Sea Fever (21 page)

could not expect him to. If he did . . .

It wouldn’t make any difference. She had her priorities, too.

At least he was stepping up. It was more than Alain ever offered to

do.

Regina stuck out her chin. “Then figure out how to protect us here.

Because we’re staying.”

* * *

The woman was impossible.

What she asked was . . . impossible.

Dylan glared at her stumping up the hill, her usual grace hobbled by

her gauze-wrapped toes. The collar of bruises showed plainly above the

scooped neck of her tank top. Her eyes were shadowed and strained. But

nothing seemed to slow her down for long.

Brave girl. She had more courage than most men, as much appetite

for life as any selkie, more strength of mind and stubborn spirit than . . .

well, than anyone he’d ever known.

But she was still only human. She could die.

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Fear and admiration coalesced in a hot, tight ball in Dylan’s gut.

“You have a touching— if misplaced— faith in my ability to save you.”

She turned to look at him. The sun gleamed in her cap of dark hair

and warmed her ivory skin to gold. “You rescued me before.”

“I did not face a demon for you before.”

“Scared?” Her tone was teasing, her eyes deadly serious.

He was terrified. Terrified of failing her, terrified of losing her. His

hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“I am not . . . trained for this,” he said with difficulty. “You need

someone . . .” Better. Stronger. “Someone else.”

“I don’t think so.” They walked on, past gardens edged with day

lilies and yards full of rusting cars and lobster traps. “At least you have a

stake in this thing.”

A stake? He stared at her in disbelief. That’s what she called this

sickening weight of responsibility, this agonized awareness of being

found wanting, insufficient, at fault . . .

“There must be somebody you could ask for advice,” she continued,

apparently oblivious to the storm raging inside him.

He forced himself to fasten on her words, to quell the nausea of his

stomach. “There is,” he replied. “The prince.”

“You have a prince? Of course you do,” she answered her own

question. “Because this situation wasn’t unreal enough before.”

He wished he knew some way to reassure her.

“Conn ap Llyr, lord of Sanctuary, prince of the merfolk. He took me

under his patronage after my mother died.”

“Like a . . . father figure?”

Dylan pictured the aloof, inscrutable selkie ruler isolated in his tower

at Caer Subai. “I was never tempted to call him ‘Daddy,’ ” he said with

perfect truth.

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Regina studied him a moment. Something flickered in her eyes, a

perception that made him squirm, a sympathy that tore old wounds and

half-healed scars. He stiffened in rejection. He was no longer that

fourteen-year-old boy crying for his mother. He was selkie. He did not

need her pity.

But all she said was, “Can’t argue with you there. Mine split when I

was three years old.” He thought he heard her sigh. “Must be a family

tradition.”

As if he would leave her.

He’d intended to leave her. But . . .

“Must it?” he heard himself ask and held his breath for her answer.

She smiled crookedly. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Perversely, he was irritated. He did not need her sympathy. But he

would not mind if she admitted to needing him.

She paused at the curb of the clinic. “You want to contact this prince

of yours while I’m in my doctor’s appointment?”

He shook his head. “It’s not like I can call him on his cell phone. I

have to go down to the beach.”

“So go.”

He opened the clinic’s outer door for her. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not. I don’t want you in the room while I’m flat on my

back in a paper drape getting a pelvic exam.”

The image made him clench uncomfortably. But he said, “I’ve seen

you in less.”

“Forget it.”

He narrowed his eyes. Was she actually blushing? “Then I will wait

for you.”

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“Suit yourself. But . . .” She broke off.

A thin, bearded man in a stained hooded sweatshirt was walking

toward them across the waiting room. Dylan recognized him from the

group around the fire in the homeless encampment.

Regina trembled.

Dylan put his arm around her without thinking. The man passed

them, his gaze lowered. Dylan scanned the room. There was something

there, something in the air that wasn’t right. But when he breathed in, all

he smelled was Regina’s shampoo like apricots.

“It’s not Jericho,” he told her quietly.

“I know. Caleb said he brought another patient in yesterday.” Her

throat moved as she swallowed. “The day before yesterday.”

She had lost almost a day in the caves.

Dylan tightened his arm around her.

A woman in a printed smock looked up from behind the counter and

smiled. “Hi, Regina. The doctor is ready for you now.”

And he had to let her go.

* * *

Regina sat up, hitching her paper sheet around her waist and over her

thighs. Thank God that was over.

Donna Tomah scrubbed her hands at the tiny sink. “Everything

seems to be normal. I’d say you’re about five weeks along.”

Stars wheeling, rocks shifting, Dylan plunging thick and hot inside

her . . .

“Four,” Regina corrected.

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Donna glanced over her shoulder. “Your due date is calculated from

the beginning of your last cycle. We can’t really pinpoint the date of

conception.”

She could. Heat crept into her face.

“Do you want to talk?” Donna asked gently.

“What about?”

“Your options. If you’re not comfortable talking with me, there’s a

family planning clinic in Rockland . . .”

“Oh.” And then, as the implications sank in, “Oh.”

Just for a moment, she let herself be tempted, felt the possibility

expand her lungs like air. Her old life beckoned. To have options . . .

“No.” She met the doctor’s eyes. “It’s not like I haven’t done this

before.”

“Hm.” The doctor shut off the water with her elbow. “If you’re

sure.”

Regina rubbed the bare skin below her collarbone. “Sure.”

Donna dried her hands on a paper towel. “All right, then. Nancy will

get your blood and a urine specimen. You should pick up some prenatal

vitamins. Why don’t you get dressed, and I’ll give you a sample to get

you started.”

“Thanks.”

Regina hopped off the table as the doctor left the room, hissing at the

pain of her swollen toes. Before she finished dressing, the door reopened.

She clutched her pants, oddly uncomfortable at being caught in her

underwear by the doctor who had just seen her naked. Stupid.

Donna appeared flustered, too. Her face flushed as she set a little

paper cup of medicine beside the exam table. “Here you go.”

Regina reached for the vitamins. They were small. Like yellow

aspirin. “Three?”

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“One for now, two for later,” the doctor said smoothly, avoiding

Regina’s eyes. She filled a cup at the sink. “In case you don’t want to

face the gossip at the drugstore right away. Water?”

Regina accepted the cup, aware of the doctor’s eyes on her as she

forced the tablet down her throat.

“Good,” Donna said, whisking the water away. She sealed the

remaining pills in a tiny plastic bag. “Don’t forget to take these now. And

tell Nancy to set up another appointment in a couple of days.”

“So soon?” Regina asked, surprised. When she was pregnant with

Nick, she’d only seen a doctor every six weeks or so. But then she’d been

on her own in Boston, trying desperately to make ends meet and grabbing

appointments at the free clinic.

“With all you’ve been through lately . . . Better safe than sorry.”

Anxiety snagged her breathing. “You said everything looked

normal.”

“Everything looks fine,” Donna assured her. “Any questions?

Concerns?”

Regina swallowed a hiccup of completely inappropriatelaughter. No

way could she share her real concerns. “Is there any way to tell the baby’s

sex yet?”

“I can schedule an ultrasound in the middle of the second trimester.

Let’s say, at eighteen weeks.” Donna scrawled the prescription and

handed it to Regina. “Do you want another boy? Or are you hoping for a

girl this time?”

Just for a moment, Regina felt the draw of the baby at her breast and

the warm weight of it in her arms, saw the cap of soft, dark hair and the

fan of lashes against a smooth, flushed cheek.

A boy or a girl? “A daughter of the house of Atargatis, who will

change the balance of power between Heaven and Hell”?

Or a black-eyed boy who would run away to sea and break her

heart?

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Some choice.

She moistened her lips. “You know what they say. As long as the

baby’s healthy . . .”

And safe.

Her heart clenched like a fist. Please, God, keep her baby safe.

* * *

Caleb shifted the paper on his desk a half-inch to the left and tapped

the top sheet.

Regina’s heart drummed in time with his fingers.

“If I take this to the DA, he’s going to assume you’re lying or crazy

or both,” Caleb said.

Regina’s stomach dropped. Her chin jutted. “Dylan said you would

believe me. Because of Margred.”

“I do believe you.” Caleb’s voice was firm, his eyes kind. “Which is

why I’m suggesting you reconsider your statement before you sign.”

Regina trusted Caleb. She always had. But under the circumstances ..

“I want to talk to Dylan,” she said.

Caleb frowned before rising stiffly from his desk and opening his

door. “Edith, would you—”

Before he could finish his instruction to the clerk, Dylan strode into

the room, his mouth a tight line, his gaze locking instantly on Regina’s.

She released a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding.

“That took long enough,” he drawled. “Should I be jealous?”

“Your brother thinks the DA won’t like my story,” she said.

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Caleb closed the door on Edith Paine, hovering in the outer office.

“Parts of it. Sit down,” he said to Dylan.

Dylan raised an eyebrow and draped himself in the chair next to

Regina’s. In the small, cramped office she could feel the heat under his

cool. “So don’t tell the DA. Drop the charges or whatever you call them.”

“I can’t do that.” Caleb positioned himself behind his desk.

“Criminal charges are filed by the state, not the victim. And with three

unrelated attacks in two months making headlines across the state, you

can bet the DA is bringing charges against somebody.”

Regina sat forward. “But Jericho isn’t really guilty, is he? I mean, if

he is possessed—”

“Was possessed,” Dylan corrected. “The demon left him.”

“That’s the part the DA is going to have problems with,” Regina

said.

Caleb sighed. “Actually, the DA will assume— correctly— that the

defense will use demonic possession as an insanity plea. The court will

take into account that this is Jones’s first offense. They’ll consider his

military service, probably do an alcohol and drug assessment. Even so,

he’s facing charges of aggravated assault and kidnapping.”

Dylan shrugged. “You said yourself the charges have nothing to do

with us.”

“Unless you’re called to the stand. Kidnapping is a Class A crime.

The defense will try to reduce it to a lesser charge by arguing that Jones

voluntarily released the victim in a safe place.”

Dylan lifted an eyebrow. “Since when is dumping a woman in a

flooding cave considered ‘release in a safe place’?”

“It’s not,” Caleb said. “I’m telling you what the defense will argue.

You’ll both be called to testify. Do you really want to explain under oath

where and how you found her?”

“Your oaths do not constrain me,” Dylan said.

“No? How about being locked up for contempt of court?”

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“You guys want to settle this over a game of hoops?” Regina asked.

“Or pistols at dawn?”

They turned to her with almost identical expressions of annoyance.

“What if I refuse to testify?” she asked.

Caleb rubbed his jaw. “That would definitely weaken the

prosecution’s case. The DA might be willing to settle in Sessions Court in

return for a guilty plea to a lesser charge— say, misdemeanor assault. The

case wouldn’t actually go to trial.”

She reached for the cross around her neck. It was in her pocket. She

flushed and tucked her hands into her armpits. “And Jericho would go

free?”

“He’d serve some time. Long enough, maybe, for me to get him into