A SELKIE’S SECRET
She's here to claim her mate. So, why is she looking at his best friend?
Isla Brown saw the will of the Gods when they revealed her fated partner at the age of sixteen. Isla has returned to her childhood home on Lake Galen, ready to build a life with her selkie mate. But a certain human is tempting her to stray from her fated path.
The night he almost killed her, he discovered her secret.
Finn Hammond knows Isla is a selkie. He also knows that he doesn't deserve her. Not after an almost fatal mistake he made years ago. But when she offers him the opportunity to dive deep into a single night of passion, he can't find the will to walk away.
A new day brings honesty, and when secrets are revealed, both Isla and Finn must choose a different future.
1
ISLA
As a responsible thirty-year-old woman,I have accepted that I finally need to collect my fated mate.
Hopefully, he will make the task easy.
I approach the front door of the MacNamara homestead. The collection of houses this selkie clan has on this expanse of lakefront property might be enough to earn the label ofcompound. But that word is too clinical for this family. Andestateis too grand.
The moment I push through the door, a familiar face greets me.
“Isla! You came.” Sorcha MacNamara, matriarch of the family and host of today’s backyard barbecue, bustles down the front hall to stop in front of me, a sunburn flush on her normally pale white cheeks.
She reaches out to give my shoulder a squeeze, and I appreciate her remembering my preference. The woman is a hugger. She pulls people in tight to her breast, wrapping them in strong, loving arms, and even goes so far as to wiggle themaround while the embrace happens, as if needing to shake her love into them.
The first time I watched the spectacle, all I could do was stare in horror.
Then, she turned to me.
But even at the age of four, I knew what I wanted—as well as what I did not.
When she leaned in, I held up staying hands and expressed a firm, “No, thank you.”
Unlike many adults, Mrs. MacNamara listened. When she asked how she could greet me, I provided the shoulder option, and she has kept to it ever since. Even when it’s been years since I last saw her.
“I thought it was time I came,” I offer.
The woman’s smile stays soft on her pretty, round face. “Well, come on in, girl. Everyone is in the kitchen or out back. The kids are about to take pictures in their fancy clothes.”
Tonight is Folk Haven High School’s prom, and since the MacNamara parents love to host a gathering, they’ve decided to throw the town’s biggest pre-prom party. Which will no doubt bleed into a during-prom celebration. As well as a post-prom shindig.
All the MacNamara children graduated high school a decade or more ago, but that has never stopped their parents from celebrating. Everyone knows the school event is an excuse to invite half the lake over.
The thought of so many people crammed into this place has my skin tightening.
“Is Owen here?”
Sorcha throws me a curious look over her shoulder as we traverse her large yet comfortable house, dodging chatting partygoers along the way. “He is. Seems like most of the town is.And some guests”—she lowers her voice—“are humans. So, keep that in mind when conversing.”
“Of course.” Keeping the fact that I’m a mythical creature a secret is normal for me.
I spent years living in Portland, Oregon and no one in that city had reason to believe a selkie was walking among them. Even in Folk Haven, a town with a larger mythic population percentage than anywhere else in the world, a good portion of people I interact with on a daily basis are humans.
I know how to be circumspect.
Unfortunately, this means I’ll have a harder time managing a candid conversation about matehood. Surely, I can convince Owen to join me in a quiet room somewhere.
