Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

“Maybe.”
     
    “And you are not.” His tone was faintly challenging.
     
    “I . . .” She stopped, struck. Was she afraid? When she’d crawled home eight years ago, exhausted, broke, and defeated, she’d seen few choices and little future for herself. But now . . . it was one thing to settle for her mother’s menus. At what point had she begun to settle for her mother’s life?
     
    “I try to keep an open mind,” she said.
     
    “That is fortunate,” Dylan murmured.
     
    She frowned, uncomprehending.
     
    134
    He stood to clear their bowls, carrying them to the sink. She pushed back her chair to help him, but he kept her in place with a quick shake of his head. She’d spent years in the kitchen with men. Yet despite Dylan’s obvious grace— or maybe because of it— watching him perform the small domestic chore made her breathless and slightly uncomfortable. He ran water over the dishes before he retrieved his duffel from the floor by the front door and brought it to the table.
     
    Her vocal chords tightened. “What’s this?”
     
    In answer, he unzipped the bag, reached in, and pulled out a fur, a fur coat, a . . .
     
    Regina stared at the thick, black pelt gleaming in the candlelight.
    Her heart moved into her throat and choked her.
     
    A sealskin.
     
    135
     

Eleven
     
    DYLAN’S HEART POUNDED.
     
    Regina raised her gaze to his, her brown eyes wide with shock. “It was you,” she whispered. “In the caves.”
     
    She must have known. She’d seen. She’d even thanked him for rescuing her. But now she knew how.
     
    He held himself stiffly, braced for her rejection, his messy human emotions tucked safely out of sight. “Yes.”
     
    “In . . . this.” Her fingers flexed in the pelt.
     
    He flinched. “Yes.”
     
    Her hands, her gaze, returned to her lap. He watched her fingers twist together. His insides knotted.
     
    Moments passed, measured in the mad drumming of his heart and the slow release of her breath.
     
    “I wondered why you weren’t wearing a wet suit.”
     
    Dylan scowled to cover his surprise. He was a creature of legend. A fairy tale. A freak. His own father couldn’t stand the sight of him. He did not expect Regina— hard-headed, practical Regina— simply to accepthim or his explanation. “That’s it? You’re not going to . . .”
    Scream. Run away in horror. “Demand proof?”
     
    She shook her head. “I saw you. I saw . . . I thought I was crazy.
    This is . . . Well.”
     
    “A relief?” he suggested dryly.
     
    She met his eyes. “Not exactly.”
     
    His gut clenched. No, of course not.
     
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    At least she wasn’t hysterical. At least she hadn’t recoiled from him.
    Not yet.
     
    She moistened her lips. “So, how . . . That is, what . . .”
     
    “I am selkie.”
     
    “Well, that explains everything.”
     
    Her tart tone almost made him smile. “I am a man on the land and a seal in the sea.”
     
    “But how do you do it? Are you . . . Which are you?”
     
    “I am both, and I am neither. Not human or animal. Before God made humankind, He created the heavens and the earth, the water, and the fire. With each creation, the elementals took form, the children of air, earth, sea, and fire. Selkies are the children of the sea.”
     
    “Um. That’s very interesting. Except I know your family. I know your dad, and—”
     
    “My father is human.” He was nothing like his father. “I am selkie by my mother’s blood.”
     
    Regina’s throat moved as she swallowed. Dylan waited rigidly, watching as her practical mind sorted through the implications of his story. “But your brother and sister—”
     
    “Take after our father,” he said evenly. “Most human-selkie offspring are human.”
     
    Did he imagine it, or did she touch her stomach under her bulky sweatshirt? Did she think about their offspring? Their child. His hands clenched.
     
    “So, when did you know that you were . . .”
     
    “Selkie.”
     
    “Different?” she finished.
     
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    He didn’t like to think about it. He didn’t want to remember.
    “Thirteen.”
     
    “Wow.” She regarded him thoughtfully. He felt his palms grow clammy. “Like puberty didn’t suck enough.”
     
    Her humor eased the tight knot in his gut.
     
    “That was right before you and your mother left World’s End,” she observed.
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “Tough on you.”
     
    He shook his head. “Leaving was my idea. My choice. My . . .”
     
    Fault, he thought but did