Read Online Seaborne by Katherine Irons - Free Book Online Page A

Morgan admitted. “There is.” He didn’t want to share more, even with these two brothers he loved. He didn’t understand what he felt for Claire, and he wasn’t ready to try to explain it. “What I wanted to ask was if this had ever happened to you, and what you did about it.”
    “Absolutely,” Orion replied. “And my advice is to take what’s offered, enjoy it, and move on. They aren’t like us. They’re simple beings, but they can get under your skin if you don’t satisfy your itch.”
    “Father will take this seriously,” Alex said. “Before you appear before the council, you should talk to the queen,” Alex suggested. “Give her time to consult with Poseidon before your crime is discussed in the open court. Let him vent his anger privately.”
    Morgan’s gut clenched. “They know about Claire, then?”
    “Sweet Hades, no,” Orion said. “Not a whisper. I have it that the charges are just those concerning the fishermen and the human boy. If they knew about your human female, my friend would know.”
    Alex nodded. “Pillow talk. Lady Ambrosia is very friendly with our brother, almost as fond of his sexual aerobics as she is gossip, and she shares every shred of it with him.”
    Morgan sank back onto the bench, his relief overwhelming. Not that he could expect to walk free on the human contact charge. But if Caddoc and his mother were aware of Claire, her life might be in danger. Or they might use her to destroy him. If he got out of his current mess, when he got out of it, the best thing he could do for Claire would be to forget he’d ever seen her. The farther he stayed from her beach, the better for them both.
    “I say go directly to the king,” Orion advised. “He’ll be furious, and he’ll roar like a bull walrus, but he’ll think you weak if you ask for Mother’s help.”
    “The last time we were alone together, he was so mad at me that he exiled me to the southern polar regions,” Morgan said. “I was counting penguins and chipping ice off my scales for three years.” He grimaced. No, Poseidon would not be pleased.
    His relations with his father had never been the best. The king had been a great general and expected his heir to be a fire-breathing warrior, not a poet who preferred the quiet battle of preserving the whales, stopping oil spills, and rescuing lobsters, Morgan thought ruefully. The twins should have been born first; they were more like Father.
    “You know how Poseidon feels about humans,” Alex cautioned. “The sooner they die of thirst or starve to death, the better. He’d as soon be rid of them before they destroy every drop of saltwater on the planet.”
    Morgan didn’t remind them that his father’s hate for those who walked the earth went much deeper—that his first wife, their mother, had died at the hands of humans. Morgan didn’t need to repeat what they’d had pounded into their minds as children. No, his rescue of a human boy would not go down well with Poseidon, high king of Atlantis. Not well at all.

    In a penthouse overlooking Central Park, Richard Bishop stood with a drink in his hand and stared down at the horse-drawn carriage below. The driver was garbed in eighteenth-century costume—or at least a tourist-friendly version of the attire, including white wig and tricorn. The horse pulling the gold-and-black conveyance was a bright sorrel. The color reminded him of a five-year-old hunter he’d purchased in Kentucky for Claire when she was eleven.
    “Cloud’s Scarlet Tanager” had been the mare’s name. Claire had adored her, and she’d taken a slew of trophies and blue ribbons in dressage. He’d had the animal flown from one coast to the other so that Claire could enter the maximum number of shows possible when she was home from boarding school.
    Richard drained the drink and placed the empty glass on a tray. Claire had been born with the natural talent of an athlete and the drive to excel. He had expected her to bring home the gold in