Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch
fucking one.”
The barb shot home. She flinched and then aimed her smile like a knife.
“The way your mother did?”
“My mother married my father.”
Margred blinked, diverted. “Really? Why?”
Dylan’s lips peeled back. “Why do you think? He took her pelt.”
Ah. Selkies could not return to the sea without their sealskins. A mortal man could keep a selkie wife . . . as long as he kept her sealskin hidden. Because the children of such unions were rare—and usually human—the marriages even worked out. Sometimes.
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“After I hit the Change, I found her sealskin,” Dylan explained. “She took me back to sea with her.”
Margred tried and failed to imagine entering the land beneath the wave for the first time at— How old must he have been? Twelve?
Thirteen? Almost grown, floundering in an unfamiliar body and an utterly new world.
“That must have been . . . upsetting,” she ventured.
Dylan inclined his head. “Awkward, at least. Stick to your own kind,” he advised. “Easier that way on everybody. ”
He was right.
Of course he was right.
She sympathized with his story. And yet . . . She glanced at his throat. He did not wear the triskelion, the wardens’ mark, the sign of the prince’s elite. But Dylan was still the prince’s protégé, as much the prince’s creature as Conn’s hound. Had he issued his warning out of genuine concern? Or to further some agenda of his own?
She left him, making her way down the tower steps to the sea caves under the castle. Chinks of light pierced the thick stone walls. Margred’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. The smell of the ocean rose from below like the smoke from a human fire.
As she circled down the stairs, another selkie climbed up: Gwyneth of Hiort. Her bare feet left damp splotches on the stone. A red robe trimmed with sable wrapped her naked shoulders. The black fur contrasted pleasingly with her milky skin and blond curls, but the choice of garment was still somewhat shocking. The children of the sea generally wore no pelts but their own.
Margred nodded politely. “Good hunting, Gwyneth.”
Gwyneth smiled, revealing sharp white teeth between soft pink lips.
“So it was. I went for fish and caught a fisherman—a trawler off Cape Savage.”
“A handsome fisherman, I hope.”
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“Well enough. No staying power. Fortunately his mates supplied the stamina he lacked.”
Margred raised her brows, amused. “You did the whole crew?”
Gwyneth shrugged, making the red robe slip on her shoulders. “It was a small vessel. Besides, one man between your legs is the same as another.”
Memory stirred.
My name , the man had said, watching her with those sea green eyes.
It’s Caleb .
I thought we could spend some time getting to know one another .
Margred flushed. But she was no hypocrite, to rebuke Gwyneth for saying what she had thought herself.
The other selkie’s gaze turned speculative. “I hear you’ve had good hunting yourself. In . . . Maine, is it?”
Feeling burst in Margred’s chest—possessive, protective. “You hear a lot at Caer Subai,” she said coolly. “And little worth listening to.”
Gwyneth ran her tongue over her teeth. “I only say, if you found something tasty, you would not grudge a friend a bite.”
Margred’s eyes narrowed. Caleb was hers . “Unless I were still hungry.”
Gwyneth’s smile broadened. “Now you intrigue me.”
“That was not my intention. Do not poach on my territory, little sister. Or I will bite you myself.”
Gwyneth’s laughter followed Margred down the stairs.
But the joke, she thought, was on her.
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Somehow the human Caleb had snared her, tangled her up like an unwary swimmer caught in a net. Why else would she decide to go back?
Fleetingly, she thought of Dylan’s mother, who had drowned.
Dylan’s warning rang in her ears: Because she ventured too close to shore.
The sea boomed and echoed as Margred descended. Moisture gleamed on the old stone walls. The way widened to a tunnel. The stairs ended in a smooth slab of rock. Light penetrated from the cave mouth, revealing a series of high-ceilinged chambers, one opening into another, wider, deeper, each lined with chests and scattered with treasures.
She picked her way to a sea chest bound and riveted in iron set on a ledge in the rock. Carvings of
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