Page 85 of King of the Cage

“Your mom was humming it… she said it’s for me,” I told him.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Did she really?”

“Yes, she did. It’s called ‘The Selkie and Spring Tide,’ if you’re wondering,” I said.

He stared at me for a long time, something warm in his gaze that I could barely stand. There was something intimidating about being gawped at like that. The cab pulled up and jerked Bran from his spell.

“Come on, then, wife. We better get home. Otherwise, how will your brother kill me tonight if he doesn’t know where I am?”

23

BRAN

Itook Giada to The Selkie’s Rest. She seemed to like the bustle and had taken to Aoife.

The encounter with Mam had left me feeling a whole lot of things. I needed a pint and some space to sort through them.

My selkie slipped away to sit with Aoife, and I kept my eye on her from a distance.

Now, I knew Giada truly was my selkie. Even my mam had recognized her, which meant I really was the man who’d stolen her skin. Despite the cruelty of the act, I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Letting her go was an impossibility. She was, quite simply, mine.

It endedup being a rowdy night at The Selkie’s Rest, which was saying something. The O’Connors knew how to have a good time. There was music and drinking and even dancing.

The crowd cleared out of the pub after midnight, once the music had ebbed and dancers had tired themselves out. A fewstragglers lingered, dancing slowly under the dimmed lights. Giada watched them, and I watched her. She was alone, finally. She watched the couples swaying on the floor with a kind of dreamlike wistfulness. I had never seen such a vulnerable expression on her face. Even after all we’d been through. It appeared that my tough little wife was better at staring down danger than giving an affectionate look.

“Wicked Game,” an old Chris Isaak song, hit the jukebox, the melancholy tune wrapping around both of us.

“Care to dance?” I asked Giada.

She rolled her eyes but glanced at the dance floor.

“There’s barely anyone else dancing,” she pointed out.

I grinned victoriously. That hadn’t been a no. I was wearing my wife down, learning to read her tells. Learning everything about her, inside and out. She was the most fascinating subject. An obsession, pure and simple. More… an addiction.

“Good. I need space when I bust a move,” I told her firmly and took her hand.

She barely put up a fight as she rose to her feet.

I tugged her to the middle of the dance floor and pulled her closer, resting my hands possessively on her hips. I wanted to feel her against me, cradled in my arms, looking up at me with that haughty expression that could easily turn wicked or playful with only a blink. My mercurial little selkie, trapped on the shore.

“This is place is just like you,” she remarked, glancing around the pub. The interior was a mishmash of fishing nets and wooden fish sculptures, old framed photos and headlines ofO’Connor achievements, and Christmas crap that still hadn’t been put away.

“What? The most popular thing in town?” I wondered.

“Pure chaos,” she corrected and narrowed her eyes at my easy grin. “But cozy somehow.”

I blinked at her, taken off guard by her words. They made me feel something I wasn’t sure what to do with.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” I said after a beat.

“You would,” she sighed.

“When you get them as rarely as I do, you learn to savor every single one.”

She raised an eyebrow at me.Oops.That admission wasn’t quite in keeping with my overly confident, joker’s façade.

“And here I thought that a guy who looked like you, with a mouth like yours, would be swimming in compliments and offers,” she mused.

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