[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
. How did he get here first? She shivered, but then realized that it wasn t him.The guy was as defined as Dreadlocks, but he had long, loose, dark hair.Just a surfer.OrDreadlocks s friend.The surfer wasn t wearing a wetsuit.He looked like he might be.naked.Itwas difficult to tell with the waves crashing around him; at the very least, he was topless in the frigidwater.He lifted his hand to beckon her closer, and she thought she heard him say, I m safe enough.Come talk to me. It was her imagination, though.It had to be.She was just freaked out by Dreadlocks.There wasno way this guy could ve heard her over the breaking of waves, no way she could ve heard him.But that didn t change her suspicion that somehow they had just spoken.Primal fear uncoiled inher belly, and for the second time that night, she backed away without looking.Her heel sliced openon the edge of a mussel shell.The sting of salt water made her wince as she walked farther away,unable to ignore the panic, the urge to run.She glanced back and saw that he hadn t moved, hadn tstopped watching her with that unwavering gaze.And her fear turned to fury.Then she saw the long black leather coat slung carelessly on the sand; it looked like a darkerversion of the coat Dreadlocks had offered her.She stepped on it and ground her blood-and-sand-caked foot on it.It wasn t smooth like leather should be.Instead, the material under her foot was silk-soft fur, an animal s pelt, a seal s skin.It was a pelt.She pulled her gaze away from that dark pelt and stared at him.He still stood in the surf.Wavescurled around him like the sea had formed arms of itself, hiding him, holding him.He smiled againand told her, Take it.It s yours now. And she knew she had heard his voice that time; she d felt the words on her skin like the windthat stirred the water.She didn t want to reach down, didn t want to lift that pelt into her arms, but shehad no choice.Her bleeding foot had broken his glamour, ended his manipulation of her senses, andshe knew him for what he truly was: a selchie.He was a fey creature, a seal person, and he wasn tsupposed to exist.Maybe it was fun to believe in them when she was a little girl sharing herstorybooks with Nonny, but Alana knew that her grandmother s insistence that selchies were real wasjust another type of make-believe.Seals didn t walk on land among humans; they didn t slip out oftheir Other-Skins.They were just beautiful myths.She knew thatexcept she was looking at a selchie who was telling her to take his Other-Skin.Just like the oneat the bonfire.She stood motionless as she tried to process the enormity of what had happened, what washappening right now.Two selchies.I met two freaking selchies.who tried to trap me.And in that instant, sheunderstood: the fairy tales were all wrong.It wasn t the mortalsfault.Alana didn t want to stay there looking at him, but she was no longer acting of her ownvolition.I am trapped.The fishermen in the old stories who d taken the selchies pelts hadn t been entrapping innocentfey creatures: they d been entrapped by selchie women.Perhaps it was too hard for the fishermen toadmit that they were the ones who got trapped, but Alana suddenly knew the truth that none of thestories had shared.A mortal could no more resist the pull of that pelt than the sea could refuse to obeythe pull of the moon.Once she took the pelt, lifted it into her mortal arms, she was bound to him.Sheknew what he was, knew the trap was sprung, but she was no different from the mortals in the storiesshe d grown up hearing.She could not resist.She took the pelt and ran, hoping she could foist it off onsomeone else before he found her, before Murrin followed her home because he had to be Murrin,the one Dreadlocks was talking about, the one that the creepy selchie had told her was worse.Murrin watched her run, felt the irresistible need to follow her.She carried his skin with her: hehad no choice but follow.It would have been better if she hadn t run.With murmured epithets overher flight, he stepped out of the surf and made his way to the tiny caves the water had carved into thesandstone.Inside, he had his shore-clothes: woven sandals, well-worn jeans, a few shirts, and atimepiece.When his brother, Veikko, had gone ashore earlier, he d borrowed the soft shirt Murrinhad liked so.Instead, Murrin had to wear one that required fastening many small buttons.He hatedbuttons.Most of his family didn t go shore-walking often enough that they needed many clothes, butMurrin had been on land often enough that the lack of a decent shirt was displeasing.He barelyfastened the shirt, slipping a couple of the tiny disks into the equally tiny holes, and went to find herthe girl he d chosen over the sea.He hadn t meant for her to find his Other-Skin like this, not yet, not now.He d intended to talk toher, but as he was coming out of the water, he d seen her here and not at the party.He watched her,trying to figure how to walk out of the surf without startling her, but then he felt it: the touch of herskin on his pelt.His pelt wasn t to be there.It wasn t to happen like this.He d had a plan.A selchie couldn t have both a mate and the water, so Murrin had waited until he found a girlintriguing enough to hold his attention.After living with the moods of the sea, it wasn t an easy task tofind a person worth losing the waves for.But I have.So he d intended to ease her fears, to try to woo her instead of trapping her, but when shestepped on his Other-Skin, all of those choices had vanished.This was it: they were bound.Now, he was left doing the same thing his father had once done, trying to convince a mortal to trust him afterhe d trapped her.The fact that he hadn t put his pelt where she d find it didn t change anything.Hewas left trying to wait out her fears, to find a way to convince her to trust him, to hope for a way topersuade her to forgive him: all of the very same things he d wanted to avoid.Mortals weren t strong enough of will to refuse the enchantment that bound him to her.Itwouldn t make her love him, but selchies grew up knowing that love wasn t often theirs to have.Tradition mattered more.Finding a mate, making a family, those mattered more.And Murrin s plan to buck tradition by getting to know his intended first had gone horribly offcourse.Thanks to Veikko.At the dirty bathrooms along the beach parking lot, Alana saw a girl clad only in a thin top andragged shorts.The girl was shivering, not that it was cold, but from something she d shot up orhadn t been able to shoot.Usually, the junkies and vagrants clustered in small groups, but this onewas alone.The pelt tingled and resumed looking again like a beautiful leather jacket as soon as Alana sawthe girl.Perfect.Alana walked up and tried to hand it to the girl. Here.You can use it to warm But the girl backed away with something like horror on her face.She glanced from the coat toAlana s face, then out to the mostly empty lot. I won t tell or anything.Please? Just She made agagging noise and turned away.Alana looked down.The pelt, still looking like a coat, was covered in blood.It was on herhands, her arms.Everywhere the seawater had been was now black-red in the glare of the streetlight.For aheartbeat, Alana thought she d been wrong, that she d hurt the selchie.She looked over her shoulder:a trail of almost perfectly tear-shaped droplets stretched behind her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl matkasanepid.xlx.pl
. How did he get here first? She shivered, but then realized that it wasn t him.The guy was as defined as Dreadlocks, but he had long, loose, dark hair.Just a surfer.OrDreadlocks s friend.The surfer wasn t wearing a wetsuit.He looked like he might be.naked.Itwas difficult to tell with the waves crashing around him; at the very least, he was topless in the frigidwater.He lifted his hand to beckon her closer, and she thought she heard him say, I m safe enough.Come talk to me. It was her imagination, though.It had to be.She was just freaked out by Dreadlocks.There wasno way this guy could ve heard her over the breaking of waves, no way she could ve heard him.But that didn t change her suspicion that somehow they had just spoken.Primal fear uncoiled inher belly, and for the second time that night, she backed away without looking.Her heel sliced openon the edge of a mussel shell.The sting of salt water made her wince as she walked farther away,unable to ignore the panic, the urge to run.She glanced back and saw that he hadn t moved, hadn tstopped watching her with that unwavering gaze.And her fear turned to fury.Then she saw the long black leather coat slung carelessly on the sand; it looked like a darkerversion of the coat Dreadlocks had offered her.She stepped on it and ground her blood-and-sand-caked foot on it.It wasn t smooth like leather should be.Instead, the material under her foot was silk-soft fur, an animal s pelt, a seal s skin.It was a pelt.She pulled her gaze away from that dark pelt and stared at him.He still stood in the surf.Wavescurled around him like the sea had formed arms of itself, hiding him, holding him.He smiled againand told her, Take it.It s yours now. And she knew she had heard his voice that time; she d felt the words on her skin like the windthat stirred the water.She didn t want to reach down, didn t want to lift that pelt into her arms, but shehad no choice.Her bleeding foot had broken his glamour, ended his manipulation of her senses, andshe knew him for what he truly was: a selchie.He was a fey creature, a seal person, and he wasn tsupposed to exist.Maybe it was fun to believe in them when she was a little girl sharing herstorybooks with Nonny, but Alana knew that her grandmother s insistence that selchies were real wasjust another type of make-believe.Seals didn t walk on land among humans; they didn t slip out oftheir Other-Skins.They were just beautiful myths.She knew thatexcept she was looking at a selchie who was telling her to take his Other-Skin.Just like the oneat the bonfire.She stood motionless as she tried to process the enormity of what had happened, what washappening right now.Two selchies.I met two freaking selchies.who tried to trap me.And in that instant, sheunderstood: the fairy tales were all wrong.It wasn t the mortalsfault.Alana didn t want to stay there looking at him, but she was no longer acting of her ownvolition.I am trapped.The fishermen in the old stories who d taken the selchies pelts hadn t been entrapping innocentfey creatures: they d been entrapped by selchie women.Perhaps it was too hard for the fishermen toadmit that they were the ones who got trapped, but Alana suddenly knew the truth that none of thestories had shared.A mortal could no more resist the pull of that pelt than the sea could refuse to obeythe pull of the moon.Once she took the pelt, lifted it into her mortal arms, she was bound to him.Sheknew what he was, knew the trap was sprung, but she was no different from the mortals in the storiesshe d grown up hearing.She could not resist.She took the pelt and ran, hoping she could foist it off onsomeone else before he found her, before Murrin followed her home because he had to be Murrin,the one Dreadlocks was talking about, the one that the creepy selchie had told her was worse.Murrin watched her run, felt the irresistible need to follow her.She carried his skin with her: hehad no choice but follow.It would have been better if she hadn t run.With murmured epithets overher flight, he stepped out of the surf and made his way to the tiny caves the water had carved into thesandstone.Inside, he had his shore-clothes: woven sandals, well-worn jeans, a few shirts, and atimepiece.When his brother, Veikko, had gone ashore earlier, he d borrowed the soft shirt Murrinhad liked so.Instead, Murrin had to wear one that required fastening many small buttons.He hatedbuttons.Most of his family didn t go shore-walking often enough that they needed many clothes, butMurrin had been on land often enough that the lack of a decent shirt was displeasing.He barelyfastened the shirt, slipping a couple of the tiny disks into the equally tiny holes, and went to find herthe girl he d chosen over the sea.He hadn t meant for her to find his Other-Skin like this, not yet, not now.He d intended to talk toher, but as he was coming out of the water, he d seen her here and not at the party.He watched her,trying to figure how to walk out of the surf without startling her, but then he felt it: the touch of herskin on his pelt.His pelt wasn t to be there.It wasn t to happen like this.He d had a plan.A selchie couldn t have both a mate and the water, so Murrin had waited until he found a girlintriguing enough to hold his attention.After living with the moods of the sea, it wasn t an easy task tofind a person worth losing the waves for.But I have.So he d intended to ease her fears, to try to woo her instead of trapping her, but when shestepped on his Other-Skin, all of those choices had vanished.This was it: they were bound.Now, he was left doing the same thing his father had once done, trying to convince a mortal to trust him afterhe d trapped her.The fact that he hadn t put his pelt where she d find it didn t change anything.Hewas left trying to wait out her fears, to find a way to convince her to trust him, to hope for a way topersuade her to forgive him: all of the very same things he d wanted to avoid.Mortals weren t strong enough of will to refuse the enchantment that bound him to her.Itwouldn t make her love him, but selchies grew up knowing that love wasn t often theirs to have.Tradition mattered more.Finding a mate, making a family, those mattered more.And Murrin s plan to buck tradition by getting to know his intended first had gone horribly offcourse.Thanks to Veikko.At the dirty bathrooms along the beach parking lot, Alana saw a girl clad only in a thin top andragged shorts.The girl was shivering, not that it was cold, but from something she d shot up orhadn t been able to shoot.Usually, the junkies and vagrants clustered in small groups, but this onewas alone.The pelt tingled and resumed looking again like a beautiful leather jacket as soon as Alana sawthe girl.Perfect.Alana walked up and tried to hand it to the girl. Here.You can use it to warm But the girl backed away with something like horror on her face.She glanced from the coat toAlana s face, then out to the mostly empty lot. I won t tell or anything.Please? Just She made agagging noise and turned away.Alana looked down.The pelt, still looking like a coat, was covered in blood.It was on herhands, her arms.Everywhere the seawater had been was now black-red in the glare of the streetlight.For aheartbeat, Alana thought she d been wrong, that she d hurt the selchie.She looked over her shoulder:a trail of almost perfectly tear-shaped droplets stretched behind her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]