Forgotten Sea полностью

River and sky blended together in the slashing, splashing rain. His feet touched bottom, silt and stone and weed.

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He waded toward the dark shore, water sloshing around his thighs.

Lara staggered hard against him. He lugged her with him up a bank slick with mud and grass. They col apsed together on the slope like a couple of shipwreck victims.

He turned his head.

She lay beside him, her dark hair plastered in rivulets against her skul , rain streaking her delicate, determined face.

Here. Real. Alive.

A smear of mud decorated her cheekbone. She watched him without moving, her gray eyes the color of smoke, reflecting the light of the fire. Behind them, another section of bridge crashed into the river.

“Wel .” He grinned to hide the churning of his gut.

“That’s one way to make sure they can’t fol ow us.”

A laugh escaped her, a smal , surprised chuckle like a bird’s.

He inhaled sharply and cupped her face. The laughter faded from her lips and eyes, leaving only that faint, arousing surprise. With his thumb, he traced the angle of her cheek, the ful ness of her lower lip. Her skin was cool from the river. Her mouth was warm. He rose on one elbow to kiss her—softly, but a real kiss this time, with tongue and intent. She tensed and then melted under him like sugar in the rain, sweet and wet and warm. Her kiss anchored him.

Calmed him. He shifted, hooking one leg over hers to pul her closer, moving his hand down to palm her slight breast, to feel her breath catch, her heart beat, her nipple push against his palm.

He needed this, needed her, solid and real against him, wet and open and under him.

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Lara.

He rol ed with her on the muddy bank, his body heavy, hot, on fire for hers. He nuzzled her throat, inhaling her scent, clean rain and wet woman. Her hand rested on the back of his neck, the brush of her little finger like a trickle of rain at the edge of his col ar.

She murmured, acquiescence or protest. “Justin . . .”

He raised his head to look her in the eyes. He wanted to give her something. A piece of himself. “Iestyn,” he told her.

“My name is Iestyn.”

*

*

*

She didn’t think, didn’t want to think. No time to consider, no opportunity to be afraid. Only this, his mouth, his touch, his broad shoulders over her like wings. Only now, lying on a riverbank in the rain, free from the Rule and its consequences. She was submerged in sensation, her senses brimming with him, his tang in her nostrils, his taste on her tongue.

His leg was heavy over her thighs. His erection pressed hard and urgent against her hip.

This. Here and now.

He said something—his name?—and she raised her hand to trace the shape of his lips in the dark.

She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to feel. To feel him.

He said it again, softening the J, swal owing the vowels.

Yess-ten. “My name is Iestyn. I am . . . I was a child of the sea.”

She struggled to surface. “You . . . What?”

His cal oused fingers feathered her hair. She couldn’t see his expression, only the outline of his head against a backdrop of flame, and the shape of his shoulders, shielding her from the rain. “I was an elemental. Like you.”

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An elemental. Like . . .

She blinked. Not like her. Not real y.

His lips were warm against her neck. She shivered and closed her eyes, her mind slowly returning to her body.

“Are you sure?”

He smiled against her throat, making the nerve endings there jump in delight. “It’s not the kind of thing I’d make up.”

She lay stil , thinking hard. Thinking back. Had he been lying before, then? To her? To Simon?

She opened her eyes. “How long have you known?”

He shrugged, apparently unfazed by her questions. “I just remembered. When we went into the water.”

That moment. That one wild moment of terror and glory, when they’d plunged from the bridge and she’d felt like she was flying.

Not flying. She wil ed her thoughts back to earth. She didn’t have that power anymore. But he . . .

If he were a water elemental, a child of the sea, that would explain everything: his unfamiliar energy, his impressive shields, his resistance to Miriam’s drugs and Zayin’s magic.

“So I was right,” she said slowly.

He kissed her col arbone. “Right about what?”

Her mind whirred. What if there was nothing wrong with her judgment, her discernment, after al ? What if . . .

A trickle of excitement slid down her spine. “I was Cal ed to find you.”

He raised his head. “I don’t think so. I’m no angel.”

“But you defeated the demon in the al ey. You saved my life on the bridge.”

“By jumping over the side.”

“It was more than that,” she insisted. “Something happens when we touch.”

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“Was happening.” His tone was wry. She felt him, warm and hard against her hip. “Until you got distracted.”

She ignored him, resisting the humor in his voice, the tug of temptation in her blood. She had to think.

She’d always been taught that the children of the sea were neutral in Hel ’s war on Heaven and humankind.