Selkie Island

by Jorrie Spencer

  “You expect to find him here?” Morag’s relation’s expression turned incredulous, and Clay wondered what Morag could have told him to bring him all this way in his boat. “How would he even get here?”

  But Aaron was watching Morag, not her cousin. “I think you know something about Clay, don’t you, sweetheart?”

  The cousin frowned. “Now listen here—”

  “Shut up, Graybeard.” Aaron trained his gaze on Morag and Clay’s insides began to twist. “You tell me where he is, or I’ll make you tell me.”

  She didn’t answer, didn’t react.

  “Listen,” repeated her cousin, angry now. “She’s a bit slow, touched.” He tapped his temple to reinforce his point. “She has funny ideas. You just leave her alone.”

  Slowly shaking his head, Steeles reached behind his back to bring out his gun and Clay’s heart plummeted. Aaron didn’t care what happened to these people. He thought it would be easy enough to hide evidence of their deaths on this small island with the ocean all around them.

  Aaron spoke again, his tone poisonous, and Clay recognized that time had run out. “Touched or not, this girl knows about Clayton, Graybeard, and she’s going to tell us.”

  Clay moved forward, raising his gun, and as he did, everything went slow and fast all at the same time. Graybeard reached for his weapon, a knife, which he had no hope of using before Steeles got off a shot. Aiming for Steeles’s head, Clay fired while Morag leapt to defend Graybeard from Steeles’s attack. In his turn, Graybeard moved with a speed and decisiveness that surprised Clay, plunging his knife into Aaron before he could use his gun.

  As Clay came up to them, Aaron stared at him blankly, recognition there but fading almost immediately as his gaze dropped to his chest, to the knife within him.

  “Fuck,” he gasped before he collapsed, bleeding out because the blade had hit his heart. Clay spun to check again, that yes, he’d shot true and Steeles was down, dead, not a threat.

  Into the stunned silence came Graybeard’s bellow of “What the fuck is wrong with these assholes?”

  Clay met his gaze, and the man had eyes like Morag’s, of all the things for him to notice. There was fury on that stranger’s face and, for a moment, Clay thought that Graybeard was enraged enough to pull that knife out of Aaron and gut him too. In the confusion Graybeard might not have realized Clay was on his side, had shot Steeles.

  “Clay.” His name was whispered, and Clay shifted to reach for Morag who’d returned for him. To his horror, she fell towards him and he saw she was bleeding, had taken a bullet in the chest, the one that had been meant for her cousin.

  Clay’s earlier words came back to haunt him. A gunshot wound is a terrible way to die, Morag.

  God, no. Clay lay her down and yanked off his shirt to stanch the blood. “Jesus, Morag.”

  She lifted heavy lids and looked at him. “I couldn’t let them kill my sister’s grandson, Clay.”

  He dropped beside her, pressing down on the wound, trying to figure out the best way to bind it and stop the blood.

  “She saved my life. Goddamn,” swore the grandson, still standing in shock, still bellowing and enraged. “I thought she was a nutcase making up strange tales to get attention. I only came here to mollify my elderly mother.”

  Clay pressed on Morag’s wound and feared the grandson wouldn’t do anything but yell in confused anger. To his relief the man turned terribly efficient, and the next hour passed in a blur as they raced to save Morag’s life. He and Clay bound the wound as tightly as possible, then carried Morag to the lifeboat and into the larger boat. Henry—they managed to exchange names—was marvelously quick at getting the boat back to the small town, nothing like Clay’s slow, torturous journey out to Selkie Island a couple of weeks ago. Henry even radioed ahead to arrange for an ambulance to be waiting for them.

  Clay held Morag’s hand and spoke to her the entire way, urging her to stay with him, though she was only conscious for the first ten minutes. At the shore, they took her away, barring him and Henry from the ambulance, so they followed in Henry’s truck, driving to the hospital to wait.

  The wait was interminable. At some point an old woman joined them, and it took Clay a moment to understand she was Henry’s mother. Even stranger, to Clay’s consternation, she appeared to know who he was.

  Morag had talked about him after he left Selkie Island nine years ago, the woman said, describing Clay as a young man from away who Morag had become fond of. Henry’s mother patted Clay’s arm reassuringly and declared Morag was strong, and he didn’t know how to answer that. No matter how strong a person, a bullet was stronger. Morag had held Clay’s gun one time, but she hadn’t wanted to be shot by Steeles, not when Clay was with her. He was sure about that.

  Hours later he came to learn that Morag had died on the operating table and they brought her back twice. They were cautiously optimistic, but in a warning kind of way so he didn’t know if they meant it. She was resting in ICU and while they wouldn’t spell it out, there was fear of brain damage after one of the resuscitations. Clay could hardly process it, even with Henry’s mother taking his hand and telling him that he’d done good.

  “It doesn’t feel good, ma’am.”

  She smiled and a shiver ran through him because he recognized it as Morag’s smile. “You can call me Morag, dear.”

  He blinked, trying to decipher that. He was so tired. “Morag?”

  “Yes. You see, I was named after my aunt.”

  Chapter Nine

  Clay refused to leave the hospital until he could see Morag, although apparently he was welcome in Henry’s home.

  “The door is always open,” the elder Morag declared as her son took her away and Henry nodded agreement. Clay searched the man’s face for reticence or resentment, and there was none.

  In fact he parted with the statement, “I owe you my life.”

  Not really, since Henry would never have been threatened if Clay hadn’t arrived here, but Clay didn’t have the energy to point that out. Instead, they bid each other good night.

  Clay would think about it all later, about the consequences of Aaron’s death. It would have to be reported come morning. Soon there would be people asking him a lot of questions—police and CSIS—but unless he’d miscalculated badly, none of them would want him dead.

  Morag wasn’t dead. And in the early hours of the following day, a resident took pity on him and allowed him into Morag’s room.

  “Just a few minutes,” he warned Clay.

  He trod softly, unwilling to wake her, but as he looked down, she opened her eyes, dark in a pale face. Her freckles stood out and her lips seemed drained of blood. She’d needed more than one infusion.

  She flexed her fingers and he picked up her hand, cradled it between his two.

  “It’s over,” she whispered and her eyes became bright with a sheen of tears that did not fall.

  “It’s over,” he agreed, recalling the long months where Aaron had been a dark and dangerous threat to everything he held dear.

  She tilted her chin slightly in question. “I mean the curse, my curse. It’s over. It’s gone.”

  He frowned, swallowing, trying to understand what she meant.

  “I think I died, and that’s how the selkie’s shadow-light left me. I can no longer feel the blessing. I can no longer shift.”

  Clay didn’t know what to say, and he couldn’t read her expression. Was she happy or sad? Maybe both. “I’m here,” he offered, because he was. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Is it true what I overheard, that I died and they brought me back?” She gripped his hand. It was what he’d been told, so he nodded, watching her cautiously. To his surprise, she smiled and it was a smile of relief. “I’ve always wanted to be human again. But it feels strange,” she added in a whisper.

  He leaned down and kissed the tear that leaked from her eye.

  “When I’m better, Clay, will you teach me to read again?”

  He kissed her cheek, reassur
ing himself that she was alive, she was with him. “Yes.”

  One year later

  The day was calm and the sun high. A fog bank in the distance sent cool air their way, but that didn’t faze Morag. In fact, Clay was a little worried that she’d bounce right out of the boat in her excitement.

  She’d had to relearn to swim as an adult and a human. It hadn’t come quite as easily as she expected. That first time in the city pool when she’d gone under and had to be pulled up had scared the shit out of them both, but she’d been determined to go back in. No way was she going to be scared of water after spending almost a century in it.

  Turning to him, she grinned and as if reading his mind, pointed at her lifejacket. “Don’t worry.”

  Henry was driving them today, their first visit out to the island, because he didn’t trust Clay or Morag with his boat yet. They’d be able to borrow it in a couple of days, he said, after they spent time with his mother and learning about the boat. Then they’d live for a week on Selkie Island and see how they fared when Morag was all human all the time.

  “I can’t believe how much I missed this,” Morag marveled.

  When they’d first left Cape Breton, Morag had declared that after decades tied to one place, she couldn’t get far enough away. But while she’d enjoyed living with Clay in the city, getting used to a huge number of changes—TV, let alone the computer, had left her gobsmacked—by the time spring rolled around she was pining for home.

  “It’s like old times,” she said, “visiting the island in the summer.”

  “Like old times,” Henry repeated, shaking his head. “Mother rests easier now, knowing you’ve been released.”

  Clay nodded. He understood that Henry’s mother had been asked by her mother to watch out for her sister the selkie and to bring her home if she could. Because of this, Clay had become the elder Morag’s hero in a way that embarrassed him and amused his wife.

  It also embarrassed him that the elder Morag was now demanding a “new first cousin” she could hold in her arms before her time was up. Yes, he and Morag planned to have a family, but another year or two of non-selkie living seemed like a good idea.

  Morag went up to hug Henry. “Thank you for bringing us.”

  “Of course,” he said tersely. “It’s the least I can do after not believing in you for the last thirty years.”

  “You brought me supplies.”

  “I did that.”

  “Sometimes it’s the actions that count most.” Morag caught Clay’s hand. It had taken her a year to believe that Clay wasn’t going to up and leave her. Promises could only get you so far, so Clay intended to spend the next few decades following through and staying married. He loved his wife.

  Morag spun and pointed. “Look!”

  Following her finger, Clay’s gaze landed on a dark, sleek head watching them. Not a selkie, but a seal. He squeezed her hand. He thought the sight might be painful for Morag.

  “It’s okay,” she reassured him. “I wanted to see the seals again. As a human.”

  He tucked her against him as they watched a second seal join the first.

  “Unlike them, I couldn’t have a family when I was seal. Well, I was never seal, but selkie, something lost in-between.”

  “You’re not lost now,” pronounced Henry, as if that put an end to any ambivalent feelings she might have about no longer being able to live in the ocean.

  But she grinned at her great-nephew’s words and kissed Clay on the cheek. “You’re right. I’m home.”

  About the Author

  Jorrie Spencer has written for more years than she can remember. Her latest writing passion is romance and shapeshifters. She lives with her husband and two children in Canada and is thrilled to be published with Samhain.

  To learn more about Jorrie Spencer please visit www.jorriespencer.com or send an email to Jorrie Spencer at jorriespencer@gmail.com.

  She also writes as Joely Skye (www.joelyskye.com).

  Look for these titles by Jorrie Spencer

  Now Available:

  Haven

  The Strength of the Pack

  The Strength of the Wolf

  Puma

  One choice means heartbreak. The other, death.

  Run, Wolf

  © 2009 Keith Melton

  Nightfall Wolf Clans, Book 1

  Leah Kendrick is guilty of only one crime: loving her human mate, Tom, enough to give him the gift of The Bite. The Pack council is merciless, and the punishment swift. In an instant everything she’s ever known is ripped away, and they’re turned out into the long winter with nothing. No money, no car, and no protection from a variety of creatures who’d like nothing more than to take down a lone wolf.

  Friendless and broke, they form a daring plan to take back what’s theirs and chase safety north. But the Pack has other ideas. And with time running out it’s about to call their bluff…

  Warning: Contains savage werewolf combat, defiant love, graphic violence/language/sex, kangaroo trials and unrepentant criminal havoc.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Run, Wolf:

  We drove in silence, Tom at the wheel, on our way to steal back the money the pack had stolen from me. The weight of the quiet seemed to crush down around me in the truck, as if I were a mile underwater instead of driving through Somerville toward Cambridge. We headed south down narrow Prospect Street with its triple-decker houses that pushed right up against the road, looking faded and a little tired in the midday sun.

  The shotgun lay beneath a blanket near my feet on the passenger side. Unloaded, but I was careful not to touch it. Respectful. Under my coat, I wore a polyester summer robe and nothing beneath it, in anticipation of the Change. I’d wrapped myself in one of those space-age thermal blankets that looked like a big sheet of aluminum foil and cranked the heater to keep my legs from freezing.

  The office was a rundown one-story brick-fronted building. A wide, plate-glass display window took up most of the scarred façade, but I couldn’t see inside through the bleary glass because of the blinds. A sign that said Chockley Real Estate Management had been painted on the glass, though the letters were now nicked and chipped. Weeds grew out front, poking up through cracks in the sidewalk.

  The street was mostly empty, with only a few cars parked here and there. Frost still lingered in the shadows where the sun hadn’t reached. Tom pulled the truck over to the curb just before the front of the building, trying to keep our getaway vehicle as close as possible and still stay out of the view of anyone who might be inside.

  He looked at me. His eyes were steady, no trace of any fear, just a clear focus. “Ready?”

  I nodded. My heart was beating—not fast—but with a strange weighted force so I could feel the thump reverberate through my chest and into my throat. I just wanted to get this done so we could go. Could go somewhere and live in safety. Not so goddamn much to ask.

  Tom reached down and gently lifted the shotgun. He loaded it with shells, one after another, and then he pumped a round into the chamber. The sound was all business, a dead-serious click-clack that raised goose bumps on my skin, despite the fact that I knew the gun would be largely useless. My eyes strayed to the small, corded leather bag tossed in the console’s drink holder. That was what would make the difference. My mother’s sterling-silver shrimp ring was wrapped inside. I’d put it there with salad tongs first thing this morning, and I had the wounds to show for it. When I’d been unwrapping it, I’d brushed a little too close to the silver and my left hand had a line of blisters along my index finger that would be a long time healing. I could still feel the dull throb of pain.

  Tom set the shotgun across his lap and lifted the bag, his face a mask of disgust at the feel of the silver’s hateful aura. The ring seemed to send out a pulse—like a woofer pushing air for bass—that repelled us both. He slipped the leather bag over his head, careful to have it lay against the outside of his jacket. It was vital that the werewolves be able to smell the silver—just enough to ma
ke them unsure if the shotgun was loaded with silver pellets.

  Tom looked at me and nodded. I shrugged off my coat and the silver gray blanket, pulled the door handle and stepped out onto the street. I kept my arms wrapped about me, though it did little to fight the cold. A powerful yearning swept through me to Change immediately and revel in the warmth of my fur, but I fought the urge. I couldn’t shift until I was inside, otherwise the world would be treated to the first armed robbery that started with a naked woman on the sidewalk, and ended with something sporting a sharper set of teeth.

  We hurried toward the glass door. Tom kept the shotgun as concealed as he could by his jacket. I clutched the robe around me, but the cold bit right through it and the cement froze my bare heels. My heart kept up that heavy thud.

  Tom reached out and pulled the door open. A hot sizzle of adrenaline pumped into my veins, and an electronic sensor sang out an artificially cheery deeeng dong.

  The woman at the high counter looked up at us as we pushed inside. I recognized her immediately. Her name was Nora something. She’d been here the first time I’d come with Hannah to sign up for my car loan. Her eyes widened and her hand paused, hanging in the air only a few inches from a beige mug giving off the smell of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

  Tom swung the shotgun up and stared at her along the iron sights. “Don’t twitch.” He pushed deeper into the office and I shadowed him. “Can you smell the silver?”

  Nora’s lips pulled back from her teeth in a disgusted grimace. “Yes.”

  “This is loaded with silver buckshot. Don’t make me use it.”

  Nora’s gaze jumped to me. I could see the emotions in them—the hate, the offense that I’d do something like this. The smile I gave her dripped all kinds of nasty.

  “Leah,” Tom said. His voice was so calm it even helped settle me down some. “Do it.”