Her Selkie Secret (9 page)

They stood in silence and her choice stretched between them.

Danae couldn’t look at him, she didn’t want to see the resignation in his eyes. “You once said you wanted to swim until the ocean took you. Do you still want that?”

He shook his head.

“Good.”

Before she could overthink her decision, Danae turned and threw the sealskin over his shoulders, giving him no time to react to her actions. She caught one glimpse of the shock in his eyes as he transformed into a seal in front of her eyes. Danae turned and fled towards the cottage. Away from him, the ocean and the beach.

Danae couldn’t live with herself if she stole Liam’s very being just to be with Alba. She loved her daughter and knew she was safe and protected. It would be a bleeding wound in Danae’s heart for the rest of her life knowing she could never be with her daughter, but she would rather be alone with her memories of love and family than to turn into someone who would destroy anything to get her heart’s desire. Like Lori.

She flung open the cottage door and looked around wildly. Would she leave? Could she? Danae sunk to the floor weeping. What had she done? She had nothing. No Alba. No Liam. Nothing but the memories she’d once tried to purge from her mind. What a cruel choice to be given.

Danae wasn’t sure if she should stay to help rebuild the town or flee as far from the coast as possible. She would never be able to look at the waves crashing on a beach without feeling her heart being ripped out over and over again. Every single storm crashing into the cove would be like being lashed.

Danae shook her head. All she would take were her pictures, so she could remember. She couldn’t help but laugh. This all started because she so desperately wanted to forget and now she would do everything in her power to hold those memories tight.

Maude can take care of packing up the cabin. She owes me that.
If it stops hurting I will try to come back.
But Danae knew it was never going to stop. She just wanted to know she could come back.
I don’t even have a picture of Liam. All I have are the memories I hold in my heart. They will have to do.

The sweater he’d worn earlier lay across a chair. Danae reached out and pulled it to her. She buried her face in it, inhaling his scent, trying to imprint him as hard as possible in her mind.
I know how memories start to get faded.
She burst into fresh tears, rocking on the floor with her face pressed into the soft fabric.

She threw her head towards the sky and howled out her fresh grief. Why? That’s all she could think and feel.

The door to the cottage burst open, but Danae didn’t have the strength to see who it was. If Lori had gotten free, she had nothing left in her to fight.

But strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a familiar chest. It was Liam.

She pulled away from him, panicking. “Please don’t let my choice be for nothing. I can’t bear to see you leaving again, please you have to go.”

Liam pulled her back against his chest and said, “Danae, please. I can’t let it happen like this.”

“It’s too late, I made my choice. I have to live with it. I’m going to go away. I guess I’m finally free to leave, just like I wanted. You were right about the price we have to pay.”

“But why, why would you do that? You could have been with your daughter?”

She let him comfort her, reveling in his body pressing against hers. “Liam, who would I be if I took that from you? She’s safe, that’s the most important thing. What kind of person would I be if I would kill part of someone else? Don’t ask me what I would do if it would mean saving her, but not like this. I didn’t think it was possible anything could hurt me again, I thought I had been as low as a person could be. I was wrong.”

“Please don’t go away, Danae. Please don’t leave me.”

“Leave you? You have your skin, you need to go back to your home, to your people.”

He said, “Danae, I’m going to find Alba for you. I don’t know what form she is, but the beach is right here. I can bring her to you. I can stay with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If I didn’t get my skin back…I would have been in a half-life, driven to find it. Driven mad by the sea I was no longer welcome in. But it’s part of me again. Selkie take human brides, we just have to go back to the sea at times. I would have to leave you, but not forever. Just like the fishermen of the old days.”

She said, “You would stay with me? You don’t want your boon from Neya?”

“I’ve more than fulfilled my obligations. Please, I love you so much.”

She pressed her mouth to his in answer to his anguished plea. They just held each other for what felt like endless moments.

They were disturbed by a rapid knock at the door frame and the clearing of a throat. Danae peeked around Liam’s broad shoulders at the intruder. She was shocked to see Maude, holding a package.

Maude said, “I won’t stay long. I was tasked with bringing you this immediately.”

Danae and Liam helped each other off the floor.

Danae said, “Tasked? By who?”

Maude said, “You’ll see soon enough, I imagine. I’ll see myself out.”

She handed the box to Liam and walked away. They stared at each other and Liam finally said, “Well, I suppose Simon couldn’t deliver it.”

Danae laughed softly and opened the box. She gasped when a fur tumbled out at her feet.

“Oh my God.”

Liam picked it up and shook it, a note tumbled to the ground.

Danae – Sacrifice deserves rewards. -Neya

Liam half laughed and pulled Danae into his arms. He said, “Let’s go find your daughter, together.”

~ * ~ * ~

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Her Selkie Secret.
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Flora Dare lives in Durham, NC in a cute little pink house, with her husband, Scott and their hellion of a puppy, HaliToeses. She writes love, lust and mayhem in almost every flavor, and like The Pirate Movie, she wants a happy ending, every time!

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The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.