Fated Mates | Steeped In Folklore | Guaranteed HEA
Packed to the gills with Orcadian, Norse, Celtic, and Pict folklore, these short stories are perfect if you like broody tales of the ocean and have saltwater in you veins. Each story is a standalone with an HEA. Please note that all tales are loosely based off of folklore with my own personal spin and are integrated into my much larger multiverse, Evigheden.
#1 The Merman's Bride
A MerMay monster romance novelette that will resonate with those who have seawater in their veins and longing as deep as the ocean itself.
SORCHA
I grew up more at home wandering the beaches and skittering up the rocky landscape of Skiren with the wild North Ronaldsay sheep than with the people of Janthina. Half-wild, autistic, and terrible with people, I worked as a local wildlife expert and conservationist until my singing drew something inhuman to the shore. Murex is a merman, a wild Seelie Sidhe, something I'd only ever heard of in tales told in the winter months when Teran held sway. He doesn't speak but listens to me talk about my special interests, and occasionally brings me trinkets from the sea and I bring him things from the island I think he might like.
As our friendship grows, the gore vellye approaches with its autumn storms like a dark omen. A man from Janthina has set his sights on me, wanting to tame me and make me his wife. When I deny him, he pushes me from the cliffs to my death. But will death truly be what's awaiting me in the fathomless deep, or a whole new beginning with the one person who has ever understood me?
REX
Curiosity is what had led me to the island where the Sea Mither bound the vile Nuckelavee for the summer months. But a human woman's clear, lilting song binds me to the isle as surely as the Sea Mither binds the Nuckelavee to Skiren's Brynebound Cove. She was lovely and strange, her mind a wondrous beacon, more Seelie than human as I watched over her daily wanderings.
When she scorns a human man and is thrown from the cliffs, her soul hits the turbulent waters below, and I feel it crackle along my skin like lightning. I rush to save her because she's not just my friend, but my mate. She was mine to claim. But by the laws of the Sea Mither, she had to claim me in return within three days. Could I convince her to leave all she’d ever known behind and become my bride before the laws of the Sea Mither demand her life? Or will I have to spare her by following her ashore, turning to sea foam as the last ray of light caressed the Mither Stone?
***
The small inhabited northernmost isle amongst the Orkney Islands, the Isle of Skiren, is cut off from the world for half the year by violent storms. It is said to be the home of the Sea Mither, a spirit as old as the Orkneys themselves, a fierce warrior in a constant battle against her nemesis Teran, and a benevolent protector of the folk who inhabit that lone bit of rock and the cove it surrounds. During the summer, the sleepy waters of Brynebound Cove, the skies and waters surrounding Skiren, and its town of Janthina seem to be gods-blessed. Tourism booms, but not all who visit Skiren find their way back home again.
This story and those that follow hereafter in the Fathomless Deep Series are loosely inspired by Orcadian, Norse, Scottish, and Celtic folklore. The Isle of Skiren and all its locations are a creation of the author and do not exist in real life.
SORCHA
I grew up more at home wandering the beaches and skittering up the rocky landscape of Skiren with the wild North Ronaldsay sheep than with the people of Janthina. Half-wild, autistic, and terrible with people, I worked as a local wildlife expert and conservationist until my singing drew something inhuman to the shore. Murex is a merman, a wild Seelie Sidhe, something I'd only ever heard of in tales told in the winter months when Teran held sway. He doesn't speak but listens to me talk about my special interests, and occasionally brings me trinkets from the sea and I bring him things from the island I think he might like.
As our friendship grows, the gore vellye approaches with its autumn storms like a dark omen. A man from Janthina has set his sights on me, wanting to tame me and make me his wife. When I deny him, he pushes me from the cliffs to my death. But will death truly be what's awaiting me in the fathomless deep, or a whole new beginning with the one person who has ever understood me?
REX
Curiosity is what had led me to the island where the Sea Mither bound the vile Nuckelavee for the summer months. But a human woman's clear, lilting song binds me to the isle as surely as the Sea Mither binds the Nuckelavee to Skiren's Brynebound Cove. She was lovely and strange, her mind a wondrous beacon, more Seelie than human as I watched over her daily wanderings.
When she scorns a human man and is thrown from the cliffs, her soul hits the turbulent waters below, and I feel it crackle along my skin like lightning. I rush to save her because she's not just my friend, but my mate. She was mine to claim. But by the laws of the Sea Mither, she had to claim me in return within three days. Could I convince her to leave all she’d ever known behind and become my bride before the laws of the Sea Mither demand her life? Or will I have to spare her by following her ashore, turning to sea foam as the last ray of light caressed the Mither Stone?
***
The small inhabited northernmost isle amongst the Orkney Islands, the Isle of Skiren, is cut off from the world for half the year by violent storms. It is said to be the home of the Sea Mither, a spirit as old as the Orkneys themselves, a fierce warrior in a constant battle against her nemesis Teran, and a benevolent protector of the folk who inhabit that lone bit of rock and the cove it surrounds. During the summer, the sleepy waters of Brynebound Cove, the skies and waters surrounding Skiren, and its town of Janthina seem to be gods-blessed. Tourism booms, but not all who visit Skiren find their way back home again.
This story and those that follow hereafter in the Fathomless Deep Series are loosely inspired by Orcadian, Norse, Scottish, and Celtic folklore. The Isle of Skiren and all its locations are a creation of the author and do not exist in real life.