The Selkie

by Melanie Jackson

Chapter Six

  Hexy rolled onto her back and watched carefully. The moonlight was bright against the wall, broken into distorted squares by the many panes of ancient rippled glass that made up the window she had left slightly ajar. The light seemed frozen in midundulation. There were thirty-six separate spots of hazy light. She had counted them several times as the uneven diamonds of brightness moved slowly over the wall, the shadows shifting lazily as the lunar path led the moon down into the vermilion sea. It was not as soporific as counting sheep.

  The chill, still night brought plainly the sounds of the silver-painted breakers, coming closer every minute as they chased the cold moonlight up onto the barren landscape of broken gray stone. These were ancient rocks, sharp and savage and splintered, softened only by cotton grass and patches of stubborn heather that grew in the sand where the jutting stones stood.

  Hexy rolled over and punched her pillow, trying to get comfortable. The down had a bad habit of gathering in the corners, where it welded itself into unbending bricks that tortured the body. No one could sleep under such conditions, not even with the sea whispering to them.

  Rory would probably say that the storm kelpies were calm tonight, that there were no white horses riding the waves. The thought of Rory made Hexy smile even as she pushed the covers away from her face and rolled over onto her stomach, fitting her feet through the brass rails at the end of the bed.

  It was a bit chilly with her bare feet sticking out where the eddies of cool air could tickle them, but she liked having the window open on the rare occasions when no rain threatened to disturb the coastal shores. The weather the last few days had actually been unseasonably delightful. She couldn’t recall exactly when, but it seemed to her that she’d been here many nights when the sea roared as it was driven inland by a furious hand and there was nothing to do but take shelter in caves of stone.

  Yet blustery spring, real or imagined, had to end eventually. That was the way of the seasons. The days were rapidly drawing in on the nights and had surpassed them in length. Soon it would be summer, the season of calmer seas and warmer days. Spring’s lease might already be at an end, the old tenant being evicted for a newer, fairer one.

  It was sad to think that she had wasted the season mooning over a lost love. However, there was still the summer to enjoy. Especially now that Rory was there.

  Rory.

  A shiver of awareness passed through her body, tightening her barely relaxed muscles. He was dangerous. Possibly even mad. He thought that he was…

  A selkie.

  It didn’t matter. She was mad, too. Perhaps she could blame it on the spring air, which was very rare and fine.

  Hexy sighed in resignation and finally left her bed. If she was not to sleep, then there was something else she could do, wanted to do.

  Feeling oddly dreamy, a state of disjunctive thought that she had been in all too often since Rory’s arrival, she walked to the armoire, vaguely glad for the rug that kept her bare feet from the floor’s cold slate. She reached out with a pale hand and touched wood. It was real, cold and hard and not entirely smooth beneath her fingers because the sea air was destroying the varnish.

  So, she wasn’t dreaming; she was actually up and planning on giving in to the insane impulse she had had since her trip to the island.

  Ye’ll come tae me soon, won’t ye, lass?

  The panel door of the wardrobe, set with heavy mirrored glass, opened silently on Hexy’s small and rarely visited world of silk and perfume. Hesitating for just a moment, she stripped off her practical flannel gown and slipped on her sheer combing robe. It was a lovely confection made of blue silk and sheer black lace by the flamboyant Espinasse. She could never have afforded such a gown on her own, but it had been bestowed upon her by Jillian in a fit of gratitude when Hexy had found the frantic Jillian’s missing diamond pin. The fact that the gown was her employer’s cast-off did not dim her pleasure in it. It draped over her in a soft caress that was almost like magic. In it she felt beautiful and strong, a person of value.

  Hexy sat down at her vanity and, setting aside the sharper comb, which she used in the mornings, she selected a soft bristled brush set in a silver frame. Staring at her ghostly reflection, she resisted the compulsion to hurry, and once again measured carefully her sudden love for, or at least her attraction to, Rory.

  Slowly counting strokes, she dragged the brush through her hair, considering as she primped whether she was wrong to do as he asked, to travel down the moonlit halls to where he slept. Or perhaps did not sleep. He might be awake, watching for her.

  She felt far away and irresponsible but knew that she was thinking—and acting—in a far from aimless manner. And, of course, what she was planning was immoral. That went without saying.

  Yet there was something about her seeking out Rory tonight that felt right, ordained, perhaps even holy. It didn’t seem wrong to picture lying down with Rory under a blanket of stars and becoming lovers.

  She had a rudimentary knowledge of what should follow such a surrender, having shared herself with a man once before, but she pushed the thought away. Somehow, whatever happened between the two of them would not be the same thing that other lovers experienced. It could not be the same because Rory was not like other men. His whole person was different, was built for graceful speed. He was elemental, powerful and…

  And whatever happened would be glorious. Simply considering it caused fire to bloom on her skin, and the heat to start percolating down into her depths, where it burned like a coke furnace. All other desires before this one had been superficial. This felt critical, unavoidable.

  Hexy laid her brush aside and went to the window, delaying so that she might allow herself one last chance to change her mind.

  She opened the window wide and leaned out into the night. Mist had enshrouded every strand of cotton grass and rendered them still and silver until a thin finger of wind approached. Yet she could tell the stray breeze’s path because it carelessly flattened the slender stalks as it advanced and set the mist to eddying. She was alone in this part of the keep. No one would see her if she traveled Fintry’s halls in search of Rory. There were not even the usual castle vermin about at night. Apparently they also favored living in warmer, drier climes.

  Enough delay! She knew what she wanted. It was time to go.

  With trembling fingers, she closed the window on the night. Though the sky was presently clear, she somehow knew that before the morning sun rose in the sky there would be a brief, violent rain. She always knew when it was going to rain.

  The hall outside her bedroom was long and cut with bands of light that sharpened themselves on her susceptible eyes. The shadows became more solid as she neared Rory’s room. The moonlight grew brighter, almost as abrasive to the eyes and skin as a fearsome sun, and in spite of the chill she began to perspire.

  She stopped at the last door at the end of the hall and laid an unsteady hand upon the jamb. Through his open door she could see the fluttering of the curtains and smell the brackish air. The sea scent in his room was heavier than out on the beach, almost strong enough to be a taste on her tongue. She was very aware of the fabric of her gown clinging to her body in an unnatural layer of skin.

  Ye came, lass.

  “Yes.”

  She stepped over the threshold.

  He was waiting for her, standing beside the bed, his body gleaming gently as if he had just stepped out of the water.

  Without a word, he took her hand and helped her to shed her now unwanted silken gown. There were so many ribbons tied in so many tight knots, but he saw her free. The perspiration-damp fabric was untied and then rolled down off her shoulders, breasts, belly, hips and fell to the floor in a lacy heap. She was grateful for the end to the fabric’s silken constriction. It had been like being caught in a net. But now she was finally as she was meant to be.

  Face to face, eyes locked to eyes, Rory lowered her onto the down bed. The linens beneath her smelled faintly of the sea and something plea
santly musky. The scent was familiar and yet foreign.

  He did not follow her immediately into the linen cradle but paused above her, lit by a stray silver streak as he examined her body with unblinking black eyes.

  Hexy looked back.

  Rory was naked: naked of clothing and naked of hair except for the sleek mane on his head and, in the moonlight, naked of the shading of tan that came from wearing clothing in the sun. All he wore was a beadless sheen, a silver gloss of what had to be sweat but gleamed like polished metal.

  “Ye still fear me a bittock,” he whispered.

  “Yes. But only a little.”

  He seemed to reach some decision. He moved a knee onto the bed and caged her with his arms. Muscles rippled in a life of their own beneath his bronzed skin as he rolled onto his back and then pulled her over him. She clutched his arms as they came together breast to breast. The ligaments’ patterns felt unfamiliar yet enthralling beneath her hands.

  Rory was warm. Pulsing with life, with affection and desire.

  Fear receded. He smelled wonderful, looked perfect. She wanted…

  Hexy exhaled, and then, levering up onto an elbow, she leaned down, setting her lips to his chest, tasting him. Desire was so thick around her that she could float on it. Or drown in it. Her lips began to tingle.

  “Lass! The brine…” he warned, but broke off speech to make a small noise that was neither sigh nor moan.

  “You worry about tasting land salt, but you yourself taste of the sea. Why would you think this bad?” She licked her lips.

  “Ye—ye daenna understand. It isnae bad, but there’s power in the salt. Ye should nae have tae much tae soon.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand half of what you say. If need be, you worry for us. I don’t need to understand, Rory.” And it was true. That night she didn’t need to understand anything. He called it power, but it was passion that was crawling over her skin, occluding her mind and compelling an instinctive obedience to see this act to completion. “Truthfully, I don’t want to understand. Not now.”

  Unable to resist, Hexy pressed her tongue against him, absorbing the peculiar, musky tang. He was as salty and elemental as the ocean, his taste drugging. A sensual lassitude slid over her, blurring her senses and making her already fluid thoughts further disconnect from one another.

  Rory murmured something in a language she did not know.

  Down his body she slid, moving frictionlessly over his glistening skin, and she tasted as she went, marveling at the satin texture of his uniformly tanned flesh. A part of her was astonished that even down here he was as smooth as silk and unvarying in color. And texture. Her lips snagged on nothing. He was smooth as glass, as tears. But hard, so very hard underneath! Muscle laid upon muscle, sinews crossing and recrossing. He was smooth and warm, but also like steel, like a wild animal without its muffling skin.

  She raised her head to look up at his face. His eyes seemed to glow, golden lamps lit from within. They were fringed with a band of thick black lashes and were pupilless and as glossy as crystal or amber. It had to be the moonlight. It made for freakish optics.

  But the way he felt? That wasn’t the light. This taste and smell was so familiar, and she craved it like air…

  Intrigued, she bent her head to him again, but Rory’s hand fisted in her hair.

  “Nay. Enough. Ye maun stop or we’ll be dangerously bespelled.”

  Unable to go any further with his hand in her hair, she finally retraced her path up the midline of his body, stopping only when she reached his mouth. Her own lips were feeling parched and seared, she noticed through her languor.

  He stared into her eyes, pupils contracted to nonexistence, eyelids unblinking. No other gaze had ever been so intimate, or so certain. He touched a finger to her swelling lips.

  “I dae nae ken entirely what ye are. MacNicol, certainly. But whatever else is in ye, ’tis something wild and magical. I fear that we’re in for it now, lass,” he murmured, pulling her down to him, bringing their mouths together and inhaling deeply.

  It was a strange kiss, she thought through her drowsiness. He wasn’t taking her soul from her as he stole her breaths, but something was tapping her will, compelling her toward some only half-understood end.

  Rory moaned. The sound was desirous, yet also stricken. She understood it, felt it herself. It seemed that they would not be able to slake this thirst for one another. All she could think to do was sink against him and try to make their bodies and breath one. She gripped him hard enough that her nails marked him and ground herself against him. She wished their skin would peel away and their bones would part so that they could touch heart to heart and soul to soul. Something in her wanted to transform, to escape out into the world and envelop them both. It wanted to create, to conjure.

  Sweat spread, pouring off both of them. Fire ignited and etched her where they touched, exciting nerves that ran from breast to belly and then lower. His tongue flicked out as he tasted her briefly in return, his touch a light rasp that grazed over her neck, lapping at the pulse beneath her jaw.

  It was like a cat’s tongue—rough but exciting. It was doing something to her, making her dizzy, making her drown…

  No. She wasn’t drowning anymore. She was on fire!

  Half-wakening from her daze, Hexy cried out and bowed off the bed as Rory turned her head and fastened his lips over the cords of her neck. He began to suckle.

  Fire was everywhere, a strange blend of pleasure and pain spreading out from where he tasted her. Nerves were rioting everywhere on her body. Something was dispersing through her blood, driven into every cramping muscle by her hammering heart. She could hear it, roaring like the sea. It was ecstasy. It was torture. And it was everywhere!

  It couldn’t be real.

  Her eyes were blurred by salty tears, but she looked carefully at herself and then at Rory. Between them they had but four hands, four arms and four legs. They were still two separate beings. Yet it seemed they shared a single skin and perhaps a single heart, for her every touch on Rory’s baby-smooth skin set fire to her own and made her pulse hammer.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, but no sound came forth from her seared lips and parched throat. She lifted her hands off Rory’s body and stared at them. They were coated in a film of glistening silver that burned.

  And suddenly she understood, fully and completely, that Rory was not human. He had told her the truth. He looked like a man, but he was not.

  She stared, dazed. His slender build was so deceptive. The slim bones and muscles of his arms and legs, his very flesh were hiding places for unexpected, even frightening power. His ways, his very biology and physiology, were not hers. She could see it plainly in the silver on her hands.

  And still she wanted him. She would, she thought, even die if she were not given an antidote for the fire running through her. She might die anyway. Sweat was pouring off her in briny rivulets, adding more scent to the linens as her body tried to purge itself of the flames of desire. Only the ocean seemed large enough to put out the conflagration, but she would never reach it in time.

  “Rory?” she whispered, forcing her voice to work. “I think I’m dying. Please, if you can, help me. I need water.”

  Rory lifted his head from her neck where he had been laving the salt from her skin, his own eyes glazed and uncomprehending. Twin, gilded reflections looked down at her from the bronze mirrors of his eyes.

  “Lass?” He touched a finger to her tears. His words were indistinct. “Ye’ve nae need of these. Ye already called me here.”

  “Rory, please. Wake up. I’m frightened. I need water. Look at my hands, my arms. They are dry. My skin is shriveling. I’m burning.”

  His eyes slowly focused. His breath sucked in sharply.

  “There is nae call tae be frightened. I’ll not let it hurt you. I ken what tae do.”

  “You knew this would happen?”

  He shook his head, sending his hair to tumble down on her in a cool wave. �
��Nay. Believe me, I didnae ken all of this. They didnae tell me it would be sae strong.” His voice was thick and drugged, and he seemed to have trouble shaping words. “But yer a MacNicol. And something else. Ye willnae die. Nae woman of yer clan has ever died when she came tae the selkies. We shall finish it and the fire will end.”

  “I don’t understand. But please, just finish it before it’s too late.”

  “Aye.”

  He kissed her once, a meeting of lips that was both pain and pleasure, and then he rolled her onto her stomach. He reached for the carafe beside the bed and poured the cool water over her, from her head to the base of her spine. Her flesh seemed to drink it in, for none spilled onto the linens.

  “It will be better this way,” he said, lying between her trembling legs, forcing them apart. Somehow he was able to ignore the construction of human limbs and twined his legs about hers. His hands were laid over hers and he gripped her fingers. He set his lips to her nape and she felt his teeth.

  If there was pain when he entered her, she could not discern it amid all the other sensations racing through her overstimulated body. She only knew that he began rocking, relentless as the tide at its peak, slamming into her with all the strength of his unhuman legs and hips and back. She buried her face in the sheets, biting the linen as she screamed, fighting for control of her body against the fire running through her.

  He stiffened against her, exhaling in a low growl, and an anodyne was suddenly there. It took several moments for the cooling sensations to spread, but slowly peace and calm lapped their way through her body, quieting scorched nerves.

  Creation. It was done.

  When the pain reached a manageable level and she relaxed tautened muscles, Rory let go of her neck and moved again, slowly and gently, this time taking her like the peaceful surf as it captures a flattened beach. In her ears she could even hear it, the ancient lullabye of the sea.

  Pleasure rippled through her body, spreading out to encompass her.

  “Rory!” she gasped as her inner muscles spasmed.

  She was thrown into sensual release. The ocean seemed to pour through her, over her. She let go and drowned.