Page 19 of The Rake OR The Orca Who Met His Match in a Selkie Desiring Revenge
Aegir handed her a pair of pockets and she tied them around her waist. Then, after a moment's hesitation deciding between the two, Elspeth reached for the green one. She adored the raised flowers and thought the color might look well with her skin. The skirt went on the way that she would expect, as did the bodice and the sleeves.
Turning back to Aegir, she blushed at the look on his face.
"Perfect," he breathed. "Now all we need to do is deal with your hair!" He twirled his finger, indicating that she should face away from him and patted the stone. What on earth was he going on about? Her hair was perfectly normal.
"What’s wrong with my hair?"
"Your hair is just fine, and it’s not that there is a problem, per se, other than the fact that I don’t think we want anyone realizing you’re aselkie. The Empire could’ve put word out, and people could be looking for you." He carded his fingers through her hair, scratching her scalp and making her shiver. The tingles traveled down her spine, prickling her skin and senses awake. "So, if we just—" Aegir cut off, seeming caught up in his work. She didn’t know his plan, but he obviously seemed to have one, and it wasn’t like she knew anything about the fashions around here, if the fabrics were anything to go by.
Periodically, he would make noises of approval or consternation, gently plaiting her hair into whatever design he needed. Eventually, he patted his hands soundly on her shoulders, and announced it complete. With tentative hands, Elspeth explored his handiwork.
The front of her hair, he’d divided into two braids, which swooped down her forehead to incorporate her eyebrow whiskers. It felt strange, having their movement and sensation hindered, but she supposed that perhaps people around these parts didn’t have eyebrow whiskers. The back, he’d twisted atop her head, in a complicated mess she could never hope to replicate. Finally, hepinned the two braids back so that they held her floppy ears aloft, which she assumed made her look decidedly more elfin.
Elspeth blinked rapidly. She didn’t quite know what to make of this man. "So you’re a hairstylist too?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders, and she thought she could just see a hint of a blush working its way onto his cheeks. "I’ve got a gaggle of sisters,” he said. "I’m smack dab in the middle, so I learned a few things. Now, let’s see about getting some information and a room for the night."
1. Faster than normal is a gross understatement. Aegir acknowledges his talent, but until him, no one in Sanctuary had really thought to attempt to morph to multiple forms. Years of practice means he is the most adept shifter I have ever met, able to assimilate and assume a form from a minute amount of genetic material in seconds.
2. Small modifications like this are what allowed Aegir to be so talented. He saw that reconfiguring his skin color each time at a genetic level was less cumbersome than instead modifying it once to be mutable.
3. The fashions of the Pathian Empire and Caihalaith at large serve as further evidence about my cultural stagnation theory. There is no reason that two continents, separated as we were, should share such details as similar fashions after a thousand-year separation, but we see it again and again.
Chapter eight
Aegir
IN WHICH RAKES INEVITABLY HAVE PAST LOVERS WHO ARE BOUNDTO BE DISGRUNTLED
As soon as theywere well into the forest, Aegir noticed Elspeth tripping over roots.
"Seems like you are not used to walking through the forest, I had sort of pegged you for an outdoorsy type of girl," he said.
"I am, normally. But we don’t have forests like this on—my island. We have a few trees, a copse here and there, but certainly nothing like this."
"I imagine you have to look at the ground a fair bit more here then," he said, waving his hand at the base of a tree.
"Oh, we have our fair share of reasons you need to look at the ground, I just didn’t realize how much the leaves were hiding. I can pay attention to the ground all I want, but if theyare determined to trip me, there’s not much I can do about that."
"You’ve got a point," Aegir chuckled.
From then on, Elspeth kept her eyes trained on the ground, which meant Aegir could watch her. She was so tiny compared to him, it made sense when they were both shifted, but he wanted to ask if all selkies were as short as she was, or if it was just her.1 And, he had to admit, he was somewhat abnormally tall.
In the Empire, it made sense, but growing up, he’d always felt huge and awkward. The lone boy in a family of seven children, and the middle child, he towered over even his older sisters by the time he was twelve. In the portrait of the seven of them that hung on his parents’ wall, they looked like a little triangle with him at the top.
As a younger man, he’d been gangly and clumsy, and had spent years learning to subtly modify his body so he wouldn’t feel so alien. He’d even made himself shorter at times, so he wouldn’t stick out in a crowd as much.
It was partly why he had chosen the form that he had. If he was an orca, obviously, it made sense that he was tall. It was why he stayed partially shifted most of the time, so that anyone he interacted with would just assume it was because he was an orca shifter,not because he was just some strange accident of genetics.
With Elspeth though, he felt like his size served a purpose. He was large so that he could scoop her up at any second, or stand in front of her for protection. He smiled to himself as they walked. Surely the bond was getting to him. His stomach felt like it was skittering around inside his torso when she smiled at him or when he caught her elbow to save her from falling.
It was strange, because it wasn’tjustthat he wanted to fuck her. Which he did, of course, but in the strangest turn, he found himself instead fantasizing about mundane things. He thought about waking in the morning to her hair splayed across his chest. About mapping all of the markings strewn across her body. She would smile at him, and he’d picture her on the bow of his ship, hair whipping in the breeze.
This bond must be a powerful thing, because it made himwant, it made him hunger for things he never dreamed he’d be able to have. For so long, he’d presented one character or another to the world, but he wanted her to knowhimrather than some persona he’d created.
The problem was, he wasn’t sure he remembered who he really was anymore.
He knew his characters well, the rakish captain, the beguiling Elvish officer who charmed people into letting their guard down, the charismatic orc, who was a man of the people and so many more. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost whatever it was that made him,himand filled it up with bits of characters he’d read in books.