7. Rook
The sanctuary’s silence is a heavy thing, like the weight of sins that should’ve been confessed but weren’t. Luka’s door shuts with a click that echoes more than it should in this empty place. Aisling and I, we’re left to our own devices, two lonely figures each claimed by a couch offering as much comfort as a bed of nails.
I’m flat on my back, eyes fixed on the ceiling where shadows play tricks, turning cracks into chasms. The rhythm of Aisling’s breathing is a hypnotic soundtrack, steady and soft. I could turn my head, watch her chest rise and fall, but I don’t. There’s something about her presence that feels like walking a tightrope.
Look too long, and you’ll lose balance, fall hard.
Outside, the night isn’t quiet. It’s alive with the kind of sounds that make your skin crawl. Gunshots puncture the calm at intervals, sirens wail like mourners at a funeral procession, and somewhere beyond these walls, people are shouting—desperate, angry, scared.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath. Celestial Hills, once a paradise in the midst of chaos, now it’s just another level of hell. I’ve walked these streets blind, ignoring the decay, the descent. And Vance, he’s supposed to be the guardian angel of this forsaken place…
…but the halo’s slipped, hasn’t it?
I roll onto my side, facing away from Aisling, anger simmering in my gut. Maybe it’s time to give Vance a wake-up call. This city’s bleeding out, and he’s off playing hermit while guys like me are left picking up the pieces.
The silence between us is a living thing, twitching with every distant echo of chaos outside. I’m tracing the patterns on the couch fabric when her voice cuts through.
“Can’t sleep either, huh?” Aisling’s words ripple across the coffee table, faint but clear.
I roll onto my side, catching her silhouette against the backdrop of unrest beyond the stained glass. “Restless souls, we two,” I murmur, the corner of my mouth lifting in something that isn’t quite a smile.
Her laughter is a quiet sound, more resignation than amusement. “It’s become a habit, I guess.” The glow from the streetlights outside paints her face in shades of doubt and something like longing. “Being away from Oberon—it doesn’t sit right. Feels like I’m missing a piece.”
“Is that why you two are always going at it in the wee hours of the morning?” I keep my tone light, trying to ease the weight off her shoulders.
“Guess so,” she admits, and there’s an apology in her eyes even if it doesn’t make it to her lips. “Sex helps me sleep—quiets the noise. Sorry for dragging you into my insomnia.”
“Wasn’t sleeping anyway,” I say, shrugging.
Truth is, with the city falling apart at the seams, sleep feels like a luxury I can’t afford.
And I don’t mind hearing her moan.
“Need a hand with those demons keeping you up?” I ask, my voice a low thread in the night’s uneasy quiet.
Aisling bites her lip, a flicker of something mischievous sparking in her stormy eyes. It sends a jolt right through me, images flashing—skin on skin, tangled sheets—but neither of us goes there. She’s got class, and hell, maybe I do too.
“Mom used to tell me stories,” Aisling says, tucking a strand of moonlit hair behind her ear. “Oberon…he’s not much of a storyteller.”
“Guess it’s my turn then,” I chuckle, shifting to get comfortable. My bones ache like they’ve got stories of their own, but that’s a yarn for another time. “I know one about the sea, if you’re game.”
“You know I have a complicated relationship with the sea,” she snorts.
“Yeah…that’s why I think you’ll like this one.”
She goes quiet, her eyes fixed on me—and fuck me, I want to be on that couch with her, to have her in my arms. It feels like the coffee table is this vast expanse between us, impassable.
“Right.” I clear my throat, leaning back into the couch’s embrace. “So, there’s this fishing village in Ireland, and a young fisherman named Liam. One day, he’s out at sea and spots seals sunning themselves. But there’s one that catches his eye—“
“Weird.”
“Give it a moment,” I blurt out, defending myself.
“But he’s hitting on a seal?”
“Aisling, if you want a story…”
She laughs softly. “Okay…go on, I’m listening.”
“Alright,” I mutter. “Well, as he looks closer, he realizes that this particular seal is in fact a selkie…a beautiful woman who can take the form of a seal, a creature of the ocean.”
Aisling raises her eyebrows like she knows where I’m going with this. I don’t let it stop me.
“She’s gorgeous, with deep blue eyes mirroring the ocean’s depths and hair like the gold spun from sunlight.”
Okay, maybe that’s too far.
I wonder if Aisling sees herself the way I do.
“Anyway…Liam’s struck dumb by her beauty, and who wouldn’t be? They fall hard and fast, despite every warning that selkies belong to the waves.”
“Love does that to you,” she murmurs, a note of wistfulness threading her words.
“And not only that, but when he talks to her he falls ever more in love…because she’s smart, kind, brave. She’s everything he could have wanted in a wife—a partner. They build a life, have kids with that same wild sea staring back from their faces. But Aoife, that’s the selkie, she’s torn between land and sea. Finds her seal skin one day hidden among rocks.”
“Does she leave?” Aisling’s voice is barely above a whisper, as if speaking louder might break the spell of the story.
“Good ol’ Liam knows he can’t cage something that belongs to the world. So he gives her back her skin, tells her to follow her heart into the deep blue.” I pause, letting the weight of sacrifice hang in the air.
“And she goes?”
“Like a shot.” I snap my fingers, a sharp sound in the stillness. “But it’s a love story, ain’t it? Their bond doesn’t just fade away. It lingers, strong as the pull of the tide.”
I wrap up the tale, feeling the words hang between us like a fog rolling off the sea. Aisling’s grey eyes fix on me, but they’re clouded over, her brow furrowing.
“Didn’t peg you for the type who enjoys a sad ending,” I say, trying to read her face in the shadows that play across it.
“It’s not that,” she murmurs, her voice a low hum that vibrates through the dim solitude of our makeshift sanctuary. “Why couldn’t the Selkie stay? Why did she have to leave?”
I lean back, considering her question, considering her—the omega who’s tangled with more hearts than she asked for. “Some creatures aren’t meant to be held down; they’re too wild, crave the whole sky, the entire ocean. One man’s arms can’t fence in a spirit made for the horizon.”
Aisling stares at me a moment longer, and something unspoken passes between us—a recognition, maybe, or a shared sense of kinship. “Thanks, Rook,” she whispers, a soft exhale of gratitude.
“Anytime, Stargazer.” Silence wraps around us like a blanket, thick and comforting. Her eyes flutter once, twice—stars winking out at dawn—and then she’s gone, swept away on the tides of sleep.
I lie there, listening to the rhythm of her breathing, finding a strange comfort in the sound. It’s not long before my own eyelids grow heavy, and I drift off to sleep where the dark waters of dreams await, and Aisling dances among the waves, free as any selkie ever was.