The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) (37 page)

“Don’t do this, Glenna,” Brigid pleaded. “If you choose this path, there will be no turning back.”

But she needed to do it! She needed to! Someone had to pay for all this suffering! Her gaze shifted back to her mother. It was time to end this.

“Glenna,” Sam said quietly. “You promised.”

“What?” Glenna snapped. “What did I promise?”

Sam leaned on Dominic as he limped into the surf. “You promised to come back to me.”

Come back to me?
The eels darted in front of her, putting themselves between her and the two men. But as they came closer, Glenna saw Sam—really saw him—for the first time. He had burn marks on his arms. Ash and sand clung to his wet clothes. Dark smudges of soot covered his face.

“You still owe me a night out,” Sam said quietly.

A night…out?

“You promised to let me take you out when this was over.” Sam waded out until the water came up to his waist. “You said you’d wear a red dress.”

A red dress?

“You promised, Glenna.” Sam let go of Dominic, using the water to steady himself. “You said you’d come back to me.” He kept walking, closing the distance between them. “I’m not going to let you break that promise.”

Glenna felt the pull of the darkness, the pulsing beat of the sea witch’s lair calling her home. She looked at her mother lying helpless on the sand, then back at her friends.

“It’s too late,” she breathed.

“No.” Sam shook his head. “It’s never too late.”

A faint light glimmered inside her, cracking through the darkness seeping into her soul. Sam took a step closer. His arms were badly burned. He could barely stand on his own. But he had survived.

“Glenna.” Sam took another step closer. “I love you. I will never stop loving you. But this”—he nodded to her mother—“is
not
you.”

The glimmer spread inside her, turning into a glow. Hadn’t he said that no matter how many spells she put on him, no matter how many times she tried to get rid of him, and no matter how many roses outside his house turned black, he would never leave her?

Sam held out his hand. “I love you. Come back to me.”

Kelsey broke away from Tara and ran to Dominic’s side. Dominic lifted her into his arms, and Glenna saw that Kelsey was crying.

“You promised,” Kelsey whispered brokenly.

“What?” Glenna took a tentative step toward her. “What did I promise you?”

“You promised to teach me to paint.”

Glenna felt the eels edging closer. Their eyes blazed up at her—the same color as the light building inside her, flooding through the darkness.

Caitlin rose to her feet at the edge of the beach. She stood between Brigid and Liam, clutching Owen to her side. “You promised to be in our wedding,” she said softly, “to be my maid of honor.”

Tara crossed the beach slowly to stand beside Dominic and Kelsey. “We love you, Glenna. Come back to us.”

Glenna’s hand shook as she reached for Sam. The dark roots cracked, crumbling inside her. Sam caught her, pulling her into his arms.

In the distance, an explosion echoed over the sea. The eels screamed as they ignited, turning to ash in the water. Huge black rocks floated up to the surface as the sea witch’s lair was destroyed.

Moira fell back onto the sand, gasping for air.

Glenna clung to Sam as the sea waves washed over her, seizing the darkness, scattering it until it was nothing but smoke rising off the horizon. “I love you, too.”

A
ftershocks of the volcanic explosion rippled through the sea. Black rose petals washed over the sand and Glenna flicked them away with her fins. She could feel Sam’s heartbeat through his wet shirt as they lay in the shallow surf.

Dominic and Tara walked over to Moira, gazing down at the woman wrapped in the knotted kelp. “What should we do with her?”

Selkies climbed onto the rocks, barking at the mermaids, no longer afraid of them. The mermaids picked up their spears as one of the guards swam up to the beach. “We will take Moira back to our king. He will decide what to do with her.”

Brigid walked slowly across the sand. A few fires still smoldered on the beach and she could see her sister’s haunted face in the dying flames. “What do you think he’ll do with her?”

“Lock her up,” the guard answered. “Somewhere she can never hurt anyone ever again.”

Brigid lifted her eyes to Glenna’s. They both knew what it felt like to be locked up, to be trapped in a cage. Glenna felt Sam’s arms tighten around her as she deferred to her aunt. “What do you want to do?”

Brigid gazed back down at her sister. “We spared her life, but that is all the forgiveness I have inside me.”

Moira opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She flailed, gasping like a fish on the sand.

Brigid turned away. “Let them take her.”

Dominic grabbed Moira by the elbow, hauling her up. Liam strode over, taking her other arm. Kelp and seaweed slid off her, dripping to the beach. Her heels dug into the sand and she shook her head wildly as they dragged her into the surf.

The guards seized her, shoving her into the waves. They dove, their glittering tails arching out of the water in unison. Moonlight glinted off their fins as they splashed, disappearing beneath the surface.

The sea churned, roiling as the rest of the mermaids dove, following the guards back to their kingdom. Glenna’s hand found Sam’s as the swish of a thousand fins faded into the night. She gazed at the last two mermen, the king’s guards treading water just beyond the breaking point.

“Your king made an agreement with my mother,” Glenna said. “To free the selkies and drop the boundaries in exchange for the woman who murdered his son. Will he honor that agreement?”

The guards nodded. “The king has what he wants.”

Brigid raised her voice over the waves. “And what about Glenna?”

The guards looked back at Glenna. “We will allow you to live if you promise never to return to the sea.”

“I have no desire to return to the sea.”

“Then so be it.”

Glenna bowed her head and pinpricks of golden light danced over her tail. The veins in her fins flooded with color and streams of sunlight shot out from her tail, covering the sand in a golden dust.

Tara rushed over to Glenna, laying a blanket over her legs as her body arched, seething with pain. Glenna felt her tail sever and she shuddered, her wet hair falling down around her face. A wave crashed over the sand, the bubbling salt water washing away the last peels of seal-skin.

The mermen dove, vanishing into the dark waters. A cool winter breeze blew over the island, and Glenna edged a single foot out from under the blanket, her toes tingling as they curled into the wet sand.

BRIGID AND SAM
helped Glenna to her feet as the clouds swept away, revealing a brilliant full moon. Brigid grasped her niece’s hand, gazing at the two men walking back up the beach slowly. They were staring at her, their expressions guarded. She felt a strange tightening in her chest when they paused a few feet away from her, looking at her hesitantly, unsure if they should come any closer.

Brigid stared back at them. Moonlight bathed their faces in a silvery glow. She felt a glimmer of recognition when she looked at the one wearing glasses—he was the same man who had helped her out of the boat. He must be the injured boy’s father. “Your son,” she said, scanning the beach and finding the red-head rocking the dark-haired boy in her arms. “Is he going to be okay?”

The man nodded. “He’ll be fine.”

“Owen,” Brigid said softly, her gaze lingering on the boy and his mother who were both watching her with strange—almost hopeful—expressions. “He said his name was Owen.” She looked back at the tall man standing before her. “And his father’s name was Liam.”

He nodded again and took a tentative step closer. “My name is Liam O’Sullivan. And this is my brother, Dominic.”

“Liam?” Brigid breathed, looking back and forth between them. “Dominic?”

Liam nodded.

She lifted a shaking hand to Liam’s face, brushing her fingers uncertainly over his cheek. “I had…two sons once…named Liam and Dominic O’Sullivan.”

“Mother,” Liam whispered.

A sob caught in her throat as she reached for him, as she grabbed both of them and pulled them into her arms. “I thought I’d lost you!”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she gazed up at their beautiful, precious faces. She took Dominic’s face in her hands, tracing every line, every scar. “My children.”

Movements—shadows in the sand—had her glancing down. Hundreds of seals pulled their sleek bodies from the waves and slipped from the rocks, gathering around them. “What are they doing?”

Dominic’s gray eyes, so bright moments ago, filled with sadness. “I think,” he said quietly, “they want to take you home.”

“Home?” Brigid shook her head. “No. I want to stay here. With you.”

“We have your pelt,” Liam said softly.

“No.” Brigid continued to shake her head as the selkies surrounded her on all sides. She had just found her sons! Her babies! She could not leave them now! She looked frantically for her niece. “Glenna, I don’t understand.”

“You are the queen.” Tears shimmered in Glenna’s eyes. “The queen of the selkies.”

Queen?
Brigid’s heart raced. She combed the beach for someone, anyone who could help her. She spotted a woman separated from the rest of the islanders, wrapped in a wool blanket beside the curragh. Her hair was white-blond and waterfall straight. She was the only one on the beach not looking back at her. Instead, her eyes were locked on Owen.

Brigid took a step toward her. She was the one who’d led her here—the same selkie who’d met her on the beach in Clifden. Those eyes—those pale eyes—she recognized them now. She
remembered.
“Nuala.”

Nuala’s grief-stricken gaze flickered briefly to Brigid’s.

Brigid picked her way across the sand through the crowd of selkies. They lifted their heads, baying confused notes of displeasure as she paused before Nuala. “You are a white selkie.”

“I am,” Nuala whispered.

“You were the one who was born when I was sixteen.”

Nuala nodded.

“Why are
you
not queen?”

Nuala’s pale eyes shifted to Liam. “I failed,” she said softly. “I failed in my task of bringing a land-man into the sea.”

“How is that possible?” Brigid asked. “A white selkie has never failed.”

“Moira,” Nuala whispered.

Brigid released a long breath. A few small driftwood fires still burned on the beach. Smoke still billowed from some of the cottages along the coast. Was there no end to her sister’s destruction? Brigid held out her hand and Nuala took it hesitantly. “I met my true love at the celebration of your birth,” Brigid said. “You were the only reason I ever got to meet him.”

“It was my fault.” Nuala looked down. “If I had not been born—”

“No,” Brigid said, taking Nuala’s chin in her hand and lifting her face back to hers. “I do not regret that night, or a single moment after. But he is gone, and all I have now is my family.” She looked over her shoulder at Glenna, Dominic and Liam. “Let me be with them.”