Rainlashed

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Rainlashed

ISBN # 1-4199-0347-0

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Rainlashed Copyright© 2006 Leda Swann

Edited by Briana St. James.

Cover art by Philip Fuller.

Electronic book Publication: January 2006

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Warning:

The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers.
This story
has been rated E–roti
c by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

S-
ensuous
love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

E-
rotic
love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated
titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

X-
treme
titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline
execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

Chapter One

His wildest fantasies had come true. The selkies had returned.

Iain Argyle, Earl of Stoneleigh, stood behind the rock as still as if he were a stone monument like those that stood in the chapel on the hill behind him. He would not startle them, not yet. Not until he had them in his power and they were unable to escape his clutches.

He gazed at them with fierce intent, careless of the cold rain battering his face, drenching his thick cloak and running in icy rivulets down his neck and inside his collar.

Once before when he was little more than a boy he had seen them on the shore like they were now, their seal skins set to one side as they washed themselves in the rainwater. Entranced by the sight of so much naked beauty and filled with boyish enthusiasm and foolish naiveté he had strode openly out to greet them. In his simple mindedness he had thought they would welcome him with open arms, perhaps even take him as their playmate.

He had wanted little enough from them then. A kiss from each of them—a simple kiss—and he would have been happy to let them go back to the water where they belonged. He had wanted most of all to look at them and perhaps to touch their cool skin with gentle hands. Just to have touched a pair of naked breasts would have been enough back then, in his heightened state, to have made him come in his pants. Even in his wildest fantasies he had aspired to nothing more.

They had wanted no such playmate as he. Robbing him even of one touch of their smooth skin, they had slipped away from him as fast as water disappears into the ground. The sound of mocking laughter as they had swum away from him still burned in his ears, tormenting him even more than the memory of their perfect, naked bodies, shamelessly cavorting in the rain.

He was older and wiser now and would not let them escape so easily a second time. Before he saw them return to the ocean again, he would have more than a kiss to remember them by. He would have one of these strange seal women, he would steal her away and make her his own, and he would possess all the secrets of her body. She would belong to him until he tired of her and let her return to her own kind. Over and over again he would take his willing captive, his hungry cock thrusting and pumping away inside her slick body until he had burned out the fruitless passion for these wild sea creatures that had haunted him mercilessly for so many years.

With a fierce burst of self-control he tamped down his rising lust. He could not afford to be distracted by the strength of his desire, not when the prize was at last so near to being won.

Controlling his fantasies, dampening his need for them to prevent it raging out of control, had never been so hard. They were beautiful. All five of them were enticingly, intoxicatingly beautiful—the most glorious creatures he had ever seen. For they
were
creatures. He would not call them women. They were creations of the earth and of the sea. They had no souls, no life beyond the one which they now lived, so they could never be fully human.

And yet how human they appeared, as they lay over the rocks, chattering in girlish voices, letting the clean, fresh rainwater wash over their naked bodies. They looked for all the world like fresh-faced young lasses barely out of the schoolroom oblivious of the sweet seduction of the bodies and the unquenchable desires they aroused in every man who saw them.

The three closest to him were plump and curvy with golden, sun-warmed skin, full breasts tipped with large, pale-brown nipples, soft brown hair between their legs, and well-rounded asses he ached to grasp in both hands as he thrust vigorously into their wet and welcoming pussies. He could hardly tell the three of them apart—they looked enough alike to be triplets—and any one of the three would be delicious enough for his purposes. The three of them together, all of them making love to his body at the same time, competing for his attention, would be even better.

An auburn-haired girl sat to one side a little apart from the others. She was slender and smaller than the others, and looked barely out of her girlhood. Pretty as she was, he dismissed her out of hand. She was too young to engage his interest.

Lying on her stomach and paddling idly in a rock pool was the last of them. Her hair was darker than the others. Drenched as it was by the steady rain it looked nearly jet black, and was long enough to reach nearly to her waist. Her skin was pale—so pale she looked as though she had never seen the sun—her lips were bright red, and her eyes were dark pools of mystery. She too, was curvy like her companions. Her large, pear-shaped breasts were tipped with tight, pink nipples, the muscles in her thighs well defined, and her plump ass firm and high.

As he watched, she rolled over on to her back, her legs apart, exposing the bush of dark hair between her legs, and a tantalizing glimpse of the wet, pink cunt that lay hidden underneath.

His lust notched even higher at the thought of dipping his fingers into her dripping pussy. He did not let his fantasies travel any further than that. The mere sight of her pink flesh had made his cock so hard that it hurt and he was already perilously close to losing his iron self-control.

The black-haired selkie’s wanton display had decided him. Out of all five of them, she was the one he wanted. He would have her.

He moved his head around infinitely slowly, searching for what he knew he must find, and quickly, if he was to succeed.

Ah, there it was. He stifled the cry of triumph that threatened to burst forth from his lips. The pile of skins lying as if discarded on the beach, close to the waterline, was the only sign that they were less than they appeared to be. Those skins rather than the seal women themselves had to be his focus.

He would wait all day, and into the night if need be, for the right moment to present itself. There was no point in trying to hold the women. They had already proved to him they were more slippery than eels and could not be held if they chose to escape. Instead he had to capture the skins and use them to control their owners.

Once he had secured the skins in his grasp the seal women would be helpless, unable to change back into their seal forms until they wrested the skins away from him. They would have to stay trapped as women for as long as it pleased him—and as women, they would be in his power. They would be under his command, to use as he saw fit. He would barter with them and gain their complete obedience to his every desire in exchange for the hope of one day having their seal skins returned to them.

He allowed his lips to curl into a savage grin. That day would be long in coming. They would be his new toys for him to play with as he chose. It would please him to keep them as women for a very long time.

Maya stopped idly teasing the anemone in the rock pool and turned over on to her back, luxuriating in the feeling of her body being washed clean by the fresh rainwater. Saltwater was all very well when she was in her seal skin but as soon as she threw it off and took up her human form, she longed most of all for the softness of pure rain water. Human hair and saltwater simply didn’t mix well.

“Come help me wash my hair,” she called to the sisters who lay spread out on the rocks in varying poses of abandonment as the warm rain beat down on their bodies. Even she, their closest cousin, couldn’t tell which of them was which. They were rumored even to be able to exchange their sealskins and live in each other’s as happily as they lived in their own but she wasn’t sure if she believed the rumor and, close friends as they were to her, she would not dream of asking them. Such a question was far too personal for a selkie.

The bond between a selkie and her seal skin was the strongest bond that could ever be forged—stronger by far than the bond between lovers or even between mother and child. A selkie deprived of her sealskin would most likely wither and die, or at the very most be doomed to live only a half life, without that part of her that gave her freedom and joy and made her life worth the living. A selkie without her seal skin was the saddest creature in existence. She could not imagine sharing her precious skin with anyone, not even her sister Caity, whom she loved more than any other.

“You and your mania for washing,” one of the sisters grumbled, getting up off the rocks and wandering over to her. “You always want to throw off your seal skin in the rain instead of waiting for a sunny day so we can bask in the sunshine and warm our naked bodies on the hot rocks.”

Maya watched the sister walking in the rain, the misty droplets beaded on her satiny skin. “You don’t like the water?”

“Of course I do,” the sister replied, flicking her wet hair over her shoulder and giving a look of pleasure as it snaked down her naked back. “How could I be a selkie and not love the water? But on days like today I like the sunshine even better, especially when I haven’t lain out in it all winter long. My skin is craving a touch of sunlight.”

“The rain will clear soon enough,” Maya replied equably, “and then the sun will come out and you will get to lie in the warmth to your heart’s content.”

The sister looked mutinously up at the dark sky with lowering rain clouds that showed no signs of dissipating. “If I didn’t know that you were a true storm-selkie I would mistrust your words.”

“Just as well for me then that I am a true storm-selkie, and I never lie about such matters. Indeed I cannot lie about them, as you well know.” She held out her arms beseechingly. “Now come and wash me before the rain stops.”

The first sister sank down to her haunches behind Maya’s head and began to comb through the long strands of her hair. After a while the other two sisters gathered around and began to wash her body, gathering handfuls of fresh water from hollows in the rocks and rinsing away the brine of the ocean. The youngest of their group, Caity, shyly joined them in their task, rinsing her with great gentleness.

Maya sighed with pleasure as she felt the last vestiges of her seal life begin to slip away. On mornings like these, she could almost imagine what it was like to be only human and to have no seal form. On mornings like these, she found the idea of being a woman and nothing more strangely appealing.

Not that she would willingly give up her skin, even at times like these when she felt most human. A frisson of fear snaked up her spine at the thought of losing the other part of herself. She turned her head and gave an anxious look at the seal skins, lying on the sand by the water’s edge. This beach was isolated, and not to a human’s taste—having more rocks than sand and a vicious riptide that would carry any human foolish enough to brave the heavy surf there out to sea. No humans ever came here, they had no need. She had no cause to worry. Her skin was safe enough.

The rain had stopped now and a break in the clouds let in a welcome draught of pale sunshine just as she had known it would. She sat up again and shook her head from side to side, spraying Caity and the sisters with water. They squealed and jumped away from her. “Now that I’m clean, I will let the sun come out,” she said solemnly, spoiling the effect with a grin. Just as she spoke, the last of the black clouds covering the sun withdrew, leaving the five of them bathed in warm sunshine. “Bask all you want now.”

One of the sisters gave her a delighted kiss on the cheek and the three of them lay on the rocks with every evidence of enjoyment. Caity chose a spot close to Maya and sat there, her arms wrapped around her knees. “Did you really tell the sun that he could come out now?” she asked, her voice filled with reverence.

Maya shook her head. “My powers as a storm-selkie do not stretch that far,” she admitted. “Only the greatest of the storm-selkies can turn the wind and the rain clouds to their will. I can only see the weather coming and know what will happen. I cannot yet change it.”

The look of awe on Caity’s face barely dimmed. “Even to foretell the weather is an awesome power.”

Maya shrugged. How could she tell the youngster without sounding affected and spoiled that her knowledge of the weather was more painful than not, especially when she lusted with all her heart after the abilities of a true weather shaper. To have the wind and the waves at your command, to smooth the water over like glass so that not even a ripple marred the surface of the ocean, and then to whip it up into huge, frothy waves that crashed furiously on the rocks and then swept back out to sea—that was real power. That was the kind of control over nature and the elements for which she yearned…

Her wistful thoughts were replaced by earthier ones when one of the sisters gave a wide yawn and stretched languidly out in the sun. “I begin to feel the need to take another human lover.” She placed her hands on her breasts, squeezing them gently and with every evidence of pleasure.

The other sisters followed her example, playing with their breasts, taking them in their hands and pushing them up to their mouths to lick and suck on their own nipples. “This is what I love so much about being in my human skin,” the sister said, her voice turning heavy with desire. “I love the feeling of my own human body, sensitive in so many more places than my seal body is. And most of all I love the touch of a man’s hand on my breasts.”

Maya felt her own nipples begin to peak and harden at the thought of a man’s hand on them. She had never taken a human lover before, as all three of the sisters had done many a time since they were old enough to take a man. Her abstinence was not born from prudery. She had simply never considered the act of mating with a human to be worth the risk of capture and she hadn’t believed the sisters’ tales of the abandoned joy there was to be found in the act.