Under an Enchantment: A Novella by Anne Stuart

wanted to? Would she for him?
    He could only ask. When the sun rose, he would rise as well, dress, and make his way to the dower house. If they refused to let him see her, he’d find a way to get to her. He’d tell her the truth. He was no bewitched creature, come to claim her to a faerie world. He was nemesis, and she’d gotten in his way.
    It was his duty, he told himself. His responsibility, to take her back with him, to wed her, in case, as she insisted, there was a bairn from this night’s work. But despite what he told himself, it felt like no duty he’d ever performed in his life. It felt like his heart’s desire.
    He closed his eyes, drifting into sleep, when he heard the voice. It was a true spaewife, keening, eerie, soft on the morning dampness, insinuating itself into his sleeping mind. “Mind yon lassie,” the voice moaned. “The seal hunter has her.”
    A nightmare, he told himself, opening one eye to glance around the deserted bedroom. There was no one there, but the voice came at him from the comers of the room. “Domnhall’s ta’en her,” the voice said. “And only you can save her.”
    He sat up, throwing back the covers as panic speared through him. “Who’s there?”
    No answer from the empty house. Just the keening of the rising wind, the rush of the surf against the shore, and the sense of dread that seeped into his bones. He knew. This was no nightmare. Ailie was in danger from the seal hunter.
    He threw on his clothes as he ran, still fastening his shirt on the stairs as he barreled into Collis. The dawn had scarcely risen, and the house was dark with shadows, yet there was no missing the expression on the old man’s face.
    “ Something’s wrong,” Collis said abruptly. “I was pulled from a good night’s sleep and sent to ye, and I dinna like it one bit. Where’s the mistress? Did ye harm her?”
    A brief vision flashed through Malcolm’s mind—Ailie in his arms, crying out in pleasure and sorrow. “No,” he said, wondering if he lied. “I think the seal hunter’s taken her.”
    “ Are ye daft yourself, man? Why in God’s name would Domnhall dare touch her? Torquil would have his heart for it.”
    Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t know. I heard a voice as I was sleeping. I think I saw a face. An old woman, with streaky white-and-black hair and eyes like coals, and she told me only I could rescue Ailie.”
    “ Christ!” Collis looked properly shocked. “You’ve seen Morag then. She never shows herself to most folk. Mayhap you’re a selkie after all.”
    “ Don’t waste my time, old man. Where would Domnhall have taken her?”
    Collis shook his head. “He knows this island better than almost anyone. Except for Ailie. He has a croft not far from mine, though I doubt he’d take her there. There’s a storehouse by the water where he keeps his sealskins. No one goes there—the smell is dreadful, and people say it’s cursed. He might have taken her there.”
    “ I’ll check the storehouse—you go to the croft.”
    “ He’s a dangerous man, selkie. Bigger than you, forebye, with a dirty way of fighting. Mind you don’t find yourself gutted and skinned.”
    “ A fine end for a selkie. I have to save Ailie first.” Malcolm moved past him, heading for the door, when Collis’s voice followed him.
    “ And what was the mistress doing out at this hour of the day, that Domnhall could have ta’en her?”
    Malcolm paused by the door, turning to look up at the dour old man. “Giving herself to the selkie, old man. And I’m not about to lose her now.”
     
    His grandparents’ cottage was at the far end of the island, away from the tiny harbor town. He started through the woods, going by instinct alone, half-blind in the shadows and mist, until he sprawled across something that had once been living flesh.
    It wasn’t Ailie’s lifeless body. That knowledge made him shake, with relief and fury, as he stared at the corpse of the gentle seal. The man who had done