Bloodline (Whyborne & Griffin Book 5) (22 page)

It was too much. I dragged him down with my hand around the
back of his neck, kissing him hard, my tongue sliding in and out of his mouth
like a cock. He sucked on it, and suddenly I couldn’t stand it any longer. I
moaned into his mouth, lights dancing behind my eyes, shattering and breaking
in a wave of pleasure that dragged me down like an undertow.

His back arched, mouth pulling free from mine. The cords
stood out against his neck, and his arms shook as he spilled onto my belly.

With a soft sigh, he lowered himself down onto me, kissing
me softly. “Have I convinced you no part of you repulses me?” he asked.

“Yes.” I returned his kiss. “Most effectively.”

“Good.” He took my hand and led me to the bedroom, where we
slipped together between the icy sheets. I lay my head on his chest, listening
to his heartbeat, while he stroked my hair tenderly in silence.

We would have to talk further about my sorcery. About what I
had done, or almost done, to Abbott. But, impossible as it would have seemed
just a few hours ago, I felt more hopeful than I had in a long time. We were
finally together in full, all the pieces of our lives joined into one thing,
and it didn’t matter if they didn’t all fit perfectly just yet.

~ * ~

I opened my eyes in the pre-dawn light to discover a ketoi
clinging to the window and staring back at me.

I yelled and jerked upright. Then my muddled mind recognized
the dark eyes blinking curiously at us. “Persephone,” I gasped. “What the devil
are you doing?”

“Let me inside,” she called.

Griffin froze beside me, every muscle stiff. Not knowing
what else to do, I wrapped the top layer of blanket around me, trying for some
semblance of modesty while I went to the window. “What are you doing?” I
repeated.

“We need to talk. Let me in.”

Uncertain what else to do, I unlocked the window and slid it
up. She eeled through, the claws on the tips of her fingers digging into the
wood. No doubt it was how she’d scaled the house. And come to Mother’s window,
now to think of it.

God. Mother. She didn’t know we were descended from sea-born
aberrations, or that her youngest daughter still lived, or any of it.

“Couldn’t you knock on the door?” I asked Persephone,
clutching the blanket closer.

“But you were here,” she pointed out. She peered at Griffin.
“Why is this one hiding?”

“Because it isn’t proper for you to just—just crawl
into a man’s bedroom when he’s not dressed,” I exclaimed. Although as she wore
nothing but a flimsy loincloth of gold netting and a few gems, no doubt she had
rather different ideas of modesty.

“I’ve seen land men before,” she said with supreme
indifference. Cocking her head to one side, she sniffed the air. “This one is
your husband?”

“What?” Her questions kept catching me off guard. “That is,
no, of course not. Only a man and a woman can wed.”

“Truly? Land people are stupid, then.” She held out a clawed
hand to Griffin. “This is your custom, yes? My land name is Persephone, and my
sea name is Sings Above the Waves.”

For once, Griffin looked even more flummoxed than I felt. He
extended his hand cautiously. “I’m, uh, Griffin Flaherty. Pleased to make your
acquaintance.”

“You don’t sound pleased.”

Dear God, did the ketoi have no manners, or was she blunt
even for them? “You crawled in the window of our bedroom!”

Her tentacle-hair writhed, almost thoughtfully. “Ah. This is
not polite. I have erred. Forgive me.”

“Just—just wait downstairs,” I told her. “Please.”

“Yes.” She turned and departed. Her long, webbed toes made
her gait awkward, and I heard her shuffling gingerly down the stairs a few
moments later.

“Well.” Griffin slid out from under the covers, shivering as
he reached for his clothes. “I already like her better than Stanford.”

It was, without a doubt, the strangest breakfast I’d ever
eaten.

Persephone sat at our table, her appearance even more
shocking against the backdrop of our ordinary kitchen. When we came down, we
found Saul in her lap, purring so loudly the neighbors could probably hear him.

“Would you care for breakfast?” Griffin asked politely.
“Coffee? Birthday waffles?”

Dear lord, it was Hallowe’en. Our birthday.

“You cook your fish. Disgusting,” Persephone declared. She
cocked her head to the side. “I don’t know these ‘waffles.’”

“Then this will be an adventure for us all.”

I sat across from her, unaccountably nervous. It seemed
impossible the twin sister I’d always believed to have died at birth was alive
and a creature from the depths of the sea. “So…Emily was the one who gave you
to the sea?”

“Yes.” She scratched delicately behind Saul’s ears with the
tips of her claws. “The matriarchs told me the story, when I was old enough to
understand. I had been born on land, hurt by sorcerers who sought to destroy
our kind. My brother lived there still, and my mother and father. I wondered
about you often.”

“I see.” Emily had known. She’d held the secret of our true
nature—and presumably her own—all these years and never spoken it
aloud. She’d had a daughter with no known father—did he live beneath the
waves?

If she’d only told me…but what then? What would I have done
with the knowledge? Would I have ever dared let Griffin touch me, or would the
weight of my secret have driven us apart before we even had a chance to begin?

There was no way to know. Perhaps I ought to feel grateful
rather than betrayed. “Are you a sorceress?” I asked. “Theo and Fiona—our
cousins—said twins are often magically adept in our family.”

In reply, Persephone held out her hand toward Saul’s water
bowl. The water swirled, lifted from the bowl in a streaming wave, like a
fountain in slow motion.

Then it splashed down again, spreading water across the
floor. I winced and shot Griffin an apologetic look.

God, I’d just met my sister, and here I already felt I had
to apologize for her. We really were related.

“The ketoi have no sorcerers of their own,” she said. “This
is all I can do. But I think I could learn more.” Her voice held a wistful note
in it.

“It’s amazing you’ve learned this much,” I assured her.
“Have you been happy, living beneath the sea?” Were abominations from under the
ocean happy? I’d never wondered before.

She nodded. “Yes. For the most part. Until recently, when
the Eyes of Nodens betrayed us.”

I stiffened. “The Eyes? You mean when they tried to enslave
the dweller in the deeps?”

“Yes. You saved the dweller.” She smiled, revealing a mouth
full of shark’s teeth. “The god has returned to the abyss, but we still hear
its dreams on certain nights.”

Thank heavens I’d shielded my mind against such tampering.
“Er, glad to be of service.”

“When the Eyes of Nodens betrayed us, our influence on land
was diminished.” Persephone’s face became serious again, which was far less
disturbing than her serrated smile. “We could not trust the humans, the ones
who do not share our blood. Some argue we should find those willing to take
wives and husbands of the sea, so in time we might again have many eyes and
ears upon the land.” Her eyes darkened. “But others do not believe this. They
call for war against the land. To kill or enslave those who do not have our
blood, and to force the change to ketoi form upon those who do.”

My fingers went cold. I wrapped them around the coffee cup
Griffin set in front of me.

“And which side is winning?” Griffin asked. The smell of
cooking waffles filled the air, but I knew he paid close attention to our
conversation.

She made a sound of frustration. “I don’t know how things
are done on the land, but we have many cities. Families live within them, most
related, but not all. The matriarchs appoint the city’s chieftess, yes? The one
who listens to the counsel of the matriarchs, but makes the final decision
herself.”

“That’s…not how it is here.” I wished Christine could hear
this.

“Not all chieftesses agree what is to be done. Nor those of
us within a city. The chieftess who met our sister Guinevere wished for a
peaceful solution.”

“Guinevere?” But of course she’d known, somehow.

“She went from this place,” Persephone flapped her hand at
our environs, “to another, near to a different city of ours.”

“The one off Cornwall,” Griffin said. “It must be.”

“I do not know how she learned of their presence. There are
many old legends among land people, it is said, of how to find a lover from the
sea.”

“Selkies,” Griffin said, at the same moment I asked,
“Lover?”

“Her land husband could not give her a child.” Persephone
shrugged her thin shoulders. “So she took a husband from the sea.”

“God.” I sat back in my chair, badly needing its support.
The horrible thought I’d had on first hearing the legend had been right after
all. No wonder she’d begged the earl’s forgiveness in her last moments. The
child he raised as his heir didn’t belong to him. Or to any human father. “Oh,
Guinevere, you fool.”

“She summoned her lover, and he knew her for one of our
blood,” Persephone went on. Whatever ketoi mating customs might be, she clearly
didn’t find Guinevere’s behavior particularly scandalous. “She learned of her
heritage and our city here. So she wrote of it to our brother, Stanford.”

“Wait, Stanford?” My head reeled.
Stanford
knew? “Why
on earth would she tell him and not the rest of us?”

“I do not know. We were told only he needed our help.”
Persephone spread her hands, claws glistening faintly in the electric light.
“His place in the land world was threatened, but we could save him. Our
chieftess, who rules the city here, wishes war. Stanford told her which ships needed
to vanish, and we took their sailors down into the depths to drown.”

Was it true? Could Stanford be so selfish? “But surely such
a war wouldn’t benefit him,” I said. “Even if the disappearing ships aided our
family’s investments, the rest of it…Guinevere’s death, and Miss Emily’s…”

Persephone leaned across the table and put her hand on top
of mine. Her skin was slick and cool, like touching a dolphin. “I do not wish
war. I spoke out, drew down the anger of our chieftess, Dives Deep. She sent me
into exile.”

The droop of her tentacles suggested she hadn’t found exile
an easy burden. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“As am I. Dives Deep believes she is fulfilling a prophecy,
and many agree.”

“One for the land, and one for the sea,” I said.

“Yes. She rules beneath the waves, and soon Stanford will
command the town.”

Damn it. What had Stanford said to Father the day I’d heard
them arguing? About taking Whyborne Railroad and Industries to heights Father
had only dreamed of?
The town will rise to his hand.
Did Stanford
actually believe he was destined to take over Widdershins, even more than our
family already had? And then what—make war on the rest of the land?

“Stanford certainly strikes me as the sort who would like to
imagine himself the subject of a prophecy,” Griffin said. He placed waffles and
maple syrup on the table in front of us. Persephone frowned and sniffed
skeptically.

“Yes.” She poked at the waffle with a claw.

I winced. “Like this,” I said, demonstrating use of fork and
knife. She looked at me as if I were mad. Perhaps she was right; teaching table
manners to a ketoi wasn’t quite how I’d envisioned spending my birthday.

“Emily brought the stone Guinevere had summoned her sea
husband with and used it to call me,” Persephone continued her tale. “One of
our land kin had a place where we might meet in safety. I would find you and
Guinevere there, and we would speak together of how to stop the coming war.”

What had her note to the bartender said? To expect one wet
and one dry? One ketoi and one land-dweller, it must have meant.

“The bartender was a hybrid?” At least we knew the
connection with the saloon now. Another thought occurred to me, and I lowered
my fork and knife to the plate. “Amelie. Her mother taught her the poem. She
must be a hybrid as well.” No wonder her connection with the dweller in the
deeps had been so strong. “I wonder if she knows?”

Persephone managed to slice off a piece of waffle, stab it
with her fork like a savage, and maneuver it to her mouth. For a moment, she
looked confused…then her face brightened. “Good!” she exclaimed, displaying a
smile full of terrifying teeth and waffle fragments.

“I’m glad you like it,” Griffin said, charming even under
these circumstances. Actually, his smile rather gave me the impression he liked
her despite her monstrous form.

If Miss Emily had chosen differently, I would have been the
one on the other side of this table, with a razor-lined mouth and tentacles in
place of hair. I ran my hand automatically through my unruly locks—I’d
never complain about them again.

“Someone else knew Guinevere was going to meet us,” I said.
“And they killed her to keep it from happening. But who?”

Persephone licked syrup off her thin lips. “I do not know.”

“If Stanford found out…” Griffin mused.

“Surely not!” I could believe a great many terrible things
about my brother, but not this.

“He’s behind the ship disappearances,” Griffin said gently.
“Guinevere knew—about the war against the land, about the prophecy, about
the
Norfolk Siren
. Who else could it have been?”

“I don’t know—but—but you don’t have any
evidence.” I seized on the hope. “If I was wrong about Abbott, you might be
wrong about Stanford.”

“True,” he said, but he didn’t sound as if he believed it.

Our family might be many things, most of them terrible.
Greedy and ambitious, willing to sweep aside any who got in our way, to use any
method foul or fair, so long as it promised the most reward…and that was those
of us who
weren’t
aquatic monsters. But guilty of fratricide?

Zachariah fled England over the murder of his twin brother.
And Isaiah had tried to kill his unborn child.

Fine. But Stanford and I weren’t our ancestors. Whatever
they had done, we weren’t cursed to repeat their mistakes.

“We need to confront Stanford, either way,” I said. “If he
believes this wretched prophecy means he’s destined to take command of the town
somehow, we must stop him.”

“Will your father help?” Griffin asked.

I started to ask Griffin if he’d lost his mind, but caught
myself. “I don’t know. We’ll need to be very convincing indeed—this is
Stanford we’re talking about. And after my behavior yesterday, Father might not
even let me set foot in the house. But we can try.”

“Something is planned for tonight,” Persephone said. She’d
finished off her waffle while we spoke and stared sadly at her empty plate.

“Tonight?” I pushed my half-eaten portion across the table
to her. “What?”

“I do not know.” She helped herself to more syrup and tucked
in. “But I met in secret with my friend, Stone Biter. He says it will happen at
the place of bones.”

“The cemetery?” I asked.

“I do not know.”

“It would have to be,” Griffin said. “What else could it
mean?”

I rubbed tiredly at my eyes. “An even better question is:
what does Stanford have planned in the accursed cemetery?”

“Necromancy?” Griffin speculated.

“He’s no sorcerer,” I pointed out.

“Neither was your father. That didn’t stop the Brotherhood
from finding sorcerers within their ranks, or outside of it when needed.”

Blast. He was right. Weren’t monsters from the sea bad
enough? “We need to stop this,” I said. “Theo and Fiona will help us, once I
explain things to them. But what of the ketoi? If your chieftess is determined
to start a war with the land…can we prevent her from doing so?”

Persephone’s tentacles stirred thoughtfully. Crumbs of
waffle decorated her upper lip. “Perhaps. There is an old law, seldom invoked
in these days when the seas rattle with the noise of engines and few humans
remember how to summon a lover from the waves. But it must be done face to
face.” She met my gaze. “I will need your help, brother.”

This was the strangest morning of my life. “Y-yes. Yes, of
course.”

“We’ll do whatever is needed,” Griffin told her.

“Thank you, brother’s husband.” She glanced at the window.
“Dawn is coming. I should not risk being seen. Meet me tonight, before the
taste of the river turns to metal and blood.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean,” I
confessed.

“Upstream from the cannery?” Griffin guessed.

Persephone huffed. “Near to where I went into the river,
when you chased me from the cemetery. There is a bridge.”

I nodded. “Oh! Yes. We’ll be there.”

She rose. “Thank you for the food. And…” she hesitated, her
manner suddenly diffident, almost shy. “It was a good thing, to meet you.”

“And you.” I could hardly believe I was saying it, but it
was the truth. On impulse, I reached out and took her hands. They folded
carefully over mine, the claws just resting against the backs of my fingers.
“I’m glad to know you’re alive.”

She gave me her shark’s smile. We opened the back door for
her, and she slipped out into the rapidly lightening morning.

“Well, my dear,” Griffin said as I shut the door. “After all
of this, I feel better than ever about searching for my own brothers. Whatever
faults they may have, I’m quite certain they will at least be human.”

~ * ~

Shortly after dawn, Griffin and I stood on the walk in front
of Christine’s boarding house. When she came out on the wide porch and saw us,
her step hesitated, and for a moment, I thought she might go back inside and
slam the door in our faces. Instead, she squared her shoulders and marched down
the walk determinedly.