Page 64 of Selkie AU: Beyond the Storm

So slowly, he lowered Sila into the water. The tiny seal splashed frantically, but Miki nudged him softly, and he soon started to swim properly, then they joined the others once more.

Panak watched them go, then turned his attention back to me, motioning for me to come closer. I wasn’t used to operating a boat as large as this, but I managed to get close enough for us to speak to each other without shouting.

“Nice boat.” He smiled.

“It’s stolen, I’m afraid. I’ll have to let her loose. Never know if they put trackers in them or anything.”

Panak nodded. “Miki had a feeling you’d be needing a way home.”

So that’s why they were out here. I huffed. Their goddess really seemed to take care of everything.

Miki returned to the boat with Sila a short time later, and Milo returned to me.

He was suddenly quiet and wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Everything okay?” I asked. They’d seemed to be enjoying themselves swimming until now.

“The selkies are going to go back to the colony,” he told me, still not looking at me.

“Okay. That’s good, isn’t it?”

He nodded and rushed at me suddenly, his arms locking around me, and he squeezed me tight. I held him back the same way.

The selkies slowly started to return to the boat, but only, it seemed, to approach Milo. Each one would lean forward, until the tip of their nose touched his then their foreheads bumped together, then they nodded and stepped away so the next selkie could do the same. It seemed maybe like some form of goodbye,except they lingered, all shifting around like they weren’t quite sure what to do next.

“I’ll go first, then, you cowards,” Et’el huffed. “Can fight a bunch of poachers, but can’t show your respects to one big human.”

Before I could question that, Et’el was snapping her fingers at me, gesturing for me to duck down to her level. The moment I did, her cold damp nose pressed against mine, then her forehead touched mine. Then she stepped back and nodded. Unsure exactly what I was supposed to do, I nodded back. It seemed to be the right thing to do, and the next thing I knew every selkie was stepping forward to press their nose against mine, then their forehead, then they nodded.

This time, when they’d done it, they happily pulled on their coats and dived back into the water to return home. One by one, they all said their farewells, and with every nose touched to mine, my chest filled with warmth and gratitude that they’d included me in this selkie custom. Then it was only me, Milo, Et’el, and Raq on this boat, and Panak, Miki, and Sila on the other. Everyone else had returned home.

Milo was still quiet and stiff beside me.

My hand smoothed down his back. “What’s wrong, my love?”

It was the wrong thing to say, apparently, because his eyes welled with tears. He jumped, and I caught him. His legs and arms wrapped around me tighter than they ever had and he sniffed into my neck.

Everything had gone so well, hadn’t it? We’d done what we set out to do and so much more. So why was he crying now?

Et’el looked at us with sympathy in her eyes. So did Raq and Miki. They all seemed to know something I didn’t.

“Please talk to me, little hurricane. Tell me what’s wrong?”

He cried harder, and I held him until he stopped, then wiped his tears away.

My heart had been so full of warmth, my soul experiencing a peace unlike any I’d ever known just moments ago. Then Milo spoke, and it all vanished. “I was wrong,” he sniffed. “We aren’t mates.”

33

Milo

Everything was going so well. It had been perfect even. The selkies were all so close to home. Miki had her coat back. Everything was exactly as it should be and my heart was so full until I realized the goddess was pulling mehome. Not to the home I’d built with Rowan, though. No, she wanted me to go back to the colony.

It was the same pull I’d felt every single day before I’d found Rowan in the storm and thought she’d given me a new fate. She hadn’t. I’d been wrong. She wanted me on land so I could find Miki, so I could lead the selkie against the poachers, and thenshe wanted me to go back to my life before all of it. It wasn’t possible.

My soul belonged to my goddess, but my heart belonged to Rowan. I couldn’t be without either of them, and yet she wanted me to go somewhere that he couldn’t follow me. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t disobey.

I was torn in two as I clung to my perfect human.