Milo
“Absolutely not.”
Rowan’s thick eyebrows lowered as he gave me an unimpressed look.
“Nope.” I stomped my foot. “You aren’t coming with me.”
“You aren’t going alone.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Rowan pulled his jacket off, and Panak took it from him.
“Rowan, it’s far too cold for you in the water.
” It had taken us hours to get back to the mainland.
Exhaustion weighed heavily on us from the previous night.
We hadn’t slept, and we hadn’t eaten, even though Miki had tried to feed us when we got onto this boat after sending the poachers' one out to the open sea. But for once, I wasn’t hungry.
Not even if Rowan had cooked it for me. My stomach was all twisted.
What was ahead of us now felt so much more intimidating than the poacher base we’d raided.
Rowan hadn’t eaten either for the same reason.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re not going alone,” he stated stubbornly.
“We don’t even know if you can hold your breath long enough to get there,” I argued, looking over to my grandmother for support.
She shrugged. “He’ll probably be fine.”
Probably!?
The boat had taken us this far, but it couldn’t get us all the way.
We were in a long icy cave tunneled into the mainland.
It was dark here, beyond the light from Panak’s boat, and the sacred place could only be reached through another underwater tunnel.
Aanaa didn’t remember exactly how long it was.
She’d been here once with her mate, when they were desperate for their own pup and had come here to pray for him.
They’d been rewarded for their efforts with my father.
But my grandmothers were selkies. The cold didn’t bother us, and we could see better in the dark than humans could. It was much too dangerous for Rowan.
The stubborn human kicked off his shoes.
“Rowan, I mean it. Please, let me handle this. I can do it alone, or with—” I glanced at Raq and Aanaa, but my grandmother shook her head firmly.
“This is between you and the goddess. You must go alone, or with your mate, seeing as it’s his prayer too.”
I glared at her. She didn’t seem to care.
“Exactly,” Rowan agreed as he stepped out of his pants.
As much as I hated clothing, seeing Rowan ditching his made this odd feeling rise up inside me.
It felt special being able to see him without his clothes on when he was normally so stubborn about wearing them.
I didn’t want anyone else to be able to see him like that.
“I’ll go alone, then,” I decided. “Put your clothes back on.”
“You coming?” he asked, ignoring me as he approached the edge of the boat in nothing but the small fabric that covered his dick and ass. Already his skin rippled with tiny bumps from the cold.
“Think you forgot to take that off,” my grandmother unhelpfully provided.
Rowan’s cheeks darkened as he scowled at her, then took a seat on the ledge before throwing his legs over the other side.
“Rowan, listen to me—”
“No, Milo. Listen to me. We’re in this together. We’re going there together. And we’ll pray to her together.”
“But it’s dangerous.”
“Nothing is more dangerous to me than being apart from you.”
I didn’t know how to answer that, and he didn’t give me the chance to think about an appropriate argument, because he was slipping off the boat with a splash before I had the chance.
“Fucking Christ that’s cold,” he cursed.
I rushed to him, feeling the icy water envelop me as I dived in after him. If he was really stubborn enough to do this, then the least I could do was try to keep his body warm with mine.
My arms wrapped around him, tight and secure as he clung on to the side of the boat.
“Don’t think we can swim like this, little hurricane,” he chuckled.
He was already so cold.
“Off with you, then. I’m a tired old woman and would very much like to nap by a fire as soon as possible. Go get this done,” Aanaa said as she leaned over the edge to look at us.
With a final scowl, I pulled my coat over me until skin became fur, and my eyes better adjusted to the underwater darkness, spotting the tunnel in the cave wall we were supposed to follow.
Rowan couldn’t see under the water, so he held on to me and trusted me to get us where we needed to go. “Please keep him safe,” I started the first of our prayers to the goddess.
The opening was only just wide enough for us both to fit through, the tunnel long and dark enough that I couldn’t see the end. “Please, please.”
Rowan kicked his legs as he held on tight and I swam as fast as I could, well aware that he couldn’t hold his breath for as long as I could.
“Please. Protect him.”
On and on it went. Rowan’s kicks became stronger, more frantic. He was running out of air.
“Please, please, please, please.”
I shouldn’t have let him come. I should have tried harder to stop him.
What was I thinking? This was all for nothing if I couldn’t even get him there.
I couldn’t take him back. The tunnel wasn’t wide enough for us to turn around, and he’d definitely be out of air by the time we got back to the boat anyway. Fuck.
“Please,” I projected as loud and as far as I possibly could. “Please.” I prayed with my entire soul in a plea more desperate than I’d ever prayed before.
I could see the end of the tunnel now.
So close. “Please.”
Rowan’s grip on me loosened and panic propelled me faster than I’d ever swum.
The tunnel opened up into a huge open chamber. I raced for the surface, a soft blue light guiding the way.
Rowan’s hands lost their grip right as we broke the surface.
I ripped my coat from my body, needing hands to grab him and drag him up so his head was above the water.
Everything was illuminated in a light blue glow from aurora crystals embedded in the stone walls and a huge white and blue tree with long drooping branches that looked to be made of pure light.
“Please,” I choked out loud. “Rowan.”
He was so cold, so heavy. I slammed him against the rocks in my desperation to get him out of the water as quickly as possible. He coughed, spewing up water and then sucking in ragged breaths.
Rowan groaned as I reached for my seal coat, wrapping it around his shoulders to keep him as warm as possible as soon as he sat up. The ice in my chest melted into tears, escaping from my eyes in relief. He was alright.
“You scared me for a moment there,” I huffed, nuzzling my nose against the icy tip of his, just so I could feel his breath against my lips and further confirm he was breathing. I still had him.
He chuckled. “I’m not leaving. Not when you’ve given me so much to live for.”
I smiled, pressing my forehead against his as I climbed into his lap and felt his arms wrap around me. We held each other close, and I pulled my coat tighter around him, trying to keep his body as warm as possible as he shivered.
“Why have you given your coat to a human, child?”
A voice echoed around us, feminine and melodic, layered over itself. It wasn’t selkie nor human. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. My breath caught. My chest tightened. She was here. The goddess.
“What are we suppose—”
“Shhh.” I shushed Rowan as he started speaking, holding two fingers over his lips as I looked around us. His brow pinched in confusion, but he didn’t try to speak again. He couldn’t hear her like I could.
I couldn’t see her. If she was here, it was only in my mind.
“He’s my mate,” I told her. “I’m keeping him warm and safe.”
“He would be warm and safe with his own kind, but you have brought him here. Why?”
I swallowed. “We came to pray.”
Silence.
“I wish to live with Rowan, away from the colony. I beg you, please, to release me. Choose someone else to lead them after my grandmother. Let me stay with him.”
She was silent for a long moment before I heard her again.
“You followed my guidance. You led my children well. Saved them from human dangers. You are my chosen to lead them further.”
I exhaled sharply. Rowan looked up at me, uncertainty in his eyes as he tried to read what was happening from mine.
“That isn’t where I wish to be. Please. I want to be with him.”
“You would rather be with him than your own people?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I inhaled slowly. “Because he’s my mate.”
“He is not—”
“He is! The mate I have chosen for myself. I ask to be released, so I can be with him. I ask you to bless our bond and allow us to live together.”
“And if I do not?”
I swallowed. What would I do if this was all for nothing?
If she refused to let me go? Rowan would still be my mate, regardless of what happened here.
He’d said he could buy a new boat, that he’d live on it so I could come and be with him as much as possible, but that life could never satisfy me.
No life would except the one where I could be beside him every minute of every day, and sleep beside him every night.
“Then… I’ll be separated from my heart. Every day will be filled with longing. Your colony will be led by a selkie who will only ever desire to be elsewhere. That isn’t the leader they deserve.”
My thumb smoothed over Rowan’s cheek. I loved my people dearly, but Rowan was my true home and always would be.
“I cannot exist without him by my side.”
There was more silence, until I thought she’d abandoned us entirely. Then her voice rang in my mind again in a question I hadn’t dared to consider.
“What if you could have both?”