Sex is not that big a deal with us.”
He grinned, feeling better about the boyfriend. “It is if you do it right.”
“I meant, human sex is not a true union. We do not mingle spirits.”
“Just bodies.”
Her brow puckered in annoyance, but he noticed her rigid posture had relaxed. “Why are you making such an issue of this?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“Because I want to have sex with you,” he said.
10
L u c y d r i f t e d u p t h e c i rc u l a r s t a i r o f t h e prince’s tower. Chinks in the thick wal s admitted narrow bands of moonlight, striping the stone.
She shivered in a sharp wind from the sea. She had waited too long to make this climb. Confessing the difficulty she was having coping to Conn felt uncomfortably like another failure. But the longer she kept her feelings to herself, the more the distance between them grew.
She had lost their child.
She would not lose his love.
Blinking, she emerged into the prince’s study at the top of the stairs. Windows pierced the round room, north, south, east, west. The children of the sea did not make or mine, farm or spin. Caer Subai was furnished with the salvage of centuries, plucked from human shipwrecks and restored after the demons’ attack seven years ago: amphorae from Greece and ivory from Africa, Viking gold and Italian silk.
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V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
As she entered, Conn looked up from his desk, walnut and iron, rescued from a Spanish gal eon off the coast of Cornwal .
“Lucy.” His posture relaxed, but a faint wariness remained in his eyes. She had not sought him here for months.
Time to change that, she thought. But she was at a loss how to begin.
A map spread across the surface of his desk, glowing like the night sky with pricks of multicolored light.
“What are you doing?” she asked, wandering closer.
He straightened. “Looking for your lost boy.”
Her brows pul ed together. Her heart quickened in her chest. “What?”
“You know how the map works. Each light represents an elemental’s energy. Not the angels, of course. The children of air are forbidden from interfering in earthly affairs.
But here we are.” He tapped the bright blue cluster off the coast of Scotland, waved a hand at the smattering of stars across the seas. “The children of earth here and here.”
He traced his finger along the glowing green ridges of the mountains. She walked around the desk to see. As she drew closer, his faint, familiar musk teased her senses.
“Demons here,” Conn continued, with another poke at the map. Red pulsed along the fault lines, spattered across the continents like blood.
“But see here.” He leaned forward over the desk again, making her very aware of the heat of his body, the strength of his arms. “These spots of blue inland? Here, on the Mid-Atlantic coast, and here. These could be your lost . . .”
“The ones who were lost,” he said stiffly.
Tears choked her throat, swam in her eyes. “You listened.”
F o r g o t t e n s e a 1 27
He looked down his long nose at her with a hint of his habitual arrogance. “Of course.”
She swayed toward him, more moved by his act of faith than she could say. “Conn . . .”
He moved away from her to stand in front of the window, hands clasped behind his back. “I thought I would leave in the morning,” he said, staring out at the moonlit sea.
“Leave,” Lucy repeated blankly.
He nodded. “It wil be an opportunity to see Morgan and your brother Dylan as wel . I have not conferred with either of them in weeks. They are wardens. Perhaps they picked up on this sending, too. If you are right, if there is a chance that Iestyn and the others are alive . . .” He broke off, his voice raw.
He cared.
Emotion flooded her heart. Not just for the survival of their kind. He cared for the children he had gathered and protected and final y sent away.
How had she been blind to it until now?
But he had always been good at hiding his feelings. He had learned over centuries of rule to never reveal emotion.
Never admit weakness. And she had been too wrapped up in her own feelings to understand.
“I could come with you,” she said.
