The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) by Sophie Moss Read Free Book Online

a plate of scones in front of Caitlin and Glenna. “In the past.”
    The two women turned around to chat with Fiona. Owen scooted closer to Brennan. “What happened?”
    Brennan stretched out his legs, his knees cracking as his muddy work boots scuffed over the floorboards. “A long, long time ago, a selkie princess fell in love with a merman.” Brennan dug in his pocket for his pipe tobacco. “Now, this was something that almost never happened,” he added, packing a fresh pinch of sweet-smelling tobacco into his pipe. “It wasn’t forbidden, but it wasn’t encouraged either.”
    “Why? Because selkies are only supposed to fall in love with their own kind?”
    “No.” Brennan shook his head. “Because of how powerful their child would be.”
    Owen watched Brennan fumbling with his pack of matches. He took them from the elderly man’s stiff fingers and lit a match for him, holding it over his pipe.
    Brennan puffed on the pipe until the tobacco caught fire, then settled back into the chair. “Selkies and mermaids are powerful enough on their own. But a child of a union of these two creatures has unimaginable powers.” He let the pipe dangle from the corner of his bearded mouth. “It’s all about balance, you see. When any one person or creature gets too much power, everything shifts out of balance.”
    “Did they have a child?”
    Brennan nodded. “They did. A daughter. And she grew up to be the most beautiful siren anyone had ever seen. Both families showered her with love and affection and the most precious jewels in all the sea. But after a while, she became greedy and spoiled. She wanted more than what her parents could give her, and she started to spend long hours on the surface by the busy sea ports, where the trading ships came and went.
    “She began to abuse her powers, luring helpless men into the sea. She would sing to them from the rocks until they followed her into the waves and drowned. She got great pleasure from exploiting her power over men. She disrupted entire armies preparing a ship for battle or sailing out of port. When she lured one of the greatest warriors mankind has ever known into the sea, the men became enraged and fought back.”
    “Did they catch her?” Owen asked.
    Brennan shook his head. “They could never get close enough to catch her, but they rounded up dozens of innocent seals and slaughtered them instead. They captured entire families of mermaids in massive trolling nets and murdered them.”
    Owen shuddered, wrapping his arms around his stomach.
    “You see,” Brennan continued, “back then, mermaids and selkies were more common in the shallow waters and men knew who and what they were. They were not the creatures of legends and myths as they are now. But men viewed selkies and mermaids as one and the same—terrors to mankind, creatures to be feared.”
    “But it was only the one siren,” Owen protested.
    “It was,” Brennan agreed. “But when the mermaids got word of what was happening, they demanded the siren be handed over to them. The selkies refused, and almost started a war between the two species. As punishment, the mermaids corralled the selkies into the waters around these islands and set up boundaries. They took away their freedom to roam the seas and declared that if a child was ever born of a selkie/merman union again, they would destroy it.”
    Owen’s eyes went wide. “The selkies aren’t allowed to leave the waters around these islands?”
    Brennan shook his head. “These waters are a sanctuary. They are protected space for the selkies. As long as they stay inside the boundaries, they’re safe.”
    “What happens if they try to leave?”
    “The mermaids will kill any selkie who tries to leave the boundaries. It’s the only way they can ensure that they maintain control, and that everything stays balanced.”
    Owen’s gaze fell to the book. He thought back to the years he’d spent underwater with Nuala. He remembered how they’d lived