The Selkie Bride (18 page)

Slowly, I removed the rocks with my bleeding hands and carefully freed the pup’s flipper, which did not seem broken, if bruised and a little bloodied. With infinite care, I cleaned the tiny wound. The pup did not fight me. It seemed frozen with fear, its trembling body unable to move and the soft panting breaths through its tiny nose the only sign that it still lived.

“There now,” I said gently to the terror-stricken seal as I slowly backed away. “We are all done. You can be off now, if that’s what you want. There is some smoother sand just a ways up the beach. You can rest there.”

The seal slowly turned its head and looked first at its flipper and then to me. Its eyes were wide and black and unblinking, but it stopped shivering. Making a small noise, which I chose to think of as thanks, it turned toward the sea and began to hump away.

“Good-bye. Be careful!”

Abandoned except for Herman and feeling suddenly more alone than I ever had in my life, I scrambled to my feet and inspected the damage to my person. Fortunately, this turned out to be minimal. I had apparently imagined the wounds to be more serious than they were, hallucinating the white knives piercing my hands and knees. The shells
had
cut me, but only shallowly, and the cuts were already closed and had stopped stinging. A few dabs of my ruined chemise removed the last of the damp blood from my left palm, which was the worse affl icted.

Herman mewed and patted my leg, reminding me of our task. Looking down I noticed that I had no shadow. This was because the sun was hidden by the storm, I assured myself.

“Yes. I’m ready now.”

With extra caution, Herman and I worked our way slowly to the edge of the shell dunes, where flocks of alarmed birds impatiently awaited our departure from their feeding grounds. Of the young seal there
was no sign. I prayed that he was safe away from the violent sea and the vicious fi nman. The birds continued to circle and screech, so I muttered an apology for disturbing them before Herman and I continued on our way. The need to find Eonan was stronger than ever.

Did the little mermaids ride Through the ocean’s foamy tide…

Do the little mermaids weep In their sea caves, fathoms deep…

—A. S. Hardy

Worried as I was, my body eventually insisted that I stop for food—the condemned required a last meal, I thought grimly. Herman looked on in admiration as I raided a tide pool and ate almost everything in it, crunching through shells when they were too stubborn to open. The rain had eased some and the unnatural tide was again on the wane, but Herman kept his distance from the turbulent water as I dined, suspicious of the stray waves that sometimes snatched at us.

My appearance was probably horrible. What I could see of my hair was snarled, and I could not have been attractive, stuffing what I had previously considered inedible creatures into my mouth and eating them raw. It was a meal that would turn the strongest stomach, but I ate it anyway.

As I studied a sea urchin, wondering mercilessly how to get past its spines, I thought about the people in Findloss village and how none had shown their faces the last couple of days. The fishermen, spending all their lives on the sea, had surely noticed the unnatural patterns of the tides. Given their religious inclinations, they probably blamed it on the Devil and not a finman, but one did have to wonder why they hadn’t left Findloss if their belief in evil was so strong. Could the finman somehow be influencing them to stay—perhaps because he knew that one of them had his heart and he would not be content until he had systematically questioned everyone? Or might it be Lachlan using some form of selkie magic to lull people’s suspicions so they wouldn’t flee and in turn lead the finman away? If the finman were responsible, I feared that all witnesses to his crimes would only be found with a shovel. Or not found at all because they were in the belly of a shark.

“Lachlan, where are you?” I asked, putting the urchin aside as I began to feel a bit nauseated. It was less my meal than disgust with my murderous gluttony: I had in the space of only a few hours devolved into an animal. And it was at least partly Lachlan’s fault.

I don’t enjoy facing uncomfortable truths about myself, but I will do it when forced. The truth of the day was that I had a bad habit of being attracted to men who were secretive and incomprehensible and who probably did not have my best interests at heart. Men who disappeared. My consolation prize was having a child at last, and I was glad for this, if also worried
about how very odd such a child might be, and if I were fit to care for it.

These insights rated a sigh and then a word or two of blasphemy, though I did apologize to the Lord afterward because it wasn’t He who had gotten me pregnant and then disappeared.

It seemed I was heard and forgiven. The clouds parted—perhaps forcibly, if Lachlan were nearing—and weak sun shone through. But this only brought the illusion of warmth; the day remained cold. It was winter, the dying time of year: Life-giving daylight lessened with every cycle of the sun.

The fear that had propelled me into barely thought-out action was all at once like an indigestible lump in my gut. Or perhaps it was only my lunch taking revenge. I knew that I could not dwell on my anxiety or I would be enfeebled. If I weakened, Eonan might die. Lachlan too. And yet…

Herman climbed in my lap and began to purr.

“I appreciate the gesture and that you have stayed with me,” I said, stroking his warm fur and feeling almost normal for the first time in hours. It is perhaps the greatest virtue of cats that they can radiate calm under even the most trying of circumstances.

As I squatted on the slick rock, petting Herman, a man walked out of the receding tide, pulling off a mask and some kind of cloak. For a moment I saw him not as a whole being but as a series of isolated and foreign features—dark eyes, midnight hair, lips pressed thin by worry. Then the seal skin slipped off completely and he was my familiar Lachlan again.

He saw me and stopped, still as a statue and just as
beautiful—and, in that moment, as inanimate and inhuman. My emotions made certain that my body missed no clichéd reaction: I got faint, forgot to breathe and even put a hand to my heart. I forgot to be angry. My only comfort is that I managed to stop myself before I devolved into an actress in a farce and swooned or threw myself on his naked chest and reenacted the death aria from
Tosca
.

Herman, less impressed with our would-be rescuer, tensed and went hard-eyed.

“Hello,” I said, and then paused. My voice was almost unrecognizable. Salome seducing the King Herod couldn’t have sounded sultrier. “You look well, and obviously you got my message.” I was trying for dry wit but am not sure I succeeded. What I really wanted was to cry and throw myself into his arms.

“Aye.” He resumed walking, now carrying his fur over his arm like a cape.

“I’m very glad to see you,” I added unnecessarily, setting Herman aside and rising to my feet. Assorted shells, remains of my lunch, scattered noisily. I tried smoothing my hair.

“You look pale. Ye’ll be needing tae come wi’ me soon. Tae Avocamor. Ye’ll find proper nourishment there. I swear I’d not hae left ye if I’d kenned the hunger waud set in sae fast.” He was frowning. “Where is Eonan?”

These weren’t really the words I wanted to hear, and probably not the ones he wanted to speak. His posture, especially evident in his nudity, wasn’t completely rigid but it was braced. I wanted to look inside his mind for the truth of his feelings about me, but his
stubbornness and perhaps lingering distrust were blocking the door. And his eyes, those windows to the soul, were veiled.

Of course, I could not swear that they had ever been transparent. Had I been so busy looking at the outside that I failed to ever look within? The exterior was handsome but what was in my lover’s heart? By his own words, he was a hunter, a killer. At the moment there was no give in him. I could go willingly or with a struggle, but he was determined that I was going.

“First you abandon and then you bully me. It would serve you right if I had hysterics and cried all over you.” I made my voice light. My own capacity for indignation over this matter—and I had cause for it—was long overrun by fear, first for Lachlan and then for Eonan.

My lover smiled fleetingly and with little genuine amusement. Lachlan was not enjoying himself, and he was going to like the most recent news I brought even less. I wished that he would hold me. I was cold and frightened and wanted to be reassured, but I could not bring myself to approach him or even ask for what I wanted. It seemed rather that my lover was not a lover anymore.

This didn’t seem to matter to my body.
It
was glad to see him.

“But ye willnae cry.” He inhaled deeply, taking my scent.

“No, I won’t. But that is only because I believe in fair play,” I said, as I reached for my emotional bootstraps and found them. It required some hauling, but
I managed to not whine or be tearful and accusing. Time enough for that later. If we lived.

This time, Lachlan’s smile was more natural. You can hide most anger, and you can hide a great deal of fear, but it is almost impossible to hide elemental sexual attraction. It is particularly difficult when you are happy to see a person and feeling lighthearted for the first time in what seems years. Lachlan read this in me—though he did not know the true cause of my giddiness—and finally relaxed.

“
Tapadh leat
, lass. I am grateful.” He took a step toward me, beginning to smile in earnest. I hated that I was going to have to darken his mood.

“I will go to Avocamor, but we can’t go yet. I fear that the finman has taken Eonan.” I pointed at Eonan’s skin where it lay on a high rock. “There’s a wound. Near the heart. Herman and I have been tracking him.”

That stopped Lachlan. “Yer what?” He sounded incredulous. His view of my activities was clearly illiberal. I reminded myself that he was a product of the Dark Ages, and to his credit, he didn’t say anything more. Perhaps the fact that I looked like Medusa and he had found me eating out of a tide pool helped him stay any incautious words while he awaited further information. I thought my own reactions were quite restrained under the circumstances. Most women would be crying or having vapors.

“Tracking him. I found his skin in the finman’s cave. It isn’t far from here. I can show you where it is. Eonan isn’t there, though.”

“Alone? Yer tracking him alone?” The voice was
gentle and calm but I wasn’t deceived; Lachlan was horrified and furious and perhaps even a bit awed. By my stupidity.

“Not anymore. You’re here now. And I’m armed.” I pointed. Lachlan looked at my beater, javelin and shackles, and I could see he was not impressed. In fact, it was worse than that. He had a short internal debate, which I somehow felt. Reason triumphed over ire. Again. I was sure he would lecture later, though. It seemed that we were both saving serious discussions for a less dire moment.

“When was Eonan taken?”

“I don’t know. Hours ago. Perhaps at dusk last night. He went to send you a message—we thought there might be two finmen at work in the village and wanted you to be warned so you didn’t get caught in a trap.” This was a simplification of events, I admit. I was more culpable than that, but saw no need to mention it at the moment.

“Aye. The suspicion occurred tae me after I left ye. It is also possible he has a confederate in the village. There is a fisherman who has not been fishing in a fortnight. His brother has supposedly ‘left the village,’ but is likely a hostage.”

“Is he dead, the fisherman?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet.” Lachlan didn’t elaborate. “Yer moggie can find the finman…or men?” His eyes fixed on Herman, who for once had not disappeared. The cat stood guard over Eonan’s skin.

“Yes. And I can smell Eonan.”

Lachlan’s dark gaze turned my way. “How?”

“My senses are stronger now. I think it’s the baby.”
I shied away quickly from this topic, sensing Lachlan’s paternal protectiveness and perhaps, I hoped, a bit of jealousy. “And I drank from his footprint. There must have been some blood.” I said the last in a whisper. “I am…in some kind of sympathy with him.”

“Blood.” Lachlan went to Eonan’s skin and picked it up. He found the hole right away. His face was tight, but I could feel the rage radiating off his naked body. “I think we’d best pay a call on Niall McLaughlin.”

“He is the fisherman?” The people I knew from my old life got angry within predictable parameters. I had no notion of the things of which Lachlan might be capable. I was not worried for myself, but someone was going to pay for hurting Eonan, and it might be the unfortunate Niall.

“Aye. Though I doubt he’s a fisherman anymore, poor soulless bastard. And the brother too. Dead or held hostage. Either way, the finman will hae taken their souls. They are both dead men walking.”

Dead men walking
. A shudder tore through me, nearly bringing me to my knees, and finally Lachlan took me in his arms. I huddled in the heat of his body, suddenly aware of my own state of almost complete undress.

“Ye daft, brave lass,” he murmured into my hair. One hand slid down my body and rested against my belly. “Yer nae match fer this evil creature. What possessed thee tae leave the cottage?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t abandon Eonan. I…I just couldn’t. It’s my fault he went out.” As always, I had ended up confessing the truth to Lachlan, whether I wanted to or not. Just thinking of the finman
brought back my terror and loathing. I wanted to reduce him to his basic component parts, stomp on and then burn them. Surely that would kill the evil creature.

“Hush. Eonan isnae dead. I waud ken were he no longer living. We’ve a bond, he and I.” Lachlan inhaled again and closed his eyes. His hold loosened as he turned and faced north. When he spoke, his voice was distant. “He was wounded and couldna swim, sae he abandoned his skin and crossed over land. The finman found his fur and took it tae the cave. He’s likely tracking him now.”

“Is this true?” I asked, feeling hopeful. I had told myself that it was, but wanted confirmation. “Eonan is really alive? It’s what I’ve been feeling but didn’t know if it was true. And if—”

“Aye, he’s alive.” Lachlan opened his eyes. “But injured. He maun be put back in his skin at once.”

“Then we must hurry. Where is he going?”

“Tae the faerie mound, most likely. He’d try tae seek shelter there, being part faerie himself.” This was what I expected to hear, but wasn’t happy to be right.

“Then we have to rush. That is where I saw the corpse candle.”

Lachlan nodded. I thought that he would put me from him, and he did, but not until after he had kissed me hard on the mouth: He was not as unmoved by our reunion as he seemed.

“If I order ye tae the cottage, will ye gae?” he asked. I could still feel the heat of his hands on my shoulders.

“No. What if the finman is waiting there? I’m safest with you,” I pointed out. “And if there is more than
one finman, or he has a human confederate, then you might need me. And I am much stronger now. Angrier. I can fight.”

Lachlan looked as though he wanted to argue, but instead nodded his head. In my first relationship, I had in the beginning loved, honored and obeyed in silence, as a meek wife should. In the end, I had not even obeyed. Over the course of that marriage I had lost the knack of doing what I was told, and had yet to regain it. My depravity, had it been known, would have made me even more notorious among family and friends. But here it might serve.

As though hearing my thoughts, Lachlan nodded again. His gaze and voice were firm as he said: “I’ve niver raised a hand tae a woman, and I shan’t begin noo, but I can compel yer cooperation and will an ye fail tae dae as I ask. Oor lives are being risked and I’ll nowt allow ye to endanger yerself or the babe. Ye’ll
nowt
gae looking fer a fight wi’ this evil creature.”

“Fair enough,” I said lightly, wondering if he meant it. Not that he
could
compel me—we already knew he could—but whether he actually would.