Delia groaned.
“What would you like to drink?” Ryun asked. “Rum or wine?”
“Water is fine,” I said.
Ryun looked at Delia. “Your usual?”
“Not today. I want to start on the fruit. I still have a few more rounds to make before nightfall. You two stay here while I pick some grapes. Behave, lad, please.” She disappeared around the house, and the black stallion followed her.
Ryun disappeared inside the house. He returned with two goblets and a pitcher of water. He poured water for me before filling his goblet with ale from one of the kegs. When he settled in the seat across from mine, he leaned back and studied me. He’d pulled on a long-sleeved, white sailor shirt, but he hadn’t bothered to tie the string around his neck. Like Storm, he had a scar and a tattoo around his neck. I could also see part of the skull and bones tattoo on his chest.
“You are staring, lass,” he said.
“Your scar is similar to Storm’s.”
He touched his neck. “That’s because we were hanged together, and we made the daring escape together. That’s something about your man, lass. He inspires people to do the impossible. Now it’s your turn to answer a question. An explanation for your unusual eyes you might say. That color is very rare among Tuh’rens. Do you have Sidhe in your family?”
Shee? “I don’t know what that means.”
“Sidhe are the Fae folk. While we moved to the sea and created our world, the Fae moved back to their otherworld. I’ve met a few with your eye color, and I see a touch of red in your hair. Lovely lasses like you are the reason I miss sailing.”
My face grew warm. “I’d know if I had a Fae in my family tree. Why don’t you sail anymore?”
“That’s a long story.”
“Delia is not done, so we have time.”
He drained his drink and put the tumbler down. “I can’t sail because I refused to bed a wench who turned out to have connections. You must understand it wasn’t my fault. I was minding my business when the maidens arrived.”
Somehow I’d had a feeling his stories would be about women.
“That was two years ago. We’d decimated Tully’s no good crew from invading yet another island and decided to celebrate at a tavern with the local wenches. After a few hours of chugging drinks, six lovely maidens entered the tavern like they owned it, looked around, and made a beeline for our table. The way they stared at Storm should have warned me. Mermaids love his eyes.”
“Mermaids? As in part human and part fish?” I asked.
“Yes. Lovely creatures but cold. And their mothers are calculating and vindictive. Kheelan disappeared with his, and Zale followed. Deck and Levi were next to fall, leaving Storm and me with the last two. The next thing I knew, I was on the beach, ready to walk into the ocean.”
He leaned forward and took my hand. He studied the bandages and frowned. They were still damp from my swim at the pool this morning.
“What happened to your hands, lass?”
“Long story. Boring. So did you leave with the Mermaid?”
“No. I’ve met enough ladies in my lifetime who enjoy a captain’s attention, but the way this one kept pushing me set off my alarms,” Ryun said. “I turned her down and staggered back into the tavern. Turned out I was right. She was a Mermaid trying to entice me to her home. We set sail for home and hadn’t gone far when one delivered a message from the Undine Court. I was to appear before the court and answer for what I’d done. The maiden I’d turned down was the daughter of a high-ranking member of the Undine Court. She, of course, had gone to her ma with a fabricated story implicating me in some dastardly business. I’m a lover. Not a fighter.”
“Of course,” I whispered.
“Since it was all a lie, I refused to go. Storm and our council supported my decision, so here I am on a two-year sentence passed down for refusing to appear before the Undine Court on trumped up charges just because I refused to bed a wench.” Anger flashed in his green eyes. “Forced to dock my ship, I became a farmer and a trainer of the young pups.”
He was such an amazing storyteller, but how much of it was true?
“That’s an interesting story.”
“Interesting? It’s sad and heartbreaking. Two years of not being one with the water is a life sentence for my kind, lass.”
“Your kind?”
“Muh’rens. Mermaids, Selkies, Kelpies, water dragons, and hybrids.” A gleam entered his eyes. “We are the good guys. Or should I say the misunderstood kind. Your kind, on the other hand, is nasty and vicious.”
I frowned. “And which Muh’ren are you?”
“A Kelpie.” Wiggling his eyebrows, he turned his head left and right. “Can’t you tell?”
I shook my head and stood. “It was nice meeting you, Ryun, but I think I’d better go find Delia.”
He jumped to his feet, confusion on his face.
“Was it something I said?” he asked.
“Not really.” He looked worried, so I added, “Yes, if you must know. I don’t know if you fabricate stories to keep us Tuh’rens in line or just for entertainment. This island is in the middle of nowhere, so we’re already at your mercy. Lies about who you are don’t scare me. It makes me question everything I’ve been told. Is there really a Veil, or is that a lie, too? How far are we from the mainland? If I decided to escape and jumped into the canal, could I make it off this island or would I drown?” He paled. “Thanks for the water, Captain Blackwell.”
“I’m not a liar, lass.” He caught my wrist. “May the gods drag me to the abyss if I ever tell a lie.”
“It’s okay. Really.” I pulled my hand away.
“Look at me, lass. I’m not lying, and you have nothing to fear. Mermaids are real. Sea dragons, Kelpies, and Selkies are all real because that’s who we are. See?”
Hair sprouted from pores on his face. His jaw elongated and his nose flattened into a muzzle while the hair on his head grew longer and lighter. Someone yelled, but I didn’t dare look away. Ryun’s ears and eyes shifted as the head of the man I’d been talking to turned into that of the horse that had protected me from the forest traps.
“See? There’s nothing to be afraid of,” the mouth opened and closed as he spoke.
Shock had me pulling away from him. Panic kicked in and on its heel the need to flee, but I squashed it as my mind tried to understand what I was seeing. I must have taken another step back, completely forgetting about the stairs leading to his porch. I lost my footing and tried to break my fall, but the side of my head connected with the railing.
Blinding pain exploded inside my skull as a roar reverberated in the air. Someone caught me before I hit the ground. Through searing pain and tears, I saw the gray eyes of the black stallion turn into familiar silver, human eyes. Then I blacked out.
Chapter 3
When I came to, I was lying on a familiar bed. I knew Storm was in the room before I turned my head and found him. He sat on one of the chairs, a bottle and two tumblers on the table by his hand, and his eyes on me. He leaned forward and poured the drink into the tumblers.
Had I dreamed it all? Meeting Ryun and watching him change into… what was it? A Kelpie? I touched the back of my head. The bump was there, but it didn’t hurt. My hand came out wet. Someone had put healing gel on it. I recognized the texture. The entire time, Storm didn’t speak. He continued to watch me intently.
“Ryun,” I whispered.
“Is an ass,” Storm finished. “Which is an insult to my kind.”
I sat up slowly, my heart pounding hard. “You are also…?”
“A Kelpie, or water horse. We also have Selkies and Mermaids.” He stood, and I stiffened, my flight reflexes engaging. “Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m offering you a drink.”
My mind raced with what I knew about Kelpies. They were mythical creatures found in the waters of Scotland. They were not real. Even as I told myself this, the way Ryun had shifted kept flashing in my head.
S
torm approached the bed, his movements slow. I watched him warily, remembering the silver eyes of the black stallion before I passed out. He’d seen me strip by the pond, and I’d told him I was planning to escape several times. No wonder he’d known.
“You are the black stallion,” I said, my voice accusatory.
“Aye. That was me in my Kelpie form.” He placed the tumbler on the table, moved it from its usual place by the window, and brought it closer to the bed so the drink was within my reach. He backed away with the bottle and the second tumbler, and took his chair, giving me space.
“Drink it,” he ordered.
On a different day, I would have told him to take a hike for using that tone with me. But after what I’d witnessed, I needed the drink. My hand shook slightly, which pissed me off. I threw the drink to the back of my throat. My eyes watered as it burned its way down my throat. The shock of it killed the numbness, and I started to feel warm.
I looked at the window and frowned. The sun seemed to be setting. “How long was I out?”
“Hours. You hit the sharp edge of the rail. I wasn’t fast enough.” His jaw tightened as though he was blaming himself. “Ryun should not have shifted in front of you like that. I’d planned to tell you everything tonight. After today at the waterfalls, I thought I’d ease in slowly with the information before shifting.”
“Show me.”
His head shifted, hair sprouting from his pores until I couldn’t see his skin. His head changed shape, ears, nose, and eyes. In seconds, I was staring at the head of my favorite stallion. My chest grew tight. Just as fast, his head shifted back to his human form.
“Kelpies,” I murmured, feeling lightheaded from the drink. This was surreal, yet it made perfect sense. “Can I have more rum?”
“No.” Storm leaned back in his seat and stretched his legs.
“Gah, you are mean. I need the vileness of that drink to take the shock away.” I wanted to dull my senses and not think about this island and its inhabitants for the next several hours. “Please. I just learned that you are a legendary creature. The whole damn island is full of your kind.”
His lips twitched.
“It’s not funny.” My walk with Delia flashed in my head. I groaned. “How could I have been so stupid not to put two and two together? The horses in this place don’t behave like real horses. You play in the water with humans and seals.” I gripped my hair and growled. “Mares carrying the children to the dam were mommy Kelpies.”
Storm nodded. “The seals and the yearlings were Selkies.”
“Delia wasn’t concerned because the larger ones were their mothers.” When his grin broadened, I grabbed a pillow. “Quit smirking. It’s not funny.”
“Actually, you’re rather adorable the way you keep gripping your head and growl—”
He didn’t finish the word because I threw the pillow at him. It hit him smack on the face, and he laughed. The sound of his laughter, so human and natural, did something I couldn’t explain. It eased my fears.
“Just give me the damn bottle and leave, Storm. I need to wrap my brain around this. Slowly.”
He gave me more rum, corked the bottle, and placed it under his chair. “That’s it. I don’t want you to run from what you just learned, Lexi. I need you to understand.”
“What’s there to understand?” I took a gulp of the drink and felt its effect travel to my toes. Now I could fully accept any stranger-than-fiction story Storm threw my way. “I’m on an island of Kelpies and Selkies.”
“And other water beings,” he added. “We don’t turn anyone away.”
“Is Delia a Kelpie or a Selkie?”
“Selkie.”
That meant Nerissa was a Selkie. “Gráinne?”
“A Kelpie.”
I frowned. “Kelpies are seen in waters around Scotland.”
“The crazy male ones. We tend not to let our women and children wander too close to the mainland because Tuh’rens are vicious. You lure us away from the water, whether it is an ocean, a lake, a river, or a brook, and force us to stay in our horse form and do backbreaking work on your farms because we are a lot stronger than regular horses. Some even try to crossbreed us. That’s the ultimate insult.”
I could just imagine. Actually, it was funny.
“I swear if you laugh, I’m throwing this pillow at you,” he warned.
He deserved to be crossbred for kidnapping me. I grinned at the thought. Then I giggled. I never giggled. Damn, the rum was potent. I sipped it again.
“So kidnapping and mating with us is some sort of payback for years of using your kind?” I asked.
His eyebrows slammed down as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “No. This is not about revenge. This is about survival, just like I told you when you arrived here. We used to Harvest humans once every decade, but our number is low compared to yours and our kind is disappearing. Tullius’s laws have only made things worse. Selkie women are very curious, so they often wander too far from the Veil and get caught by deep-sea fishermen. As a result, their female population has gone down, leaving the males to seek new mates elsewhere.”
“And Kelpies?”
“We tend to produce more males than females, and therefore, we always have a shortage of mates. So we visit your world and Harvest young females. Sometimes we just take the children, who grow up in our world and learn not to fear us. We spend most of our time in human form anyway and only shift when we need to protect our families or swim. But at times, we take the adults of marriageable age, seventeen to twenty.”
The kidnapping made sense now. It didn’t mean that I accepted it. “We don’t believe you are real.”
He smiled, and I sighed. He really was a beautiful man. No, a beautiful Kelpie. That was going to take some time to fully sink in. They were magical with unique eye colors and exceptional beauty.
“Why did you say you’re the boogiemen used to scare children?”
“Tuh’rens have always feared us, so they dehumanize us. Call us monsters and cannibals, and create stories about how evil we are. But like Tuh’rens, we have good and bad Muh’rens. Funny ones, gifted singers who lure your kind with music, and tricksters, who promise a ride to the unsuspecting and then kidnap you. Then there are assholes like Ryun, who use boredom as an excuse to cause mayhem.” Annoyance crossed Storm’s face. “I still want to rip him apart for pulling one of his tricks after he promised he’d behave.”
I didn’t care about Ryun. “So you come in many colors?”
“Yes. There are pure black ones like me or white ones like Kheelan. Brown, gray, or palomino like Ryun. A few of us have wings, but that’s rare.”
Like him. He’d told me the truth by the pond, and I hadn’t believed him. If everything he’d told me was true, could he be right about true mates. Was I his? What did that really mean? Was he going to court me like he’d promised? Give me time to get used to all of this? What about Tommy? Would I ever see him again?
“Lexi?”
I studied Storm’s face, wanting to reach out and touch him, ask him to shift again. I shook my head. That was the rum talking. I put the tumbler on the table and scooted closer to the edge of the bed.
“Why did Prince Tullius cut off your wings?”
“Not the prince. King Tullius, his grandfather.” He sighed. “My grandfather. But that’s a story for another day. Right now, I want to answer any questions you may have about the islanders so you’ll see you have nothing to fear.”
I wasn’t afraid. The ones I’d interacted with were nice, funny, and sweet. And there was Gráinne, but the cantankerous cook must just be old. I was more interested in their mating rituals because he believed I was his true mate.
“Why can’t you mate with other supernatural beings? You have Mermaids.”
He shuddered and made a face. “Mermaids are cold, calculating, and have no sense of humor. Their mothers are controlling.”
Ryun had said the same thing. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
>
“Not if it’s true. They make the worst mothers-in-law. Ask Ryun. So no mating with Mermaids. Tuh’ren women are sexy and passionate.” My face grew warm when he shot me a knowing grin. “And lucky for me, I found mine. If a Mermaid had turned out to be my true mate, I would have gone in the opposite direction.”
“I thought you couldn’t resist the scent of a mate.”
He sighed. “True. I would have resigned myself to a life of misery. Then there’s the matter of the offspring. The children from the union between us and another shifter are hybrids. The life of a hybrid is not easy. You know what hippocamps are?”
I nodded. “They have the head of a horse and the tail of a fish.”
“That’s because they are part Kelpie and part Mermaid. There are others just like them. Part Selkies are also doomed. While a mermaid can shift back and forth from two legs to fins, their hybrid children can’t. Tuh’rens make better mates. You don’t have the ability to shift, and you can be turned.”
I sat back, not liking this part one little bit. “Turned?”
He groaned. “Forget I said that. That’s a discussion for another day.”
“But I want to know now. Please?”
He scrubbed his nape and nodded. “Okay. Ask away.”
“We can be turned into Kelpies?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“We use a special bridle. This one.” He touched the coiled tattoo around his neck, and it moved as though alive, writhing like a snake. When he stopped touching it, it settled back into his skin. “It separates from our bodies when our true mates claim us. Most of my people have them around their limbs or torsos. It all depends on where you want it.”
“You can move it?”
“Yes. At puberty, all male Kelpies start to grow one. Every time we shift back and forth between human and Kelpie form, the bridle grows and becomes imbued with shifting magic. It also moves around with each shift, so you can control its location. A full-grown Kelpie’s bridle matures at twenty-one, so when he finds his true mate and she claims him, he can give it to her.”
[Phantom Islanders 02.0] Storm Revealed Page 5