Chapter 1
We lay there together for hours, limbs tangled like a mess of seaweed amid the sand. The subtle to and fro of the waves lapping the beach provided a calming and predictable soundtrack, to our shared contemplative silence. Turning, I snuck a peak at his face. His jawline was strong, and his nose aquiline and distinctive. I always had a thing for noses, like my grandmother’s thing for hands. Noses conveyed personality; it betrayed one’s temperament. You could tell a lot about a person based on the structure of their nose. It was then that his fathomless eyes slid in my direction and caught me staring. At first, I had found them so eerie, they were such a deep shade of brown that at times I could not distinguish pupil from iris. Knowing what I know now, knowing what he is, his eyes just made sense. I blinked, and his lips twitched, and the corners pulled a little revealing an alarmingly sharp set of teeth. Leaning in, he touched his nose to mine, and I was a goner.
His kind was not particularly threatening to humans, but even so, there was something unsettling about being held and cuddled in the arms of a creature of lore. There was something unnerving about lying sprawled on the beach, watching the sun set into the tide as my fingers idly tangled into and stroked the pelt that he had thoughtfully laid out so that I would not get sand in my hair. He was so trusting, almost to the point of being naïve. But he had passed judgement on me the moment I had picked this very pelt up off the floor and restored it to the back of his chair, without a second thought. How could I have known? How could anyone have known that at that moment I had passed up the opportunity to have a selkie at my beck and call? Had I known, would I have kept his pelt? A few nights were spent with us wrapped up in my philosophical ponderings. Knowing myself as I do, I know better than to trust that I would have done the right thing. Yet he remains confident… Steadfast in the fact that I am a rarity. A human pure enough not to take advantage of a creature who is bound by mystical laws, that I could not even begin to understand.
So that leaves us here. His arms wrapped around me with no intention of letting go. Since I had not taken him as my prisoner, he had chosen to have me as his. Although, prisoner is a strong word. I would not classify myself as unwilling in our…. “Interactions.” I understand that if I tried to turn him away, he would go but he would never be away. He would linger in the waters and the beaches, he would leave behind treasures of shells and pearls at my doorstep, until I permitted him back into my life.
In a way, in not following the way of the old stories that I had heard so many times growing up. I had managed to ensnare the attentions of a creature that until days ago, I believed to be nothing more than folklore. “Hey… come back to me.”
I gasped when I felt his teeth brush gently against the space where my neck slopped into my shoulder. Chuckling, he kissed the corner of my mouth just before I gently pushed him away. “Where’d you go just then…?”
Shaking my head, I sat up, his arms left me. It felt like I was pulling myself from the embrace of a warm bath. The night air cut through the haze and shocked me back to my senses. This whole experience threw me something fierce. Part of me wanted this, craved this. But the rest of me was unsettled by how willing I was, the lore only went so far when it came to the abilities of selkies. How could I know that the part of me that craved his company, wasn’t drunk on some mystical pheromone that he was exuding. Taking a deep breath, the mist filled my lungs, and I could feel my head clearing. “It’s getting late…”
The air shifted at this statement; the calm of the beach seemed to deaden with his disappointment. Then the calm returned as his large hands slid along my back, up my shoulders and over them to where he draped himself around me like a cloak. A cloak that smelled of driftwood with hints of pepper and musk. “Oh…?”
He’d done this before, many times. And I would be lying if I said it never worked. It always worked, but not tonight. I needed to clear my head, and that wasn’t going to happen the longer I stayed and allowed myself to get drunk on his touch, his affection, his warmth, his scent…. Good gods above… His everything! I was losing myself in him, drowning in him. The urge to take a deep breath and succumb…. Was overwhelming. I could feel him smiling as he nuzzled into my hair, he took a deep breath and sighed contentedly. “Mmmm your scent is of the land…”
He took another breath which caused my skin to break out in goosebumps. Moving his hand, it glided the length of my arm until he reached my hand and held it. Bringing it in, he pressed hi nose into the pulse of my wrist. I gasped as he exhaled and then breathed in the bit of oil that I had dabbed on my wrists this morning. He smiled and I could feel something akin to purr in his chest. “What scent is this?”
I was gone again, wrapped up in the moment. Drunk and drowning all at once. “R-rose oil.”
His took my fingers and brought my knuckles to his lips, brushing them with a teasing kiss. It was then that I noticed that his other hand had snuck its way down to my waist, where it pushed the hem of my shirt up. Callused fingers brushed against the bare skin of my torso. A shudder shot up my spine and when I gasped, he leaned in and captured my lips in his. When he chuckled, it rolled over me like a wave. The tension in my body gave way in his embrace, and gods help me, I succumbed. As I always did, time and again.
