Shifter

by Lora Leigh

  Griff held her gaze, his dark eyes smoldering.

  Her breathing quickened. If he touched her…If he kissed her…

  But he did neither.

  “Teach, then,” he growled. “I will leave your bed. Until you ask me back to it.”

  He closed the door quietly behind him, leaving her alone with her cold porridge and her cooling thoughts.

  Griff lurked in the great hall, listening for the sound of Emma’s voice, cursing his duty and her stubbornness.

  Conn had designated the antechamber as her schoolroom, furnishing it with mismatched tables and chairs, a globe, and a few—a very few—books. Emma had spoken with longing of a package lost in the wreck, Paradise Lost and Jane Eyre and Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. But Iestyn had contributed a Bible, a parting gift from his human father, and today the class took turns reading, copying verses onto slates.

  “‘There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.’” Emma’s clear, expressive voice rippled over Griff like the wind on water. He eased from the shadow of the doorway to watch her.

  She stood beside the smoking fire, her sunrise hair confined at the back of her neck, her pretty breasts buttoned behind the ugly gray dress she favored. The selkies’ enchantments did not affect her. But a week on Sanctuary had worked its magic anyway. Her face was faintly golden from science lessons disguised as long walks on the beach. The challenge of keeping a dozen restive adolescents interested and engaged had given new energy to her movements and a lilt to her voice.

  Young Iestyn in particular looked at her like a milk-fed pup presented with a side of beef. Poor whelp. Griff wondered if his own face bore a similar expression.

  “Iestyn, will you try the next verse?” Emma invited.

  The boy bent over the tattered volume. “‘And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth,’” he read slowly.

  Emma smiled. “Very good. Roth?”

  Reluctantly, the stocky boy beside Iestyn took the book. “‘And in the six hu—hun—’”

  “Hundredth,” prompted Emma.

  “‘Hundredth year of…of…’” Roth flushed and snapped the book closed. “This is stupid.”

  “You are stupid,” Iestyn said.

  “Sod off. I don’t care about your dumb story anyway.”

  “Noah and the ark is a beautiful story,” Emma said coolly. “And I appreciate Iestyn sharing his book with the class to read. Now—”

  Griff marveled at her patience. His own was wearing thin, with her students, with her, and with himself.

  “I will leave your bed,” he had told her seven days and six long nights ago. “Until you ask me to come back to it.”

  Cocksure idiot.

  She had not asked.

  And he was aching for her.

  Roth’s chair scraped back, recalling Griff’s attention. “I don’t need to learn to read.”

  His defiance dropped into the classroom like a stone. Heads turned or lifted. Insubordination rippled outward.

  “Sit down, please,” Emma said, low and firm.

  “You cannot make me.”

  Griff had heard enough. “I can.”

  He strolled forward, keeping his eyes hard on the boy until the whelp dropped his gaze.

  “I don’t see why I have to learn this stuff,” Roth muttered. “After I Change—”

  “You learn because my lord says you will,” Griff said. “Because if you don’t, I will crack your ignorant head. The same goes for the lot of you. Sit.”

  Roth sat.

  Griff nodded to Emma to continue. She did so, without losing her composure or her place in the book, and he thought that was the end on it.

  But when the story and the lesson were done and her charges were dismissed for the day, Emma looked at him, waiting at the back of the room as had become his custom, and raised her chin.

  “In the future, I would appreciate it if you would let me handle discipline in my classroom.”

  If she was in the mood for a fight, Griff was ready to oblige her. Seven days.

  He crossed his arms against his chest. “Handle it, how?”

  “I would have spoken with Roth after class. He struggles with reading. He only needs a little extra attention.”

  “And if you could not find him after class? Or he would not listen?”

  Her soft lips pressed together. “Then I would have addressed the matter with Lord Conn.”

  “Who would have told me to deal with it.” Griff shrugged. “My way just saved you a couple of steps.”

  “And possibly cost me the trust of my students.”

  She did not back down. Stubborn. He tried not to like that about her.

  “They trust you,” he said. He figured she needed to hear it, and it was true.

  “They like me because I feed them regular meals, which is not the same thing at all.”

  He grinned. “There is that.”

  “Thank you for the fish this morning,” she added.

  He moved closer so he could smell her hair. “You are welcome.”

  He thought her breathing hitched, but she did not move away. “About the students—” she said.

  “Young bulls fight to establish their place. You outrank them. But they need to know if they step out of line, they deal with me.”

  Her lips curved before she shook her head. “They are children, not animals.”

  They were children who would grow up to be animals, who would learn to take their proper place and form in the sea. But he did not think she was ready for that explanation. Not yet.

  He was silent.

  “It’s important that they respect my authority,” she continued earnestly.

  “Aye.” His tone was dry. “So you said.”

  “I will be your mistress, or I will be the children’s teacher,” she had told him when she barred him from her bed. “I cannot be both.”

  He saw her remember, watched the wild color bloom in her face.

  Standing this close, he could see the freckles on her nose, feel the faint warmth of her body, smell chalk and soap and the feminine perfume of her skin and hair. A strand had escaped its bounds to curl against her neck. He caught the curl between his fingers, watching the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the gray fabric of her dress. She did not protest, did not slap his hand away. So, brushing the strand aside, he pressed a kiss to the side of her throat.

  Her pulse leaped wildly under his lips. Her hands reached up and clutched his shoulders. She tasted of salt and desire. He raised his head to look at her—wary, brave, determined Emma—and then kissed her as humans kissed, face-to-face, mouth-to-mouth, sharing his breath, stealing hers.

  Her lips were moist and soft. His tongue stroked them, probed them, seeking entrance. With a little moan, she opened to him, tender, yielding. He fed on her response, her human heart, her human soul, there on her lips.

  He raised his head with a groan.

  “Emma.” He gave her her name. He did not know what else to give her. He was not at all sure what she would accept.

  He was a warden, a warrior. For centuries, he had battled the encroachments of demons with confidence and skill. Now, with her, he was as awkward and uncertain as a pup on ice.

  Her wide blue gaze focused on his face, her pupils dilated. She looked as dazed as he felt.

  “Are you—” What? “—happy?” he asked.

  She blinked. “With our…arrangement, do you mean?”

  With that, gods, yes. He wanted her to reconsider, to take him to her bed. He wanted to put himself into her so deep and so often he became a part of her, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone.

  He wanted more than that.

  “With your life here on the island,” he said.

  Her chin firmed. “I am content. I am doing work I love with children I am coming to care for.”

  She would always, he thought, make the best of any situation. She was by turns
fierce and determined, pragmatic and kind. Conn had chosen her well for her role as teacher of Sanctuary’s children. Griff had chosen well.

  The thought depressed him.

  “And that is enough for you.” His tone made the statement not quite a question.

  Emma did not answer.

  Griff tried again. “You said once you dreamed of a home and family of your own.”

  “I dream about seals.”

  His breath stopped. “What?”

  She gave an embarrassed half laugh. “I’ve been dreaming about North Devon. Not the farm, or my family. But walking the sea cliffs where I grew up, watching the seals on the beach below. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Not so strange, given that you spend your nights under a sealskin.” His sealskin. Did she ever dream of him?

  “Is that what the fur on my bed is?” Her face clouded. “Poor seal.”

  “It gave its pelt to keep you warm.”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “But they are such beautiful creatures.”

  “Emma.” He paused, searching for words, for reasons that would convince her. “Conn is well pleased with your work. The children like you. If a ship comes—when a ship comes—you do not have to leave.”

  She regarded him steadily with her big blue eyes. “Would that be enough for you?” she asked, echoing him. “If I stayed for the sake of Lord Conn and the children?”

  It had to be.

  Among the children of the sea, alliances and affections were fleeting. Selkies might mate, but few pairings sustained for centuries.

  Yet Emma, in the way of her kind, sought assurances. Commitment.

  So Griff told the truth.

  “I want you to stay,” he said. “I miss you. One time only we had, and I cannot stop thinking about you. I have not had another woman since that night.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and he wondered if truthfulness was perhaps a mistake. Human ways were different. Emma was different.

  “I do not want another woman ever,” he added carefully. “Only you.”

  She tipped her head to one side. “Griff, are you…courting me?”

  He held her gaze. “If that’s what it takes to have you, aye.”

  “Well, then.” Her smile danced across her face like sunlight on the sea. His heart turned over in his chest. “I suppose I will stay.”

  SIX

  A home and a family of my own.

  Emma stood on the tumbled shore as the wind whipped the waves to froth and chased the clouds like whitecaps across the sky. The castle on the cliffs reared at her back. She watched her pupils straggle in and around the tide pools, gathering mussels for dinner. Iestyn gazed out to sea with a pensive expression, the breeze snatching at his rags. Roth chased Una and another girl across the rocky beach, waving broad strands of kelp like battle flags.

  The students were not really her children. She did not really belong here.

  But after several weeks, Sanctuary felt curiously like the home she had always longed for.

  Because of Griff. His attention made her feel appreciated, supported, accepted.

  Loved.

  Emma wrapped her arms about her waist, hugging her happiness to her. He had promised to join them on the beach this afternoon after his meeting with Conn. Emma could not imagine what the two men spent their time talking about. Most lords and stewards discussed land and tenants, livestock and crops. But the island appeared as poorly populated as the castle. She saw no old people and no very young ones. The hills and heaths produced nothing but wild oats and apples, and the only animals she saw, beyond the teeming colonies of seabirds, were small brown wild sheep.

  It did not matter. Griff saw to it that she and the children were fed.

  Emma had met her employer exactly twice, once when Conn had offered her the post of teacher, and again when she informed him of her decision to stay. The lord of Sanctuary was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, with hair the sleek blue black of a mussel shell and eyes the color of rain.

  He was also the coldest.

  However, he told her, in his polite and formal way, that he was pleased to have her here and offered her the princely salary of forty pounds a year. Emma did not see how this bare estate could afford such a sum. But then, she couldn’t imagine how she was to spend it living on this island, either.

  Griff told her she had only to ask for anything she wanted. The island, he said, traded for what it needed and could not produce. And despite the noticeable lack of a harbor and his earlier warning about transport lines, Emma noticed there were frequent visitors to Sanctuary. She glimpsed them sometimes in the hall or the corridors that led to Conn’s tower: broad-chested men and women with a great deal of bosom showing. Once she looked up from her teaching to find a woman watching her from the back of the classroom, a woman with Iestyn’s golden eyes and a silver chain like Griff’s about her neck.

  For the most part, however, the castle visitors paid little attention to Emma. Clearly, a mere schoolteacher was beneath their notice. And she paid little mind to them. She preferred to concentrate on her students, her students and Griff, shoving away the occasional awareness, a growing sense that something was not quite…normal about her full, satisfying, productive life.

  She hugged her elbows tighter against a sudden chill.

  Foam burst against the rocks and drained away, revealing the white bones of barnacles and a spill of scarlet weed like blood.

  Along the water’s edge, the girls laughed and shrieked as Roth chased them with the flapping kelp. Their screams mingled with the call of the gulls. And then the tenor of their voices changed, became cries of alarm. Distress.

  Dread shivered along Emma’s arms. She shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun, squinting down the beach. Something was wrong. Una—

  Emma began running, her boots clattering and sliding over the rocks, even before the girl screamed and fell to the ground.

  The children stood like sheep around the body writhing at the water’s edge. Una shrieked again, clutching her stomach, her lips drawn back in pain.

  Emma’s stomach rocketed to her throat. “It’s all right, my dear. You’re all right.”

  But she wasn’t.

  Una screamed again, panting like a woman in childbirth, gasping, guttural breaths that ripped at Emma’s heart. Beneath her simple dress, her body undulated. Heaved. A seam split, and fur, pale, brindled fur, poured through the opening.

  God. Dear God. The girl was being swallowed alive, consumed by the beast coiling under her gown.

  Emma dropped to her knees, fumbling in her pocket for the knife Griff had given to her. Una hissed. The children swayed and pressed closer with pale faces and glittering eyes.

  “Get help!” Emma yelled at them. “Get Griff!”

  Una moaned and clutched at her. Her nails drew blood.

  Emma yanked the knife from its sheath. But she could not see where the girl ended and the beast began, could not risk plunging the blade through the straining fabric into the shifting mass where the girl’s legs should be.

  Sobbing in terror, she slid the knife through the garment’s seams, ripping Una free from the constricting cloth.

  “Warden’s coming!” Iestyn shouted.

  Thank God. Emma spared a glance from Una’s twisting body.

  Griff charged—naked, a shock among all the other shocks—from the direction of the castle, a dark bundle in his arms. A blanket? A cover. The fur cover from her bed.

  Emma’s jaw dropped.

  He ran barefoot over the rocks, muscled legs flexing, broad shoulders gleaming, until he reached the edge of the sea. His strong feet gripped the rock. His arms extended over his head. Just for a moment, his gaze met Emma’s, his eyes dark and fathomless, churning with emotion.

  The fur swirled over his shoulders.

  The air shimmered with mist.

  And on the beach where he had stood, a gray bull seal reared on the rocks.

  Shock slammed through Emma, exploded in her chest, burst in her
head. Her vision dimmed. She cried out in loss and denial.

  No. Dear God, please, God, no.

  Una wriggled in her arms.

  Shuddering, Emma glanced down—at the whiskered face, the round, brown eyes, the fat, sleek form of a young seal.

  No, no, no, no, noo….

  She sat helpless, stunned, as a wave washed up and wet her skirt, as the children crowded around her, as the bull seal herded the young cow into the sea.

  Leaving Emma kneeling on the shore, clutching the tatters of Una’s gown and the shreds of her own illusions.

  A candle burned, quiet against the dark. A single yellow flame against the starless night outside Emma’s window, against the smothering numbness of her soul.

  She had already cried—well, bawled, really—as she had not cried since that night in Griff’s arms. The memory of his tenderness nearly set her off again.

  But eventually her tears were done, gone, leaving her wrung out and hollow, and there was nothing left, not shock or sorrow or fear or pride. Only this cold emptiness.

  How could she not have known? How could she not have questioned? Blinded by happiness and her own desires, she had seen only what she wanted to see. She had made assumptions about Griff. About their future.

  Just as she had with Paul.

  She was a fool. But how could she possibly have imagined…this?

  She shuddered and closed her eyes.

  There were legends around the islands of Scotland and the Cornish coast, stories of beautiful creatures with powerful sexual allure who took the form of men and women on land and the form of seals in the sea, tales made up to while away a long winter evening in front of the fire—or justify an unexplained pregnancy.

  Any village girl reluctant to name a married man as the father of her baby could claim she had been seduced by a stranger from the sea. Of course, everyone in the village knew such girls were foolish, deluded. Mad.

  But now…

  Emma had proved herself as foolish, as deluded, as any one of them. She could be the girl abandoned onshore while her belly swelled with…what?

  She had seen with her own eyes what Una had become. And Griff.

  She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She would almost have preferred to be crazy. Instead, she was bereft, betrayed. Alone in the dark.

  Alone.

  Griff had deceived her. The man she loved—had trusted with her body and her heart and her future—was not really a man at all.

  The door whispered open behind her. She felt his presence before she opened her eyes, like a rise in the temperature of the room or a weight pressing on her chest.

  “The first Change is hard,” Griff said quietly in his deep, burred voice. “Even when they know, even when they are prepared for it.”

  Emma turned to face him, afraid of what she might find. Dismayed by what she felt for him. Still.

  He stood just inside the doorway, watching her in the dark, his eyes gleaming in the light of the single candle. Animal eyes, she thought.

  “I was not prepared,” she said.

  He winced. “No.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He cleared his throat. “There was no time—”

  “You had weeks.” Her voice rose on the word. She was almost shrieking. If she were not careful, she would start screaming, and then she might never stop. She gripped her hands tightly together at her waist. “Weeks of me living here, teaching here, talking with you—”

  Loving you, she thought but did not say.