“It makes no difference. Unless he kil s the girl. In which case, I wil avenge her murder, and Simon can thank me for that.”
Moon sniffed. “Sometimes I real y don’t like you very much.”
“So you’ve said.”
Their eyes met, dark with memories and—at least on his part—regret.
A faint flush rose in her cheeks. “You replaced me quickly enough.”
“A lesson I learned from Simon.”
She shot him a questioning look.
“Keep your friends close,” Jude explained. “And your enemies closer.”
“And you, of course, see enemies everywhere,” Moon said again dryly.
He did not smile. “I don’t fuck al of them.”
“Such self-restraint.”
He did not defend himself. In truth, he used sex the same way he used everything else.
The nephilim did have enemies. Everywhere. He did what he must to ensure their survival. He played a long game with high stakes against incredible odds. Lara Rho was just another card to turn to his advantage.
Assuming he could find her.
“I’m going to Maine,” he said.
*
*
*
Iestyn had never sailed into Port Clyde before, but he recognized the sights and smel s of a working harbor. Beyond the kayaks, tourist cars, and ice cream shops, the waterfront moved with the rhythm of the seasons and the tides.
F o r g o t t e n s e a 215
By three o’clock, sturdy fishing boats ruffled the blue water, chugging in to offload their catch behind the general store.
The air was rich with salt and fish, sharp with diesel oil.
He joined Lara, waiting in line to board the ferry between a couple of hikers and a little girl with a pink backpack.
Something about Lara—the way she looked or the way she stood, the turn of her head or the pucker of her brows as she squinted into the sun behind him—lodged like a fishbone in his throat. His chest swel ed. He couldn’t speak.
He could barely breathe.
But what if it wasn’t enough? he wondered with a sliver of panic. For her. For him.
She smiled at him, relaxed, expectant. “Did you find parking?”
He cleared his throat, rubbed at the burn itching beneath his col arbone. “A couple blocks over.”
He’d left the Jeep behind a hardware store with the key in the ignition. In Newark, in Norfolk, in Montevideo, the vehicle would vanish within the hour. Even in Maine, he figured it would disappear eventual y.
She raised her brows. “You know the ferry lot only charges five dol ars a day.”
“We don’t know when we’l be back.”
He pushed the thought away. Concentrate on the moment.
Live in the moment. They crossed the metal ramp behind a woman dragging a shopping cart. “We can’t leave the Jeep in the parking lot, pointing at the ferry like a bloody arrow,”
he said.
She nodded in comprehension. “Because of the crows.”
“The crows and the cops.” He lowered his voice.
“They’l run the plates on an abandoned vehicle.”
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V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
Lara’s eyes widened. “I didn’t think of that.”
Of course not. His conscience winced. She was a rule fol ower, not a law breaker.
“I hope you got rid of the license plates,” she said.
He grinned, his conscience relieved. What a miracle she was. “Tossed them in a Dumpster.”
“Good.” The approval in her tone, the trust in her eyes, caused that funny swel ing in his chest again.
They found a place on the upper deck with the hikers and a cable repairman toting a plastic utility bucket.
The deck shuddered. Machinery groaned. Iestyn’s pulse leaped as the ferry pushed into the waters of the harbor under the gleaming eye of the squat lighthouse, past boats tethered to round white mooring buoys. A curving line of jagged rocks like a broken jawbone slid away to starboard.
He inhaled, tasting salt, baring his teeth to the wind.
Christ, it felt good to be on the water again. Too damn bad he was on this floating parking garage instead of under sail.
But even the stink of fuel and the engine’s vibration couldn’t diminish his pleasure. The sea was what he knew, where he belonged.
He glanced at Lara, standing beside him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining. A wandering sea breeze played with her hair.
With everything she’d been through these past two days, she stil took his breath away. She had entrusted herself to him. Her body. Her safety. Her future.
Confusion caught him under the ribs, sharp as a cramp.
How could he ever leave her?
How could he ask her to stay?
17
Th e wo r l d s h i f t e d u n d e r f o o t a s t h e y m ov e d farther and farther from shore.
But she couldn’t let herself think about that. Those worries belonged to the future, and she was determined to stay in the here-and-now for as long as she could.
