by Allie Mackay
“Go to the Western Isles and you’ll find countless families who’ll swear they have a selkie ancestor or ancestress.” He smoothed the plaid and then turned to face her. “You’d be wise not to doubt them. Scots know there’s more to the world than meets the eye.
“An underworld of dark just as real as thon rolling sea.” He glanced at the horizon, the long, white-crested breakers flashing in the sun. “The seal people and the tales about them are only one small part of that realm.”
Kendra rubbed her arms against the wind, a sudden shiver skating down her spine.
He’d spoken as if he really believed in such things.
“Did you know seals shed tears?” He was still watching the sea. “When they’re sad, their moans are often mistaken for human crying. They can pine for years, never forgetting a lost mate or pup.”
“I think you’re trying to change the subject.” Kendra had seen his face close when she’d asked about girlfriends.
“Not at all.” He angled his head, studying her. “What about you? You’re a bonnie lass.” He stepped closer and reached to trail his knuckles down the curve of her cheek. His touch warmed her skin and sent ripples of sensation along her nerves. “Is there a special someone waiting for you back in the States? I’m thinking”—he looked her up and down, appraising—“there must be.”
“There isn’t.” She blurted the truth before she could catch herself.
Pretending she had a significant other would’ve made it easier to resist him.
Now…
She lifted her chin, hoping to appear strong, modern, and confident. “Like you, my work keeps me too occupied to get involved with anyone. I’m always on the road and pretty tired when I’m home.”
That was true.
Equally so was that Graeme made her want to forget every excuse she’d given him. With his dark gaze locked on hers and a freshening wind riffling his glossy black hair, all she could do was take a deep breath and hope he couldn’t read her mind. She’d never been the sort of woman to hop in bed with men she barely knew.
One-night stands and holiday affairs weren’t her cuppa.
Yet just standing so close to Graeme—especially in this windswept cove with the sea crashing all around them—was so heady that she wished just once she could be more daring, even reckless, and cast aside her usual restraint.
But she was certain he could never be a mere holiday fling, enjoyed for his dark good looks and sexy accent.
And she was kidding no one if she denied wanting more.
She did keep her chin raised, her gaze steady on his. “You don’t really think there are selkies, do you?” This time she changed the subject. “I can see someone in the Outer Hebrides still believing in seal people. But here, so close to a big modern city like Aberdeen—”
“Aberdeen is an ancient place with deep ties to the sea.” He touched her face again, smoothing back her hair. “Myself…” He paused, resting his hand on her shoulder, as if it belonged there. “I will say I’ve ne’er seen a selkie. But”—his eyes lit—“I wouldn’t be surprised if I did.”
“So you do believe in them.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Kendra stepped away from him, breaking the physical contact. It was dangerous to let him touch any part of her, even so innocently. Her legs already felt weak beneath her, her stomach all fluttery. She had to remember to breathe.
She did glance about the rocky beach, opting to study his seals rather than risk looking at him. Her heart raced, and something told her he knew.
His aura was warming, reaching out to her as if offering an embrace. She knew from her work and her gift that a person’s energy didn’t lie and couldn’t be concealed from those able to read such things. Somewhere deep inside himself, he was interested in her. She was sure of it. The knowledge made her pulse quicken.
And even though she’d looked elsewhere, his gaze hadn’t left her.
That, too, she felt.
But before she could figure out how to get through their time here without revealing her own feelings—something that could be fatal, she was sure—a huge, mottle-skinned seal caught her eye. Clearly a bull, he was lumbering out of the surf on the far side of the cove, where Graeme had tied the Sea Wyfe to a rusty old anchor.
“Oh, look!” She pointed at the powerfully muscled beast. “That must be Bart.”
“Aye, that’s him.” Graeme sounded relieved. “He’ll have been out foraging, looking as well as he does. Could be he knew I’d be bringing you with me today.” He glanced at her, winking. “Bart likes the ladies.”
As if to prove it, Bart turned his thickly whiskered head to look at Kendra once he’d hauled himself out of the water. His eyes were huge, liquid pools, his expression that of a trusting dog.
“He’ll stop at the boat.” Graeme started forward, making for his friend. “He knows I always carry a pail of herring for special treats.”
But Bart barked and pulled himself past the Sea Wyfe, ignoring Graeme’s approach and heading for a tumble of weed-draped rocks beneath an arch in the far end of the cove’s sheltering cliff.
Kendra shaded her eyes, her attention snapping from the seal to the formation in the bluff. It was an incomplete arch, one half broken away, the pile of rocks at its base washed by the sea.
It wasn’t a natural arch.
She saw that clearly. And the sudden darkening of Graeme’s face showed that he’d seen that she knew and wasn’t happy.
His frown deepened when Bart lunged onto a low, flat-topped rock beneath the arch. When the seal lifted his head, fixing them with a steady, determined-looking stare, Graeme swore beneath his breath.
“Bluidy beast.” He quickened his pace, skirting the other seals.
Bart seemed pleased, barking noisily.
“He’s in the remains of a sea gate, isn’t he?” Kendra hurried to catch up with Graeme, sure she guessed right. She saw now that many of the rocks on the little beach were hand cut, their squared faces unmistakable despite the draping of seaweed or crusting of limpets.
The rocks were fallen rubble from what once would’ve been an impressive guardhouse. Tumbled stone walls now so easily identified. Each crevice, bump, and hollow in the half arch told a story. Even the shadows held secrets waiting to be discovered, especially by someone who made a living studying the past.
Yet she’d not have noticed if Bart hadn’t gone there.
Graeme was too much of a distraction.
“The arch is part of your ancestral home, isn’t it?” She stopped, bending to retie her bootlace. “I know Castle Grath is right above us.”
“Aye, there was a sea gate here.” Graeme sounded reluctant to answer. “It fell centuries ago and—”
A deep rumbling cut him off, shaking the ground. All the seals but Bart plunged into the sea. Graeme whipped around, looking up just as a boulder came hurtling over the cliff.
“Run!” He flew at Kendra, shoving her aside as the rock sped past, sending up a great plume of water as it slammed into the surf.
Catching her balance, Kendra dragged her sleeve across her face, wiping the moisture from her eyes. When they cleared, her heart stopped.
The boulder hadn’t just crashed into the sea.
Graeme was lying facedown on the beach, a smear of red staining his right temple and the stones beneath his head. The rock had struck him.
And he wasn’t moving.
“Dear God!” Kendra raced over to him, immediately seeing something worse. Graeme wasn’t just stunned, lying unnaturally still.
He didn’t appear to be breathing.
Her fears were confirmed when she dropped to her knees beside him and slipped her fingers beneath his collar to check his pulse.
She couldn’t find one. She swore her own heart stopped. She hadn’t performed CPR in ages. She sucked in a deep breath, hoping she’d do it right. Above her, something stirred, catching her eye.
A green-
black haze glittering in triumph along the top of the cliff.
Chapter 13
“Graeme—wake up, speak to me!” Kendra felt the air change around her, icing the wind and frosting the wet rocks jabbing her knees. A worse cold swept in from the sea, tingeing the cove with the same green-black shimmer she’d seen edging the bluff. Leaning closer to Graeme, she smoothed back his hair, trying not to wince when his blood reddened her fingers.
She also ignored the eerie haze, not wanting to acknowledge that she recognized it as the glaze of death, which always appeared to taint atmosphere darkened by violent passings.
Instead she unbuttoned Graeme’s shirt and slipped her hand beneath his bulky fisherman’s sweater. “Oh, please…”
Begging didn’t help.
His chest didn’t rise and fall.
Kendra closed her eyes and tried not to think anything negative. She knew that painting devils on the wall was the best way to summon them. And Graeme’s skin was vitally warm, the dusting of hair across his chest too alluring for him to be anything but strong and alive. Even so, her mind tugged her in unwanted directions, causing her worries to rise and making it almost impossible to keep calm.
He couldn’t be dead.
Summoning all her composure, she took a deep breath and rested her hand against his cheek, willing him to draw on her life force and waken, whole and unharmed. But the day only turned darker, the chill air so unnaturally frigid she imagined frost forming on the rock-strewn beach and icy mist filling the cove.
And still Graeme didn’t move.
She felt as if she’d been stabbed in the gut.
It was a battering that would’ve been much worse if her protective shields weren’t in place. Even so, sharp, edgy dread slipped through to creep beneath her skin as the dark cold pressed against her defenses. Her chest tightened, making each breath a struggle.
Graeme’s skin was turning pale, his lips gone blue. The gash at his temple gleamed red, the stain on the beach stones almost garish now.
“I don’t believe this is happening.” She smoothed back his hair, her mind rushing to recall everything she knew about emergency procedures and basic CPR. Worry and guilt made it hard to remember. If she’d not come here, he’d be with his dog at the Keel, or they’d be walking the shore, the high moors. Perhaps they’d even be at Balmedie, up on the dunes again.
But Jock was alone at the cottage, waiting for a master who’d never return.
And Graeme…
“Dear God, just breathe,” she begged and interlaced her fingers and braced her hands against his chest, pumping hard and fast. “Come on…Please be okay!” She tipped back his head, lifting his chin and pinching his nose as she leaned down to cover his mouth with hers and blow air into his lungs.
If he knew, he gave no sign.
Her stomach lurched and her heart raced as she reared up, once more pushing on his chest. Intended or not, this was her fault. The knowledge twisted inside her, bitter and agonizing. If she could, she’d reverse time or stop the world’s turning. Anything to undo this.
But even though certain members of her family enjoyed—or carried the burden of?—a slew of super- and semi-supernatural powers, halting time wasn’t one of them. Nor could they reverse death.
Even the Cosmos looked on benignly as mortals met their fates.
She took another deep breath, fighting her chills and the hot bile in her throat. Bending forward, she blew again into his mouth, willing him to respond.
As if from a great distance, she heard the splashing and gurgling of the seals as they clambered out of the surf, back onto the little beach. Bart still barked from the flat rock beneath the broken gate arch, his clamor echoing around the high-walled cove.
But the icy wind was louder now, shrieking as if in glee to have felled Graeme.
It was an unholy wind, she knew. The fine hairs lifting on her nape told her that. She also sensed a dark energy, ravenous for a vulnerable soul.
The carrion of the Underworld, circling in anticipation.
“No-o-o, you can’t have him.” She pumped Graeme’s chest harder, not quite sure whom from such dark realms she was addressing, but adamant all the same.
It didn’t matter, anyway.
She had other concerns. Graeme’s life, for one. She didn’t need to worry for herself. As long as her own time wasn’t at hand, her shields would protect her. But the grasping energy from such bottom-feeders and other fiends could make her feel sick.
And she did.
Her mouth was dry, her insides roiled, and dizziness threatened, already blurring the outer edges of her vision. Everything around her swam and shifted as she worked on Graeme. She didn’t need to feel bad now. Yet she felt worse than the one and only time a long-ago boyfriend had pulled her unwillingly onto a death-defying roller coaster at the Pennsylvania State Fair.
She pushed her hair back off her face, ignoring the queasiness.
“Please…” She inhaled deeply again, filling her lungs with the cold salt air, half afraid she was about to faint. She might talk to dead people, but she didn’t do well with blood. Especially when the red stuff was spilling out of someone she was falling in love with.
No, someone she had fallen in love with.
Heat swept her, but not the good kind. And a small, annoying voice somewhere deep inside her chided that if she’d kept walking at Balmedie, never stopping to stare at Graeme on the dunes or to speak to him beside the abandoned WWII bunkers there, this wouldn’t have happened. At the very least, she should’ve had the nerve to drive her own rental car down Pennard’s Cliff Road, rather than sitting behind the wheel, too frozen by dread to take her foot off the brake pedal. If she’d been bolder, more daring…
Her throat began to close but she worked harder over Graeme, ignoring the heat stinging her eyes, blurring her vision.
“Damn.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. “Oh, God, I can’t bear it….” She pressed her fist against her mouth, not surprised to find that her hand trembled violently.
She didn’t even taste the blood on her fingers.
She did tilt back her head, peering up at the sky. The clouds were thickening, dulling the brightness of the low Scottish sun. And the cold air smelled of coming rain, the sea and brine, the seaweedy musk of seals, and so much wet stone. Even so, her eyes burned as if she’d been torched by flames. She took a long breath, blinking against the searing heat. Wishing she could turn back the clock and decline this ill-fated excursion.
But it was too late.
She’d crossed a perilous boundary and—she knew—there was no going back. Things had happened, her emotions were involved, and this was one of those times when a mere moment changed life forever.
For now, she had to do something.
Her cell phone was in her bag on the boat. She had Iain’s number at the Laughing Gull. He could send help. She didn’t expect they would arrive in time, but it seemed the only thing she could try. She could never get Graeme over and around the rocks, then up into the Sea Wyfe on her own. Even if she managed that, she doubted she could get the boat out of the cove and along the rough waters of the coast, back to Pennard and the little stone harbor she wished they’d never left.
She blew out a breath, feeling hollow, her arms and legs rubbery. Her pulse pounded in her ears, the roar worsening her light-headedness. She wasn’t sure she could stand, much less scramble the half length of the beach to the boat, dodging rocks and seals to get there.
Could she leave Graeme alone that long?
She feared she had to.
And that was when she felt the air shift again. Before she could push to her feet, the deep chill left the wind and its terrible shrieking lessened, dwindling to an ordinary-sounding whistle.
“Oh, God…” Her heart sank.
She knew what that meant.
Whatever energy had rushed into the cove had claimed its prize and was leaving, Graeme’s soul in its gr
eedy clutches. A glance at the cliffs proved her right. The awful, lightly sulfuric-smelling tinge of green-black haze was also dissipating. The faint glow faded into the brisk morning air until nothing remained to prove it’d been there.
She shuddered and started shrugging out of her jacket, thinking to bundle its bulk beneath Graeme’s head before she dashed to the boat for her phone.
“Now isn’t the time to get comfortable, sweet.” Graeme’s hand closed around her wrist, startling her so badly, she nearly choked on her gasp. “You’re well enough, I trust?”
He bounded to his feet, pulling her up with him. “No hurt bones or bruises? I didn’t push you too hard?”
“I…” Kendra could only stare at him, her eyes rounding. She shook her head, relief and amazement sluicing her. “You weren’t breathing. I checked, did CPR—”
“So you did, and I thank you.” He smoothed back her hair, his fingers warm and vital against her brow. His dark eyes were clear, without a trace of pain. “I was only stunned, lass.” He looked at her, a slight curve at the corner of his mouth. “I’m fine, as you can see.”
Stepping back, he held out his arms and turned in a slow circle. “You’re the one looking shaken.”
“Of course I am.” Kendra eyed him up and down, seeing no sign that a rock had just conked him on the head, knocking him flat, taking his breath….
She’d been so sure he was going to die.
The death glaze she’d seen on the cliff had been real. She’d recognized it from her work.
She also knew it from home, having first seen it as a child only moments before her grandfather had started lopping tree branches at his Pennsylvania farm. He’d fallen from the ladder, breaking his neck. The incident terrified her. As her first brush with the supernatural, it’d also introduced her to her special skills.
There had been something on the bluff.
Unless she’d erred, the Chase legacy tripping her up as it did now and then.