Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

all.
     
    Because the man piloting the boat, with jerky movements and a fixed, bright smile, was Bruce Whittaker.
     
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    Twenty-one
     
    MARGRED GAZED AT THE WATER RUSHING OFF the bow, her stomach churning and her emotions in turmoil.
     
    Dylan’s hand rested on her shoulder. She shook it off.
     
    “Your pardon,” he said stiffly. “I thought to comfort you.”
     
    She had not forgiven him for his taunt to his brother. Or perhaps she had not forgiven herself.
     
    “I do not need your comfort,” she said coldly. “All I require of you is transportation.”
     
    “I should transport you to Caer Subai,” Dylan muttered.
     
    “Try it, and I am over the side before you trim your sails,” she warned.
     
    His mouth tightened. “You would be safe there.”
     
    “I would be trapped. I have no pelt. I could never return to the sea.”
     
    “All the more reason to consider Sanctuary. Without your pelt, you will age and die. At least at the prince’s court you would not grow old.”
     
    Margred watched the horizon. Day after day after day after day, all the same, blending together. Never to grow old, never to die. Never to see Caleb again ?
     
    The prospect of eternity without him stretched before her like the cool, damp tunnels and corridors of Caer Subai. Echoing. Empty.
     
    Like her life before she met him.
     
    She shuddered. “I would rather die than live without pleasure or purpose.”
     
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    Or love .
     
    “You could have children,” Dylan said.
     
    Ah . Margred closed her eyes, struck to the heart by a vision of a son with Caleb’s sea green eyes, a daughter with his sunlit smile.
     
    She shook her head. “I told you once I have no ambition to be part of the prince’s breeding program.”
     
    Dylan watched her intently, his expression cloaked. “There are other candidates for stud.”
     
    “None that tempt me.” Her gaze traveled the foamy trail that led to the island and Caleb, his image drawing her as surely as the moon drew the tides. “Except for your brother.”
     
    “He’s not my brother. He can be nothing to you. You can’t look back.”
     
    Far to starboard, a red powerboat buzzed over the water like a hornet.
     
    “Did your mother ever regret leaving your father?” Margred asked.
    “Did you never miss your home and your family? ”
     
    “We are selkie,” Dylan pronounced. “We do not regret.”
     
    We flow as the sea flows . So it had been for seven hundred years of her existence. Why, then, did she feel trapped by the current, carried in completely the wrong direction?
    Her mind returned to Caleb standing rigid on the dock, his fists clenched and his eyes bleak. She felt him like a weight at her heart, like the pull of the moon on the tides, and regret welled and spilled from her heart like blood.
     
    “Perhaps then I am no longer selkie,” she said softly.
     
    Dylan scowled. “If so, my brother has succeeded where the demon failed. He has destroyed you.”
     
    Margred looked at him, surprised. She understood him. Once she would even have agreed with him. Selkies were among God’s First
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    Creation, superior in every way to the humans who strived and prayed and died.
     
    And yet . . .
     
    And yet.
     
    Her beliefs had changed. She had changed, in her sinews and tissues, in the workings of her mind, in the depths of her heart. Caleb had changed her through some strange alchemy of soul. He had inspired her to courage and taught her to love.
     
    For she did love him, with everything that was in her. But she had not trusted him. She had not believed in him the way he believed in her, the way he accepted her, the way he loved her. He had tried to tell her. “ If you love me, you’ve got to trust me. Trust us. Don’t do this alone .” But she had not listened.
     
    “Caleb did not destroy me,” she said. “He made me.”
     
    “Made you human,” Dylan spat.
     
    Margred smiled, her heart suddenly sure. "Yes. Turn the boat around.”
     
    The thing that wore Bruce Whittaker’s face smiled at Caleb, eyes flickering over the boat, the dock, the beach. Searching, Caleb thought.
    Looking for Maggie.
     
    His hand went automatically to his gun.
     
    “Chief,” said the thing with Whittaker’s mouth.
     
    “Who are you?” Caleb asked.
     
    The eyes widened. Whittaker’s pale gray eyes, dancing with dreadful enjoyment. “Don’t you know?”
     
    “I recognize the face,” Caleb said, angling his body, easing his weapon from its