The Hunted

The thought of what her proper New Englander neighbors would say made her feel slightly better, even as she knew she would do no such thing. It wasn’t a Havelock thing to do, to draw attention to herself, or her house. Not that there was any rule against it, or that she had ever been scolded for making a fuss, it just … wasn’t Done. The family had lived generations on this island and managed to stay out of every single history book or pamphlet, after all. Her dad used to pretend to be annoyed by that, but she got a sense of satisfaction from him, too. Like he had managed to pull off some secret trick nobody knew about … It was another thing they had never talked about. She had been too young, too full of herself then, to think her father might have anything she needed to know.

Not for the first time, she wondered what she might have learned, if they’d lived long enough for her to listen.

“Be a love, will you?” Ben was back, Glory glaring at him over the transom where the orders were placed. He handed her a brown-wrapped package. “Drop this off for me in town?”

“Town” was a two-block walk away from the diner. Ben walked the two miles from their cottage to the diner every morning, no matter the weather, to start the kitchen before dawn. He was hardly in need of assistance.

Beth narrowed her hazel-green eyes at him, but he maintained a look of perfect innocence.

She studied the address on the package’s label. It was addressed to someone in Rockport, Maine, and was already stamped and ready to go. Ben could have just left it out on the counter for the postman to pick up during his rounds.

“What game are you playing, Benjamin?” she wondered, and got only a low chuckle from behind the counter. Beth slid the package to the side, away from her coffee, and went to work on her breakfast. If she was going to be choregirl, she was going to be fed, first. Post office was barely open yet, anyway. And it was off-season—not like there would be a line.

The bedroom Dylan had been shown to on the third floor of the three-story house was large, by his standards, with a bed, a pedestal sink and a bookcase filled with old books. Normally, as a single male, he didn’t stay under a roof unless the weather was particularly bad, and the peaked, plastered ceiling meeting his gaze was not as pretty as the flat, wood-beamed one he and his father had rebuilt after a nor’easter almost destroyed the seal-kin village, but it seemed to suit the building. Wooden flooring was covered by a rug made out of brightly colored bits of cloth. His mother had a rug like that in her own cottage, and for a moment Dylan felt his throat close up with an unfamiliar sensation.

Loneliness, he identified it, without too much surprise. Well, he was without colony or cousins in this place, it made sense. Not pleasant, but understandable.

But the knowledge that his mate waited for him somewhere in this village made the sensation pass. Once he found her, they could return home, and all would be right again.

And surely seal-kin came up on these shores. Maybe he wouldn’t be entirely alone here, during his search?

With that thought, he pushed open the single window, enjoying the feel of the crisp morning air on his skin, looking out into a beautiful blue sky he’d been too focused before then to notice. No clouds, only the slightest hint of any moisture at all in the air, a fine day for swimming …

Or finding a mate.

Single-minded, aren’t you? He could hear his mother’s voice, laughing at him. He really should have said something to her, at least, before he left. But nothing to be done for it now. She would at least know—or suspect—where he had gone, and why. He had always been given to acting on impulse.

Dylan took off the sneakers and shucked the clothing the nurse had given him, dropping them on the bed and luxuriating in the feel of the air through the open window on his skin.

The pull was getting stronger, minute by minute, until it was becoming almost painful. Worse than pain, worse than hunger or lust, even though there was something of both to it. He thought about relieving himself of the lust, at least, but something stopped his hand on the first stroke. There was no shame in pleasure, but … he didn’t want to take it alone. Not when he was so close to finding Her.

Dylan was struck with an intense urge to take a shower, to wash the last stink of the hospital off his skin. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the dry texture of it with displeasure. They had washed it for him at the clinic, while he was unconscious, but used some sort of soap that took the natural oils out, so the strands felt brittle. Worse, his skin felt almost as dry; he wasn’t used to spending this much time out of the water. Not that he couldn’t—one of his sisters used to routinely go off for months at a time when she went to college, and his oldest brother worked on an oil rig, where shedding your human form to go diving into the ocean at a moment’s whim was not exactly a good idea. But Dylan was used to spending most of his time with his cousins, in his other skin. Being caught in human form endlessly was … itchy.

He looked out the window again, judging how far this building was from the shoreline, then shrugged and went in search of the shared bathroom down the hall he had been shown the night before. A good soak in a tub wouldn’t be the same, but it would get him clean, anyway.

A low scream made him jump back into his room, slamming the door shut behind him. His heart pounding, Dylan tried to determine where the threat was coming from. Then he looked down, and a red flush stained his pale skin.

He had forgotten for a moment that he wasn’t home, and had gone outside without any clothing.

“Sorry,” he called out to the unsuspecting fellow guest in the hallway, reaching out to grab the drawstring blue pants and drag them back up his legs. “Wasn’t quite awake yet.”

By the time he made it downstairs, his skin comfortably soaked and his black hair slicked back away from his face, the woman he had startled and two other guests were in quiet conversation—about him, clearly, from the laughter that broke out when he appeared. Dylan felt himself blush again, and a wave of irritation followed. It had been an easy enough mistake to make; he wasn’t exactly used to wearing clothing, after all. At home, people were more comfortable with skin, theirs and others', in any form.

“Glad you could join us,” Mr. Brandt—Mike—said, only a trace of teasing in his voice, although he was clearly hard-pressed to keep from smiling. “I held over some food from breakfast, as Doc Alden said you’d probably be hungry. Breads and whatnot are on the buffet, and everything else is family-style on the table.”

“Everything else” included a platter of salmon piled high and red, and what looked like smoked chub, and Dylan felt his mouth start to water. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. The rest of the foods—scrambled eggs, bacon and fresh fruits—were added to his plate more cautiously. They were treats to his people, not everyday meals, and he was almost afraid to take too much, for fear of doing something wrong, or rude.

“How are you feeling?” Mike asked, reaching over to drop another two slices of the crisp pork onto his plate with a wink. “Doc says you were pretty beat up when they brought you in, but you look fine now.”

“More exhausted than anything else. They warned me I may be sleeping a lot for a while, to recover.”

“So what are your plans today?” Mike asked as Dylan sat down at the table with his plate. “Other than clothes shopping?”

That started everyone laughing again, and even Dylan, despite his blush, acknowledged now that it was amusing.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “Get my bearings, figure out what I’m going to do.”

“Have they found any trace of your boat?”

It took Dylan a moment to remember what boat the woman was talking about, then remembered his lie to the doctor. Another thing humans had in common with seal-kin, then; gossip spread faster than illness.

“Not that I have heard,” he said truthfully. “I suspect they won’t. I was an idiot, pushing through the storm like that.” Also true.

“You lived to learn from it, so that’s the important thing,” the woman said. “I’m Gert, and this is Sarah.” The look she cast Sarah made it clear that there was an implied lesson for more than Dylan in that fact. He wondered what the two women were to each other; not mother and daughter, no, nor sisters. He didn’t know enough about human society to understand, and for the first time, doubt struck. Being brought here … that implied that the female he had come to find was human. Everything he knew, everything he understood about females … would it apply to a human woman?

“There’s no job waiting for you? No family?” the other man, Jonah, asked.

“No job,” Dylan answered truthfully. “My family are fishermen, and they know I’ll be back when I’m back.”

Mike laughed. “Had enough of hauling nets and soaking in brine, did you? I spent a few summers working at a packing plant, and I swore the smell of fish would never get out of my pores. Money was good, though.”

Money. He was going to need money. He should have thought of that before he let his hormones take over his brains, should have brought more to barter with than just his sister’s anklet. Idiot. “I thought I might go into town and see if anyone needs a handyman. I’m pretty good with building and fixing.”

“It’s spring,” Mike said thoughtfully. “Tourists’ll be coming soon in hordes—sorry, folk,” he said to the others, who merely laughed, not taking offense, “and everything needs to look pretty. You should be able to find some work pretty easily around here, if you’re handy with a hammer.” He eyed Dylan, as though judging how much of his sleek build was actually muscle. Dylan resisted the urge to stand up and try to present a larger silhouette, like a fur-cousin spoiling for a fight. At five-ten, he wasn’t terribly impressive, until you looked more closely at his build. He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone looking that closely at him.

“I haven’t lost a thumb yet” was all he said.

“And if you’ve been a fisherman you’re not afraid of hard work. Then you’ll do.” Mike nodded, coming to a decision. “I’ll give you a list of folk you should talk to. Can’t have a long-term boarder out of work now, can I?”

Everything was falling into place: the storm sending him here, of all the villages he might have come to, to the very beach where his mate waited. This man, giving him shelter and a reason to linger, to find her again.

Yes. He felt his impatience and restlessness stir again under his skin, and whispered to it the way he might a seal-pup, counseling patience. There would be time to swim in the great waters soon enough. Patience, for now.

And like a pup, his restlessness did not want to listen. Now, it insisted. Find her now. He could practically feel her in the air. She was close, close … all he had to do was find her.

After finishing her breakfast and coffee, Beth ran her assigned errand, strolling to the post office and standing on the line that had, wonders of wonders, actually formed. All of three people were in front of her, but in this town, before tourist season started, that was a notable wait.

Beth gave Ben’s package over and asked for her own boxed mail, as well, when it was her turn.

While he went to fetch it, she leaned against the counter of the post office, her head turned just enough that she could watch people passing on the sidewalk beyond the plate-glass window of the storefront. She saw two friends walking past on the other side of the street going into the café, and realized that she hadn’t seen either of them in weeks.

A dark-haired man walked past, on this side of the street, right in front of the post office, and Beth felt herself come to attention, somehow. A stranger with thick black hair down to his collar and a slender-hipped and yet sturdy build that caught her eye.

“No.” It wasn’t the stranger from the beach. It couldn’t be. Or it could but even if it was, so what? Beth licked her lips, suddenly tasting salt and sea-musk on her skin, as though she had been out swimming, or washed her face with seawater. It reminded her of her dream, and her internal temperature rose several notches. The flush she felt inside was more annoying; what was she, sixteen again, to get so flustered at the sight of a good-looking stranger, dressed and ambulatory, or otherwise? And what the hell was she doing, walking out of the post office just to get a better look at him? Hello? Earth to Elizabeth?

Her feet weren’t listening to her head, but she moved too slowly. By the time she went out the door, the bell jingling overhead, he was gone.

Beth stared down the street, wondering at herself, and the aching disappointment she felt. Was she that hard up, that a good-looking stranger got her juices running? Pitiful. But there was something about the figure, even glimpsed out of the corner of her eye … She had to fight the urge to run after him, ask him his name, anything to get him to notice her. She’d never felt any pull that hard, like the lure of fine chocolate at three in the morning, multiplied by ten.