The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) (31 page)

He nodded.

Glenna’s gaze dropped to his hands and she saw he was clutching a swatch of black material. “The woman you drove here.” Glenna motioned to Brigid’s wimple. “Where is she?”

The man paused, all the color draining from his face. He looked back and forth between Glenna and Sam. “I…I tried to stop her.”

Glenna glanced down, noting that his jeans were soaking wet and plastered to his legs. She went to him, taking his arm and leading him over to a low-lying stone wall. “Where is she?”

He sat heavily, catching his breath. “She went…to the ocean.”

“When?” Glenna asked. “How long ago?”

The man’s deep voice shook as he spoke. “About a half an hour, maybe. I don’t know. I lost track of time. Are you…friends of hers? Do you know her?”

Glenna nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

The man lifted his haunted eyes to hers. “She went out in a boat…with no motor…only a paddle.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his brow. “I-I tried to stop her. But there were seals. So many seals.”

Glenna looked up at Sam. They were too late. They weren’t going to make it in time.

“She kept saying she was meeting someone,” the man said, “but I didn’t see anyone else on the beach. Only the seals. And one of them…I’ve never seen anything like her before.”

“What?” Sam asked. “What did she look like?”

“She had these eyes…as pale as glass.”

“Nuala,” Sam breathed.

Glenna stood. “She knows. She’s trying to protect Brigid.”

“How can you be sure?” Sam asked, pulling her away from the driver. He lowered his voice. “Nuala could be planning to offer Brigid to Moira in exchange for Owen’s pelt.”

Glenna shook her head. “Nuala knows what’s at stake. She’s taking her to the island. She knows we have magic and we can protect her.”

“Then we need to go, now!”

“No.” Glenna planted her feet, gazing out at the bay.

“What?” Sam stared at her. “What do you mean
no
?”

“I need to help Nuala,” Glenna said quietly. “I need to help the selkies protect Brigid.”

“Glenna,” Sam grabbed her arm. “You said you don’t know what the selkies will do to you when they see you, when they find out what you are.”

“Don’t you see?” Glenna looked up at him. “Without the blackthorn, there’s no proof of what Moira did—except for me.
I
am living proof that she slept with my father and murdered him.”

Sam shook his head. “No. You can’t do this. I won’t let you do this.”

“I have to show them the truth. This is the only way.” She took both of his hands in hers. “Go back to the island. There’s still time to catch a ride with Jack if you hurry. Tell the others everything. Tell them I’ll be there by nightfall.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I won’t let us be separated.”

“We won’t be,” Glenna said. “I
will
be with you, just not beside you. Now go. There isn’t much time.”

“Glenna—”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me go.”

Sam searched her face for some hidden meaning, trying to read in her eyes what she wasn’t telling him. “Do you promise to come back to me?”

She nodded. “You asked me out on a date to the best restaurant in Galway. I have to come back.”

He pulled her close, holding her tightly against him. She could feel his heart beating through his shirt. “Promise me,” he said gruffly.

“I promise,” she whispered, tilting her face back up to his.

His mouth captured hers in a possessive kiss, drawing everything out of her. But she forced a smile when he pulled back, gazing down at her. “Glenna, I…”

“I know.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “I love you, too.”

Sam took her hand as they walked to the cliffs in silence. When they came to the edge, Glenna bent down and peeled off her boots. She turned away from him, so he couldn’t see the tears sliding down her cheeks.

She heard his sharp intake of breath as she dove, as her toes pushed off the rock and her body curved toward the water. With a splash, she broke the surface. The salty sea slid over her skin and the sounds of the village faded to a dull echo.

She blinked through the murky water. Sea grasses undulated in the pulsing tide. She pushed deeper, cupping the water with her hands and pulling her body through the bay, awakening the muscles that had been dormant for so long.

A flash of light and a sharp stabbing pain coursed through her as her clothes peeled away, drifting up to the surface. Her bare legs sealed together and her lungs burned as she held her breath, but she pushed deeper, faster, through the dark waters as a powerful mermaid tail made not of scales, but of brown seal-skin, bound her legs.

Schools of fish darted around her as iridescent gold fins fanned out from the tip of her tail. A thin strip of seal-skin banded her breasts. And, for the first time in fifteen years, she opened her lungs to the sea.

D
ominic stood at the edge of the splintered pier, watching the last boat motor into the harbor. A winter sunset painted the hazy sky an eerie yellowish-green. He caught the line Sam tossed him. “Watch your step,” he warned. “These boards are loose.”

Sam nodded, stepping over the charred planks as he climbed out.

“My engine overheated outside Sheridan,” Donal said, helping Jack navigate into the crooked slip. “Jack had to tow me in the rest of the way.”

Dominic looped the bow line around a piling. “But you came back.”

“Aye.” Donal gathered up the stern line. “I was born on this island. It’s going to take more than a sorceress to scare me off it.”

Dominic eyed Jack’s small fishing boat. He respected Donal for coming back, but he really wished they had a second boat. “There’s not enough room for everyone if something happens tonight.”

“No.” Jack rubbed a hand over his sunburned face. “But there’s enough room for the women and children.”

Dominic pushed to his feet. The sea was uncomfortably quiet again, and the tide was rising. The water licked at the bottom of the splintered pier, a hushed lapping sound that set his teeth on edge. “Fiona’s been cooking all day. Go on up to the pub and have something to eat. I’ll meet you there in a bit.”

Jack and Donal started up the hill to the village, but Sam lingered. They stood for several moments in silence, taking in the destruction of the harbor. “It’s worse than I imagined,” Sam said finally.

Dominic turned to face him. “Tara told me Glenna knew where Brigid was all along.”

Sam nodded.

“Why didn’t she tell us?”

“If you had known where your mother was, you would have wanted to visit her,” Sam said. “If you and Liam had both started traveling frequently to Kildare, it would have made Moira suspicious. She would have eventually followed you and found out where Brigid was hiding all these years.”

Dominic took a step back. “What does Moira want with my mother?”

Sam looked back out at the harbor, at the strands of dried kelp in the water. “I have something to tell you—all of you. But it’s not going to be easy.”

Dominic frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Sam dipped his hands in his pockets. “Is everyone gathered at the pub?”

“Yes.”

“Including Owen?”

“Owen?” Dominic raised a brow. “He’s not speaking. He won’t talk to anyone. Not even Kelsey.”

“He needs to hear this,” Sam said. “And I think he might start talking when he does.”

SAM AND DOMINIC
walked into the pub. Utensils clinked and scraped across plates as the islanders—the few who were left—ate in silence. The boards over the windows blocked out the last of the fading daylight.

“Sam!” Kelsey scrambled off the leather chair in the corner. “Did you figure out who the other princess is yet?”

“I have a hunch.”

Kelsey’s eyes went wide. “Who?”

“Actually, I want to tell you a story.” Sam glanced around the room at the remaining islanders. “All of you.”

“A story?” Kelsey wandered back to the chair, her eyes lighting up. “What kind of story?”

“A fairy tale.”

Owen looked up, his expression darkening. He was sitting on a wool blanket beside Kelsey, tying strips of rope into knots. He pushed to his feet and headed across the room to the stairs.

Sam blocked his path. “You need to hear this, Owen.”

Owen looked down, closing his fingers over the piece of rope in his hand.

Sam frowned at the intricate knots tied into the scattered bits of rope littering the floor. “Where did you learn how to do that?”

Owen lifted a shoulder.

“He’s been tying them all afternoon,” Caitlin explained, sliding a hardback book across the table to Sam. “Brennan gave him this last night. It’s a book of Celtic knots.”

Sam took the book, flipping through the pages. “It’s written in Gaelic.”

“The knot Owen’s tying belongs to the merprince,” Brennan explained from the armchair in the corner. “It’s the symbol he wears in his crown.”

Sam bent down, snagging a piece of frayed twine off the floor.

“I think our prince is a merman,” Kelsey said, tucking her legs under her, “but there aren’t any merprinces in the stories we could find.”

“There is in the one I’m going to tell you.” Sam set the heavy book back on the table.

Owen went back to his spot on the blanket, but he turned his back so he was only partially facing Sam.

Sam settled into a chair across from the children. He’d agreed to let Glenna go this afternoon, but he knew she was hiding something. He knew how much Brigid meant to Glenna now, and how far Glenna was willing to go to save her. He had a pretty good idea of what she was planning to do.

But there was no way in hell he was going to let it happen.

Every clue he had ever needed had been on this island, and it had always come down to a fairy tale. This time, he knew the fairy tale, but he needed the clue. He looked down at Owen, who continued to twist the ropes into knots, refusing to meet his eyes. Sam knew exactly who was going to give it to him.

“I’m not much of a storyteller,” Sam admitted, glancing over at Brennan. “I might need your help.”

Brennan packed a fresh pinch of tobacco into his pipe. “If I know the story, I’ll try to help.”

Sam looked down at Kelsey, taking a deep breath. “Once upon a time,” he began, his lips twitching when she gave him a thumbs up, “two identical twin daughters were born to the selkie king and queen.”

“Twins?” Tara asked, surprised. She walked out from behind the bar and sat at the table with Caitlin. “But that would mean Brigid has a sister?”

“That’s right,” Sam replied. And they weren’t going to be happy when they found out who she was, but if Owen was hiding something, this might be the only way to get him to talk. “The older twin, and heir to the throne, was quiet and kind. She was content spending her days working in her garden.”