The Keepers: Christmas in Salem: Do You Fear What I Fear?The Fright Before ChristmasUnholy NightStalking in a Winter Wonderland (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Heather Graham

  Chapter 6

  “Katie Sue, darling, wake up.”

  Katie’s eyes fluttered open, but they felt dry. Crusty. Something wasn’t right. As her eyes focused and adjusted to the light, she realized her mother was kneeling beside her. Behind her stood Bridgette, her hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide in shock.

  “Mother...” She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat.

  “Shh, sweetheart. Rest a moment. You have to get your bearings.”

  Christina Montgomery rested a hand on Katie’s forehead. “Katie, look at me and concentrate.”

  Bridgette whispered, “What if the children see her?”

  Christina shook her head, smiling at Katie. “Please, Bridgette. She’ll be fine in a moment.”

  Katie Sue felt as if she were returning from some distant place, struggling through a dark tunnel toward the beacon of light that was her mother’s smile.

  Christina focused her full concentration on Katie. “Sweetheart, I don’t know how or where, but you must have found Miranda’s beautiful coat and gotten curious. Something amazing happened. You transformed.”

  Katie was still lying there. She still felt bound and breathing was still difficult, as if the weight of her own body was oppressing her as she lay face down on the floor. She attempted to lift a hand, but no. Something moved, but it felt flat and awkward.

  She gasped.

  Christina laid a hand on her head. “I am going to explain how you can remove the skin, Katie, but please understand. Only you can do it. If I try to open the seam, you’ll be harmed.”

  How had she become a selkie? That was impossible. She was a human. Oh, no. The legend! She needed her body back. Now!

  Christina must have seen the panic in her eyes. “Sweetheart, calm down. You’ll be restored in seconds.”

  She felt the urge to find water and slip into its comforting embrace. This body was heavy. In the waves she would be light and breathing would be easy. Her mother’s voice brought her back to the here and now.

  “Katie Sue, the seam begins just below your jaw and travels to the tail. When it gets to the fins, your hands will reform, and you’ll regain your legs when you reach the tail. Now, think. You have to use your thoughts. The seam begins here.”

  Christina touched a point beneath her mouth. Katie felt her mother’s fingers run along a thin line of skin running through the fur.

  “Katie, I want you to concentrate on my finger. I’ll go slowly. Imagine the seam is a zipper and my finger the zipper pull, opening the zipper as I go.”

  Katie closed her eyes to concentrate. “Ready,” she said, but the sound was nothing like the word. It startled her eyes open.

  Christina chuckled. “This is the first time in your life you’ve been speechless. Now concentrate. Christmas Eve is waiting. A time of magic, even amidst this darkness. Your transformation is proof. We need you.”

  Katie Sue wanted out of the fur. It wasn’t that she felt trapped, exactly. The sensation simply felt bizarre, as if one moment she was herself and the next, fifty pounds heavier with no arms and legs. And her tongue didn’t feel right in her strangely shaped mouth.

  Christina put her face inches from Katie’s and held her gaze as she rolled her onto her side. “Okay. Follow my finger. You can do this.”

  Katie Sue closed her eyes and imagined her mother’s fingertip was the fastener on a zipper. She made a zzzzzip sound in her mind to visualize the action. As she did, cool air filled the gap that was opening in the fur. She gasped. Feeling the fur opening sent a surge of alarm through her, as if flesh were lifting from bone.

  “No, Katie. Don’t struggle.” Christina’s voice was firm. “Now inhale deeply. Close your eyes once more. And concentrate. You’ll be fine. Just imagine you squeezed yourself into a dress two sizes too small and we have to work you out of it. You’ll be okay, I promise you.”

  She trusted her mother implicitly, but the sensation was unnerving. Tingling. Stressful. This must be how a butterfly felt while struggling from a cocoon, compelled by the urgent but daunting drive to emerge.

  Katie jammed her eyes shut, forcing her mind’s eye to follow the gentle trail her mother made down the center of her torso. As the air slipped in, she inhaled deeply and imagined Jett emerging from his coat. She’d watched as he lifted his chin high and the seam would magically begin to release. He never seemed to struggle to transform. Of course, he’d had a lifetime to learn the process, but she drew on that memory now to allow her mind to open the seam.

  “Good, Katie. We’re almost there. Can you free your hands?”

  As the seam passed the flippers, she felt as if leather gloves were sliding from her fingers, pulling a bit at her fingertips. Immediately her fingers flexed and she reached outside the fur. The head cover fell back, and she sucked in a huge breath of air.

  Christina stopped “unzipping” and helped Katie Sue to sit up. “You look like a mermaid.”

  Katie Sue felt dazed. “What happened?”

  Christina glanced at Bridgette. “Tell her.”

  Bridgette dropped to her knees, panic still clear in her eyes. “I came in to tell you the boys were ready and found you out cold in that skin. Good heavens, I thought you’d died. I sat the boys down in front of the TV and called your mother.”

  “How long?”

  Christina said, “About half an hour. You must have needed a nap.”

  Katie Sue laughed. Mother was always quick to lighten a difficult situation. Feeling her body reshape itself to conform to the pelt against her will had been surreal and frightening. “I think I mentally checked out from terror.”

  Bridgette sat back on her heels. “I would never have believed this if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.”

  “Did I just do what I think I did?”

  “Let’s get you out of this coat, then I’ll explain. We have to join the others soon.”

  What, Katie wondered, would Jett say when she told him about this experience? A tremor of excitement ran up her spine as she carefully wriggled the last of the skin from her feet. The enormity of this power flooded her. She had the capability to transform. Heaven help her! She could leave with Jett—if she were willing to reveal that she could become a selkie.

  Had Jett’s mother inadvertently left her a gift? Could this be her destiny? Was she meant to be the mate of a selkie, rather than Jett becoming the husband of a woman? Her mind reeled.

  Impossible. She was the Keeper of the Selkies. Only a human could claim that right. And even if she could permanently transform, would she? Would she be willing to give up her natural form for Jett’s love—the very thing she wanted in her heart for him to sacrifice for her?

  “Katie. You’re pale. Don’t forget to breathe.”

  She glanced at her mother. The same mother who hadn’t seemed one bit surprised by finding her daughter as a selkie. “I need you to explain this now.”

  “Can you stand?”

  Lightheaded, but empowered by the return to her human form, Katie stood. She inhaled deeply and realized she was physically fine. The selkie coat lay at her feet, the skin open wide as if waiting for her to return. She lifted the beautiful silver pelt and laid it carefully on the bed. “Bridgette, could you get me a glass of water? I’m parched.”

  Their cook seemed all too willing to escape the room. “Of course. I’ll be right back.”

  Katie faced her mother. “Please...tell me.”

  “Can you dress while we talk? We really need to move. Sam phoned a few minutes ago and she asked me to tell you she’s called a Keepers meeting for later. They have a lead on the culprit who cast the darkness. We need to be there.”

  “Okay, but, Mom, I found Miranda’s coat in a secret chamber in the old hearth. Why was it hidden there?”

  Christina’s hand flew to her mouth. “In the hearth? Oh, my. Miranda’s husband was caretaker of Montgomery Home. He must have hidden the fur when he repaired the old fireplace. Since he was always on the property, he could always have ac
cess to it.” She closed her eyes. “If we’d only known, Miranda might have lived.”

  “No one would have guessed the fireplace had a secret hiding place, Mom. How could you have known? Let the past rest.”

  Katie slid her dress over her head. She wanted answers about her transformation before Bridgette returned. She dropped her voice. “I knew there was a legend, but I have never heard of a human actually becoming a selkie.”

  The look of pride in her mother’s eyes almost floored her. “It’s been generations since a human transformed.”

  “You knew this was possible?”

  A small smile curved Christina’s mouth. “The legend of the Viking king who loved a selkie princess is no legend. It’s fact. Their son became a selkie and the daughter remained fully human. You and I are direct descendants of that girl, who grew up to protect her brother and his family from hunters. She became the first Keeper and taught us, her daughters, to do the same.”

  “Wait. You’re saying that I—that we—have the selkie gene?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. As Keepers, we’ve always had enhanced abilities in the water and can hold our breath longer than any normal person, but the possibility of transformation comes from the unusual recessive selkie gene in our lineage tracing back to Viking times.”

  Dressing forgotten, Katie Sue dropped onto the bed next to the selkie skin. “So it’s true that I can become a selkie just as Jett becomes human?”

  “Since it’s a rare occurrence to find an abandoned selkie skin, there have been few opportunities over the generations for us to transform. And not all of our lineage can transform. I can’t.”

  “You tried?”

  “Miranda and I were friends. She let me try her coat. Nothing happened.”

  “What does this mean?”

  “It means that even if you were to marry a human man, you could very well have a selkie child.”

  Katie Sue froze as she imagined herself and Jett with a child.

  “And you told these facts to Dad?”

  Christina nodded. “Your father was a man of great compassion. When we met at college and fell in love, I brought him here, explained the Montgomery purpose and then explained my birthmark. He was skeptical until I showed him the family diaries the Keepers have kept throughout the centuries. He had been born and raised in Salem, so he already lived with the mystique of Otherworld possibilities. To find out they really existed was exciting to him. He more than met the challenge of becoming my husband and perhaps having a selkie child, and he was willing to protect that possibility with his life.” Her smile was tender. “He would be so very proud of you, Katie Sue.”

  Katie Sue shook her head. Transforming and now learning of her heritage... It was overwhelming.

  “Speechless again?” Her mother took her hand. “Just keep in mind that whomever you choose as your life mate will have to be a very understanding man.”

  “Or a selkie.”

  Her mother held her gaze, sadness filling her eyes. “Yes. Now that I see you can transform, I could very well lose you to the selkie realm. Although, if I remember correctly, you’re not bound to wait seven years before you can return because you’re human first, not selkie.”

  Bridgette returned, interrupting the conversation between the two women. She handed a glass of water to Katie. “Here, darlin’. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Just feeling a bit shaky. I’ll be fine.” Would she ever really be fine again?

  Katie drained the glass while her mind reeled with her mother’s words.

  Bridgette ran a hand over the pelt on the bed. “What shall we do with this?”

  Christina carefully folded Miranda’s coat and slipped it into a shoulder bag she took from Katie’s closet. “It’s not safe to leave this around. We’ll bring it with us to Sam’s.”

  Chapter 7

  Jett ignored the biting chill as the small party worked its way along the shore to the place where he and Katie Sue had made love a few short hours before. The three men walked in silence, each caught up in his own thoughts. Jett’s mind was full of self-recrimination for unknowingly putting Katie into danger the way he had.

  His mind had been even more consumed than usual with Katie Sue during the long journey back to her. He’d carried her in his heart every day of the past seven years, trying to figure out how he could stay with her forever. Seeing her standing on the beach, hearing the familiar cadence of her voice when she called his name, had ignited a fire that blinded him to everything but her.

  The darkness lying over Salem hadn’t seemed an oddity at his first arrival. Five miles out to sea the sun had finished its trek across the sky and begun to set. Katie’s scent, the pull of the path to his birthplace, the long years since he’d last been to shore, all drew him through the water like a magnet. It just seemed natural to take advantage of what he had thought was an early winter night.

  If only he’d been more aware once he was on shore. But his focus had been entirely on Katie, and he’d needed to make her his one more time before their common sense took over.

  His acute selkie vision didn’t require light to know they’d arrived at the spot. “Here. This is where we were.”

  Kenny was carrying a small battery-operated lantern because they wanted to draw as little attention to themselves as possible, and that meant avoiding the need for Vaughn to cast a fireball spell. Vaughn stepped in front of Jett, using the light to examine the sand. “Try not to disturb the surrounding area. Let’s see what we have here.”

  Kenny stepped next to Jett and watched Vaughn pass his hands above the area. “What should we do?”

  “Nothing.”

  After a moment Vaughn shot a grin at Jett. “The energy here is pretty potent, but I don’t sense anything but you and Katie Sue.”

  Jett pointed up the beach from where they’d lain. “The thief came from this direction.”

  Vaughn nodded. “Again, if you can refrain from moving for just a moment.”

  Kenny said, “Do you need the light?”

  “Not yet.”

  Vaughn moved slowly. The seconds dragged on as he used his hands to feel for any remaining pulse from the intruder’s presence.

  After the third step, he stopped. “Here.”

  “What is it?” Jett asked.

  Vaughn looked troubled in the dim light from Kenny’s lantern. “Your intruder stopped here and waited for the right moment to make his move.”

  A jolt of revulsion shot through Jett. “How did I not notice?”

  Vaughn shook his head. “Buried inside a sleeping bag with your mate for the first time in seven years? I’m surprised you remembered to breathe.”

  Vaughn was trying to make light of the situation, but it didn’t help. Jett was all too aware that he’d put the woman he cherished more than his own life in danger. He shook off the guilt in order to keep concentrating on the task at hand. “As I said earlier, I tracked his scent into the woods up there.”

  “I sense the energy from the pelt, as well. As long as our thief remained on foot, we have a chance.”

  The men retraced the path Jett and Katie had taken earlier, then started moving carefully through the blackened woods. Kenny followed closely behind Vaughn to provide light while trying not to interfere with the other man’s efforts to follow the shifter’s trail. The woods ended at a parking lot adjacent to a state park bordering the Montgomery property.

  “Vaughn?”

  “Don’t worry, Jett. The echo is still strong. Given the vibrations, I’d say the thief broke into a run right here. This way.”

  * * *

  Katie Sue sat in the passenger seat of her mother’s car, holding the bag containing Miranda’s pelt in her lap. She’d refused Christina’s suggestion that they put the coat in the trunk. Transforming might have been initially traumatic, but now Katie felt differently. She didn’t want the fur out of her grasp, let alone her sight. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to open the bag and rest a hand on the si
lken fur.

  Christina broke the silence. “The Keeper council has to be advised of your transformation.”

  “I understand.”

  What Katie Sue couldn’t understand were the visuals that were bombarding her mind, as if wearing Miranda’s coat had awakened something deep within her, something genetic that had been lurking inside her all along. A sense of euphoria surged through her as she felt the thrill of diving effortlessly through the surf into the deeper, canyon-blue waters out at sea side by side with Jett, chasing schools of fish or swirling through the water like a lover entwined with her mate.

  If making love with Jett on land was a mind-blowing experience, how erotic would his touch be if they were weightless beneath the sea? She closed her eyes, imagining such an intimate moment with the man she loved more than anything in her life.

  The silence beneath the waves. The softness of his fur brushing against hers as they swam. She would flirt with him by swimming close, curling herself around his body then swimming away. Jett would move quickly to catch her, nip her, bring her back to him by pressing himself against her underside and propelling her toward the surface.

  When they broke for air, she would lure him to the beach. The beauty of selkies was that they were uninhibited in their sensuality. As a selkie female, she would lead Jett to a sunny stretch of sand just above the waterline and use her telepathic connection to offer her body to him. In her mind’s eye she could see him follow her to a secluded spot behind some low rocks, because she would want to seduce him as a man. Just as she had seen Jett do before, she would raise her head to begin releasing her selkie skin beneath her chin. She would expose her throat to him first, then her breasts, her stomach, her woman’s juncture, arching slowly, stretching her body along the sand. She would rest for a moment, half in, half out of her coat, watching his charcoal gaze burn with desire as he peeled off his own coat like a man removing his clothes and fully prepared to take control of her seduction. He would lean over her, using his mouth on her first until his hands slipped free to caress her exposed human form.

  She would sigh at his touch. Oh, the sweet surrender of slipping from one existence into the other. She would go slowly, waiting until Jett had heated her to abandon, until only his touch mattered and his words of love in her ear overrode the ocean waves breaking on the rocks around them.