “It is only water.”
    Her throat moved convulsively as she stared over the surging swells running beside the hull. The wind drummed in the sheets. “Right. I guess I should be grateful you bothered with a boat.”
    “I chose it for you. After . . .” After he had taken her, among the vines and pumpkins. “After we met,” he amended smoothly.
    “Chose it?”
    “From your harbor.”
    Her brows drew together, making her look like her brother Caleb. “You mean, stole it.”
    Conn shrugged. “The selkie do not hold possessions as humans do. We flow as the sea flows. We accept the gifts of the tide.”
    “So you just take what you want.”
    The judgment in her tone annoyed him. He was selkie, one of the First Creation. He did not require her approval. “We take what is needed.” He met her gaze, letting the memory of their coupling burn between them. “And what is offered.”
    Color climbed in her face. But she did not look away. “Where are you taking me now?”
    “Home.” He nodded to starboard, where the shore moved up and down with the rhythm of the boat. “To Sanctuary.”
    Her knuckles were white in her lap, but her eyes remained steady on his. “That’s not home. Not my home.”
    He did not wish to antagonize her. But the sooner she accepted her fate, the easier this would be for both of them.
    “In time, it will be,” he said.
    He hoped.
    “In time?” There was an edge to her voice like panic. Or anger. “How long are you planning to keep me there?”
    He did not answer.
    She captured the flying strands of her hair, holding it back from her face. Behind her, the white wake dissolved against the deep blue sea. “How long?” she insisted.
    Something stirred at his heart, a worm of scruple or pity. He trimmed the jib, reluctant to meet her gaze.
    “You are the daughter of Atargatis. You serve the prophecy. As I must.”
    “Serve it how? I can’t do anything.”
    “Your own actions have proved otherwise.”
    “What, because I trashed the cabin? That was an aberration. A mistake. Like our having sex.”
    He narrowed his eyes. His own people would have trembled. This girl met his gaze, her eyes miserable and her mouth resolute. Whatever else she was, she was no coward. And no