Sea Lord (9 page)

Something was wrong.

The realization seeped through the fog in Lucy’s brain. Blearily, she raised her head, struggling to focus in

the dark. She blinked. Her bed was in the wrong place.

Her bed . . . Her room . . . Her stomach lurched. Everything was wrong.

Everything had been wrong for a long, long time.

But her mind jerked from the thought, the way a child learns to jerk his hand from a candle or the stove.

If you didn’t linger, you couldn’t get burned.

Her body felt stiff and weak, as if she’d been lying in one position for too long or had the flu. She’d been

sleeping. Dreaming, the way she did when she was a little girl, of her mother’s voice. Her mother’s voice

and the sea. Her head felt stuffed with straw.

What had happened? Was she sick? Where was she?

Where was Conn?

Her mouth tasted foul. She worked a little moisture onto her tongue, trying to swallow. To think. The air

was close and smelled like the inside of a locker or the closet under the stairs. Moldy. Still. She felt like

she was underwater. As if she couldn’t breathe. The ceiling pressed down like the lid of a coffin.

The mattress tilted. Water slapped the wall beside her bed. The lurching of her stomach made sudden,

horrible sense.

She was on a boat.

Fear writhed inside her like a big, fat snake. A
boat
. Moving at the whim of the wind and the water. At

the mercy of her fears.

Her heart raced. Her teeth chattered.

Creak. Creak.
From overhead.

She pressed her knuckles to her mouth. She hated the water. She was going to be sick. She struggled to

hold it in, to hold herself together, to force everything back into its proper place, but her body wasn’t

hers to control anymore. As if the orgasm that had ripped through her—how long ago? hours?

days?—had torn something vital from her.

Scrape scrape.
From the direction of the hatch.

Panic swelled her chest, robbing her of air. A whimper escaped her.
Oh, God.

A shadow loomed at the base of the stairs, broad and black against the dimness of the room. Coming

closer. Coming for her.

The tangle inside her rippled and coiled like a snake about to strike. She bolted upright.

No.

Power erupted from her gut, tore from her throat like a scream as the thing inside her launched at the

approaching threat. Her control snapped like a thread. Force exploded from her mouth, slammed

through the cabin like a shock wave.

Objects hurtled, clattered. Crashed.

Things shattered. Glass. Her mind.

She couldn’t see. She couldn’t stop. Roaring filled her head.

Like freaking Carrie, drenched in blood and wreaking destruction at the prom.

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Stop. Freak.

“Enough.” One word, dropped into the raging dark like a pebble into a flood.

She almost sobbed in relief. The wind, if it was a wind, died. Things settled or slid to the floor. The cabin

righted. Her panic shriveled.

That voice.

She knew that voice.

Lucy curled into a ball, gasping, sweating, deafened by the sudden silence.

A light bloomed, soft and round like a marsh light, illuminating a strong jaw, a long nose, a sardonic

mouth.

Conn.

He had a cut along one cheekbone, black in the blue light. He didn’t wipe the blood away. For some

reason, the absence of that simple human gesture chilled her heart.

She trembled, waiting for him to take her in his arms, to say something, do something, to restore her

world and her faith.

He glanced at Lucy and then around the cabin. His eyebrows arched. “It would appear,” he said, “you

are your mother’s daughter, after all.”

5

LUCY PULLED HER KNEES TO HER CHEST AND hugged them tight, struggling not to lose it.

Again. She had survived bad dates before. But this . . .

Conn’s face was inscrutable, his eyes shadowed in the odd, pale light.

She’d had sex with him. Unprotected sex with a stranger. Like some stupid freshman who passed out at

a kegger and woke up in an unfamiliar bed with no notion of how she got there.

Lucy cringed. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. She couldn’t believe . . .

Objects hurtling, crashing, shattering in the dark.

She must have lost her mind.

Things like this didn’t happen to her. Things like this didn’t happen.

The room rocked with the rhythm of the water.

“What . . . Where are we?” she asked. Dim memories clung of being carried, lifted . . . fed? “Was I

sick?”

But no one ever fed her when she was sick.

Conn stooped—she managed not to flinch—and fished something from the floor. She caught the gleam

of a broken lantern as he set it on the table.

“You will feel better soon,” he said, which wasn’t an answer. “The sleep took you harder than I

expected. But now that you are awake, the effects will wear off quickly.”

Not sick, then, she thought. Maybe not crazy either.

She remembered—or had she dreamed?—his arm strong and warm around her shoulders, a cup at her

lips.

“You gave me soup.”

Had he drugged her? Maybe she was hallucinating. That would explain the things flying around the cabin,

the sense of something writhing inside her, waiting to burst out of her chest like the space monster in

Alien
.

She shuddered.

He nodded. “You needed food. Liquids.”

The room still rocked. Her stomach churned. Nerves? Or motion sickness?

“How long was I out?”

Conn did not answer.

“How long?” she insisted. Hours?
Days?

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What had he done to her? For her? Under the covers—some kind of fur thing, heavy and warm—she

was nearly naked.

She watched his hands in the near dark. A match scraped and flared. Warm, yellow, honest light

replaced the eerie blue glow. Stupid to feel cheered by a lamp under the circumstances. But the familiar

light comforted her anyway.

Until she saw the condition of the cabin.

Holy crap.

It looked as if a strong wind had scoured the room, or a bomb had exploded. Broken dishes, boat

cushions, maps, and magazines splayed like bodies in the wreckage. An empty coffeemaker and a

broken bottle rolled together under the table. Red wine, black as blood in the dim cabin, puddled on the

floor. The soured fruit smell in the close, still air rose to her head and made her sick.

She ran her tongue over her teeth. She wanted a toothbrush.

Conn lifted a chair one-handed and set it upright. His head brushed the low ceiling. “Do not apologize,”

he said. “This ship was furnished to withstand storms. The damage is less severe than it appears.”

She felt a spurt of outrage, completely ridiculous under the circumstances. Like getting upset over a late

assignment when the classroom was on fire. “I wasn’t going to apologize. I didn’t do anything.”

One eyebrow arched upward. “Who else?”

“Um.” She stared at him, stunned. “I was
unconscious
. I didn’t ask to be brought here. You need to

take me home.”

He righted another chair, holding it out from the table in invitation. “Come. Sit.”

Lucy looked mistrustfully at the chair and then at his face. She didn’t want to go anywhere near him. But

if she stayed on the bed, he might get the wrong idea.

A hot flush swept her face. Yeah, like doing him in the dirt of her students’ garden hadn’t already

convinced him she was a total slut bag.

She clutched the blanket, the fur soft between her fingers. “Why?”

Conn’s gaze rose from her hands to her face. “Explanations will take time. I want you to be

comfortable.”

“Then give me my clothes.”

Something flickered in his eyes and was gone before she could identify it. “They are not here.”

“Where are they?”

“I had need of them.”

She didn’t want to imagine what use he had for women’s clothing.

“You promised to take me home,” she reminded him.

Right before they’d had sex among the pumpkins. But she didn’t want to think about that either. She

certainly wasn’t going to mention it.

And he better not.

“I said . . .” His voice was cool and precise. “I would take you where you need to go.”

She stared at him in frustration. “What kind of a man are you?”

“I am not a man.” He paused. “I should say, not . . . human.”

The bottom fell out of her stomach. Fell out of her world. For a moment she was back in the dark, with

the blood roaring in her head and chaos erupting around her.

She took a deep breath, willing her mind to still, and felt everything inside her slide back into its proper

place.

The cabin was quiet. In the silence, she could hear the water rush and gurgle over the hull and the

creaking of the rigging overhead.

“Perhaps we should both sit down,” he said.

Lucy forced another swallow. At least if they sat at the table, he wouldn’t be looming over her. She

scooted to the edge of the mattress, reluctant to give up the sleek weight of her blanket. Not that the

PETA people didn’t have a point, but there was something almost sinfully comforting about the silky

brush of fur. And the cabin was cold.

She dragged the blanket off the bed and stood, wrapping it around her like a beach towel or a bearskin

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rug. The ends dragged on the floor.

She hobbled to a chair. Not the one he held out for her. She didn’t want to get that close. Plopping onto

the seat, she crossed her arms over her chest like a kindergartner refusing to join in circle time.

Conn’s mouth tightened. His eyes darkened. Now that he had her where he wanted her—
ha ha
—he

seemed curiously reluctant to begin. Unless this silence was his way of making her talk.

“So.” Maybe she should humor him.
Not a man. Not human
, beat in her brain. “What are you?”

“I am selkie.” Another pause thickened the air of the cabin. “Like your mother.”

The thing inside her leaped, like a child in her womb, knocking the air from her lungs in a big fat whoosh.

The blood drained from her head.

The chair scraped behind her as she stood. “No.”

His eyebrows rose. “You are unfamiliar with the legend.”

“Um.” Her mouth was dry. Her skin felt flushed. Feverish. “There was a kids’ movie.
The
, um,
Secret

of Roan Inish.
About a human woman who turned into . . .”

Her throat closed. The pressure expanded in her chest. She couldn’t say it. Because then she would have

to take him seriously. She would have to take a lot of things seriously that she was usually very, very

careful not even to think about.

Conn nodded. “A seal.”

Maybe she was still hallucinating. Or dreaming. “
Your mother was selkie.
”

Lucy shivered, pulling the blanket tighter. The fur whispered against her naked skin.

Fur. Oh, God.

She shuddered and thrust it away. The heavy pelt pooled at her feet.

He watched impassively.

“Was it . . . Is it . . .”

“Mine,” he confirmed.

She struggled to breathe. “I was wearing . . .”

“Think of it as borrowing my coat,” he suggested.

She blinked. Was he trying to make her feel better? “You’re an animal.”

He frowned. “An elemental.”

“There’s a difference?”

“The elementals are immortal, part of the First Creation. Your own mother—”

“You leave my mother out of this. I told you, I don’t even remember her.”

“You are heir to her bloodline,” Conn said. “Her power. You and your brothers.”

Her brothers.

She caught her breath.

His explanation burst in her head like a lamp in a darkened room. Like a door opening in her mind. The

scene from the other night took on a whole new light. Her family, united against her. Caleb and Margred

exchanging long, meaningful looks that for once didn’t have anything to do with them being newly

married. Dylan, tense and silent. Even Regina had looked at her—avoided looking at her—with tactful

sympathy.

She didn’t know them anymore.

She didn’t know anything.

“They . . . know?”

“Yes,” Conn said.

She winced. “All of them?”

“Yes. Your brother is selkie. Margred, too.”

She stiffened in rejection, even as the knowledge lumped in her gut. “I don’t believe you. Caleb—”

“Not Caleb. Dylan.”

She was cold. Naked. Freezing. “That’s impossible.”

“Is it? Where do you think he was all those years?” Conn’s voice hammered at her, relentless as the sea.

“Where did Margred come from?”

Lucy’s brain whirled. Her tongue stuttered. “She . . . She was attacked. On the beach. Caleb found her.”

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On the beach.
Without clothes, without memory, without any idea of how to get on or any family to

report her missing.

Lucy’s legs folded like wet string. She sank back onto the chair.
Oh, God.

“Why didn’t they say something? Why didn’t they tell me?”

Silence.

“I believe,” Conn said at last, “they desired to protect you.”

Her anger flashed again. “From what? You?”