Chapter 6

Rose

T he rain had slowed to a faint drizzle by the time Milo carried my boneless, still-naked body to his house. I'd protested the lack of clothing even as he reminded me that Otherkind simply didn't care about nude bodies. Still, my cheeks heated. To preserve what little modesty I still had, I kept my face buried in his neck, barely registering the little cute cookie-cutter houses in the cul-de-sac as we passed them. I only had mind enough to breathe in his scent, letting it comfort me as exhaustion caught up with me.

How I'd missed this, the feel of his arms, his quiet strength. The piece of me I'd left on the beach the night the Call forced me away had finally been returned to me, but it was somehow more. Despite no longer being knotted—which was the only time I'd felt it before—I could still sense his soul nestled against mine. It cradled me as much as his arms did, soothing the raw, jagged edges of my despairing heart.

When we reached his house, I unwound myself from around him just enough to open the door, then helped him shut it again once we were inside. The familiar sight of his house was yet another balm. We breezed through the open concept living room and kitchen-slash-dining room and headed to the right towards the hallway that would lead to his bedroom.

Not much about his house had changed in my absence, but when we stepped into his bedroom, this was not exactly the case. His room, much like everything else in the house, was cozy. The walls were a soft, earthy brown with pops of white and navy throughout. It was as if he tried to encapsulate land and sea together, and I loved it. It was so quintessentially him that it made me smile. It appealed to me in ways I couldn't quite describe. The difference from before, though, was the bed. He'd replaced his king-sized bed with one that was at least twice as large.

Milo didn't stop to explain the change, simply leading me onward. Apparently, the bed wasn't the only thing he'd changed in my absence. As we breezed into his bathroom, I gasped softly. It was the bathroom of my wildest dreams.

Spacious and airy, the room was larger than I remembered it being. The windows had a film on them that, on a sunny day, would fill the room with rainbows while providing privacy. White wainscotting covered the lower half of the walls while rich turquoise tiles shaped like mermaid scales covered the top.

The toilet was tucked away in a little cubby-like closet to the left of the door, and directly to my right was a long counter with three sinks and large mirrors with gorgeous antique-looking frames. Between two of the sinks was a vanity area with drawers and a chair tucked underneath. A glass shower with four shower heads—and which could probably fit as many people—dominated the furthest wall on my right. Next to that, directly across from the triple sinks, was a jacuzzi tub that could also fit several people.

"Why are there three?" I asked, pointing at the sinks as Milo set me down on my feet.

The slightest bit of pink crept into his cheeks as he pulled the vanity chair over to the tub. "It might have been a bit of a preemptive change, I admit. I was thinking—well, hoping, really—that maybe one day our family will be bigger than the two of us. If we have three sinks, we won't have to share. And with a bigger bed, everyone will have space without it being claustrophobic. I really ought to have spoken to you about this before, but, well…"

His words trailed off, leaving me to finish his sentence for him. "There were other things going on."

Looking at the bashful expression on his face, I couldn't help but wonder when we would've had this conversation. We'd never discussed children before, aside from him saying he didn't want to have them yet before our first time. Hell, even now, he wore the birth control chain around his neck, so I had to reason that babies weren't on the table. Yet, my prevailing thought was, How soon does he want me to get pregnant that he's already preparing for our hypothetical family expanding? I mean, I just freaking died, and I have a whole-ass man to murder before I can even think about babies!

My brows knit together as I followed my thoughts down that particular rabbit hole. This was a side to Milo I hadn't considered before. Does this mean he'd want to co-sleep with the baby? Is that what selkies do? It'd make sense to me if they did; his family was certainly really close. And the seals in the colony nearby laid all over each other all the time. So, maybe children slept with their parents until they were a certain age?

I was pulled out of my musings when Milo cupped my cheek. "We don't have to discuss this now. I know there's a lot going on, and you just got back. Let's just focus on the here and now, okay?"

Nuzzling his hand, I replied, "Alright. As long as I get to test out the new tub and bed before anyone else, we can table this discussion."

"Of course, my love." He chuckled, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to my forehead.

Milo guided me to the vanity chair, grabbed a hairbrush, and sat on the edge of the bathtub behind me. Without a word, he pulled the elastic from my hair and began to untangle the unkempt mess that was my braid.

"I can do that," I said, looking at him through the mirror.

He didn't stop even as his eyes flicked up briefly to meet mine. "I know you can. But I'd like to take care of you."

The tension in his words told me this was something deeper, like it was a need more than a want . So, I relented. Not that my tired body was capable of much besides sitting. "Okay."

"Thank you, love," he whispered, leaning to tenderly kiss me on his claiming mark.

I watched as Milo unbraided, untangled, and brushed my hair with painstaking care. Hell, I don't think I could take my eyes off him—and the bite mark I'd given him—even if I wanted to.

"D-Does your shoulder hurt?" I asked hesitantly. Though I was strangely proud of the mark I'd left, seeing the angry red furrows in his skin made me feel bad.

His mischievous grin dispelled my guilt in an instant, his eyes sparkling with happiness as he continued to work. "Yes, but I like it. My girl marked me as hers. I'll wear it with pride for the rest of my life on Earth."

My cheeks heated. "I don't know what came over me."

"Instinct rarely has a rhyme or reason we understand." He said it so casually. I could almost believe him if that same instinct wasn't whispering that his words meant so much more than he was implying.

"I'll have to trust you on that."

"I hope you can trust me with all things. I'll never lead you astray."

"I do."

And that was the truth. What I felt for him was beyond words, beyond rationality. Even beyond what I thought was possible between two people. The soul-deep well of my heart overflowed for this man, and I knew there was no way I'd ever fully be able to explain it to him.

He kissed my shoulder again. "That means more to me than you know."

The statement and his gesture had my heart fluttering.

Milo kept working on my hair. It was slow going, and I could tell he was getting a little frustrated. But he persisted, only stopping to take a break and to let me brush my teeth. When I opened my mouth to apologize, he playfully swatted my ass and said, "I knew what I was getting into, woman."

Once my teeth were brushed—and he'd received about ten more kisses—he resumed his work. He went section by section, starting at the ends and working his way up. I reached back and gripped his calf. The need to touch him was undeniable.

"Are we going to have to cut my hair?" I asked, voicing the fear creeping in the periphery of my mind.

"I don't think so," Milo replied as he pulled the comb through a particularly bad section of knots. "I think with a bit of babying, it should be right as rain in a few weeks."

The relief was immediate. "Oh. Oh, that's good."

He stopped brushing for a moment to stroke a hand down my arm. "Bad history?"

I nodded and pursed my lips, trying to think of how to explain why. Finally, I settled on, "Yeah. Up until I was six, I had hair as long as Vi's, but one day, my mother told me I needed a trim. Well, she butchered it so badly—on purpose—that the salon my father took me to afterward had to even it out at about chin length. She knew how devastated I was about it, and she delighted in making me keep that same length even through university. I couldn't start growing it out again until I moved away to Boston."

This version of the story was understating it completely.

I'd been six when Mother decided to give me a haircut herself after a particularly bad fight with my father. My hair had reached down to my waist at that point, and I was proud of it, especially since my father called it "princess hair." Hating that it was something my father liked on me, she sat me in a chair and told me she was going to trim the ends to make sure my hair was healthy. I trusted her, as children are wont to do with their parents, but she kept snipping.

And snipping.

And snipping.

When she finished, my hair was jagged and reached just above my shoulders. The horror I felt when she showed me the hack job she'd done made me burst into immediate tears. Her face twisted in disgust at my outburst, and she slapped me so hard across the face that my nose bled, calling me an "ungrateful little bitch." My father came home minutes later and saw the aftermath. The fight that ensued was the worst I'd ever seen… but it wasn't the last.

Afterward, my father took me to a salon to try to salvage my hair. It ended up getting much shorter. He promised it would grow out and get long again, but my mother forced me to have monthly haircuts until I left for university, then every time she visited me. It wasn't until I'd left for Boston that I grew my hair out again, trying to reclaim my body for myself.

The thought of cutting it now, after having everything about me changed and morphed into something new? No. I didn't want that.

I didn't relay the details to Milo, hoping to remain detached from the roiling agitation in my belly brought up by thinking about it.

"I'm so sorry your mother is a raging, abusive bitch," he replied. A deep rumble spilled out of him, and his voice lowered. It was Beastie who said, "Would you like me to kill her for you?"

I chuckled. "No but thank you. If anything is to come of her, I'd like to do it myself."

"If you change your mind, all you have to do is say the word, and I shall end the threat of her forever."

"You're a sweet boy, Beastie." Twisting around, I pressed a kiss to those luscious lips of his.

"Only for you, sweet Rose. Only for you."

Though it took a while, Milo managed to get my hair in order. He put the brush down with a sigh. "All done. Let's wash it and get some conditioner in there and start to love it back to life."

"Okay."

Standing, he placed the hairbrush next to the sink I assumed was going to be mine before turning on the shower. I took that as my cue to put the chair back under the counter and nip over to use the toilet. When I came back to wash my hands, my focus snagged on the sight of my own eyes in the mirror. They caught me off-guard. I rinsed my hands and leaned closer to inspect them.

Tisa had kept her promise. My eyes—once bi-colored, one a rich honey brown and the other ocean blue with a jagged gold line bisecting it—were now a midnight blue, like the deep and endless night sea. Rather than swirl and churn and change color like other merfolk, my irises were dappled with glitter, a subtle glimmer that could have been mistaken for the reflection of the light overhead. The effect was like the echo of shimmering stars on the surface of still, deep water.

Standing up further, I took in the other changes that had been wrought upon my body. My general shape was still the same. My features were still mine. But there was something… more… to me. Even unshowered as I was, my skin had a luster to it, a sheen that I'd never had before. The unwashed mass of my hair, though disgusting, was richer, more vibrant. When I lifted my hand to poke at where a scar had once been on my stomach, I noticed my nails had long, natural points to them.

I had to wonder, When I'm finally clean, will I recognize myself?

"It must be odd to see yourself like this," said Milo, stepping out of the shower where he'd been adjusting the water temperature to stand behind me.

"Yeah," I whispered, my eyes still locked on my reflection. "It's like I'm seeing a filtered version of me."

"You're beautiful." He bent to press a tender kiss on his bite mark again as if he couldn't help himself. "Especially those eyes of yours. They're different than I expected them to be."

Color crept up my cheeks. "Oh. I asked Tisa—Atargatis—to give me eyes like hers. She clearly obliged."

He smiled, the expression warming me from the inside out. "A beautiful gift for my beautiful girl."

Milo beckoned me into the shower with him, where he went straight to washing my hair. His fingers massaged my scalp, and a little moan escaped me. He chuckled as I leaned back and braced my hands against his thighs. The man could've turned me into a puddle of girl goo from that alone, but he stopped and guided me under the spray of the water. When the shampoo was all rinsed out, he repeated the process one last time to make sure my hair was truly clean.

"What happened that night?" he asked softly as he guided me back out of the water once again.

Something inside me froze up, my mind screeching to a halt at the very mention of the night of my change. It took a moment, but I finally managed to say, "Please don't make me talk about that. Please?"

It hurt. It hurt to remember the glide of Davis's blade in my flesh. But more than that, it would be agony for anyone in my life to learn what exactly happened. If it was possible, I wanted no one but me to know about the torture I'd endured at the hands of that madman.

Thankfully, Milo didn't push me. "Okay. If you're ever ready to talk about it, I hope you know you can tell me anything. Literally anything, even if it hurts."

Yet his expression was darker now, and I knew he was imagining all the many ways it could've happened. Stepping closer until we were chest to chest, I pressed a kiss to his heart.

"What you need to know is that it wasn't your fault. It wasn't Will's. It was mine. I should've left once we confirmed the hunters were on the islands, but I clung too hard to that little shard of normality I had amid the chaos. My stubbornness caused my change. Please don't blame yourself," I implored. The very thought distressed me.

"You are a wonder, Rose. Always putting others before yourself." He cupped my cheeks. "Let's get some conditioner in your hair and wash your body."

I nodded, then smirked at him. "Yes, sir!"

He swatted me on the butt again. "Cheeky thing. I think I'm rubbing off on you."

"I'd say you were doing more than rubbing off, if our little interlude on the beach was any indication." My expression and my tone were lighter than I felt, but if it made him smile, I'd do anything.

It was Beastie's lower voice that answered me. "It sounds like you need the sass fucked out of you."

"Maybe next time you can try."

Beastie let out a low growl that vibrated along my senses and made me shiver. He looked like he was about to lunge at me and do just that, but I grabbed the bottle of conditioner and thrust it toward him with a big smile.

"Help, please?" I asked, sweet as I could be.

The beast opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again. Confused. This was enough to help Milo back to the front. He chuckled. "Surprisingly effective. You'll have to remember that for the next time he gets a bit lusty."

"Oh, I totally will."

Milo reached around me and grabbed a washcloth and the body soap and poured a heaping amount of it on before replacing the bottle where it belonged. As he went to work lathering the rag then washing my body, I could tell he was scrutinizing every inch of my skin, trying to find any indication I'd been hurt. Thank you, Tisa, for removing all of my scars. Thank you so fucking much.

After ensuring the entirety of the top half was clean—front and back, with extra attention paid to my tits—he got to his knees to wash my lower half. But his movements slowed. With his face lowered, I couldn't see his expression, and worry lanced through me.

My fears were realized when his shoulders began to shake and the first loud sniff echoed through the shower. My heart twisted.

"Milo?"

Those big, strong arms of his wrapped around my middle, and he rested his forehead against my belly with no regard for the soap getting on him. He didn't speak his thoughts to me; I wasn't sure he was able to. But he did guide me to sit on the shower's built-in bench behind me. I let him cry, petting his hair and trying to soothe him with gentle words, but nothing seemed to work.

"I nearly lost you," he said at last, his voice thick with tears. "I just got you back, and I nearly lost you."

"Oh, oh Milo. I'm never going to leave you again."

He squeezed me in response but continued to cry. I wrapped my arms around him, whispering more assurances to him and telling him I loved him. It took time for him to calm. All the while, my heart shattered anew, adding to the countless sorrows already weighing on me.

After a long moment of him catching his breath, he lifted his head to look up at me, his eyes red-rimmed. "Rose, I know I said we'd only be focusing on the here and now for the time being, but there's something I need to tell you. A secret I shouldn't have kept from you."

"You can tell me anything," I replied, trying to be brave even as anxiety crept up my spine. It was enough that my skin prickled, as if ready to change into my siren form if necessary.

He took a deep breath. My heightened senses picked up on how his heart started to race, nervousness coming off him in waves. I pushed an errant lock of his hair out of his face before cupping his cheek to reassure him.

When he found his words… they rocked me to my core.

"You're my mate, Rose," he whispered, as if he were unsure of my reaction. "I know this isn't the right time to tell you, not when you've just come back and with the absolute mess you have on your hands, but given how I nearly lost you, I can't keep it to myself anymore. You deserve to know. Hell, you deserved to know the moment I stepped onto your boat months ago."

"‘Mate?'" I repeated, scarcely believing the words. In the weeks we'd been seeing each other, there'd been hints of him doing things that one was supposed to do with their mate—skinny dipping in the sea together, being given a gift in public and accepting it, spending time with the selkie clan—but that was just the Otherkind equivalent of dating for marriage… right?

"Yes, mate. As in, divinely matched, fated-to-be-together mates. The Gods Themselves decided you and I were meant to be together."

I blinked. It was like my mind couldn't fully comprehend what he was saying. "H-How long have you known?"

"I knew the moment I saw you in Sutton's for the first time." He huffed a single laugh. "Battling Beastie and my own shock at finding you made me forget to ask for your number."

My breath caught in my throat. A flood of hints and words from these past few months crashed over me.

"But would you accept someone if you were blessed with a mate?"

"I need you to understand that no matter what, unless you send me away, I will be by your side. Always ."

"It's an important rite of passage for a selkie and his lover to swim together in the sea. It used to be a test for my forebears to see if the person they were attracted to was good enough to be their mate."

"I'm ready to take you just like my forebears did with their mates, to make you mine with the sea and the Goddess as my witness. Do you want that?"

"You're even more perfect than I could've dreamed of, Rose."

"I'm so glad I get to spend eternity with you."

The air whooshed out of me, the impact of what he'd said finally hitting me.

Mate.

Mate.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Your scent. It's distinctive in a way that is only meant for mates. Often, they will share a note as well." He turned his face toward the hand cupping his cheek and inhaled, his nose brushing my wrist. The pleasure on his face, the way his eyes fluttered closed as he took me in, rocked me. "You smell like wildflowers and the ocean to me. Every time I go up on the cliffs, all I can think of is you." Those jade eyes of his opened again, pinning me with a heated stare. "What do I smell like to you?"

"Like cinnamon and the sea."

Milo purred, visibly relieved. "There's also the way our souls touch. If you could see your own aura, you'd be able to see how ours intertwine and blend together. You couldn't feel it as much as a human, but you felt it when I knotted you the first time. I bet you can feel me now, though, can't you?"

I nodded. It felt as though he were nestled by my heart.

"And the very idea of being parted feels like your soul is being torn asunder, even for just a short amount of time," he whispered.

"Milo, I—" I struggled to form the words as the phantom knife in my heart twisted. "I didn't—I didn't want to leave."

He blinked at me before understanding softened his features. "I'm not blaming you for leaving. You had no choice. Will explained everything to me when I calmed down." He blew out a breath. "What I mean is I had to leave you once, right after we pulled you out of the ocean, and it was the most difficult thing I'd ever had to do. My instincts, my beast, demanded I protect you and make sure you were safe, but you were traumatized. The last thing you needed was my beast locking you in my den and never letting you out again.

"And on the beach… I saw how it physically hurt you to be forced to stay with me. But I also saw the tears in your eyes and felt the way you gripped me, as if you never wanted to let me go. That's what sustained me these last three months: the idea that you were as eager to return to me as I was for you to come back."

"I missed you so much it hurt. When I could think, all I wanted was to come home and see you again," I replied, my lip quivering as my eyes filled with tears.

"And now you're here." The radiance of this smile warmed me. "And now I wear your mating mark."

Milo tugged me down to meet him and kissed me sweetly, gently. The tenderness he gave me plucked at my heartstrings. When he pulled away, his eyes traced over my face.

"I have waited three hundred years for you to come into my life," he whispered. "Three hundred years. But I'd wait a thousand more if it meant I got to be by your side, even for just a moment. Even for a single breath. You're my mate. You're my forever. And should you decide to have me, I will never leave your side, even in death.

"You don't have to decide now if you want forever with me. There are still things that I need to tell you about how all this works, but for now, it's enough that you know where I'm at and what I want. But I do have one request of you."

Seeing him down on his knees, the desperate need in his eyes, I had only one answer. "Anything. There isn't anything in the world I wouldn't give you."

"Stay with me," he beseeched. "I won't cage you here. I know your nature demands to be free, but I ask—nay, I beg—for you to stay with me. Live with me here in my den. Let me take care of you and spoil you and keep you safe. I want to go to sleep with you every night and wake with you in the morning, share my meals with you. But it's your choice. This, like everything with our mating, is your choice."

His hands gripped mine. "Before you answer, in the spirit of being open with you, I've been letting Will stay here with me while you've been gone. He had been sleeping on the couch with Violet, but I offered him my spare room. If that's not okay with you, I can tell him to leave—"

I cut him off. "You don't have to do that!" The very idea was horrid! Especially when… especially when the very notion of Will being here delighted a not-so-small part of my soul. "I want to live here with you. I want Will to stay. It would make me happier than anything to have you both here."

Wait… should I be confessing I want both of them here right after Milo confessed his undying love to me? How could you be so thoughtless and stupid— I began to chastise myself, but I stopped when Milo smiled at me again.

As if I'd just said the exact right thing.

"You continue to be a wonder, Rose." He kissed me again, this time with such passion I lost my thoughts to it. "Let's finish up this shower so we can get you fed and put to bed. You must be exhausted."

True to his word, the rest of the shower went by without much fuss, and when we got out, he brushed my hair again, ensuring that there wasn't a single knot left—even if the ends were still a mess. Then he took us for food before bundling us off to his bed.

Pulling the covers all the way down, he guided me to lie down, and when I was settled, he got in beside me and pulled me close, grabbing his pelt in favor of the blankets.

"Now that you're a siren," he said, pulling his pelt around us, "you might have needs you didn't have before or feel things you might not think are rational. As a mate of a selkie, you might need my scent around you more to help keep you calm, or you might need to feel my pelt around you. You're welcome to any of my clothes and to my pelt any time if this is the case."

Between my exhaustion and his nonchalance, I couldn't find it in me to be anxious about this. I rubbed my cheek against the softness of his fur. "How long will that last?" I whispered.

"Forever, if you choose me. But in the beginning, while we settle in together, the need might be a little more insistent. It's supposed to help bond us together."

He pulled me closer, and my eyes drifted closed, my lids too heavy to keep open any longer. "Hmm. Steal your pelt and keep for myself… sounds like a good plan."

Milo purred. "If it's the only thing you wear, then I won't even be mad."

"You're such a pervert." Yet I grinned.

"You love it."

"I do."

The beat of Milo's heart, the steady purr from Beastie, relaxed what little tension I had left in my body and lulled me toward the unconsciousness I needed. Finally, I was safe and at peace.

As I floated between wakefulness and slumber, Milo whispered, "Tell me you love me again."

Even in my sleepy state, I couldn't help but pull him closer. "I love you."

Then, for the first time in three months, I slept. Truly slept.