Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

weight of responsibility and the woman in his arms.
    “How long?”
    “Until Gau arrives?” Griff shrugged. “I cannot map the demonkind as you can. But soon, I think.”
    Conn’s gut clenched. His grip on Lucy tightened.
    Gau must not find her was all he could think. The demons had tried to kill Dylan’s woman Regina simply because she carried the selkie’s child. The children of fire were determined to prevent the birth of a selkie female who might fulfill the prophecy. So far, they had dismissed Atargatis’s only daughter as human, unworthy of their notice. But if they knew she had caught Conn’s eye, they would swarm like wasps around fruit.
    A chill rose from the stairwell and settled in his bones.
    Better to keep her hidden.
    Even on Sanctuary.
    Conn lowered Lucy’s feet to the floor. Her toes winced from contact with the cold stone. She clung to him a moment, the only warm and familiar thing in the room, while she got her balance and her bearings.
    The hound pressed in beside them and circled the room, its staccato nails loud in the quiet chamber.
    The high, curved walls were finished stone. The windows overlooked the sea. If she concentrated, she could hear the hiss of the retreating water and the gulls crying as they dipped over the waves. But unlike the other chambers they’d passed through, this room had actual glass in the windows, veined with lead and filled with tiny bubbles. The carved and gilded furniture looked built for a giant or a king: a vast, empty fireplace, two high-backed chairs like thrones, an enormous wardrobe, a massive carved and canopied bed. Deep blue hangings shivered in the draft.
    Lucy shivered, too, cold and overwhelmed.
    Madadh yawned and settled in front of the empty hearth.
    “Someone will be up soon to build the fire,” Conn said. “If there is anything you need, you have only to ask.”
    How about you take me home?
    She swallowed the words before they escaped. He would only say no. And each time she begged and he refused, she felt more helpless, more frustrated than before.
    She was sick of feeling helpless, tired of being silent and careful and afraid.
    “Is everything all right?” she asked. “This guy that’s coming, this Gau—”
    Conn’s mouth formed a hard line. His eyes assumed the cold, flat sheen of tempered metal. “All will be well,” he said. “You are safe here.”
    Which didn’t answer her question at all.
    Lucy’s heart hammered. Her spine straightened. All her life, she had avoided confrontation. She was the good child, the one who smoothed things over, who made things work. She was used to covering for her father’s failures, to denying her own anger and her needs.
    But Conn had prized her from her comfortable shell. And however exposed she felt, however naked or afraid, she couldn’t crawl away and hide. What was he going to do if she offended him? Throw her back like an undersized lobster?
    “Safe from what?”
    He released her and crossed to the vast wardrobe, tossing the sealskin carelessly on the bed. “I will answer all your questions . . .”
    She blinked. “Really?”
    “Later,” he finished smoothly. He laid a hand on a carved panel of the wardrobe, swinging it open to reveal a flash of red, a gleam of gold, a fall of black as rich as midnight. Shrugging out of his shirt, he dropped it on the floor.

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    Because holding a conversation wasn’t hard enough. No, she had to push for answers while he was stripping.
    She jerked her gaze from his hard-planed, hairy chest to his face. “When?”
    His hard mouth softened. “Tonight. Over dinner. Right now, more urgent matters require my attention.”
    He thrust his hands into his waistband and shucked his pants.
    No underwear. He was naked except for a long black knife strapped to the inside of his left calf.
    She sucked in her breath. Okay.
    He was broad and hard. Her gaze skimmed the ridges of his stomach to the dark hair between his thighs, down to the knife, and up again. All of him stood broad and hard.
    Her mouth dried. His gaze locked with hers.
    Arrogant asshole. As if she would take one look at his magnificent manhood and beg him to take her.
    Oh, wait. She had.
    In fact, she admitted wretchedly, if she weren’t so worried that she was committing more than her body, she would be tempted to again.
    She moistened her lips. “How urgent?”
    His eyes had darkened to gray smoke. But