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If she was any judge of a man, mortal or otherwise, her golden boy, Ethan, would be here soon. Thea chuckled as she glided through the scattered rocks of Ciarlan Cove. The tide was almost at its lowest ebb. The archway in the bleak cliff face was free of water. Her human beau could easily enter. She was confident he would.
She selected a wide rock on the outcrop, just big enough for two to lie on, as close to the shore as she could handle. There were rocks Ethan could have reached her on further out, but she knew he was still wary of her, and would feel safer closer to dry land. She laughed again, softly.
All the same, she needed to be careful. The boundary of the water was very close here. She was conscious of a slight prickling sensation over her skin, a warning. She made doubly sure the sea was past the rock, then pulled herself onto its sun-warmed surface. Warm and dry were echoes of a past life she did not miss. Its touch felt foreign, yet not unpleasant. This would do nicely. She arranged herself to the best advantage and settled in to wait.
“I knew it was you. You survived.” The voice came from where the water eddied against the rock, and she froze. Without turning, she knew the voice. Owen. Her clan had found her. How had she not sensed him so close by?
“This is indeed a wonder!” Owen said. Her heart thudded, and her mind raced. She’d escaped death once at her clan’s hands, but she knew they wouldn’t be sure if she had survived or not. The uncertainty would be over if Owen reported this meeting. Her life would be over. And he knew it.
“The court would be...riveted to hear of this.” Owen’s tone had changed.
The manipulative calculation in his voice made Thea’s path clear. Owen had always desired her. This could be easier to handle than she thought. But she had to do it fast, before Ethan arrived.
Already the prickling on her skin gave warning that but a few steps closer to shore and she would become mist on the sea. As would Owen. She looked coyly over her shoulder, then half turned to face him, arching her back just a little. Owen’s eyes ran over her form, and she caught their hungry gleam.
“Owen. You cannot know how I have suffered... if I could tell you.” She looked pleadingly at him, half reaching a hand to him. When he pulled himself up onto the rock, she didn’t move, letting the distance between them close. “The horror, the agony of that day, when Hunter took control of me, and used me so cruelly. Then left me to be torn apart by our clan...”
“Hunter took control? Of you?”
She puckered her forehead, her eyes welling. “You can’t know the loneliness I have felt. The longing for a kind word, for a soft touch...” She turned fully to face him, letting her wet chemise ride up enough to show the long gleam of bare leg. “But no one knows the truth, save Hunter.”
“You were under Hunter’s sway? I thought he did not know how to control his power?”
“I believed the same. It has cost me dearly.” She shook her head sadly, her expression sorrowful. “If you were among those who tried to punish me that day, I forgive you from my heart. I would have done the same, had I believed such things of a Nemaro.” Then she adopted an alluring, teasing look of inquiry in place of her sorrow. “But to see you here now, I can’t help but wonder if this separation from Jarrod was for the best...?” She tilted her face to him a little more, accentuating the long line of her white neck.
His breath came more quickly, and he inched closer, then rubbed his arm, looking uneasily beyond them to the waterline. “We are close to our boundary here, Thea. Should we not continue at a safer distance?”
In response, Thea leaned back with both hands behind her on the rock, pretending not to notice the hotter pinpricks that peppered her skin as the movement took her closer to their boundary. “You are so considerate, dear Owen. But I feel nothing,” she murmured. Owen stared at where her chemise pulled tighter across her chest with the deliberate shift in her position. He moistened his lips.
“You were ever a favourite of mine, Owen. I did not dare show it, lest I enrage Jarrod, always so foolish about sharing me. But now that he has proved himself too weak to hold me, or to take the village... Perhaps our time has come at last? Perhaps it is you who will be my protector, and my voice?”
His eyes gleamed hotly, and she held out her hand for him to help her stand. Owen used her upward motion to pull her close to him, and a step away from the dangerous boundary. Thea let herself melt into his embrace, twining her arms around his neck, running her fingers through his dark hair and meeting his hungry lips with hers. She stayed alert to any sound of Ethan approaching, even as she kept Owen engrossed. He buried his face in her hair and covered her face, neck, and shoulders with kisses.
“Too long have I imagined this,” he whispered feverishly. “The impossibility of having you has tormented me for an eternity. You are...utter perfection.” He groaned as she caught his lips again with hers. Even though he was Nemaro, he was weak-minded, and under the potency of his desire, she knew he was susceptible to her power. As his passion grew, so his caution fell away. Now, with her kisses, she sent the minutest tendrils of persuasion creeping in, twining and spreading; befuddling his wits, dulling his sense of pain, fanning his obsession with her.
She stepped back easily, barely seeming to move. And again. A little more. As her superior mind took hold of his, she soothed away his caution, blotting out his awareness of the warning prickling on his skin, that was already like hot needles on the back of her arms and neck. The rivulets of water trailing against shingled sand were louder now, closer, as the waterline sank and the sound of washing waves receded. Her pain increased, burning her throat, making each breath hurt. It was almost too much for her to hide, and even though he was further from the edge than her, as she inhabited his mind, she sensed his oblivion fracturing as his pain registered through her stupefying Mesmer.
Flooding his mind anew with the promise of pleasure, she broke apart. With an alluring smile masking the scream of pain she felt, she took a half-step further towards death, summoning him on with everything she had.
From the distant cliff face that enclosed the Cove, Thea caught the unmistakable sound of footfalls and skittering stones echoing in the archway. Ethan. She had to act now.
Feigning passion, Thea ran her hands down Owen’s arms, releasing his hold on her, and then took his wrists, raising them as if to cradle her face, her hands tightening like vices.
“Owen, my love,” she whispered, gloating into the Nemaro’s foolish face, “your time has come at last.” Hauling him forward by his wrists, she pivoted to her left, stepping her left foot back, and pulled him forward and over her extended right ankle. Tossed off his balance, with a wailing yelp, the doomed Nemaro tumbled right over the edge of the rock and their prison boundary. He became mist before he reached the sand.
The momentum of her action was too great. For a terrifying second, she teetered on the brink of following him, trying to grip the rock with her bare feet. Her arms flailed in the rising mist of Owen’s body that swirled up and over her as if he was trying to pull her to him in death. She couldn’t hold back her cry of anguish as mist rose from her skin.
Teetering backwards away from her boundary, but unable to get her feet under herself to even take a step, she let herself fall. The mist of her clansman shifted and rose in the breeze above her as she hit the rock. Her feet were so close to the boundary they shimmered and steamed, while her eyes saw white stars of pain from the impact of the rock.
Dazed, she moved on sheer survival instinct, flipping over onto her stomach and dragging herself with her forearms and elbows across the uneven rock. Arm over arm, she didn’t stop until she reached the edge. She tipped herself over it, plunging into the shallow tide, just deep enough to cover her prone form, its ruffling surface eddying inches above her body.
