Shipwrecked with the Selkie Preview

One

Finn

It is a great day for lounging on the beach. In fact, almost every day on Mythos is a good day for lounging on the beach, but today is particularly on point—blue sky, white sand, gorgeous turquoise water, broken up only by the whitecaps in the surf.

And today, there’s no annoying Vati or baby brother Kip to hassle me. They both set out for the North Beach haul-out a couple of days ago. I said I’d be right behind them, but …

Who would give up this view?

I sigh contentedly and snuggle deeper in the dunes, feeling the heat of the sun against my skin. It’s been a long winter, and I’m in absolutely no rush to head to the haul-out. Alphas can wait. Maybe forever, especially after my disastrous mating last spring. In fact, I don’t think I could care less about alphas. There’s only one thing they’re good for, and only one thing I want from them. For now, though, I’m content to lounge here on the beach and not worry about the question of whether I’ll ever have a pup.

My little slice of paradise quickly becomes troubled, when a dark head bobs up in the water a couple hundred feet from shore.

At first, I don’t notice the eyes on me, but eventually, the seal comes in close enough that I can’t miss him. I tense when my gaze snags on him as he reels himself in to shore, a dark shadow that grows by the minute.

I glance around nervously. I’m completely alone on this stretch of sand. What if this is some alpha?

Maybe he’s just lost, I think, trying to quash the other thoughts bubbling to surface. Like that he’s been stalking me since my family left. Like he knows I’m totally alone.

Alphas are such creeps. I can’t stand them.

Another dark head breaks the surface, followed by another, and I strangle a scream. I cannot deal with three alphas, absolutely not—

It takes me a second to realize the two newcomers are much smaller than the first. Pups? I let my brows knit.

The first seal finally breaks the surf, waves rolling over his glistening silvery body as he bounces across the sandy shoal. I stare at him as he strips off his pelt, transforming from seal to our two-footed form.

Definitely an omega, I realize as I take in his bulging belly. He looks ready to pop, but that thought makes me scowl again. What the heck is an omega doing so far from North Beach?

Could ask you the same thing, some sarcastic voice in my head says, and I grit my teeth, forcing myself to focus on the two pups bouncing onto the beach beside the very pregnant omega. They shift effortlessly. I don’t even see pelts go flying.

“Hey, Finn,” the omega says, and I jerk my gaze back to him, staring into dark eyes and a face not entirely unlike my own.

“Lir?!” I snap, knowing full well this is my elder brother, but unable—unwilling—to comprehend it. “Where the fuck have you been?!”

Lir claps his hands over the ears of one of the pups. “Language,” he scolds, and I almost dissolve into laughter.

“You sound like Vati,” I guffaw, slapping at the sand, still willing myself to accept that this is my brother. Lir went missing three years ago, after getting into an epic spat with Vati, and we haven’t seen him since. Now he’s washed back up on shore—with two pups in tow and a third one in his belly.

My brain is still struggling over the scene before me. Lir was pretty adamant he never wanted pups at all, which is why he took off in the first place.

Jealousy stabs at me, and I grit my teeth. Lir never wanted pups, and he’s got three.

Stars above. It sounds totally ridiculous. Vati and Kip will never believe me.

Lir waddles closer to me, scrunching up his nose. “What are you crying for?” he asks, like I’m being histrionic. Maybe I am. I mean, I think I’m allowed to be, but Lir’s not the kind of older brother who admits that kind of thing.

“We thought you were dead,” I blurt, choosing to focus on that instead of pups, then feel heat flood my cheeks. Nice thing to say to a guy who went missing for years on end.

Shame makes my face burn more as I remember the last thing I said to Lir before he left. It’s been three years, and I’ve let those words gnaw at the back of my brain for that long. I was a jerk. I caused the fight. And there might be part of me that feels like maybe, just maybe, Lir’s disappearance was my fault.

“Well, I’m not,” Lir grumps, and a kind of detached laughter bubbles up my throat. I feel like I’m floating. This is so surreal. Lir puts his hands on his lower back and stretches a little, groaning, “Although my back is killing me.”

My eyes shoot to his distended belly, and I grimace. “Can imagine,” I say, then let my gaze bounce back up to his face.

Lir gives me a questioning look—it’s one I’ve seen on Vati’s face a few times—but I’m not about to get grilled. I’m not the one who went missing for years.

I feel a tug on my hand and glance down at the two pups. “You got pupped three times?” I ask, unable to stop the words from tumbling out. I peer down into the pups’ dark eyes. There’s something … weird about them. I can’t quite put my flipper on it.

“Don’t remind me,” Lir groans as he plonks down in the sand. The pups are all over him suddenly, whining and nosing at his nipples.

“Mama!” they cry. “I’m hungry!”

Lir pushes them off with a roll of his eyes, but they’re persistent little brats. I can only stare at them, feeling my hands slowly curl into fists, my claws biting into my palms, and there’s that envy again, biting at the back of my throat like I might be sick.

I take a deep breath and force myself to look away. “How close are you?” I ask, scanning the empty beach.

“Close,” Lir grunts. “Probably tonight.”

Great. Just what I wanted—my missing brother shows up ready to pop, and I’m the only other selkie around for miles. “I’ll, uh, work on getting some food?”

Lir grunts again, and I look at him. He’s staring out at the horizon, a vacant look on his face. There’s a tug on my hand, and I look down at one of the pups, who peers up at me with those strange eyes. “Why aren’t you wearing clothes?” he asks.

I let my brow crunch. “Clothes? What are you talking about?”

“Oh gods,” Lir moans and falls back into the sand.

We look at him, then back to each other. “Never mind,” I say. “Your new brother is gonna be here soon.”

The pup wrinkles his nose. “I don’t want a new brother,” he complains, and I chuckle as I reach down and ruffle his hair. It’s a weird brown color, like trees. Not like Lir or I at all.

“I’m pretty sure your vati said the same thing about me,” I murmur, and the kid just looks at me. I sigh. “C’mon. Let’s get some dinner.”

The kid’s eyes light up. “You can get something to eat?”

“Yup!” I agree, then wave to the other, smaller pup. “Come on—leave your vati alone for now! You said you were hungry, didn’t you?”

***

Turns out, the pups are exhausting. I can’t find enough for them to eat, and they turn up their noses at everything: crab, shrimp, fish, seaweed …

Defeated, I drag myself back to the beach. Lir hasn’t moved, even though the tide’s come in. He’s either in a lot of pain or he figures it’ll be easier to give birth in the water or something.

I have no idea about pregnancy or birthing, so I can only follow his lead.

The pups swarm him immediately, complaining. Lir grunts at them, basically glaring out at the sunset, before I finally trudge up to him.

“They wouldn’t eat anything,” I explain when he looks up at me. “I tried everything. They didn’t even like crab.” I’ve never met a selkie that doesn’t like crab.

“Because you didn’t cook it,” Lir says, and I tilt my head in confusion.

I feel like my brother’s come back from some alternate dimension or something. Lir never, ever wanted pups, and now he has two of them and has been pupped a third time—in three years. I can’t believe he let an alpha mount him three times, three years running.

And now he’s talking about … cooking, which I’ve never heard of in my entire life.

“Do I even know you?” My voice is hoarse, but it does get a reaction from him. Quirked eyebrow. Incredibly skeptical.

He looks exactly like my brother. I’m not sure if that’s comforting or even more unsettling.

“I’ll explain it later,” Lir says, and I’m about to argue, but he points to the trees. “There are coconuts up there. They don’t need to be cooked.”

“Coco-what?” I ask. Seriously, can he be normal for two seconds? “It’s like you’re speaking a whole different language.”

“Just … go shake one of those palm trees. The brown things that fall out, the kids can eat that. Just crack it open like a crab.”

“Okay.” I do not believe him, not for a single second, but I’ll do anything to get the pups to stop whining about how hungry they are. I drag myself over to the clump of palms and stare up at them.

“Just … give ’em a shake, huh?” I mutter to myself, then wrap my hands around the slender trunk.

To my surprise, the tree trembles in my grasp and, when I shake it more vigorously, two large, round, brown rocks fall from the sky and land in the sand.

“Yay!” the pups cry, darting over while I try not to think about how one of those things is practically a weapon. I could have been brained in two seconds flat.

Is Lir trying to kill me? I glance over at him, then feel a tug on my hand.

One of the pups holds up the coco-whatever thing and looks at me with pleading eyes. I stare at it for a second, then take it with a sigh.

It splits open pretty easily, and white liquid pours forth. The pups eagerly take half the shell from either of my hands, then sip at the liquid. Then they dig at the white flesh inside the shell with their hands.

“Huh,” I say as I watch them. Then I look at the tree.

How come no one has ever mentioned that these things are food before?!