Chapter 16
ISLA
Walking back from the cove, salt still clinging to my skin and Grayson's hand warm in mine, I want this moment to last forever. The peace, the certainty, the quiet before the storm breaks.
We're halfway up the cliff path when Grayson's phone vibrates. His grip tightens on mine, every muscle in his body going rigid.
"What is it?" The question comes out calm despite the racing of my heart.
"Declan." Grayson's jaw works as he reads. "Motion sensors triggered at the outer sites. Northern caves, southern cove, the standing stones. Everything at once."
Fear spikes through me. "Carrick?"
"Has to be." He's already moving, pulling me faster up the path. "Too coordinated to be coincidence. He's making his move."
We break into a run. This is a coordinated assault with significant resources and military precision. This isn't exploratory research. This is invasion.
The tower comes into view, and Grayson's already on the phone with Declan, barking orders. Inside, he shows me the weapons cache I didn't know existed behind a false panel in the stone wall. Knives, firearms, things that look ancient and probably magical.
"Stay here. Lock the door. Don't open it for anyone but me or the brotherhood."
"That's not happening." I grab his wrist before he can turn away. "I'm not hiding while you fight."
"Isla—"
"I'm a selkie." The words taste strange but true. "I'm part of this fight whether you like it or not."
War plays across his face—guardian versus mate, duty versus protection. "You've had one day of training. The first time you shifted, it was to survive an attack. You've never done this intentionally on your own."
"Then tell me where I can help." I refuse to back down. "Give me a job that doesn't involve cowering in a tower while people die defending my heritage."
A muscle jumps in his jaw, but he nods. "Fine. Jax is coordinating from the village center. He needs someone tracking movements, relaying intel. Can you do that?"
"Yes." Relief washes through me that he's not trying to bench me completely.
"Go to him. Stay inside. If anything happens—" He stops, pulls me close. "If anything happens, run for the water. Your instincts will take over. The ocean will protect you."
"Nothing's going to happen." Our lips meet, brief and fierce, tasting of salt and determination. "Go. They need you."
He leaves in a blur of movement and grey mist. Thunder cracks outside as silver light flares. Where a man stood seconds ago, a massive grizzly now charges into the night.
I force myself to move toward the village center, toward Jax, toward whatever role I can play in this fight.
The village itself remains quiet when I reach the streets. Most residents don't know what's happening at the remote sacred locations. Carrick's smart enough to keep his attacks away from witnesses, away from anywhere that would bring authorities or create obvious evidence of his involvement.
Jax has set up in the old community hall, a stone building that probably predates half the village. Maps cover every surface, pins marking the sacred sites. Radios crackle with updates, voices tight with tension.
"Isla." Jax looks up from the radio in his hand just long enough to shove a tablet at me. "You're on communications. The brotherhood and their people are calling in from the sites. Log everything on this map. Every detail matters."
The tablet screen glows in my hands, and I get to work. Within minutes, the picture becomes clear and terrifying.
Declan at the northern caves: "Hostiles with drilling equipment. Professional operation. They're trying to breach the cave entrance."
Rafe at the standing stones, Moira with him: "Ritual circle set up. Active magic working. Carrick's here somewhere, Moira can feel his signature."
Reports come in from Finn's clan at the southern cove, from Kian's people at the tidal caves. Armed teams at every remote location, working with purpose and speed. This isn't reconnaissance. This is extraction.
"They're trying to physically breach the sites.
" I study the map, pulling up mental images of underwater topography I've studied for months.
The sites they're attacking on land align almost perfectly with cave systems below the waterline, systems that connect to the eastern trenches where Maritime's research focused.
"They're creating access points." The pattern becomes clear. "The land attacks are just entry vectors. They're going to tunnel down and access the underwater caves from above."
Jax curses. "That's why they needed the vote. Legal cover to set up equipment without being stopped immediately."
"And why they're moving tonight." My hands fly over the tablet, pulling up geological surveys. "They knew we'd mobilize after the vote. They wanted us scattered, defending multiple locations while they do the real work somewhere we can't see."
Air catches in my lungs.
"While they what?" Jax moves closer to see the screen.
"While they do the real work somewhere we can't see.
" I zoom in on the eastern trenches, on the deepest point where my research indicated unusual geological activity.
"The attacks are a distraction. Carrick doesn't need to breach from land.
He just needs us looking the wrong direction while he goes straight for the source. "
"The deepest trench." Jax's face goes pale. "That's where the old one sleeps. That's what the Hales have guarded for centuries."
Ice runs through my veins. "Can anyone get down there? The brotherhood—"
"Not without diving equipment, and even then it's too deep. Too dangerous." Jax is already reaching for his radio. "I need to warn Grayson, get someone to the coast—"
"There's no time." I'm already heading for the door. "By the time anyone mobilizes, Carrick will have what he came for."
"Isla, wait—"
But my legs carry me out of the community hall, through the village streets, toward the eastern cliffs.
This is insane. One involuntary shift under attack, one day of training with Moira.
That's all the experience I have. Can I even do it intentionally?
Can I control it? Can the selkie form survive the depths I'd need to reach?
But doubt doesn't matter anymore. My body knows what needs to be done.
The ocean is mine. Those depths are my birthright. I was made for this.
Cold wind whips my hair as I reach the cliffs. Below, dark water churns against the rocks. Somewhere out there, in the deepest parts where human divers can't go, Carrick is trying to wake an ancient horror. An evil my ancestors swore to help protect the world from.
I strip off my clothes, barely registering the cold. The pendant burns hot against my skin, pulsing with warmth that radiates outward. My grandmother's gift. My heritage made manifest.
For a moment, I hesitate. Do this wrong and I drown. Do this right but fail to stop Carrick, and I drown anyway. And Grayson doesn't even know where I am or what I'm about to attempt.
Then my grandmother's words rise in my memory: "The selkies had freedom. The sea was their family and their home. It was where some of us were always meant to be."
I close my eyes and reach for that place inside me where the shift lives. The first time it came from panic and the instinct to survive. This time I need to call it consciously, need to embrace it instead of fighting it.
Water calls to me across the distance, not as metaphor but as truth. I hear it, taste it on the air, feel it pulling at something deep in my bones. The ocean knows I'm here. The ocean wants me home.
Heat rises through my body, spreading through my limbs. My bones know this change, remember it from generations of ancestors who dove these waters. My blood carries the memory of skin-shifting, of becoming sleek and powerful and free.
I open my eyes and jump.
The shift takes me mid-fall. Sea mist erupts around me as thunder cracks across the water.
Pearl-blue light flares, and between one heartbeat and the next, my body remembers what it's supposed to be.
Skin prickles and changes, bones restructure themselves with fluid grace.
Arms become flippers, legs fuse into pure muscle and strength.
Cold water welcomes me as I surface. Coming home never hurts.
I surface briefly, still testing this new form.
Everything sharpens, clarifies. Sounds amplify—I hear the fighting at the distant sacred sites, hear boats somewhere far out, hear the deeper grinding of machinery.
Scents layer thick on the water—salt and fish and diesel fuel and something acrid that smells like magic being worked.
But most importantly, I know where I need to go. Instinct guides me like a compass, pulling me toward the eastern trenches. Toward whatever Carrick is doing in the depths where no human should be able to reach.
Water welcomes me. My selkie form cuts through the ocean with effortless grace, powerful muscles propelling me deeper with each stroke. Pressure that would crush a human diver barely registers. My body was made for this.
Darkness thickens as I descend. Surface light fades to twilight, then to black. But my eyes adjust, seeing in ways human vision never could. I navigate by feel as much as sight, sensing currents and temperature shifts, reading the ocean like a language I suddenly remember.
The ocean floor drops away beneath me, plunging into trenches that human submarines have barely mapped.
This is the place scientists know exists but can't explain—where the geology defies logic, where sonar readings show impossible structures, where fish are found that shouldn't survive these depths.
This is where the old one sleeps.
And Carrick is trying to wake it.