Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

instead of reaching for her, he pulled a long, loose shirt from the wardrobe. “The wardens wait. I cannot stay. Not even to satisfy your . . . curiosity,” he added softly.
    Hot color whipped into her face.
    She stood there while he dressed with swift, easy movements, apparently undeterred either by his impressive hard-on or her presence. Soft black pants—ha, that took a moment—loose white shirt, a tunic the same deep purple as the inside of an oyster shell. And instead of looking ridiculous, which might have soothed her confused feelings at least a little bit, he looked comfortable. Masculine. Assured. As though he wore velvet every day of his very long life. As if . . .
    Lucy frowned. “He called you ‘lord.’ ”
    Conn shot her a quick look. His hands were busy fastening a heavy gold belt low on his hips. Something in the gesture, something in his eyes, reminded her of Caleb strapping on his gun, preparing to go on patrol.
    “Dylan did, too,” she said slowly, remembering. “When you came into the restaurant. ‘My lord.’ I thought he was just saying it because he was surprised. Like, ‘My God’ or something. But he wasn’t, was he? I mean, he was surprised, but . . .”
    Conn gave a final tug to his belt. “I must go.”
    She stood there with her frozen feet and yellow slicker, realization seeping into her tired brain. “Who are you?” she whispered.
    His eyes were cool as burnished silver. “You know who I am.”
    “No, I don’t,” she said, amazed by her own audacity. “Or I wouldn’t have to ask.”
    Did he hesitate, for just a moment? His face was hard as marble. “I am Conn, the son of Llyr, prince of the merfolk and lord of the sea. And Gau must learn that I protect what is mine.”
    The hound rose from the hearth, its gaze fixed on his face, its small round ears erect.
    “Madadh, stay. Guard,” Conn commanded.
    And before the girl or the dog had opportunity to react, he was gone.

8
    STAY. GUARD.
    Standing in the middle of the cold stone floor, Lucy eyed the big, hairy dog blocking the door. “Are you supposed to keep me safe? Or keep me in?”
    The hound gave her a long, level look and turned its head away.
    “That’s what I thought,” she muttered. “Who does he think he is anyway?”
    “ I am Conn, the son of Llyr, prince of the merfolk and lord of the sea. ”

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    Prince . The word crashed on her like a wave, robbing her of balance and breath. And she was what, Cinderella? She paced. Alice in Wonderland. Beauty in the castle of the Beast.
    She wanted to go home. Longing swept her for her brother’s smile, her father’s querulous voice, her students with their quick hugs and straggling garden plots. She squeezed her eyes tight as if she could shut out the castle, as if she could make everything go away, go back to what it had been. Like Dorothy after the tornado, waking to find her journey had all been a terrible dream. A nightmare.
    Her nightmare.
    She had always dreamed of the sea. The sea and drowning. In her dreams, the oceans came for her, a hungry wall of water that swept everything, destroyed everything, killed everyone she loved.
    Her mother had drowned. “ Trapped in a fisherman’s net within the year after she left you. ”
    The sea took everything.
    Pressure crushed her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. Roaring filled her head, louder than the ocean. The sound of loss. Of fear.
    She trembled. She remembered . . .
    Standing in her crib, crying in the dark, holding out her arms. And Caleb, kind and bleary with lack of sleep, trudging in to pick her up. A boy forced by circumstance to be a man. Patting her back, bringing her water, whispering that everything was going to be all right. She had allowed herself to be comforted then, only to learn as the years passed that her life would never be all right.
    When she was nine, Caleb went away to college. “ Be good, ” he’d said. “ Take care of yourself and Dad. ” So she had, while the dreams came back, worse than before. She could pretend to control them, put them off with bedtime reading or hot milk or sex, but she’d never completely outgrown them.
    Alone before the empty fire, she hugged her elbows. So what? Everybody had bad dreams. She wasn’t that little girl anymore, crying for her mother.
    Conn called her the daughter of Atargatis. But she was more. She was Caleb Hunter’s sister, New England born and bred of