“So I’m just a quick blink in the passage of time?” she asked, the words sounding less bitter than she’d expected, and just coming across a little sad. They’d already affected her a lot, and this was the most excitement she’d had in, well, ever. But if all she was to them was the fleeting moment of yet another year, then really, what was the point for her? She shouldn’t let herself fall too deeply, or she’d just end up hurt, and they’d be the ones laughing all the way to the ends of the earth without her.
“Hardly, weren’t you listening to the prophecy?” She glared at Flint, not appreciating the way he was talking to her. He’d better stop or he’d soon find himself in a wet heap on the floor.
“Yes I was listening, but unlike you, I haven’t had centuries to get used to the idea,” she snapped. She spun around, almost losing her balance until normal temperature hands caught her, resettling herself on her feet.
“Whoa, Macey, calm down.” Cam pulled her closer. Reluctantly, she went with it.
“Calm down?” she shouted. “Calm down?! You’ve taken me from my home, kept me here, told me some stupid prophecy that has no real explanation, burned me, then revealed that I’m nothing but a nanosecond in the immense span that is your lives. And now you expect me to be calm?”
“I didn’t burn you,” Flint said from behind her, sounding much like a spoiled child. She ignored him, it was that or end up ripping his head off with her bare claws.
“Erm, Macey?”
“What?” she snapped at Cam, no longer able to contain her anger even if she knew that she should. After all, it wasn’t Cam’s fault she’d nearly been burned.
“Your hair’s turning green.”
“Eurgh.” She took a few deep breaths, trying to regain control of her shift. That was twice in as many days; accidental shifting had never happened so often. Maybe she needed to do a full one? Get some of the pent up energy out of her system, that way, she wouldn’t keep doing it by accident. “Do you have a swimming pool?”
“What?” Flint responded before Cam did. Though Cam’s confused face reflected Flint’s tone.
“A swimming pool. You know, big, filled with water, you can swim in it?” She turned around, not moving away from Cam’s arms, and his hands trailed over her in a tantalising way she almost couldn’t ignore.
“I know what one is, just not why you want one.” She raised an eyebrow, wondering how long it’d take him to catch on. “Oh.” Understanding dawned on his face.
“So, do you have one?” she repeated, just about refraining from tapping her foot with impatience. He really was trying his very best to wind her up.
“Yes, we have a swimming pool,” he answered eventually.
“Great, where is it?”
“Down the hall, I’ll take you in a second,” Cam whispered in her ear, and she nodded.
“Can I watch?” Flint said hopefully, referring back to his desire to watch her shift.
“No.”
“Why not?” he demanded, his voice firm and more than a little inviting if she was honest. A part of her wanted to take him up on the promise there, but the rest of her squashed it down, reminding her that she was still mad at him.
“Because I’m not shifting in front of anyone,” she responded. Maybe one day, she’d feel comfortable shifting in front of them. But the last thing she wanted was for the men she was so attracted to to see her in her rather ungainly form. Kelpies weren’t the most elegant of species.
“But—”
“No,” she said firmly, and to her surprise, Flint nodded, finally accepting her decision.
“Come with me.” Cam linked his hand with one of hers and pulled her down the corridor that headed in the opposite direction to where the bedroom she’d stayed in was. How big was this place? And how hadn’t she noticed how big it was before? It was like a labyrinth. Which just made her wonder what else was hidden about here.
She followed him without saying a word until he directed her into a room smelling strongly of chemicals. She wrinkled her nose, already hating it, but knowing she needed the water to shift. Technically, being underwater might unlock her powers again too. She didn’t actually know, this would be the first time she’d shifted since leaving the loch.
Chapter 5
Cam led her into a wood-panelled changing room which looked a bit like a sauna. There were towels and a variety of slippers in different sizes on a shelf by the door. She chose a pair that looked like it would fit and grabbed a surprisingly fluffy towel. Noticing that Cam hadn’t left yet, she turned, giving him a pointed look.
“I’d like some privacy now, please.”
He chuckled. “Sure I can’t change your mind? I’ve never seen a kelpie before.”
“And you never will,” she muttered, before shooing him out of the room. Reluctantly, he left and she locked the door behind him. Finally, she was alone.
The water was warm, far too warm for her taste; she was used to the icy loch waters. But it would do. Usually, she preferred to wade into the lake until she was half submerged, then shift, but this swimming pool was deep all over, there was no gentle slope. She’d have to shift while swimming, something she didn’t enjoy at all. Shifting was a complicated process and having to focus on staying afloat made it even more difficult. Her kelpie form could breathe underwater, but her human did not.
She quickly undressed and climbed into the pool, savouring the sensation of water on her naked skin. By the waves, she had missed this feeling. It made her feel complete, like a missing part of her had slotted back into place. She swam a few rounds, enjoying how she was so much faster than on land. She may look human, but her kelpie spirit gave her an affinity with water that was far beyond that of human swimmers. When all her muscles felt like they’d been stretched properly, she swam to the centre of the pool, not wanting to hurt herself on the hard edge wall.
She took a few deep breaths, preparing herself for the shift. The memories of her very first, very painful shift never quite went away. Kelpies stayed in their aquine form until puberty before being able to change shapes. She remembered how she had suddenly struggled to breathe, how her father had raced her to the surface where she had thrashed and howled from the pain of her bones reshaping and her scales retracting. It no longer hurt as bad, but it still wasn’t something she enjoyed. But right now, her body needed it.
Over time, she had learned to control her shift precisely. She started with her feet, forcing her toes to merge, her nails to grow into hooves. Next came her hands, adding webs between her fingers, then her arms, her legs, until she had four horse-shaped limbs. Except for the webbing, of course. The rest was easier as it required less precision. Expand her torso, grow a tail, lengthen her spine, change the shape of her head. Easy, except for the fact that her lungs were beginning to ache for oxygen as she sank deeper and deeper into the pool. The chlorine taste distracted her from forming her gills properly. Ignoring the burning pain in her chest, she concentrated hard, preparing her gills to breathe for the first time. It needed to be right, or she’d get water into her still-human lungs.
Finally, she was ready. She took a short, careful breath, and when only when she’d confirmed the gills worked, she breathed in deep, filling her lungs with much-needed oxygen. She whinnied in delight as she began to dive, using her thick tail as a rudder and the flipper-like flaps on her legs to propel her forwards. This was her element, this was her very own paradise.
She stayed underwater until the chlorine began to dry out her skin. That was the problem with chemicals, they had a tendency of damaging her scales; it was true whenever a ship spilt petrol in the loch too. There she could just swim further away and deeper, but here, she didn’t have that option. Instead, she had to shift back into human form and get out of the water. She was already dreading the shift back.
She breached the surface of the pool, glad she could breathe above water in her Kelpie form, albeit for a short space of time. But that short space was enough for her to shift her head and lungs back
into her human form, her long green mane shortening and turning darker, resting on her shoulders, the next thing she shifted back to normal. Huh, normal? When had she started to see her human form as the normal one? That was an odd thought, to say the least.
Macey winced as the pain ripped through her, hating that her people hadn’t evolved a less intense way of changing forms. It didn’t really make sense for it to be that way, especially when they’d been able to shift since the dawn of time itself.
“Well that was really something,” a deep voice came from across the room, making Macey squeak and jump back, splashing chlorine filled water into her eyes and causing them to sting. Damn, this pool really had it out for her.
Rubbing her eyes, she saw Jared’s dark form leaning against a wall, studying her intently. “I told you not to watch,” she half-growled, conscious that she was naked, and made even more so by Jared’s dark gaze.
“Technically, you never told me not to watch,” he replied, not moving from the wall.
“It was implied,” she muttered, crossing her arms, which didn’t quite have the effect that she wanted it to. Instead of making her look angry, it pushed up her boobs, and she wasn’t the only one that noticed. At least, not if Jared’s lingering glance down was anything to go by.
“You should never rely on implied, Macey, that’s a good way to end up being watched.”
“And the locked door didn’t tip you off,” she hissed at him, treading her legs in the water to keep herself afloat. If she focused, she could have forced a partial shift, but most of her attention was on the man watching her, and she didn’t want to give him any more information about her kind that he already had. It hardly seemed fair when she knew no more about what he was.
“It did, but you said you wanted to know about your brothers.” He studied his nails while smirking to himself. He clearly knew what he was teasing her with.
“I do, yes.”
“I got a message.”
“And?” she prompted, keeping as much control on her anger as possible. It wasn’t easy though, and she needed to get out of the water before she managed to instigate a full body shift rather than just a partial one like normally happened when she was angry. She swam over to the side of the pool and hoisted herself out of the water, infusing her arms with as much kelpie strength as possible.
Macey rose to her feet and let the water rivulets run down her naked skin, enjoying the sensation of Jared’s eyes on her. She wanted to remind him to answer her question, but she was enjoying the look on his face far too much for that.
“What?” he said, the word catching in his throat and he coughed to clear it.
“What about my brothers?” She lowered her own voice, infusing as much sultriness as possible into it. Which was probably completely wasted on an incubus, but it was far too late for that.
“Oh, yes, brothers.” He was visibly frazzled, and satisfaction purred in Macey’s chest. He was putty in her hands, and considering his status when it came to sex, that was kind of impressive. “They’re safe.”
“Safe?” she demanded. “All you’re going to give me is safe?” Anger rose in her, along with the faint surge of water magic as it began to rise along with it. Good, shifting had done something towards unlocking her powers. Ignoring it for the moment, she looked into Jared’s eyes, then frowned. His expression was uneasy to say the least.
“You do not want to see an angry kelpie,” she warned him, knowing that her hair had changed colour again. This should have been an obvious warning, but Jared seemed to be transfixed by her nakedness. She should probably have been flattered - and maybe she was, a tiny bit - but right now, she wanted to know about her brothers. “Tell me or suffer the consequences.”
“Dramatic much?” he teased, but he still had a slightly uncomfortable look to him. He sighed. “Flint left to do some inquiries. Then he contacted Cam, who told me. Not much more to it.”
She frowned. “How did he find out so soon? He can’t have been gone longer than an hour?”
Jared shrugged. “Three hours, actually, You were swimming for a long time. But also, time passes differently here. If he’s on Earth, he might have been there for a day already. Enough time to find out about your brothers, apparently.”
“Wait...” She did a quick calculation in her head. “If three hours are a day... And I’ve been here for at least twenty-four hours... That means over a week has passed since Cam kidnapped me!”
“Macey, your eyes are glowing,” he warned, taking a step back.
She roared in frustration and, using her kelpie strength, threw him into the pool. He landed with a splash and went under. She grinned as he came back up, spluttering and thrashing in the water. Schadenfreude was such an ugly word.
“I... can’t... swim...” he gasped in between gulps of air and her gloating smile disappeared. Seriously? Were there people who couldn’t swim? Guess she had just met one.
With a sigh, she dived into the water; luckily she wasn’t wearing any clothes that could get wet. With two strokes, she was by his side, grabbing him under his arms to hold him up. She partly shifted her legs, making it easier to keep them both afloat.
“Why the fuck can’t you swim?” she asked while treading water. He spat out a mouthful of water, narrowly avoiding her. Then he began to laugh.
“Of course I can swim. But would I have got you into the pool with me if I hadn’t pretended not to?”
He stopped his fake struggle and she released her grip on him, annoyance taking over. He had played her. That bastard was going to pay. She dived and grabbed his legs, pulling him below the surface. It was kind of ironic that she was doing what kelpies were known for - even though that was just an evil rumour the selkies had invented. Kelpies didn’t kill humans, why would they? Most of the water dwellers were vegetarians; human flesh didn’t appeal to them. But right now, Macey had an appetite for incubus flesh. Maybe not in that way, though...
Jared’s clothes were hugging his body tightly, revealing his muscles and his... manly parts. She stopped pulling him through the water to take a closer look. Who could blame a girl for wanting to learn more about another species...
That’s when he began to struggle and she noticed that he may not be able to hold his breath as long as she could. Oh well. She released him and he swam back up to the surface. This time, his gulps for breath were real, not fake like earlier. Served him right, deceiving her like that.
When she resurfaced next to him, he grinned at her despite his breathlessness. “Like what you saw down there?”
She blushed and hoped that the water would hide her embarrassment. How did he notice her checking him out?
“You were going to tell me about my brothers,” she quickly changed the topic. His grin disappeared.
“Let’s get dry and go back to Cam. He’ll be able to tell you more.” He huffed. “I was just the messenger. Why do people always attack the messenger?”
Chapter 6
She tied her hair back in a messy bun as she walked back into the living room they’d been in earlier. It was still soaked through from her time in the pool, and the resulting shower she’d had to rid herself of the awful chemical stench.
Jared reclined on the sofa, looking comfortable despite his equally damp hair, and his white t-shirt sticking to him where he hadn’t dried himself properly. Macey licked her lips, her mind already back on how close she’d been to him in the swimming pool.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Cam said, pulling her attention and thoughts away from Jared and to where the other man was pacing frantically. She squashed the urge to run over to him and rest a comforting hand on his arm. Doing that would probably lead to her becoming even more distracted.
“Yes, Jared said you had news of my brothers.” Maybe she should have started with something a little...softer, but she was desperate for news.
“Yes.” He shared an uneasy look with the other man and Macey’s heart sank.
“You told me they were safe?!” She mea
nt to shout, instead, it came out more like she was a strangled cat struggling to keep a hold of her emotions.
“They are,” Jared said and she glanced his way. The expression on his face did nothing to allay the dread that’d settled in the pit of her stomach.
“Why do I sense there’s a but?” she whispered, not able to make her voice sound any stronger. Damn, she was pathetic.
“Because you’re not going to like what Flint found out.” Cam closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms around her. Despite knowing she probably shouldn’t, Macey leaned into him, inhaling his scent and relaxing ever so slightly.
“But they’re safe? And alive?” Possibilities flew through her head, ranging from the improbable to the absurd. But then again, if she existed, and the men surrounding her, then was anything really impossible?
“Yes, both. But Macey…” He looked away from her as if he was hiding something, though she guessed he was. If her arms hadn’t been twined around his waist, pulling him as close as possible, then she’d be biting her nails in nervousness.
“It was them,” Jared blurted out, receiving a sharp glare from Cam. Macey pulled away, standing between the two men.
“Them, what?”
“Them that caused all this,” Cam said softly.
“All what?” She wouldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be, could it? Macey shook her head.
“They’re the ones that sent the fàth-fiata after you,” Jared said, placing a comforting hand on her arm, but she knocked it away.
“No, no, no, no.” She shook her head violently, the whole world going a little fuzzy. They had to be lying. And yet the serious looks on the two men’s faces was enough to tell her they weren’t.
Which was when it all went black.
She blinked her eyes furiously as she came back around. It took her a few moments to get her thoughts in order. Mostly due to how comfortable she was on whatever the men had rested her on. She sat up, fixing them with stern glances. They still had a lot of explaining to do.
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