The Selkie Bride (21 page)

A devil, a born devil. On whose nature Nurture can never stick.

—William Shakespeare,
The Tempest

“Here,” Lachlan said. “Try this.”

“What is it?”

“Cheese. Eat a bit before we leave. It will make ye stronger.”

I accepted the wet, yellowish lump without interest, but the babe inside me apparently recognized it as some high treat and I found myself eating it with growing enthusiasm. I was also enjoying watching the water roll down Lachlan’s body, though I made an effort to keep my scrutiny discreet. I probably failed, but neither Lachlan nor Eonan seemed at all self-conscious. They probably expected me to be completely enthralled, now that my mate was near. Or perhaps it is just the way of the selkies to feel no more concern with nudity than a seal might.

“I believe that fer the trip back ye should carry the moggie and I’ll take Megan,” Eonan said to Lachlan, coming to sit beside me. I didn’t mind his closeness,
even though he was naked; a part of me was with him now and always would be. And I just liked being near a warm naked body. It seemed
normal
. I would have preferred Lachlan’s, but Eonan would do. He was my family now.

“Was Herman ill-mannered enough to claw you?” I asked, after I swallowed some more cheese. For the first time in days I was feeling content and sated.

“Nay. As I said afore, pookas and imps hae much in common. But I waud still prefer to carry ye. Yer moggie’s fat and getting fatter. Look at the beastie. He’ll be as big as a coo afore long.”

“Nonsense. And you are just being lazy.”

“Lazy, aye. But verra handsome.” Eonan grinned.

He was indeed handsome, if not in the same league as Lachlan.

My child’s father shook his head at us, as though we were fractious children. And to him, perhaps we were. I think he was amused at our play even if he was not inclined, or capable, of joining in. I thought about blowing Lachlan a kiss just because it was undignified and fun, but I couldn’t count on him understanding the playful act. It was just as likely that he would be confused as delighted. I thought, not for the fi rst time, that it would be helpful if he came with some sort of translator that could explain his expressions and silences.

“Well, I would go with you,” I said, turning back to Eonan. “Except for the fish breath.” I waved a hand in front of my face.

“What have ye agin’ fish?” the young selkie demanded. His tone was light, but he and Lachlan both
looked as exhausted and haggard as it was possible for those fine physical specimens to look. Intense anger does that to you. The difference between them was that Eonan was incapable of remaining serious and subdued. Not even grief could suspend his humor for long, not even when it might be in his best interest to be calm and reflective.

I, on the other hand, was feeling better after my rest and food. Perhaps I was becoming accustomed to the stale air, or maybe the atmosphere was improving. Whichever it was, I was breathing more easily. I noticed that several of the misshapen crabs had died, withered by a brightening sun.

“There’s nothing wrong with fish—so long as it’s on a plate and not on your breath.” I looked over at Lachlan. “Why
is
Herman getting bigger?”

“The beast is a mystery tae me,” Lachlan answered. “But if I was tae make a guess, I waud say that he is growing larger sae he may protect ye.”

“Are you getting big to help me?” I asked the cat, who was now the size of a large water spaniel. He blinked lazily but did not answer. This wasn’t remarkable, except, in that moment, I had the feeling that he could have spoken if he chose. “What a good kitty, so brave and handsome,” I added.

This time, both Eonan and Lachlan snorted. Herman came closer to me, assumed an expression of benign idiocy and began pawing my lap. His claws—his now very oversized claws—were carefully sheathed.

I noted that he could shed like a real cat in spite of his larger size. I gathered up his stray hairs and rubbed them into a ball, which I tucked in my shattered chemise.
It is a testament of how far my thinking had come that I was actually concerned about leaving any of his hair behind, lest the finman could somehow use it against him.

“Wherever we’re going when we leave Findloss, we’re taking the cat,” I said quietly. When Lachlan remained quiet I added: “Embrace the concept. We have a pet.” It was bold, using the plural in that statement.

Lachlan raised a brow but still said nothing. Herman began making a noise that seemed a bit aggressive for a purr now that he was so large, and his expression was perhaps a little smug as he stared at my lover, but I stroked him anyway. Good, bad or really big, Herman was family. I wouldn’t let him go.

“Lachlan, can the finman bespell me?” I asked, changing the subject. “I think he tried once and failed. That might be something we can use to our advantage.”

Eonan and Lachlan both stared hard at me, and I began to wish that I hadn’t spoken. I didn’t relish being lectured again about how I was to stay at home and keep the hearth fires burning.

“Ye’ve felt the finman in yer mind?” Lachlan demanded.

“No, I saw him on the beach when I was searching for Eonan. I think he tried to put a spell on me but was too sick. I was also up a cliff so he couldn’t reach me. And I ran away at once,” I said to palliate them.

“Can a MacCodrum be eye-bitten?” Eonan asked.
Eye-bitten
. He meant bespelled.

“Apparently nowt. At least, nowt when she has her
familiar wi’ her. Lass, ye say that the finman was sick? Ye mean ill, not merely repulsive.”

I touched Herman’s head.
My familiar?
I had evolved enough in my thinking to like this concept.

“Yes—sick, not sickening. He was throwing up his insides and he…” I trailed off as I thought about what I had seen. Perhaps he had felt no need to hide his true form, but I had suspected that the thing on the beach could no longer pass as human. Its head had been large and bloated, and covered in gray-green patches of mold or scaled flesh that had replaced most of its hair—assuming he’d ever had any. He had a shark’s mouth, the individual teeth covered in coarse bony bristles. The legs, such as they were, were shorter and more powerful than a man’s, and the arms were not arms at all but rather tentacular appendages of an inappropriate length and covered in large suckers that belonged to a squid. Then there was the gaping hole in his chest where the parasites had fed and died. Above all that, there had been the spiritual miasma; the evil cloud surrounding it was beyond anything I had ever imagined.

“He could not pass for human now, not even on a dark night in a gale. No one would open a door to him—not unless he could put a spell on them first.”

“That is guid news indeed,” Eonan said. “It seems the mage’s soul didnae agree wi’ him. Mayhap Fergus made a death wish and cursed the evil beast.”

“And we’ve just emptied his larder.” There was satisfaction in Lachlan’s voice. “He can hide nae longer. He’ll need tae come oot and fight.”

“Ye’ve warned the ither finfolk?” Eonan asked.

“Aye. He’ll surprise naebody else. His taking the merman’s heart has angered many. He’ll be given nae refuge frae the creatures aen the sea.”

“Sae he’s as guid as deid already!” Eonan was cheerful.

“Sae long as he doesnae regain his heart.”

“The crypt,” I said abruptly. “Under the kirk.” They looked at me again. “It’s full of broken pots. Was that you?”

“Nae. Mayhap it was the merman freeing his folk. The finman has been feeding among them and the water kelpies. Perhaps that is when the fi nman attacked him.”

“This is the merman at the circus whose heart was stolen?” I asked, just to make sure. Surprisingly, I was beginning to see connective lines between events that felt more like Sight than plain old insight, and while I had no clear picture yet, I felt that I could join enough points of information to anticipate the finman’s next move.

“Aye, sae I believe.” Lachlan took my hand, running a finger over my wrist. Perhaps he was checking my pulse. Or perhaps he was deliberately inflaming me, deliberately calling my mind to the present, to him and away from what he considered a dangerous puzzle. The latter would not work.

“I think I know why Herman can track the finman,” I said. Now everyone was looking at me, even the cat. “You were right about Fergus. Part of his soul is still in the finman, and Herman can feel it. This piece must be unchained before Herman can be free as well.”

The cat grinned at me, proud that I had figured it out. Had he been smaller, the expression might have been amusing. As he was, I think all of us were a bit disconcerted.

“Sae we’ve anither twa allies,” Lachlan said softly. “A dead mage and an angry imp cat.”

Our return trip through the sea was not as painful as the journey in. Again, it could have been because I was growing accustomed to our surroundings, or perhaps because the evil water was being mixed with ocean that was unpolluted and so stung less. Beyond the ring of black about the island, we were once more escorted by a group of seals, from time to time some swimming close enough that I could reach out and touch them.

The cat rode on Eonan’s back, and under other circumstances I think I would have been amused at their mutual unhappiness. Eonan held up well, but his lack of complaint, when I suspected that normally he would have enjoyed voicing his objections to the long trip and the burden of my cat, made me certain that he was actually tired and in need of food and rest.

We returned to the cottage, watching for ambush and also for villagers who might question my tattered clothing and why I was in the company of two naked men and a black jaguar with one white sock. Though I half expected to find my home burned, the building sat, to all appearances unmolested.

Inside, I insisted on fixing a meal: fish that Lachlan had caught and carried up to the house and some tired carrots that steamed up reasonably well. After that Eonan curled up on my settee and went to sleep. It
was probably unneeded, given the selkies’ constant state of warmth, but I spread a blanket over him anyway and made no objection when Lachlan stirred up the ashes and started a new fire. Herman lay down on the floor near the hearth and sighed contentedly.

Lachlan and I were tired too, but we did not attempt to nap, though we did retire immediately to bed. Aware that we had company, we undressed in silence; then with the door shut, we set about our own kind of healing.

I laid my ear against his heart and tried to hear what it might be saying. My supposed gift of Sight had not showed me anything about Lachlan, just potential deaths and cataclysms—important omens, certainly. But what I wanted most to know was how he felt about me.

“Have ye learned anything frae yer listening?” Lachlan asked, and I realized I had spoken aloud.

“Just that it sounds like you have two hearts.” I shook my head, not looking up.

“I dae.” The amused reply brought my gaze up.

“Really?”

“Aye. And lungs of much greater size than most men.”

“Most everything is of greater size,” I said, wiggling against him.

“Like my hands.”

I laced fingers with him. “Yes, like your hands.”

His free hand reached around me, stripping away the remains of the slip I wore, and he laid me down on the bed and stared, as though he were a starving man confronted with a feast. I looked up, unafraid
and unresisting as he lowered himself onto me. I would not die from a surfeit of pleasure, but it might be close.

“For us,” he whispered. “That we may live.” And I knew that he spoke of the selkies.

His kiss was hard, an immediate onslaught that was perhaps caused by a bit of jealousy regarding my time with and care of Eonan. I did not resist, though it seemed a bit uncivilized and something that in another life I might have protested. In a moment his lips softened and then parted, and our breath joined as it had in the ocean, while something that was essentially Lachlan—his magic or perhaps his soul—was coupled with me. I could feel it making me strong and healthy, healing my heart and body, my mind and spirit. It also filled me with a longing and need for completeness that was almost painful. Words would be nice, but this union was imperative.

His hands were on me then. There was no time for sweet words, even had I known what to say in that transcendent moment. My legs were pushed apart and I was aware of the rough blanket at my back, the abrasion of my skin another kind of sensation, another arousal. Softer emotions were not on his mind—or in mine either.

I made no sound as he pushed into me. My breath was gone, all words and thoughts taken roughly away, just as I was being taken, and I reveled in the focused carnality, surrendering to my animal self and what it longed for. The cords in Lachlan’s long neck pulled tight, the muscles of his chest segmenting into ridges, and he began to glow as the sheen of sweat—that
drugging sweet madness of his kind—swept upward and overcame him, making him a victim as much as I.

I arched up to meet him, to receive his warmth, his passion, his ocean of wordless desires. We floated in the same magical sea where the first selkies were born, and found happiness there.

I wanted to ask about all the strange and vivid impressions I’d had while making love, but got ambushed by a giant yawn. It shuddered out from my torso, shaking my entire body and Lachlan’s as well.

“Sleep, lass,” he commanded. “Fer the guid of the babes, ye maun be rested on the morrow.”

“Babes? Two babes?” I was perhaps not as surprised as I should have been. Eonan was not the master of discretion and I had noticed his slip of tongue even though I had defensively ignored it.

“Aye, there are twa. Male children.”

Twins? This would require some thought. And they were boys? How did he know?

“You won’t leave again?” My lips barely formed the question and I was unable to pry my eyelids open. I could feel the moonlight sneaking through the shutters, so delicate, so light on my skin as it clothed me in silver. I had a groggy thought that, with such light, who would ever need any other clothing?

“Nay. I shall be here when ye awake.”