1837, Isle of Selbane, in the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland
Prion lunged upward through the water, letting his flippers dig into the sand of the beach as he emerged from the sea. He paused long enough to quickly use his teeth to unfasten the hooks at his belly, then he reached up with now-human hands to rip his selkie skin from his body. The change was as seamless as the water itself: any onlooker would have seen a seal’s head pop out of the water, then a naked human man emerged from underneath it, sweeping the sealskin away like a cape off his shoulders.
Prion stood naked, relishing the warm summer air on his wet body. His stomach was tight, and his erection throbbed painfully. He could almost feel his lover’s body underneath him, could nearly taste her lips.
He pulled a necklace over his head and unstrung the cord from the ring that was still cold from the water. Sliding it onto his finger without thinking about it, he wrapped the cord around his wrist with the ease of long practice. Then he flexed his hand against the chill of the ring, and thoughts of delicious anticipation ran through his mind as he let the heavy wet mass of his sealskin fall to the sand. The beach was deserted, as it always was, so he didn’t give a second thought as his long legs carried him up the small rise to the dilapidated stone house a few yards away.
She was waiting for him in there, he knew it. As he walked towards the door, which hung crookedly on its hinges, he wondered if she’d found the roses he’d left there yesterday. It had been a trick to ditch his guard, Ronan, to do so, but he’d been thinking about this tryst for days and couldn’t wait to see how the female liked what he was planning on doing to her… whatever her name was again. Agna? Or was it Agea? It didn’t really matter, he decided as he eased the door open, letting his human eyes adjust to the dim room. She had been willing, and that was all that mattered.
The windows of the ramshackle house lacked any covering, but the fading light of sunset offered little illumination within. Even the holes in the ceiling didn’t help much.
He stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him. “Uh, my lady?” he said. He didn’t bother lowering his voice—humans had abandoned the house nearly a decade ago, as far as his reconnaissance told him. That was why he’d chosen it as their meeting place in the beginning—away from the prying eyes of both human- and selkie-kind.
He took a step forward into the room, which was furnished with a single white mattress on a rickety wooden frame. He saw his roses in an earthenware jar on the table next to the bed, undisturbed.
Perhaps she hadn’t arrived yet. He’d tried to arrive later than agreed upon to ensure she got there before him, but maybe he hadn’t given it enough—
“Stop where you are.” He felt the press of cold metal against the tender part of his neck below the jaw.
He grinned in the dim light. “Why, my dear. What a welcome.”
The knife tip eased off his neck, and he felt a gentle hand slide over the smooth skin of his naked back. “Lord Prion, you know I couldn’t be sure it was you. For all I knew, it was my clan come to claim me.” The voice purred in his ear, sending a delightful shiver down his spine. His erection throbbed in anticipation.
He turned and took in his lover. She was tall, almost a head taller than himself, with bright golden hair that trailed over her chest, covering her breasts. Like him, she was naked—their kind rarely bothered with human clothes when it was just them.
She smirked up at him, and he grinned back instinctively. “Someone is definitely here to claim you,” he said, letting the desire leak into his voice.
The woman—Agrin! That was her name, he remembered—flipped her hair over one shoulder, exposing one perfect breast, and sauntered past him. He watched as she walked towards the bed, taking in the way her hips rolled as she moved, the graceful curve of her arm as she set the small knife on the bedside table next to the roses.
Everything about her tempted him. She was the perfect distraction from his princely duties, from the responsibilities of the selkie court, and he indulged in similar escapes as often as he could get away with. As the oldest of three brothers, he was next in line to inherit his parents’ kingdom, and he had absolutely no desire for it. All the pressure and responsibilities—it was enough to make him scream. All he wanted was peace and quiet, and someone—anyone, really—to help him forget it for a while.
She fingered one rose, and he grinned, imagining the way she would writhe under his touch when he trailed the rose petals over her body. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from rushing to her on the spot.
“These are lovely.” She turned a mischievous gaze on him. “For me?” she said coyly.
Now he let himself stroll towards her, letting all his warrior’s training influence the fluidity of his movement. From the way her eyes raked over his body, he knew she was just as hungry for him as he was for her.
“Who else?”
“Oh, perhaps all the lovers you’ve courted over the years? Rumor has it you like to… dally… outside your clan.”
He could detect a hint of jealousy in her tone and grinned at her. “None of them hold a candle to you, my dear,” he lied.
She raised an eyebrow at him as he stalked closer. “This is only the first time we’ve met.”
“My point exactly,” he drawled. He pointed at the bed. “You. There. Now.”
She grinned at him and eased herself gracefully onto the mattress. The bed creaked in warning, and she froze, but Prion ignored it. After the workouts he’d given that bed with others, he knew it would hold a while longer.
“Will this thing hold us?” she asked.
“Probably,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve ever—”
He felt a jolt as if something tugged on an imaginary string behind his navel. “What the seven hells…” Then came the absence, the lack of magical tie that bound him to his sealskin, and he knew it was in someone else’s hands. The only way for a selkie to lose their sense of their skin was for someone else to take ownership of it.
He tumbled off the bed and raced to the door, ripping it open so forcefully it bounced on its hinges. He took several stumbling strides out of the house, seeking the feel of his lost sealskin the way a person suddenly blinded might feel for an obstacle in their path. Reaching out with his metaphysical senses, he sought that pull of his skin only to find… nothing. There was no answering pull to tell him which direction the skin was in.
He raced down the beach toward the water, remembering too late how he’d changed, tossed his skin aside on the deserted beach, intent only on the longing in his body for a female’s answering touch.
How could he be so careless? The first rule, taught to them as pups, was to protect your sealskin, to always know where it was. Without it, you were lost to the human world, never to change again.
His searching eyes found a hunched figure at the waterline, a dark scaled back bent over at the waist. The strong shoulders bunched as the creature’s arms worked furiously over something in its lap.
“Hey!” Prion cried, and the creature jerked upright, whirling to face him with a savage expression.
It was a siren, Prion realized. He saw the scaly features tighten into a scowl as it bared its pointed teeth and hissed at him as he approached. Its noseless face contorted into rage.
“Skinwalker!” it spat at him. “How dare you touch what is mine!” It raised a taloned fist, holding a mass of soggy brown material. “I hope she likes this form you take. It’s the last one she’ll ever see of you!”
With an awkward twist, unused to moving out of the water, it turned on its fins and dove into the oncoming waves. The brown mass in its hand fell in a heap on the sand.
Instantly Prion felt the magical pull of it again, and he gasped, diving forward on his knees to cradle his sealskin in his lap.
Or at least, what remained of it. As he picked it up, he could feel tears in it that hadn’t been there before, and he raised it to his disbelieving eyes to see gaping wounds torn in the oily fur pelt.
“Prion, what happened?” Agrin’s voice called from behind him.
He ignored her, too focused on touching the rips in the skin with trembling fingers. He’d never seen damage like this before, not on any selkie’s pelt. The tears looked as if they should be bloodied from the damage, gore-covered from the gaps ripped through the blubber and the fur.
Behind him, Agrin skidded to a halt and gasped as she realized what he was holding. “That can’t be your skin, Prion. Can it?”
A wordless cry of rage erupted from him, and he clenched his fists in his torn sealskin as he threw his head back and screamed.
From the water on his right, a man appeared, rising naked from the water and pulling a sodden gray sealskin from his own back. “My Lord Prion, what—”
Prion thrust a finger in the direction the siren had gone. “He damaged my skin!” Prion’s voice cracked with intensity. “Kill him!”
The naked man clapped a fist over his heart and gave a brief nod. Then he flung the sealskin over his shoulders like a cape and dove into the water. Even as the sea spray rose from his crashing entry, the man was already halfway into his seal shape.
Prion ground his teeth together as his hands worked restlessly over the torn pelt in his lap. His fingers caressed the rips, moving from wound to wound without realizing he was doing it.
Moments later, another selkie rose from the water.
Prion gave him a sharp glance. “Ronan, what news? Did you catch the siren?”
The man called Ronan hesitated, frowning. “It was T’salt, my Lord.”
“I know who it was!” Prion shrieked, flinging sand to the side in a burst of rage. “That siren thinks being royalty will keep him from my grasp? He won’t be able to breathe through his gills after I rip them from his—”
“Why did he do this?” Ronan interrupted.
Prion’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he clenched his jaw instead of raging again. “Because of my… dalliance… with Aislinn.” He jerked his chin to indicate the naked woman behind him.
“Agrin!” she cried angrily.
Ronan cast a dubious glance at her, then returned his gaze to his prince. “I don’t understand. Why would that matter?”
“He wants me,” she said bluntly. “He has approached my mother for a marriage alliance several times. Each time, she politely declined, but he’s been providing increasingly decadent gifts to sweeten the deal.”
“And what happened this last time?” Ronan asked. “Something must have changed…?”
Agrin’s voice was flat when she replied, “I turned him down myself. Said there was no way I’d marry a siren prince, regardless of his gifts.” She cast a worried glance at Prion. “I said I was spoken for already, by another of my kind. It was a lie, but I thought that would end his requests.”
Prion stared into the distance, his hands working furiously over his torn pelt. “Leave me.” His voice was distant, cold.
“My Lord?” Ronan asked hesitantly.
“Not you!” Prion spat. He jerked his head at the woman behind him. “You. Agrin. Leave me. Go back to your own clan.”
“But, my Lord, what about—”
“I said leave me!” he screamed in fury.
He heard the crunch of footsteps behind him and knew she was returning to the house for her sealskin. He knew she was probably furious, but he didn’t care. She was nobody important.
He snatched up the torn sealskin and stalked to the water’s edge. He threw the skin over his shoulders like a cape and crouched low on the beach. The ribbons of pelt hung like banners over his pale skin, which peeked through the holes like eyes. He strained visibly, his shoulders shaking with effort, but nothing happened. His hands curled into fists at his thighs.
After several long moments, he straightened, and the skin fell to the ground in a sodden heap. His eyes, staring out at the sea, were far-reaching.
“My parents must know about this,” Prion told Ronan. From the corner of his eye, he saw the form of the woman huffily tossing her sealskin over her shoulders and disappearing into the water. “Bring them here as fast as you can.”
Ronan clapped a hand to his heart and turned, pulling his sealskin over himself. The change happened before he disappeared under the water, and Prion felt a cold wash of fury come over him.
Land-bound and naked until his parents could come save him. They would be furious. But that paled compared to his situation. Let them be furious—they never approved of his actions, whether or not he acted like a prince. Let them make their comments about his dalliance with another female having gotten him into this situation. He could withstand that, as long as they could fix his problem.
He knew they’d get him out of this mess. They had to.
