xii.

HOLLIS WOKE UP with her in his bed, and she was still naked from the waist down, and their legs were entwined. They hadn't talked about her staying. They'd just fallen asleep in the aftermath of one of her orgasms.

But things were different now.

He wasn't going to be able to fight this, and he should stop trying. Sure, it was terrifying. Sure, it was going to end badly. Sure there was no path forward that made any rational sense.

But he couldn't let her go.

He couldn't get enough of her.

And she was different.

She stirred next to him, and he felt as if some internal part of him squeezed when he looked at her. She was so pretty and small and perfect. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to hold onto her. He wanted to fall in love with her.

Maybe he already had.

Her eyes fluttered open. "Morning," she yawned.

"You're beautiful," he told her.

She reached up and stroked his skull. "So are you."

He was touching her, so he could feel what she felt. She really thought that. This thing with them, it was going both ways. It was a tie now, one getting stronger and stronger with each moment they spend together.

She thinks I'm beautiful, he thought wonderingly. How could that even be?

"I want to take you to breakfast," he said.

She stretched, arms over her head, yawning. "Okay."

"Let me make a couple calls," he said, nuzzling her before he tossed aside the covers to get out of bed.

"Okay," she said, shutting her eyes and burrowing back into the pillows.

He wanted to do something insane for her. He wanted to show off, preen for her like a bird doing a mating dance. He wanted her to be awed and wowed and overtaken. He wanted her to compare every other man in the world to him and find them all wanting.

Yup, definitely already fell in love. Fuck.

He ducked out of the room to make the calls. When he came back into the bedroom, she was scrolling on her phone in the bed.

"Get dressed," he said. "Breakfast awaits."

She eyed him. "Those calls were about breakfast?"

"Mmm," he said. "Come on."

"Do I need to worry about how I look?" She ran a rueful hand through her hair.

"You look beautiful," he said.

She giggled. "I think you might be biased already in thinking that."

"Nope," he said. "Get dressed. I'll take you down to the garage."

In the garage, she made a choking noise. "How many cars do you have?"

He looked at the four that were in there. "Well, these are just the ones I keep at this house."

Her eyes widened. "So, how many houses do you have?"

"Maybe fifteen," he said. "I kind of lose track. Sometimes I sell some here or there, just depending."

"Fifteen," she mouthed, no voice.

He steered her over to the Audi. "Here, get in."

She got in and ran appreciative fingers over the interior of the car.

He started it up and pulled out of the garage. "It's going to be a little bit of a hike, but it'll be worth it. Hopefully, you're not dying of starvation."

"A hike?" she said. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," he said.

"Great," she said, letting out a little laugh. "I mean, a thousand years exiled in the mortal world… what was I expecting? Obviously, you have money. Like lots of money."

He shrugged. "It tends to accumulate. I'm bored with it now, but there was a point in time wherein I found trying to make money pretty interesting. But I ultimately realized that making money is facilitated primarily by one thing."

"Which is?"

"Already having money," he said.

"Oh," she said.

"Yeah, so it's basically just playing with a rigged deck of cards. It's no fun when there's no risk. I could be richer, I guess, but this is fine."

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, fifteen houses."

He glanced at her. "Is that bad? Are you not pleased with that tidbit of information about me?"

"I'm…" She grinned at him. "I can't say, at this point, anything about you is going to convince me to give up on this thing with us. I'm just in, you know? Maybe it's crazy, but I don't think I can get out anymore."

"Me either," he said. "I'm glad we're on the same page."

"Yeah," she said. "Mutually assured destruction."

"Definitely," he said.

"Really, just my destruction. You're indestructible."

"I don't know if I'd say that," he said.

She opened her mouth to maybe argue with him, but then she stopped and furrowed her brow. "Are we going to the military airport? Is that where we're headed?"

"Actually, you can take off and land privately out of there, on a small plane. So, I called my pilot—"

"We're going on a private plane to breakfast?" Her voice was shrill.

"Is that all right?"

She clutched the door handle. "Tangles. And. Briars."

HE FLEW HER to New York City. They got out of the plane and took a taxi to a ridiculously expensive restaurant—the prices on the menu practically made her gag. They drank insanely-priced mimosas and ate delicious food. She felt like a princess or a débutante. She felt as if she was in one of those movies, where the girl gets wooed by the rich guy and he takes her on some crazy shopping spree.

"Next up," she said, "you tell me that you have some formal event that we have to go to, and you're going to buy me some formal gown, and then we have to go and try on dresses and—"

"What?" he said. "You want to do that? I'm into buying you dresses. I'm into taking you out and spending, you know, ridiculous amounts of money on you."

She giggled. "No, I was just saying that this doesn't feel real ."

"Well, so I should be allowed to buy you a bunch of very real things, real, tangible things that you can use as proof to yourself?"

She giggled harder. "No, no, I don't think so. Then it will just look as if I'm using you for money or something. You shouldn't buy me anything."

"I want to buy you things, though. Like, I really want to."

"Why?"

"I don't know, exactly. I'm… uh, I'm into you. I want to make a show of this somehow. A show large enough to be a testament to how intense my feelings are."

She couldn't say hearing that didn't affect her. She felt flushed and happy. But maybe that was all the champagne. She sipped at her fluted glass and said, "So, you want to buy me things so that other people know how much you like me, and I don't want you to buy me things so that people understand that I like you for you, not your money."

"You make us sound so concerned with appearances," he said. "I'm not."

"Oh, me either. I don't care what people think, like, at all."

"Me either," he said. "So, let me buy you a gown."

She snickered. "I have nowhere to wear a gown."

"Let me throw a ball in your honor."

She laughed so hard that she had to set down her glass for fear of spilling it. "No."

"No?"

She shook her head. "Too soon."

"So, after we've established the relationship, then I can start lavishing you with gifts, that about how it goes?"

"Yeah, exactly, that's totally how it should go." She drank more of her mimosa, and she was smiling so much that her cheeks ached.

SATURDAY, HE TEXTED her.

Should I wear a hoodie to your family's house or something else?

Oh, he was nervous about it and he wanted to make a good impression! That was so adorable. Also, it made her stomach turn over with the force of how intensely she liked his caring. She lay back on the bed, swooning, and texted him that the hoodie would be fine. It's just dinner. It's casual. Just be yourself.

He came and picked her up in his Ferrari, which was a car they had not yet driven in. She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the fact she was dating someone with that kind of cash. Maybe if he hadn't already been ageless and magic and intense in his way, maybe it would have mattered more. But as far as it all went, she thought the wealth was the least of her worries when it came to Hollis.

He plugged the address of her sister's house into his GPS in the car, even though she said she'd just direct him. "Easier this way," he said. "I don't want you to have to worry about it. Just relax."

So, they drove, and she watched him drive, and she wondered when she was going to start regretting this whole thing. She knew it wasn't smart. She knew that it was doomed. She knew she was going to end up hurt.

Why didn't she care?

"Did you bring your skin?" he said.

"What?" At first, she didn't know what he was talking about.

"You said that your sister has a salt water pool and—"

"Oh, my sealskin," she said. "Right. You know, I'm not used to talking about that."

"I'd guess you'd have a vested interest in keeping it secret," he said. "How does it work, exactly? In the stories, the lover always hides it from the selkie, and then she's trapped with him."

"Right," she said. The typical selkie story went that some man found the selkie somewhere and compelled her to be his wife by hiding her skin so that she couldn't shift. She might have children with this man, but she would spend lots of time gazing longingly at the sea. Sometimes one of the children would bring his mother her skin, or sometimes the selkie would find it herself. Always, she would put it on and go back to the sea. Sometimes, never to return, sometimes, to return only occasionally, and sometimes, to return only to seek vengeance.

The vengeance was typically—in the stories—in the form of stolen or slaughtered livestock, however, not in violence against people. However, there were some stories that seemed to cast selkies in the same role as sirens or even mermaids, luring sailors or fisherman to drown. In these stories, the selkies were bitter because of the way they'd been used by men who had stolen their skin and decided to take their ire out on all men.

"And someone could do that to you?"

"I mean, yes," she said.

"So, do you have to take it with you everywhere you go? Did you take it on tour?"

"I did take it on tour, but no, I don't have to. It's more like…" She considered. "So, I need to shift and swim in my sealskin probably…" She shrugged. "I don't know, every few weeks, once a month, or so? And if I don't, I start to feel pulled to the skin, like drawn to it. It wants me to put it on."

"Really?" he said.

"Yeah, in the stories, it's not so much that the husband hides it, it's that he locks it away and hides the key," she said.

"I see," said Hollis. "So, the selkies in those stories would want to shift, but they couldn't."

"Yeah. They'd be tortured and sent into madness by the denial of their wild, seal selves, all so that a man could be sure that he didn't lose his wife."

"So, it's no wonder the selkies take revenge when they get their skins back."

"No wonder at all," said Fifer. "By that time, the selkies had been driven positively out of their minds."

"Is it painful if you don't shift?"

"I… I've never let it get that far. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. Curiosity, I guess. I suppose selkies are pretty careful never to let anyone do that to them."

"They really are," said Fifer. "I mean, I know Madge didn't tell her husband Parker where hers was until their third wedding anniversary. She'd already had a baby with him at that point, and she was like, ‘Just making sure.'"

"Really," said Hollis. "So, you'd never tell me where yours was."

"Do you want to know for some reason?"

"Maybe someday, if this lasted long enough, I might. I'd want to think you trusted me, I guess."

"Well, it's not going to last, though." She turned to look at him. "I mean, we had conversations about this, and we determined it was doomed, and that it just had to be a temporary thing, and…" Her voice went quiet. "Why would you say that?"

"I don't know." Now, he sounded embarrassed. "You're right, obviously. I couldn't ask you to do that, to give up your time to something like me."

"That's the biggest reason, though, because it wouldn't be fair to me?"

"Well, it wouldn't," he said.

"What about to you?"

"I just want you, that's all. I don't see myself ever not wanting you, and… you know, if you're really okay with not having children, and you… the way we make love, it seems really mutually satisfying, kind of perfect on both ends? And, it just seems… I don't know… I could be happy with you for decades, easily, Fifer. Easily. If you ever think you could be with me, even though it would be a sacrifice for you, there would be compensations, and I would… I would worship you."

She gasped. "You're asking me for…?"

"No, it's too soon for that," he said. "If it's too soon for gifts, it's too soon for decades. I'm only saying that maybe it doesn't have to be temporary. Maybe we could entertain the possibility of this becoming something serious."

She felt a little melty. "I'd like to entertain that possibility, yeah."

"Well, that's the best thing I've heard in years," he said, reaching across the car to affectionately squeeze her thigh.

She hummed, excited and happy.

When they arrived at Madge's house, Hollis fiddled with his hood, putting it up and then taking it down. She took his hand and led him up the sidewalk to the front door.

Parker answered the door. He pumped Hollis's hand and offered him a beer and took him off to where he was grilling outdoors.

Fifer lingered to make sure that Hollis was comfortable before she pressed into him and told him she was going to go and swim for just a bit before dinner.

"Oh," he said, "is that a private thing, then? I'm not allowed to see you in your seal form?"

"I…" She squeezed his hand. "Someday. Maybe someday, in the not-temporary future of this."

He squeezed back. "Good."

She slipped off and changed. Madge and the kids were in the pool. The kids were half-selkie, half-orc, but only the little boy, Roderic, could shift. You wouldn't know it for the way that little Rory swam, though. She was like a squirming fish wriggling in and out of the water.

The swim was brief but refreshing, just what she needed.

When she got out and changed back into her human form, she asked Madge if their mother was just coming for dinner, and Madge confirmed that her mother was swimming at a club these days, paying for membership. It was supposedly really welcoming to selkies and she was making friends there.

So, Fifer's mother didn't appear until they were nearly ready to sit down to eat. She let herself in and commented loudly on Madge not answering the door and letting her husband cook dinner, which was their mother's way. She had very traditional ideas about the division of labor in a household.

Madge rolled her eyes. She was used to this.

Madge wasn't really great with planning things like dinners or events. She loved having people over, however, and she was a warm and bubbly hostess. Luckily for her, Parker also loved hosting people at the house, and he also loved planning events. He was a wizard on the grill and the two of them worked really well together.

"At the very least," proclaimed Fifer's mother, "you could be serving the food and letting your poor husband rest, Madge. You've just been swimming and he's been slaving away, and it's not as if he doesn't work for a living."

"She was watching the kids," said Parker, jumping to Madge's defense, as usual. "And I don't mind. I have a flow going, Bernadine, and it's better if I do the serving." He grinned, showing off his orc tusks.

Fifer's mother turned and looked Hollis over.

"Mom," said Fifer, "this is Hollis."

"That your car in the driveway?" said her mother.

"It is," said Hollis.

"Well, then," said Fifer's mother, beaming. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Hollis shook her mother's hand. "The pleasure's all mine, Mrs. Ione."

"Bernadine, please," said her mother. "How did you and Fifer meet?"

"Just in Shepherdstown," said Fifer. "You know, I'm always in town socializing."

"She was playing music, actually," said Hollis.

"Well, so were you," said Fifer.

"I'm not sure your mother would like to hear about my musical tastes," said Hollis.

"Oh?" said Bernadine.

"He plays AC/DC on his electric violin."

"That's the one who bit the head off a chicken?" said her mother.

"You're thinking of Alice Cooper," said Fifer. "But actually, he just threw it back into the audience, and it got killed by being trampled or something."

"Bat," said Hollis. "Ozzy Osborne in Black Sabbath. He bit the head off a bat."

"That really happened?" said Fifer.

"I mean, yeah," said Hollis.

"Well," said Fifer's mother, "I like musicians who are popular because of their music, not their antics."

"Like Fifer," said Hollis.

"Oh, Fifer is definitely still toying around with that," said Fifer's mother. "But hopefully some day she'll settle down like Madge has."

"Oh, I'm doing something right?" said Madge. "You know, because I guess I'm supposed to be way more domestic than I actually am, right, Mom?"

"Right," said her mother, giving Madge a look.

"Grandma, do you want to see the sticker I got on my spelling test?" piped up Rory, thankfully ending the conversation and saving them all from another of her mother's lectures.

Dinner went as smoothly as it could have, she supposed. Her mother was a little shrill and sharp, but then she'd always been that way. She loved Fifer, she did, and she made all of her little suggestions out of love. She wanted the best for her daughters. It was only that her idea of best wasn't really shared by either of her offspring.

With her grandchildren, however, she was completely different, utterly positive, praising each and every one of their endeavors, never once suggesting they were lacking in any way, shape, or form.

"So, what do you do?" Parker asked Hollis during dinner.

"He has investments," Fifer piped up. "Mostly real estate."

Hollis gave her a look. "I also have a job doing, erm, retail."

"Really?" said Parker. "Retail."

"Because he gets bored and he likes to stay busy," said Fifer.

"Investments?" said her mother, very impressed.

"Retail, like clothes?" said Madge.

Fifer looked pointedly at the kids. "Um, like…"

"Equipment," said Hollis smoothly. "Entertainment equipment."

"Like for video games?" said Parker.

"Like for sports?" said Madge.

"The point is, he's financially stable and he has a good work ethic," said Fifer. "Parker, this is really delicious. What sort of spice rub did you use on the meat?"

Parker launched into a detailed description of the meat preparation, as Fifer had hoped he would. He could talk about that for hours.

This led to Hollis's skeletal fingers grazing hers as she was chewing, inhabiting her momentarily, and she knew it was so he could taste it.

"This really is delicious," Hollis said to Parker. "So, tell me again about the resting step?"

"Oh, yeah," said Parker. "It's really important, various resting steps within the process. You always want your meat to be at room temperature before you grill, for instance."

After dinner, Fifer was cornered alone by Madge and her mother, whose eyes were both shining a little. They didn't talk much to her, but mostly to each other about how neither of them had ever really thought this would happen for Fifer and how nice it was and how they really hoped for a good future for her.

She spent the first ten minutes of the drive home with Hollis apologizing up and down about everything.

He cut her off eventually. "You don't need to apologize."

"I'm not ashamed of your working at the sex toy shop, you know, but the kids were there—"

"No, I got that," he said, smirking. "It's fine."

"I'm just saying, it's not a big secret or anything, but—"

"I wanted to make a good impression," he said.

"I think you did," she said, and she preened a little, pleased that he cared, pleased that he wanted to please the people she cared about.

He reached for her hand.

She took his hand in hers.

They drove home like that, fingers entwined.