THE NIGHT WAS COOL WITH MIST AND MOONLIGHT, ripe with sex and frustration. Morgan surveyed the boy, his
big hands restless at his sides, his oversized T-shirt hanging like a tent from his broad, bony shoulders, and felt a twinge of
something warmer and deeper than humor. Sympathy, perhaps.
It had been a long time, centuries of time, but he remembered—didn‟t he?—his first fumblings at sex. Fostered in a Viking
household, he and his twin Morwenna had come quickly to adulthood. Even before Morgan was fetched away to Sanctuary, he
had his first female, a human with curly pale hair and delightfully fast hands. He could not remember her name or, truth be
told, her face. But he remembered the hot, sweaty anticipation, the primal, almost painful relief.
His son had found distraction, apparently, but no release.
“A swim would help,” Morgan observed.
Hectic color stormed the boy‟s face. “Water‟s too cold.”
“The colder the better, I‟m thinking.”
The boy jerked his shoulder, neither yes or no, and started to walk along the road.
Morgan fell into step beside him.
Zachary glared. “What are you doing?”
“I told your mother I would bring you back.”
“I don‟t have to go anywhere with you.”
“No,” Morgan agreed. He felt the boy‟s start of surprise and pressed his advantage home. “But I‟m not facing your mother
without you, so you must decide how much of my company you will bear.”
“I don‟t want to talk to her. Or you either.”
Morgan was half tempted to drag the boy to the water, dump him in, and be done with it.
But it was not enough to prove the boy was finfolk. He wanted him as an ally, a willing tool. Dylan was right. The situation
here and on Sanctuary would be easier if there was some understanding between them. It would take time to win the boy‟s
trust.
“Your conversation is not so highly prized as you imagine,” Morgan said dryly.
“You don‟t know my mother.”
Morgan lifted a brow.
“She‟ll ask things,” Zachary said desperately. His voice cracked on the word.
“She does not need answers,” Morgan said. “Only reassurance. And perhaps . . . an apology.”
“You‟re telling me to apologize.”
“You worried her.” And me , he thought. A new, disturbing notion. “The more you show yourself sensitive to her concerns,
the less concerned she will be.”
“You mean, the more I tell her, the less she‟ll ask,” Zachary said shrewdly.
Morgan smiled a shark‟s smile in the dark. “Precisely.”
Liz read to Emily and tucked her in, both of them comforted by the familiar bedtime ritual. She missed the years when
Zack was small and could be protected with a nightlight and a kiss, when the only monsters were imaginary and could be
banished to the closet.
She padded downstairs to switch on the porch light, her bare feet silent on the wooden treads.
The porch was empty. The yard was dark. The incessant whir of crickets filled the night.
The words of the storybook wrapped her heart like barbed wire, leaving a dozen tiny, bleeding punctures. “And Max the
king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”
Closing her eyes, Liz leaned her forehead against the cool glass by the side of the door. “Zack, come back,” she whispered
like a prayer. “Come home.”
Where was he? For that matter, where was Morgan? She hated being stuck in the house with no way to reach them and no
way to fix this.
Zack still hadn‟t answered her calls.
She took a deep breath and forced herself away from the door. Turning on another lamp, she settled into a deep chair and
booted up her laptop. Work was a good antidote to worry. So she would work. Fifty-three-year-old Henry Tibbetts had come
into the clinic after an unexpected fall on his boat. Listening to the lobsterman‟s halting explanation, Liz suspected he might