Page 9 of The Tides of March

“You tell me often enough,” Tony replied. “Just wish you could have shared a few other key details with me,” he added under his breath and Celia shushed him.

“He had his reasons! And you know now. This is a good thing, you’ll see! My grandmother told me that the last time one of us had a son, he became an oracle,” she said breathlessly.

“Me? An oracle?” Tony laughed, shaking his head. “Nox should go ahead and fire my worthless ass, then, because I would have picked up onsomeof this if I was a decent oracle.”

“Anthony Michael!” she whispered angrily.

Nox waved her off. “Someare oracles. Tony’s disappointment is valid and he’ll come to understand soon enough. That’s why I’d like to keep him. I could use Tony’s hand with an extra tricky puzzle I’m working on for the FBI, and Iwant to catch him up on all the things we couldn’t show him before.”

She nodded quickly, her gaze bouncing between them. “That’s probably for the best. Can I make you lunch while you’re here?”

“No, we’re just here so I can pack—” Tony said but Nox shushed loudly and gave him a playful shove at the kitchen door.

“He’shere to pack. I’m here to bask in your delightful presence and I can always eat, especially if Celia Costa is cooking.”

That was more cheese than even an Italian could stomach so Tony made his escape. Upstairs, Tony felt like he was snooping in someone else’s bedroom. Everything was just as he had left it and those were his library books and papers on the bedside tables, but Tony felt like a stranger as he lowered onto the bed.

It had only been a month, but a lifetime had passed since Tony had last slept in his room. He had aged and had traveled to a different world in that time and Tony was changed in ways that his mother and Nox wouldn’t understand. He was coping with more than an absurd array of magickal revelations, Tony was nursing a freshly broken heart and keeping a few secrets as well.

Four

After three days of playing nurse and numerous cups of tea, Ronan was encouraged by Tony’s progress. The patient was still too weak to do more than sit up on his own and feed himself, but Tony’s spirits were higher, judging from his constant chatter and cheeky smiles.

Those pesky smiles were like flies, flitting about the cottage and tickling Ronan’s cheeks and lips as he went about his routine. Tony wasn’t like any of the men Ronan had met on his travels and in his years at Pooles Island. Instead of staring or awkwardly pretending Ronan wasn’t a hideous freak, Tony wanted to knoweverythingabout life as a merrow.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to tell because Ronan didn’t know any others, aside from his mother, and had spent most of his life in seclusion. That was the way of it for most merrow men. They weren’t born ugly, but as they aged, their looks made them repulsive to their mothers and other merrow women so they were eventually rejected and left to fend for themselves.

With only so many isolated islands to inhabit, most merrow men took to the seas and became pirates and sailors, navigating the world’s oceans with a small crew or on their own. Beingparticularly ugly and extra unsociable, Ronan had settled on Pooles Island and preferred keeping company with dogs, instead of other seamen. His pack had grown to twelve dogs, of various breeds and sizes, thanks to Captain Sheila Winston.

Winston’s duties only brought her to the island once or twice a year, but she made a trip whenever she came across a stray in need of a home. Her boat was one of the few Ronan recognized and allowed to pass safely to Pooles, but Winston’s welcome only lasted about as long as it took Ronan to get acquainted with his new pup. He wanted nothing to do with any human and had no business with the world of men, beyond Pooles Island.

But Ronan had strict rules for the canine occupants on his island. And Tony had a habit of breaking the #1 rule whenever Ronan left the cottage.

“Off the bed, Myrtle,” Ronan growled as he let himself in from a wet, windy walk with the rest of the pack.

“Let her stay!” Tony hugged the Collie mix’s neck as they both stared at Ronan with big, brown eyes. The old girl was getting too stiff and slow to join them on their walks around the island these days so she often stayed behind to mind the cottage.

“Down, Myrtle.Yeknow better,” Ronan said, snapping his fingers and pointing at her quilt by the fire while the rest of the pack found places to curl up. She grumbled as she rose on shaking legs and gingerly eased off the bed, glaring at Ronan as she sulked over to her quilt. “Don’ look at me like that or ye’ll be sleepin’ outside,” he replied gruffly, bluffing because Myrtle was Ronan’s best girl. She’d been with him the longest and he let her get away with sniffing at his plate and occasionally tossed her a morsel when the others weren’t paying attention.

“She was keeping me company. You guys were gone for a while,” Tony noted with a glance at the window. “Was starting to worry that you got lost.”

That earned a dry snort from Ronan as he left his coat on the hook and removed his wet, sandy boots. “No chance of that. Found something strange washed up on the beach and did a little investigating, is all,” he said as he headed for his chair by the fireplace. He’d taken to sleeping there after Tony’s arrival but Ronan didn’t consider it a hardship. He had a nice view of the bed and Tony preferred being naked when he slept. Tony was also a restless sleeper and Ronan never tired of watching him twist and turn and stretch.

Ronan regretted that he wasn’t better at painting bodies. He’d never cared about them before and had painted countless seascapes, shores, and ships, but nothing had enthralled Ronan like the curve of Tony’s spine and the dimples on his lower back, just above his asscheeks. He was a masterpiece and Ronan wished he could paint Tony, but he’d hidden his easel and brushes, too embarrassed to admit he dabbled with watercolors to pass the time.

“Strange? Like what?” Tony asked. “Wasn’t another unconscious anthropology professor, was it?” he teased and Ronan chuckled.

“Nah. Woulda pushed him back out to sea and went about my day. One of ye’s enough,” he said, adding more wood to the fire. Ronan rarely lit a fire during the day because he liked the cottage cold. He only kept wood on hand to warm the dogs at night and when the weather turned. But he was glad for the heat and held his hands up to the flames, chilled by what he had found.

The dogs had spotted the dead seal first and had alerted Ronan to its presence, circling it and keening as they sniffed the lifeless creature. Ronan had called them off, saddened but unconcerned until he noticed that the seal had been gutted. Several organs had been removed before it had been dumped on the beach, instead of carried to the island by the tide.

Why hadn’t Ronan heard or sensed a ship in his waters? Ronan had claimed and placed an enchantment on the island and Lucas MacIlwraith had warded it decades ago.Nothinghappened on Pooles without Ronan’s knowledge or blessing, but someone or something had left a seal on his beach. Only one other creature had dared trespass and Ronan’s instincts warned that the seal was somehow connected to the evil, undead child that had attacked him prior to Tony’s arrival.

“You seem worried,” Tony said, shaking Ronan from his thoughts and making him grin. It had only been a few days but Tony was already reading Ronan’s thoughts and meddling in his business.

“And ye must be bored, if yer worryin’ about me. Let me get ye another book, professor.”

Ronan went to the shelf by the stairs to select a new book to keep Tony occupied. Thankfully, he had plenty. The shelves in the small loft upstairs were stuffed with books, thanks to Howard Sherwood. Once a month, the elderly witch and bookstore owner sent a case of books, candles, and other useful odds and ends in exchange for honey and peaches. Ronan had several hives and traded jars of honey, comb, preserves, and crates of peaches from the island’s many ancient trees to support himself throughout the years.

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