Seaborne (15 page)

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Authors: Katherine Irons

Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fantasy, #Chick-Lit, #Mythology

BOOK: Seaborne
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“So you think she’d overlook my lack of legs in exchange for a fat portfolio?”
Justin shrugged. “In a nutshell, yes.”
“And you? What kind of father would you be to the child?”
“Probably no worse than most. I have a fondness for children, and I’m certainly not a pedophile. I have no attachment to my genes, and I like the idea of providing a home for an unwanted baby. I don’t promise to change diapers and learn the words to all the nursery rhymes, but I could take an intellectual interest in a child’s education.”
“Hardly an emotional response.”
“You asked for the truth, Claire. Richard is a rare father. He’d probably be an excellent grandfather. Our child might get the hands-on trips to the zoo and kiddy movies about lost puppies from him. I’m more the parent to take him or her to the Met or the symphony, and to sign off on a school-break trip to France or Italy when our heir is of suitable age. Not necessarily less, simply different.”
“What makes you think I’m capable of being a good mother? After all, aren’t I wallowing in self-pity and hiding away from the world?”
“A baby might give you exactly what you need.”
“Is that fair to a child? To be exactly what I need?”
“Life is give and take, Claire. Would it be better for this child to be adopted by some garbage collector and his cashier wife? We could give a child every advantage. And you would shower it with love. That’s the type of person you are. You have a big heart, larger than mine, I admit.”
“What you haven’t addressed are your other needs. Am I to go into an arrangement, knowing that you’ll have affairs with other women?”
“You do insist on dragging out every painful detail, don’t you?”
“It’s a pretty large detail.”
He smiled. “Thank you for the compliment.”
“We both know how well endowed you are,” she said. “And how much a part of your life you devoted to satisfying your needs. I wouldn’t expect that could change.”
“I learn from my mistakes. I would be discreet. And if you didn’t pry too closely into my personal life, you’d never have to know.”
“Honest, at least. I suppose that’s something that many wives learn to live with.”
“All I ask is that you think about my proposition. Just don’t think too long. My contact said that we have weeks, no more. If we don’t step up, some other couple will.”
Misty laughed as the waves broke over her belly. The water was cool and all foamy like the whipped cream that Hester squirted on her hot chocolate. Misty scooped up handfuls of water and splashed it on her face and neck. It felt so good that she squealed with delight.
And then, just as she was having so much fun, something even better happened. The duck flew out of the reeds, over the beach, and landed in the water, just a little ways from where Misty was standing.
“Hey, Duck!” Misty shouted. The duck was paddling in the waves, using his bill to smooth his feathers, and sticking his head underwater. He looked so silly. “Hey, Duck, it’s Misty! Do you want to play with me?”
The duck was so close. Misty waded out a few more feet. Water rose to her bubbies, but she was still standing on the bottom, so she knew she wouldn’t drown. The beach was right there. She took another few steps.
Suddenly, the duck flew up with a startled squawk.
Misty stared up at it. The duck looked scared, but what was there to be scared of? Misty looked all around her, suddenly feeling all shivery. The sun, that had been shining so bright, was gone, and dark clouds made the air cold.
Frightened, but not knowing why, she took a step back toward the beach. Abruptly, something grabbed her ankle and jerked her feet out from under her.
Misty screamed as the water closed over her head.
CHAPTER 15
W
ater filled Misty’s nose and throat. She kicked and struck out with both fists, trying to dislodge the
thing
that bit into her ankle. It hurt! Bad! Raw terror seized her. She couldn’t breathe! Something was eating her! Choking, she fought with every ounce of her strength to get away.
Monster! One of Hester’s monsters had her. It was going to gobble her up. It hurt worse than when she’d spilled Mommy’s hot coffee on her chest and had to go to the hospital. Misty could feel her flesh ripping, her skin tearing.
A red tide flooded her thoughts. Now the monster was chewing her arm. She could feel his hot breath and sharp teeth. She tried to scream, but the water kept pouring into her mouth. Her chest felt like it was going to explode. She was slipping … slipping into blackness. Terror strengthened her will. Thrashing, she raised her head above water, gulped the air and waved frantically. She coughed up lungsful of water and managed a strangled cry for help before the biting thing pulled her under again… .
Waves closed over Misty’s head. She clawed at the smothering thing that pulled her down. And then she felt teeth clamp onto her throat. With a long moan, she sank beneath the waves, letting the tide drag her deeper, letting the monsters carry her away.
On the beach, Hester shouted and waved her cane. The small white poodle barked frantically and ran up and down on the wet sand. A fisherman came running. The old woman pointed to the place where she’d seen the struggling child go under. “Shark!” Hester screamed. “A shark attacked Misty! Help! For God’s sake, help!”
Beneath the water, the horde crowded greedily around the human child. Snarls and growls gave evidence of the current possessors’ determination to retain their prize and others’ fierce drive to claim her. Distracted by their fresh prey, the shades failed to keep watch.
Orion and Alex descended on the pack from either side, while Morgan slashed a path through the center. Howls and yips of dying shades alerted the school too late, and fully half were dead or mutilated before the innermost realized that they were in deadly peril of being overrun.
To his left, Morgan was aware of Orion’s legendary blade cutting a swathe through the savage abominations. On his right, he sensed, rather than saw Alex, but he had no fear for his little brother. Against such an enemy as this, Alex was in little danger. And while Orion bellowed an ancient Atlantean war cry in the heat of battle, Alex remained as silent and lethal as a Pacific tsunami.
A shapeless form arose out of the churning mud, teeth bared, eyes glowing. Morgan sliced it in half with a single backhanded stroke. Another seized his thigh. He disabled that one with a downward thrust of his Phoenician dagger. Two more clung to his back, biting and clawing. Blood streamed from a dozen gashes on his torso and neck.
“Morgan?” In the shower, Claire started bolt upright in her chair. “Morgan?” Her heart hammered against her ribs. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and she gave a deep shuddering sigh. Without warning, without reason, she was shaking. Her chest felt as though a heavy weight was pressing on it. It was difficult to breathe, and she felt stinging pains in her arms and legs.
Tears blurred her vision, and she began to sob uncontrollably. She leaned against the side of the shower, weak and confused, trying to make sense of this. How had she suffered phantom pains in all her limbs when she had no feeling below the waist?
What was happening to her? Was she suffering a seizure? No, in spite of her weird physical sensations, she instinctively knew that it wasn’t her—it was Morgan. Something terrible had happened to Morgan.
Not had happened. The crisis was happening now. She could taste it—feel it in the pit of her stomach. Morgan was in terrible danger. Worse … there was nothing she could do to help him. Nothing …
Morgan twisted and slashed at the two shades on his back, beheading one and sending the second shrieking away, missing most of what passed for an arm. Blood spilled from Morgan’s throat, but he judged the wound to be not mortal.
A strange buzzing sounded in his ears. He glanced from side to side, oddly expecting to see Claire’s face materialize out of the swirling water. Impossible! Had he lost more blood than he’d thought? What was wrong with him that thoughts of Claire would cloud his mind at a time when he needed all his concentration to deal with the task at hand?
The child
. He had to reach the child in time. He and the twins had been almost within sight of the horde when the shades had attacked and dragged her under. He’d smelled the little girl’s fear, caught only a glimpse of small white legs and a terrified face, before the outriders swarmed over her.
There was only a brief window of time. Even now, the child might be saved. With a mighty effort, he pushed Claire and his need for her to a shadowy recess of his mind.
The outriders had not all feasted on the victim’s life force, not if they followed their usual methods. The one who’d struck the first bite, that predator would have taken precedence over his comrades. Slowly, while she yet lived, the shade would suck out the child’s soul and living essence, taking long minutes to drain the last spark of energy. To kill her too quickly would mean the loss of that which Melqart desired most, and to displease their master meant extinction for great swathes of the damned creatures.
He had to get to the child before she expired of drowning or loss of blood, before her soul was stolen. If he couldn’t save her life, he might yet preserve that which was hers—that which she would use in a future life beyond this existence. Had this been an Atlantean or a mer youngster, his chances would have been better. Humans were so terribly vulnerable—so frail of body and spirit. And this one, in particular, was so small, so young.
It was that helplessness that tugged at his too-soft heart and would not allow him to abandon her… .
Abruptly, a grimly smiling Alex loomed at his side. Together they descended on the remaining four monsters that pressed the child down in the sand and fed off her. The first never realized what hit him as Alex’s blade ripped through its midsection. The thing beside it squealed and withdrew its fanged maw, dripping blood … so much that the saltwater was stained pink with it. Morgan cut that shade in two while Alex dispatched another.
The remaining fiend seemed so intoxicated by the child’s life force that it could not release its prey, even to preserve its own existence. Morgan finished it off, and then gathered the convulsing girl in his arms.
Her throat was torn in two places. Gashes gaped on her arms and legs. White rib bone gleamed through the mud-churned water. Her head hung back, her eyes rolled up, only whites showing, her small mouth open. Her blond hair streamed out behind her in the tide like so much seaweed.
“Too late,” Alex said.
His gruff tone didn’t deceive Morgan for an instant. Inside, he knew his brother was screaming with rage for the loss of such an innocent to the likes of Melqart. Of all his brothers, Alex was the most tenderhearted when it came to young things, be they silkies, naiads, or a hammerhead shark. A veritable Achilles, Alex rarely showed mercy to his enemies on the battlefield, but no small and vulnerable creature need fear him, only those who would take their lives.
“A pity.” Orion joined them, his great sword, hands, and arms stained with the stinking blood of the unclean creatures he had slain and maimed.
“She was lost from the moment she walked into the water,” Alex said.
Morgan lifted the child, pressing his ear to her mangled chest, listening for the faintest proof that her heart still beat, but there was only silence. A great sadness welled up inside him, as again he thought of his Claire. She had been such a child once, laughing, full of life and curiosity. It wasn’t Claire’s fault that she’d been born human and weak, nor this little girl’s fault. And it was unfair that this tiny humanoid should die in such a way on such a beautiful day.
Save her.
Claire’s voice echoed in his head.
You know what to do. Do it quickly, before it’s too late.
No, he thought. Not in
his
head. He was reading her thoughts as he had the sperm whale’s. He wasn’t hearing Claire’s voice, but absorbing the plea she sent out to him across the sea.
Save her for me.
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “No, Morgan. Don’t. You can’t.”
“I can,” he answered, shaking off the hand his brother placed on his shoulder.
“Think of the consequences,” Orion counseled. “Aren’t you in enough trouble at home? Father might not be so forgiving this time.”
Morgan bent his head over the dead child and breathed into her slack mouth. She stirred faintly in his arms.
“Don’t do it,” Orion advised. “You’ll live a thousand years to regret it.”
Morgan concentrated on the girl, shutting out everything else: his brothers, the red tide swirling around them, the doubts rising in his mind. He gently pinched her nose closed and gave her the breath of life … the energy not of a human, that time was past, but that of an Atlantean.
Shock stunned him, nearly knocking him off his feet. He could feel the strength draining from his limbs, feel his bones soften, and his muscles become water. Weak … he was so weak that the child seemed to weigh a ton in his arms. He staggered, barely able to hold her.
Orion swore a mighty oath.
Salt tears sprang from Morgan’s eyes. He sank to the ocean bottom, the little girl still cradled against his chest. And once again, he pressed his lips to hers, not as he would a woman, but in a last-ditch effort to hold back the extinction of a precious life.
The little girl coughed and sighed heavily. Her eyelids flickered.
Yes,
Claire murmured faintly in his heart.
Yes.
It was nearly impossible for Morgan to hold his eyes open. They burned with fatigue. His muscles ached, and his head felt too heavy for his neck. “Help me,” he managed.
Orion shook his head. “This is your doing, Brother. I’ll have none of it.”
But Alex couldn’t resist the helplessness of the child. He knelt beside Morgan and helped to hold her up as Morgan breathed once more into her mouth.
This time, she gave a gasp and her eyes opened, no longer blue and human, but green as the sea. Her hair, so thin and stringy, so limp, thickened and turned from pale white to a shade of molten gold. Life returned to her face, her body. Limbs that hung limply plumped and grew strong. The thin face grew round cheeked, and her wounds began to turn from raw gaping holes to pink and then to healthy flesh.
The force thrummed through Morgan, making his skin and scales vibrate, sending burning sensations through him. His own injuries were healing as well, but much slower than normal. Blood loss and the vast exertion of energy that he’d breathed into the child had made him nearly incapable of holding up his own head. He curled on the sand and closed his eyes, too weary to think of the consequences, too weak to care.
It was the right thing to do,
he heard Claire murmur.
I love you. I’m proud of you.
Claire? His last thought was of his Claire as he drifted into unconsciousness, leaving Alex to take the whimpering child into his arms.
“Shh, shh, little one,” Alex said.
“Monsters,” she wailed. “Monsters trying to eat me.”
“They can’t hurt you now,” Alex soothed. “You’re safe now. Safe here with your father.”
“But I don’t … have … don’t got a daddy,” she managed.
“You do now,” Orion said. “He’s here, sleeping beside you. He’ll love you and care for you always.”
Her eyelids fluttered and she sighed. “For real?” she whispered.
“For real and forever,” Alex said. “So long as you both shall swim.”
“Morgan? Where are you?” Claire called into the wind. Her only answer was the lonely shriek of a gull swooping overhead. The sound pierced Claire’s skull, making her migraine worse. She felt queasy, her stomach in turmoil, her head throbbing with a white-hot pain.
What had happened to her in the shower? Was Morgan safe or had something terrible happened to him? She’d suffered strange symptons since her accident, but nothing like this.
If she closed her eyes against the bright sunlight, scenes of dark water and white shapes swirled across the back of her lids. She could almost smell blood, a sweetly-acrid scent she’d never forget from the awful weeks and months in the hospital.
It hadn’t been easy to wheel her chair out of the house and down to the cliff edge without being seen. Every moment, she’d expected to hear her father’s voice or see Justin coming after her. The elevator had jammed as she’d made the descent, and she’d spent long moments pushing buttons, her heart in her throat, until finally, with a creaking of gears, it had begun to move again.
She had no reason to believe that Morgan would be here. She’d only hoped. The thought that he might not be real was always with her. She needed to see him, needed to touch him, desperately needed to know that he wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
And she had to know that her earlier fears were only a product of her brain injury. Nothing had happened to him. He was alive and well. Wasn’t he?

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