Page 82 of Selkie AU: Beyond the Storm

“No. We’re having a boy!” My eyes heated.

“Okay, okay, my love. I’m sorry.” Rowan’s hands smoothed up my thighs as he claimed my lips. “We’re having a boy, you’re right.”

The tears retreated before spilling. It was very important that he believe me, and I believed that he did now.

“How about Rory, then?”

“Rory,” I repeated, smiling wide. I loved the sound of that one.

“What does it mean?”

“It means red king.”

I kicked my legs in excitement. “That’s it! His name is Rory! He’s going to be selkie king one day, and he’s going to have red hair like his daddy. It’s perfect, Rowan!”

Rowan chuckled, and I shuffled off the counter to launch myself at him. He caught me.

“Let’s go put it on the wall!”

“Okay,” he agreed, kissing my cheek and taking me into the room that Rowan used to sleep in. We’d slowly been making itinto the perfect room for the baby. Rowan had even built him his own nest out of wood called a crib. I’d been painting the walls with all beautiful things for Rory to enjoy. My favorite fish, the comb jellies that surrounded the colony, Rowan fishing on his boat. I’d even painted the Naninuk from the base, along with the foxes and the harpy we’d rescued, so that one day I could tell Rory all about it and he could see them for himself.

Rowan got me a brush and my paints, and I took them from him as I went to the wall before stopping. Rowan had taught me how to write his name and my own, and some others, but I wasn’t sure how to write Rory.

“The first two letters from my name,” he told me, and I quickly brought the brush to the wall to start. “Then the first letter again.” I did it. “Then a new letter.” Rowan’s hand smoothed up my wrist as he helped to guide me in painting the new letter.

RORY.

It was perfect.

41

Rowan

Seven months later

I was running out of clothes.

Every time I wore anything, Milo would claim it the moment I took it off and stash it in our nest. Only when my scent had completely faded from the clothing at the bottom of the pile did he let me take them back so I could make them smell like me again.

That was why I was at the store, yet again, buying a few more items of clothing to get me through this last stretch.

Selkie pregnancies were longer than humans’. He’d just started his eleventh month, and Rory would be with us in just a couple of weeks. Milo was still adamant that we were having a boy, and given that he’d somehow justknownwhen he was pregnant, I had no reason not to believe him.

My phone vibrated as I was heading to the checkout.

Raina: How are our boys doing?

My siblings had been shocked to learn about Milo, and Milo had been shocked by the “human magic” of video calls. While my family accepted that I had a boyfriend right away, they struggled—understandably—with believing he wasn’t human. It took Milo shifting in front of them for them to take it seriously and stop asking if I was okay. I trusted them not to tell anyone, and after they’d mostly wrapped their heads around it, they’d been supportive. Raina planned to visit us shortly after Rory was born, and she had a lot of pregnancy tips to give Milo that I think he found a little overwhelming. She’d been following up with me every couple of days since.

Me: No new developments.

Everything was going well, for the most part. As long as we were on land, and close enough to whatever Milo might suddenly crave to avoid a full meltdown. I tried to keep a bit of everything at the house, but he still surprised me occasionally with something new he desperately needed.

Between owing nothing on the house and the part-time work I’d picked up on Panak’s fishing boat, we could comfortably afford everything we needed for the time we spent here.

I hadn’t bought another boat. There wasn’t any need. We used Panak’s boat for fishing, and it was certainly big enough to hold us, and he and Miki were happy to come past the colony regularly. Panak couldn’t come into the colony like I could, butMiki liked to visit, and he was content fishing in his boat as he waited for her to come back. I often joined him.

If Milo wanted seal time in the water, we only had to ask and Panak and Miki would accompany us to somewhere safe and private, though he never wanted to swim for too long before he was tired and wanted to come back to the nest in my living room in front of the fire to nap.