Page 4 of Saved By the Selkie

What kind of creature is this?

No matter—part of the glider floats away, followed by another horrendous crack. Now the glider is underwater. I bark at the bound creature, but he doesn’t seem to hear me over the roar of the sea.

Finally, he kicks free of the sinking glider. He’s awkward and, since his limbs are tied, it’s clear he’s not going to make it very far before he drowns. I bob along after him, wondering how long it will take him to exhaust himself and either asphyxiate or sink under the water.

I can’t make up my mind about whether he’s prey or not.

Finally, I decide I’d rather make the kill myself—fresh meat is always nicer than that which died in a struggle against the sea like this. As his body goes limp and starts to sink, I grab hold of him with my flippers and my teeth, dragging him back up to the surface.

I just hope he doesn’t drown before we reach shore.

three

Aramis

M

y head pounds. My chest is tight. I ache everywhere, and I screw my eyes shut tighter and moan with pain as my body screams back to consciousness.

I thought I was going to die.

I wiggle my fingers. My toes. I’m not dead, at least not as far as I can tell. I mean, if I was, I’d really hope it wouldn’t hurt as much as this.

I cough, my entire body shuddering with it. I drag in another ragged breath, then cough some more. Seawater burns up my throat, and I open my eyes and stare at the sand beneath me as I roll onto my side. Every breath burns; every twitch aches.

I uncurl slowly, caught in the sensation of being watched. I lift my gaze and find a pair of wide, dark eyes trained on me.

I swallow tightly, which provokes another coughing fit, and I spasm into a ball. The stranger moves across the sand, showering dirt into my face with their knees. Then they slap me on the back repeatedly, huge, heavy hits, and I think I might cough up a lung along with half the ocean.

I gasp in air finally and lift my head, rearing back to look at the stranger. They look back at me curiously, tilting their head side to side. Short, silvery locks tumble across their forehead as they do so. They have some seaweed stuck in their tresses, but they don’t seem to care.

I twist my head to look over my shoulder. We’re on a sandy beach, which rises to rocky outcroppings in a couple hundred feet. Then, what looks like tropical jungle takes over.

“Where … am I?”

My voice is a rasp of itself, and I wince. I was hundreds of miles—maybe thousands—from the nearest island. And I was in the Arctic, not some … tropical paradise.

I close my eyes against the pounding headache.

“Mythos.”

I turn my head back to the stranger, who shifts a little, like they’re uncomfortable, and I notice, for the first time, they are completely and utterly bare. Like, totally butt-naked.

And very much a guy, my brain supplies as my gaze trawls down the stranger’s body. That’s my overriding thought, although there’s something else—something … off … about this person.

Well—what am I expecting? I was drowning in the freezing Arctic Ocean and now I’m on some tropical beach somewhere with a naked—dude?—who maybe, probably, rescued me?

What was this guy doing out in the middle of the ocean anyway? How did we get here?

I put a hand to my forehead, checking for fever. Maybe I’m delusional. Maybe this is all some fever-induced hallucination. But my skin is cool, almost clammy, not warm at all.

Maybe Iamdead.

I glance at my rescuer again, eyeing him warily, trying to decide if he’s someone who seems more like “heaven” or “hell.”

The stranger shifts so he’s on his side in the sand, which puts us at eye-level. He blinks those weird eyes at me. “I can’t decide if I should kill you or not,” he says, like that’s a normal thing to say.

“What?” I spit. “Kill me? Didn’t you … save me? Like, I was drowning, out there”—I point at the surf—“and you dragged me all the way up here, so?”