Page 61 of Selkie AU: Beyond the Storm

The foxes scurried off into the fray, launching themselves onto the bear poacher and pulling at its fur.

Milo opened the cage door for the bird woman next, and she let out a shriek as her wings flapped and she shot up into the air, moving up through the opening of each floor until she was out of sight.

“Give me a boost here, mate.” Milo beamed at me as he stood in front of the tank with the dark green creature inside it. It was pointing a sharp-looking finger up at what must have been the lock for its tank.

“What is that?” I asked as I went to him, clasping my hands together so he could step onto them and boost himself up high enough to get to the lock.

“A siren,” he said casually, and I almost dropped him.

Siren. Right. Of course it was.

“Are wesurewe should—”

The key turned, and the lock clicked open, and it was too late to question anything as the creature shoved away the heavy metal sealing its tank closed. It was easy to see this particular tank had much thicker glass and much heavier metal than the others. I realized why the moment it opened its mouth andscreamed.

My ears hurt, but the frequency of the noise it made seemed to extend far past what I was capable of hearing. The foxes yelped, dropping from the bear and using their paws to cover their ears. The screaming continued, until the walls seemed to vibrate and the water in the tanks around us rippled. The Aarlinuk and the two horned mermaids covered their ears.

All the glass in the room shattered. I dropped Milo just enough to cling onto him as a wave of water swept my feet from under me. It thinned with the more distance it covered, until it was just one giant puddle filled with broken glass. But at least the screaming had stopped.

The siren rolled around on the ground, an extremely long tongue lolling out of its mouth as it splashed happily in the inch of water it remained in.

“Are you okay?” I asked Milo as I carefully got to my feet again, still refusing to let him go.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, placing a kiss on my cheek. “Now, let’s get these coats and get out of here.”

With the next rumble from the army of orca ramming the base, there was a loud crack, and a pipe in the distance burst. Yeah, it was definitely time to be leaving.

One of the selkies without a coat summoned us over to a closed door, and Milo went through his remaining keys until he found the one that opened it.

The room inside was clearly some kind of processing room, where they cleaned skins and stored their disgusting trophies. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in here a moment longer than we had to, even if the base hadn’t been about to implode around us.

The selkies seemed to know exactly where their coats were, rushing in ahead of us and clawing at the lid of a chest until it opened, and they went through coats that all looked nearly identical to me until they found the ones they were looking for.

Milo tried to wriggle out of my arms, but I held him closer. “There might be broken glass,” I told him.

He rolled his eyes at me. “Fine, then just grab all the other coats.”

The selkies scrambled off with their reclaimed coats, and I bent over until Milo could reach to collect all that remained.

He beamed at me. “We did it. Let’s go home.”

31

Milo

We did it. I knew without a doubt that one of the coats in my arms belonged to Miki. I wasn’t sure what had happened to the selkies who belonged with the others, but their coats would be safe in our colony, and the goddess could guide them home to get them.

As Rowan carried me out of that awful room, we watched as the Naninuk I’d freed shrank, his fur smoothing back into skin, his sharp claws turning back into human-looking fingers. The poacher Naninuk lay unmoving on the ground, surrounded by his teammates and a bunch of little foxes that were still biting and snarling at their unmoving bodies.

Everyone was free.

“They’re going to sink the base,” I told the Aarlinuk and the sea-dwelling folk. “This place will all be underwater soon, and you can go home.”

The siren didn’t seem to mind that they weren’t currently underwater as they continued to roll and splash and stretch out their huge tail. The others would be okay when this place was flooded, but we wouldn’t. We had to leave.

Rowan placed me gently down on the metal steps, above any water or broken glass. The selkies seemed tired, but happy in our victory, as they worked together to pick up and carry those who were unconscious, and the Naninuk helped too, easily scooping up a selkie over each shoulder.

Then we made our way up two levels, and started heading for the boat we’d seen earlier.