Rainlashed Read Online Free

asked desperately, running after him and pulling on his coat sleeve. “I can give your ships good fortune on the sea. I can shower you in pearls from the oyster beds. Just name your price.”
    He was impervious to her pleading. “I have named my price already. I will have your skin or I will have nothing.”
    “My skin or nothing?”
    His heart steeled against pity, he nodded.
    Big, translucent tears pearled at the corner of her eyes. As he watched her, one of them fell and ran unheeded down the whiteness of her face. With trembling hands, she held out the skin to him, letting it fall barely an inch away from her body, as if she could not bear to part with it a moment sooner than she had to. Her arms trembled and her voice shook. “Then I accept your price.”
    With one hand he held out the girl child’s seal skin, while with the other he took a firm grasp of the black-haired selkie’s skin. The selkie hesitated a moment, then glanced at the girl still lying curled on the beach, her tear-stained face turned up in mute entreaty.
    He gave a slight tug on the black fur and the deal was done. His prize was won.
    He held the skin to his chest with a feeling of utter exultation. The selkie whose skin he had captured watched him with eyes of hopeless longing, and the young girl on the beach let out a loud wail and covered her eyes with her hands as if she could not bear to see.
    The dark-haired selkie turned her back on him and hurried back to the young girl on the beach. “Hush, Caity, dry your tears. I have your skin for you.”
    The girl did not reach out for it as he had expected. “You gave him yours,” she sobbed. “You gave him yours for it.”
    “You are my sister and I love you. I could do nothing else.”
    “You will die on land.”
    “I am stronger than you may think. And stronger by far than you are.” She stroked the weeping girl’s hair. “Come, take your skin and get you gone.”
    The girl took her skin and got to her feet unsteadily. Her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and determination, she approached him warily as he stood on the rocks by the cliff. “Maya made an evil b-bargain with you,” she stuttered, her voice a pale shadow. “Take my skin and give Maya back her own.”
    He shook his head. All her bravery could avail her nothing. His fantasy was within his grasp and no plea, however piteous, could change his mind. “I will not swap it back again.”
    “She should never have traded her freedom for mine.”
    “The bargain is made and cannot be unmade. Besides, I do not want your skin. I never wanted it.” He raised his eyebrows in the direction of the black-haired selkie. “I only want hers.”
    She stood her ground, though he could see her trembling with fear. “You had no right to take it. Give Maya back her skin.”
    The black-haired selkie, Maya, came to stand by the frightened girl child. “You are wasting your breath,” she murmured so quietly he could barely hear her. “He is a human not a selkie, and deaf to any cry for pity. He will not relent. Now please go.”
    The girl turned towards her, her eyes full of anguish. “I cannot leave you.”
    Maya hugged the girl tightly to her before letting her go and pushing her away with a gentle hand. “Be off with you.” Still the child hesitated until Maya added softly. “Do not let my sacrifice have been in vain.”
    Her words finally convinced the girl child to step into her skin and slither into the water.
    Tears falling down her face, Maya stood at the water’s edge and waved farewell as the seal pup dived into the crashing waves and, with one last flick of her tail, disappeared beneath the sea foam.
    Maya watched with relief as Caity swam through the green-blue waters of the sheltered bay and out to the open sea. Caity was safe now. No remorseless human could catch her now and rob her of her seal skin. She had not failed in her duty towards her young sister.
    She might not have failed to take care of her sister, but she had