Straight, cropped hair; thin, angular face; dark, expressive eyes. Not a beauty, Morgan thought. But fertile and formidable,
if what he had been told of last summer‟s events was true.
He inclined his head.
Regina cocked hers. “Kind of late for a social call.”
“I am here on business.”
She looked at her husband. “Selkie business?”
Dylan shrugged.
“Well, you can fill me in later.” She soothed the infant, a pink scrap with her mother‟s cap of dark hair and her father‟s
bold black eyes. “I‟ll feed Grace in our room.”
Morgan noticed the shadows under her eyes, a faint bruising that reminded him of Elizabeth‟s fatigue. “I am sorry to have
intruded,” he said stiffly.
“‟Sokay.” Her quick smile transformed her face. She was not as lovely as Elizabeth, but he could see now what had
attracted Dylan. “Grace usually wakes up about now anyway. If we‟re lucky, she‟ll go down until I have to get up at five.”
Dylan rested a hand on the small of his wife‟s back, ran a finger down his daughter‟s cheek. “I‟ll make you some tea. You
want that herbal stuff?”
“That would be good.” She leaned into him a moment, a yielding, graceful gesture that made Morgan blink. And wonder.
There was more between the selkie and his mate than sex and progeny. Was this the trust and tenderness Elizabeth sought?
“Can you offer me all those things? Or any of those things?”
No. Why would he want to? He was not half-human, as Dylan was.
Yet Dylan now bore little resemblance to the moody adolescent Morgan remembered. He seemed stronger, more self
assured, more . . . Satisfied , Morgan thought with a twist of envy.
Regina adjusted the infant‟s weight on her shoulder and disappeared into the bedroom.
“So.” Dylan grabbed a tea kettle, filling it at the scoured white sink. “What drags you to my door at midnight?”
Morgan prowled restively in the tight space between kitchen and living room. “I saw the demon lord Gau. Heard him,
rather.”
Dylan banged the kettle on the stove. “When? Where?”
“Not an hour ago, two miles east.”
Dylan clicked on the gas. Blue flames licked at the kettle‟s sides. “Two miles east,” he repeated. “You‟re sure it was Gau?
We defeated him last winter.”
“I recognized his voice.” A whisper like fire, a taint like oil in the water.
“There are other demons.”:,So near?“
Morgan raised his brows. “So near?”
“Margred bound one in the waters last summer, near where you think you saw Gau. And we‟ve had attacks since then. Not
on the island, not since I set the wards. But you know as well as I do it‟s impossible to shield every inch of the sea bottom.”
Morgan knew. The northern deeps around Yn Eslynn were literally a hotbed of demons seething beneath the crust, testing
the limits of earth and the merfolk‟s powers and patience.
His lips drew back in a silent snarl. The island was not his territory. A week ago, the demons were welcome to it. But they
would not touch what was his.
“What I can do, I will do,” he said. “For as long as I am here.”
“I appreciate that,” Dylan said. “Before they left, Conn and Lucy strengthened the protections on the island. But there are
places the finfolk can go the selkie can‟t.”
Morgan had not considered there was more to Conn‟s visit than his consort‟s whim. He did not like knowing he was not
fully in the prince‟s confidence. Or that he might have misjudged him. “He did not tell me.”
The kettle whistled. Dylan removed it from the fire. “Conn probably figured you didn‟t give a damn. He wouldn‟t know
you had a personal stake on the island.”
“Neither did I.”
Dylan took a mug from a cupboard, shot him a glance. “You‟re sure, then, that this kid is finfolk.”
“His name is Zachary,” Morgan said. “No, I do not know. Gau said he was.”