Sea Lord (17 page)

to beat its way out of her chest. Swamped by need—to touch, to take—she tugged against the grip on

her wrist. His fingers tightened and then released as he swept her up, as she wrapped both arms around

his neck. His knee pushed between her thighs. His broad hand molded to her bottom, pulling her roughly

against him. He was fully, hotly aroused, thick and long against her. He dragged her toward the bed.

Panic reared out of the fog of emotion, the wave of need. Panic and reason.

She surfaced, gasping. “No.”

“Too late.” His mouth claimed hers. His touch was hard and branding. “Let me have you. Give yourself

to me.”

Oh, she was tempted, horribly tempted and afraid. He was too strong for her. If she let him take her, if

she once gave herself up to him and her need, he would consume her, body, mind, and heart. Her pulse

raced. The back of her knees hit the bed.

“You said you wouldn’t force me,” she reminded him breathlessly.

“Not force.” His lips were warm on her cheek, her ear, the side of her neck. “Persuade.”

His skill weakened her knees. Her will. But inside, a small, hard kernel of her Lucy self remained,

stubborn as a seed in winter. She shook her head. “It’s the same thing. It’s the same if I can’t walk

away.”

His hands stilled. He raised his head. “Bollocks. You want this. You want me.”

She fought not to squirm. “Maybe.”
Yes.
“But I won’t have sex with you as long as I’m your prisoner.”

His eyes narrowed. He was angry, she realized. Anger—strong emotion of any kind—had always

terrified her. But losing herself, losing control, scared her even more.

“You would use your body to bargain for your freedom?” he asked.

Heat whipped into her face. “It’s my body. We can’t have any kind of equal relationship, we can’t have

sex, if I’m not free to choose.”

“Equal.” A snarl of fury and frustration tore from his throat. “I am more your prisoner than you are mine.”

If the bed hadn’t been behind her, she would have wobbled. Retreated. She took refuge in confusion. “I

don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I am selkie.” He ripped the sealskin from the foot of the bed and thrust it between them. The fur spilled

between them, heavy, enveloping. “I gave my pelt into your keeping. I gave myself, my freedom up to

you. You hold my life in your hands as surely as you hold the fate of my people.”

She felt battered, bewildered, assaulted. Trapped against the bed, she faced him, bristling like a small,

cornered animal. “I didn’t ask for your life. Or your pelt. I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t want it.”

His silver eyes blazed. “You do not have the courage to take it,” he said coldly.

He dropped the fur at her feet and walked out.

Conn sat in the dark in the antechamber that had once served as the selkies’ schoolroom, away from the

wardens still gathered in the hall. Most had gone to bed, their own or others’, in pursuit of sleep or

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fruitless coupling. The last conversations—of politics and pair bonding—sank to murmurs like the fire.

Conn frowned into his whiskey glass. He had taught himself from his father’s failures, determined not to

repeat his father’s mistakes.

Never surrender to impulse.

Never admit emotion.

Never reveal weakness.

Tonight he had done all three, with predictable and disastrous results.

A footfall alerted him he was not alone. His heartbeat quickened. He raised his head, hoping . . . what?

That she had come after him?

Griff stood in the room’s archway, outlined in the red glow of the great hearth.

Conn’s disappointment was sharp as the whiskey in his mouth. He raised his eyebrows. “If you’re

seeking a partner for the evening, warden, you have come to the wrong place.”

The castle warden entered the schoolroom, avoiding the scattered tables and chairs in the dark. “I found

my partner over a hundred years ago. This was her place. I come to sit and remember.”

The man’s unabashed devotion to his dead mate made Conn ashamed of his ill humor. Ashamed and

almost jealous. “Were there no selkie females in the hall to provide distraction for the night?”

Griff smiled wryly. “I shepherded half of them into the sea at their first Change. I am too old for them.”

“Younger than I am.”

Griff eased his big body into a little chair, stretching his long legs toward the empty hearth. “It’s not the

years, my prince. It’s what you do with them.”

Conn inclined his head, acknowledging the point.

“I am surprised to see you here,” Griff continued. “Or indeed, at all tonight.”

Conn turned the glass in his hand. “My plans for the evening met with an unexpected . . . obstacle.”

Griff straightened. “Gau?”

“A human obstacle,” Conn clarified.

Relaxing, Griff eyed the amber liquid in Conn’s glass. “So you are applying a human solution?”

“It seemed appropriate.” Conn let the eighteen-year-old Scotch roll on his tongue. “Whatever their other

limitations, humans make good whiskey.”

Griff gave him a level look. “And is it those ‘other limitations’ that have you drinking alone in the dark

rather than enjoying your lady’s company?”

Conn stiffened. He did not discuss his personal life with his wardens. But neither could he permit Griff to

lay responsibility for his present dilemma at Lucy’s door. “The fault was not hers,” he said shortly, “but

mine.”

They sat in companionable silence.

Griff cleared his throat. “Sometimes women—human women—need work to warm to things.”

Conn raised his eyebrows. “If you are thinking to advise me on my sex life, I’ll need another drink.”

“I am not talking about bed play. Or not only about that,” Griff said. “The girl has been on Sanctuary less

than a day. She needs time to adjust.”

Time was something selkies had in abundance. Over the course of his long and careful existence, Conn

had grown used to thinking in terms of years and centuries. But the demons’ murder of the selkie

Gwyneth and the news of Gau’s visit had kindled an unfamiliar urgency in him.

The demon lord’s visit and his own impatience.

Driven by necessity and lust, he had spoken too soon, pushed too hard, expected too much. Griff was

right. Lucy needed time to grow accustomed to the island before she accepted her place here. Before

she accepted him.

“How long?” he asked.

“That depends on what you did to piss her off,” Griff said.

The warden’s tone was heavy with humor and knowledge—the consequence of loving a human, Conn

supposed. Griff had taken his Emma from the wreckage of her ship on Conn’s orders, lived with her for

more than three score years, sired and raised two human children with her.

And in the end, had seen those children grow up and away, had held their mother’s hand and watched

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her die. That, too, was a consequence of binding your life to a mortal life. A mortal love.

The memory of Conn’s own words haunted him. “
I would be faithful to you. There would be no

other partners for either of us as long as you live.
”

He pushed the thought away.

“How long before your mate . . . adjusted?” he asked.

Griff rubbed his jaw. “Weeks, it was. It would help your cause if you could find the lass something to do.

Something useful. Make her feel needed here.”

Lucy’s image, Lucy’s words, rose to accuse him. “
All my life, I imagined being needed. Dreamed of

being loved for myself, for who I am. Not fucked because of who my mother was.
”

Conn took another sip of whiskey to wash the memory away. “I explained the need. She wants no part

of it.”

Or me.

“Something else,” Griff said. “We do not need a teacher, but—”

“She’s not taking over the cooking,” Conn interrupted. “She had enough of that where she was.” He

looked at the whiskey glass in his hand and set it down. “Let her train with Iestyn and the others.”

Griff’s brow pleated. “She is not selkie.”

“But she has power. Let us see what she can learn to do with it.”

“If you want to please her, there are easier ways. Maybe a gift . . .”

Conn waved the suggestion away. “I already told her she can have anything she asks for.”

“Except her freedom,” Griff said.

Their eyes met. Conn smiled bitterly. “Except that.”

“Then it must be something she cannot ask for,” Griff said. “Something she wants.”

Frustration snapped through him. “How do I know what she wants if she does not ask?”

Griff shrugged. “You must pay attention. Listen. Women like that.”

“Anything else?” Conn asked dryly.

“You might try a cold dunk in the ocean.”

“No.”

“I did not mean the swim will persuade her.” Griff grinned. “But it might help you.”

Conn stood and stalked to the empty fireplace.
Never admit emotion. Never reveal weakness.
With

his back to Griff, he said, “I cannot.”

“My lord.” Griff’s tone was understanding. Sympathetic. “You cannot deny your nature forever. A dip in

the sea now and then will not turn you into your father.”

Conn clasped his hands behind him. “She has my sealskin.”

Silence crackled.

“You gave her your pelt.” The warden’s voice was ripe with disbelief.

Conn fought a spasm of irritation. “She could not take it.”

“No,” Griff agreed instantly. “But . . . You need the swim even more, then. If not to cool your blood,

then to clear your head. To give her your pelt . . . What were you thinking?”

He had not been thinking at all.

At least, he hadn’t been thinking about her.

Only of himself, his people, his people’s needs.

Somehow, against all reason and every instinct he had for self-preservation, he must find another way.

“
Pay attention,
” Griff had urged. “
Listen.
”

Unbidden, another voice whispered in his mind, soft and broken as the sea. “
All my life, I dreamed of

being loved for myself, for who I am.
”

Conn curled his hands into fists. He could try. What did he have to lose?

Except everything.

She had the moon and the dog for company and the wine for consolation.

They were not enough.

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Lucy paced from the window to the fire. Inside the robe’s padded sleeves, her hands were shaking. Her

throat was raw. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.

If she were home, she would have gone for a run or escaped into her garden, grabbed a book or turned

on the TV. Anything to dull the edge of her desire and drown out the busy chatter in her brain. Anything

to numb the pain, to blunt the sharp memory of Conn’s words.

“
My people are dying. You promise life.
”

And the look in his eyes when he said it, that look . . . How could she bear it? He was killing her. He had

kidnapped her and now he was tearing her apart, stripping away her defenses. When they were gone,

what would be left?

If you peeled a crab from its shell, it died.

She pressed the heel of her palm to her chest, as if she could hold the pain inside or push it away.

She wasn’t brave like Regina or confident like Margred. She was twenty-three and all alone, and she

wanted to go home.

She felt the thud of her heart against her hand and remembered Conn’s body pressed to her body, his

desire rising to meet her desire, his heart driving hers. One breath. One beat. One pulse. One heart.

He made her feel things, he made her go places she had not visited for a very long time. Places she’d

avoided for most of her life. She was terrified of losing herself in him. Even more afraid she would

discover things inside herself she could not bear to live with.

If she did what he wanted, if she submitted to him, how would she ever find herself again?

How would she find her way home?

She shivered and walked to the window. Through the bubbled glass, she could see the wavering shadow

of the boat rocking at anchor, a black splinter caught in the silver-webbed sea. The only boat in the

harbor. Her only escape off the island.

She didn’t kid herself that she could handle a forty-foot sailboat in a rough winter crossing. But as long as

she had the boat, she had options. She had hope. They were near the coast of Scotland, Conn had said.