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You are selfish to have left me alone!
Ah, young one, he would reply.It was not me who took your mother or your sister or your father. You killed your mother, you wished your sister dead, and your actions stole your father’s last breath.
He was not wrong, and when I questioned what I had done to deserve this loneliness, I remembered that I had made a terrible wish.
I hated that this place made me think of my family, and I ground my teeth against the feelings rising inside me, the strange cloudiness in my chest, the pinprick of tears in my eyes. I stepped out from the cover of the portico and into the garden.
A soft breeze caught my skirt, and it fluttered around me. I held on to handfuls of the flowy fabric to keep it from tangling in nearby brambles. As I wandered farther into the garden, it seemed to grow larger, full, taller, until it was all-consuming, and I could no longer see low-hanging clouds or even the pointed spires of Casamir’s castle. The path I had followed had long disappeared, overgrown with foliage, though it still remained before me. I wondered if this was Casamir’s magic or the magic of the Enchanted Forest? Were they one and the same?
I knew little about magic except that it was cruel.
As I continued, I was careful not to touch anything or look too long at a beautiful flower for fear it would hypnotize me and lead me to some cruel fate. I might not have anything to live for, but I did not wish to die here among the fae. The path I was on led straight to a murky pond. It was surrounded by tall blades of grass and flowering trees, the petals of which were scattered across the surface of the water, which was dark in color and crowded with star-shaped blossoms, but none of that drew my attention like the naked man sitting at the center of the pond on a rock.
He was a selkie, a shape-shifting fae. Their natural form was that of a seal, and it was a skin they could shed so they could walk on land as a human. The sealskin was valuable, as it was the only way the fae could return to their true form and their true home, the sea.
This selkie was far from home and careless to my presence, sitting with his hands slightly behind him, head turned toward the sky, allowing the sun to bathe his bare body in golden light. His hair was brown, tousled by the wind, and his skin was bronzed, reddening more as each second passed beneath its rays. His muscles were hard, and so was his cock, which he made no effort to conceal.
He spoke in a singsong voice, and the words made my skin prick with unease.
“There is nothing more sweet than a maiden’s call for me;
Body full of blood, a desperate heartbeat.
Warmed with lust, she comes to me frantic for release
And when that cloying death cry leaves her lips,
She breathes no more for me.”
The words were a hypnotic spell, a weapon selkies used to lure their prey. I could feel it clouding my mind, and a strange lust tore straight down my chest like a knife, cutting me to the core. I fell to my knees, gnashing my teeth, digging frantically into the dirt and pressing the clay into my ears until the lyrics of the selkie’s song were nothing more than a quiet mumble.
The lust dissipated and my body relaxed. I was disturbed by this creature’s magic. I remained on my hands and knees feeling unsettled. For a split second, I had lost control of myself, and it had not been a choice. The realization shook my entire body, and I was struck by how this contrasted so violently with how I felt when I was near Casamir.
At least my reaction to him was genuine, no matter how much I hated it. I was attracted to Casamir, and that was all it took to desire him.
The selkie, though, was a predator.
My heart still pounded in my chest, frenzied from the fae’s eerie song.
I gathered stones before rising to my feet, intending to use them as a weapon, but the selkie was no longer lounging on the rock. I scanned the pond for any sign of movement, but the water was still.
“Hmm, what do we have here?”
The voice came from behind me, and while it was muted, I could still make out the words. I twisted too fast and fell, a scream bubbling up from my throat. As soon as I landed, the selkie straddled me. He had round eyes that seemed to shift from blue to green like the waves of the sea. His hair was wet, weighed down and dripping.
“Who are you, young maiden?” he asked.
I lifted my knee, shoving it hard into his balls. The creature fell onto the ground, and I found myself astride him, lifting my rock-filled hands over my head, readying to strike him in the face until his teeth were broken and he choked on his own blood, but then I noticed the skin of a seal lying near and snatched it from the ground.
I stumbled back with the selkie’s skin in hand, and when he saw that I had it, his eyes grew wide.
“No, please! Give it back!”
I grinned and held one of the rocks to it.
The selkie need not know it wasn’t sharp.
“Is this important to you?”
