Dedication

To the Rathers

(aka the wonderful readers

on the WickedLovely.com fan site),

who’ve been such a joy to me

these past several years.

Thank you for conversations,

teas, and fab art.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Where Nightmares Walk

Winter’s Kiss

Transition

Love Struck

Old Habits

Stopping Time

The Art of Waiting

Flesh for Comfort

The Sleeping Girl and the Summer King

Cotton Candy Skies

Unexpected Family

Merely Mortal

Other Books by Melissa Marr

Copyright

About the Publisher

T’S NOT ALWAYS AS EASY TO SEE THE PATH when you’re on it, but looking back is often much clearer. In 2004, I wrote a short story, “The Sleeping Girl,” that turned into a novel (Wicked Lovely) that evolved into a series. At the time, I was homeschooling my kids, reading adventure with my son and YA books with my daughter, and still teaching university. A few years before that, I’d taught two defining courses. One was called “Girlhood Narratives.” It started with fairy tales and worked forward into novels. The second was simply called “The Short Story.” In retrospect, it’s pretty easy to see that my children and my teaching were influential in writing the fairy tale that started my career.

Since then, I’ve continued to mix fairy tales and folklore together in novels and short stories. They’re scattered in anthologies, ebook-only editions, and special editions of my novels, so I figured it might be nice to have some of them together in one book.

Well over half of these pages are taken up by Wicked Lovely world stories; the rest of the pages are reserved for other worlds. These are stories pulled from lore and nightmares, set in places I’ve visited and places I’ve imagined. In the tales, you’ll find a selchie story influenced by Solana Beach, CA; a tale of vampires inspired by parties I once went to in a dead-end town I won’t name; a goblin encounter set in the woods where I once picked berries; and a tale of dark contentment in a mountain town that owes a debt of gratitude to a Violent Femmes song I love. Of course, you’ll also spend time with the Wicked Lovely faeries who have lived in my head and my novels since 2004. I hope you enjoy them.

HE GREEN GLOW OF EYES AND SULFUROUS breath shimmer in the fog as the Nightmares come into range. The horses’ steel-sharp hooves rip furrows in the field, trampling everything in their path.

“Over here!” my companion dog calls out to them, exposing me.

I didn’t know he could speak, but there is no mistaking the source of the sound—or the fact that I am trapped in a field with Nightmares bearing down upon me.

The dog shakes, and his glamour falls away like water flung from his fur. Under his disguise, my helpmate is a skeletal beast with holes where its eyes should be.

“Run,” it growls, “so we can chase.”

I want to, but much like the rest of the things I want my legs to do, running is no longer an option. If I could still run, I wouldn’t be alone on the night when Nightmares walk free. If I could still run, I’d be out in costume trick-or-treating with my friends.

“I can’t run.”

I hobble toward an oak that stands like a shadow in the fog.

The monstrous dog doesn’t stop me as I drop my crutches and pull myself onto the lowest branch. It doesn’t stop me as I try to heave myself higher.

“Faster!” it calls out to the Nightmares, which are almost upon me.

The only question left to answer is whether their running or my climbing is quicker.

NCE—A LONG TIME AGO BEFORE CHANGE had come—there was a girl whose father was a king. Now, this was when there were a great many kings, so Nesha did not think it strange to be the daughter of a king. And though she had no brothers or sisters, Princess Nesha was happy—but for one thing. Nesha had within her the kiss of winter. When she sighed, her breath rolled out in an icy chill. When she blew a kiss to her father across their great hall, frost flowers formed on every dish.

In winter, Nesha could drape snows over every hill without fear, but in the summer, if she forgot herself and blew the white tops of dandelions gone to seed, if she laughed too freely and her cold breath spilled out, she would wither whole fields, blighting the crops her people needed to survive.

Her father built her a great tower with no windows through which her cold breath could escape, but Nesha wept at being alone and enclosed.

So Nesha left her tower and sought out her father in the great hall. Gazing at the fields she could see through the tall window before her, she said, “I do not belong in this place with its long months of warmth and sun.”

Though he knew she was right, the king wept, for he loved his daughter. “Nesha, stay. We can find a way.”

She turned and rested her head against her father’s shoulder, thinking of the windowless room and months indoors, of trying not to laugh for fear of the cold air that slipped through her lips. “No. I must go.”

The king’s warm tears fell onto her cheek, but he said nothing.

Nesha did not sigh or weep; she gazed out the window at the new plants in the fields, wondering why she had been cursed so cruelly.

The next morning the king walked his daughter to the edge of the wood. He held her only briefly. “Be safe.”

After a few silent tears, Nesha clutched her staff and strode off into the dark wood.

She traveled for many days. One evening as she sat on a felled tree, she let her eyes drift closed. She imagined the icy rim that encircled the northernmost edge of the land, hoping she would soon reach it, and worrying she would not find welcome once she did.

When she opened her eyes, a great ice-bear stood before her. The bear lay down at her feet, his fur glistening as if he had been bathed in precious oils.

“What are you doing here?” she murmured, her voice trembling only a bit.

As Nesha looked into his eyes, she saw her own nervousness reflected there, and her fear disappeared like frost under a spring sun. “Are you lonely too?”

So she closed her eyes and exhaled gently—giving the bear thick snow upon which to rest.

The ice-bear stretched out in the snow and stared up at her until she climbed from the log and sat next to him.

She opened her pack and drew out a piece of thick meat. She broke off a small piece for herself, then offered the rest of the meat to the bear.

The ice-bear gently accepted the meat from her hand.

“Perhaps we can be lonely together.” Nesha lay down to rest alongside the bear in their pile of snow.

When Nesha awoke the next morn, she found that the bear had curled around her, holding her body close to his furred limbs.

After a small meal, Nesha readied herself to travel.

The ice-bear lay flat in front of Nesha and glanced at her. He tossed his head toward his back.

Nesha ran her hand over his thick pelt. Then, she stepped past him. “Come. If you’re to travel with me, we must be off.”

The ice-bear bounded past Nesha, and once again lay prostrate before her.

She laughed and stepped past him once more. “We’ll not get far if we stop to play.”

For the third time the ice-bear leaped before her—this time, though, when he stretched his great length across the path, his body spanned the space between two boulders. She could not walk around him.

Grumbling, Nesha began to climb over him, but once she was atop his back, he stood.

“Oh,” she murmured, awed that such a great beast would carry her. She was still tired from her days of walking, so she said, “For a short while, I suppose there’s no harm in it.”

So, atop the ice-bear, Nesha journeyed through the forest. The only sounds were the rippling of waters and the cries of creatures in the dense canopy overhead. A solitary owl called out from a hidden perch; squirrels chattered in their secret language. And despite her worries, Nesha felt joy as the bear ambled under pine boughs and outstretched branches.

Eventually, though, the ice-bear paused and lay flat.

Nesha slid to the ground. Beside her were thick berry brambles, heavy with fruit. With his muzzle, the ice-bear gently nudged her toward the fruit.

“I see.” She smiled and began to pick the berries.

As she did so, the ice-bear clambered down the embankment to the swirling river. With his massive paws he pulled fish from the current.

Nesha glanced at the bear standing in the cold water, gathering food. “What a wise beast you are!”

After a while, the ice-bear had not returned up the hill, so Nesha put away the fruit she had collected and went to the top of the muddy embankment. Below her, she saw the bear looking first at the fish he’d caught and then gazing up the hill.

He has no way to carry them, she realized. Gingerly, she climbed down the slope, gripping tiny saplings for balance as she went.

“Let me,” she said, peering into the bear’s eyes. Then she blew softly on the fish, freezing them so they were easier to grasp, and wrapped them into a cloth from her pack.

The ice-bear brushed her shoulder with his muzzle in what she now knew as a friendly gesture. Then, unable to stretch out on the briar-heavy riverside, the ice-bear bent so Nesha could scramble up again.

Once she was seated, the bear rapidly climbed up the hill and resumed their path, and Nesha absently stroked her fingers through his soft fur—thankful to have a companion on her journey.

And thus Nesha forgot the sorrow of carrying a curse. Together, she and the ice-bear found a rhythm to their travels, stopping to gather food when the chance presented itself and continuing on through the still forest.

Though she thought often of her home and her father, after traveling together for a full moon’s passing, Nesha could scarcely imagine life without her ice-bear. In the evenings, they curled in a snowy nest she made for them. During the day, she traveled upon his soft fur and gazed at the increasingly cold land. Tall trees dotted the ground, and the river had a growing crust of ice upon it.

“I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she whispered.

The ice-bear glanced back at her, with a soft almost-growl, and continued on his way.

Nesha knew the ice-bear was unusual, but as they traveled onward she realized that the ice-bear followed a definite path. When Nesha thought to suggest another way, the ice-bear plopped down and refused to move.

One night after they neared the colder lands, the bear led her to a cave. Inside the cave, spires hung like ice from above; water trickled in rivulets down those stalactites. Nesha whispered, “Where do we go? Do you take me to your home?”

The bear simply gazed at her.

“Will there be others there? What if they aren’t as kind as you?” She leaned against the ice-bear.

The bear moved closer; his muzzle pressed against her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured as she stroked his head. She closed her eyes. “You’ve been truly wonderful, but I miss human voices. I miss …”

Nesha paused. The thick pelt under her hand no longer felt right. Instead of coarse fur, her hand rested on silk-soft hair. She jerked her hand away and opened her eyes.

A boy stood beside her. His hair was as dark as the night sky; it was so long that it fell like a heavy blanket touching the earth, hiding a human form.

“Where? Who?” Nesha stepped backward, her words tangled as she stared at the boy. Frantically, she looked for her ice-bear.

“I knew no other way to show you,” the boy was saying. He had not made any movement toward her. “Now that we’ve reached my village—”

“Village?” Nesha looked around her.

From the tunnels other ice-bears, including several cubs, approached.

The boy nodded. “My home …”

“Where is my ice-bear?” Nesha knew the answer, but she needed to hear him say the words.

“I’m here.” The boy took a step toward her, hands outstretched. He was clad in clothes made of a heavy brown cloth, decorated with ivory beads. Over this he wore a fur cloak. “I caught the fish we eat.” He gestured toward the still-glowing embers on the cave floor where she had cooked their meal. “I carried you through the rains and over the gorge.”

“You are a boy.”

“I am.” He smiled tentatively. “And I am the beast who slept in the nests of ice and snow that you made. My people are not bound to one form …. I am called Bjarn.”

Nesha sat down. What he said was stranger than anything she’d ever heard, but as he moved, she knew it to be true. The boy-who-was-a-bear tilted his head a bit when she spoke to him, just as the ice-bear had. The startling black eyes that stared from the boy’s face were the same eyes that had peered at her each morning when she woke. Bjarn spoke the truth.

Nesha wasn’t sure what question to ask first. “Why travel with me? Why bring me here?”

For a moment, Bjarn stood silently. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “The lands grow warmer. My people struggle with the heat; the months when the cold seems to grow less cause such sickness.” Bjarn sat down in front of her and took her hands. “Your gift … it would bring such peace to my people. The eldest suffer when the warmth grows too much. I am not skilled with words. I thought if I could bring you to my father, he would know what to say.” Bjarn looked at the other bears and then back at her. “Will you stay awhile with us?”

Nesha imagined people cherishing her cursed breath, a life where she was not feared. “And if I wanted to return home in the coldest months?”

Bjarn looked solemn as he said, “I would carry you there if you wished. Or if you’d rather, there are others who could carry you.”

As she considered what Bjarn had said, Nesha gazed at the waiting group of bears. Most sat nestled in the rocky crevices, but a couple wrestled with the cubs. She looked back at Bjarn. Though his form was different, Bjarn was the same kind creature he’d been as an ice-bear. “I would have you travel with me.”

“I would like that very much.” Smiling, Bjarn pulled her to her feet.

Clutching his hand in hers, she turned toward the mouth of the tunnels. “Can I meet them?”

He grinned and waved at the ice-bears. One of the largest ambled forward first.

“My grandmother stays in this form almost always since the snows are so brief.” Bjarn rested his face on the great bear’s head in a hug of sorts. “She had heard the stories whispered of you, of your gift, and so I traveled to find you ….”

“Thank you,” Nesha murmured to the bear, joyous at hearing her icy breath called a gift, at finding a home where she would be welcome in the months away from her father’s lands.

The bear rubbed her muzzle against Nesha’s arm.

Bjarn pointed at several cubs who were rolling perilously close to a cluster of stalagmites. “The youngest, my sisters, stay furred as much as they can. They race through the cave tunnels”—he paused and shook his head as one of the cubs hurtled toward another, larger bear—“until my father takes them out to explore the ice dunes and give the elders a bit of quiet ….”

And so long into the night they sat and talked, the girl who carried winter’s kiss and the boy who was a bear.

Thus began their new life. Bjarn still carried Nesha when they went out during the day, but now they were joined by Bjarn’s family. Now, for the first time in her life, Nesha could laughed freely, setting snow squalls to dance over the ledges. Her new family-who-were-bears did not fear her; instead, they spun and laughed in the cold air. And when they returned to the caves, Bjarn walked hand in hand with her—listening as she told him of her life and dreams, and telling her of his life and dreams.

This was the way of their lives for many months.

Then, one winter afternoon, the sky heavy with snow, Nesha said to Bjarn, “Come with me to see my father.”

Bjarn asked, “To stay?”

“No. This is my home.” She motioned toward the great white plain where the cubs were sliding in circles. “With them, with you. Now and always.”

“Always,” Bjarn repeated softly.

And so it was that Nesha shared the first of many kisses with Bjarn, the boy-who-had-become-her-beloved.

TOMORROW

EBASTIAN LOWERED THE BODY TO THE ground in the middle of a dirt-and-gravel road in the far back of a graveyard. “Crossroads matter, Eliana.”

He pulled a long, thin blade and slit open the stomach. He reached his whole forearm inside the body. His other hand, the one holding the knife, pressed down on her chest. “Until this moment, she could recover.”

Eliana said nothing, did nothing.

“But hearts matter.” He pulled his arm out, a red slippery thing in his grasp.

He tossed it to Eliana.

“That needs buried in sanctified ground, and she”—he stood, pulled off his shirt, and wiped the blood from his arm and hand—“needs to be left at crossroad.”

Afraid that it would fall, Eliana clutched the heart in both hands. It didn’t matter, not really, but she didn’t want to drop it in the dirt. Which is where we will put it. But burying it seemed different from letting it fall on the dirt road.

Sebastian slipped something from his pocket, pried open the corpse’s mouth, and inserted it between her lips. “Wafers, holy objects of any faith, put these in the mouth. Once we used to stitch the mouth shut, too, but these days that attracts too much attention.”

“And dead bodies with missing hearts don’t?”

“They do.” He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.

Eliana tore her gaze from the heart in her hands and asked, “But?”

“You need to know the ways to keep the dead from waking, and I’m feeling sentimental.” He walked back toward the crypt where the rest of their clothes were, leaving her the choice to follow him or leave.

TODAY

“Back later,” Eliana called as she slipped out the kitchen door. The screen door slammed behind her, and the porch creaked as she walked over it. Sometimes she thought her aunt and uncle let things fall into disrepair because it made it impossible to sneak in—or out—of the house. Of course, that would imply that they noticed if she was there.

Why should they be any different from anyone else?

She went over to a sagging lawn chair that sat in front of a kiddie pool in their patchy grass. Her cousin’s kids had been there earlier in the week, and no one had bothered to put the pool back inside the shed yet. The air was sticky enough that filling it up with the hose and lying out under the stars didn’t sound half bad.

Except for the part where I have to move.

Eliana closed her eyes and leaned her head back. One of the headaches she’d been having almost every day the past couple months played at the edge of her eye. The doctor said they were migraines or stress headaches or maybe a PMS thing. She didn’t care what they were, just that they stop, but the pills he gave her didn’t help that much—and were more money than her aunt felt like paying for all the good they did.

On to Plan B: self-medicate.

She tucked up her skirt so it didn’t drag in the mud, propped her boots on the end of the kiddie pool, and noticed another bruise on her calf. The bruises and the headaches scared her, made her worry that there was something really wrong with her, but no one else seemed to think it was a big deal.

She closed her eyes and waited for her medicine to arrive.

“Why are you sleeping out here?” Gregory glanced back at her empty front porch. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” She blinked a few times and looked at him. “Just another headache. What time is it?”

“I’m late, but”—he took her hands and pulled her to her feet—“I’ll make it up to you. I have a surprise.”

He’d slid a pill into her hand. She didn’t bother asking what it was; it didn’t matter. She popped it into her mouth and held out her hand. He offered her a soda bottle, and she washed the pill taste out of her mouth with whatever mix of liquor he’d had in with the cola. Unlike pills and other things, good liquor was more of a challenge to get.

They walked a few blocks in silence before he lit a joint. By the look of the darkened houses they’d passed, it was late enough that no one was going to be sitting on their stoop or out with kids. Even if they did look, they wouldn’t know for sure if it was a cigarette—and since Gregory didn’t often smoke, there was no telltale passing it back and forth to clue anyone in.

“Headaches that make a person miss hours can’t be”—she inhaled, pulling the lovely numbing smoke into her throat and lungs—“normal. That doctor”—she exhaled—“is a joke.”

Gregory slid his arm around her low back. “Hours?”

She nodded. Her doctor had given her a suspicious look and asked about drugs when she’d mentioned that she felt like she was missing time, but then she could honestly say that she hadn’t taken drugs. The drugs came after the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She tried the over-the-counter stuff, cutting out soda, eating different foods. The headaches and the bruises weren’t changed at all. Neither is the time thing.

“Maybe you just need to, you know, de-stress.” Gregory kissed her throat.

Eliana didn’t roll her eyes. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he wasn’t looking for a soul mate. They didn’t discuss it, but it was a pretty straightforward deal they had going. He had medicine that took away her headaches better than anything else had, and she did the girlfriend bit. She got the better part of the deal—meds and entry into every party. Headaches had taken her from stay-at-home book geek to party regular in a couple months.

“We’re here,” he murmured.

She took another hit at the gates of Saint Bartholomew’s.

“Come on, El.” Gregory let go of her long enough to push open the cemetery gate. It should’ve been locked, but the padlock was more decoration than anything. She was glad: crawling over the fence, especially in a skirt, sounded more daunting than she was up for tonight.

After he pushed the gate shut and adjusted the lock so it looked like it was closed, Gregory took her hand.

She imagined herself with a long cigarette holder in a smoky club. He’d be wearing something classy, and she’d have on a funky flapper dress. Maybe he’d rescued her from a lame job, and she was his moll. They partied like crazy because he’d just pulled a bank job and—

“Come on.” He pulled her toward the slope of the hill near the older mausoleums.

The grass was slick with dewdrops that sparkled in the moonlight, but she forced herself to focus on her feet. The world spun just this side of too much as the combined headache cures blended. At the top, she stopped and pulled a long drag into her lungs. There were times when she could swear she could feel the smoke curling over her tongue, could feel the whispery form of it caught in the force of her inhalation.

Gregory slipped a cold hand under her shirt, and she closed her eyes. The hard press of the gravestone behind her was all that held her up. Stones to hold me down and smoke to lift me up.

“Come on, Eliana,” he mumbled against her throat. “I need you.”

Eliana concentrated on the weight of the smoke in her lungs, the lingering taste of cheap liquor on her lips, the pleasant hum of everything in her skin. If Gregory stopped talking, stopped breathing, if … If he was someone else, she admitted. Something else.

His breath was warm on her throat.

She imagined that his breath was warm because he’d drained the life out of someone, because he’d just come from taking the final drops of life out of some horrible person. A bad person who—the thought of that was ruining her buzz, though, so she concentrated on the other parts of the fantasy: he only killed bad people, and he had just rescued her from something awful. Now, she was going to show him that she was grateful.

“Right here,” she whispered. She lowered herself to the ground and looked up at him.

“Out in the open?”

“Yes.” She leaned back against a stone, tilted her head, and pushed her hair over her shoulder so her throat was bared to him.

Permission to sink your fangs into me …. He asked. He always asked first.

Gregory knelt in front of her and kissed her throat. He had no fangs, though. He had a thudding pulse and a warm body. He was nothing like the stories, the characters she read about before she fell asleep at night, the vague face in her fantasies. Gregory was here; that was enough.

She moved to the side a little so she could lie back in the grass.

Gregory was still kissing her throat, her shoulder, the small bit of skin bared above her bra line. It wasn’t what she wanted. He wasn’t what she wanted.

“Bite me.”

He pulled back and stared at her. “Elia—”

“Bite me,” she repeated.

He bit her, gently, and she turned her head toward the gravestone. She traced the words: THERE IS NO DEATH, WHAT SEEMETH SO IS TRANSITION.

“Transition,” she whispered. That was what she wanted, a transition to something new. Instead she was stretched out in the dew-wet grass staring at the wingless angel crouched on the crypt behind Gregory. It was centered over the lintel of a mausoleum door almost as if it was watching her.

She shivered and licked her lips.

Gregory was pulling up her shirt. Eliana sighed, and he took it for encouragement. It wasn’t for him, though: it was for a fantasy that she’d been having every night.

Eliana couldn’t see the face of the monster. He’d found her again, though, offered her whispered promises and sharp pleasures, and she’d said yes. She couldn’t remember the words to the questions, but she knew he’d asked. That detail was clear as nothing else was. Shouldn’t fantasies be clear? That was the point, really: fantasies were to be the detailed imaginings to make up for the bleak reality.

She opened her eyes, pushing the fantasies away as headache threatened again, and she saw a girl walking up the hill toward them. Tall glossy boots covered her legs almost to her short black skirt, but at the top—just below the hem of the sheer black skirt—pale white skin interrupted the darkness of the sleek vinyl and silk skirt. “Gory! You left the party before we got there. I told you I wanted to see you tonight.”

Gregory looked over his shoulder. “Nikki. Kind of busy here.”

Undeterred, Nikki hopped up onto the gravestone beside Eliana’s head and peered down at them. “So what’s your name?”

“El … Eliana.”

“Sorry, El,” Gregory murmured. He moved a little to the side, propped himself up on one arm, and smiled at Nikki. “Could we catch you later?”

“But I’m here now.” Nikki kicked her feet and stared at Eliana.

Eliana blinked, trying to focus her eyes. It wasn’t working: the wingless angel looked like it was on a different mausoleum now. She looked away from it to stare at Gregory. “My head hurts again, Gory.”

“Shh, El. It’s okay.” He brushed a hand over her hair and then glared at Nikki. “You need to take a walk.”

“But I had a question for Elly.” Nikki hopped down to stand beside them. “Are you and Gory in love, Elly dear? Is Gory that special someone you’d die for?”

Eliana wasn’t sure who the girl was, but she was too out of it to lie. “No.”

“El …” Gregory rolled back over so he was on top of her. His eyes were widened in what looked like genuine shock.

Nikki flung a leg over Gregory so she was straddling both Gregory and Eliana; she leaned down to look into Eliana’s eyes. “Have you already met someone new then? Someone who you dream—”

“Nicole, stop it,” another voice said.

For a strange moment, Eliana thought it was the wingless angel on the crypt. She wanted to look, but Nikki reached down and forced Eliana to look only at her.

“Do stone angels usually speak?” Eliana whispered.

“Poor Gory.” Nikki shook her head—and then pressed herself against Gregory. “To die for a girl who doesn’t even think you’re special. It’s sad, really.”

He started to try to buck her off. “That’s not funn—”

Nikki pushed herself tighter to his back. “You seem like a nice guy, and I wanted your last minutes to be special, Gory. Really, I did, but”—she reached down and slashed open Gregory’s throat with a short blade—“you talk too much.”

Blood sprayed over Eliana, over the grass, and over Nikki.

And then Nikki leaned down and sank her teeth into the already bleeding flesh of Gregory’s neck.

Gregory arched and twisted, trying to get free, trying to escape, but Nikki was on his back, swallowing his blood and pressing him against Eliana.

Eliana started to scream, but Nikki covered her mouth and nose. “Shut up, Elly.”

And Eliana couldn’t move, couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t breathe. She stared up at Nikki, who licked Gregory’s blood from her lips, as the pressure in her chest increased. She tried to move her legs, still pinned under Gregory’s body; she grabbed Nikki’s wrists ineffectually. She scratched and batted at Nikki as everything went dark, as Nikki suffocated her.

Graveyard soil filled Eliana’s mouth, and a damp sensation was all over her. She opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and spit out the dirt. That was as much as she could manage for the moment. Her body felt different: her nerves sent messages too fast, her tongue and nose drawing more flavors in with each breath than she could identify, and breathing itself wasn’t the same. She stopped breathing, waiting for tightness in her chest, gasping, something. It didn’t come. Breathing was a function of tasting the air, not inflating her lungs. Carefully, she turned her head to the side.

She wasn’t in the same spot, but the same wingless angel stood atop a gravestone watching her.

He was alive. He looked down at her with shadow-dark eyes, and she wondered how she’d mistaken him for a sculpture. Because I couldn’t see this clearly … or smell … or hear. She swallowed audibly, as she realized what she didn’t hear: the angel who had watched her die wasn’t alive either.

She swiped a hand over her eyes, brushing something sticky from her eyelids. Not too many hours ago—she thought—she’d coated her lashes in heavy mascara and outlined her eyes in thick black liner. It wasn’t eyeliner that she smeared over her temple. No. The memory of Gregory’s blood all over her face came back in a rush.

Eliana could hear the sounds of people walking outside the graveyard, could smell the peculiar cologne the crypt angel wore, could taste the lingering mustiness of the soil that she’d had in her mouth. And blood. Gregory’s blood was on her lips. Absently, she lifted her hand and licked the dirt-caked dried blood—and was neither disgusted nor upset by the flavor.

“Up.” A boot connected with her side.

Without looking, Eliana caught the boot. She felt slick vinyl over a toned leg. Holding the boot, she looked away from the crypt angel and stared at the boot’s owner.

“Nikki,” Eliana said. “You’re Nikki.”

“Nice catch.” Nikki crouched down. “Now get up.”

Eliana was sober now—or perhaps completely mad.

Her face was wet with blood and dirt, and she was lying in a mound of fresh soil. It wasn’t a hole. She hadn’t been buried in the ground. Instead, she was on her back on top of the ground.

Like I was when Nikki killed Gory … and me.

But the moonlight falling on Eliana’s soil-covered body felt like raw energy, pushing away all of her confusion, reforming her. It had saturated the soil in which she was lying, and the energy of the two pricked her skin like tiny teeth biting her all over. She wanted to stay there, soak in the moonlight and the soil, until everything made sense again.

“Get up.” Nikki tangled her fingers in Eliana’s hair and stood.

Eliana came to her feet, wishing she could stop or at least pause longer in the fresh-turned earth. At least the moonlight is still falling. It felt like a very light rain, tangible but too delicate to capture.

She stepped backward, and Nikki released her.

“You killed me,” Eliana said. It was not a question or an accusation but something between the two. Things felt uncertain; memory and reality and logic weren’t all coming together cohesively. “Suffocated me.”

“I did.” Nikki walked over and tugged open the door of the crypt where the angel had been perched. “Come, or you’ll go hungry.”

The angel from the crypt walked between Eliana and Nikki. “Kill her and be done with it, Nicole. These games grow tedious. You’ve made your point.”

“Don’t be difficult, or”—Nikki went up on her tiptoes and kissed him—“you’ll go hungry, too.”

He didn’t move, even when she leaned her whole weight against him. The angel’s expression remained unchanged. “Do you think she matters? She’s just some girl.”

“No. Here she is”—Nikki grabbed Eliana by the arm and shook her—“proof that you picked her. Again. How many of them has it been now? Twenty? Fifty?”

“I got careless.” The angel shrugged. “Tormenting her is foolish, but if it amuses you …”

Nikki stared at him, her hand tightening on Eliana’s arm. Then, still holding on to Eliana, she walked into the crypt.

“Wash. There’s water over there”—Nikki pointed to the corner, where a cooler of melting ice sat—“and your outfit … hmm?”

As Eliana dropped to the floor in front of the melting ice, Nikki looked behind them at the angel, who’d come to stand just outside the door. She opened a wooden trunk on the floor. “What do you think?”

“Nothing you want to hear.” Then the angel walked away.

Sebastian watched Eliana with growing doubt. He’d tried to pick a strong one this time. Blood and moonlight. That was the key. Killed under the full moon with enough vampire blood already in them. For two months, he’d kept her hidden, fed her, prepared her, yet here she was like a mindless sheep.

Nicole always waited to see if they woke; she knew how often he’d been unfaithful, but she always hoped. Sometimes, the newly dead girls hadn’t had enough of his blood to wake back up. Nicole took those as victories, as if killing them before they’d had enough of his blood meant she was still special. She wasn’t. If he could kill her himself, he would’ve done so decades ago, but her blood was why he was transformed, and vampires couldn’t kill the one whose blood had remade them. And mortals can’t kill us. It left him very few options.

“What are you doing?” Nicole had followed him. She shoved him face-first into the side of another mausoleum. “You don’t just walk away when I have questions! How am I to get changed if I have to guess how I look? What if—”

“You look beautiful, Nicole.” He wiped a trickle of blood from his forehead.

“Really?”

“Always.” He held out the blood on his finger, and she kissed it away.

There wasn’t any sense in arguing with her. It only prolonged the inevitable, and he wasn’t in the mood to watch her take out her temper on the barely conscious vampire girl who watched them from the doorway of the crypt where Nicole had left her.

“She needs help.” He kept his voice bland.

Nicole’s gaze followed his to the shivering girl. “So dress her up. I want to go play before I kill her.”

“Are you sure?”

With a vulnerability that he’d once thought endearing, Nicole asked, “Does that bother you? Does she matter then?”

“No,” Sebastian murmured. “Not at all.”

The angel and Nicole returned. A dim voice inside whispered that Eliana shouldn’t be standing here, that being in the dirty crypt was not good, but then Nicole smiled and Eliana’s mind grew hazy.

“Sebastian will tell you what to wear, Elly.” Nicole held out her hand, palm up. Obediently, Eliana extended her arm, and Nicole lifted Eliana’s hand to her lips.

“Don’t say a word,” Nicole whispered before she kissed each of Eliana’s fingertips. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Eliana answered.

“I”—Nikki broke a finger—“said”—and another—“not”—and another—“to speak.”

Eliana stumbled backward from the pain.

Sebastian caught her. He held her against him, keeping her from falling.

“Buttons.” Nicole pointed at a wooden trunk. “There’s pants that button all the way up on each leg. She can wear those.”

Eliana watched her leave. Once Nikki was out of sight, some semblance of clarity returned again. “I remember you.” Eliana stared at Sebastian. “You were somewhere …. I know you.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, he held out a pair of pants with tiny buttons from ankle to hip.

“Why is this happening?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

When she didn’t move, he dropped to the ground, tugged off her shoes. The motions, the sense of his proximity, felt familiar. “You just woke, Eliana. The confusion will fade.”

“No,” Eliana corrected. She held up her hand. “Why did she kill me? Why did she hurt me?”

“Because she can.” He pulled off her muddy jeans and bloody shirt, leaving her shivering in nothing but her underwear. Silently, he ripped a T-shirt that was in the trunk, dipped it in the ice water, and started washing the blood from her.

“Can you do this?” he asked. “Like I am?”

Eliana grabbed the wet shirt. The pain in her hand should be bringing tears to her eyes. A lot of things should. She wanted to escape, to get away from Nikki. And him … I think. Her hand throbbed, but the hunger she felt was worse. “I’m a lot more capable than you think.”

Sebastian changed into a black shirt and, oddly, slipped a dark silk scarf into his pants pocket. His gaze was unwavering as he did so. “Let’s not tell Nicole that.”

“She killed me … and Gory, but”—Eliana shivered as she washed away Gregory’s blood and felt guilty that the sight of it made her stomach growl—“I’m not … she’s … you …”

“Just like you. Dead. Undead. Vampire. Pick your term.” Sebastian took the wet shirt back and held out a pair of pants. “Step in.”

“I see why you picked her.” Nikki’s voice drew Eliana’s attention. “It’ll almost be a shame when she dies.”

Eliana’s gaze fastened on Nikki. When I die? She looked at Sebastian. He picked me? For what? Neither vampire moved for a moment; neither spoke; and Eliana wasn’t sure she wanted to speak her questions aloud—or if it would help.

“We’re ready to go,” she said.

I’m not ready for any of this. Not really. But it was here, and she felt pretty certain that getting out of the graveyard was a good first step to something. Hopefully something that involves me not dying. Again.

Sebastian swept Nicole into his arms. He’d watched Eliana assess both of them, seen her weigh and measure what she could glean of the situation, and he was excited. The new vampire was conscious and angry, and had no memory of him. After so many dead girls, he finally had the right one. This must’ve been what Nicole felt when she found me. It was almost enough to make him forgive her. Almost.

“Let’s go to dinner, Nik.” He couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice.

Nicole smiled and kissed him with the same passion they’d shared for decades—enough so that he debated one last tumble. But Eliana was hungry, and he was looking forward to a new future.

With Eliana trailing behind them, he carried Nicole through the graveyard and down the street. Just as when we were first together. On what he hoped would be the last night, he felt renewed tenderness for her. And hope.

No one spoke as they made their way through the streets to the party.

Sebastian lowered Nicole to the ground just outside the house, and she led them inside. She didn’t doubt her superiority: Why should she? Eliana was no match for Nicole in a fight, and Sebastian was physically unable to strike her. Unless Eliana chose to take control of the situation, Nicole would be safe, and Eliana would die at the end of the night.

And I’ll have to start over … again.

The humans weren’t surprised to see any of them; if anything, a few of the assessing looks made Sebastian wish that he could keep both Nicole and Eliana for a while, but unless they were romantically involved, vampires of the same gender rarely had the ability to be around each other without territory issues.

The music thumped. Drunk humans danced and hooked up in shadowed corners. Finding a bite to eat was almost too easy. Sebastian missed proper hunting. Nicole insisted on staying in the graveyard, but she didn’t like to hunt anymore.

The precise opposite of the way traditions should be observed.

He hated this, the tedium of plucking the humans like produce at a grocer. He hated living in the gloom and dank of graveyards. The soil was transportable. The humans were discardable, food on legs but with bank accounts. If his kind modernized, as he had begun to do, they could live in comfort: hunt food, gather funds, and relocate.

If she’d changed, I wouldn’t have to do this. He cupped Nicole’s face in his hands, kissed her, and manipulated her once more: “I can watch her while you—”

“Go find a snack”—Nicole caught Eliana’s hand, though, not letting the new vampire free to find food—“since you wouldn’t eat earlier. We’ll both be here.”

Eliana watched, studying him, obviously looking for the truth behind his words and actions. Lying to her would be harder. Winning her approval would be a true challenge. Unlike Nicole. Vampires had a peculiar protectiveness, an almost pathological adoration of the humans they turned. It was why Nicole had never killed him despite his perpetual unfaithfulness. She’s weak. I won’t be. He hadn’t killed Eliana himself. It was his blood in her veins, but he hadn’t murdered her.

He stared at them both. The music thrummed in the room, heartbeats beckoned, warm bodies surrounded them. Both Nicole and Eliana looked back at him, and he forced himself to look only at Nicole as he smiled. “My lady.”

The hunger in Nikki’s gaze as she watched Sebastian walk away was pitiful. For all of her cruelty, the vampire was desperate for Sebastian’s attention.

“He’s beautiful,” Eliana murmured, “but he doesn’t really seem that into you.”

Nikki’s gaze snapped to Eliana. “He’s been mine for longer than you’ve been alive.”

The possessiveness that was creeping into Eliana was less about Sebastian than about taking him from Nikki. He was attractive, but attractive guys weren’t worth fighting over. Especially guys who stood by while someone murdered you.

“He seems like the sort who would sleep with whatever’s handy.” Eliana paused at the words. He was that sort; she was sure of it. All the headaches, the fantasies, they made sense. Sebastian had come to her outside the library. He’d been charming; he’d paid attention to her. He’d asked to walk with her, to kiss her, to touch her, to bite her. He gave me his blood. For that, he hadn’t asked permission. He made me forget.

“The fantasies … they were memories. When I wanted Gory to bite me … that was because of Sebastian.”

“Yes,” Nikki hissed. Her hold on Eliana’s hand tightened. “But don’t think you’re special. He’s strayed before. He—”

“Special?” Eliana laughed. “I don’t want to be special to him. You do.”

He said I would be his if I was strong enough.

Sebastian stood midway up the stairs. He really was gorgeous, and if the memories that were returning to her were true, he was even more so without the clothes. She licked her lips and was amused to see an answering smile from him.

He didn’t say I would be murdered.

“Nik?” He called out to Nicole, but his gaze was on Eliana, not Nikki. “I changed my mind. Come with me?”

Eliana’s stomach growled, but the music was too loud for anyone but Nikki to hear it. She remembered blood, the taste of it, the number of times she’d swallowed it. He’d assured her that when she remembered, she’d be strong.

But you can’t remember now, not until you wake, Elly, he’d repeated. Then you’ll be strong and clever, and you’ll know what to do.

She did know what to do. Keeping hold of Nikki’s hand, Eliana shimmied through the crowd.

At the top of the stairs, a girl leaned against the wall. Eliana had partied with her a few times, but not enough that she remembered the girl’s name. Sebastian was nuzzling the girl’s throat. He held a hand out behind him, and Nikki took it.

He pulled her close and hooked his arm around her waist. Beside them was an open door. With one arm around the girl whose throat he’d been kissing and one arm around Nikki, he took a step toward the unoccupied bedroom.

“Hey.” The girl looked at Sebastian dazedly and stepped away. “What—”

“Shh.” He released Nikki and led the girl inside. “Close the door, Eliana.”

He shoved the girl toward Eliana, who caught hold of her with both hands and steadied her. Eliana felt a twinge of regret, but it was quashed by hunger.

“Do you really want her to eat?” Nikki asked. Desperate hope was plain in Nikki’s expression. She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed Sebastian—who watched Eliana as he and Nikki kissed.

The drunk girl he’d found looked from Sebastian to Eliana. “I don’t do the group thing. I mean … I’m not … I thought he was …” The girl looked over at Sebastian. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Shh.” Eliana stroked the girl’s face comfortingly and pulled her closer. “There’s no group thing. It’s okay.”

The girl nodded, and Eliana lowered her mouth to the girl’s throat, covering the same spot where Sebastian had kissed. It was nature, not logic, that told Eliana where to bite. It was simple biology that made her canines extend and pierce skin.

Sebastian had his eyes open while he kissed Nikki, watching as Eliana bit the girl.

It wasn’t disgusting. Well, it was, but not in a rather-die-than-eat way. It was instinct. Like any animal, Eliana hungered, and so she ate.

She didn’t gorge, didn’t kill the girl, but she swallowed the blood until she felt stronger. If a bit tipsy. The buzz that she got from drinking the girl’s blood was somewhere between a good high and a delicious meal. Familiar. The taste wasn’t new. His blood was better.

Eliana let the girl fall to the floor and looked at him.

Sebastian and Nikki were all over each other. Nikki had pushed him against the wall, leaving her back to Eliana, and he was cupping the back of Nikki’s head with one hand. His other hand was on the small of her back.

“Nicole,” he murmured. He kissed her collarbone. Without pausing in his affections, he lifted his gaze and looked at Eliana.

The temptation to rip Nikki out of his arms was sudden and violent. It was irrational and ugly and utterly exciting. All she wanted was to tear out the other vampire’s throat, not to feed, not carefully. Like she did to Gory. Eliana couldn’t: in a fair fight, Nikki would kill Eliana.

She felt her teeth cutting into her lip and opened her mouth on a snarl.

She stepped forward. Her hands were curled in fists.

Fists aren’t enough.

“I need”—she looked at Sebastian—“help.”

Sebastian spun so Nikki was now the one against the wall, with his body pressed against her. With one hand he caught her wrist and held it to the wall.

Nikki looked past him to Eliana. “For centuries he’s been mine. A few weeks of being with you is nothing.”

“Two months,” he murmured as he raised Nikki’s other wrist, so he was holding them both in his grasp.

Then he kissed her, and she let her eyes close.

Sebastian reached back and lifted the bottom of his shirt. In a worn leather sheath against his spine, there was a knife.

Eliana walked toward him and wrapped her hands around the hilt of the knife.

She stood there, her knuckles against his skin.

He made me this. He knew she’d murder me. Eliana remembered the blood and the kisses. He’d picked her, changed her life. But Nikki suffocated me.

Eliana wanted to kill them both. She couldn’t, though; even if he gave her access to his throat, she couldn’t raise a hand to him. She wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t do it.

And with his help, I can kill Nikki.

With a growl, Eliana stabbed the knife into Nikki’s throat.

Sebastian held Nikki up, his body still pressed against her, and kissed her as she struggled. He swallowed her screams, so no one heard.

Then he pulled back. He held out his arm, and Eliana moved closer. She reached up and covered Nikki’s mouth with her hand, just as Nikki had done to her.

“Go ahead,” he whispered.

Eliana closed her mouth over the wound in Nikki’s throat and swallowed. Her blood was different from the human girl’s blood; it was richer.

Like Sebastian’s.

Nikki struggled, but Sebastian held her still. He held them both in his embrace while Eliana drank from her murderer’s throat. For more than a minute, they stayed like that. The sounds of drinking and soft struggles were covered by the noise downstairs.

Then Nikki stopped fighting, and Eliana pulled back.

Sebastian let her go, and he sat on the bed, cradling Nikki in his arms while he drank from the now motionless vampire. If not for the fact that she was staring glassy-eyed at nothing and her arm dangled limply, it would have seemed almost tender.

Sebastian wrapped the scarf that he’d brought with him around her throat to hide her wound. Then he and Eliana washed Nicole’s blood from their faces and hands. They stood side by side in the adjoining bathroom.

Back in the bedroom, he slipped a few trinkets into his pockets and grabbed a messenger bag from the closet. Eliana said nothing. She hadn’t spoken since before Nicole’s death.

“There are clothes in the closet that would fit you,” he suggested.

She changed in silence.

He took the bloodied clothes and shoved them into the bag, lifted Nicole into his arms, positioned her head, and carried her as he had done earlier. In silence, they walked downstairs and out the door. A few people watched drunkenly, but most everyone was too busy getting lost in either a body or a drink.

Eliana was more disturbed by murdering Nikki than she had been by being murdered by her—mostly because she’d enjoyed killing Nikki.

She closed the door to the house behind her. For a moment, she paused. Can I run? She didn’t know where she’d go, didn’t know anything about what she was—other than dead and monstrous. Are there limitations? There were two ways to find out if the television and book versions of vampire weaknesses were true: test them or ask.

Instead of following Sebastian, she sped up and walked beside him. “Will you answer questions?”

“Some.” He smiled. “If you stay.”

She nodded. It wasn’t anything other than what she expected, not after tonight. She walked through the streets in the remaining dark, headed back to the graveyard where she’d been murdered, escorting the corpse that she’d murdered.

Inside the graveyard, they walked to the far bottom of the hill, in the back where the oldest graves were.

Sebastian lowered Nikki to the ground in the middle of a dirt-and-gravel road in the far back of the graveyard. “Crossroads matter, Eliana.”

He pulled a long, thin blade from Nikki’s boot and slit open her stomach. He reached his whole forearm inside the body. His other hand, the one holding the knife, pressed down on Nikki’s chest, holding her still. “Until this moment, she could recover.”

Eliana said nothing, did nothing.

“But hearts matter.” He pulled his arm out, a red slippery thing in his grasp.

He tossed it to Eliana.

“That needs buried in sanctified ground, and she”—he stood, pulled off his shirt, and wiped Nicole’s blood from his arm and hand—“needs to be left at crossroad.”

Afraid that it would fall, Eliana clutched the heart in both hands. It didn’t matter, not really, but she didn’t want to drop it in the dirt. Which is where we will put it. But burying it seemed different than letting it fall on the dirt road.

Sebastian slipped something from his pocket, pried open Nikki’s mouth, and inserted it between her lips. “Wafers, holy objects of any faith, put these in the mouth. Once we used to stitch the mouth shut, too, but these days that attracts too much attention.”

“And dead bodies with missing hearts don’t?”

“They do.” He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.

Eliana tore her gaze from the heart in her hands and asked, “But?”

“You need to know the ways to keep the dead from waking again, and I’m feeling sentimental.” He walked back toward the crypt where the rest of their clothes were, leaving her the choice to follow him or leave.

She followed him, carrying Nikki’s heart carefully.

“Killing on full or new moon matters,” he added when she caught up with him.

She nodded. The things he was telling her mattered, and she wanted to be attentive to them, but she’d just killed a person.

With his help … because of him … like an animal.

And now he was standing there shirtless and bloodied.

Is it because I slept with him? She listened to the words he said now, trying to remember the words he’d said then. Those words mattered too. He planned this. He knew she’d kill me. He watched.

“She killed me under the full moon,” Eliana said.

“Yes.” He wrapped Nicole’s heart in his shirt. “You were born again with blood and moonlight.”

“Why?”

“Some animals are territorial, Eliana.” He looked at her then, and it was like stepping into her own memories. That was the same look he’d given her when she’d first gone with him, when she’d been alive and bored: it was a look that said she mattered, that she was the most important thing in his world.

And I am now.

He was looking at her the way Nikki had watched him. He brushed her hair away from her face. “We are territorial, so when we touch another, our partners respond poorly.”

“Why were you with me then? You knew that …” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“She’d kill you?” He shrugged again, but he didn’t step away to give her more room. “Yes, when she found you, when I was ready.”

“You meant for her to kill me?” Eliana put both hands on his chest as she stared up at him.

“It was preferable that she do it,” he said. “I planned very carefully. I picked you.”

“You picked me,” she echoed. “You picked me to be murdered.”

“To be changed.” Sebastian cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “I needed you, Eliana. Mortals aren’t strong enough to kill us, and we can’t strike the one whose blood made us. The one whose blood runs inside us is safe from our anger. You can’t strike me. I couldn’t strike her.”

“You wanted her to find me and kill me, so I would kill her for you?” Eliana clarified. She felt like she was going to be sick. She’d been used. She had killed for him, been killed for him.

“I was tired of Nicole, but it was more than that.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and held tight as she tried to pull away. “We still need the same nutrients that we needed as humans, but our bodies can no longer extract them from solid food. So we take the blood from those who can extract the nutrients.”

“Humans.”

He nodded once. “We don’t need that much, and the shock and pain makes most people forget us. It hurts, you know, having holes ripped in your skin.”

She dropped a hand to her leg in suddenly remembered pain. It did hurt. Her entire thigh had been bruised afterward. And her chest. At the time, she couldn’t remember what the bruises were from. And the bend of her arm.

He kissed her throat, softly, the way she’d fantasized about afterward when she’d believed it was just a dream, when headaches kept her from remembering more.

“Why?” she asked again. “You needed a meal and a murderer. That didn’t mean you needed to screw me.”

“Oh, but I did. I needed you.” His breath wasn’t warm on her throat; it was a damp breeze that shouldn’t be appealing. “The living are so warm … and you were perfect. There were others, but I didn’t keep them. I was careful with you.”

She remembered him looking at her and asking permission.

“Sometimes I can’t help but want to be inside humans, but I won’t keep them. We’re together now.” He kissed her throat, not at her pulse, but where her neck met her shoulder. “I chose you.”

Eliana didn’t move away.

“Nikki found out, though.” He sighed the words.

“So she killed me.” Eliana stepped backward, out of his embrace.

Sebastian had an unreadable expression as he caught and held her gaze. “Of course. Would you do any differently?”

“I …”

“If I left you tonight and sank into some girl—or guy—would you forgive me?” He reached out and entwined his fingers with hers. “Would you mind if I kissed someone else the way I kiss you? If I knelt at their feet and asked permission to—”

“Yes.” She squeezed his hand until she saw him wince. “Yes.”

He nodded. “As I said, territorial.”

Eliana shook her head. “So that’s it? We kill, but not under full or new moon. We drink blood, but really not so much. If we do kill, it’s some sort of territorial bullshit.”

“An area can support only so many predators. I have you, and you have me.”

“So I killed Nikki, and now you’re my mate?” She wasn’t sure whether she was excited or disgusted.

Or both.

Sebastian whispered, “Until one of us makes someone alert enough and strong enough to kill the other, yes.”

She pulled her hand out of his. “Yeah? So how do I do that?”

Sebastian had her pinned against the crypt wall before she could blink.

“I’m not telling you that, Eliana. That’s part of the game.” He rested his forehead against hers in a mockery of tenderness.

She looked at the floor of the crypt, where Nikki’s heart had fallen. The bloodied shirt lay in the thin layer of soil that covered the cracked cement floor. Moss decorated the sides where the dampness had seeped into the small building.

Transition. Eliana felt an echo of herself crying out, but the person she’d been was dead.

She looked at Sebastian and smiled. A game? She might not be able to kill him yet, but she’d figure it out. She’d find someone to help her—and unlike Sebastian, she wouldn’t be arrogant enough to leave the vampire she made alive to plot her death.

Until then …

With a warm smile, she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m hungry again. Take me out to dinner? Or”—she tilted her head to look up at him—“let’s find somewhere less depressing to live? Or both?”

“With pleasure.” He looked at her with the same desperation Eliana had seen in Nikki’s gaze when she watched Sebastian.

Which is useful …

Eliana pulled him down for a kiss—and almost wished she didn’t need to kill him.

Almost.

ESPITE IT BEING AT THE BEACH, THE party was lame. A few people were trying to turn noise into music: if Alana had been high or drunk, it might’ve been tolerable. But she was sober—and tense. Usually, the beach was where she found peace and pleasure; it was one of the only places where she felt like the world wasn’t impossibly out of order. But tonight, she felt anxious.

A guy sat down beside her; he held out a cup. “You look thirsty.”

“I’m not thirsty”—she glanced at him and tore her gaze away as quickly as she could—“or interested.” Eye candy. She didn’t date eye candy. She’d been watching her mother do that for years. It was so not the path Alana was taking. Ever. Instead, she stared at the singer. He was normal, not-tempting, not-exciting. He was cute and sweet, but not irresistible. That was the sort of guy Alana chose when she dated—safe, temporary, and easy to leave.

She smiled at the singer. The bad rendition of a Beatles song shifted into a worse attempt at poetry … or maybe a cover of something new and emo. It didn’t really matter what it was: Alana was going to listen to it and not pay attention to the hot dreadlocked guy who was sitting too close beside her.

Dreadlocks, however, wasn’t taking the hint.

“Are you cold? Here.” He tossed a long brown leather coat onto the sand in front of her. It looked completely out of place for the crowd at the party.

“No, thanks.” Alana scooted a bit away from him, closer to the fire. Burnt embers swirled and lifted like fireflies rising with the smoke.

“You’ll get cold walking home and—”

“Go away. Please.” Alana still didn’t look back at him. Polite wasn’t working. “I’m not interested, easy, or going to get drunk enough to be either of those. Seriously.”

He laughed, seeming not insulted but genuinely amused. “Are you sure?”

“Leave.”

“It’d be easier this way ….”

He moved closer, putting himself between her and the fire, directly in her line of view.

And she had to look, not a quick glance, but a real look. Illuminated by the combined glow of firelight and moonlight, he was even more stunning than she’d feared: blond hair clumped in thick dreadlocks that stretched to his waist; a few of those thick strands were kelp-green; his tattered T-shirt had holes that allowed glimpses of the most defined abs she’d ever seen.

He was crouched down, balancing on his feet. “Even if it wouldn’t upset Murrin, it’d be tempting to take you.”

Dreadlocks reached out as if he was going to cup her face in his hand.

Alana crab-walked backward, scuttling over the sand until she was just out of his reach. She scrambled to her feet and slipped a hand into the depths of her bag, past her shoes and her jumble of keys. She gripped her pepper spray and flicked the safety switch off, but didn’t pull it out of her bag yet. Logic said she was over-reacting: there were other people around; she was safe here. But something about him felt wrong.

“Back off,” she said.

He didn’t move. “Are you sure? Really, it’d be easier for you this way ….”

She pulled out the pepper spray.

“It’s your choice, precious. It’ll be worse once he finds you.” Dreadlocks paused as if she’d say something or change her mind.

She’d couldn’t reply to comments that made no sense, though—and she surely wasn’t going to change her mind about getting closer to him.

He sighed. “I’ll be back after he breaks you.”

Then he walked away, heading toward the mostly empty parking lot.

She watched until she was sure he was gone. Grappling with drunk or high or whatever-he-was guys wasn’t on her to-do list. She’d taken self-defense and street-defense classes, heard countless lectures on safety, and kept her pepper spray handy—her mother was very good about that part of parenting. None of that meant she wanted to have to use those lessons.

She looked around the beach. There were some strangers at the party, but mostly the people there were ones she’d seen around at school or out walking the reef. Right now, none of them was paying any attention to her. No one even looked her way. Some had watched when she was backing away from Dreadlocks, but they’d stopped watching when he left.

Alana couldn’t decide if he was just messing with her or if someone there really posed a threat … or if he was saying that to spook her into leaving the party so she’d be alone and vulnerable. Usually, when she walked home, she went in the same direction he’d gone, but just in case he was lurking in the parking lot, she decided to go farther down the beach and cut across Coast Highway. It was a couple blocks out of the way, but he’d creeped her out. A lot. He’d made her feel trapped, like prey.

When she’d walked far enough away that the bonfire was a glow in the distance and the roll of waves was all she could hear, the knot of tension in her neck loosened. She had gone the opposite direction of danger, and she stood in one of the spots where she felt safest, most at peace—the exposed reef. The ground under her feet shifted from sandy beach to rocky shelf. Tide pools were spread open to the moon. It was perfect, just her and the sea. She needed that, the peace she found there. She went toward a ledge of the reef where waves crashed and sprayed upward. Mussel shells jutted up like blunt black teeth. Slick sea lettuce and sea grasses hid crabs and unstable ground. She was barefoot, balancing on the edges of the reef, feeling that rush as the waves came ever closer, feeling herself fill up with the peace Dreadlocks had stolen.

Then she saw him standing in the surf in front of her, staring at her, oblivious to the waves that broke around him. “How did he get here first?”

She shivered, but then realized that it wasn’t him. The guy was as defined as Dreadlocks, but he had long, loose, dark hair. Just a surfer. Or Dreadlocks’s friend. The surfer wasn’t wearing a wet suit. He looked like he might be … naked. It was difficult to tell with the waves crashing around him; at the very least, he was topless in the frigid water.

He lifted his hand to beckon her closer, and she thought she heard him say, “I’m safe enough. Come talk to me.”

It was her imagination, though. It had to be. She was just freaked out by Dreadlocks. There was no way this guy could’ve heard her over the breaking of waves, no way she could’ve heard him.

But that didn’t change her suspicion that somehow they had just spoken.

Primal fear uncoiled in her belly, and for the second time that night, she backed away without looking. Her heel sliced open on the edge of a mussel shell. The sting of salt water made her wince as she walked farther away, unable to ignore the panic, the urge to run. She glanced back and saw that he hadn’t moved, hadn’t stopped watching her with that unwavering gaze. And her fear turned to fury.

Then she saw the long black leather coat slung carelessly on the sand; it looked like a darker version of the coat Dreadlocks had offered her. She stepped on it and ground her blood-and-sand-caked foot on it. It wasn’t smooth like leather should be. Instead, the material under her foot was silk-soft fur, an animal’s pelt, a seal’s skin.

It was a pelt.

She pulled her gaze away from that dark pelt and stared at him. He still stood in the surf. Waves curled around him like the sea had formed arms of itself, hiding him, holding him.

He smiled again and told her, “Take it. It’s yours now.”

And she knew she had heard his voice that time; she’d felt the words on her skin like the wind that stirred the water. She didn’t want to reach down, didn’t want to lift that pelt into her arms, but she had no choice. Her bleeding foot had broken his glamour, ended his manipulation of her senses, and she knew him for what he truly was: a selchie. He was a fey creature, a seal person, and he wasn’t supposed to exist.

Maybe it was fun to believe in them when she was a little girl sharing her storybooks with Nonny, but Alana knew that her grandmother’s insistence that selchies were real was just another type of make-believe. Seals didn’t walk on land among humans; they didn’t slip out of their Other-Skins. They were just beautiful myths. She knew that—except she was looking at a selchie who was telling her to take his Other-Skin.

Just like the one at the bonfire.

She stood motionless as she tried to process the enormity of what had happened, what was happening right now.

Two selchies. I met two freaking selchies … who both tried to trap me.

And in that instant, she understood: the fairy tales were all wrong. It wasn’t the mortals’ fault. Alana didn’t want to stay there looking at him, but she was no longer acting of her own volition.

I am trapped.

The fishermen in the old stories who’d taken the selchies’ pelts hadn’t been entrapping innocent fey creatures: they’d been entrapped by selchie women. Perhaps it was too hard for the fishermen to admit that they were the ones who got trapped, but Alana suddenly knew the truth that none of the stories had shared. A mortal could no more resist the pull of that pelt than the sea could refuse to obey the pull of the moon. Once she took the pelt, lifted it into her mortal arms, she was bound to him. She knew what he was, knew the trap was sprung, but she was no different from the mortals in the stories she’d grown up hearing. She could not resist. She took the pelt and ran, hoping she could foist it off on someone else before he found her, before Murrin followed her home—because he had to be Murrin, the one Dreadlocks was talking about, the one that the creepy selchie had told her was worse.

Murrin watched her run, felt the irresistible need to follow her. She carried his skin with her: he had no choice but to follow. It would have been better if she hadn’t run.

With murmured epithets over her flight, he stepped out of the surf and made his way to the tiny caves the water had carved into the sandstone. Inside, he had his shore clothes: woven sandals, well-worn jeans, a few shirts, and a timepiece. When his brother, Veikko, had gone ashore earlier, he’d borrowed the soft shirt Murrin had liked so. Instead, Murrin had to wear one that required fastening many small buttons. He hated buttons. Most of his family didn’t go shore walking often enough that they needed many clothes, but Murrin had been on land often enough that the lack of a decent shirt was displeasing. He barely fastened the shirt, slipping a couple of the tiny disks into the equally tiny holes, and went to find her—the girl he’d chosen over the sea.

He hadn’t meant for her to find his Other-Skin like this, not yet, not now. He’d intended to talk to her, but as he was coming out of the water, he’d seen her—here and not at the party. He watched her, trying to figure how to walk out of the surf without startling her, but then he felt it: the touch of her skin on his pelt. His pelt wasn’t to be there. It wasn’t to happen like this. He’d had a plan.

A selchie couldn’t have both a mate and the water, so Murrin had waited until he found a girl intriguing enough to hold his attention. After living with the moods of the sea, it wasn’t an easy task to find a person worth losing the waves for.

But I have.

So he’d intended to ease her fears, to try to woo her instead of trapping her, but when she stepped on his Other-Skin, all of those choices had vanished. This was it: they were bound. Now, he was left doing the same thing his father had once done, trying to convince a mortal to trust him after he’d trapped her. The fact that he hadn’t put his pelt where she’d find it didn’t change anything. He was left trying to wait out her fears, to find a way to convince her to trust him, to hope for a way to persuade her to forgive him: all of the very same things he’d wanted to avoid.

Mortals weren’t strong enough of will to refuse the enchantment that bound him to her. It wouldn’t make her love him, but selchies grew up knowing that love wasn’t often theirs to have. Tradition mattered more. Finding a mate, making a family, those mattered more.

And Murrin’s plan to buck tradition by getting to know his intended first had gone horribly off course.

Thanks to Veikko.

At the dirty bathrooms along the beach parking lot, Alana saw a girl clad only in a thin top and ragged shorts. The girl was shivering, not that it was cold, but from something she’d shot up—or hadn’t been able to shoot. Usually, the junkies and vagrants clustered in small groups, but this one was alone.

The pelt tingled and resumed looking again like a beautiful leather jacket as soon as Alana saw the girl. Perfect. Alana walked up and tried to hand it to the girl. “Here. You can use it to warm—”

But the girl backed away with something like horror on her face. She glanced from the coat to Alana’s face, then out to the mostly empty lot. “I won’t tell or anything. Please? Just—” She made a gagging noise and turned away.

Alana looked down. The pelt, still looking like a coat, was covered in blood. It was on her hands, her arms. Everywhere the seawater had been was now black-red in the glare of the streetlight. For a heartbeat, Alana thought she’d been wrong, that she’d hurt the selchie. She looked over her shoulder: a trail of almost perfectly tear-shaped droplets stretched behind her. Then, as she watched, those droplets shifted to a silvery-white, like someone had spilled mercury on the sand. They didn’t sink. They balanced atop the sand, holding their shape. Alana glanced down and saw the blood on the coat shift to silver too.

“See? It’s fine. Just take it. It’ll—”

The shivering girl had already gone.

“… be fine,” Alana finished. She blinked back tears of frustration. “All I want is someone to hold out their arms so I can let go of it!”

With the same surety that told her what Murrin was, what Dreadlocks was, she realized that she couldn’t cast the pelt away, but if someone was to reach for it, she could let go. It could fall to the ground, and then no one would be trapped. She just needed to find someone willing to reach out.

Twice more as she walked home she tried. Each time it was the same: people looked at her with terror or disgust as she held out what looked like a bloody coat. Only when they turned away did the dampness of the coat resume the appearance of thick, salty tears.

Whatever enchantment made her unable to resist taking the pelt was making it impossible to get rid of the thing too. Alana thought about what she knew about selchies; her grandmother had told her stories of the seal people when Alana was a little girl: selchies, seal women, came to the shore. They slipped out of their Other Skins, and sometimes, if they weren’t careful, a fisherman or some random unmarried guy would find the skin and steal it. The new husbands hid the selchies’ Other-Skins to keep their wives entrapped.

But Nonny hadn’t said anything about male selchies; she also hadn’t said that the seal women had entrapped the men. Nonny’s stories made the selchies seem so sad, with their freedom to change to their seal shape stolen when their Other-Skins were hidden away. In the stories, the selchies were the victims; the humans were the villains—snatching helpless seal wives from the sea, tricking them, having power over them. The stories were all quite clear: the selchies were entrapped … but in the real world, Alana was the one feeling trapped.

By the time she reached her apartment, she was wishing—yet again—that Nonny was still around to ask. She felt like a little kid missing her grandmother so badly, but Nonny was the grown-up, the one who’d made everything better, while Mom was as clueless as Alana felt most days.

Outside her building, she paused. Their car was parked in the street alongside the building. Alana popped the trunk. Carefully, she folded the coat-pelt. After a furtive look around, she rubbed her face on the soft, dark fur. Then, with a level of care she couldn’t control, she tucked it under the spare blanket her mother kept in the trunk—part of the emergency kit for when they broke down. It felt as if there wasn’t any other choice: she had to keep it safe, keep it out of his reach—and keep him out of others’ reach.

Protect my mate. The words came unbidden—and very unwelcome—to her mind. She slammed the trunk and went to the front of the car. And as she did so often when she needed to be outside at night, she stretched out on the hood. It was still warm from the drive home from whatever party her mother’d been out to tonight.

Alana stared up at the moon and whispered, “Oh, Nonny, I’m so screwed.”

Then, Alana waited. He’d come. She knew he would. And having to face him with her mom lurking around, gleeful that Alana’d brought home a guy … it would only make a bad scene worse.

Better to do this outside.

Murrin saw her reclined on a car reminiscent of the ones he’d seen parked by the beach for days on end. It was unsightly—covered in rust spots, one door handle missing. She, however, was lovely, long limbs and curved body. Short pelt-brown hair framed her sharp-angled face. When he’d seen her on the beach several good tides ago, he’d known she was the one: a girl who loved the reef and the moon was a treasure. The waiting had been awful, but he’d watched her habits and planned how to approach her. Things weren’t going according to his plans, of course, but he’d find a way to make it work.

“Wife?” His heart sped at saying it, naming her, finally saying the word to her. He stepped closer to the car, not close enough to touch her, but closer still. After so many years dreaming of finding a wife, it was a heady thing to be so near her. It might not be how he’d imagined it, but it still was.

She sat up, her feet scraping against the car’s hood. “What did you call me?”

“Wife.” He approached her slowly, hands held out to the sides. No matter how many mortals he’d watched, or how many he’d met, he was unsure still. Obviously, calling her “wife” was not the right tactic. He tried again. “I don’t know your other name yet.”

“Alana. My only name is Alana.” She moved so she was sitting with her legs folded to the side, in a posture typical of a selchie girl.

It was endearing. Her words weren’t, though.

“I’m not your wife,” she said.

“I am Murrin. Would you—”

“I’m not your wife,” she repeated, slightly louder.

“Would you walk with me, Alana?” He loved the feel of her name—Alana, my rock, my harbor, my Alana—on his tongue.

But when he stepped closer, she tensed and stared at him with the same cautious expression she’d had on the beach. He liked that, her hesitation. Some of the mortals he’d met on the beach when he’d been in this form had been willing to lie down with him after only the briefest of words exchanged. It had been fun, but that wasn’t what he wanted in a wife. The lack of meaning saddened him: he wanted every touch, each caress and sigh, to matter.

“Would you walk with me, Alana?” He ducked his head, causing his hair to fall forward, offering her as meek a posture as he could, trying to show that he wasn’t a threat to her. “I would talk to you about us, so we can understand each other.”

“Lanie?” An older version of his mate, obviously Alana’s mother, stood with the light behind her. “Who’s your friend?” She smiled at him. “I’m Susanne.”

Murrin stepped toward Alana’s mother. “I’m Murrin. I—”

“We were on our way out,” Alana said. She grabbed his hand and pulled. “For tea.”

“Tea? At this hour?” Alana’s mother smiled, laughter playing under her expression. “Sure, baby. Just come home after the sun rises. We’ll all sleep late tomorrow.”

As they walked, Alana tried to think of what to say, but she found no words to start the conversation. She didn’t want to ask him why she felt so drawn to him—or if it would get worse. She suspected that it was a result of whatever enchantment made her unable to give away his pelt. They were tied together. She got that part. She didn’t want to know if he felt the same compulsion to reach out a hand and touch. But she knew resisting it took supreme effort.

It’s not real. She glanced at him and her pulse sped. It’s not forever, either. I can get rid of him. I can. And I want to.

She shoved her hands into her pockets and continued to walk silently beside him. Usually, the night felt too close when people—well, just guys, actually—were in her space. She didn’t want to turn into her mom: believing in the next dreamer, chasing after the illusion that lust or neediness could evolve into something real. It didn’t. Ever. Instead, the giddiness of the initial rush evolved into drama and tears every single time. It made more sense to end it before that inevitable and messy second stage. Short-term dating was cool, but Alana always abided by the Six-Week Rule: no one she couldn’t ditch within or at six weeks. That meant she needed to find a way to extricate herself from Murrin within six weeks, and the only one who could help her figure out how was him.

At the old building that housed the coffee shop, he stopped.

Murrin glanced at her. “Is here good?”

“It’s fine.” Without meaning to, she pulled her hands out of her pockets and started to reach out. She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not a date. I just didn’t want you near my mother.”

Silently, he reached out to open the door.

“What?” She knew she was surly, heard herself being mean. And why shouldn’t I? I didn’t ask for this.

He sighed. “I would sooner injure myself than harm your mother, Alana.” He motioned for her to go inside. “Your happiness, your life, your family … these are what matter to me now.”

“You don’t know me.”

He shrugged. “It is simply how things are.”

“But …” She stared at him, trying to find words to argue, to make him … what? Argue against trying to make me happy? “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Come sit down. We’ll talk.” He walked to the far side of the shop, away from the well-lit central space. “There’s a table open here.”

There were other empty tables, but she didn’t point them out. She wanted privacy for their conversation. Asking him how to break some fairy-tale bond was weird enough; doing it with people listening was a bit too much.

Murrin stopped and pulled out her chair.

She sat down, trying not to be touched by his gentlemanly posture or seeming disregard for the girls—and a few guys—who were staring at him with blatant interest. He hadn’t seemed to notice them, even when they stopped talking midsentence to smile up at him as he walked by their tables.

And who could blame them for looking? Alana might be unhappy being caught in this weird situation, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t just a little dazzled by how very luscious he was—not so much that she would want to stay with him, of course, but her heart sped every time she looked at him. Pretty packages don’t mean a thing. None of this matters. He trapped me.

Murrin sat down in the chair across from her, watching her with an intensity that made her shiver.

“What do you want?” she asked.

He reached out and took her hand. “Do you not want to be here?”

“No. I don’t want to be here with you.”

His voice was soothing as he asked, “So how can I please you? How do I make you want to be around me?”

“You can’t. I want you to go away.”

A series of unreadable expressions played over his face, too fleeting to identify, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he gestured at the giant chalkboard that served as a menu and read off choices. “Mocha? Americano? Macchiato? Tea? Milk?”

She thought about pressing him for the answers she needed, but didn’t. Hostility wasn’t going to work. Not yet. Fighting wasn’t going to get her answers, so she decided to try a different approach: reason. She took a steadying breath.

“Sure. Mocha. Double shot.” She stood to reach into her jeans pocket for money.

He jumped up, managing to look far more graceful than anyone she’d ever met. “Anything with it?”

“No.” She unfolded a five from the bills in her pocket and held it out. Instead of taking it, he scowled and stepped away from the table.

“Hold on.” She shook the bill and held her hand farther out. “Take this.”

He gave her another small scowl and shook his head. “I cannot.”

“Fine. I’ll get my own.” She stepped around him.

With a speed that. shouldn’t have been possible, he blocked her path; she stumbled briefly into him, steadying herself with a hand on his chest.

Sighing softly, he put a hand atop hers. “May I buy you a cup of coffee, Alana? Please? It doesn’t indebt you to me or anything.”

Reason, she reminded herself. Refusing a cup of coffee is not reasonable.

Mutely, she nodded and was rewarded with a warm look.

Once he walked away, she sat down and watched him wind through the crowd. He didn’t seem fazed by the people jostling him or the crowded tables. He moved through the room easily, unnaturally so. Several times, he glanced at her and at the people seated around her—attentive without being possessive.

Why does it matter? She looked at him with an unfamiliar longing, knowing he wasn’t really hers, knowing she didn’t want to be tied to him but still feeling a strange wistfulness. Is it a selchie thing? She forced her gaze away and started thinking again of what to say, which questions to ask, how to undo the mess they were in.

A few minutes later, and again without any visible effort, Murrin moved through the crowd until he reached her, balancing two cups and a plate atop each one. The first plate had a thick sandwich; the second one was stacked high with brownies, cookies, and squares of chocolate. He handed her the mocha.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

He nodded, sat down, and slid the plates to the center of the table between them. “I thought you might want to eat something.”

She looked at the plate of desserts and the sandwich. “This is all for me?”

“I didn’t know what you’d like best.”

“You to leave,” she said.

His expression was serious. “I can’t do that. Please, Alana, you need to understand. This is how it’s been for centuries. I didn’t intend for you to be entrapped, but I can’t walk away. I am not physically able to do so.”

“Could you take it back? Your, um, skin?” She held her breath.

He looked at her sadly again; his eyes seemed as wet-black as the sea at night. “If I find it where you’ve hidden it without you intending me to do so. Pure coincidence. Or if I’m angry enough to search after you’ve struck me three times. Yes, there are ways, but it’s not likely. You can’t help hiding it, and I can’t search for it without cause.”

Alana had suspected—known—it wasn’t something she could easily escape, but she still needed to ask, to hear him tell her. She felt tears sting her eyes. “So what do we do?”

“We get to know each other. I hope you discover you want me to be near you. You hope I say something that helps you find a way to get rid of me.” He sounded so sad when he said it that she felt guilty. “That, too, is how it’s been for centuries.”

The next hour passed in fits and starts of conversation. Periodically, Alana relaxed. Murrin could see that she was enjoying herself, but each time she noticed she was doing so, he saw a shadow of irritation flit over her face, and she put her walls back up. She swayed toward him, but then darted away from him. Hers was a strong will, and as much as he respected it, he despaired that her strength was set against him.

He watched the tilt of her head when she was listening; he heard the rhythm of her words when she spoke of her life on shore. He knew that it was a conscious machination—that she was assessing the situation in order to get free of him. But he had learned patience and flexibility in the sea. Those were skills that every selchie needed in order to survive. Murrin’s father had warned that they were equally essential in relationships, and though Murrin hadn’t thought he’d follow his father’s way, he’d listened. Tonight he was glad he had.

Finally, the shop was empty of everyone but them, and Alana was yawning.

“You need to rest, Alana.” He stood and waited for her. Her eyes were fatigue-heavy. Perhaps a good night’s sleep would help them both.

She didn’t look at him, but her guard was low enough that she accepted his hand—and gasped softly when she did.

Murrin froze, waiting for her to determine their next action. He had no answer, no clue how to respond. No one had warned him that the mere touch of her hand would evoke such a feeling: he’d fight until his last breath to keep her near him, to keep her safe, to make her happy. It was akin to the sea, this feeling that pulled at him. He’d drown under the weight of it, the enormity of it, and he’d not object as he did so.

Alana tried not to react to the feel of his hand in hers, but there was something right in the sensation; it was like feeling the universe snap into order. Peace, an always elusive sensation, was filling her. She found that on the reef, under the full moon, but it wasn’t a feeling she experienced around people. She let go of his hand briefly—he didn’t resist—and the feeling ebbed. But it was like watching the sea run away from her, seeing the water escape somewhere she couldn’t follow. The water would flee even if she tried to grasp it, but unlike the sea, this felt like something almost tangible. She grabbed his hand and stared at their entwined fingers. He was tangible.

And of the sea …

She wondered if that was why she felt this way—touching him was the same as touching the sea. She ran her thumb over his knuckles. His skin was no different from hers. Now, at least. The thought of him shifting into something else, something not-human, was almost enough to make her let go again. Almost.

“I won’t hurt you, Alana.” He was speaking then, murmuring words in a rhythmic way that was so very not-human.

She shivered. Her name had never sounded so beautiful. “People don’t use names with every sentence.”

He nodded, but his expression was guarded, carefully empty. “Would you prefer that I don’t? I like your name, but I could—”

“Never mind. Just … I don’t know …. I don’t like this.” She gestured at their hands, at him, and back at herself, but she held on to him as they left the coffee shop. She was so tired, so confused, and the only moment of peace she’d felt was when she’d touched his skin.

Once they were outside, she shifted topics again. “Where will you stay?”

“With you?”

She laughed before she could help herself. “Um, I don’t think so.”

“I can’t be too far from you now, Alana. Think of it as a leash. My reach only extends so far. I can sleep outside.” He shrugged. “We don’t exactly stay in houses most of the time. My mother does, but she’s … like you. I stay with her some. It’s softer, but it’s not necessary.”

Alana thought about it. She knew her mother wouldn’t care: Susanne was utterly without what she liked to call “hang-ups,” but it felt like admitting defeat to let him crash on her sofa. So I tell him to sleep outside like an animal? He is an animal, though, isn’t he? She paused; he stopped walking too.

What am I thinking to even consider letting him in my home? He wasn’t human, but an animal. Who knew what sort of rules he lived by—or if he even had rules or laws. She was no different from her mother: swayed by empty words, letting strange men into her haven. But he’d trapped her. And he wasn’t the only one who’d tried. Something odd was happening, and she didn’t like it. She let go of his hand and moved away from him.

“Who was the guy at the bonfire trying to give me his skin? Why were both of you … He said you were worse and …” She looked at him, at his face. “And why me?”

Murrin couldn’t speak, couldn’t process anything beyond the fact that his brother had tried to lure away his intended mate. He knew as soon as it happened that Veikko had taken Murrin’s Other-Skin and laid it where Alana had found it, but he hadn’t thought Veikko had approached her too. Why did he? Veikko still had rare bursts of pique over Zoë’s leaving, but they’d talked about it. He said he understood … so why was he speaking with my Alana?

Murrin wondered if he ought to assure Veikko that Alana would be safe, that she was not like Zoë, that she would not be lost in a potentially fatal depression. Perhaps he was trying to protect Alana? And me? That would make more sense to Murrin, but for the almost certain fact that Veikko had been responsible for putting Murrin’s Other-Skin in Alana’s path. No other selchies had been on the shore.

None of this makes sense … nor is it something to share now.

It was far more complicated than Alana needed to deal with on top of everything else, so Murrin quashed his confusion and suspicions and said, “Veikko is my brother.”

“Your brother?”

Murrin nodded.

“He scared me.” She blushed when she said it, as if fear were something to be ashamed of, but the open admission was only a blink. Alana was still angry. Her posture was tense: hands clenched, spine straight, eyes narrowed. “He said you were worse, and that he’d be back. He—”

“Veikko—Vic—is a bit outdated in his interactions with … humans.” Murrin hated having to use the word, but it was unavoidable. He was not what she was, would never be what she was. It was something they needed to acknowledge. Murrin stepped closer. Despite her anger, she was in need of comfort.

“Why did he say you were worse?”

“Because I wanted to get to know you before I told you what I was. None of this was intentional. My Other-Skin was …” He paused, considered telling her that he suspected that Veikko had entrapped her, and decided against it. There were many years in which Alana and Veikko would be forced to be near each other: with a simple omission, the strife of her resenting him was avoidable. “It was not to be there. You were not to be there. I was coming to meet you, to try to date you as humans do.”

“Oh.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “But …”

“Vic thinks I am ‘worse’ than others in my family because I am going against tradition … or was hoping to.” He gave her a sheepish smile. “He thinks it is worse that I would try to court you and then reveal myself. Not that it matters now ….”

“How is that worse?”

“I’ve been asking that question for years.” He held out his hand. “It is not what I will teach my children … one day when I become a father. It is not what I wanted, but we are together now. We’ll work it out.”

She took his outstretched hand in hers. “We don’t have to stay together.”

He didn’t answer, couldn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too. I don’t do relationships, Murrin.” Her fingertips stroked his hand absently.

“I didn’t mean to trap you, but I’m not eager to let go, either.” He expected her to argue, to grow angry, but like the sea, her moods weren’t quite what he anticipated.

She smiled then, not like she was unhappy, but like she was dangerous. “So I guess I need to convince you then.”

She really is perfect for me.

Over the next three weeks, little by little, Alana’s doubts were replaced by a tentative friendship. It doesn’t hurt to be nice to him. It’s not his fault. She started telling herself that they could be friends. Even if she couldn’t get rid of him, she didn’t necessarily need to date him, and she definitely didn’t need to marry him.

One night, she woke with a start in the middle of the night, shivering and thinking of Murrin. They were friends. Okay, he was crashing on her sofa, and he did share her meals, but that wasn’t a commitment. It was practicality. He had nowhere to go. He couldn’t sleep on the beach. And he bought the groceries, so he wasn’t mooching. He was just … a good friend who was always there.

And he makes me happy.

She went into the living room. Murrin was standing in front of the window, eyes closed, face upturned. The expression on his face was one of pain. She was beside him before she’d thought twice about it.

“Murrin?”

He turned and looked at her. The longing in his eyes was heart-stoppingly awful, but he blinked and it was gone. “Are you ill?”

“No.” She took his hand and led him away from the window. “Are you?”

“Of course not.” He smiled, and it would’ve been reassuring if she hadn’t seen the sadness still lingering in his eyes.

“So, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” He gestured toward her bedroom doorway. “Go ahead. I’m good.”

She thought about it, about him being away from his family, his home, everything familiar. All they talked about was what she wanted, what made her happy, how she felt. He had just as much upheaval, more, even. “Talk to me. We’re trying to be friends, right?”

“Friends,” he repeated. “Is that what we are going to be?”

And she paused. Despite the weirdness, she wasn’t feeling uncomfortable anymore. She touched his cheek and let her hand linger there. He was a good person.

She said, “I’m not trying to be difficult.”

“Nor am I.” He leaned his face into the palm of her hand. “But … I’m trying to be careful.”

She put her hands on his shoulders and went up on her tiptoes. The touch of her hand against his skin was enough to make the world settle into that wondrous sense of completion that it always did. Over the last couple of days, she’d let her fingertips brush against his arm, bumped her shoulder into him—little touches to see if it was always so perfect. It was. Her heart was racing now, though.

He didn’t move.

“No promises,” she whispered, and then she kissed him—and that feeling of bliss that she’d brushed with every touch of his skin consumed her. She couldn’t breathe, move, do anything but feel.

Murrin watched Alana warily the next day. He wasn’t sure what had happened, if it meant anything or if she was just feeling sympathy. She’d been very clear in her insistences that they were friends, just friends, and that friends was all they ever could be. He waited, but she didn’t mention the kiss—and she didn’t repeat it.

Perhaps it was a fluke.

For two more days, she acted as she had before The Kiss: she was kind, friendly, and sometimes brushed against him as if it were an accident. It never was; he knew that. Still, she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.

On the third day, she flopped down next to him on the sofa. Susanne was out at a yoga class—not that it would’ve mattered. Susanne seemed inordinately pleased that Alana wanted him to stay with them; Murrin suspected Susanne wouldn’t object to him sharing Alana’s room. It was Alana who set the boundaries—the same Alana who was currently sitting very close, staring at him with a bemused smile.

“I thought you liked kissing me the other night,” she said.

“I did.”

“So …”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“We can pretend what we are is friends … but we’re dating. Right?” She toyed with the edge of her shirt.

He waited for several breaths, but she didn’t say anything else. So he asked, “What about your plan to convince me to leave?”

“I’m not sure anymore.” She looked sheepish. “I can’t promise forever or, truthfully, next month, but I think about you all the time. I’m happier around you than I’ve ever been in my life. There’s something … magical when we touch. I know it’s not real, but …”

“It’s not real?” he repeated.

“It’s a selchie thing, right? Like the urge to pick up the Other-Skin.” She paused. Her next words came out in a rush. “Does it work both ways?”

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