Immortal Sea (36 page)

Her hands tightened in his hair. “I need you.”

He kissed the tender hollow under her ear, scenting her capitulation, tasting victory. “Yes.”

She tugged, pulling back his head. “
I
need
you
.”

He nodded cautiously, alerted by the shift in her emphasis, the spark in her eyes. “Yes. There is no harm, no shame, in needing someone.”

Her gaze was pointed, her smile rueful. “Not unless he doesn’t need you back.”

Morgan gaped. She had played him. With one neat sentence, in one swift reversal, he was hooked. Reeled in. Eviscerated.

“I won’t ask you to be anything less than what you are,” Elizabeth continued, inexorable as the tide. “But I can’t be less than who I am either. I’m not some coddled, weak woman in need of protection. I’m a woman who’s made a career for herself, a life, and a home for her babies. I don’t need you to take care of me. To take care of us. I need you to love me.”

He floundered, out of his element. “I do not see you as weak. I want to care for you because you are . . . precious to me. You and your children.”

“But do you love me? Can you love us?”

Fear and frustration churned inside him. His head was reeling, his heart in turmoil, his pride in tatters. “I want you. I trust you. I need you.” He shot the words at her. “Is that love?”

Her breathing hitched.

She held his gaze, her brown eyes softening, glistening with tears. Morgan cursed silently. He had not meant to make her cry.

But slowly, her lips curved. “It’ll do. Thank you. It will do wonderfully. For now.”

He did not understand her. His heart banged in his chest as it did during battle.

One of them had won, he thought. But he didn’t know who.

She sighed. “I have to go now. I promised to meet Margred and Caleb at the clinic. Can I drop you at the inn?”

He stared at her blindly, trying not to shake, trying not to panic, wanting her desperately, needing . . .

What?

Her. Only her. But she had no time for him, she was going to care for Margred and her baby. As she should, as she must.
“I can’t be less than who I am either
.
”

He shook his head, disgusted with himself. There was no shame in needing someone.

Not unless she didn’t need you back.

She did need him. She had said so.

“I will walk,” he said. “To clear my head.”

She smiled again, hesitantly. “Zack does that. I thought it was a boy thing, but maybe he gets it from you.”

Zachary.

His mind cleared, sharpened.

“Where is he?”

Elizabeth blinked. “I don’t know. I lost track of him during dinner, and after Margred started labor, I didn’t have time to look.” She bit her lip. “I should have. Regina and Dylan are watching Emily, but—”

“I will find him,” he interrupted. “We will wait for you at home.”

The water wrapped Zack like a fist, tight and comforting. Familiar. He shuddered in relief as it sheathed his sensitized skin, as the current yanked him along into cool, dark oblivion.

He didn’t need Stephanie. He didn’t need anybody. If she had places to go, so did he.

Places she would never go.

He didn’t mean to swim so far. It just sort of happened, like staying out too late or drinking too much, the situation under control until you stopped paying attention and then, oops, there you were, staring at seven messages from home or puking vodka and Gatorade into the toilet of the Stoddards’ basement powder room.

Or sliding through the liquid dark toward a crevice in the rock, heart thumping, blood pumping, the beat of the orb pulsing like the surge of the ocean.

He flicked his tail, and smaller fish scattered. Ha.

“You must not go into the water until you have learned to defend yourself
.
”

He was fine. He could go back. Anytime. He would go back, as soon as he saw it again. That big shiny garden globe. The orb.

He could feel it vibrating like music, like heavy bass, in the cavities of his skull and along his skin. It drew him like a current closer to the roots of the island, closer to a fissure in the rock.

Was that a glow? Pretty blue playing over the sandy bottom, exposing a litter of empty shells, a decaying skeleton. Caution brushed him like seaweed swaying in the dark.

Morgan didn’t want him to be here.

The thought slid into Zack’s mind, not really his thought. Funny. Rude. Wrong.

He glided closer. The sand had drifted, exposing a slice of the glowing globe, like a sickle moon, like a dragon’s half-shut eye. Colors swirled and throbbed in its depths, luring him on, luring him in. The rhythm of the orb grew stronger, catching up and overtaking the rhythm of his heart. Like he had two hearts. Two pulses. Two minds.

My father, he thought.

Some father. Just because he’s screwing your mother
. . .

Zack thrashed and the pulse faltered, finding a subtly different rhythm, stirring up memories and resentment like sediment on the ocean floor. His emotions churned.

Ben was your father.
The thought hooked him, drew him closer.
The fisherman, not the fish.

Zack struggled, but the light of the orb was in his eyes, the throb of the orb was in his blood, the voice of the orb was in his head, implacable, inescapable.

Closer.
Touch me. You don’t have to be alone.

Closer.
Release me. I can give you what you want. Women. Stephanie.

He drifted, dazzled.

Caught.

A terrible jerk seized his body, immobilized his will. Pain lanced through him, pitiless, paralyzing. The orb drew him closer, reeled him in like a fish flailing on the end of a line.

He touched it and it shattered. The shock jolted through him, convulsing his body, stunning his mind. He fought, screaming inside his head. But the Thing that had him wouldn’t let go.

Liz smiled as she locked the clinic doors. Despite her assurance that she would be fine, Caleb had insisted she leave with them.

“I’m a cop,” he explained simply. “I don’t want to get in a situation where I left you alone and something happened.”

Liz tucked her keys into her purse. “No middle-of-the-night phone calls?” she teased.

His smile crinkled his warm green eyes. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

“And we will have our sleep interrupted enough as it is,” Margred added, cuddling their newborn son against her shoulder.

“It’ll take a little time to get in a routine,” Liz said. “Just rest when he does, and you’ll be fine. Tired, but fine. I’ll drop by tomorrow and see how you’re all doing.”

They walked together to their cars. Observing the new family, Liz felt a lump rise in her throat. Their joy, warm and real and palpable, wrapped them as securely as the baby’s receiving blanket. Love was so often in the details, she thought. In the tender touch of Caleb’s hand on the small of Margred’s back or the way she leaned her cheek against his arm. In their laughter as they fumbled with the new infant seat. In their tenderness with each other and with their baby.

She could have that, Liz thought as she drove through the moon-washed night. A life, a home, a family, with Morgan. Maybe he didn’t have all the right words yet to tell her that he loved her. But he needed her. He trusted her. He wanted to stay. It was enough, more than enough, for now.

Anticipation tingled through her. She was glad Regina had called to tell her Emily had fallen asleep watching a movie and could stay until morning. Not that Liz intended to, well,
do
anything with their fifteen-year-old son upstairs. She might want to rip Morgan’s clothes off, but she still had to set an example. And Zack still needed time to adjust to Morgan’s presence in their lives.

She smiled. Maybe she and Morgan could neck in the hammock. Assuming Zack was home and asleep, of course.

Oh, she hoped he was home and asleep.

But when she pulled into the driveway, all the windows were blazing.
All
the windows. Every light in the house must be on.

Liz frowned. Zack was definitely home. Only a teenager was that careless with utilities.

She climbed the porch steps, an odd misgiving squeezing her lungs, dragging at her feet. The front door was unlocked. Her heart thumped. Really, that was
too
careless. She’d told Zack and told him . . .

“Zachary?”

The living room was empty. The downstairs was quiet. If Zack were home, where was Morgan?

She set her medical bag in the hall, hanging her purse over the banister. The house was too warm, as if someone had fiddled with the thermostat.

“Zack!” She pitched her voice to carry up the stairs. “I want to talk to you.”

No answer. He must be listening to his iPod.

Annoyed, she started up the stairs. He was fifteen and finfolk. He still had to follow the rules.

Sure, this was Maine. They had one of the lowest crime rates in the country. But he shouldn’t be up in his room with the door unlocked. Anyone could walk right in.

His bedroom door was closed. She tapped. “Zack?”

“Don’t come in.” His voice was strained. Urgent.

What was he doing in there?

She grimaced. Okay, she could think of several things a fifteen-year-old could be doing alone in his room that he might not want his mother to see.

“Honey, we need to talk.”

“No.” He sounded really upset, almost as if he’d been crying.

She leaned closer to the door. “Are you all right?”

“No
.
”

Maybe he was sick. Maybe . . . “I’m coming in,” she warned and opened the door.

Zack huddled in the narrow space between his bed and the wall, curled in a tight ball, his arms wrapped around his knees. Concern clutched her heart. His face was flushed, his eyes fever bright and miserable.

She started across the room toward him. “Zack, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Stay away.”

She heard a sound—
the front door opening?
—from downstairs, but her attention was on her son.

“Do you have a fever?” She reached to brush a hand over his forehead the way she had a thousand times during his childhood.

He jerked his head away.
“Don’t touch me!”

“Zack.” She stared at him, shocked, dismayed. “What’s the matter with you? Did you take something? Did someone give you something?”

“He has been possessed,” Morgan said grimly from the doorway. “By the demon Tan.”

ZACK WANTED TO HOWL.
IT WASN’T RIGHT, IT wasn’t fair, Morgan wasn’t supposed to be here, he would tell her everything, he was ruining everything
. . .

He gripped his head, fighting the pain, struggling for control of his own brain. No, that wasn’t right, Morgan was his father, he was supposed to make things better, he was trying to help.