Page 59 of Selkie AU: Beyond the Storm

Shit.

The other poachers smiled, knowing exactly what their teammate was, and what he was capable of.

The stitches in the big guy’s clothing popped. Fabric stretched until it tore as his bones cracked and his skin warped.

SHIT.

“Naninuk!” I shouted, warning those above us. We were going to need reinforcements, and we were going to need themnow.

I glanced around frantically.

“What’s Naninuk?” Rowan asked, again trying to pull me behind him.

“Bear!”

“Bear?”

“Bear!”

“What do you mean—ohshit.”

The transformation was almost complete. The Naninuk’s human skin was covered in fur, his clothing hanging off his expanding body in strips. If we were going to have any chance, we had to act right now. The only time Naninuk were anything close to vulnerable was when they were mid-shift, their bodies breaking before they could reform into something much larger.

A short distance behind him was an open door.

“Get the Naninuk into the room!” I shouted as I rushed forward.

Rowan did the same after only a moment’s hesitation.

After we had the main threat contained, we could worry about the other poachers. Even as two of them raised their weapons, the things making loud noises as something shot out of them, the Naninuk was still the biggest threat.

Rowan and I pushed with everything we had, then more hands were joining us as other selkies gave us their strength. Once the Naninuk was completely transformed it would be almost unstoppable, but it couldn’t fight us properly until then.

We barely made it in time, getting the beast into the room filled with steam and heated metal just as it took its true form and a gigantic polar bear filled the space. The door closed and Rowan slammed his body against it in an attempt to keep it shut as the bear clawed and thrashed against the other side.

It wouldn’t hold for long. There had to be another way.

“Here, lad,” said a booming voice, sounding very annoyed, like that wasn’t the first time they’d tried to get my attention. I followed it to one of the bigger cages, where a huge, burly, naked man was shaking the bars. He was just as large as the Naninuk poacher had been, and I realized quickly that was because hewas Naninuk too. “Get me out of here, and I’ll handle that bastard for you.”

I swallowed, unsure if I could trust him enough to set him free.

My thoughts were jolted as the entire base shook, a loud rumble coming from the outer wall. What wasthat?

It happened again.

A familiar cackle caught my attention, and I turned to see my grandmother, with one of the shooting things in her hands. She’d clearly taken it from one of the poachers and was swinging it around, threatening poachers and selkie alike. “Our reinforcements have arrived.” She grinned. “Chop chop, Milo. How long do you think it’ll take sixty orcas to sink an iceberg?”

The rumbles continued, the entire base shaking as I realized the orcas were ramming it from outside.

“The cages, lad,” the imprisoned Naninuk shouted with new urgency. “The coward who’s locked himself in that room will have the keys. If you want to get anyone out of here, you’ll need them,” he explained, gesturing to a door across from us.

I may have been uncertain about the Naninuk, but the cage next to him contained three selkie, all without their coats. If what he’d said was true, then I needed those keys anyway to free them.

The room the “coward” was locked in had a metal door, and I doubted my abilities to break through it, but a huge part of the wall to the side of it was made from glass, providing a window into the area filled with equipment unlike anything I’d ever seen. I could break that.

I looked around until I spotted a curved metal bar set on top of some open wooden boxes. With a glance back at Rowan, whose body jolted as the trapped Naninuk slammed against the door, I rushed for it.

It took five hits before the thick glass shattered, and I climbed into the room. There were two humans in here, both crouched beneath a table in a poor attempt at hiding themselves.