Sea Fever (18 page)

me so far.”

“More than you know.” Unable any longer to resist the temptation of

her touch, he closed her hand around the cross. Her fingers were light and

cool. He let go before she could notice his own hand trembling.

“It is a ward,” he explained. “Like the mark on your wrist.”

She looked at the triskelion tattooed on her skin; at the gold cross in

her hand. “A ward against what? Vampires?”

He had intended to put this conversation off until morning. He owed

her his honesty. That didn’t mean he had to batter her with the truth when

she was exhausted and he was on edge.

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But she wouldn’t let it go, he thought in irritation. She kept pushing

and pushing at him with her wide eyes and her soft heart and her big

mouth.

“Not vampires,” he said. “Demons.”

* * *

Regina’s jaw dropped. She inhaled. She exhaled. Demons. Well.

“I was kidding,” she said weakly.

Dylan didn’t say anything. Oh, God. Obviously, he was not.

Regina had been baptized a Catholic, but her knowledge of demons

was pretty much limited to Halloween and a few episodes of Buffy.

She swallowed. “Are we talking horns and pitchforks here? Or The

Exorcist?”

A muscle bunched in Dylan’s jaw. “This is not a movie.”

“No, it’s my life.” Her previously dull and ordinary life. She wanted

it back.

“This is crap,” she said. “I was attacked by somebody I know. A

man. A human. Jericho Jones.”

“He was possessed,” Dylan said. “Unlike the other elements, fire has

no matter of its own. The children of the fire must take over a host to act

on the corporal plane.”

She struggled to make sense of his words, to hear him through the

rushing in her ears, the pounding of her heart. “Possessed or not,

Jericho’s in jail. The demon—” Even the word stopped her. She wasn’t

Buffy. She didn’t do demons. She was a twenty-nine-year-old line cook

with an eight-year-old son. She forced herself to go on. “It’s locked up

with him. So I’m safe.”

“No. The demon was driven out of Jones by your cross. It will seek a

new host to come back. To come after you.”

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“Why?” The word was nearly a wail. She coughed.

Dylan waited while she gulped her water. When she set down her

glass, he said gently, “I do not believe the demon seeks your death.”

“Right. It just half strangled me and dropped me down a hole for

fun.”

His mouth tightened. “I should have said, its primary target is not

your death.”

“What does it want, then? I don’t have anything—”

“The child.” Dylan’s eyes met hers. “Yours and mine.”

Oh, God.

Her breath went. Her vision grayed. For a moment, she was back in

the caves again, in the icy dark.

Dylan continued to watch her, his smooth, handsome face like stone,

his thoughts and feelings buried. She wished he would touch her or

something. Hold her hand.

She forced another breath. Okay. Of all the pregnancy horror stories

she’d been told or could imagine, “demonsseek your unborn child” had to

be the worst. At least it explained why she had been attacked. Sort of.

And why Dylan was sticking around.

For tonight.

She moistened her lips. “I don’t know yet that I’m pregnant. I mean,

not for sure.”

“When will you know?”

“Tomorrow. I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“I think you are. You smell . . . different.”

Good different or bad different? She pushed the thought away.

“Have you smelled a lot of pregnant women?”

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“No, you are the first.” His dark eyes flickered. “There are not many

births among the merfolk.”

“So, this baby is important, huh? If it’s, you know, selkie.”

“Selkie and female.”

“You want a girl?”

Dylan’s breath was as deep, as deliberate, as hers had been. “There

is a child foretold among my people,” he began. “A daughter of the house

of Atargatis who will change the balance of power between Heaven and

Hell. Atargatis was my mother. If you were to carry a daughter, yours and

mine, the child would be of the lineage of Atargatis.”

She took a moment to work it out. “Then . . . we’re on Heaven’s

side?” That made her feel better. A little.

Dylan did not meet her eyes. “Not exactly.”

The lump in her throat was getting too big to swallow. “Then where

do we stand? Exactly.”

“When God made man, the elementals debated His decision. The

children of air supported Him in this as in everything. The children of

fire— demonkind— did not. But the majority of the First Creation,

earth’s children and the children of the sea, concluded His wisdom would

reveal itself in time. Or not.” Dylan’s smile revealed the edge of his teeth.

“In either event, they— we— withdrew into the bones of the mountains

and the depths of the seas, until mankind should either prove or destroy

itself. We do not take sides.”

“So you’re neutral.” Like Switzerland.

“My people are, yes.”

Regina heard his distinction. She saw past the thin, sharp smile to the

turmoil in his eyes. He was not as neutral or as indifferent as he

pretended.

The realization gave her hope.

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“Yeah, well, my people are human,” she said. “Which means my kid

is at least half human.”

“That’s not how it works. There are no fractions to the Change,”

Dylan said tightly. “No degrees of difference. You are human or not. You

are selkie or not. The child will be one or the other.”

She heard his cool, clipped tones and saw the rigid set of his

shoulders and ached for him, for the choices his mother had forced on

him, for the confusion of the boy he had been, for the isolation of the man

he had become.

But he was wrong.

“That’s a load of crap,” Regina said. “Family is family.”

Dylan cocked an eyebrow. “Blood is thicker than water?”

Was it? Wasn’t it? Could she love the child within her if it were born

. . . different?

“Yes,” she said recklessly.

“So sure,” Dylan mocked. “And so blind. Can you honestly pretend

you don’t see me differently now, knowing what I am? My brother and I

are not the same.”

“Yeah,” Regina muttered. “He’s not a jerk.”

Black laughter sprang into his eyes. “There is that.”

“And he didn’t find me. He couldn’t have rescued me. You did. So

your seal trick is actually pretty useful.”

“Like Lassie saving Timmy in the well,” Dylan said.

Regina narrowed her eyes. She recognized that jeering, defensive

tone. She was the mother of a son, after all. Dylan was less certain, less in

control of himself and the situation, than he would ever admit. Part of her

wanted to reassure him, the way she would have soothed Nick. And

another part of her resented having to try. She was tired and battered and

pregnant and her throat hurt. He was here not because he wanted to be,

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not because he wanted her, but because the baby she carried could be part

of some otherworldly power struggle.

If it’s selkie and female.

And if it wasn’t, he’d be gone. Which meant she’d be right where

she was before, on her own, raising her child, her children, alone.

She pushed back her chair. “The appointment’s at ten.”

“I will come with you,” he said instantly.

Like he cared.

He didn’t, of course. She couldn’t let the sweetness of his offer

seduce her into thinking she could rely on him.

“I’m not asking you to. But I thought I’d tell you in case there are

any tests the doctor could do. Or shouldn’t do.”

“The child was conceived in human form. It may be human. It will

appear human, in any case, until it matures.”

At thirteen. Her mind boggled at the thought of guiding a half-human adolescent— boy? girl?— through sexual maturity. How would

she manage?

How had Dylan?

“Great.” She managed a smile. “I wasn’t looking forward to

explaining to my mother why I had a fish tank next to the crib.”

A shadow chased across his face. His eyes were stormy. “Regina . ..”

She pulled her sweatshirt tighter around her. “Not now. Please. I’m.”

Exhausted. Frightened. Overwhelmed. “Going to turn in. I’ll see you in

the morning.”

* * *

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Dylan glared at the blank white door that led to Regina’s bedroom.

She had accepted his explanation. She was prepared to tolerate his

presence and protection. That was enough.

He didn’t expect her to seek his company or his comfort. In a matter

of weeks, he had destroyed her peace, endangered her life, and strained

the limits of her belief. She needed time to recover, recover and sleep.

She needed space.

He could understand. Wasn’t that what he wanted, too? What he’d

always wanted. No human expectations, no messy emotional

entanglements. To live forever in the license of the sea with its endless

moods and changeable weather and endless, changeable sexual partners.

Never mind that the one he wanted had just gone to bed without him.

He imagined her undressing, taking off her bulky sweatshirt and soft

black pants and sliding between the sheets alone. He should be in there

with her. If he were in there, he could reassure her. He could put his

hands on her, all that smoothness, all that delicate softness, taste the salt

of her skin and the tartness of her mouth, slide hard deep inside her, pink,

wet, his . . .

He broke off, breathing hard, appalled at what he was thinking and

thinking it anyway.

Not his.

He was not his father, to lay claim to another living being. He was

not his mother, to sacrifice the freedom of the sea for sex.

He was selkie. And he was sleeping on the couch. For tonight, at

least.

Satisfied with his decision, he grabbed the blanket from the back of

the couch; and heard a whimper of distress from Regina’s room.

Hell. He threw down the blanket and went to her door.

She lay with her back to him, curled on her side like a child. Her hair

was dark and messy on her pillow. He couldn’t see her face or her

breasts, not even much skin, only her smooth, slim shoulder, her pale,

tender nape, the delicate bump at the beginning of her spine.

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Longing shivered through him.

She jerked and muttered. Dreaming, he guessed.

“It’s all right,” he told her softly, standing in the doorway.

“Nicky,” she croaked.

“He’s fine. He’s here,” Dylan said, feeling like a helpless jerk. “I’m

here.”

She moaned.

He’d had it with being helpless. He didn’t even think about staying

uninvolved.

He crawled into bed with her and took her in his arms, and she

buried her face in his neck.

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Twelve

DYLAN’S BODY WAS WARM, SO WARM, AND Regina was

cold, her toes and fingers freezing, the pit of her stomach an icy lump.

She burrowed into him, needing heat, wanting skin, seeking to blot out

the memory of pitch-black caves and her dreams of rising water. Chilling

her bones, stealing her breath . . .

She shivered, fumbling with his buttons, clumsy in the dark. He

ripped open his shirt and gathered her against him, mashing her nose

against the hard planes of his almost smooth chest.

She shuddered in relief. But even in his arms, her dreams crept in,

blanketing her brain like a heavy gray fog, clinging and cold. She hated

those dreams. She reached for Dylan’s belt buckle instead, feeling the

muscles of his stomach jump. Good. He felt warm, warm and alive,

and—

His hand closed over her shaking hands, holding them still. “What

are you doing?”

She was close to tears. She tried to joke instead. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me.” He sounded grim.

She felt a hot trickle of humiliation, and even that was better than the

cold.

“Bad dream,” she explained.

“I guessed.” He didn’t let go of her hand.

“I can’t stop remembering . . . I can’t help thinking . . .” She was

back in the caves, in the dark again, only now the shadows were infested

with demons. “I’m scared.”

“You should be. And I am not the one to comfort you.”

Because he wasn’t human? Or because he would leave? Neither

mattered much to her at the moment.

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“You’re the only one.” The only one who understood what she had

been through. Who knew what she faced. Who could deliver her from the

dark. “You were there. You rescued me.”

“So, what’s this? ‘Thank you’?”

The humiliation spread, a warm flush of embarrassment in her

cheeks, in her chest. She hunched a shoulder. “If you want.”