Seaborne (9 page)

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Authors: Katherine Irons

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

BOOK: Seaborne
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“We were celebrating Morgan’s win in court, Sire. And we may have made somewhat merry.”
“Lady Halimeda tells me that Morgan attacked Caddoc and his friends without warning. His cousin Jason suffered a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder. Valuable horses were lost to the open sea.”
Orion met his gaze. “Not Morgan. He couldn’t have. Morgan left at the first sign of trouble. It was Caddoc who started it. He and his followers insulted us and tried to provoke Morgan, but he wanted us to ignore them. They kept it up, and Alex lost his temper.”
“Alex?” Alex assumed an injured expression. “You’re mistaken, Brother. I’m not at fault. I simply went to offer assistance when Caddoc fell off his mount. He’s a terrible rider, no seat at all. He shouldn’t go within twenty yards of a stallion. I thought maybe he was hurt and—”
“Jason tried to take Alex’s head off with a sword,” Orion said. “Naturally, I—”
“A sword?” Korinna’s eyes widened and she clapped hands over her mouth.
“Enough!” Poseidon threw up his arms. “Out of here, both of you. I don’t want to see your faces until your units are ready to move out. You’re lucky I didn’t leave you locked up for the next decade.”
The twins bowed respectfully to their mother and then to him and made a quick departure. Poseidon glared after them. “I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Then you shouldn’t believe anything Caddoc says either, especially secondhand, through his mother. Halimeda is such a liar.” Korinna toyed with the string of pearls she’d manage to fasten around her neck unassisted. “I don’t know how you put up with her. I know why, I just don’t know how. Did you see the spectacle she made of herself in the Hall of Justice? Bringing that octopus with her. It’s common.”
“Don’t start with me,” he warned. “Caddoc was badly hurt. He could have been killed.”
“Is that why you’re only angry with Alex and Orion?”
“I will deal with Caddoc soon enough. And I’m still furious with Morgan.”
Korinna studied the nails on her right hand. “Oh, dear, I think I may have broken one, trying to close that catch.”
“Did you come here for something, or simply to annoy me?” he demanded. He loved Korinna. She was his favorite of all his wives, but she took full advantage of his good nature and full advantage of her position as queen. She didn’t deceive him at all. She’d arrived in his apartments to keep him from doing something he’d regret to the twins. Or Morgan. She was far too forgiving of everyone but Halimeda.
“I don’t like her. I’ve never liked her or her son.”
“My son,” he reminded her.
“But Morgan is your heir.” She rose and came to him. “Caddoc has always been jealous of Morgan. He and his mother probably concocted this whole story because they were angry over the High Council’s decision. And now, you see Morgan wasn’t even part of the disagreement.”
“More than a disagreement. I won’t have my sons trying to kill each other. I’ll disown them all. The younger boys are much more disciplined.”
“Morgan is heir and rightly so. He takes his duties seriously. Didn’t he attempt to defuse the situation? Didn’t he leave his brothers to return to counting his lobster traps? As you ordered? You should be proud of him.” She smiled. “I was proud of you when you defended him in court.”
“I didn’t defend him,” Poseidon said.
“Whatever you call it, it was a noble thing to do.” She tugged affectionately on his beard. “It doesn’t make you less a warrior king to admit your love for your children—for any of them.”
He caught her around the waist and pulled her to him. She smelled of something nice. He nuzzled her hair. “Marrying you was either the wisest or the most foolish thing I’ve ever done. You have no respect for my position.”
She pressed her cheek against his bare chest. “I have the greatest respect for you, my lord. But as queen, part of my duty is to see that you remember that you are high king, not a god. And you are a father with the responsibilities of every father.”
He hugged her against him. She was warm and soft. “You know I adore you, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll allow you to make war against my other wives.”
“Only the ones that I believe are bad for you and for the kingdom.”
“Halimeda.”
“See, even you admit it. Enjoy her talents in your bed, but never trust her. She would see any of us dead to put her son on the throne of Atlantis.”
“Not possible.” He pushed aside her hair and kissed the nape of her neck. “Too many ahead of him.”
“But Caddoc is the eldest.”
“Her eldest, but not the eldest of the queen’s body. First comes Morgan, then Orion and Alex. And after that, your sons.”
Korinna slipped her arms around his neck. “I have been wanting to talk to you about that, my lord.”
He gathered her in his arms. “And what is it that you wish to say, my sweet?”
“That we have made another child between us.”
“What?”
“Is it so strange? Neither of us are in our dotage. And you are still as virile as a sperm whale, are you not?”
His heart swelled with pride. “I am pleased. Atlantis can never have too many royal princes.”
She lifted her face to be kissed. “Or princesses,” she murmured.
Claire clung tightly to Morgan’s hand as they swam deeper. She tried to remember how they’d gotten down to the water, but it seemed hazy. She almost thought she could picture herself standing, walking over to him in her room—but that was impossible. Being in the ocean with him was wonderful, and if it was a dream or something else, she didn’t care.
She had always supposed that it was dark at these depths. Instead of murky blackness, the water here was illuminated by a rainbow of iridescent golds, pinks, and lavenders. The colors seemed to seep into her body so that her skin took on an inner glow.
“Here.” Morgan released his grip. “Don’t try so hard. You’re fighting the water, when you need to swim with it.”
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“You’ll get the hang of it. Just kick and stroke. See, you’re doing it.”
Was she? Were her feet kicking? Did she feel the water against her legs? Could she really wiggle her toes, or was it all in her imagination?
He laughed. “You’re better than you thought. You told me you were a terrible swimmer.”
“I am … I was.” Boldly, she rolled onto her back and kicked hard, sending her shooting ahead of him. How deep were they? Why didn’t she need to go up for air? She had so many questions she wanted to ask him, but she was afraid that if she did, this all would disappear and she’d find herself back in her wheelchair. She realized now this was all a dream. She must have fallen asleep after she threw the pills into the drawer. But so what if it was a dream? She was going to enjoy every moment of it.
“Look.” He pointed to the remains of a wooden lobster trap, half buried in the sand. He swam toward it, and she doubled back to follow him.
When she reached the trap, Morgan was hovering just above it. He wrenched open one side. Inside were three, no, four lobster shells. He brushed them aside to remove a smaller lobster. “Is it dead?” she asked.
“Almost.” He placed the creature in the sand, and after a moment, one claw raised. “Go on,” he urged. “Go find your dinner.” The tail moved, then wiggled, and slowly the lobster swam away.
“The others starved to death, didn’t they? Why didn’t that one?”
“It probably lived on their remains.”
“Uggh.”
“No.” Morgan shook his head. “That’s life. You eat lobster, don’t you?”
“Love it, but I’m not a cannibal. I wouldn’t eat human flesh.”
He shrugged. “You might if you were starving. You never know.”
“I know.” She shuddered.
“It’s what I do.”
She stared at him. “You’re a cannibal?”
CHAPTER 9
M
organ laughed. “Am I a cannibal? No, I guarantee you that I’m not. Do you always take everything so literally? I count abandoned crab and lobster traps up and down the northeast coast of America. That’s what I was talking about.”
“Oh.” She flushed, feeling foolish, though why she didn’t know. It was a dream, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t real. But she played along anyway because she
wanted
it to be real. “You’re an ecologist or some kind of oceanographer?”
“Something like that.” A small shark swam by, paying them no heed. Morgan glanced at it before turning back to her.
“Who do you work for?” she asked.
He took two strong strokes and held himself almost motionless in front of her. “My father. Actually, I have a lot of people that I answer to. But I don’t do this for what they pay me. I really believe in protecting sea life.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Did you think I spent all my days beachcombing for interesting women?”
She joined his laughter as warm sensations bubbled up from the tips of her toes. Morgan thought she was interesting. She hadn’t received a real compliment from a man since the plastic surgeon told her that she was a fast healer.
Morgan caught her hand again, and together they swam along the ocean floor. She was shocked at the amount of trash she saw amidst the beauty: truck tires, beer cans, a Vermont license plate, two more abandoned lobster traps—both with lobsters caught inside. In the first, four lobsters were dead, but the second trap produced two live ones.
Again, she noticed how much tenderness Morgan showed the creatures as he released them and destroyed the traps. “You don’t suppose I could take one home for tomorrow’s dinner?” she teased.
“Not much meat on them. If you’re serious, we can pick up one or two in a feeding area near here.”
“You don’t object to people eating seafood?”
He shook his head. “I love lobster. What I object to is the useless destruction of life. Everything dies sooner or later. But with the world on the brink of starvation, it’s wasteful to kill fish or crustaceans out of carelessness or stupidity.”
Morgan’s hair had come loose and floated out behind him like the mane on a running horse, and she was struck by how natural he seemed in this element. On the beach and in her bedroom, he’d moved with a lazy grace, but here, he seemed as much a part of this underwater paradise as the solitary shark.
“So you’re against overfishing too?” she asked, wanting to learn as much as she could about him. Her dream man.
“Absolutely. Whole species have been wiped out. Look at the blue fin tuna, more than seventy-five percent of the world’s supply gone. Not to mention the devastation of your New England fishing industry, all because greedy people harvested too many fish.”
Claire nodded. “And the whales. Conservation has always been a serious concern for my family. My father’s a big contributor to Tomorrow’s Green Planet.”
“I’m glad some people are concerned.” He beckoned to her and swam on through a forest of waving sea grass and a sandy bed of gleaming white clams. They reminded Claire of the stones in a rocky stream not far from Seaborne.
Just ahead, she noticed a barnacle-encrusted form rearing out of the ocean floor on their right. “What’s that?” she called to Morgan. It was oddly shaped for a boulder, almost cigar-shaped, about thirty feet long and shrouded in seaweed. “It looks like …” Surely, she was wrong. “It can’t be a submarine, can it?”
“German. World War One.”
“Here?”
“You’re looking at it. This is where it went down.”
The gray shape appeared more ominous as they swam closer. “I never knew that there were subs this close to our coast,” she said. “What happened to the crew?”
Morgan tugged at her hand, and they swam around to the other side of the craft, where he pointed to a seven–foot ragged hole. “We’re deep,” he explained. “More than fifty fathoms. Once the hull was breached, the crew never had a chance.”
“How awful.” She shivered. “Are the bodies still inside?” she asked, unconsciously speaking in a hushed voice. “They must have had families—mothers … wives.” A lump of sadness rose in her throat as she touched the cold metal. “So long ago.” She could picture a young woman standing on the beach, staring out at the Atlantic, waiting for word that never came.
“If you’re curious, we could go inside.” Morgan’s tone was flat. “I warn you that it’s close quarters and dark.”
“No.” Claire shook her head as gooseflesh rose on her arms. “It would be like swimming inside a coffin. Let them rest in peace.”
“You have compassion for the crew, but they were enemies of your country.”
“They were men, just people.” And then she realized the significance of what he’d insinuated. “My country? Isn’t it yours? You’re not American?”
He smiled. “Greek.”
She couldn’t hide her astonishment. “Your English is wonderful,” she said, switching to modern Greek. “You don’t have a hint of an accent.”
“Thank you,” he answered, also in perfect Greek. “My tutors had doubts. American slang is particularly tricky for non-English speakers.” His eyes gleamed with amusement. “And your Greek isn’t bad, either. A little scholarly, but you might pass for a native of Athens who was educated in London.”
Surprise, surprise
, Claire thought. The more she learned about Morgan, the more impressed she was. Greek or American, he was still a honey. It troubled her that he’d said that they were so deep. That wasn’t possible. The pressure at fifty fathoms—that was about three hundred feet—would be too great on her body. Her organs would be crushed. But anything was possible when dreaming, wasn’t it?
Abruptly, a dark shadow with a white underside passed overhead. Her mouth gaped as she stared up. The thing was huge, clearly not a boat because they weren’t anywhere near the surface. A chill ran up her spine. “What’s that?” She pointed. It wasn’t a shark or a whale. More like a floating Volkswagen.
“That’s Lilura. She’s a friend. Let me introduce you.” Morgan brought his fingers to his lips and whistled.
The thing, whatever it was, slowed, circled, and then glided lower. Claire’s heart pounded against her chest as she realized what was coming toward them. It was a black-and-white manta ray, at least twenty feet in length. Claire clutched at Morgan’s arm. “Did you call that thing?”
“Hey, Lilura,” he crooned. And then to Claire he said, “Don’t be afraid. She’s friendly. Her name means ‘enchantment. ’ ” The creature glided closer until it hovered an arm’s length away.
Claire had seen smaller rays, but nothing of this size. She was awed by the large intelligent eyes and the way it moved through the water without making a sound. “Plankton, right?” she asked nervously. “It eats plankton? They aren’t dangerous to humans?”
“Plankton and small fish. She doesn’t even have a poisonous spine on her tail.” Morgan reached out and stroked the manta, and she practically purred with pleasure. “Claire, meet Lilura. Lilura, this is Claire …”
“Claire Bishop,” she supplied. She was still nervous, but excited too. “You named her?”
“Mantas are very intelligent. The ancient Peruvians worshipped them.”
Claire nodded. “Some other civilizations as well.” She couldn’t believe it. The ray nudged Morgan, and he scratched her under one flipper.
“Were you aware that they mate for life?”
Claire looked around. “Where’s her—”
“Probably not far away.” He climbed up on Lilura’s back and offered his hand. “Are you up to taking a ride? It’s fun.”
“On a manta ray?” She shook her head and backed away. “I’ll pass.”
“Coward.”
The ray continued to inspect her. Claire could almost see her big brain working. Still trembling, but curious, she touched the massive white belly. “She’s scratchy, like sandpaper.”
“Have you ever ridden a ray?”
“Hardly.” She kept rubbing Lilura’s belly, and the creature continued to study her with what almost seemed amusement.
“Come on,” Morgan urged. “It might be your only chance. The big ones don’t usually come this far north. It’s safe, I promise.”
She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t swim, and she sure as hell couldn’t breathe underwater. Yet, somehow, she was doing all three. Maybe she
could
ride this thing. Tentatively, she offered Morgan her hand. “If I fall off and die, I’ll kill you,” she warned.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, put your arms around my neck and hold on tight.” He mounted the ray, flattening his body across its back.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Claire wrapped her arms around him. “What are you going to hold on to?”
“Let me worry about that.” He clicked softly, as though to a well-schooled horse, and the manta began to swim, slowly at first, and then faster. Claire kept her eyes shut and savored the sensation of water flowing around and over her … savored the feel of this magnificent man beneath her.
Lying on top of Morgan, feeling his body against hers gave her warm chills of excitement. She was acutely aware of every breath he took, the contours of his hard, muscular body, and the tantalizing scent that was his alone.
“Are you watching?” he asked.
“No.”
“Chicken. Look around you, Claire. Don’t be afraid. Live a little. Experience what it feels to be one of them.”
She opened her eyes, blinked, and swallowed. Four more manta rays had come out of the depths and were swimming with them, one alongside, two above, and one following. Two of them were even larger than Lilura.
Oh, my God,
she thought,
I’m calling a fish by name
. But the name did fit. At least the manta wasn’t named Killer.
“The big brown one beside us is Joji, her mate,” Morgan explained. “I can move over onto his back if you’d like to ride Lilura alone.”
“No, this is fine,” she said. “I’m fine, right where I am.” She tightened her death lock on his neck. No teeth, she reminded herself. Mantas have no teeth. They couldn’t bite me if they wanted to.
“Suit yourself.”
Light sparkled around them. The color of the water changed and the temperature grew noticeably warmer. Claire supposed they were nearing the surface. The rays began to swim faster.
“Hang on,” Morgan cautioned.
Suddenly, the rays launched themselves out of the water, flinging themselves up into the air. Claire cried out with joy as she felt the salt spray on her face, the wind in her hair, memories of taking a high jump on a hunter engulfing her. In that instant, she felt more alive than she had in years. She had a brief glimpse of white foam, blue-green waves, clouds, and a misty shoreline before the rays dove down into the waves again, taking her and Morgan with them.
The ocean closed around them like a mother’s embrace, cool, sweet, and comforting. But before her heartbeat could slow to anything like normal, Lilura flexed her great body, speeded up, and broke the surface again. This time, the manta soared even higher. All around them, it seemed the other rays had taken flight as well.
“We’re flying!” Claire cried ecstatically.
“How do you like it?” Morgan shouted.
“I love—” Her words were drowned in the splash as Lilura plunged deep into the depths, but Morgan knew something of what she was feeling. He, too, was captivated by the experience. Not just the thrill of riding the manta, but the thrill of having Claire’s soft breasts pressed into his back, her thighs and legs molded to his.
He tried not to think of why he’d come back, of how he was certain that seeing her again would convince him that whatever attraction she’d held for him had faded. Breathing air and walking on land, maintaining the illusion for her that he was human drained his life’s energy. It couldn’t continue. If he kept leaving the ocean and going to her, he would sicken and die.
But those facts meant nothing compared to the way she made him feel. Seeing her again hadn’t changed a thing. He wanted to make love to her even more, if that were possible. He was glad that he was facedown on Lilura’s back, because if he were the one on top, there would be no hiding his physical condition from Claire.
The woman fascinated him—her spunk, her wit, her keen intelligence. He loved the way her short, reddish–brown hair bounced against her shoulders, the freckles on her nose, and the way she looked at him with bright, expressive eyes. Everything that he took for granted was new and wondrous to her. Not only did he have an overwhelming desire to possess Claire, he wanted to protect her, to teach her, to share his underwater world. He didn’t want to just make love to her—he wanted to claim her as his own.
Impossible.
She was not his kind and he was not hers. Atlanteans and those who walked the earth were enemies, and if his people discovered that he was seeing her, no plea of his father’s would save him a second time.
As the rays leaped high again, Claire squealed, lost her hold on him, and tumbled off. He dove after her, searching frantically for her in the water, but when he reached her, she was swimming strongly and laughing. “You didn’t tell me it would feel like that!” she exclaimed.

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