“He’s fine,” he reassured the woman, and made a silent promise to make sure that was true. He sent out a psychic warning to whoever else was out there to stay safe while they got ashore.
“Oh. Good.”
The child shifter’s confusion popped against Arlo’s mind as the woman lifted her up over the side of the rowboat. She flailed against the woman’s attempts to put her on board. Arlo trod water, keeping the woman and boat steady and sending reassurance to the little girl until she let herself be safely deposited inside the boat.
“Now you,” he said firmly.
“Right…”
Arlo hauled himself hand-over-hand to the other side of the rowboat and called that he was ready. The woman took a deep, shaking breath and Arlo’s heart froze.
Then she muttered something under her breath, kicked up and pulled herself over the side. She rolled into the boat with a clatter and a bitten-off curse.
The seal pup wobbled over her and was trying to clamber into her lap before she was even sitting upright.
“Okay. Okay, this is all… hey, honey, hey, there you are. Don’t worry. It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Happiness bubbled across Arlo’s mind as the woman picked the seal pup up and cuddled her. Despite himself, he smiled. Shifter kids that young shared their emotions with everyone nearby. The little girl’s joy was infectious.
“There has to be a light here somewhere,” the woman muttered. “What do you think, sweetheart? Are we going to find a light?”
“Should be under the seat,” Arlo called.
“Got it. Watch your eyes.” Arlo looked away and heard a click as she turned on the lantern. White light turned the water around the boat into a cauldron of stars. “Oh, that’s better.”
Her voice was clearer, no longer shaking with shock—but she had to be freezing.
Arlo looked up, but her face was hidden in shadows cast by the harsh light.
“Ready for me to come up?” he called, and the woman shifted her weight to the opposite side of the boat.
“Go on,” she said, and Arlo pulled himself aboard.
Even though she was balancing the boat, Arlo weighed more than her and the scrap of a seal pup combined, so the boat rocked as he climbed aboard. The woman reached out to steady him, one arm still safely around the pup.
Arlo got his footing and looked up, about to tell her he was fine, he spent more time on the water than on land—and then their eyes met, and his mind went blank.
She was—she was…
She was leaning too far forward, her hand on his shoulder, and the boat was rocking. Her foot slipped and she fell toward him.
Arlo grabbed her and pulled her onto the seat next to him. There was hardly enough space; she was pressed in tight against him. No, not just pressed in. She was leaning against him, gasping with the cold.
Arlo wrapped one arm around her shoulder, the other over her hands. Her fingers were cold. He knew he should say something, but his throat was too tight.
His eyes strained like a drowning man reaching for the surface, calling on his shifter abilities to improve his sight. He felt like a man on the edge of a precipice. He felt like he was going to jump. Then the lantern rolled in the bottom of the rowboat, illuminating them both.
Her hair was flattened against her head, dark red made darker by the water. Her face was pale with cold and shock, her lips parted as she caught her breath, dark circles around her eyes where her make-up had smeared. And her hazel eyes caught Arlo like a fish in a net.
Warmth blossomed inside Arlo despite the cold air and colder water. For half a heartbeat, he thought the feelings of love and homecoming were coming from the little bundle in the woman’s arms. A young shifter, reacting instinctively to a kind touch.
That lasted until he breathed in, and the woman’s scent filled his senses.
The emotions he was feeling weren’t the seal shifter’s.
They were his.
He wasn’t in the water anymore, he told himself. He had all the air he needed, even if his chest felt like there were iron bands around it.