The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance (Trisha Telep) (Kitty Norville 0.50)

“We’ll go away, you and I.”

He looked away and laughed silently. He kissed her hand and shook his head.

It was a game to him. She couldn’t be sure what he thought; he never spoke. She didn’t know if he couldn’t or wouldn’t.

“Why not?”

He traced his finger along her jaw, down her neck. Then he nestled against the rock and closed his eyes.

She couldn’t hope to understand him. Colonel Ottoman was right, they weren’t even human.

His seal skin lay nearby, on the rock where he had discarded it. She grabbed it, jumped into the water and swam to the door. He splashed, diving after her, but she climbed onto the catwalk and slammed the door shut before he reached her.

She stood, clutching the skin to her breast. Glaring at her, he gripped the bars of the locked door.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t do this.”

He pressed his lips into a line and rattled the door.

She put the skin out of reach of the cage and pulled on the slacks and shirt of her uniform. All expressions of playfulness, of seduction, had left the selkie. His jaw was tight, his brow furrowed.

Skin in hand, she ran to the main lab where she found a knapsack stashed under her desk. She needed clothes for him, maybe an extra lab coat . . .

“You know how all the selkie stories end, don’t you?” Rick leaned on his window.

“They’re just stories.”

“I’m just a story.”

She smirked. “You’re no Dracula.”

“You’ve never seen me outside this cage, my dear.”

She stopped and looked at him. His eyes were blue.

“Robin, think carefully about what you’re planning. He has enchanted you.” The vampire’s worried expression seemed almost fatherly.

“I - I can’t give him up.”

“Outside this room, you won’t have a choice. You will throw away your career, your life, for that?”

The official acronym for it was AWOL, not to mention stealing from a government installation. Her career, as far as Robin could tell, amounted to studying people in cages. People who defied study, no matter how many cameras and electrodes were trained on them. The selkie had shown her something that couldn’t be put in a cage, a range of emotions that escaped examination. He’d shown her passion, something she’d been missing without even knowing it. She wanted to take him away from the sterility of a filtered aquarium and a steel cage. She wanted to make love with him on a beach, with the sound of ocean waves behind them.

“I have this.” She held up the knapsack in which she had stuffed the seal skin and left the lab to stash it in her car and find some clothes.

For all its wonder and secrecy, the Center was poorly funded - it didn’t produce the results and military applications that the nearby bionic and psychic research branches did - and inadequately supervised.

She knew the building and video surveillance patterns well enough to be able to smuggle the selkie to her car without leaving evidence. Not that it mattered, when Rick would no doubt give Colonel Ottoman a full report. She waited until close to the end of the shift to retrieve the selkie. He came with her docilely, dressed in the spare sweats she gave him.

Marina sat on her rock and sang, her light voice echoing in the lab.

The selkie lingered for a moment until Marina waved goodbye. Robin pulled him to the next room.

“Sir,” Rick, hands pressed to the plastic of his cell, called. The selkie met Rick’s gaze, unflinching. “I know your kind. Treat her gently.”

The selkie didn’t react. He seemed to study the vampire, expressionless, and only looked away when Robin squeezed his hand.

Robin lingered a moment. “Goodbye,” she said.