Ruairidh, she called again, beginning to despair. I’m sorry, love.
Regret was so strong that it pierced even her personal horror. That was what came at the end of life—regret! She could see it all in terrifying plainness. There would be war now. Her babies, the hope of the People, would die, too—and it was all her fault for being too stupid to realize that she was being lured by magic.
Sorry, Ruairidh…
If the finman’s attack was sudden and vicious, then Ruairidh’s was even more so. Hexy saw at once how selkies differed from seals. Ruairidh’s arms were strangely elongated as they reached for the finman, and at the end of each flipper tip was some sort of retractable claw that jutted out into long, wicked hooks.
Selkies also had long teeth.
To her, no selkie could ever be as physically horrifying as a finman, and perhaps they were not as heavy and strong in the arms. But they were fast and, she now knew, they were ruthless. And these usually gentle seal people could kill efficiently.
The shocked finman tried to untangle his arms from around Hexy’s body to meet the attack, but he was too slow. Claws slashed over his face, rendering him first blind and then hemorrhaging as his throat was cut in four places.
The dying creature spasmed, his convulsion so sharp that it forced most of the air from Hexy’s lungs. Her world was fading, but Ruairidh circled his opponent, coming close enough to give her one quick breath. It was a small thing, no larger than a sigh, but it was sufficient to sustain her while her love tore the dying finman’s arms away and pushed her toward the surface.
Once her head was above water and he saw that she could swim on her own, Ruairidh abandoned her, returning to the seabed to see that the job was finished and this time Sevin’s minion died, too.
They did not talk on the way back to Avocamor. Their swim was slow, both of them being bruised and exhausted, and Hexy was too wracked with guilt for casual conversation.
When they finally reached the cave and climbed out onto the low ledge around the pool, Ruairidh assisted her out of her skin and then shed his own.
“Go rest.” His voice was quiet, unemphatic, and Hexy did not like it at all. He almost didn’t sound like Ruairidh.
Nor did he look like a conquering hero, aglow with the satisfaction of having vanquished an enemy. His face was white, nearly bloodless, and for the first time he showed no reaction to her naked body.
Hexy’s guilt deepened. Once again she had caused Ruairidh to be wounded while he risked his life for her, and she had put him in a position where he had had to kill another being. He probably hated her now.
“Ruairidh—”
“Not now. I shall nae be long, aroon. I need tae tell the others what has happened. We were tae merciful. We maun be sure that all of Sevin’s slaves are dead.”
She tried to take comfort in the fact that he had called her aroon, but the thought of Ruairidh telling Cathair and Keir of her selfish foolishness only deepened her gloom. Keir especially would probably never believe that she had been lured out by the last vestiges of Sevin’s will planted in the surviving finman.
If Ruairidh had thought before that she probably wouldn’t be able to live among the selkies, he would be convinced of it now. Maybe he would send her into exile at that cottage he had mentioned.
Back in their bedroom, Hexy dropped her wet skin beside the bed and, ignoring the spreading bruises that blossomed over her body and the trickles of blood at her shoulder and hip, flung herself down on the sea grass bed and curled in on herself. Unable to hold back the accumulated fright of the last two weeks, she covered her face with her hands and began to cry.
Fear and a near drowning hadn’t brought her any kind of anesthesia, and neither did guilt.
Chapter Eighteen
When Ruairidh returned to his sleeping den it was to find Hexy curled in a ball and weeping. He was exhausted, but all thought of rest fled when he saw her. Alarmed that she might have been hurt in some nonvisible way, he came immediately to her side and touched her on the nape, seeking to soothe her.
“Lass? What is wrong? Are ye hurt?”
“No, but you are.”
Ruairidh’s hand arrested in midstroke. “What?”
Hexy raised flooded eyes to his. In the blue glow, the expanded pupils looked like they had drowned in a deep well. He could now see purpling marks on her throat and ribs and two identical punctures at her hip and shoulder where the finman had set his barbs when he tried to latch onto her face.
Rage and delayed fear of what might have happened filled him in equal measure, but he was careful not to let it show. He felt no remorse at taking the bespelled finman’s life, and a part of him feared that Hexy was shocked at the savagery of his attack and might grow alarmed if she sensed the anger in him.
“I am sorry, lass,” he said gently, trying to soothe her by stroking down her neck and then touching her gently at the site of each wound. “I truly thought ye were safe, but I shouldnae have assumed that it was sae, not after ye told me of being called tae Wrathdrum. That wasnae the work of any chained soul, but of Sevin’s wicked sorcery. Had I been more alert I would hae seen this.”
Hexy shook her head. More tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. Ruairidh didn’t say anything about the effect the tears had on him, but her weeping drove him mad. He didn’t know how this could be, since a summoning spell could only be cast once, but her tears still affected him, each one as potent as the last.
“It was my fault. I should have realized that someone else was in my head and not listened to the voice. But it was like having a sort of amnesia—I couldn’t use my brain…And now your brother will truly hate me. Probably your father, too—and even you will.”
Ruairidh shook his head at this display of remorse for something that was not her fault. Almost he smiled at the wildness of her fancy.
“Tosh! I’ll hate ye the day the oceans run dry…or yer teeth turn green. Can’t abide green teeth,” he added. “Stop crying now, lass.”
Hexy sniffed and then answered in a small voice: “You are just trying to make me feel better.”
“Well, of course I am. What sort of a beast dae ye think me? Any road, there’s nae real harm done,” Ruairidh said, smoothing the maddening tears away with his thumbs. They made his skin sting and his heartbeat deepen. It was difficult, but he forced his voice to remain calm. “A lock of my hair shall hae yer skin sewed up in nae time, and these bruises are nothing. Pups get worse on their first swims all the time.”
It was a lie, of course. Every mark on her body was a travesty. But they would heal, and soon. And someday, maybe, they would both be able to forget what had nearly happened.
Surprised, Hexy finally stopped weeping.
“My skin? You are going to sew up my fur?”
“Of course, as soon as we’ve rested.” That hadn’t been his first thought, but he’d soon realized that he could not let his fear for her safety cripple her. He stroked a hand down his chest and then began rubbing gently at her wounds. She slumped against him at once. “ ’Tis best if ye gae out into the sea immediately, else ye may grow fearful. That would never dae.”
“We’ll go back out together?” she asked, her voice growing weaker.
“Of course. But we maun rest now.” He lowered her onto the bed and then spooned in behind her.
“You drugged me again,” she muttered. “Is that bad for the babies?”
“Nay, the babes enjoy it, and it helps them grow.”
“Are you going to send me away to that cottage?” she asked, sleep clotting her voice as the tranquil painkiller flooded her system.
“I shall send us both away for a bittock,” Ruairidh promised. “I’ve had enough of Avocamor for the time being. They can finish the debate wi’out me.”
“The debate?” she murmured.
“On where the new boundaries should be. We’ll not make war on all finmen for Sevin’s evilness, but we shallnae be so trusting as we were before. Their place is tae the north aw
ay from the People and away from the humans, like mad John, whom they can sae easily control.”
“The finwoman was very nice to me,” Hexy said. “I want to be sure that she is better.”
“We’ll find her,” Ruairidh promised. “And dinnae fear: The exile will nae be against the finwomen. Any who seek it shall have a place here.”
“Thank you,” Hexy breathed, sliding the rest of the way into slumber. “I pity them greatly.”
“Aye, sae dae we all.”
Ruairidh laid a hand on her belly, assuring himself that the babes slept, too. Once satisfied that they were also well, he allowed his own eyes to close and followed her into oblivion.
When Hexy awoke, it was to find Ruairidh dangling a trinket above her, swinging it back and forth like the pendulum in a clock.
“What is that?” she asked, smiling quickly before a yawn chased it away. “They look like pearls, but I’ve never seen any that color before.”
“They are the seeds of midnight,” Ruairidh answered, urging her to sit up so he could drop the smoke-colored pearls over Hexy’s head. “These are very special pearls—both tae be appreciated and deplored.”
“Why?” she asked, touching the pearls once and then snuggling against Ruairidh. The temptation to slide back into slumber was very strong.
“Because I delayed my return tae gather them for ye, and ye had time tae swim tae Wrathdrum.”
“Oh.” Hexy started to frown as bits of memory returned to her in unpleasant flickers that stung her brain. The salt offered a sort of amnesia, but it was short-lived.
“But it was also there that I spoke tae a skua who was wearing a fine lace bandage, and ’twas he that told me where ye were.”
Hexy stiffened as full recollection flooded her. The vision of the finman’s crazed, burned face filled her mind. “Ruairidh!”
“Dinnae fret, lass,” Ruairidh said, closing his arms about her immediately. He sank a fist into her hair and urged her head back. “ ’Tis over. Yer safe.”
For a long moment, he stared into her forlorn eyes and then lowered his mouth to hers, determined to take the stain of unhappiness away.
He meant for the kiss to be chaste. But, as always, the act of touching sent breakers of desire rolling through his body. And he could feel her responding, giving in to the pleasure of the kiss and letting the wild tide take her.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, snagged midstroke when pleasure made them fist. She moaned softly and then leaned over and tasted his neck. Pressed heart to heart, he could feel the change in her pulse and the moment when her body began calling to him.
He laid her back upon the bed and returned the favor, kiss for kiss, taste for taste, allowing the flavor of her to send him into divine madness. Down he kissed the median of her body, pausing to run a cheek against the gentle swell of her breasts.
She was fire—the only fire he had ever craved or wanted, for unlike land fire it was a blaze that did not consume. It was eternal. It could be banked for a time, but not entirely snuffed out, so there would always be heat and light between them.
Skin slid over skin, moving with ease. Breaths quickened. Pulses raced. Skin flushed as heat roared through them.
Though his body proclaimed the urgency of joining itself to hers, Ruairidh waited, taking the time to appreciate and savor all the wondrous things that made Hexy what she was.
Her eyes—no summer yet had known such green! The hollows of her cheekbones, the bow of her mouth—they were all miraculous, unique. He kissed, tasted.
Her delicate collarbone, the slender arms, her long fingers that made her hands so graceful and feminine. He kissed them, too, enjoying the different textures beneath his lips, noting the scars where once they had been joined by a web of skin, and finding them beautiful, too.
His pulse hammered at him, crying out its urgency, throbbing even to the tip of his fingers, but he did not hurry. He let his touch tell her in ways that no words could that he found her beautiful, sweet, soft, alluring, and the cause as well as cure for all the sensual hunger he had ever known.
Beneath him she twisted, a fine mist of perspiration sheening her skin in delicate silver. She urged him closer, whimpering when he didn’t come to her, then muttering and finally biting his shoulder with only enough restraint to avoid breaking the skin.
“Ruairidh!”
He laughed softly at her complaint, though his blood hammered so hard that he could barely breath and steam rose from his skin into the cooler air and plainly announced his desire.
He curled his hand over her soft hair that guarded her feminine heart, feeling the heat of her desire lick at him. It was not the way of the People to be possessive of women—but he would be possessive. Hexy was his—now and forever more.
He caressed her once and felt her shudder. He recognized the small sunburst of pleasure that exploded within her. They were joined in thought now, a part of her melded into him, and he could feel her wants and needs as though they were his own.
He realized then that she would likely feel the same way he did, that his sensations and desires were her own. He worried for an instant that they might frighten her, so direct and hungry were they. But if she had any fear of him, it did not show.
The sharing of sensation was exquisite, but it peeled away his control, chipping at it until hunger finally overcame restraint and he could wait no more.
Her hands were hot on his skin, but not as incendiary as the fire at the place that called him in. There waited cataclysms, pleasure that was just this side of agony. He pressed into her, giving himself to the fire. Then he rolled and settled her astride his hips.
“Dae as ye will,” he urged her, his lips barely able to form words.
She rocked against him, sliding over his aroused flesh and sending ribbons of flame through his body. Her movements grew stronger; she leaned forward as she increased the tempo of their mating dance, driving them both toward conflagration.
A low moan of pleasure came from her lips, and he felt her tightening around him. The world went away in a flash of blinding fire.
“Are you certain that you forgive me?” she asked later, with a shyness that she knew suggested the lingering doubt she felt. It seemed a strange question to ask when the flush of rapture was still on her body and she gleamed with it in the blue light, but she needed to know.
“Aye. I shall tell ye just what I said tae Keir.” Ruairidh’s voice was low and serious. “There is nae part of what ye did that requires forgiveness. Whatever the cause, ye went tae Wrathdrum and tae face yer worst fears because ye thought tae save me. Ye were willing to risk yer life tae save mine. That is an act of devotion that nae selkie—and certainly nae finman—has seen in over four hundred seasons. I’d forgive ye anything for that alone.”
Hexy blushed and looked down at her shoulder. There was only a small red mark remaining of the finman’s wound.
“Look! I am healed!”
“Aye, of course.” Ruairidh touched her hair, smoothing it from her face. “The exchange of salt has great healing properties. That is part of why selkies are hunted. I believe it is why Sevin tried tae take the pups and stole our dead. His evil magic was eating him alive. He needed something tae stop it, and he thought that the People were the answer. Of course, he was wrong.”
“The salt only heals other selkies?”
“Or the women we love. ’Tis a gift we can give tae our lovers even when we cannae give of ourselves beyond the one year we are allowed at a summoning.”
“And have you loved many women?” Hexy asked, eyes courageously steady as she gazed at Ruairidh. “Will there be one every year forever more? Or are there more than one?”
Ruairidh’s lips curled into their odd smile, which she found so endearing. His dark eyes glowed softly. “Nay. Looking after the one is quite task enough for me. I doubt that I shall ever need another.”
Ducking her head so Ruairidh would not see her disappointment in his reply, Hexy nodded. “That I can well believe.
I’ve always thought the polygamists insane.”
“Keir believes he can manage it, but that isnae the life for me. I have my woman. I need nae other.”
“I see.”
“Dae ye?” he asked, his voice a bit skeptical. “I think that sometimes ye listen but dinnae actually hear what I am saying.”
“We’ll see how you feel at the end of the year.” Not wanting to spoil the moment, Hexy asked hurriedly, “You are certain that the salt is good for the babies?”
She watched as Ruairidh ran a hand over her silvered skin, tickling her with his clever fingers until she giggled and pushed his hand away.
“Faithless one. Mayhap you’ll be assured when the year has come and gone and I am still wi’ ye.”
“I’m sure I will,” Hexy answered.
Archimedes probably hadn’t figured out how to calculate pi right away either. She would just have to keep hunting for a solution to her worries.
“Aye, ye will, mistress of doubt. Now, about yer other worries…ye need nae be concerned about the salt. It is like mother’s milk tae the babes.”
“Only not exactly given the same way,” she teased back, making every effort to keep the mood light.
“True. I am nae their mother, nor can they suckle from me.”
“But I can.” Hexy leaned over and inhaled the delicious, slightly sleepy scent of his skin, and then pressed her lips and tongue against his chest.
Ruairidh inhaled sharply. “Aye, you can. But is that wise?”
“Probably not. But being near you has done dreadful things to my brain. In fact, I believe it has gone missing.”
“Och! Best we see about finding it again. We cannae hae ye walking about wi’out a brain.”
“I suppose not—but let’s look later.”
The Selkie Page 21