“—knew . . . a breach somewhere.”
Iestyn’s fingers feathered gently through her hair. She closed her eyes. Just for a moment, she promised herself.
They were silent awhile, or maybe she dozed.
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“—what to do with her,” someone was saying.
She stirred.
“—be here without Lara.” Iestyn’s voice was firm.
“The angel,” Dylan said dryly.
“Fal en angel,” Morgan said.
A knock at the door. Lara opened her eyes. And caught them staring at her, these strangers who knew Iestyn. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was lying practical y across his lap wearing nothing but his T-shirt.
She tugged the hem down over her thighs.
“That would be my wife,” Morgan said and went to open the door.
Elizabeth Bressay had sleek brown hair, intel igent brown eyes, and a reassuring manner. She cleaned and irrigated Lara’s hand, applied ointment and a butterfly closure.
“There doesn’t seem to be any sensory or vascular damage,” she said. “But we’l want to keep an eye on it for infection.”
“A real medical doctor?” Elizabeth smiled. “Yes.”
“She wants to know if you are one of us,” Morgan said over his wife’s shoulder.
Lara flushed.
“Oh. I see.” Elizabeth glanced from Lara to Iestyn and back again. But whatever she saw, she kept to herself. “No, I’m human. Quite ordinary.”
“Not ordinary at al ,” her husband murmured.
A look passed between them, intimate as a kiss, before Elizabeth turned back to Lara. “Date of last tetanus shot?”
she asked briskly.
“I’m not sure,” Lara confessed.
“Wel , stop by the clinic tomorrow and we’l take care 2 5 6
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of that. You, too,” she said to Iestyn. “Although Lucy can do more for you than I can.”
Iestyn’s face was suddenly raw and young. “Lucy.”
“Yes, didn’t they tel you? Men.” Elizabeth shook her head.
Smiled at Iestyn with maternal warmth. “Lucy and Conn are on their way here. To World’s End. We’re expecting them tomorrow.”
*
*
*
Lara stood with Iestyn on the private dock that jutted out from the fingers of rock and the shelter of pines. Dylan and Regina’s house perched on a patch of short, sandy lawn above the bay, a traditional New England saltbox with a sturdy central chimney. The spare lines of the house were softened by tubs of blooming flowers and curtains blowing in the open windows. Cars and trucks parked haphazardly in the drive. Three boats were tied to the dock. Cats and children wandered underfoot, of both sexes and various ages, from teenagers to toddlers. She did her best to sort them out, to keep them straight, to match siblings to spouses to children, but they flowed together, sweeping around Iestyn and Lara in a warm, welcoming, undisciplined wave, merfolk and human.
For a people with a low birth rate, there certainly were a lot of them.
Confused and overwhelmed, Lara stuck close by Iestyn’s side, the one familiar face in this sea of friendly strangers.
She had always thought of him as someone fundamental y alone. Like her. Hadn’t he done his best to make her see him that way?
She bit her lip, the tiny pain a counterpoint to the pang at her heart.
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She knew al about the importance of community. Al along, she’d wanted to restore Iestyn to his own kind, to the protection of his people.
But what they’d actual y found was different. Unlike the nephilim at Rockhaven, the people in this house weren’t bound together by the need for self-preservation or some quest for self-improvement. It was disconcerting to realize that Iestyn had more than a community wil ing to reclaim him. This was a family waiting to embrace him.
Any doubt she might have harbored about that disappeared when the last boat tied at the dock and three passengers disembarked.
Lara squinted, her heart quickening as she recognized the figures from her dream. Iestyn’s dream.
“Is that . . .”
Conn ap Llyr, the sea lord, and his consort, Lucy.
Iestyn stiffened beside her. Under her hand, his arm muscles were rigid. His face was white with emotion.
“Go on,” Lara murmured and released his arm. “Go see them.”
With one bright, backward glance like a boy’s, he left her, striding down the sun-bleached dock, not quite running to meet them.
The dog, a massive, graying beast, barked.
The woman raised her head. Lara was close enough to see the emotions flit across her face. Shock. Relief. Delight.
Lucy held out her arms and Iestyn went into them.
*
*
*
He was tal er than Lucy now, Iestyn realized. The top of her head almost clipped his chin before she hugged him tight. 2 5 8
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“Iestyn,” she whispered. And again, as if she couldn’t believe it,
