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“Thank you.”Aegir bowed back.“Your faith in us honors the bond you have with our people.”
“I too offer my heartfelt thanks.”Arianrhod dipped her head until her hair floated around her, and she skimmed it away from her face.
Angus released her hand. He turned and led the way back through the coral forest. The Selkie pod followed for a while, but by the time Arianrhod’s head broke the surface a few yards from shore, they’d vanished. She dragged herself from the surf and directed a stream of magic to dry herself.
“Now for the hard part,” she muttered. “For both of us.”
“Why for me?” Angus paused from shaking water out of his hair.
“Ye’ve been grinning like a guilty schoolchild ever since ye found out about Jonathan. I can wipe him from your mind for long enough for ye to check in with Arawn and my brother.”
Angus shook his head. “Nay. I’ll call my own power to bear on the problem. I plan to move to Ireland, though, to raise our son. Inishowen is closer to the roots of my power, and the land will make it easier for me to keep our secret safe from your kin.”
He came toward her, still naked and smelling of the sea when he gathered her into his arms. Joy mingled with newfound power spilled from him in sheaves, and she nestled into his embrace.
“We’ll make this work.” Her words were muffled against his neck.
“Aye, lass, that we will.” He cradled her head in a hand and shifted it so he could see her face. “Another vow I’ll make before you and the gods is this. I’ll find a way for us to be together. If not in this time and place, then I’ll hunt until one shows up. I’ll not live out my life without you.”
The tears that had been close to the surface in the Selkie’s palace trickled from her eyes. She blinked them back. No one had ever forced their way far enough past her prickly exterior to love her—until now. “No matter what happens”—she straightened in his arms—“we’ll raise a fine man between us.”
“Jonathan aside, don’t you want us to be together?” Tension spiked outward in fine lines around his eyes and creases in his forehead.
“Of course I do.” She looked away from his direct gaze. “I’m just not as certain as you about finding a place somewhere that will accept us.”
He gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him again. “You have to believe,mo croi,my heart, my love. You’re immortal, and I’ll live a long time. Say we’ll find a way. Say it, and you’ll begin to believe it.”
“Can it be so simple?”
“Aye, if you’ll let it.”
She tossed caution, her ever-present sidekick, to the four winds. “I want to believe you.” She stroked the side of his face. “For now, I believe in us and what we’ve created. Let’s take this one step at a time.”
“It’s a start.” He tightened his hold on her back and threaded his other arm around her just before he slashed his mouth down on hers.
She kissed him back, showing him the bone deep longing she didn’t have words for in the touch of her flesh against his. At least she wouldn’t be totally separated from him. For the next two or three years, he could swim with the Selkies and find her in the sea.
