“So they heated the pipes.” He had a flash of lugging buckets up a spiraling stone stair, of the demons using the hot springs under the sea lord’s castle to access the heart of the selkies’ Sanctuary. The brief vision made him dizzy.
He shook his head to clear it. “There wasn’t anything you could do to stop them.”
“They shouldn’t have been able to find us.”
He’d wondered about that. He shrugged. “Maybe they fol owed me from Walmart.”
“The children of fire do not hang out at Walmart.”
“How do you know? There were some pretty creepy characters in the electronics aisle.”
Her lips twitched before she pressed them together.
“Even if there were demons in the area, your shields should have prevented them from noticing you. And if they had found you, you would have been attacked before you reached the motel.”
“So if they didn’t see me, how did they track us down?”
She folded her hands in her lap. “Demons’ reference points are not entirely physical.”
“What the hel does that mean?”
“The children of fire are the only elementals to lack matter of their own. They have no physical presence beyond what they borrow. But they are aware of energy.
Attracted to it.”
F o r g o t t e n s e a 167
She’d said something like that last night, he remembered.
“You mean magic? But we didn’t do any. At the motel.”
“No, but we . . . There’s a connection between us. When we joined, I felt a definite, powerful release of energy.”
“Babe, that wasn’t magic. You came.”
Her blush deepened. “Thank you. I’m aware of that. But we also broadcast power.”
She was serious.
“You’re tel ing me that when we have sex, it sends up some kind of flare? Like the Bat-Signal?”
“Not the Bat-Signal. But if the demons picked up on our combined energies . . . it’s my fault.”
He wasn’t big on assuming responsibility. But he couldn’t let her beat herself up because they’d made love.
“Not your fault,” he said firmly.
“My idea, then.
“Not the second time.”
She flicked him a glance, measuring, uncertain.
“Of course, we could test your theory,” he continued, trying to provoke her smile. “Make love again and time how long before the bastards show up.”
Her sputter of laughter delighted him. But, “That’s not funny,”
she said.
He sobered abruptly. “No,” he agreed. “Because if you’re right, if the demons have some way to trace the two of us together, you’re safer if we split up.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
Her soft certainty dril ed a hole in his gut. He didn’t either.
Not because he needed her to find the merfolk, if they stil survived. Not because he was using her for sex.
He
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
and direction. In a world where everything was fluid, she was a beacon, clear and true.
None of which mattered compared to her safety. He couldn’t let his craving for her company jeopardize her life.
Better for them both, perhaps, if he left her now. It wasn’t like he had anything to offer her beyond this moment.
Besides sex.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said.
“There’s always a choice.”
He shot her another glance. Lara Rho would never go with the flow. She was a fighter. He wished he didn’t admire that about her.
“Okay. Give it to me.”
She met his gaze, her eyes vulnerable, and his heart tumbled at the look in her eyes. Not so certain after al . “The demons seem to respond to the connection between us.”
