Skin Deep by Marissa Doyle Read Free Book Online

Mahtahdou who had long troubled their lives on this sea-girt land. Together they had destroyed the body of the great shaman Mahtahdou had taken over so that he was once again a formless spirit, and then bound that spirit. Peace prevailed until the dark-eyed men were displaced from their lands by men from across the sea who had never known Mahtahdou, and memory of him went from the land.
    But the selkies—his family—remembered. They continued to keep watch over Mahtahdou, maintaining the chains that bound him. All had been well through the long years; if the leader of the selkies did not possess the power to keep Mahtahdou chained, he or she would espouse one who did. Alasdair still remembered his grandmother’s power, so tangible that she’d worn it like a second sealskin. Mahtahdou had been well fettered under her.
    But when Grandmother had left this world and gone into the next, the bonds of her power that kept Mahtahdou restrained had weakened. Father had not been her equal, though he’d tried—
    The voices below sounded closer now. He could hear Garland and the healer talking quietly just below. Would they come back up here? It would be good if she did, so he could try to figure out what she was. He stroked the smooth blue skin woven of thread that she’d given him and felt the magic running through it, strong magic speaking of love and caring and tenderness. It belonged to her mate, she had said. Lucky man, to be loved like this. Would he mind that she was allowing someone else to wear it?
    He closed his eyes and saw again the picture on the beach this morning as he lay in the sand, fighting groggily to rouse himself from pain and weakness and despair: the sun gleaming on the hair of the human cradling Conn against her, her eyes—blue eyes! He’d heard some humans had them, but hadn’t believed it—her blue eyes anxious but her voice soft and comforting. Then he’d panicked, dragging himself to his wounded feet to save his child—and had nearly been knocked over again when he touched the soft covering she’d wrapped around Conn and felt the power in it.
    Who was this Garland? She was definitely human, but he had no idea that humans were capable of magic like this. He had thought that all their energy had been turned to harnessing the physical world so that they were incapable of even feeling magic. The fairy-folk—the Sidhe—had turned in the other direction, and were so wrapped in magic that they had mostly left the physical plane. His people, the selkies, occupied a place in the middle, embracing both the physical and magical worlds.
    So was she a human who had somehow retained or re-learned magic? And if she was…
    It had felt almost like his grandmother’s magic. Wearing this skin he could probably march into Mahtahdou’s hall—the hall that had once been the selkies’—and Mahtahdou would be unable to touch him. It was the first time since Grandmother’s death that he’d felt really safe.
    Safe. He closed his eyes and relaxed into the soft platform. How strange that humans liked to sleep on something so high instead of on a proper bed on the floor. Weren’t they afraid of falling off? Once again he stroked the fabric of his—what had she called it? Robe? With this, he was probably even safe from that.

 
    Chapter 4
     
    R ob arrived at six with a large pot of beef stroganoff and a bottle of dry red Spanish wine. Garland felt awkward greeting him; the instant intimacy forged between them this morning had faded. And she’d forgotten what it was like to be on a date: the butterflies in the stomach, the worry that she might say something dumb out of sheer nerves.
    She put a pot of water on the stove to boil for noodles and watched Rob open the wine. He moved with a different rhythm from Derek, who’d never seemed to feel at home in his own skin. She’d often had the feeling that Derek was playing to an enormous, unseen audience, his smallest gesture or action just so, as if he were waiting