Page 69 of Selkie AU: Beyond the Storm

35

Milo

Both?

How was it possible to have both? Rowan couldn’t get to the colony, and I couldn’t exactly move the colony to Rowan. Could I? No. There was no way everyone would fit in his house. There were other houses, but humans lived in those, and I had a very strong feeling the colony wouldn’t be as eager to move to land as I was. So how would it be possible to keep both of them?

“If it were possible… to lead the colony but live with Rowan, I would do so.”

I couldn’t find a solution to how that would work, but she was a goddess. She was capable of far more than I’d ever be able to comprehend.

I waited.

She was silent.

Rowan gasped, his head darting around us as he frantically looked for something.

“What is it?” I asked, unable to hear what he was hearing.

“A voice.”

My eyes widened. She was speaking to him? The goddess who, to our knowledge, had never even spoken with selkie before had blessed me with hearing her voice as she heard my prayer, and now she was speaking to my mate. My eyes heated along with my chest. That had to be a good thing. It had to mean that at some level, she found him worthy.

Rowan’s eyes met mine again as they glassed over.

What was she saying to him? I wanted to hear everything, wanted to know what it all meant.

He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he answered her, perhaps unable to use mind speak, or he just didn’t know how. “Yes,” he answered again. “Anything.”

“What’s she saying?” I asked, unable to hold in my curiosity any longer.

“Shhh,” he shushed me with two fingers over my lips.

I scowled at him, watching his face closely for any indication of what was being said.

His eyes widened, as did mine, even though I didn’t know why.

Rowans mouth opened, closed, opened again. He cleared his throat and nodded. “Yes, I will. Every day for the rest of my life I will treasure him.”

I needed to know what she was saying right now!

Tears welled in his beautiful ocean eyes. “Thank you.”

He smiled. It was the biggest, brightest smile I’d ever seen on his perfect lips. It left me breathless, and suddenly what the goddess had said mattered less to me than the pure joy and relief it brought him. I wanted to paint a picture of that smile to remember it always, or spend hours just witnessing it, but then his mouth was crashing against mine and I felt the curve of it against my lips instead.

He kissed me as if he could pour his joy directly into my soul like some form of magic, and maybe he could, because my body relaxed in his arms and my heart beat in time with his. His joy was my joy. His hope, my hope.

And the tension eased. The pull like a magnet, like a rope around me, yanking me back to the colony… it eased. Faded. Not entirely, but the urgency of it. The crushing weight. I was free from the responsibility of it for a little while longer. Whatever he had said, agreed to, it bought us time, at the very least.

“Go, my child. Take your mate, and keep my people safe.”

My mate. She approved of us. Hadblessedus.Thatwas what I was feeling. It wasn’t that the weight of my responsibilities had disappeared, it had been halved, shared with my bonded mate.

My vision blurred as my eyes opened again. My nose brushed against his as I inhaled his exhales. I knew without him telling me that we didn’t have to worry anymore, that we’d be able to stay together.

“I can come live with you?” I whispered.

He huffed. “No.”