For the Taking Read Online Free PDF

couple strolling along the beach, hand in hand, getting closer every second. She couldn’t run past them in a panic. If they tried to help her, how on earth would she explain? And the sea was no refuge. She already sensed that this stranger was far more at home there than she was. So she had to face him, confront him in a way that Cyria’s fearful directives had never prepared her for.
    He was mer.
    He had to be, to have known the name she hadn’t heard on anyone’s lips since Cyria’s death thirteen years ago. Lass registered his clothes—the rough, off-white sailcloth shirt, loosely covering his broad, smooth chest, and the close-fitting sealskin pants that ended, unhemmed, at the knotted swell of his calf muscles. She hadn’t seen clothing like this since she was eight.
    He was mer, all right.
    But who? Her father’s messenger? Cyria had always said that Okeana would come for them himself.
    The stranger didn’t keep her in doubt about his identity for long.
    “I am Loucan, son of Galen and now king of the Pacifican people. I have been looking for you for a long time, Thalassa.”
    “To kill me,” she said. Her heart beat even faster. “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”
    “No. I’m not your enemy.”
    “Your father was.”
    “Things have changed in Pacifica now. We are bringing the two factions together. I have no desire to harm you in any way.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “Then I’ll have to convince you. Thalassa, I know this must be a shock for you, after so long. Your father, King Okeana, is dead. You couldn’t have known that.”
    Lass swallowed. “No.” But she wasn’t surprised at the news. He would have been an old man. In her heart, she had been mourning him for years, certain she would never see him again. “So how did you find me?” she demanded to know, the fear and anger surging through her again.
    “It took a long time. But it started when I remembered your beautiful hair….”
    Before he could reach her lustrous mass of waves, Lass ran from him, intent on destroying the very thing that led him to her.
    Hours later, when he’d left her with his promise—or his threat—to return, and she was lying in her own bed with her now-shorn locks telling herself she was safe, her whole body still refused to stop shaking.
     
    Lass’s hands shook again as she studied the pictures Loucan had spread for her on one of the tearoom tables.
    Phoebe’s wedding to Kevin Cartwright was the more formal and traditional occasion, but Kai’s simple ceremony with rakishly handsome Ben was just as beautiful to Lass’s eyes. Both women looked radiantly lovely, with love and happiness sketched in every line of their bodies.
    Pictures weren’t enough. She wanted to hear their voices, catch up on twenty-five years of lost time, hold them against her and hug them just as she used to when they were tiny.
    How would she get through the day?
    Looking up, she realized that Loucan wasn’t doing what she’d asked him to. Despite what he’d said a few minutes ago about bussing tables and tending bar, and despite his obvious intelligence and strength, she honestly wasn’t expecting him to be of much help. He seemed too powerful and too driven to have the necessary practical skills.
    Susie had left the chairs stacked upside down on the tabletops after she’d cleaned last night, and Lass had simply asked Loucan to put them back in place. But he’d already done that, and now he was setting the tables, with the deft, experienced movements of someone who’d done this before.
    His big hands flicked back and forth, unloading floral centerpieces, place mats, pepper and salt and sugar. The sight was incongruous, but apparently bothered him not at all. Evidently, he didn’t set much store by his image when he had a higher goal in view.Unwillingly, she was intrigued by what this said about the man who now ruled her ancestral home.
    As he leaned over the tables, the fabric of his faded jeans tightened