Page 10 of Saved By the Selkie

I shake my head. “No.”

Aramis holds up a hand. “C’mon, Lir—you know, two sexes.”

I give him my blankest look. I am not following, at all. Humans are so strange.

“Well—well. Some selkies have babies, right?”

“Oh,” I say. Then I glance back at Anna. Then Aramis.

He smiles and nods. “Got it?”

I nod minutely. I can’t explain it, but I feel suddenly very shy, like I don’t want to be naked ever again. I’ve never, in all my years, felt like that. But I feel my nudity now, and I desperately want my sealskin, like it can hide me.

Speaking of …

I glance around, but I don’t see it anywhere. “Where’s my pelt?”

Aramis grabs my arm. “Sh! Don’t say anything about that—I told you, I don’t trust them. I’m not sure what they’re up to. Don’t mention your pelt.”

“But,” I protest. Without it, I’m stuck like this. I don’t like the thought of that at all.

Aramis pats my arm. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I put it somewhere safe. We’ll get it when they leave.”

“Okay,” I agree, and Aramis waves me back toward the fire and his crew.

“We’ll see if Porthos can loan you some pants,” he says as he ambles back down the beach. “You look about the same size.”

I flush at thinking I’m about the same size as the bearded one. I’m a good deal taller than Aramis, sure. I glance toward Anna again. I’m alot taller than … her (was that the word Aramis used?). Broader too.

All human females look like Anna, Aramis said, and females have babies. Like omegas. I guess that means the others, the ones like Aramis, are alphas?

I don’t look like Anna at all; I look more like their alphas, and I’m a little nervous and sick with the thought. I’m not quite sure why.

We sit back down by the fire. “Lir helped me,” Aramis says to Porthos, “but he’s lost all his own stuff—burned his clothes when he first washed up here, to keep warm. You think ya can loan him something?”

“Aye,” Porthos says.

I glance at him, then at Anna again. I wonder if I should dress like her. Porthos and Aramis are wearing blousy white coverings over their torsos and navy coverings that encase their legs. Anna is wearing something entirely different—a long blanket, it seems like, with a bit of rope tied around her waist.

Does … Aramis not realize I’m an omega? Does he think I’m an alpha?

Maybe. And maybe that means he wouldn’t ask me to go to the North Beach and find a mate. Or have pups.

With that thought, excitement floods through my veins. This could be my way out.

Shortly after we’ve eaten, the humans douse the fire and get into the little gliders. “Come on,” Aramis says to me after he pitches a big bundle of coconuts into one of the gliders.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He points to the big glider. “We’re going back to the ship. We’ll get you some clothes, hm?”

I frown. “Are you leaving?” I ask, and he nods.

“Yup. They want to lift anchor—we’re a day behind, so we can’t tarry. If we do, the provisions will run out.”

“What provisions?” I ask, but I trail him into the shallows anyway.

“Food and fresh water,” he says, then plonks down in the glider. “You coming with?”