“I’m not going to leave you,” he consoled her. His mother had often looked at the sea as if it was an enemy who’d steal away her family if she wasn’t careful. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wrapped his arms around her again. “I am right where I need to be.”
She nodded, but he could feel her tears falling on his hands.
Alana thought about it and decided that trusting Vic completely was foolish. He was right: she needed to let Murrin go before he resented her for keeping him from the sea. Murrin wasn’t thinking clearly. Whatever enchantment made him need to stay close to her was keeping him from admitting that he longed for the sea. If he went back … there were selchies he could meet. None of that meant that she wanted to risk being tied to Vic—so she opted to try a plan she’d come up with before, but had rejected as too dangerous.
And unnecessary because love took over.
He was sleeping when she left the apartment. She thought about kissing him good-bye, but knew that would wake him.
She let the door close behind her; then she went silently to the street and popped the trunk of the car. It was in there, his pelt. It was a part of him as surely as the seemingly human skin she’d caressed when he sat beside her late at night watching old movies with the sound down low. Gently, she gathered the pelt to her, trying not to wonder at how warm it was, and then she ran.
There weren’t tears in her eyes. Yet. She’d have time enough for that later. First she had to focus on getting to the beach before he realized what she was doing. She ran through the streets in the not-yet-light day. The sunrise wasn’t too far off, but it was early enough that the surfers hadn’t started arriving yet.
She knew he’d come soon. He had to follow the pull of his pelt when it was in her hands, but knowing didn’t make it any easier to hurry. She felt an urgency to get done with it before he arrived, but she felt a simultaneous despair.
It’s for the best.
She waded into the surf. Waves tugged at her, like strange creatures butting at her knees to pull her under the surface; kelp slid over her bare skin, slithering lengths that made her pulse race too fast.
It’s the right thing for both of us.
He was there then. She heard Murrin calling her name. “Alana! Stop!”
In the end, we’ll both be miserable if I don’t.
The pelt was heavy in her arms; her fingers clutched at it.
He was beside her. “Don’t—”
She didn’t hear the rest. She let the waves take her legs out from under her. She closed her eyes and waited. The instinct to survive outweighed any enchantment, and her arms released the pelt so she could swim.
Beside her, she felt him, his silk-soft fur brushing against her as his selchie pelt transformed his human body into a sleek-skinned seal. She slid her hand over his skin, and then she swam away from him, away from the wide open sea where he was headed.
Good-bye.
She wasn’t sure if it was the sea or her tears, but she could taste salt on her lips as she surfaced.
When she stood on the beach again, she could see him in the distance, too far away to hear her voice if she gave in and asked him to come back. She wouldn’t. A relationship based on enchantment was ill-fated from the beginning. It wasn’t what she wanted for either of them. She knew that, was certain of it, but it didn’t ease the ache she felt at his absence.
I don’t really love him. It’s just leftover magic.
She saw Vic watching her from the shore. He said something she couldn’t hear over the waves, and then he was gone too. They were both gone, and she was left reminding herself that it was better this way, that what she’d felt hadn’t been real.
So why does it hurt so bad?
For several weeks, Murrin watched her, his Alana, his mate-no-more, on the shore that was his home-no-more. He didn’t know what to do. She’d rejected him, cast him back to the sea, but she seemed to mourn it.
If she didn’t love me, why does she weep?
Then one day, he saw that she was holding the pearls he’d given her. She sat on the sand, running the strand through her fingers, carefully, lovingly. All the while, she wept.
He came to shore there at the reef where he’d first chosen her, where he’d watched her habits to try to find the best way to woo her. It was more difficult this time, knowing that she knew so many of his secrets and found him lacking. At the edge of the reef, he slid out of his Other-Skin and tucked it in a hollow under an edge of the reef where it would be hidden from sight. Giant sea stars clung to the underside of the reef ledge, and he wondered if she’d seen them. His first thoughts were too often still of her, her interests, her laughter, her soft skin.
She didn’t hear his approach. He walked up to stand beside her and asked the question that had been plaguing him. “Why are you sad?”
“Murrin?” She stuffed the necklace into her pocket and backed away, careful to look where she stepped, no doubt looking for his Other-Skin, then glancing back at him after each step. “I set you free. Go away. Go on.”
“No.” He had dreamed of being this close to her ever since he’d been forced away from her. He couldn’t help it; he smiled.
“Where is it?” she asked, her gaze still darting frantically around the exposed tide pools.
“Do you want me to show—”
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. “I don’t want to do that again.”
“It’s hidden. You won’t touch it unless you let me lead you to it.” He walked closer then, and she didn’t back away this time—nor did she approach him as he’d hoped.
“You’re, um, naked.” She blushed and turned away. She picked up her backpack and pulled out one of the warm hoodies and jeans she’d found at the thrift store when they were shopping that first week. She shoved them at him. “Here.”
Immeasurably pleased that she carried his clothes with her—surely that meant she hoped he’d return—he got dressed. “Walk with me?”
She nodded.
They walked for a few steps, and she said, “You have no reason to be here. I broke the spell or whatever. You don’t need—”
“What spell?”
“The one that made you have to stay with me. Vic explained it to me. You can go get with a seal girl now…. It’s what’s best.”
“Vic explained it?” he repeated. Veikko had convinced Alana to risk her life to get rid of Murrin. It made his pulse thud as it did when he rode the waves during a storm. “And you believed him why?”
Her cheeks reddened again.
“What did he tell you?”
“That you’d resent me because you lost the sea, and that you couldn’t tell me, and that what I felt was just pheromones … like the hundreds of other girls you…” She blushed brighter still. “And I saw you at night, Murrin. You looked so sad.”
“Now I am sad in the waves watching you.” He pulled her closer, folding her into his arms, kissing her as they’d kissed only a few times before.
“I don’t understand.” She touched her lips with her fingertips, as if there were something odd about his kissing her. “Why?”
Even the thriving reefs weren’t as breathtakingly beautiful as she was as she stood there with kiss-swollen lips and a wide-eyed gaze. He kept her in his arms, where she belonged, where he wanted her always to be, and told her, “Because I love you. That’s how we express—”
“No. I mean, you don’t have to love me now. I freed you.” Her voice was soft, a whisper under the wind from the water.
“I never had to love you. I just had to stay with you unless I reclaimed my skin. If I wanted to leave, I’d have found it in time.”
Alana watched him with a familiar wariness, but this time there was a new feeling—hope.
“Vic lied because I’d helped his mate leave him: she was sick. He was out with mortal girls constantly … and she was trapped and miserable.” Murrin glanced away, looking embarrassed. “Our family doesn’t know. Well, they might suspect, but Veikko nev
er told them because he’d need to admit his cruelty too. I thought he’d forgiven me. He said…”
“What?”
“He is my brother. I trusted him….”
“I did, too.” She leaned closer and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry.”
“Sooner or later, we will need to deal with him.” Murrin sounded both sad and reluctant. “But in the meantime, if he talks to you—”
“I’ll tell you.”
“No more secrets,” he said. Then he kissed her.
His lips tasted like the sea. She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the feel of his hands on her skin, gave in to the temptation to run her hands over his chest. It was the same heady feeling she dreamt about most every night since he’d gone. Her pulse thrummed like the crash of waves behind her as he moved to kiss her neck.
He’s mine. He loves me. We can—
“My beautiful wife,” he whispered against her skin.
With more than a little reluctance, she stepped away from him. “We could try things a little differently this time, you know. Go slower. I want you here, but being married at my age isn’t good. I have plans….”
“To see other people?”
“No. Not at all.” She sat down on the sand. When he didn’t move, she reached for his hand and tugged until he sat beside her. Then she said, “I don’t want to see other people, but I’m not ready to be married. I’m not even done with high school.” She glanced over at him. “I missed you all the time, but I don’t want to lose me to have you. And I want you to be you too…. Did you miss changing?”
“I did, but it’ll get easier. This is how things are.”
Murrin sounded so calm, and while Alana knew that Vic had lied about a lot of things, she also knew this was something he hadn’t needed to lie about. She hadn’t imagined the sadness she’d seen on Murrin’s face when she’d seen him staring toward the water.
She asked, “But what if you could still have the sea? We could … date. You could still be who you are. I could still go to school and, um, college.”
“You’d be only mine? But I get to keep the sea?”
She laughed at his suspicious tone. “You do know that the sea isn’t the same as being with another girl, right?”
“Where’s the sacrifice?”
“There isn’t one. There’s patience, trust, and not giving up who we are.” She leaned into his embrace, where she could find the same peace and pleasure the sea had always held for her.
How could I have thought it was better to be apart?
He smiled then. “We get each other. I get the sea, and you have to go to school? It sounds like I get everything, and you…”
“I do too. You and time to do the things I need to so I can have a career someday.”
She had broken her Six-Week Rule, but having a relationship didn’t have to mean giving up on having a future. With Murrin, she could have both.
He reached over and pulled the pearls out of her pocket. With a solemn look, he fastened them around her throat. “I love you.”
She kissed him, just a quick touch of lips, and said it back. “I love you too.”
“No Other-Skin, no enchantments,” he reminded her.
“Just us,” she said
And that was the best sort of magic.
OLD HABITS
After INK EXCHANGE
PROLOGUE
YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE AN EXCELLENT king,” Irial said.
And then, before Niall could react, Irial pressed his mouth to the long scar that he’d once allowed Gabriel to carve on Niall’s face. Niall felt his knees give out under him, felt a disquieting new energy flood his body, felt the awareness of countless dark fey like threads in a great tapestry weaving his life to theirs.
“Take good care of the Dark Court. They deserve that. They deserve you.” Irial bowed his head. “My King.”
“No.” Niall stumbled back, tottering on the sidewalk, nearly falling into the traffic. “I don’t want this. I’ve told you—”
“The court needs new energy, Gancanagh. I got us through Beira’s reign, found ways to strengthen us. I’m tired—more changed by Leslie than I’ll admit, even to you. You may have broken our tie, seared me from her skin, but that doesn’t undo what is. I am not fit to lead my court.” Irial smiled sadly. “My court—your court now—needs a new king. You’re the right choice. You have always been the next Dark King.”
“Take it back.” Niall felt the foolishness of his words, but he couldn’t think of anything more intelligible to say.
“If you don’t want it—”
“I don’t.”
“Pick someone worthy to pass it on to, then.” Irial’s eyes were lightening ever so slightly. The eerily tempting energy that had always clung to him like a haze was less overwhelming now. “In the meantime, I offer you what I’ve never offered another—my fealty, Gancanagh, my king.”
He knelt then, head bowed, there on the busy sidewalk. Mortals craned their necks to stare.
And Niall gaped at him, the last Dark King, as the reality settled on him. He’d just grab the first dark fey he saw and … turn over this kind of power to some random faery? A dark faery? He thought of Bananach and the Ly Ergs circling, seeking war and violence. Irial was moderate in comparison to Bananach’s violence. Niall couldn’t turn the court over to just anyone, not in good conscience, and Irial knew it.
“The head of the Dark Court has always been chosen from the solitary fey. I waited a long time to find another after you said no. But then I realized I was waiting for you to leave Keenan. You didn’t choose me over him, but you chose the harder path.” Irial stood then and took Niall’s face in his hands, gently but firmly, and kissed his forehead. “You’ll do well. And when you are ready to talk, I’ll still be here.”
Then he disappeared into the throng of mortals winding down the sidewalk, leaving Niall speechless and bewildered.
CHAPTER 1
SEVERAL WEEKS LATER
NIALL WALKED THROUGH HUNTSDALE, trying to ignore the responses his presence elicited. He’d never walked unnoticed. Over the centuries, he’d been a Gancanagh and the companion to the Dark King; later, he’d been advisor to both the late Summer King and the current Summer King. None of those were roles associated with dismissal. He’d always had influence. When he was with Irial, he hadn’t realized that his companion was the Dark King, but that hadn’t meant that many of those he’d encountered were unaware. They knew the influence he’d wielded far before he did.
Dark Court faeries—my faeries now—scurried around him. They were always in reach, always in sight, always willing to do the least thing that he required. They sought his approval, and despite wishing he was impervious, he couldn’t withhold his responses. Being their king meant feeling a connection to them that he’d only ever felt twice—to Irial and to Leslie. Perversely, perhaps, being the Dark King meant he felt even more connected to both the mortal girl and the faery. Leslie, although she’d severed her tie to Irial, was still protected by the Dark Court, and Irial, while no longer king, was the pulse of the court.
Worse, Niall could taste the emotions of every faery he passed. He knew the things they sought to hide with their implacable expressions. He knew their pains and their hungers. It made the world flex with sensory overloads.
Niall walked through the door of the Crow’s Nest, the mortal club where his closest friend waited. Seth didn’t stand when he saw Niall; he didn’t bow or scurry. He merely nodded and said, “Hey.”
The weight of the job Niall didn’t want seemed to slip away. He sat down at the small table in the back of the dim building. The jukebox was turned on, but the volume was at a bearable level this early in the day. A few mortals threw darts; others watched a soccer match on the oversized television; and a couple silently drank their beers. It was peaceful.
Seth pushed an ashtray toward Niall. “What’s up?”
Niall frowned. He’d unconsciously pulled out a cigarette when he sat. The habit r
esumed the moment I was connected to him again. Niall stared at the cigarette and refused to remember the first time he’d smoked. Memories of Irial are never good to dwell on.
“You look worse than usual today,” Seth said.
Niall shrugged. “Some days … some days I hate Irial.”
“And the other ones?”
That was the catch, the other days. Niall took a drag off the cigarette, enjoyed the feel of the smoke sliding into his lungs. He exhaled after a moment. “The other days, I know he was right. I am the Dark King and whining about it is futile.”
“You could always give it away, right?” Seth leaned back, tilting his chair so it was balanced on the back two legs.
“Sure. If I want to be a fool.” Niall signaled the waitress and ordered a drink.
Once the waitress walked away, Seth leaned forward. “So what aren’t you saying?”
Niall exhaled a plume of smoke. “I called Leslie.”
“Why?”
“I thought I could suggest that we could be friends. Leslie and me.” Niall paused, but Seth said nothing. The mortal simply stared at him, so Niall continued, “I wasn’t calling to suggest we … date.”
“Bullshit.” Seth shook his head. “You don’t want to be her friend. Listen to how carefully you had to phrase that lie.”
“If it were a lie, I couldn’t say it.”
“Really?” Seth quirked one brow. “Try to tell me you just want to be her friend. Go ahead. Say it.”
“I don’t think that—”
“It would be a lie, wouldn’t it?” Seth interrupted. “Telling me you want to be just her friend would be a lie. You can’t say it.”
“Why are we friends?” Niall muttered.
“Because I don’t lie to you or pander to you.” Seth grinned. “You don’t like being adored or disobeyed … which makes you messed up enough to lead a bunch of crazy faeries, but makes you need a few friends who aren’t crazy faeries.”
They sat silently while Niall accepted the drink the waitress delivered. He’d never had much trouble attracting mortal attention, but he’d expected it to lessen now that the Gancanagh addictiveness was negated. Instead, he was able to touch mortals safely, but was no less appealing to them. In his life, the only one who seemed to want absolutely nothing from him was the mortal who watched him now. Unfortunately, Seth wasn’t immune to the traits that made Niall interesting to most mortals. He was simply aware of them—and thus better able to know them for what they were. Which is why he keeps his distance. Seth was utterly nonjudgmental, but he was also utterly devoted to his beloved, Aislinn. And completely hetero.