Forgotten Sea

“I doubt she gave my sire a thought once he rol ed off her.”

He met her shocked gaze and smiled faintly. “The children of the sea don’t do commitment.”

A chil brushed her. “They don’t marry? Ever?”

“We take mates,” he offered. “But even among humans, how many couples are together after five years? Or fifty?

What kind of relationship could last five hundred?”

No stabilizing influence in his life, she realized with a trickle of cold. No lasting relationships. This was what Simon had warned her about. Iestyn was a child of the sea, restless, rootless, his loyalties and affections as transient as the tides.

She swal owed. “So you went from your father’s farm to . . .”

2 02

V i r g i n i a K a n t r a

“Sanctuary. Conn col ected us, al the fosterlings, and sheltered us until we could take our proper place and form in the sea.”

She had a flash, a vision, of round towers and green hil s and cliffs rising above the sea, of a great empty hal and a smoldering red fire. “Like Rockhaven. A school.”

“A castle.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Very romantic.”

“It was bloody cold,” Iestyn said. “We slept with the dogs.

And ran as wild.”

She frowned. “But who took care of you?”

“Everyone. No one. It wasn’t a . . . tame childhood.”

For some reason, she remembered the tawny raptor on Moon’s arm, watching her with wicked, golden eyes.

Lara suppressed a shiver, asking lightly, “The Lost Boys in Neverland?”

“More like Lord of the Flies.” Iestyn met her surprised look and grinned. “I do read. Plenty of time for that at sea.”

“So you must have had a teacher.”

“Eventual y. Miss March.” He smiled as if the memory was a pleasant one.

“Maybe you’l see her again,” Lara offered. “The flyers said there were merfolk on World’s End. Maybe she survived.”

“No. She was human. She died almost sixty years ago.”

Lara jolted. “I forget that you’re immortal.”

“Was immortal,” he corrected her deliberately. “Before I lost my sealskin. I’m demon bait now.”

Their eyes met.

Her lungs emptied. “Because of me.”

Iestyn shook his head. “I’m alive because of you. But we could die tonight. Tomorrow, we might never see each other again. I can’t promise you a future. I can’t promise you anything.”

F o r g o t t e n s e a 203

We could die . . .

Her heart thumped. “Then give me now.”

He watched her with slitted golden eyes. “Is that enough for you?”

Yes.

No.

“If that’s al I can have.”

“Lara.” His tone was unusual y serious. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You wil .” She steeled herself to accept it. “You can’t help yourself.”

Frustration darkened his face. “What do you want me to say? Tel me what you want.”

Tenderness and impatience tangled within her.

This wasn’t about her. Not only about her, not anymore.

This journey they were on together was taking her farther and farther from the person she had been. But she would not beg. And she would not take the next step alone.

She turned his question back on him. “What do you want?”

“You,” he answered simply. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life waiting for you.”

Her eyes blurred. As easily as that, he restored her confidence and destroyed her defenses.