When her eyes opened again, it was to an unfamiliar beach, one with pink sand and black rocks rising high, white waves bestowing wet kisses on the rough crags.

Finbar grazed on some grass nearby, his snowy head turning her way once before he went back to eating with a snort.

“He doesn’t like me.”

Mac’s laugh rumbled against her back. “I would no’ take bets on tha’ one, machree.” She was in his arms, both of them stretched out on the sand, his chin on her hair. Languidly she ran her hand over the powder-soft sand, marveling at its rosy color.

“Is this real?”

“Aye.” He hesitated. “But it is no’ quite the reality ye are used to.”

Apprehension traced Sloane’s spine with light, cold fingers. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to avoid the truth about Mac for much longer.

“Come with me, into the water.” He pulled his shirt over his head, then kicked off his pants.

She shivered, eyeing the water with trepidation. “You can’t be serious. It must be like ice in there.”

He smiled. “Things aren’t always what they seem in this place. And it will make ye feel better, love. Ease yer aches and pains.”

“All right.” She lifted a hand that trembled slightly. “But you’ll have to help me. I’m sorry, but I’m so tired.”

“Aye,” he teased. “Undressing ye is such a hardship.” But when he saw her body, Mac’s face lost its gentle look. His eyes hardened as they tracked every bruise and scrape, then followed the long thin mark the blade had made down her thigh. He closed his eyes, his teeth grinding together.

“If he wasna already dead, I’d kill him again. And again.” He cursed so bitterly her eyes widened. “Get in the water, Sloane.”

His voice softened when he opened his eyes to see her staring at him. “Please, love. For me.”

She accepted his hand but held back, eyeing the waves once more.

“I could just toss ye in,” he threatened.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“No’, I wouldna. But I will set ye down now. All right?”

Biting her lip, Sloane nodded, bracing herself for the cold. But this sea was not the Irish Sea. Or indeed, any sea on earth. It was not cold. Neither was it really warm. But it was . . . alive. She could feel it with every lap against her bare skin. The acceptance, the awareness of something both greater and humbler than herself.

She gasped, her eyes flickering to Mac’s face. He smiled gently, his fingers tightening on hers. “Be easy, lass.”

The water coiled around her in eddies that grew faster and wilder, like her own mini-whirlpool. But instead of pulling her down, the water climbed up her body like a thick coating of glass, swirling higher and higher, until she would have cried out, except the water had already covered her lips. The only thing keeping her from panicking entirely was the press of Mac’s hand against hers.

As quickly as the strange phenomenon started, it stopped. The water that had encased her fell away to splash harmlessly back into the sea.

Sloane gasped in shock and sudden awareness. Her aches and pains were gone. Completely. As if they’d never been.

The water around her murmured, almost like a laugh. Feeling giddy, Sloane whirled around and around.

“It’s like the waves are dancing with me,” she said in awe, her hand stroking the coils of water arching into her touch, the white foam like the mane of some untamed stallion. Like Finbar himself. She glanced back at the shore then looked at Mac in sudden consternation.

“Is it safe?”

“Nae. But ye’re with me. Keep your eyes on me, machree.”

He pulled her deeper into the sea, still smiling. The water somehow no longer felt so alien, but warm and soft, like a lover’s caress. Her lover.

All fear gone, Sloane followed Mac. But it was hard to focus. His shape seemed to grow as the water touched him, distorting in its shadows and wild waves.

The sky darkened around them, the wind beginning to howl. Wrapped in Mac’s eyes, Sloane felt the ground fade out from under her as she sank fearlessly into the rising storm. He was so beautiful, the water breaking around his carved muscular form, stroking his skin in a way that made her own skin tight and hot with jealousy.

He was hers, and hers alone. She slapped at the sea once, then stopped, shocked at herself.

She shook her head, feeling dizzy and out of sorts. Then it hit her, she was so turned on she could barely breathe. “What the hell, Mac?”

Laughing, his arms caught her before the growing swells could knock her under, holding her up as salt flecked her lips. Then he took her lips, increasing her need, fusing them to his own as he made his way deeper into the sea.

She hadn’t seen it from shore, but minutes later a huge black rock loomed in front of them. His hands were everywhere, rough and warm and wet, stroking her back, squeezing and kneading her backside as his thick erection slipped between her thighs.

“Sloane,” he breathed against her lips. “I need this. We need this, before it’s too late.” She couldn’t understand his words, but it didn’t matter. Her fevered brain could only focus on one thing.

Mac had never taken her from behind, and she’d never particularly liked the position, but as he bent her over the rock, she didn’t resist. It felt right. Primal and basic and raw.

The moss was thick as felt beneath her hips. Mac was pressed against her ass, his hips firm, his cock hard and demanding, nudging at her center.

“Yer mine,” he whispered as he drove deep into her body, one solid thrust stretching her wide.

She writhed between him and the rock, the moss both rough and gentle against her breasts, just like his hands on her hips. The sea began to boil around them, frothy and fierce. Lightning split the sky again and again, beautiful and deadly, a familiar electric blue that made her gasp Mac’s name. He fucked her harder, driving their bodies together as thunder rolled overhead and inside her, her very skin vibrating with it.

In two more strokes, he sent her over the abyss, her cries swallowed by the storm. “No other will have ye again. No’ in this life or any other. I willna stand for it. I claim ye, machree. I. Claim. Ye.”

Tangled in her wet hair, his fingers pulled her head back. His teeth found the tender flesh where her neck met her shoulder and sank in, as if sealing his words. She came again instantly.

Harder than before, longer, her muscles bearing down on Mac’s cock so tightly she heard his low groan as he bit harder. This wasn’t like Declan’s savagery, but something savagely pure that made her heart lurch in her chest.

Mac had marked her, inside and out, as his, with his words as well as his body. The shock of sweet pain only heightened her fading tremors. Doubly so when Mac shuddered against her back, his hips cupping her ass as he came.

The heat of his come slipped from her into the sea bit by bit, each gentle lap of waves between her legs nearly sending her over the edge again.

“What is this place, Mac? What is it really?”

He pulled her close. “I canna tell ye as easily as I can show ye. Kiss me and doona stop.”

Lips fused with hers again, Mac pulled her under. As the water closed over her head, Sloane knew this was mad. But she’d just had sex in the middle of a magical hurricane. Everything was mad, and if she drowned in the madness, so be it.

Down and down they sank. She could feel the darkness, even though her eyes were tightly closed. It’s pressure and weight wrapped around her like a velvet blanket, thick and soft. When Mac pulled his mouth from hers, she gasped. But no water rushed in to drown her. Instead, Sloane opened her eyes to an underwater world like something out of Arthurian legend.

Blue and green light dazzled in a cave of colossal portions.

“This is Avalon,” she breathed in wonder.

“Aye, tha’s what the humans called it. It has many names, love. Atlantis, Thule, Ys. But mostly, ’tis my home. One I’ve no’ allowed any to see since before yer da was born.”

She swallowed. Thinking of Aidan just now made her heart ache. “It’s all true then.”

“It is.” Mac’s eyes were dark, but kind.

She was still trying to avoid saying it, so she said something else. “Is there really an Arthur? And is he really here?”

Mac’s smile was gentle. He didn’t answer but she could see the truth in his eyes.

Her eyes widened and her fingers went to her mouth as the hard truth washed over her at last. “You really are a god, aren’t you?”

“Yer father told ye as much. Did ye think he exaggerated?” He raised his eyebrows. Sloane said nothing, leaning forward to trace the trident carved into the stone, the graceful sweep of one tine to the lethal tip. She muttered something under her breath.

“What was tha’?”

“Fanciful stories.” She turned on him, silver-green eyes flashing dangerously. Mac swallowed. “Fanciful stories, you called my books.”

“Well, now—”

She cut him off with a lifted hand. “You’re Lir?”

“Technically, nae. I’m Manannán mac Lir. Lir’s me da.”

In some tales, Manannán was also the counterpoint of the Greek god Hades. Master of the Underworld. Some scholars had compared Avalon to the Elysian fields.

Sudden fear tightened her chest. “I’m not . . .”

Mac’s face darkened. “Of course no’.” But something in his tone told her it had been a near thing.

“You brought me here to save me.”

“Aye. And it worked.”

She sighed, finally relaxing completely. “That’s a relief.”

“Aye,” Mac said again, this time with particular fervor.

Sloane leaned against the stone of his throne, her arm curled behind her back, trying to absorb everything that had happened. She closed her eyes wearily. “I’ve lost my mind. Josh always said I was halfway there anyway. Turns out he was right.”

“Ye doona really believe tha’.”

“Don’t I? A vampire for a father, a god for a lover. What am I, Mac?”

“Just a woman, love. Isn’t tha’ enough?”

There was a rumble from above, a flash of light. Mac glanced upward, his face darkening. Sloane moved closer to him.

“What’s that?” she whispered.

“Lugh. And the others.”

“They’re all real then? All of them.”

“Aye. But I’ll daresay no’ how you imagined them.”

“What do they want?” Sloane watched the lights piercing through the deep sapphire water above, like sunbeams through dark clouds. But the light did nothing to comfort her. Instead, she felt cold and afraid. She stepped closer to Mac, slipping her hand into his.

“They’re coming for you,” he said simply. “To take you home.” But his eyes had gone the angry black of the edge of a storm. The kind that levels houses. “But they canna have you.”

“Mac, what do you mean?”

His head lowered and his gaze was suddenly so fierce she took a step back, though she didn’t let go of his hand. “Do ye love me?”

She didn’t even have to think about it. Sometimes it seemed like she had been born loving this man. “Yes.”

His smile blazed. “And I ye. So I’ll be keeping ye, but they do no’ approve.”

“Why?” The thunder was coming closer, along with the flashes of light. She could see a man who appeared to be made of gold, so bright it hurt the eyes to look at him, even through fathoms of dark water. He carried a spear in one hand, a spear made of light itself. Sloane swallowed as Mac drew her closer.

“’Tis against our laws,” he said simply, “to take a mortal as mate. I had a plan to change things, but it’s no’ quite going the way I wanted.” He hesitated, as the water seemed to crack above them with a loud booming roar.

“Manannán mac Lir! Open to yer king.”

Mac sighed and squeezed her hard before pressing his lips to hers. “It will be okay, love. I promise it will be alright. Trust me?”

She nodded mutely, right before the world seemed to explode. Mac’s arms surrounded her as he shot upward like a bullet from a gun, spearing through water and sky.

“Then let’s go introduce ye to my king.”