The Silkie's Call

by Laura Browning

  Carrick closed his eyes. “I gave her my word.”

  “Damn. You.” Cayden leaped to his feet snarling, pushed beyond endurance. “Damn you to the deepest depths of the sea! Don’t you understand? There is nothing for me without her. If she dies, I will track down Ciaran. I will kill him and then kill myself. I will leave you with no one to carry on your precious Silkie line. No. One.”

  As Carrick stared into his son’s dark, angry eyes, so like his own, his thoughts went back to another time, and another young woman who had faced an intolerable choice. He remembered going after Catriona, and how pale and still she had been when he scooped her up from the floor of the sea. In that moment, he had wanted nothing more than to join her. The fear that he had lost her tortured him. Was he not now doing the very same thing to his own son?

  “She’s at the house on the Connecticut shore.”

  Cayden sucked in a deep breath. “I’m taking the ski boat.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t want you with me!” Cayden spat as he spun on his father, ready to fight.

  “Nevertheless, I’m coming with you.” He reached into his pocket and held Cayden’s anklet out to him. “She gave this to me, son. You might need it.”

  Cayden stared at the pelt and felt as if his entire world had shattered. She had never intended coming away from this alive. Had never intended to come back to him.

  ****

  She stared at the pills in her palm. She could just go to sleep and never wake up again. It wouldn’t hurt, and it would end the pain. Annabel started to raise her hand to her mouth when a large, masculine hand grabbed her wrist, twisting until the pills spilled to the floor.

  “Oh no you don’t! That’s way too easy a way out, you pitiful little bitch!”

  She looked up in shock to see Cayden’s younger brother hovering over her. The two men were startlingly alike, but where Cayden’s eyes were warm and gentle, Ciaran’s burned with hatred. He released her hands but only so he could scoop her up out of her wheelchair which he then kicked across the room. Annabel was still trying to absorb his presence in the house.

  “Wh-what are you doing here?” she stammered.

  Ciaran laughed. “Just wanted to see what lengths my father would go to in order to get you away from his precious Cayden.” His eyes narrowed as he tossed her onto the couch. “I can see it wasn’t far enough. That’s the problem with both of them. They’re soft. You have the right idea, killing yourself, but why should I let you take the easy way out? There’s so much more for me to gain by making Cayden suffer. They’ll figure out soon enough where you are, but by the time they arrive? Well, it will simply be too late.”

  “Please, Ciaran,” Annabel said softly. “Let me be. I left him. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  He laughed at her, and laughed at her struggles to sit up so she could restore some dignity to her inelegantly sprawled form. She had changed earlier into just a t-shirt and her panties when she had tried in vain to get some sleep. He stopped in his tense pacing around the room and looked at her with dark eyes that had lost the sparkle Cayden’s had.

  “Once it might have been,” he spat, “but not anymore. No, not anymore. The only way I will ensure I take my place on the Council of Lords is to be rid of him and my father. Cayden wouldn’t fight me before, but he will now. Once you die and he connects it to me? He’ll finally give me the fight I’ve tried goading him into for years.”

  Annabel cringed. She who had always wanted family couldn’t even begin to understand Ciaran’s hatred. “Don’t do this, Ciaran. I will leave here and go someplace else if you want. Anywhere. Just please give your family a chance to get back to normal, to heal.”

  “There can be no healing.” For just a moment, she swore she saw a wild kind of grief in his dark eyes, but then it was masked once again by his anger. “For seven years, I did everything my father asked. I learned from him, became a model son while Cayden was banished for his failure to honor our traditions. Yet the moment he returned, my father cast me aside as if I was nothing. Nothing.”

  Annabel watched Ciaran’s nervous pacing through the living room with alarm. Gone were any thoughts she might have had of wanting to call it quits. His abrupt snatching of the pills from her had woken her from her trance and reignited the fighting spirit within her. Not for herself, but she knew she had to find some way to save both Cayden and his father from Ciaran’s wrath.

  She pulled herself up and straightened what clothing she had. Her mind worked frantically to find some way to stop him, some way to even delay him, and at the same time she began frantically sending her thoughts out. Cayden had said his mother was telepathic. Perhaps she could reach her.

  ****

  Catriona Clifton sat in the armchair in Annabel’s room, while Taylor leaned against the footboard of the bed. He watched as the older woman stroked her fingers over the photo of him and Poppy that had been taken after a dinghy race that summer she was fourteen, before the accident on the Silkie. Inside he teemed with frustration at the inaction. He would have much preferred going with Cayden and Carrick, but knew he had to help here.

  She looked up at him, frustration evident in her expression. “I’m getting nothing.”

  Taylor looked around the room, his eyes alighting on a small, stuffed seal that sat on top of her bureau. How long had she had that? It seemed like forever. He remembered seeing it when he visited her in the hospital after her accident, and he knew she had taken it to college with her. In fact, he had teased her about it as he sprawled across her bed in the New York apartment while she had rolled around packing her trunk. She had told him it was a gift, and he remembered she seemed defensive about it. Had it been something she’d gotten from Cayden? It was worth a try. Taylor pushed himself up from his lounging position and grabbed the seal.

  “Here. Try this. Poppy’s had it for years, and it means a lot to her.”

  ****

  As soon as Catriona touched the stuffed animal, she felt herself being flooded with Annabel’s memories of that summer seven years ago, images that flickered through her brain. She saw the walls and ceiling of a hospital and felt the pain of rehabilitation. But when all of that cleared, she was left with a clean, blank slate. Her shoulders slumped.

  “Are you getting anything?” Taylor asked anxiously.

  “Memories. But what’s happening now?” Catriona shook her head. She started to toss the seal aside and suddenly stiffened. “Oh no! Ciaran’s with her!”

  Taylor spun around from where he had started to search through the contents of her closet. “What?”

  “Ciaran!” Cat’s eyes filled. “He’s in a murderous rage. Do you have a cell phone?” At Taylor’s nod, she held her hand out. “I have to call Carrick. They have to hurry!”

  ****

  Annabel watched Ciaran continue to pace. Behind him the sky began to lighten as dawn arrived. If she could just find some way to reach him.

  “My mother died when I was seven,” she whispered, not daring to look at him as he kept up his prowl around the room. “Daddy was the only one left, but not really. I knew all along that what he really wanted was to be with my mother. It was very lonely.”

  “Shut up!” Ciaran snarled at her.

  She ignored him. “The summer I turned fourteen he told me he was sending me to live with my Aunt Helen. I didn’t want to. I don’t like my aunt, but more than that, I was afraid of what Daddy would do without me there. My accident ruined his plans. He couldn’t end it until this year.”

  Ciaran stopped prowling. “I said shut up! I don’t care about your life. I don’t care that your father was so weak he killed himself. It means nothing to me.”

  Annabel looked at him. “It should. You have no idea how lucky you really are Ciaran. You have a family. They won’t turn you away. Give them a chance.”

  For an instant again, she glimpsed pain and loneliness in his dark eyes. But he hid them, masked them with fury. He slapped her. The force of the blow knocked
her sideways and made her senses swim for an instant. “Don’t patronize me. I’ve had that for the past seven years. Bones thrown to keep me in my place until the favored son showed back up. Well fuck that! Who knows you’re here?”

  Before she thought, Annabel answered him honestly, “Just Carrick.”

  “That won’t do at all. I want them both here to witness this.” He picked up the backpack she kept on the back of her chair and rifled through it until he pulled out her cell phone. He flipped it open and punched in a number. “Tell him I’m here. Tell him!”

  Annabel’s hand shook as she took the phone from him, but it wasn’t Carrick who answered, it was Cayden. She sucked in a shaky breath.

  “Cay?”

  “Bell! We’re on our way, darling. Please! Please don’t do anything rash.”

  “Ciaran’s here.”

  “We know…”

  Ciaran snatched the phone from her hand. “Don’t worry big brother. I took away the pills she was going to swallow rather than face you again. You must be such an amazing lover if your mate would rather kill herself than fuck you. Shall I give her a test drive? See if she likes me any better? Don’t snarl, Cayden. Jealousy is such an ugly emotion. I should know.” He eyed Annabel with a smirk. “She has such creamy soft skin. You don’t like that?

  “Are you on your way then? Good. We’re going for a swim. It will be just like when we were pups. Maybe you can join us. High tide should be particularly interesting.”

  Annabel heard Cay shout his brother’s name through the phone just as Ciaran clicked the cell shut and tossed it down on the couch. His gaze slipped over her. “I hope you won’t be offended. Though I have a reputation for fucking almost anything, I do like it to be able to move underneath me, so I think we’ll skip that part.”

  He pulled her up by her wrists and threw her over his shoulder.

  “Don’t! Please Ciaran!” Annabel didn’t want to beg. She hated feeling helpless.

  He carried her down to the boathouse. As he walked with her slung like a rag doll, he was talking. “The Coopers are wonderful, conscientious caretakers, and one of the things I’m sure they’ve kept in good working order is the boat we always kept here. It will be the perfect thing to help show you how we really live. After all, if you want to be Cayden’s mate, you should learn to share the Silkie lifestyle in every way.”

  Annabel couldn’t say anything. She clutched his shirt in fear that he would drop her. In addition to her fear, her anger built at his treatment. But she refused to let him see just how afraid she was. Her mind worked frantically to decipher what he meant about learning to share Cayden’s lifestyle and his references to Cayden with regard to high tide. Whatever he meant, it couldn’t be good.

  Ciaran took no chances. Once he put her in the boat, he bound her wrists and then tied the end of the rope to the railing along the gunwale. She tested the strength of the knots while he was occupied opening the doors to the boathouse, but she could find no weakness to them. He smiled at her as he jumped into the boat, and for just a moment, his resemblance to Cayden was remarkable enough to take her breath. It was like seeing a mirror image, but she knew that somehow this image had become distorted.

  “Don’t even attempt to rationalize my actions,” he commented with a laugh that rang with spite rather than amusement. It was almost as if he were able to read her thoughts. “I am not some rejected child to be psycho-analyzed so that you can explain away my behavior. The truth is far simpler. I want what Cayden has, except for you of course. One tumble with you would have been enough. I always failed to see why my brother wanted to ally himself with a human and a damaged one at that. Humans are so weak and stupid to begin with.”

  “Where are you taking me?” Annabel demanded, holding her chin up and staring him straight in the eye.

  Ciaran smiled wickedly. “Why we’re taking a trip down memory lane. I’m taking you to one of our favorite hangouts from when we were just pups. Of course, you might not like it quite so much at high tide.”

  He started the engine, and the noise drowned out any further discussion. Annabel began to assess her situation as calmly as she could. She still felt the imprint of Ciaran’s hand on her cheek and knew that it would be useless to reason with him. Although she was sure he ultimately meant to kill her, she was pretty sure she was being used as bait for both Carrick and Cayden.

  There were not a lot of items in the plus column, she mused dispassionately. She had no shoes, very little clothing, and almost no use of her legs. She was tied to the boat with no apparent way to free herself. On the plus side, if she could get free, she was still a fairly strong swimmer despite her handicap and she could hold her breath for about four minutes. Not a lot to go on, but she refused to be defeatist. She hadn’t fought for seven years to lie down and die just yet.

  But you were about to swallow a bottle full of pills , her subconscious reminded her. Annabel dismissed it. Things changed. It was no longer just about her. Cayden and Carrick both could be in danger, and though she wasn’t sure yet what she could do, she would find some way to help.

  High tide, she knew, was somewhere around mid-morning, so there were still at least a couple of hours before whatever Ciaran had planned would happen. It didn’t take long to reach their destination. As soon as Annabel saw where they were headed, she also had a good idea of just what Ciaran had in mind. It was really little more than a rock sticking up out of the water. While it was out of the navigation channel, it was still far enough from shore that Annabel knew it would be difficult for her to swim. She had the feeling, though, that Ciaran was not going to leave swimming as an option.

  He moved in as close as he dared and dropped anchor before turning to her with a deceptively gentle smile. “You want so much to be one of us, one of the Silkie? Well, I have brought you to your very own skerry. Unfortunately for you, this one doesn’t remain above water at high tide. If you were able to stand up, well it wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m afraid not being able to use your legs will be an issue for you.”

  Annabel looked at the rock and back at Ciaran. “Go to hell!” she spat at him.

  He laughed. “Tut, tut, Miss Barton. No wonder your aunt used to despair of you ever developing that Yacht Club panache.” He picked up the length of rope he had tied to the gunwale and untied it. “You know, the real beauty to this plan is I don’t even have to tie you to anything. I can simply leave you sitting on the rock with your hands tied, and you will be quite helpless with neither arms nor legs to help you swim. Inspired, don’t you think?”

  “You can’t possibly think to succeed,” she told him, “not with both Cayden and Carrick on their way.”

  Ciaran smiled again. “Oh, but I don’t intend to sit and just wait for their arrival. I’m going to prepare a few surprises for them as well.”

  “What are you going to do?” she demanded.

  He chuckled. “That would be telling, Miss Barton, and I would hate to ruin the surprise.”

  “Ciaran.” She decided to try one more time. “Don’t do this. Your family loves you. Whatever the problem is, talk to them and work it out…”

  His dark eyes narrowed furiously.

  “Shut up, Annabel. I heard exactly how much my family needs me the night Cayden confronted our father.”

  Chapter 16

  Ciaran left her to sit on the top of the small rocky island. Annabel shivered. Already the seawater inched its way closer and closer. To insure she wouldn’t untie herself, he had pulled her wrists behind her to secure them before he’d hauled her off the ski boat and towed her to the skerry. She pleaded with him to reconsider, but he merely looked at her blankly.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked as he set her down, trying a different tack. “It’s not as if I’ll be around to see it anyway,” she added.

  He smiled. “Oh, you’ll see the preparations, just not the outcome, so you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself.”

  Now she watched him, and even with the sun shining
down on her, she couldn’t prevent the chill that ran through her. It was more than her soaked t-shirt. It was the chill of watching Ciaran coolly prepare to harm his own father and brother. What had driven him to this? Would he have been different had he been the eldest, and Cayden the younger brother? Somehow she doubted it. Even being the heir to the Silkie Lord probably would not have been enough for Ciaran. Something else would have been the problem. Something else would still have led to this moment. There was an inherent rage and jealousy he seemed unwilling or unable to control. And her being human had only exacerbated it.

  The water lapped greedily at her toes. She could see it, but not feel it. She shifted in frustration, but dared not move much for fear of overbalancing. Ciaran moved the boat away, far enough that she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing. He disappeared over the side.

  Annabel scanned the shoreline hoping to see a house, a person—any sign of potential help. But even if she did see someone, she could only imagine what Ciaran might do to anyone who attempted to foil his plans. She looked down. Her feet were covered, and now she could feel the water as it lapped at her calves. It was colder than the water near Barton’s Point.

  Her glance shifted up and around again, studying the shore and the horizon. Right now she wished fiercely for some miracle, but as she knew firsthand, miracles were in very short supply.

  How long did it take to drown? She had never tried to hold her breath beyond four minutes, but should she even try? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier when the time came to just get it over with? She shook her head. That was too much like swallowing the valiums. She looked around desperately. There must be some way! She didn’t want to drown! And no matter her limitations, she wanted to live.

  She had always been the best swimmer in all her lessons both at the summer camps and during school in the city. She could remember being stretched out on her back in the pool, listening to the hollow echo of sounds distorted by the water surrounding her ears as she outlasted everyone else in her class in a timed float.