Kieran sat on that weathered bench, his large back bowed as though the weight on his shoulders was too heavy for him to sit up straight. And it was. His mother stood beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder in comfort, staring out at the sea with him. The memories of the lost were plaguing his mind.

The fire, and the frustration, the intense anger—it all dried up within me. My heart swelled…then sank.

He was a little boy in grief. A man traumatized by loss. A son pinned between the actions of a father and the suffering of a mother.

I remembered losing my own mother. Remembered getting that call from the hospital, and feeling the world come crashing down around me. I had been able to assist her through the transition to the other side, but Kieran felt helpless to do anything for his mother. I could see it in the droop of his large shoulders, and I’d bet there were grief lines on his face.

I was witnessing his personal Vietnam, just as he’d witnessed mine when watching me try to buy that blanket.

He was asking for a way out, in exchange for offering me a way out.

The scene before me swam in tears as his mother slowly turned toward me. Her sorrow-infused eyes pleaded with me more than any words could. “Help him,” she said, her voice like a bell, her tone aching. “Please. Help my son. He doesn’t deserve this.”

I turned to the side and blinked away tears.

This was why I hated getting involved. Because in these situations, saying no just wasn’t in me. I couldn’t, in good conscience, let someone drown in grief when I could help. I just couldn’t.

“Hey,” I said softly.

The effort it took Kieran to straighten up was obvious.

“Take your hand off him,” I told his mother. “You need to know when it’s helping, and when it’s hindering. Right now, it is hindering. He needs to be able to snap out of it so he can function.”

He spun around then, his eyes haunted and his face lined in grief, exactly how I’d predicted.

“Help him,” she said again, walking toward the cliff. With a last look behind her, she stepped off the edge and fell.

“Good…God.” I clenched my teeth. “Seeing that is hard. I mean, I know she’s already…” I cleared my throat. No need to remind the poor guy.

I gingerly sat at the very edge of the bench, trying to put as much room between us as I could. Even still, a delicious (though worrying) hum settled within me, responding to the electricity passing between us.

“Alexis.” His gaze roamed my face. He turned back to the ocean. “I knew you’d come. Angry, sad, desperate—I wasn’t sure which mood I’d get, but I knew you’d come.”

“Congratulations. You’ve manipulated me into getting what you want.”

Surprisingly, he shook his head and leaned back like his whole body ached. “I got the opposite of what I want.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “So…you didn’t want me to come?”

“I wanted you to come. I want your help. I want you spread and panting beneath me.”

Out of nowhere, heat roared through my body. I clutched the edge of the bench, fighting the impulse to run a hand up that defined arm.

“But I don’t want to coerce you,” he went on. “Not like this.” He blew out a breath. “My father trapped my mother. He met her one day, walking along the beach, and her beauty and her strength—both the strength of her magic, and her as a person—entranced him. Like you do me.” He paused for a moment, looking over at me. Fire lit his eyes and matched that of my body. “He wanted her for his own. To keep her. At first, she was more than willing. She forgot about her skin for a time, losing herself to the exotic pleasures of dry land. But to a selkie, the call of the ocean is impossible to ignore. One day, he woke up, and she was gone.”

“Which is how things usually go with a selkie, right?” I said quietly.

“Exactly.” He turned back to the ocean. “But my father is not a rational man in many things. Nor a forgiving man. I’m sure you know that.”

Everyone knew that, yes.

“As a Demigod of Poseidon, lord of the sea, my father had the rare ability to have her tracked down. To have her brought back to land. He couldn’t accept that the ocean had more power than he does. He rules the ocean, after all.”

“But…as his son, so do you, right? He’s not actually all powerful in that respect.”

A brief smile pulled at Kieran’s lips. “Yes. As I said, my father is not rational in some things. He has a fragile ego.”

“Well…I mean…he is a man, after all.”

“Once she was back, he took her skin. Hid it. Which, at first, I think she treated like a game. She loved him, after all. She fell into a life of luxury and power, pampered and treated like royalty. But, as before, the ocean called.”

“And he wouldn’t let her go to it.”

“She was pregnant at the time, but even if she hadn’t been…” Kieran’s fist clenched. “His love is of power. Of complete dominance. When she begged to leave again, even promising she would return, his regard for her turned. She became a prisoner. A prisoner he no longer sexually desired. He banished her, kept her at arm’s reach. Kept her landlocked.”

“And you?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “One in ten children created from the union of a Demigod and a non-Demigod develop a Demigod’s power. My mother was a class five. That surely helped. My father has had twelve children, but only one Demigod materialized. I am the heir. Together, we can control more territory.”

“But…you lived with your mother, right?”

“Ah. I see what you’re getting at. I forget, you don’t think like the people around me.” His look said that was a good thing. “I was banished with her, yes, but just for safekeeping. He kept tabs on me my whole life, first to see if my powers would materialize, and then because they did and he wanted to groom me.”

“To sculpt you into a clone of himself.”

“Essentially, yes.”

His tone raised my small hairs. I swallowed a sudden dose of fear.

“He made sure I had excellent tutors,” Kieran continued, “who taught me about ruling and warfare. He invited me here after my mother died so I could expand the family business.”

“And you came to free your mother?”

His penetrating stare reached down into me, baring my soul to him as he was baring his to me. Silence descended between us and heat built, fueled by the passion and electricity burning between us.

He leaned my way slightly, and expectation washed over me. I licked my bottom lip, remembering the feel of his kiss. Of his hands on me, and the gloriousness of his body.

His gaze dipped, lingering on my tongue. His pupils dilated and he bent, cutting the distance between our lips in half. My body pounded and I couldn’t get enough air.

“Among other things,” he said softly.

40

Alexis

Shivers coated my body, and suddenly I wasn’t sure what he would do, and what I would do in reaction.

I needn’t have worried.

A wrinkle wormed between his brows, and with a surge of strength, he rose from the bench. He jammed his hands into his pockets, and my gaze snagged on the bulge between them.

“I may not have kidnapped you, but I forced you into this position,” he said, his voice pained. “I want you, that’s no secret. I want to fuck you so hard you forget your name.”

A small moan escaped my lips. When I was near him like this, feeling the electric chemistry between us, I wanted the same thing. I wanted to let go and give in to his awesome strength and power.

“And I need you,” he went on. “I need you to free my mother. Fate brought you to me. What were the odds that I’d meet someone with your rare ability in the place it would do the most good?”

I could barely feel confusion through the pounding in my body. Rare ability? Weren’t there plenty of Ghost Whisperers in magical San Francisco alone?

“I found your weakness, and I exploited it.” He glanced back at me. “Just like my father would’ve done.”

I unstuck my tongue from the top of my mouth and wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “I came here to refuse your job offer.”

His head jerked my way before he turned slowly back toward the water. His brow furrow didn’t match his gorgeous smile.

“Did you?” he said.

“I did. Don’t get me wrong—you didn’t underestimate me at all. I would’ve caved in a heartbeat. But the kids don’t want your money. They’re convinced we can do this on our own.”

His stormy eyes assessed me, glimmering. His smile grew. “Strangely, I’m relieved to hear it.”

“But I will be taking the job.” A mental gut punch took all the breath out of me. I struggled to get it back, sheer panic trying to steal the moment.

He cocked his head, and his smile dripped away.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and beat on my chest a little. “I really don’t want to. If you can’t tell.”

He shifted, his back nearly to the ocean. “Then why are you?”

“Because of your mother. She pleaded with me to help you. And because I’ve lost a mother too. I can’t imagine how helpless I would feel in your situation. Actually…” I held up my hand, still struggling for air. “I can imagine it. It’s how I feel about Mordecai.”