Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

spilled over, paralyzing her. Margred tried to force it down, but it was like trying to hold back the sea with her cupped hands.
     
    Endless existence has its own . . . burdens , she had said to Dylan mere hours ago. But now . . . Now
     
    She closed her eyes in terror and despair. She was such a fool.
     
    The device in Caleb’s hand snapped shut. She opened her eyes and found him watching her, a terrible compassion in his eyes.
     
    Her backbone straightened reflexively.
     
    “Donna can meet you at the clinic,” he said. “I’ll get Ted Sherman to drive you. He’s one of our volunteer firefighters. ”
     
    A firefighter, she thought dully. Well, that made sense. She had caught a whiff of something—demon—right before the attack that knocked her unconscious. She had not supposed humans would have the knowledge to set a firefighter against a fire demon, but . . .
     
    And then the rest of his meaning penetrated her numb consciousness.
     
    “No,” she said. “I can’t leave the beach.”
     
    “Why not?”
     
    She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She had no reason to stay. There was nothing for her here. No sealskin. No escape. No hope.
    The realization struck her soul, bleak as the dawn over mudflats. A howl built in the back of her throat.
     
    59
    The human watched her, his mouth kind and his eyes shrewd. “I’ll join you,” he said. “As soon as I’ve secured the scene.”
     
    He was leaving her?
     
    He was leaving. Her.
     
    Margred shivered with loss and indignation. Everything she knew was slipping away. She felt herself dissipating, escaping like water through her fingers. She wasn’t about to let the one person she did know out of her grasp.
     
    Caleb might be human, but at least he was familiar.
     
    “I won’t go. Not without you.”
     
    “Is there anybody I can call?” His voice was deep and very gentle.
    “To stay with you.”
     
    “No.”
     
    “A friend? Family member maybe.”
     
    Margred barely remembered the face of her mother, who had followed the sea king beneath the wave centuries before. She did not know the fate of her father. She had no mate, no child. She hunted, slept, lived alone.
     
    She shook her head and then winced.
     
    A crease appeared between Caleb’s eyebrows. “No one?”
     
    Her hands clenched beneath the long jacket cuffs. She did not relish his pity. She was selkie, one of the First Creation, a child of the sea.
     
    Or she had been.
     
    In the sea, in her own territory, her lack of connections had never troubled her. But in the human’s world, maybe everyone was tangled and bound together.
     
    He must not suspect she was not of his world.
     
    60
    She let herself sway on her feet, let the jacket fall open over her bare breasts. It was not so hard to pretend dizziness. Her head throbbed. Her legs trembled. The demon’s attack had frightened her—weakened her—more than she wanted to admit. “I . . . can’t think. I don’t remember.”
     
    Caleb did not look at her breasts. Those clear green eyes remained fixed on her face with an intensity that made her uncomfortable. “All right,” he said slowly. “You can wait in the Jeep until Ted gets here, and then I’ll drive you to the doctor.”
     
    The inside of his vehicle—Jeep, Margred repeated silently to herself—was dark and warm and smelled of metal and oil and man. Land smells. Alien smells. In the quiet dark, reaction seeped in, corroding her fragile composure. The roof and frame pressed in on her like the iron bars of a cage. She shifted on the slick upholstery, her blood pounding in her head, staining her fingers through the folded white square he had given her.
     
    She opened her mouth to breathe.
     
    The driver’s side door popped open and Caleb slid into the seat beside her, his big body looming out of the darkness. She managed not to jump.
     
    “All set,” he said. “You keeping pressure on that cut?”
     
    She nodded carefully, as if her head might fall off.
     
    His lips curved. “Atta girl. Still bleeding?”
     
    Her fingers were warm and sticky. “Not as much.”
     
    “Good. That’s good.” He thrust a key into the side of the wheel, and the Jeep shuddered to life. He glanced at her. “Buckle up.”
     
    She blinked.
     
    His mouth compressed before he reached for her. She inhaled once, sharply, as his shoulder flattened her back against her seat, as his hard arm brushed her breast. His hand was almost in her face. He drew a strap down