Page 15 of The Rake OR The Orca Who Met His Match in a Selkie Desiring Revenge
Elspeth waited to see if she felt some indicator of the compulsion settle on her. She’d assumed that there would be some physical element, especially now that she thought about it. Her frequent thoughts of him these past few days must have been due to the bond,considering she’d missed a man she barely knew. The bond interfering with her emotions made perfect sense.
“Now then, jump out of the water!” Aegir proclaimed with a flourish of his hand.
Elspeth waited, and again, there was no indicator of wanting to do as he asked. Hope bloomed within her, filling her chest. Perhaps being bonded to him would not be so terrible after all.
“Good, at least that is dealt with,” he said, beginning to swim again. “That intelligence you saw is several weeks old at this point. The town referenced is past a settlement where some friends of mine live. If you like, we could travel to where they live. My friends would have more up-to-date information on troop movements... they also have quite a library there, we could see what information might be available about this blood bond?”
Elspeth perked up at that. Perhaps therewassome way to break it, and she just didn’t know about it. It was possible. There was plenty her village elders kept from young people, often telling them they would find out “when they needed to.” Not to mention, it would be nice to have a better idea of where she might find her brother, and for that mattershe'd bet a fair sum of money that Aegir knew more about espionage and fighting than she did.
“Very well,” she said primly. “I can see how it might be mutually beneficial to travel together.”
1. This sentence was physically painful to pen. The number of ways that this is false makes me want to scream, even though I understand the feeling behind the gross generalization.
2. A selkie’s partially shifted form is akin to that of a Fishkin’s water form or a mermaid. They are a seal from below the navel, but maintain their humanoid form for their head and torso.
3. Just like there are many languages in the world, the underwater peoples have their own languages. There are two, largely, divided by ocean. Each also has several dialects, though many people, like Aegir and Elspeth, who do not spend the majority of their time underwater, tend to gravitate to the most popular dialect.
4. While this might sound ridiculous to us now, I must remind the reader that this takes place prior to the Barrier’s fall. If someone had told you, just twenty years ago, that they were a selkie, you likely would have responded the same.
Chapter six
Aegir
IN WHICH BONDS ARE INVISIBLE, UNFATHOMABLE, AND (OCCASIONALLY) UNAVOIDABLE
“So about this bond…"Aegir started as they swam.
“I don’t know much, but the basics are that if someone is keeping our pelt, then we can’t shift into our seal form since we need it to shift. That’s how the Empire kept me captive. No selkie would ever leave their pelt behind. To my understanding, the blood bond is a permanent version of someone holding our pelt, so that person can keep us captive. If they want to…” She trailed off, cocking her head. “I think I was able to leave this last time because you didn’t know about the bond, and well… you weren’t trying to keep me captive, were you?”
“No, I just didn’t want you to hurt yourself. I’ll never try to keep you from shifting…” He shuddered, dread seeping into his chest, suddenly aware of the chill of the water that he never usually felt. “I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to lose the ability to shift. It would… break me.”
Aegir felt the tight, achy feeling behind his eyes that meant he was about to cry. Losing his ability to shift was more than just not being able to be an orca again, it meant losing his ability to do his job. His shift—his aptitude—was what made him valuable, and without it? He’d just be… a normal human. He’d have to be himself all the time.How horrid. He couldn’t think about it for another second more, so he pressed for more information.
“And you’re absolutely certain that there is no way to reverse it?” He noticed that she’d yet to tell him about the control aspect but he could hardly blame her, he’d be tight lipped about it, too.
“I’m notcertain, but everything I’ve ever heard is that it is permanent. That it’s not a decision to be entered into lightly because of how incredibly binding it is. Many people live as mates for years beforefully committing via a blood binding, that’s how monumental it is.”
“Well," Aegir began. “It’s possible that it is binding as far as your people know. If we exhaust our knowledge here, I do have other resources back home that we might be able to leverage. As I said, I have the ability to change things about my body, so I’ll try to see if I can find any physical hallmarks of the binding inside."
Aegir kept swimming, but turned his attention inward, rifling through his body. He’d always practiced his magic instinctually, but he knew there were people that knew and controlled the inner workings of their bodies in a much more pragmatic manner. So much of how he wielded his lunula came down to consuming the bioluminescent algae, and then willing his body to change. To him, it was as easy as stretching. Most lunologists from their hometown of Sanctuary, Jokith included, could only shift into the one animal form that they spent a great deal of time studying. Otherwise, the rest of their lunology was instinctive.
His people were never ill, because their bodies subconsciously repaired any issues as they happened. Sometimes broken bones would require setting by their local healer, Arndis. She’d mix lunula into concoctions that would make it so that their body needed to do lesshealing on its own, but largely, she focused on the nonhuman residents of Sanctuary.1
In the past two years or so, he’d learned that lunologists outside of Sanctuary didn’t share his people's instinctive wielding, and needed to be much more precise and intentional about the changes they made. Apparently, lunula allowed them to control every bodily process, and an extreme version of that is what allowed him and his people to shift.
Trying to tap into those more precise methods of using lunology, Aegir turned his focus inward, cataloging and checking what he found against the last time he’d done so.2 They swam in silence, but even after at least an hour, he couldn’t find any evidence of the bond.
At first, he’d been convinced that with something as monumental as Elspeth was making it sound, he must have experienced internal changes—especially those that would influence his desire in the way that it was. Astoundingly though, the evidence wasn’t there, regardless of the fact that he was especially aware of her near him.
Most of his fellow shifters used either their human form or their animal form, and rarely stopped shifting partway through. He was one of the few that existed a good deal of his life in a partially shifted state. He likedhis orca form and coloring, and it helped him blend in better in the Empire when he wasn’t in character in some way. As such, even when he was at home, he spent most of his time with non-humans, because he just didn’t stick out as much. Plus, having spent so much time in the Empire, he found that the non-human residents appreciated whatever news he could bring to them. Because of that, he found Elspeth’s partially-shifted state extremely comforting. It seemed she could also pause her shift halfway through, which meant that they both had tails, but more humanoid top halves. They both took on more of their animal’s coloring, and he liked the kinship that it created.
Cocking his head to the side, he realized that he wanted to ask her how she accomplished it. It was easy for him to think about how someone might stop their shift halfway through if they were a lunologist, but to him, it seemed like if her pelt was off, she should be humanoid, or if it was on, she should be a seal.
Regardless, he liked that they looked alike, and what was more, there was a sensuousness to the way her exposed breasts and tail moved through the water. With her pelt coloring covering her so prominently, his mouth watered at all of the little spots and ringsthat covered her chest, imagining licking and sucking at each one, so that she retained deeper elements of her coat when she shifted back via hickeys.
He blinked quickly, shaking his head. What was getting into him? Though he couldn’t find any evidence of it, therehadto be some element of the bond in his body. Because every time he looked at her, his chest felt tight, or his stomach flipped. He tried to chase back those feelings, tried to follow them back to their original nerve impulses in his brain, but there, his knowledge failed him. The electrical impulses and synapses of his brain were far too complex for him to follow. He didn’t have the training to know which parts of his brain were tied to which things, so, he surmised, the bond must be located in his brain.
The next time they swam to the surface to take a breath, he motioned for her to pause before diving again. “I’m trying to figure out what the bond might influence,” he said. “Do you happen to be feeling an inexplicable attraction to me, because I feel like I am slightly obsessed with you?”