The Alpha's Selkie Mate

The forest was alive. Alive in a way that the endless plains of ice and snow of home could never be. Everything around her, so full of the stuff that kept the world turning. Buzzing. Breathing. Beautiful. She felt it all like fizzing fireflies in her blood, lighting her up from the inside. It was new. And it was exciting. From the scent of pollen being carried on top the ocean breeze, to the thick trunks of the trees that cozied up beside her. Just like her brother used to on the coldest of Antarctic nights, when they were still pups suckling at their mother’s rich milk. Alive. She took in the perfume of pine and smoke, letting it fill her lungs fit to bursting. Meriwa had never smelled anything like it, saccharine and beguiling but with something else that hit in the back of her throat. Just so. It beckoned her closer like her mother would when she had a secret to share, as the three of them lay curled up in the heart of their hollowed-out lair in the ice floes. Here, however, it didn’t hurt to take it into herself, not like the salt-soaked winter air of the south. Where it felt like your lungs might frost over and never move again. It was sweet. And it was everything. Soft, new leaves grazed her cheeks and the open palms of her hands as she wandered deeper into the dark space between the trees, helpless to do anything else but to allow her eyes to adjust and take it in. They tickled and delighted. Branches snapped beneath her bare soles, dirt clumping up between her odd, squat little toes to mix with the sand she’d tracked up from the beach. Perhaps if she stopped too long, she herself would become a creature of the earth rather than the sea. Would her human feet root into the forest floor and make purchase? Maybe she’d become just another tall, straight thing in this stand of trees. No, that was silly. The ramblings of novelty. If such a thing were possible, the shaman would have mentioned it, if only to scare the pups into doing what they were told. There was only one shape a selkie could take: that of a human. And they had to willingly shed their pelt to do so. Just as Meriwa had done, even though it was forbidden. To her. To all females of her kind, who were kept and fed and bred till they died. Not to the males, of course, who could do as they pleased without being thrown to the pale mercy of the southern seas. Where a lone selkie was a tempting, and easy, morsel for a pod of orcas. But no one had to know what she’d done, where she’d gone. Her parents didn’t care about her anyway; they all needed time to come to terms with Panuk’s death. This was true, especially of their— her pitiful mother, who was even more of a shell of a female than she usually was these days. In the days after his death, she’d barely eaten or slept, just lay there as her life-preserving blubber melted off of her speckled, grey body. Meriwa only hoped that she had a mother to return to. She would. She had to. Her father wouldn’t suffer the stigma of letting his mate die like that. No, time would heal everything, just as the shaman said. By the time she went back, everything would be fine. Nothing would ever be fine again, a small voice inside her said, as it often did. How could it be, when there was a gaping hole left inside of her where her other half, her better half, her exacerbating twin (so rare and sacred a thing amongst their kind) should be? Not even traveling to the other end of the Earth had been enough to get away from the feeling of emptiness that he’d left behind. She had to go back. For Panuk and for her ailing mother. He’d always been the good one, the dependable one. A worthy heir for her father, a doting son for her mother. The epitome of a fine selkie, big and strong for a male with a shiny, dark coat and voice that would make a siren weep with envy. Not like Meriwa. Nothing like her. Not restless and wriggling, too headstrong for her father, and too wild for her mother. But she’d be better, for them. More like Panuk and less like herself…nothing like herself. She’d go back and care for her mother as best she could, maybe even coax some life back into her. She’d obey her father without question for once. It would be hard but she would do it. She had to. And then she’d mate with whoever her father and the shaman chose for her and keep their bloodline strong. For Panuk. She’d be his legacy now. It was the only way for her to atone for her sins. She would make it up to him, she would. She swore it on his grave, though there had been nothing left of him to give to the ocean. I have to go home. Just as Meriwa was turning to go get her pelt, slip back beneath the waves and race the ocean current home to be with her mother and the ghost of her twin, something low and thudding began. One, then twice. And then on and on. Quiet, then louder and louder. Until it was all she could hear. Like thunder, but not. Music, rolling drum beats that were dark and deep and spoke in curling whispers to the small, primitive part of her brain sank into the raw earth beneath her feet. There, it spread out like ripples across the surface of a still pond. She had no idea how far it would go before it faded to nothing. It felt like it would go on forever. It was, she thought, the world’s throbbing heartbeat. And she felt it within her, nestled next to her own. They almost beat in perfect synchronicity, barely the lull of a full second between her and everything. She blinked, looking around the dark forest as though it held the answers to questions that she wasn’t even sure of yet. How? And why? And most importantly, where? Deeper, that much was clear. The forest seemed to sway in agreement, silver moonlight suddenly filtering in from overhead, through the leaves and netted branches, to paint swirling kaleidoscope patterns on the forest floor. This way, the leaves whispered in a soft rustle. Meriwa swallowed against the lump in her throat. She had to find out where that was coming from and who was making that delicious music. More sounds had joined the drums, something hissing and staccato and another something that sounded like the piercing wind. Her skin itched with the need to know, to see what was making those noises. It’s probably just the friends of the two females I passed on the beach, she tried to tell herself. The two shifters – she’d been able to smell them a mile away – females hadn’t noticed her as Meriwa happened upon the trail of their clothes leading from the edge of the forest, across the beach, and into the waves. They were too wrapped up in each other, their laughter the refrain punctuating the chorus of obvious, well-worn love, to notice her. Or the fact she’d taken the pale blue dress one had left behind. She knew little of the human world, but she did know that they didn’t take kindly to nudity. Meriwa had no idea if these shifters were the same. The dress was small but it would do. Do for what? she berated herself, reaching up to tangle her too-many-fingers in her mane of hair. It felt odd to her, new. That shouldn’t have excited her as much as it did. But this knowledge should be forbidden to her… wasn’t that thrilling in and of itself? She knew something others of her kind didn’t. Just like she could know about those drums. Curiosity getting the better of her, Meriwa marched towards the music. There was nothing tentative in her steps. She would know. She gasped when she came across a large clearing in the forest. A massive bonfire dominated the center of the clearing, the flames rising towards the break in the canopy. Orange sparks and tendrils danced, reaching up and up as though they would touch the stars. The shadows it cast jumped from tree to tree and flickered across the ground at her feet. Black and orange and green. There wasn’t a hint of icy white in sight. But that wasn’t what made her gasp. It was the hundred or so shifters that did that. They milled around the clearing like a discordant school of fish, some clumping together, others having broken free to go off on their own. They were laughing and drinking, smiles bathed in the shadow of the fire that warmed their backs. But it was the offshoot, those closest to the flames, that danced. The pirouetting vines of fire had nothing on them, the way they slithered and ground against one another – as though they were lost in another world entirely. Meriwa felt like she was looking at everything with brand new eyes. Just like her, the trees that ringed the clearing trembled like newborns. Was it from exhilaration too - did mother nature feel it as keenly as she did? Young pines and birches, their fresh, newly-minted leaves quivered despite the absence of any wind. The copse of forest was thick enough to shelter itself and the people writhing without abandon from the wind that scraped across the beach. Under the drums and rattles were the strings and winds of life: the chirp of a distant cricket, the shrill wail of a grasshopper, and the melancholic passing of an owl overhead. All of it blended in a kind of harmony. It wasn't perfect, nor discordant...but wasn't that life, even when it flourished? Meriwa had never felt so…alive. So many sounds and smells and feelings. Excitement bubbled in her blood, like her heart was a deep-water volcano that was ready to fissure and blow itself apart. Her limbs carried that excitement and moving was all she could do to stop herself from exploding with feeling. She headed into the heart of the dancers, her feet silent on the ground. They paid her no mind, parting for her without thought. Memories flickered in her mind's eye as she moved, like a stilted slide show. For once, it wasn't an unwelcome intrusion: a barrage of images in stunning, strobing black and white, or eddies of blinding color that would leave her head feeling like it was splitting open. But it wasn't so bad tonight. The images that she saw now were of her people and of her people. They had danced too, once upon a time. She didn't know when or where this had been; the memories didn't work like that. They came and went on a whim, crashing into her life and leaving her with more than she'd had when they'd come. But they'd danced. In their human forms. Naked and shameless under the bright eye of the moon, their long, pale feet sure as they writhed and pounded the ice in service to the Goddess watching and shining overhead. Like tonight, they have revered the bright full moon, sitting low tonight on the summer solstice. Soon, the long nights would start and the cycle would go on. But they’d danced and they’d worshipped. Just like the shifters who belonged to the land on which she stood. Full moon. New beginnings. Maybe that's why it was so easy for her now, to give herself over to something that should have been foreign to her. Her human form shouldn't have felt as comfortable to her as it did, it shouldn't have moved so well and been so natural. Females were forbidden to shed their pelts, or so the shamans said. Only males could know the land and all that it entailed. If anyone knew what she'd done, she'd be cast out from her people. A lone selkie rarely survived long in the frigid and unforgiving waters of what the thickly- dressed humans carrying drills and cameras had called Antarctica. She was such a long way from home. Something was electrifying about that. It wasn't the other end of the world like she'd wanted, but it might well have been seeing how different it was from home. It didn't matter that she didn't quite fit here, the shifters didn't seem to notice or care about her dancing among them – they were too lost in their celebrations. Maybe it was the too-small dress she'd stolen from the beach that smelled of honey and pine. Many of the shifters, in their human forms, were gathered around a central bonfire that was half again as tall as her. Some were drinking and laughing, teeth flashing in the dark. Others were already in varying stages of undress. One she-wolf, in particular, was already on her hands and knees between two striking, naked-chested males. Whatever they were doing to her, she was in an open-mouthed state of bliss, golden eyes rolling back in her head. It made Meriwa's skin prickle just to look at it. And she found she could barely look away, despite the strange feelings, languid and wet, that it stirred in her belly. She was no newly weaned pup – she knew what mating was. She'd just never known it to occur between more than two mated selkies. It wasn't like she hadn't heard things either. Males taking their pleasure from their mates. Sometimes more than their fill, more than they were offered. Just recalling their grunts and chuffs made her skin crawl more than any orca call could. She pushed those thoughts out of her mind; there would be plenty of time to think of home once she was forced to head back. The fire twirled towards her, licking closer to her sensitized skin. She'd never felt anything like it. Sore and yet not; every touch and brush against her forced her to new heights. There was something almost pleasant about it, sensation just shy of utterly torturous. Every feeling and sense was pushed to its limits. How could anyone feel so much and not fly apart? Meriwa didn’t know how much she could take. She was so small, and everything else so vast and unknown. She could take a bite of these feelings and never get enough, never experience the same thing twice. This, she thought, is adventure. Freedom. Everything her restless heart could ever want. In her true form, her thick blubber meant that she was never cold, but summer at home was short and unforgiving. The sun never left things as warm as this fire. Flowers bloomed for what felt like the blink of an eye before crumpling under the first clawing touch of frost. But not here, not now. Here, the bright orange light cast shifting shadows over the sea of writhing bodies. Skin slid, clothes caught and pulled, soaked through to the skin. They moved like one massive, heaving organism. There could be nothing else like it. This is what it is to experience and feel, to flourish and thrive. Novelty was water, and she was awash in the desert. Sweat raced down her back, collecting in the hollow at the base of her spine. It beaded like morning dew on the ends of her lashes and the arch of her brows – those strange hairy lines on her face. It was a haven of warmth, shadows, and light. The dress she'd stolen was sheer with sweat – hers and others. It hid nothing at all. Her body was on display but she was not ashamed. This body was new to her but it was natural; did she not have all the same parts as these she-wolves? It had been tricky at first, being so high up on stilted legs, but she'd got the hang of it quickly enough. It was strange. Her muscles were slower to react but it had its own kind of strength, a grace that she'd only ever experienced during the thrill of the hunt when chasing and turning and hunting down penguins or seals. The whispers of stories told to her long ago, before she and Panuk had opened their eyes, came to her like smoke. She ignored them. She would have this one night. A moment of freedom. Adventure. Enough to last her a lifetime. It had to be. And then she'd trudge back to her prison and be kept and fed and bred until she died.