The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) Read online

  She averted her eyes from the garden of ghostly black roses that undulated in the currents outside the gaping mouth of the sea witch’s cave. She swam inside, ignoring the scream of the eels behind her. A black cauldron bubbled and a pool of lava heated it from below. The gleaming ebony walls were covered in iron shelves filled with small glass vials. The vials held anemones, salmon scales, starfish tips, and squid ink—ingredients for her spells.

  The cave stretched into the mountain, the dark hallways lit by deep sea glow fish—frozen in glass jars that hung like sconces. She chose the path to the right, her heart beating wildly as every swish of her back fins led her deeper into the caves. There was no way out if Moira returned before she claimed her prize.

  A warm light radiated from the end of the hall and she followed it to a chamber of onyx and gold. Jewels from the shipwrecks—diamonds, rubies, sapphires and gold—sparkled from chests and long pearl necklaces dripped from the open drawers of Moira’s vanity. A bed carved from volcanic rock and encrusted with thick chunks of gleaming amber took up most of the room. Rich velvet tapestries of white and gold lined the walls. On the floor, a labyrinth of lava twisted around the small glass chest where a crown of blackthorn lay on a pillow of blood-red satin.

  The white petals were still in bloom. Even after all this time. Nuala darted through the near-boiling water, whipping her back flippers around in a powerful whoosh to shatter the chest. It broke, pieces of glass nicking her skin as she lifted the precious crown carefully into her mouth and carried it from the room.

  There were few who knew the secrets blackthorn held in its branches. This crown would give them the truth; the events of the past were written into its thorns. She swam, fast, through the cave, coming back out into the room with the cauldron. She was almost to the mouth of the cave, when she caught her reflection in the broken shards of a ship’s mirror.

  Pale eyes stared back at her, but her pelt was black now—like the rest of the selkies. She knew Moira had stolen her white pelt, but she had not seen it with her own eyes until now. She edged closer, but a flash of movement behind her had her whirling.

  Moira glided elegantly out of the other hallway. “How nice of you to drop by for a visit, my dear.”

  Nuala cried out in pain, dropping the crown, when a scorching blast of heat seared her skin.

  MOIRA CAUGHT THE crown as it fell, biting down lightly on the still-blooming branches. Nuala’s limp form lay on the floor of the cave and Moira left her there, carrying the crown back to her bedroom. She laid it lovingly on its bed of red satin, and lifted the precious object to her vanity. She used her flippers to corral the broken glass into a pool of lava, where the shards melted and dipped into the rivers of fire.

  She swam back out to the mouth of the cave where her eels waited, their golden eyes glimmering in the darkness. She nodded to Nuala and they slithered toward her, wrapping their long bodies around her like ropes. They bore her from the cave, lifting her onto a dark ledge high on the ridge of the volcano.

  She wouldn’t kill her. Not yet. She wanted her to suffer—a long, slow, painful death. The scream of the eels in the distance signaled they had left her on the ledge. Where she would stay until the volcano erupted.

  Moira turned to the mirror as the broken pieces reformed, rippling in the darkness. The mirror pooled, dripping liquid silver down the ebony walls. An image reflected—her sister entwined in the arms of the man who should have been hers. She hurled a rock at the picture, shrieking with rage.

  Tara’s face broke into a smile when she spotted Sam walking up the road from the harbor. She lifted her arm in a friendly wave. “I didn’t expect to see you back on the island so soon.”

  Sam climbed the hill, closing the distance between them. “I have some news for Liam.”

  “About Brigid?”

  Sam nodded, pausing beside the sheepdog perched on the stone wall and scratching him behind the ears. “I’m not sure what it means yet, but I want him to look into it.”

  “I’ll let him know you’re back.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said. “What are you doing on this side of the island?”

  “Brennan said his knees were hurting a bit.” She tilted her face up to the sun. “Probably because of this crazy weather.”

  Sam lowered his hand to his side. “Do you think he’s managing alright without me? I don’t like leaving him alone on the farm for so long.”

  “He has help. Dom visits at least once a day and Liam’s been lending a hand when he can.”

  Sam’s gaze drifted over the mossy pastures to the gray stone barn. “You didn’t happen to notice anything…strange while you were there, did you?”

  Tara frowned. “Strange?”

  Sam nodded.

  “Not that I can recall,” Tara said slowly. “Is there anything in particular?”

  Sam dipped his hands in his pockets. “Do you have time to walk back with me? I’d like to show you something.”

  “At Brennan’s?”

  Sam shook his head. “At the caretaker’s cottage.”

  “Sure,” Tara said watching him closely as she fell into step beside him. But Sam kept his expression guarded as they continued up the sloping hill to the farm. Sunlight bathed the rolling emerald fields. A pony stuck its head over a stone wall as they passed, stretching out its neck for a treat.

  Sam dug one out of his pocket.

  Tara shook her head, laughing. “Have you been spoiling the ponies in Dublin, too?”

  “I had them in my pocket when I left.”

  “Sure, you did.”

  “Actually,” Sam said, glancing sideways at Tara, “I’m the one who got spoiled in Dublin.” He pulled out a tin from his satchel, opening it and offering her a lemon cookie. “Compliments of Eileen McKenna.”

  “The librarian?” Tara asked as she helped herself to a cookie.

  Sam nodded. “She said she’s been waiting for someone to ask her about Brigid for years.”

  Tara’s hand paused, halfway to her mouth. “She what?”

  “I know,” Sam said, picking a cookie for himself. Between chews, he told her about his conversation with the retired librarian, about how Brigid worked on the cleaning crew at the college and her strange habit of re-shelving books.

  “So she didn’t borrow the book.” Tara snagged another cookie from the tin. “She was part of the cleaning crew.”

  Sam nodded. “According to Eileen, her habit of moving books caused quite a stir among the librarians. But the only book they couldn’t understand was the white selkie legend.”

  They veered off the road and Tara took in the herd of sheep grazing in a nearby pasture as they walked up the dirt path to Sam’s cottage. “And you’re hoping Liam can find the connection?”

  Sam nodded. “I thought about going to the library myself. But there are thousands of mermaid myths, in hundreds of different cultures. I don’t have a clue what I’m looking for.” He led her around to the far side of the house. “Liam’s got his work cut out for him.”

  They rounded the corner of Sam’s cottage and Tara sucked in a breath at the single black stem climbing up the whitewash. Its sharp thorns dug into the paint and there were marks along the vine, like someone had been hacking at it with a knife. The lone flower was sealed in a tight coral bud, and one of the outer petals was black.

  “I was hoping it would be gone by now,” Sam said quietly as he knelt down beside it.

  Tara took a tentative step toward it. “How long has it been here?”

  “Two days,” Sam answered. “I might not have even noticed if Glenna hadn’t come here at midnight to destroy it.”

  “Glenna?” Tara’s heart began to race. “She knows about it?”

  “Yes.” Sam reached out, pressing his thumb against one of the thorns. “She wants me to leave the island. To stop the investigation.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “Do you think she knows something abou
t Brigid? Something she’s not telling us?”

  Sam nodded, rising. “How much do you know about Glenna’s past?”

  “Not that much,” Tara admitted. “Only that she moved here a few years ago after a nasty divorce in Dublin.”

  Sam looked at the black petal on the rose. “I’m afraid there’s more to it than that.” He took a deep breath. “I went to Bray last night—a small neighborhood on the south side of Dublin. I was following a lead on Brigid that turned up dry, but found out that Glenna used to live there.”

  “We knew she was from Dublin…”

  “Not this section of town.” Sam lifted his eyes to hers. “It’s not a place you’d want your daughter living alone, at eighteen, looking like Glenna.”

  “Glenna didn’t have much of a mother to look after her,” Tara said quietly.

  “No,” Sam agreed. “But what happened between them? Glenna refuses to even talk about Moira. I’m beginning to wonder if the reason Glenna’s so secretive about her past is because it’s somehow connected to Brigid’s.”

  When Tara opened her mouth, he nodded for her to follow him around to the front of the house. “We know that both Moira and Brigid are—or were—selkies,” Sam continued. “And we know Glenna has selkie blood in her from her mother.” Sam opened the door, gesturing for her to walk inside. “But don’t you think it’s odd that Glenna ended up on this island after her divorce?”

  Tara settled slowly into the worn wooden chair at the rickety kitchen table-for-two. He offered her something to drink, but she shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about that too, Sam. Wondering how it all connects. But I think we have a better chance of finding Brigid than we do getting secrets out of Glenna.”

  She laid her hands on the table, spreading her fingers and gazing down at her gold claddagh wedding ring. It was the second ring she’d worn on that finger. But this one would be her last. “I’ve been struggling with something lately, too,” she admitted. “I can’t wrap my head around why Brigid would leave her children, how any mother could leave their children in that kind of situation. And I keep coming up with one answer.” She lifted her eyes to his. “She didn’t.”

  Sam pulled out the chair across from her, the legs scraping over the dusty floor. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying”—Tara took a deep breath—“that when I was in that situation and tried to run, I was punished. And it only got worse with every attempt. It could be that she tried to leave with the children first.” Tara twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “Maybe she tried to leave with them a few times. But every time she tried, she got hauled back and the punishment got worse.”

  “I checked the hospital records,” Sam said. “There’s no mention of a Brigid O’Sullivan in any of the Dublin hospitals. Or in any of the surrounding area hospitals for that matter.”

  “But what about under a name that’s not hers?” Tara pressed. “Like a Jane Doe?”

  Sam met her eyes across the table.

  “It’s possible,” Tara said softly, “that if she tried to leave enough times, the last time he beat her so badly that she was unrecognizable. She could have been found by someone else, somewhere else, and admitted to the hospital. And if the beating was bad enough, she might have suffered substantial memory loss.”

  Sam lifted his satchel, laying it on the table and fishing out his small computer. “There could be dozens of Jane Doe’s admitted to Dublin hospitals in the winter of ’88. The records from the eighties are shoddy at best. They were still paper records then, and most of them haven’t even been scanned into the system.” But his fingers tapped through several layers of security, pulling up the records of a few hospitals in the area in different windows.

  He identified three matches for a woman Brigid’s age and shifted the computer so Tara could see the screen. Tara glanced over the first two medical files—a stabbing and a shooting. Possibilities, but not what she was looking for. She paused at the third. A woman in her late twenties was found unconscious and badly beaten on a beach south of Bray.

  She looked up at Sam. “Didn’t you say you followed a lead to Bray last night?”

  Sam nodded and pulled up a larger size of the file. Tara scanned it quickly, but when her gaze locked on a single word in the middle of the page, her breath caught. “Pregnant?”

  Sam scrolled through the rest of the file. “It says they transferred her to maternity, but there’s nothing else in the file.” He clicked again on the scroll bar but the third page of the file was missing. “We don’t know where she was discharged.”

  “Or if she was discharged,” Tara breathed, staring at the words, severe hemorrhaging and emergency C-section scrawled in the file. “Sam, if a woman in Brigid’s position—with two children already—found out she was pregnant, she would do anything to leave. She may have been so desperate to get away from her husband that she wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  Sam put his hand over Tara’s and she realized they were shaking. “I’ll go first thing tomorrow. There might be a nurse on staff who remembers her, who can dig up the paper record. It’s probably not even her.”

  Tara’s fingers gripped his hand. “The last time a nurse got involved in a situation like this, she was murdered.”

  Sam squeezed Tara’s hand. She was referring to the nurse who’d helped her escape from her own abusive marriage—the nurse who her first husband had killed when he’d found out the truth. “I’ll be discreet.”

  Tara lifted her eyes to his. “I don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Dom and Liam’s father is dead,” Sam reminded her. “He died from a drug overdose years ago. He can’t hurt her, or anyone, ever again.”

  “I know,” Tara whispered. “But someone doesn’t want Brigid found.”

  SAM TRAILED A finger along the fuchsia vine dripping over the fence post. It wasn’t the only flower in bloom on this island. Daffodils were pushing through the hearty soil outside Sarah Dooley’s shop and purple irises were budding in Caitlin’s back garden. But the roses—the rest of the roses on this island—were still wintered-over. The only rose blooming was the one outside his house.

  The one that grew overnight.

  He followed the path of a wren to the small stone shed behind Glenna’s house. Music played from the stereo propped in the windowsill and Glenna was inside her studio, painting on a large canvas with her back to him. The warm breezes teased the chocolate-brown curls tumbling to her slender waist. The light shining through the door lit the thin material of a pale green dress that skimmed her curves and fell softly to the floor.

  She was barefoot, which was rare for her, even in the summer. There was something so disarming about finding her alone like this, when she thought no one was watching. His mouth went dry as his gaze lifted and he took in the outline of her lush figure through the gossamer fabric.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine how a man could become obsessed with Glenna. He was skirting the edge of it himself. But there was no way in hell that what had happened to those men in Bray was happening to him.

  He walked toward her and saw her stiffen when the sole of his boot scuffed against the path of stones leading up to her studio. She turned, paintbrush in her hand, and those sherry-colored eyes locked on his.

  Sam fought to keep his balance, as his eyes dropped to where her dress dipped in a low v. She wasn’t wearing a bra and an errant paint streak trailed down the pale material, through the track of pearl-colored buttons holding it together. She’d missed a button, and a small piece of green fabric folded over like an invitation. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out.

  He lifted his heated gaze to her face. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and a wash of sunlight brushed her flawless skin, high cheekbones and striking almond-shaped eyes. There was something raw and unguarded in her expression and when her full unpainted lips parted slightly, he unhooked his satchel from around his neck and let it drop to the ground.

  Screw the roses.

&nb
sp; He strode to her, possessing her mouth in a searing kiss. She didn’t try to push him away this time. She welcomed it, molding her soft curves to his hard chest and wrapping her arms around his neck. The scent of white sage and sea smoke clung to her hair, and he dipped his fingers into those glorious waves, relishing in the feel of her—any part of her—in his hands.

  She kissed him back desperately, as if she were afraid he would disappear if she let go. The air sizzled, crackling between them. But he couldn’t get her close enough. He couldn’t get enough of her. His lips trailed down her cheek, his teeth scraping the sensitive flesh under her jaw. Her breath caught as he eased one hand free of her hair, his palm gliding down the front of her, closing over her breast.

  She arched into him, her lips parting, her tongue tangling with his. A voice in Sam’s head warned him to stop. To pull away from her. But his fingers found the opening in the delicate neckline. He could rip the buttons and have her naked, and under him, in seconds.

  He cursed, when she bit down, hard, on his lip.

  “Christ.” Sam jerked back, his hand flying up to his mouth. He tasted blood and his pulse thrummed in his ears as he stared at her. “What the hell was that for?”

  Glenna backed away from him, her breath shallow, her face flushed. “You have to stay away from me, Sam.”

  Sam pulled his hand away, rubbing his bloody fingers together. Glenna reached for the windowsill, steadying herself. Her eyes were still warm with desire, with need for him. A haunting melody played from the speakers and Sam switched it off, flooding the small studio with silence.

  He went to her, ignoring the hand she stretched out to warn him away. He cupped her chin in his palm and waited for her eyes to lift back to his. “You could have said ‘stop,’” he said quietly. “I would have.”

  Glenna let out a long breath. “I have trouble…controlling myself around you.”

  Sam let those words penetrate. It was the first time she’d ever admitted that he had an effect on her. “I need you to tell me the truth, Glenna. Do you have feelings for me?”