The Little Selkie (retail) Read Free Page A

gasps, and her heart pounded. She didn’t see her pelt anywhere.
    There were human men aplenty. They were gathered around a campfire and walking in and out of tents. They were a greasy bunch, armed to the teeth and smelling of sweat and blood.
    But Dylan didn’t care who the men were; she needed her pelt. She threw herself to her feet and was almost yanked back to the ground by a rope attached to one of her wrists.
    “Oi, she’s ’wake,” one of the greasy men shouted. He spat and folded his arms across his bare, tanned chest. “Aren’t you a strange thing,” he said, approaching Dylan with glittering eyes as some of his companions joined him.
    “Where is my pelt?” Dylan demanded, her heart squeezing in her chest.
    “Pretty, if you go for them kind of looks. Whaddya say, want to play?” the man asked, offering Dylan a smile peppered with missing teeth.
    “Where is my pelt?” Dylan said, her voice growing tighter.
    “Jus’ take it easy. We ain’t gonna hurt you none,” another man said, reaching for her.
    “Where’s my pelt !” Dylan screamed. Instead of cutting the note off she carried it—like a shrieking sea hawk. The noise sent some men to their knees, but it also brought every bit of water in the camp ricocheting into the air.
    Water exploded out of canteens, and a pot set to boil over a fire shot vapor into the air as its water fled to hang over the camp. Water for horses, any filled buckets, and every drop of water swirled at the sound of Dylan’s voice.
    “Where is it,” she demanded as men cowered.
    No one responded. They were all stunned, staring at the water hanging above their heads.
    Her breath came faster. Even though air was entering her lungs, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her head rang and her world spun. Worry and fear nauseated her.
    “Where!” Dylan shouted. She sang a disconcerting note that made the water form into a sphere and hit the ground so hard it sent dirt spraying everywhere.
    “We don’t know!” one man shouted, diving behind a tent.
    “ Yes, you do !” Dylan directed her ball of water to blast the tent, destroying it like a tidal wave.
    “The lord has it!” another man shouted. “ ’e took it with ’im when he went off with the mage!”
    The blood in Dylan’s body turned into ice, and her heart faltered. “W-what?”
    “She said ’e needed to keep it close and destroy it if you acted out.”
    Dylan yanked on the rope—which had been attached to the demolished tent—and pulled herself free. She dropped her hold on the water, making it collapse in the middle of the camp, and ran into the forest.
    Tree branches grabbed at her. Thorny bushes snagged the tender skin of her legs and cut her. Twice, she fell, terror making her clumsy.
    A human had her pelt. A human had her pelt ! What should she do? What could she do? She had chased after the sea witch and gotten herself caught! Worse, if the man who had her pelt wasn’t twenty different kinds of idiotic, he would know that without her pelt, she couldn’t change back into a sea lion. If he poked even the smallest hole in it, she wouldn’t be able to reclaim her secondary form every again. She would be at his mercy. She! Her clan’s best singer! All because she was too brash and—
    “They said he was with the mage—the sea witch,” Dylan said aloud, the men’s terrified shouts coming back to her. The sea witch knew . She knew all about them—she knew about their magic! Shock and horror froze her in place, like a glacier. “And I am my clan’s best singer,” Dylan whispered, her eyes tearing up.
    The sea witch and her human henchman would force Dylan to use her powers for them. She would be their tool .
    “What do I do?” Dylan whispered, her lips numb. They had all the power, and she had none. I am like a sea lion caught by a shark. If I fight back or run, they’ll ruin my pelt, and I will never be a sea lion again. If I do what they order, I will aid the sea witch’s pursuit of death