I sat up. “You had sex with them all?” I demanded. “A hundred lovers?” Somehow, my voice had gotten far too loud, and his eyes went wide. The rest of the table stopped talking.
He tilted his head with curiosity. “Well, not all of them. Some I only kissed—but of course, rather thoroughly. Even with a passing fancy, a selkie male is expected to uphold the reputation of our kind.” When I blinked, he went on. “Like the mating rituals Mother spoke of. The twenty-eight orgasms, for twenty-eight days. Or nights. I read of a selkie who mated twins, and who almost died from sleep deprivation.”
“Not a bad way to go,” Goran added.
I shot him a look that promised death. He was playing with the beads on one of his braids and flicked one at me. For a moment, I got pissed again. I knew now that he and Lachlan weren’t together in that way, but just seeing those braids without my beads hurt.
As I watched, he pulled a little too hard on one of the shells. It broke, a part of it coming away in his hand, and something green and faceted shone from underneath. My eyes flew to his, but he’d tucked the braid behind his long hair and turned away, complimenting Lorana on the dessert.
My heart raced at the suspicion that he’d raised. But I wasn’t ready to think about it. “Ah, we should go for that w-walk,” I stammered to Kellin.
“Not until he tells us what he meant by a tree spirit, mistress.” I wasn’t surprised to see Alexios, leaning over the table to stare pleadingly at Kellin. “What kind of a creature is that?”
“A descendant of one of the elemental gods,” Kellin began. Alexios picked up his chair and moved closer, silently begging for more. I was just as curious, but the room was getting awfully warm, and terribly full of muscular males I had no business lusting after. Why was no one else sweating?
Kellin shrugged. “I’m young for one of my kind, of course, but selkies came from one of the elementals. There were at least a dozen of them, powerful beings formed from the weather, the sky, the earth, water itself, fire, and more. The oldest stories claim that before the Goddess descended to the world to seek Her mates, these beings were worshiped by lesser creatures. As sometimes happens, the lesser creatures proved alluring—the divine beings would dally for a while with one of them, and those liaisons bore fruit.”
I rolled my eyes. “So they got into the gutter for a little fun and made the magical creatures?”
“Well, not the kraken and dragons, as far as I know,” he said slowly as if he were truly considering my question. “They have always been called the elder races, though I’ve wondered if dragons could be related to the fire elementals. And krakens may have come from water.”
“Don’t let Leviathan hear you say that,” I warned as I stood. “It seems a bit off, if you ask me, for creatures of limitless power to drop trou around a regular human woman. I wonder how easy it would’ve been for one of those women to say no, whenan actual divine being wanted their body. I wonder if they were even asked.”
“Rada,” Alexios murmured, his expression one of pity. I hated pity more than I’d hated being burned alive.
“I’m going for a walk.” When Kellin stood, I speared him with a glance. “Alone.” No one protested, though I was almost certain Alexios would follow, out of sight. He took his oaths very seriously.
I went out the back door to the gravel path that led to the beach, my bare feet making a soft shushing sound that vanished under the roar of the waves within seconds. I didn’t mind being barefoot, and the cold felt wonderful on the still-tender burns on my ankles and calves. But the cold wind from the North Sea nearly sliced through me. I’d forgotten my cloak.
Hells, I was a mess. I never forgot that. I’d had it since I was a child, and it had kept me alive more times than I could count.
But the soft pelt around my neck wasn’t a bad substitute, if all I needed was warmth. I wrapped it around my shoulders as I stared out at the water. There was no moon, but the stars formed a blanket of light over a sky that was every shade of purple. In the distance to the northeast, there was a glow on the surface of the water, and what looked like an enormous wave heading toward the beach. Growing larger, and larger, like the horizon itself was buckling.
“Shit!” I shouted as I ran back to the house, my toes stubbing along every single sharp stone in existence, and the stupid long gown almost tripping me three times. “I should’ve known better than to wear a damned dress.”
I hadn’t even made it to the back gate when Alexios appeared with my cloak in one hand and my weapons in the other. “Mistress, what is it?’ He faced the water, seeing what I had. “A tidal wave?”
I grabbed my dagger, quickly sliding my cloak on. “No, it’s not long enough. That’s something in the water, swimming this way.”
“A kraken? Could it be your friend Leviathan?”
Friend was a stretch, but I nodded. “Could be. Maybe Wren’s gone into labor early?” Kraken gestation was ten years, more or less. Maybe hers had turned out to be less than normal.
“Maybe he’s coming for Stellina.” We both stared out at the water as the light grew brighter and brighter, before it was too glaring to focus on. I closed my eyes and dropped my head to the rocky beach, worried. Should I go get the others? I wasn’t so proud as to think I could take on every potential threat alone, especially now that the Goddess had backed off.
I swallowed. Could this be Her, somehow? I’d been bitching only minutes before about Her taking me over without permission.
Right before I was about to run back up to the house, the light flickered out. “Is it… Is it Her?” I wondered aloud.
“No,” Alexios said instantly, placing a hand on my arm. He spoke in his language, the words no louder than a breath. “Something is washing ashore. Something small.”
“What is it?”
“I think…” The quiver in his voice had me looking toward the water, and I saw what he meant. The light out at sea was gone, though my night vision was still ruined by red flashes behind my eyelids. But I could make out a dark shape washing up onto the rocks.
I knew what it was. I was wearing a matching one on my fucking neck.
We both stared out into the water for a few long minutes, aware this could be a trap. But then lightning played on the water’s surface a mile out, and a minute later, hit even farther away.
