Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

sobbed. What had she done?
    The hound staggered bleeding to its four feet. The wolf stayed motionless on the ground.
    Iestyn drew a sharp breath behind her.
    She turned.
    The boy swayed above the slumped carcass of the first wolf. Beneath his tawny mop, his face gleamed pasty white. Blood crawled from a jagged bite on his arm. His knife dangled uselessly at his side.
    As she watched, he grinned shakily and switched the bloody blade to his other hand.
    “That’s two,” he said.
    Lucy swallowed and nodded, trying hard not to throw up.
    More shadows boiled out of the rocks. More wolves lurking, circling.
    Waiting.

14
    THE LONG BLACK SHADOW OF THE KEEP CRAWLED across the cobblestones, measuring
    time like a giant sundial.
    Impatience surged thick through Conn’s veins. He did not want to be here in the shadows of the courtyard listening to Griff.
    Lucy burned in his brain as she had in his visions, her long wary body and lean, composed face, her hair as ripe as grain. He carried her image in his mind—Lucy, waking and sleeping, naked and coming. With Page 83
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    him. Under him.
    He was lost in her, as captivated by this mortal woman as his father had been by the sea.
    The comparison made him grit his teeth. He was not Llyr, to shuck responsibilities along with his clothes.
    And if he had not been so obviously preoccupied this morning— obsessed, besotted —perhaps Griff would not be carrying tales of his wardens conspiring in corners.
    “You think Morgan would negotiate with Hell behind my back?”
    Griff’s dark eyes were somber. “I do not know if he would go that far. It may be his pledge to your father still holds him.”
    “His loyalty must be to our people. Not the king.”
    “Which people? Morgan is finfolk.”
    “The finfolk are as much children of the sea as the selkie. If he serves one, he serves us all. We cannot survive if our loyalties are divided.”
    “Are you speaking of Morgan?” Griff asked steadily. “Or yourself?”
    Conn drew a short, sharp breath. “My loyalties are not in question. We need children. A child, a daughter of Atargatis, to fulfill the prophecy.”
    “Morgan is concerned a pregnancy would provoke further conflict with Hell.”
    The children of fire would not welcome a shift in the present balance of power.
    Conn’s hands clenched. His head throbbed. “I will not give her up.”
    “Because she carries the bloodline.”
    Because he could not contemplate his existence any longer without her, her quiet tenacity, her fierce sexuality, her eyes, deep and secret as the sea.
    “I will not give her up,” he repeated more quietly.
    Griff sighed. “Then you must speak with Morgan.”
    “Very well.” Another delay to keep him from Lucy. Damn it. “And you can talk to Enya.”
    “Enya, lord?”
    “Yes.” Conn smiled thinly. “Since you understand women so well.”
    “Not that one.” Griff cleared his throat. “Why not let your lady win the wardens over? Surely if they met her—”
    “They despise her because she is human,” Conn said. “All the meetings in the world will not change that.”
    “No human in the world can do what she can do,” Griff argued.
    “I will not subject her to—”
    “ Conn. ”
    His name. Her voice. The whisper sailed on the wind, snagging like a barb in his brain.
    He jerked, a fish on the line.
    Lucy?
    His heart hammered. He felt the spider touch of trouble on the back of his neck, a crawling fear inside his skin, as his gaze swept the courtyard.
    “My prince? What is it?” Griff asked.
    Conn’s head pounded. The shadows beneath the towers were empty. But the sound of her voice was fixed in his mind, a jagged silver hook connected to a line as fine as filament.
    His tongue felt thick. “Where is she?” he asked hoarsely.
    “Enya?”
    “My lady.”
    Griff’s face creased in concern. “In your solar, I assume.”
    No.
    Lucy.
    Something was wrong.
    Conn’s lungs constricted. He stepped into the slanting sunlight, into the warm current of air, following the tug of his whispered name. The line stretched over the castle walls and away, floating on the wind like a strand of Lucy’s hair. Fragile. Golden.
    Where are you?

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    His questing thought spun along the bright thread, drawn from the marrow of his bones, spilling like blood from his heart.
    She was out there