Virginia Kantra - Sea Witch (Children of the Sea, Book 1)

Sea Witch By Virginia Kantra One IF SHE DIDNT HAVE SEX WITH SOMETHING SOON, she would burst out of her skin. She plunged through the blue-shot water, driven by a whisper on the wind, a pulse in her blood that carried her along like a warm current. The lavender sky was brindled pink and daubed with indigo clouds. On the beach, fire leaped from the rocks, glowing with the heat of the dying sun. Her mate was dead. Dead so long ago that the tearing pain, the fresh, bright welling of fury and grief, had ebbed and healed, leaving only a scar on her heart.

She barely missed him anymore. She did not allow herself to miss him. But she missed sex. Her craving flayed her, hollowed her from the inside out. Lately shed felt as if she were being slowly scraped to a pelt, a shell, lifeless and empty. She wanted to be touched.

She yearned to be filled again, to feel someone move inside her, deep inside her, hard and urgent inside her. The memory quickened her blood. She rode the waves to shore, drawn by the warmth of the flames and the heat of the young bodies clustered there. Healthy human bodies, male and female. Mostly male. * * * * Some damn fool had built a fire on the point.

Police Chief Caleb Hunter spotted the glow from the road. Mainers welcomed most visitors to their shore. But Bruce Whittaker had made it clear when he called that the islanders tolerance didnt extend to bonfires on the beach. Caleb had no particular objection to beach fires, as long as whoever set the fire used the designated picnic areas or obtained a permit. At the point, the wind was likely to carry sparks to the trees. The volunteers at the fire department, fishermen mostly, didnt like to be pulled out of bed to deal with somebody elses carelessness.

Caleb pulled his marked Jeep behind the litter of vehicles parked on the shoulder of the road: a tricked-out Wrangler, a ticket-me-red Firebird, and a late-model Lexus with New York plates. Two weeks shy of Memorial Day, and already the island population was swelling with folks from Away. Caleb didnt mind. The annual influx of summer people paid his salary. Besides, compared to Mosul or Sadr City or even Portland down the coast, Worlds End was a walk on the beach. Even at the height of the season.

Caleb could have gone back to the Portland PD. Hell, after his medical discharge from the National Guard, he could have gone anywhere. Since 9/11, with the call-up of the reserves and the demands of homeland security, most big-city police departments were understaffed and overwhelmed. A decorated combat veteraneven one with his left leg cobbled together with enough screws, plates, and assorted hardware to set off the metal detector every time he walked through the police station doorswas a sure hire. The minute Caleb heard old Roy Miller was retiring, he had put in for the chiefs job on Worlds End, struggling upright in his hospital bed to update his rsum. He didnt want to make busts or headlines anymore.

He just wanted to keep the peace, to find some peace, to walk patrol without getting shot at. To feel the wind on his face again and smell the salt in the air. To drive along a road without the world blowing up around him. He eased from the vehicle, maneuvering his stiff knee around the steering wheel. He left his lights on. Going without backup into an isolated area after dark, he felt a familiar prickle between his shoulder blades.

Sweat slid down his spine. Get over it. Youre on Worlds End. Nothing ever happens here. Which was about all he could handle now. Nothing.

He crossed the strip of trees, thankful this particular stretch of beach wasnt all slippery rock, and stepped silently onto sand. * * * * She came ashore downwind behind an outcrop of rock that reared from the surrounding beach like the standing stones of Orkney. Water lapped on sand and shale. An evening breeze caressed her damp skin, teasing every nerve to quivering life. Her senses strained for the whiff of smoke, the rumble of male laughter drifting on the wind. Her nipples hardened.

She shivered. Not with cold. With anticipation. She combed her wet hair with her fingers and arranged it over her bare shoulders. First things first. She needed clothes.

Even in this body, her blood kept her warm. But she knew from past encounters that her nakedness would be... unexpected. She did not want to raise questions or waste time and energy in explanations. She had not come ashore to talk. Desire swelled inside her like a child, weighting her breasts and her loins.

She picked her way around the base of the rock on tender, unprotected feet. There, clumped like seaweed above the tide line, was that a... blanket? She shook it from the sanda toweland tucked it around her waist, delighting in the bright orange color. A few feet farther on, in the shadows outside the bonfire, she discovered a gray fleece garment with long sleeves and some kind of hood. Drab. Very drab.

But it would serve to disguise her. She pulled the garment over her head, fumbling her arms through the sleeves, and smiled ruefully when the cuffs flopped over her hands. The unfamiliar friction of the clothing chafed and excited her. She slid through twilight, her pulse quick and hot. Still in the shadows, she paused, her widened gaze sweeping the group of sixseven, eightfigures sprawled or standing in the circle of the firelight. Six males. Six males.

She eyed them avidly. She sighed. She did not prey on drunks. Or children. Light stabbed at her pupils, twin white beams and flashing blue lights from the ridge above the beach. She blinked, momentarily disoriented.

A girl yelped. A boy groaned. Run, someone shouted. Sand spurted as the humans darted and shifted like fish in the path of a shark. They were caught between the rock and the strand, with the light in their eyes and the sea at their backs. She followed their panicked glances, squinting toward the tree line.

Silhouetted against the high white beams and dark, narrow tree trunks stood a tall, broad figure. Her blood rushed like the ocean in her ears. Her heart pounded. Even allowing for the distortion of the light, he looked big. Strong. Male.

His silly, constraining clothes only emphasized the breadth and power of his chest and shoulders, the thick muscles of his legs and arms. He moved stiffly down the beach, his face in shadow. As he neared the fire, red light slid greedily over his wide, clear forehead and narrow nose. His mouth was firm and unsmiling. Her gaze expanded to take him in. Her pulse kicked up again.

She felt the vibration to the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers. This was a man. * * * *Kids. Caleb shook his head and pulled out his ticket book. Back when he was in high school, you got busted drinking on the beach, you poured your cans on the sand and maybe endured a lecture from your parents. Not that his old man had cared what Caleb did.

After Calebs mom decamped with his older brother, Bart Hunter hadnt cared about much of anything except his boat, his bottle, and the tides. But timesand statuteshad changed. Caleb confiscated the cooler full of beer. You cant take that, one punk objected. Im twenty-one. Its mine.

Caleb arched an eyebrow. You found it? I bought it. Which meant he could be charged with furnishing liquor to minors. Caleb nodded. And you are... ? The kids jaw stuck out.

Robert Stowe. Can I see your license, Mr. Stowe? He made them put out the fire while he wrote them up: seven citations for possession andin the case of twenty-one -year-old Robert Stowea summons to district court. He handed back their drivers licenses along with the citations. You boys walk the girls home now. Your cars will still be here in the morning.