by Fleur Smith
THE ICY water lapping at his skin had roused Wilfred after the selkie had kicked him into unconsciousness. He staggered to his feet and tried to find her, but she was nowhere to be seen. As the water grew deeper around him, he gave up on his search for her.
She was doomed, along with the rest of the ship. He had other things he needed to do—like escape with the notes of the cases he and John had studied. Collecting himself and ensuring he still had his weapon, he travelled to the escape route set into the ship by the Rain—a secret door near the waterline they could launch their boat from without being seen. John would have already been there and would no doubt have already inflated the raft. It wasn’t going to be a comfortable journey to the nearest port, but they would at least survive with their notes intact.
Despite expecting to be chastised for not finishing his task, he headed to the rendezvous point and confirmed his expectations. He swung the door open and stepped carefully into the raft. On top of the inflated pontoons supporting the craft, there were oars, rations, a number of blankets, and a change of clothes for each of the men. Everything they’d need to survive a trip that lasted anywhere up to two weeks. If they were unable to reach land after that time, they might have issues, but he was confident in their abilities.
“Is it done now?” John asked him as he settled onto the raft.
“She got away.”
“How on earth did you let her slip through your fingers?”
“I didn’t mean to, but she has a lot more fight than she appeared to have. I will not fail again.”
“This will be going in the report.”
Wilfred clenched his jaw but nodded. There would be punishment for failure in addition to his own sense of guilt at leaving a foul beast out in the world, but there was little he could do about it now.
All that mattered from here on out was his survival and the mission to return to the nearest Rain headquarters.
THE DOOR Paddy rested his hand against pulled open and Mariely stepped out. “This won’t do. We need to find a way we can both get off this ship.”
“I—”
“I’m not arguing about this, we need to go.” She grabbed his hand again and they headed to the aft stairwell—away from the direction they’d left Wilfred at least.
The further back they went, the less water there was invading the decks but the more noticeable the port-side list became. When they reached the stairs, they climbed as far and fast as they could.
They reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the Poop Deck where they’d started the night in such a different way. Paddy wrapped his arm around Mariely and led her to the port side of the boat where the waterline was a little closer because of the list. In the water around them, they could see the first few lifeboats already moving away from the flailing ship.
“It’s time to slip away now. Ya might not get another chance.”
“I’m not going to leave you.”
“What? Ya’ve spent years hating me and telling me I need to let ya go, and now ya want to stay when it might cost yer life?”
“I might want my freedom, but I don’t want you dead.”
“I’ll find a way off the ship. I promise.” It was a lie. He had seen the number of ships and the number of people already on deck. With his lowly status and masculine gender, there was no way he was getting near a lifeboat. As it was, wading through the cold water below deck and then coming up to the freezing night had left him shivering and in pain, and he wasn’t sure he’d last for much longer. “Go now, while ya still can.”
She gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him toward her, claiming his lips in a fashion that radiated warmth through his body. When she let go of him, she slipped her seal skin cloak around her shoulders.
He’d never witnessed her change from human to seal or back again—only knew her human form. It occurred faster than he expected. The shimmering skin settled over her shoulders like the finest silk before she appeared to fold in on herself. With an almost serene expression, her face lengthened into a seal-shaped snout. Her body warped and shrank, thickening around her neck and tapering where her legs joined together to form a tail.
Within half a minute, the woman he’d loved was gone and a seal stood in her place. He helped her past the railing and said a silent prayer as she dropped what must have been twenty feet to the water below. Seconds after the initial splash, she surfaced and he knew she would be okay.
He closed his eyes and said one last goodbye, before adding, “Don’t forget me.”
Once he opened his eyes again, he sought out her figure to watch as she escaped. Instead, he caught sight of something that filled him with foreboding—an inflatable raft with two men inside.
One of the outlines was too familiar to ignore. When that figure aimed a gun at Mariely, cutting through the water to her freedom, Paddy had to act.
Without thinking it through, he leapt over the railing himself, holding his breath as he plunged toward the freezing water. He hit the water and the cold forced the breath from his lungs. The inky blackness tried to swallow him even as he struggled to the surface. He’d only swum a few times and never in water so endlessly deep.
He started to sink as his limbs grew numb long before he could reach the surface. Just as he was about to give up despite his need to save his love, something warm bumped against his stomach. He pressed his hands against the smooth skin of the creature that had touched him and found comfort he barely understood.
His lungs burned with their need for air as his head breached the water. With a coughing splutter, he drew a breath even as violent shudders overtook his body. As he was dragged through the icy depths, he despaired. He had risked everything to save Mariely and he hadn’t been able to finish the job.
WILFRED COULDN’T believe his luck as the seal dropped from above just a few feet away from where he and John were preparing their raft for launch. It wasn’t a natural occurrence for seals to rain from the sky so he figured there could only be one reason for it—the selkie trying to make her escape. With that thought in mind, he lifted his gun and aimed it at the ocean.
“What are you doing man?” John exclaimed when he saw the raised weapon.
“God has granted me a chance for redemption, look there.” He pointed at the shape moving through the ocean.
“You want to discharge your weapon on an inflatable raft? Are you mad?”
“It might be my last chance.”
John tutted. “Then it is a chance you miss. I won’t have you risk both of our lives to destroy that creature. She might disappear below the surface at any moment.”
From above, there was an exclamation and then someone plummeted toward the water. Wilfred tried to follow the body, wondering what sort of desperation would drive a man to risk the frigid ocean rather than remain on the still-floating ship.
When the seal doubled back and dove under the water where the man had hit, Wilfred understood.
The seal’s husband.
He’d obviously spotted her escape and gone after her.
Despite the poor choices the man had made, Wilfred could not allow a human to die when it was within his power to save him. He motioned to John. “Man overboard. We need to save him.”
John frowned. “We need to save ourselves. When she sinks, she’ll suck us down with her if we’re not far enough away.”
He pushed the oar to the side of the Titanic, launching their raft away from the giant ship.
As the moved away, the list of the ship and the angle of her nose in the water painted a clear picture to Wilfred—one that John had clearly already understood.
The Titanic would never see another dawn.
Chapter Eleven
MARIELY PANICKED WHEN Paddy threw himself off the side of the Titanic. She’d stopped in the ocean back to the ship because she wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
For all of her desire to leave, the moment she had her freedom, she wanted Paddy.
Maybe it was fear of the unknown, maybe
it was desire, but whatever it was she didn’t want him to drown.
Paddy hit the water with an aggressive splash and then he sank down into the depths. She waited for him to fight to the surface with the strength she knew he possessed.
He didn’t resurface again.
She dove under the water to find him, swimming into the cold ink of the ocean. The water rushing over her body as she swam deeper below the surface was a welcome sensation, but one she couldn’t enjoy while she searched for Paddy. She was thankful for the additional senses she had. The whiskers on her nose twitched as she followed the wake left by his body flailing through the water as he sank.
When she found his body, she pressed her nose against his belly and pushed him toward the surface. As she nudged him higher in the water, he wrapped his arm around her torso. It might have been an accident or coincidence, but she wanted to believe he understood she was there trying to help him.
After they broke through the surface of the water, Paddy took a gasping breath before coughing and spluttering. Violent shivers ran through his body and Mariely knew she needed to get him out of the water or he was going to freeze to death. She had the protection of her species but she couldn’t pass that warmth on to him.
Not too far from where they’d hit the water, there was a shape in the water that looked like it could be a life raft. She swam in that direction, shifting her weight constantly so her body was underneath his and keeping him afloat.
The warmth seeping out of his body worried her. Even though he was still breathing—shallow but there nonetheless—she feared he wouldn’t make it much longer.
Before looking at the boat or the people on it, Mariely pushed Paddy toward it, hoping someone inside would help him out.
She dived deeper into the frigid water to get a better position to push him onto the boat. A sense of relief flooded through her as his weight was lifted away, but that only lasted as long as it took for her to see the man who had helped Paddy up.
Wilfred.
The man who meant to kill her.
In a panic, she wheeled around, and accidentally smashed her hind flipper against the side of the raft, sending the three men on board rocking wildly. Wilfred lost his footing and fell overboard, but the other man managed to keep himself and Paddy stable and upright.
Watching as the man who’d tried to kill her sank under the water, twisted something inside Mariely. Her first instinct was to help, but what if saving him was a mistake?
Deciding it was more important to act first and think later, she dived under the water and swam after him. She pushed herself down as fast as she could, trying to get beneath him.
She pressed her snout to his belly, trying to force him upward. He thrashed and kicked, maybe trying to fight his way away from her or maybe in a panic to get back to the surface.
Despite the way his fists and feet smashed against her, she balanced him on top of her, nudging him toward the surface as fast as she could.
The weight lifted away from her and she figured he was safe. She turned to leave, but something snagged through her flesh, piercing her between two bones in her hind flippers. If she’d still had a voice and been above the water, she would have screamed. As it was, she barked out a sound that got lost in the chill.
Before she could figure out what had pierced her skin, she was dragged backward.
“JESUS CHRIST!” John snapped as Wilfred drew the seal back toward the raft with the knife he’d used as a makeshift harpoon. “What are you doing?”
The moment he was back on the boat, Wilfred had grabbed his knife from the sheath strapped to his ankle and reached back to catch the seal’s hind flipper before she disappeared. “I won’t let her get away.”
“She saved the human’s life. Heck, she probably saved your life with her quick thinking.”
“Regardless, she’s a creature that needs to be destroyed.”
“So you chose to risk all our lives swinging a knife around on an inflatable raft?”
The seal’s hind flippers flicked and shuddered, no doubt she was trying to fight free of his hold, but Wilfred wasn’t having any of it. He reached out with his other hand, his fingers raking along her thick hide as he tried to secure her.
She thrashed in the water and twisted in his hold. It made the raft rock and buck under the weight of the three men.
“Just let her go,” John said. “It’s not worth our lives.”
Wilfred refused to let the seal get the better of him again.
She kicked again and tore a gash in his arm with the claws on her hind flippers. He screamed, and drew his hand back, tearing the knife from her flipper. As he did, she splashed away from him.
Once he’d lost his hold on her, she disappeared into the water. He growled as she slipped away again.
A wisp of blood floated on the water where she’d disappeared but he couldn’t grab the gun because John was blocking the way.
He rolled onto his back and glared at the night sky as though it might give him an answer on how to fix it.
At his side, Paddy coughed. “Let her go,” he muttered through his shivers. “Please. She won’t hurt anyone.”
Wilfred acted in a flash, rolling to his knees and pressing his knife to Paddy’s neck. “Don’t move!”
John frowned. “Let’s just calm down, please?” His gaze was locked on the knife in Wilfred’s hand. “This won’t help anything.”
Instead of answering him, Wilfred shouted, “Mary!” with a taunting sing-song voice. He shouted her name again a second later. “Will you come rescue your husband or abandon—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence because John’s fist smashed into his temple, knocking him out cold.
“WAKE UP!”
Someone hard pushed Paddy’s cheek before touching his shoulder and shaking him lightly.
Paddy tried to open his eyes, but he was so cold and tired even that task was too difficult.
“Mary is in danger,” a voice said to him. “I need you to snap to attention.”
Something niggled in the back of his head with that name. A bright smile. Stunning black eyes. Nights wrapped around a lithe and tender body. The thought of his wife gave him strength enough to force his eyelids apart.
“W-w-what?” He couldn’t talk properly through the chittering of his teeth and shuddering of his body.
“My buddy here has lost his mind and is trying to kill your wife for being a seal. Normally, I would agree with him but he’s risking all of our lives by waving a knife around on an inflatable raft and I would rather not die today.”
Paddy tried to make sense of everything the man was saying, but all he could focus on was how cold he was. It permeated all the way down to his bones and filled his head with a fog so thick he could barely think. He thought he could hear muffled moans.
“The problem is I need your help. I can’t keep him secured, get this raft moving, save our lives, and help your wife all at the same time.”
It took all that he had in him to remain conscious and concentrate on the voice.
If only he could decipher the meaning of the words. Perhaps then he’d be able to do something more than shudder in his wet clothes. He tried to push himself up, but whatever was under his hand moved and flexed with his attempts.
He lurched to one side as the tube of air beside him twisted out of shape. The wet nose of an animal pressed against his cheek. Long whiskers brushed over his cheek and he twisted his head to one side to escape the tickling sensation. A low bark reverberated around his ear as the nose nuzzled against his cheek again.
Then warm hands were on his cheeks. “Paddy, are you okay?”
He blinked up at the darkness above him and a familiar face came into focus. “Mariely?”
She beamed at him and touched her lips to his. “I was so worried about you,” she said as she drew away.
The kiss had warmed him enough for him to get the strength to sit up, at least with Mariely’s assistance. Once he was sitting, his sh
ivering slowed and he could take in the scene.
He was on some sort of floating airbag. Wilfred was pressed against the inflatable side with an older man pinning him in place. His eyes were wide and fixed on the place where Mariely sat at Paddy’s side. The other man had his hand clamped over Wilfred’s mouth.
The older man stared forward at Wilfred rather than paying Paddy or Mariely any attention. It gave Paddy the confidence to turn away from him to assess Mariely. His mind raced to fill in the details, and his dive off the Titanic came into sharp relief. The moment he’d been unable to surface, he’d been certain he was going to die.
He had started to drown.
“Ya saved me,” he said in awe as his gaze trailed over Mariely’s face.
“Of course I did. You were trying to save me.”
“I always will, if it’s in my power.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to this time,” Mariely said, her voice filled with sorrow and resignation. She shifted in place, exposing a gash on her leg. “I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere.”
The other man on the raft interrupted them. He had his companion tied up on the other side of the boat. “I can’t trust Wilfred in this raft. Get us into another lifeboat and I’ll turn away so you can disappear into the night. We won’t try to find you again if you don’t cause trouble.”
“We’ll die from the cold.”
“That’s your issue. This is the best offer you’ll get. Otherwise I’ll leave you alone with Wilfred.”
Paddy glanced at Mariely. If she was unable to escape by swimming, he would do what he could to save her. Whatever that cost him. He nodded his agreement to the other man. “Where are the oars?”
Chapter Twelve
EXHAUSTION COATED EVERY inch of Mariely’s body. Despite that though, she could only see one option for their escape. She needed to get Paddy away from the sinking ship as soon as she could. That meant not returning to the Titanic.