Sea Witch (32 page)

But if they lost, if the situation went literally to hell, he wanted her to

be safe. At least the skin would give her a chance to escape, to return to

the sea she loved.

And if they won . . .

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Caleb lowered the lid of the chest, annoyed to note his hands were

trembling. He wouldn’t let himself think about what Maggie would do if

they won.

Maggie crashed through the wood on the slippery, overgrown path

as if the hounds of Hell hunted at her heels.

Or a demon.

Hurry, hurry
. Her feet pounded and slid on the carpet of pine

needles. Her breathing rasped. In. Out. Her heart hammered in her ears.

She burst from shadow into sunlight. Blinded, she stumbled forward

and thumped into something—someone— warm. Solid. Male.

She almost shrieked.

Hard hands gripped her shoulders. “Margred?”

She blinked at Dylan, fresh from the water, his skin like honey in the

golden afternoon light, his pelt hitched like a towel around his lean waist.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

She struggled for air. For explanations.
Hurry
. “I— Leaving.”

“What?”

Margred inhaled. “The demon killed . . . Gwyneth of Hiort. Your

brother—your brother found out.”

“My brother doesn’t believe in demons.”

She didn’t have the breath or time to waste in argument. “Does now.

Trying to . . . stop it.”

Dylan scowled. “That’s absurd. A human can’t defeat a demon.”

Finally, someone agreed with her. But his words brought no relief.

“So I told your brother. He will not hear me. But if I leave, I can draw the

demon after me. He is not hunting humans. Caleb will be safe.”

Bitter, angry, hurt, betrayed . . . but alive.

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Dylan’s face was stiff and pale. “You would set yourself as demon

bait to save my brother?”

She refused to let him see her wince. “I have a higher opinion of

myself than that. I thought to fight.”

“You don’t have the training. Or the power.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

His black eyes flickered. “You could have come to me.

Or the prince. The birds carried the report of Gwyneth’s death. Let

Conn send a warden. They have the experience to—”

“Bugger Conn. And his wardens. By the time they show up, the

demon may have switched hosts. Your brother could be dead.”

The lines bracketing Dylan’s mouth deepened. “Where is he?”

“Caleb? At the cottage.” She thought of his probable reaction when

he found her gone, and a fresh rush of pain and panic swept through her.

Hurry, hurry, hurry
. “I have to go.”

Dylan let her pass, but she felt him hard on her heels as she jumped

and slid over the rocks. “How did you plan on getting off the island?”

“I can still swim. It is only three miles to World’s End.”

“Faster by sail,” Dylan said. “I’ll take you.”

“Yes.” She did not question his motive in offering. Her mind was

fixed on Caleb. She jumped on the dock. “Hurry. I need to disable the

other boat.”

Dylan stopped. “The powerboat? Why?”

Margred eyed him impatiently. He might comprehend the demon’s

power, but he had no concept of the warrior spirit that drove his brother.

“Because unless I strand him here, Caleb will go after the demon

alone.”

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* * * *

Caleb emerged from the cover of trees sweating and seriously pissed

off. He had wasted precious minutes back at the house searching for

Maggie, calling for Maggie, unable to accept she’d simply left him.

Again.

Maybe it made sense for her to comb the beach, but she should have

told him her plans, damn it.

He scanned the flat seascape of black rock and bright water. Nothing

moved on the beach but the wind and the blowing yellow tops of

goldenrod.

But on the dock, he spotted a flutter of movement. A flash of skirt.

Maggie
. His lungs inflated with relief and sweet sea air. For a moment

everything was okay.

Only for a moment.

She was stepping onto the deck of a boat. A sailboat. Dylan’s boat.

And Dylan was with her, working the lines.

Caleb’s whole body went rigid. He didn’t cry out. Didn’t protest.

This was, after all, what he had expected, what he’d known and feared all

along.

He didn’t ask what she thought she was doing either. Her plans were

suddenly, painfully clear.

The sail rattled up the main mast. The boat jerked and quivered like

a pony at the end of its tether. Maggie shook her long hair free in the

wind, glancing back at the beach. Caleb knew the second she saw him.

Her deep brown eyes widened. Her lips parted in distress.

He stomped toward the dock, cursing his limp and the wary look in

those eyes, and spoke to her, only to her, not even acknowledging the one

at her side. “Get off the boat.”

She bit her lip. “I am sorry.”

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First a joke, and now an apology. She was making all kinds of

progress.
Fuck
.

He gauged the twelve feet of water separating the boat from the

dock. Even with a whole leg and a running start, he couldn’t jump that

far.

Urgency tightened his throat. He clenched his hands into fists.

“Don’t do this.”

The sail fluttered and snapped, preparing to take her away from him.

“I must.”

He held her gaze, desperate to make her understand. “You said we

were in this together. Damn it, Maggie—”

“She’s leaving,” Dylan interrupted. “Get over it. It’s not the first

time.”

“You shut the fuck up,” Caleb snarled.

Maggie gripped the side of the boat, her knuckles white. “I love

you,” she said across the yards of open water.

The words should have made him feel better. They made everything

worse. A storm of need and rage and terrible fear howled in his empty

chest.

“You picked a hell of a way to show it,” he said.

Did he imagine it, or did her eyes fill with tears?

“You will be safe here,” she assured him, while the boat strained and

shuddered against Dylan’s hold. The sail flapped frantically behind her

like a trapped bird. “The glamour will shield you until I come back.”

“When?” The single word cracked like a gunshot.

She flinched. “After. As soon as I can.”

After she confronted the demon, she meant.

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Assuming she survived.

“Maggie, for God’s sake . . .” He was terrified for her. Furious. “If

you love me, you’ve got to trust me. Trust us. Don’t do this alone.”

Dylan stood beside her, a possessive hand on her shoulder. “She’s

not alone. She’s with her own kind now.”

“You son of a
bitch
.” Caleb lurched for the end of the dock.

And the boat leapt into the wind and away.

Caleb leaned over the exposed power head of the outboard motor,

scowling at the tangle of loose wire where the spark plugs should be.

He wanted to rip something—the engine, his brother— apart with

his bare hands.

Maggie was gone.

And he was trapped on fricking Brigadoon, unable to protect her, too

far away to help her, deprived of the resources and procedures that would

let him maintain even the reassurance of action, the illusion of control.

His hand tightened on the wrench. He’d scraped his knuckles on the

swivel bracket. Blood and marine grease smeared his hands.

He should have told her about the pelt.

She hadn’t stayed for him, but she might have for the pelt. He could

have used it as a bargaining chip to force her to take him with her. If that

didn’t work, he would have given her the damn thing to protect her.

He would have given anything, done anything, to protect her.

But she was gone.

He rubbed at his face, at his eyes, which burned from the glare off

the water and stung with unshed tears.

“
Get over it. It’s not the first time . . . She’s with her own kind now
.”

Why the hell hadn’t Dylan given her the pelt?

268

Caleb squinted out to sea, the gears of his cop’s mind turning and

engaging. What had his brother worn on the boat? Not a lot. Some kind of

caveman fur at his waist.

So the pelt wasn’t his.

Did he even know it was hidden in his bedroom? Or had Gwyneth

placed the sealskin in the chest herself?

A blaze on the water riveted Caleb’s gaze—the sun, striking a

fiberglass hull or a lifted sail. His chest expanded with sudden, stupid

hope.

Not a sail, he saw as the boat approached over the waves. The

profile—red and fast—was too low. He could hear the buzz of a motor.

Caleb straightened slowly, prepared to watch the vessel pass him by.

But as the boat streaked closer without shifting course, his hoped

morphed and grew. This could be his ticket off the island.

Caleb raised an arm to wave, but the boatman, a stick figure in the

cockpit, didn’t respond to his hail.

Of course not. “
The glamour will shield you until I come back
.”

He reached for the open emergency kit on the deck behind him.

Caulking gun, screwdriver, flashlight, matches . . .

Flares.

His hand closed on a long gold cylinder.

Glamour this
, he thought with grim satisfaction.

The red signal arced and smoked into the sky.

Caleb watched the oncoming boat, his heart in his throat and the sun

in his eyes, and all he could think was, Please— a prayer to the God he

hadn’t had time for since Mrs. Pruitt’s long-ago Sunday school class.

Please, God, let him see me
.

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Please let me get back in time to save her
.

The boat slowed and swerved to approach the dock.

Caleb expelled his breath in a rush of relief and gratitude.
Thank you,

thank you, thank—

He froze.

God hadn’t answered his prayers after all.

Because the man piloting the boat, with jerky movements and a

fixed, bright smile, was Bruce Whittaker.

270

Twenty-one

MARGRED GAZED AT THE WATER RUSHING OFF the bow,

her stomach churning and her emotions in turmoil.

Dylan’s hand rested on her shoulder. She shook it off.

“Your pardon,” he said stiffly. “I thought to comfort you.”

She had not forgiven him for his taunt to his brother. Or perhaps she

had not forgiven herself.

“I do not need your comfort,” she said coldly. “All I require of you is

transportation.”

“I should transport you to Caer Subai,” Dylan muttered.

“Try it, and I am over the side before you trim your sails,” she

warned.

His mouth tightened. “You would be safe there.”

“I would be trapped. I have no pelt. I could never return to the sea.”

“All the more reason to consider Sanctuary. Without your pelt, you

will age and die. At least at the prince’s court you would not grow old.”

Margred watched the horizon. Day after day after day after day, all

the same, blending together. Never to grow old, never to die.
Never to see

Caleb again
?

The prospect of eternity without him stretched before her like the

cool, damp tunnels and corridors of Caer Subai. Echoing. Empty.

Like her life before she met him.

She shuddered. “I would rather die than live without pleasure or

purpose.”

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Or love
.

“You could have children,” Dylan said.

Ah
. Margred closed her eyes, struck to the heart by a vision of a son

with Caleb’s sea green eyes, a daughter with his sunlit smile.

She shook her head. “I told you once I have no ambition to be part of

the prince’s breeding program.”

Dylan watched her intently, his expression cloaked. “There are other

candidates for stud.”

“None that tempt me.” Her gaze traveled the foamy trail that led to

the island and Caleb, his image drawing her as surely as the moon drew

the tides. “Except for your brother.”

“He’s not my brother. He can be nothing to you. You can’t look

back.”

Far to starboard, a red powerboat buzzed over the water like a

hornet.

“Did your mother ever regret leaving your father?” Margred asked.

“Did you never miss your home and your family? ”

“We are selkie,” Dylan pronounced. “We do not regret.”

We flow as the sea flows
. So it had been for seven hundred years of

her existence. Why, then, did she feel trapped by the current, carried in

completely the wrong direction?

Her mind returned to Caleb standing rigid on the dock, his fists

clenched and his eyes bleak. She felt him like a weight at her heart, like

the pull of the moon on the tides, and regret welled and spilled from her

heart like blood.