Page 3 of Selkie AU: Beyond the Storm

Aarlinuk.

“Look, Kova. Dinner has delivered itself right to us.” A low voice rippled through the water. It wasn’t through the link all seal folk shared. It wasn’t blessed by the goddess’s gifts. It was unholy. Dangerous. The laugh that followed even more so.

“Raq, you have to leave!” I projected, knowing the Aarlinuk couldn’t hear us through the link.

“I’m not leaving you, Milo!”

“I’m not asking. Go now. While you still have a chance.”

“I. Won’t. Leave. You.”

Raq held the shard of glass firmly in dark gray fingers as he put himself between me and the approaching beasts.

The Aarlinuk were giant creatures. Not quite as large as orcas, despite the resemblance their coloring and lower half bore to the whales, but substantially larger than us. There were two of them. An adult and a child.

I was tall for a selkie, but the child was around my size.

My heart thundered in my chest as it constricted with the need for air. A weight settled over me, squeezing tighter than the rope fastened around my bleeding tail.

I wasn’t making it out of this.

“Go, Raq. Now.”

“No.”

Stupid loyal bastard.

I couldn’t see a way we would escape together. Even if I got free of this rope, I was injured. Bleeding. And these devils could easily follow me all the way back to the colony. I couldn’t go home. But Raq might still have a chance. I just had to convince him to leave me.

“Give me the glass and lead them away.”

“But you—”

“I’ll be fine. I feel it.”

Being the next chosen after my grandmother meant that I felt the goddess's pull stronger than others. Second only to Aanaa. I could sense the war in Raq as he decided whether he could believe me or not.

“Mmm, you’re a meaty one,” the elder Aarlinuk chuckled as he sized up Raq. “Don’t you want to escape? It’s more fun if I get to chase you first.” A dark tongue licked over serrated teeth and his black upper lip.

“Go!” I yelled through our bond, and Raq finally spurred into action. He slapped the glass shard into my waiting palm, pulledthe top half of his coat over his head, and took off in the direction we’d come.

At first, the Aarlinuk didn’t follow. Pure black eyes watched with amusement, the bright white circles that surrounded them making them look even more sinister. He chuckled, the sound rippling through the water in a way that seemed to surround me as I ducked to try cutting at the rope with the shard.

“I’m going to play. Watch this one, Kova. Even you should be able to manage that.”

With that, the giant creature took off, the power of his tail propelling him forward as he chased after my best friend.Be safe, Raq.

I wasn’t. Not yet. The remaining Aarlinuk may be a child, but he still had huge advantages over me.

My fingers fumbled as I worked as fast as possible to cut through the rope, waiting for the child to try and stop me at any moment. But he didn’t. He stayed right where he was, simply watching.

Perhaps he was like his father, waiting for me to escape so he could have the thrill of chasing me. Though the further away the larger one got, the more that sense of danger from the goddess seemed to subside. I still needed to breathe.

I could have sobbed with pain and relief when the rope tugged, slicing deeper into my tail but snapping. It was loose enough for me to pull the rest away with my shaking fingers.

I looked up at the child.Kova. He watched me with a vacant expression. Unreadable. Hair, pure black and much longer than his father’s, drifted around his still form.

Aarlinuk looked so similar to us in our half-shifted form, with an upper body that was almost human, though where our skin resembled a human’s, besides our dark gray fingertips and pointed ears, theirs was pure black and white. Where our bodiesshifted into seals, theirs permanently resembled the orcas they commanded and hunted with.