The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) (36 page)

“No,” the boy whispered, shaking his head. “I’m Owen. My father’s name is Liam.”

Liam.
How was it possible this child looked exactly like her son? Was this another one of Moira’s tricks? Brigid lifted her eyes to the smoke rising up from the village, the flames swallowing the cottages, the pockets of fire burning in the sea.

She looked back at Glenna, still struggling to free herself from the guard, still desperately trying to reach the man on the beach.

She gathered Owen into her arms, setting him gently on the seat beside her. She may have lost her sons, but she knew the truth about Glenna now. And
no one
was going to take her niece away from her.

Slowly, she pushed to her feet in the curragh. Owen looked up at her as the boat rocked, tipping from side to side. Her sister might not have any
real
magic. But she did. And she wasn’t afraid to use it.

She lifted her arms, breathing in the rush of power as the surface of the ocean snapped and stretched. Owen grabbed onto both sides of the boat as the sea surged and a wave—at least three stories high—rushed toward them.

GLENNA BRACED HERSELF
as the huge wave crested, crashing over her. The guard’s fingers slipped and the powerful force of the ocean ripped them apart. She twisted away, diving into the churning sea.

She spotted Sam floating in the erratic currents. She pushed through the waves, catching him in her arms and hauling his heavy body up to the surface. “Tara!”

“Glenna?” Tara and Dominic ran toward her voice, combing the crowded seas for her.

“There!” Kelsey pointed as lightning streaked through the sky. “She has Sam!”

Dominic rushed into the surf, pulling Sam from her arms. Glenna brushed her tail back and forth in the ocean, treading water helplessly as Dominic carried Sam back to the beach.
Wake up, Sam! Wake up!

Dominic laid him down, and Tara knelt, interlacing her fingers and pumping the heels of her palms into his chest. The island shook, quaking as chunks of earth tumbled into the sea.

Steam rose from the sand as the water receded, but new fires sprang up as Moira walked toward Glenna. Moira lifted a hand, creating a protective force around her daughter to keep the mermaids at bay. “Let him go, Glenna. He’s
mine
now. It’s over.”

“No,” Glenna breathed. She would not believe that. She refused to believe that. “I won’t let you take him.” Her eyes burned into her mother’s. “Sam was right, wasn’t he? It was you. You killed all those men.”

“I told you,” Moira said. “It was for your own good. I always knew love would weaken you.” She flicked a glance toward Sam, who still lay unconscious on the sand. “You are just like these humans, blinded by their foolish love.”

“No.” Glenna shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” Moira walked into the sea, her gold dress snapping around her legs. “I will offer you one last chance, Glenna. Come with me. Rule with me as my daughter.”

Glenna dug her hands deep into the wet sand. Sam wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. Her fingers closed around a broken oyster shell. She pulled it up, holding it in her hand underwater, where her mother couldn’t see. “And if I say yes?”

Moira’s eyes glinted triumphantly. “Let us be rid of this curse, once and for all.”

Glenna sliced the jagged edge of the oyster shell across her palm. There was only one way to stop her mother now, only one way to save them all.

Moira held out her hand. Glenna reached for her, but as soon as their fingertips met, her good hand shot out, grasping her mother’s wrist.

Moira jerked back. “What are you doing?”

Glenna twisted her mother’s palm toward her, slicing the oyster shell through Moira’s flesh. Moira cried out in pain, but Glenna hung on, clasping her own bleeding palm to her mother’s.

By mother’s blood

And spring’s first bud

I call on thee

To set this woman free

From fire to ashes

Flames to smoke

Dark magic of the sea

Feed into me

By the power of three

So mote it be

Moira gasped, her whole body trembling as she crumpled to her knees in the surf. “What have you done?”

“What I should have done a long time ago.” Glenna squeezed her mother’s hand, watching her face twist in agony as her powers drained. “All my life you led me to believe that love would weaken me, that it would make me vulnerable. But you were wrong,” Glenna said. “Love does not always make people weak.
Love
can make you strong.”

H
ow does it feel to be helpless?” Glenna asked the woman trembling in the surf. “To be
powerless
?”

Moira crawled toward the beach, her pale blond hair fading back to black, her eyes transforming from green-gold to gray. “Glenna,” she pleaded. “Forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” Glenna enjoyed watching her mother’s face change shape as lines creased through her smooth skin, revealing her true age.

“I-I didn’t know what I was doing,” Moira appealed. “It was the curse.”

The water around Glenna grew black, festering with oil. Her mother’s eels circled her, their bodies brushing against her waist. They were here for
her
now. “The curse didn’t force you to trick Brigid into an abusive relationship with a man who beat her
and
their children.”

“It was a mistake! I didn’t mean to!”

Glenna lifted her eyes to the burning island, taking in the destruction her mother had caused. “You could have gone after her. You could have helped Brigid escape.”

“Glenna, please…” Moira trailed off as Liam and Caitlin ran onto the beach, rushing toward the boat Brigid was paddling ashore. Owen sat beside her, clutching his side. Caitlin pulled her injured son into her arms as Liam helped Brigid—a woman he didn’t even recognize as his own mother—from the boat.

Glenna thought of what Moira had done to these people—Brigid, Caitlin, Liam, Owen, Nuala—all the pain and suffering she had caused in their lives.

She looked back at Sam, still unconscious despite all Tara’s efforts to revive him. “That’s why you hated me,” Glenna said, as everything clicked into place. “Because I had everything you wanted.” She thought of the men, all the innocent men who’d suffered because they’d fallen in love with her. “You hated that men wanted me, that they couldn’t resist me. Even though
you
made me what I am!”

“No!” Moira shook her head, backing away from her. “I was trying to protect you! To keep you from making the same mistakes I did!”

“The only one you were ever trying to protect was
you
!” Spirals of black hatred sprouted roots inside Glenna, dark roots that latched onto her soul bleeding it dry of everyone and everything she had ever known. Her friends’ faces began to blur. Their voices, the island, her home faded away until it was only the two of them, until there was nothing inside her but a pulsing black empty heart, begging for revenge.

And she would have it!

Skimming her hands through the surf, she summoned the long strands of kelp and seaweed—debris that had been building off this island for days. A powerful wave built, crashing over her mother’s body, trapping her in a net.

“Glenna!” Moira tore at the slick ropes of sea grass as they twisted around her limbs, wrapping around her neck. “Stop! Please!”

“Why? Why should I stop?”

“Because I love you! I have always loved you!”

“You have
never
loved me,” Glenna snapped. “The only person you ever loved was my father, and you
murdered
him because he rejected you. If that is your idea of love, I do not want your love.” She tightened the kelp around her mother’s throat. “I reject you, just like my father did.”

“Glenna!” A man’s voice—a voice from the beach—broke through the darkness. She kept her palms raised, using magic to hold the kelp to her mother’s throat. But her gaze darted over the beach, searching for the source of the voice.

“Don’t do this,” the voice rasped. “This isn’t you.”

The eels hissed. They looped around her waist, edging her away from the voice. But she caught a brief movement through the darkness, the shadow of a man crawling over the sand.

“Stay away!” she warned. But a flicker of doubt crept in as the man pulled himself to his knees.

Moira writhed, wheezing. Glenna squeezed the kelp.

“This isn’t you,” the man said again. His voice was deep and scratchy, but she felt somehow drawn to it. “I
know
you.”

“What do you know about me?” Glenna demanded, as the contours of the man’s face grew clearer and brighter. A glimmer of recognition sparked somewhere deep inside her, but the black roots dug deeper, forcing him out. “Tell me! What do you know about me?”

“I know that you are not a murderer.”

A swell of rage built inside her. Who was this man to tell her who
she
was? She could be anything she wanted to be now! The sand lifted, swirling into a blinding white storm. She laughed as the islanders—these
humans
—covered their faces and huddled in fear.

How weak they are! How fragile! They are nothing like me!

She laughed as the winds died and sand rained back down to the beach. She watched them shrink away from her, their faces pale and frightened. All of them except for this man—this blond man who continued to crawl on his hands and knees to her.

Sam.
She remembered now. Of course. How many times had she told him to stay away from her? That he should never have gotten involved in this? But he wouldn’t listen! “You fool! Don’t you know what I can do to you? To all of you? If you thought my mother was powerful, you have no idea what I can do!”

“Magic is a
choice
, Glenna!” Sam shouted. “You can use it for good or for evil, but it is
your
choice!”

Glenna’s eyes narrowed. “Then I choose evil.”

She set the sand inches from his hands on fire. But instead of backing away from her, Sam pushed to his feet. “You
used
to use magic to help people, to heal people and protect them! You
never
used it to hurt anyone!”

“I’ve changed.”

“I don’t believe that!” Sam’s knees gave out when a wave broke over the sand. Another man rushed to his side, hauling him back to his feet.
Dominic.
She recognized him. She recognized all of them now—
Liam, Caitlin, Tara, Kelsey, Owen, Brigid
.