Under His Skin (22 page)

His insults didn’t even seem to register to the
toos
.
Mano
stared at him, a look of heavy concentration on his face. “You know,” he murmured finally. “You wouldn’t last a minute in my society.”

Brec
smiled,
a heartfelt smile this time. “That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

The
toos
snorted and nodded.
“Very well then.
Proceed
, healer.”

Brec stepped closer, kneeling to smear more of the herbal paste onto
Mano’s
fin. As much as he knew that everything he’d said, and everything he was doing, would help him make progress with Ana, he couldn’t help but feel being this nice to a
toos
was a step backward.
Backward for a warrior, forward for a healer.

His mixed emotions swirled around his mind, plucking a string here and there as he worked.
Mano’s
dorsal appendage was improving in leaps and bounds, though it would still take several
shapechanges
to be fully restored. He had to admit, the progress was impressive.

As he attended to his enemy, Brec glanced back at Ana every once in a while. She seemed to have learned her lesson, staying farther back from the
toos
now that she’d gotten a second bite. Her blonde hair fell over her shoulder in a pale wave, looking even paler against the vibrant red of her sweater. She was staring at him with a guarded expression, the skin around her eyes tense and her eyes hyper-focused. She looked like she was analyzing him and he had the distinct impression that when the
toos
finally returned to the sea he wouldn’t have to wait long to find out if he’d made any progress earning her trust.

 
Two grueling hours later,
Mano
stood at the door to Ana’s cabin. His dorsal fin was smaller than it had originally been, but still standing tall and healthy. In shark form he would be able to swim fast enough to push the water past his gills and keep from drowning. In a week his fin would be completely healed.

Mano
didn’t try to shake Brec’s hand as he left and Brec didn’t offer. He wanted Ana to see that he would help anyone who needed it, but there was no need to go overboard. When the
toos
splashed over the end of the dock and disappeared from sight, Brec closed the door and turned back to Ana. She stood behind him, still silent, and still staring at him with that contemplative look.

His heart pounded so loud he couldn’t hear his own thoughts. Part of him wanted to wait, wanted to see if she came to him. But the larger part of him couldn’t help but feel rushed. There were
skinwalkers
out there without their skins and every moment was like torture for them. He couldn’t let it continue even a second longer than absolutely necessary. He had to try.

“So are you ready to ask me?”

Ana’s eyes widened and she gripped the couch beside her. Despite her body’s obvious reaction, her voice came out soft, but clear.

“Ask you for what?”

Brec straightened his spine. He tried to infuse his body with confidence, bluffing like he’d never bluffed in his life.

“You talked about
Mano’s
need to return to the water like someone who knows what it’s like to lose something.
Something important.
Your house is full of herbs and texts on healing.”

“So?” she breathed. She swallowed hard and her gaze darted away from his.

Careful, Brec,
he told himself.
Don’t scare her off.

He walked closer to her, moving slowly so as not to startle her. His heart leapt into his throat. If this didn’t work, he’d have no alternative but to keep searching. How long could he hold Ana prisoner in her own home? How long before he exhausted the easy hiding places and had to decide whether to start tearing her home apart? Was he ready to do that?

Ana stared at him like a deer caught in headlights, her eyes widening even further when he raised his hands to grip her shoulders.

“Ana,” he whispered. The world narrowed down to her two ice blue eyes. “Let me help you.”

Ana couldn’t breathe. Her life, everything she’d worked for, everything she’d thought was true seemed to waver before her eyes. For two years she’d been possessed. She’d felt nothing but pain and the bitter rise and fall of hope. She’d done things that turned her stomach, inflicted unbearable pain on innocent people. None of it had mattered before, nothing had mattered but her search for the skin or the spell that would end her suffering and return her fur to her.

Now the selkie holding her shoulders in a vice-like grip had changed all that. He’d broken into her
safehouse
, discovered her sins. Everywhere she looked, he waited, ready to throw her crimes in her face until she couldn’t ignore them anymore. Even worse than the guilt he inflicted upon her was the awakening.

He’d made her laugh. Not once in two years had she laughed, not even a giggle. How could she laugh when her skin lay broken and burnt under the dirt floor of her basement? And yet she had. Standing amidst a pile of her underwear, staring at a selkie bent on detecting a seduction scheme in every move she made, she’d laughed.

And his kiss.
Ana’s mind drifted to the shower, reminding her of how his hand had felt as he held the back of her neck, tilting her head so he could slant his mouth over hers. Remembered pleasure warmed her muscles, reigniting her desire as she remembered the way their tongues had danced together, gliding against one another until the erotic heat between her legs was almost too much to bear.

The sense of purpose had shocked her too. For the first time in the two years she’d pored over healing texts, Ana had used those skills to help someone else. And it had felt amazing.

Laughter, pleasure, and purpose—emotions she’d never expected to feel again.
All because of the selkie standing before her.
He thought she was a good person. Knowing what she’d done, seeing her temper, he still believed he could reach her, still believed that deep down inside she was a decent woman. And now he wanted to help her.

Part of her tried to smother the idea before it could leave her lips. Once she asked, she couldn’t take it back. Once she put it out there, he would know and there would be no more hiding. It would be the second time a man had known about her skin, and the first man had destroyed it. If Brec wasn’t the man he seemed to be—if he still bore her ill-will after she returned the skins, he could easily take his revenge on her. He could destroy what was left of her skin, destroy the tiniest scrap of hope she had left. What choice would she have but to wither and die as he’d said?

Baby steps
she whispered to herself.
Just ask him if a burnt fur can be healed. He doesn’t need to know it’s your own fur you’re talking about.
She tried to straighten her spine, drawing every scrap of her courage to her. He’d said he was the best healer the selkies had seen in over three centuries. If anyone could help her, if anyone would know how to help her, it was him. She forced the words out, barely speaking past the lump of fear in her throat.

“Can you heal a skin that’s been badly burned?”

She held her breath as she turned her gaze up to meet his—and then she froze.

Anger like she’d never seen before burned like hot coals in his eyes and his hands tightened painfully on shoulders. The muscle in his jaw twitched as if he were clenching his teeth and the lump of fear in her throat swelled until she choked for breath. He looked . . . enraged.

“No!” he practically shouted, shaking her so hard she though her neck would snap. “No, once you burn a skin, it’s just a pile of ashes. The
skinwalker
will never be able to wear it
again,
it would be like it no longer existed.”

His fingers nearly crushed her bone and she barely smothered a whimper of pain. Shock turned her blood to ice water in her veins and tears sprang to her eyes. Her shoulders ached in his grasp, the first real physical pain he’d inflicted on her since he arrived. Horror blossomed inside her.
I was wrong.

“I—I just thought—”

“No, it’s not possible,” he shook his head, his anger gaining an edge of desperation. “Ana, once you burn those skins there’s no going back. The people you stole them from would eventually die or go insane. This isn’t a case of a man or woman taking the skin to get a husband, a story about love making the
skinwalker
‘happy’ for awhile. This is about half of that person
dying
and that person feeling that loss every day like a hole in his soul.” He shook her again, so hard her teeth rattled. “Tell me you didn’t burn them!”

“What about witch hazel, slippery elm, and
kukui
nut oil?” she babbled, desperation sending a fine
tremble
over her entire body. Too much was happening too fast. She didn’t understand. “Wouldn’t that—”

“No,” Brec shouted, his own eyes wild with horror. “No, nothing will heal a burnt fur.
Nothing!
Ana, what have you done? Is that why you wouldn’t return the skins? Did you burn them?”

Hysteria bubbled up inside her from somewhere beyond her soul.
The part of her that remembered being a fox, remembered what it was like to feel whole, cried out in a long mournful howl that reverberated up her spine until her body shook like a tuning fork.
Tears welled in her eyes until the whole world blurred and she was alone with the one shaking conviction that she would never be okay again.

“. . .
once
you burn those skins there’s no going back . . . .
die
or go insane . . . .
feeling
that loss every day like a whole in his soul . . . nothing will heal a burnt fur.
Nothing!”

He was right. Her skin was
gone,
she would never get it back. He was a healer, the best, and he’d just told her plain as day she was doomed to be trapped in this human skin forever.
Forever.

“Ana?”

She heard her name, but it sounded far away. Everything was far away, everything was falling. Strange sounds assaulted her ears, but she could barely hear them through the fog that had settled around her. It sounded like sobbing.
Farther and farther away . . .

“Fuck, Ana, can you hear me?
Ana
!”

The bubble around her popped and the world exploded back into sound. The sobbing she thought she heard was
real,
and it was coming from her. Pain worse than anything she’d ever felt crushed her body beneath a giant invisible weight and she collapsed against Brec’s chest. He tensed for a split second and then his hand was stroking her back.

“Ana . . . Ana,
shhhh
,
it’s
okay. Ana, what’s wrong?”

His voice was a strange mixture of shock, confusion, and lingering anger and panic. As angry as he was, as terrified that she’d burned those other furs, he still stroked her back. He still asked her what was wrong. He was a true healer. But it didn’t matter anymore.
“Nothing will heal a burnt fur.
Nothing!”

She couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. In a way this was better though. Now that she knew it was impossible—now that one of the greatest healers the selkies had ever known had confirmed it for her, she knew she could let go.
“. . .
die
or go insane.”
She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes as the sobs began to subside. In a way, she should be glad. Soon she would be free again.

Brec held onto Ana as she sobbed and a feeling of dread settled heavily in his stomach. He slowly lowered them both to the floor and began to rock her back and forth, murmuring nonsense words of comfort as he struggled to figure out what had just happened.

One minute he felt like they were connecting and the next—BOOM she was talking about burning skins and if they could be healed. His stomach lurched. What if she had burned the skins? What if that’s why she wouldn’t tell him where they were?

He stared down at the delicate female crying in his lap. But why would she cry about it? Did she feel guilty? Why would she burn the skins? Why had she stolen them in the first place?

A thousand questions flared in his brain and he didn’t have an answer to any of them. And what was worse, he couldn’t quite smother the feeling of protectiveness he felt for this woman when she cried. All her bravado just melted away on her tears and she sobbed like her heart was breaking. It made him want to pull her into his lap and promise that everything would be all right.