Page 27 of Forced Vampire Mate

“What’s that?” I pointed at the shimmer. “More elf magic?”

Luken squinted. In his current glamour, I couldn’t see the glow of his eyes. “I’m not sure… oh.” He laughed. “It’s the ocean.”

“The ocean,” I repeated.

“The Selkie Ocean,” Luken corrected himself. “It’s a magical place only visible beneath the moon's light. The elves cast a protective enchantment over it centuries ago, when humans were continually raiding the sea and stealing the selkie’s cloaks.”

I flinched. My own selkie ancestor hadn’t been given a name in our genealogy. It was impossible to know what the story was, because it had never been recorded. “And the elves cast the magic to protect them?”

“Elves and selkies share a distant ancestral magic and have long been allies,” Luken answered. “Selkies are a gentle, peaceful people, and they provide the elves with things from the seas the elves crave, like pearls, seafood, and other things. My mother told me once that before the Gods intervened in our world, selkies lived forever, just as elves and vampires do. But then a selkie maiden refused one of the gods, and he convinced them all to curse the entire species for it.”

I wrapped my arms around my knees. “I don’t know many stories about the Gods. I never thought much about them until Darcie was taken. And then I…” I bit my lip, but I might as well say it. “I thought they were just an excuse for you to do what you wanted.”

Luken didn’t answer.

“But they are real. And you want to stop them.” I twisted my hands and blurted, “Did you know that your sash, the one you wore to our wedding, was embroidered by Darcie? Thessa told me. It was the same sash you wore when you opened the Blood Trials, and she recognized Darcie’s work. And you were wearing silk that Thessa wove.”

“I… knew it came from the temples,” Luken said slowly. “As part of the deal I currently have with the gods, I am to provide them with tributes, and they will provide me with finery. It’s just another way to put me in their debt.”

A soft breeze started to blow. Out here, in the more exposed forest, the night was rapidly growing cooler. “Do you think the elves would be more open to dealing with me because I’m part selkie—wait!” I straightened as an idea popped into my head. “What if there’s an entrance or something hidden in the water? It makes sense that the selkies would have a way into the Silver Forest, for trade and for the two groups to help each other out.”

“I doubt there’s an entrance. More like there’s a door in the barrier and a key hidden somewhere only the selkies know to find,” Luken answered.

“Then let’s go look,” I urged, getting to my feet.

Luken jumped up. “It will be too heavily guarded. The best thing to do is figure out how to force open the door with brute force.”

I narrowed my eyes. “We can at least try. I’m a good swimmer, and I know you are, too.”

“It would be mindless searching and wasting energy.” Luken grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to the camp. “Just once, listen to me. If you'd done as I said, you wouldn’t have been injured by the orcs.”

“I wouldn’t have been injured if you had done what I said,” I snapped back.

His grip was too tight for me to break free. So I let my arm go limp. I slumped my shoulders and faked a yawn. Then, I gave one more half-hearted attempt to free myself before I let him pull me back to camp. Luken looked at me suspiciously.

“If you can’t open the barrier tomorrow, we'll search the ocean tomorrow night,” I said as I lay down and buried my head in my arms.

“No, we won’t,” he answered.

But he lay down, too, thinking he won. I made myself go still, breathing deeply to feign sleep. As soon as I was certain he was sleeping, I crept up again. I wasn’t going to waste time. If there was a key in that ocean, I’d find it.

Chapter 13

I left my clothes on the beach, except for my panties and bra. The drag of the material would just slow me down. The ocean was cold, the surf rough, but once I ducked below the surface, a sense of calm washed over me. Being in the water always brought a sense of peace, of belonging. I lingered just below the surface for a few moments, getting my bearings. With the full moon, the ocean was clearly lit. The ripples of the waves were etched into the sand closest to me, and further in the depths were beds of kelp and seaweed. Corals were just a little way deeper than that.

I swam to the deeper water and found that my vision wasn’t hampered at all. I’d always been able to see clearly underwater, even in the salty sea, but now it was as though there was a soft light emanating from the water itself. Had the changed to my body enhanced my latent selkie abilities, or was this how vampires saw?

Breaking the surface, I took a few deep breaths, expanding my lungs, before I went back under. This time, I kicked hard for the corals. There was no sign of sharks about, not that they normally bothered humans, so I wasn’t worried. If there was going to be an entrance for selkies, it would be deep enough that the other species wouldn’t easily get at it.

I sliced through the water quickly, and when I glanced at my hands, a distinctive webbing had grown between my fingers. Ahh, so it was enhancing the selkie part of me. Interesting. When I got back, I’d have to ask Luken about it.

The currents beneath the water were strong, but not terrible. I moved about the coral reef, inspecting nooks and crannies for anything that might be amiss. Nothing stood out, and I had to surface several times to refill my lungs. The longer I stayed beneath the water, the more I realized Luken was right. We had to have some sort of strategy for searching, otherwise it’d just be luck to stumble onto the entrance—if it even existed.

One more time,I told myself, surfacing, refilling my lungs, and going under again. Nothing.One more time.

Would Luken have woken to find me gone yet? The next time I broke the surface, I studied the sky. It was just starting to lighten. Dawn was almost here. I was still close to the shore, the shimmer of the elven barrier stretching like a massive dome, reminding me of the one that arched over the colosseum during the Blood Trials.

Selkies are a peaceful people. So, what went wrong with me?I shook my head. I wasn’t a selkie. I was human with a selkie heritage.One more time, then I’m going back to camp. Luken will be furious when he realizes I’ve been swimming alone in the ocean.

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