family in the pews to find Zack beside Morgan, tall and assured, a younger version of his father. Emily had forgotten where
she was supposed to stand and was clinging to Morgan‟s pant leg.
Liz‟s eyes met Morgan‟s. Her heart leaped. He smiled at her crookedly, his face transformed by trust and tenderness,
companionship and commitment.
By love.
Elizabeth smiled back and stepped forward into her future.
TURN THE PAGE FOR A SPECIAL PREVIEW OF THE NEXT CHILDREN OF THE SEA NOVEL
Forgotten Sea
BY VIRGINIA KANTRA
COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!
1
THE MAN ON THE BOAT STRIPPED HALF-NAKED, exposing a lean golden chest and muscled arms.
In the parking lot across the street from the dock, Lara Rho sucked in her breath. Held it as he dropped his shirt to the deck
and began to climb.
The top of the mast swayed, stark against the bold blue sky. Her stomach fluttered. Nerves? she wondered. Recognition?
Or simple female appreciation?
The sun beat down, forging the water of the bay to a sheet of hammered gold. The air inside the car heated like an oven.
Beside her in the driver‟s seat, Gideon stirred, chafing in the heat. His corn silk hair was pulled into a ponytail, his blue
eyes narrowed against the glare. “Is he the one?”
Lara leaned forward to peer through the windshield of their nondescript gray car, testing the pull of the internal compass
that had woken her at dawn. They‟d driven all morning from the rolling hills of Pennsylvania through the flat Virginia
tidewater, wasting precious minutes in the traffic around Norfolk before they found this place. This man.
Are you the one?
She exhaled slowly, willing herself to focus on the climber. He certainly looked like an angel, hanging in the rigging
against the bold blue sky, his bronze hair tipped with gold like a halo.
“I think so.” She bit her lip. She should know . “Yes.”
“He‟s too old,” Gideon said.
Lara swallowed her own misgivings. She was the designated Seeker on this mission. Gideon was along merely to support
and defend. She wanted her instincts to be right, wanted to justify their masters‟ faith in her. “Late twenties,” she said. “Not
much older than you.”
“He should have been found before this.”
“Maybe he wasn‟t meant to be found before.” Her heartbeat quickened. Maybe she was the one meant to find him.
“Then he should be dead,” Gideon said.
The brutal truth made her shiver despite the heat. Survival depended on banding together under the Rule. She was only
eleven when they brought her to Rockhaven, but she remembered being alone. Hunted. If Simon Axton had not found her . . .
She pushed the memories away to study her subject. He must be forty feet above the gleaming white deck. Snagging a rope
at the top of the mast, he fed it to the two men waiting below, one old, one young, both wearing faded navy polo shirts. Some
kind of uniform?
“He‟s been at sea,” she murmured. “The water could have protected him.”
It could do that, couldn‟t it? Protect against fire. Even if the water wasn‟t blessed.
“I don‟t like it,” Gideon said bluntly. “You‟re sure he‟s one of us?”
She had felt him more with every mile, a tug on her attention, a prickle in her fingertips. Now that she could actually see
him, the hum in her blood had become a buzz. But it was all vibration, like listening to a vacuum cleaner in the dark, without
shape or color. Not only human, not wholly elemental . . .
“What else could he be?” she asked.
“He could be possessed.”