Wickedly Wonderful (Baba Yaga, #2)(98)
Beka grimaced in sympathy at the shocked expression on Marcus’s face and bowed politely to Gwrtheyrn and Boudicca. “It is a generous offer, Your Majesty, and kindly meant. We thank you for it.”
Belatedly, Marcus added his own, “Uh, yeah, thanks.”
“It is the least we could do, after all that you have given to us, who are not your people or even your own race,” the King said.
He turned to Beka. “We will return here tomorrow night to hear the tale of your attempt to cleanse our waters. It is fervently hoped that the results will be successful, but either way, we are most grateful for your efforts on our behalf, and for healing our sick.” He gave her a serious look. “We had the utmost faith in you, Baba Yaga, even when you doubted yourself. So far, you have more than proven yourself worthy of the title.”
Beka flushed, pleased beyond measure by his words, while at the same time trying not to panic about the possibility of failing at the next part of her task.
“I endeavor to do my best,” she said. “And it is my pleasure to serve.”
They all bowed one more time, and the King and Queen and their guards turned to head back into the sea.
“We will be here at the downing of the sun tomorrow,” Gwrtheyrn said over one bulky shoulder. “If your father wishes to join us, fisherman, he should attend us then. If the Baba Yaga can cure the waters as she cured my people, I suspect it will be long and longer before we come this way again.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
ALONE ON THE beach with Beka, Marcus sat down on a large rock. It had been a long day, but he wasn’t quite ready to go home yet. If nothing else, he had to figure out how on earth he was going to explain the Selkie King’s offer to his father. Obviously he was going to have to start with something along the lines of, “Oh, by the way, Da, Selkies are real,” and move on from there. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to tell his father about the offer.
“How are you doing?” Beka asked softly, sitting down next to him. Her voice seemed to harmonize with the sound of the waves hitting the shore and the calls of the night birds as they winged on their way to their nests. Now that she was healthy again, she had regained her usual glow, the blond hair he loved so much loose now from its braid and falling in a shimmering wave down her back.
Marcus shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know. It had already been the most bizarre day in my entire life. And now this.” He gazed at her in the near darkness, her lovely face made eerie by the rising nearly-full moon and the faint light from passing cars on the road above. “Things have certainly gotten interesting since I met you, Beka.”
She winced. “Interesting good? Or interesting as in the ancient Chinese curse: ‘May you live in interesting times’?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “A little bit of both, I guess.” They sat in silence for a minute, and he hoped he hadn’t hurt her feelings, but he wasn’t going to lie to her and pretend that this was easy for him. He suspected she wouldn’t believe him if he said it was.
“So what’s bothering you right now?” she finally asked. “Clearly something is. I’d like to help, if I can.” She put one hand on his bare arm, and the warmth of her skin touching his moved him more than he could say. It was as if all the caring and passion between them had been summed up in that one simple gesture. But he just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to appreciate it right now.
“It was bad enough to discover that there are really such things as magic and Merpeople and Selkies,” he said. “I’m not sure I could deal with having a father who was one.”
Beka gazed into his eyes. Even in the near darkness, those blue irises were vivid and clear like sapphires, able to see through his surface fears down to the soul underneath.
“Which are you more afraid of?” she asked. There was no judgment in her voice. “That he will decide to take the King up on the chance to live life as a Selkie? Or that he won’t?”
“I’ll lose him either way,” Marcus said, bitterness lying on his tongue like acid. “The chemotherapy has stopped working, and the doctors say there isn’t anything else they can do.”
He was surprised to find out how deeply he cared. Somehow during his days on the boat, sharing close quarters with the father he thought he’d hate forever, he’d come to terms with his anger and resentment toward the man. They would never be close, and what affection they had for each other would always have an element of strain to it, but affection there was nonetheless. And now . . . this. A choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.
“I can’t tell you how to feel,” Beka said, tucking her arm around him and leaning her head against his shoulder, so they both sat facing toward the changeable sea. “But you might want to think about this: the ocean is in your father’s blood already. Maybe he would prefer a life lived in the element he loves to the prospect of a slow death on land.”
“No matter how strange that life is?” Marcus couldn’t even wrap his mind around the possibility.
“Aren’t all things strange to us when they’re new? I’m sure that life in the Marines seemed strange in the beginning.”
She had a point. He remembered how alien it had all been, all rules and regulations, and well-ordered training. And no ocean, when that had been all he’d known his whole life. Then the military became normal, until he’d left it to come home, and had to adjust all over again.