Free The Last of His Kind by Doris O'Connor

of breath. Doric in breeches. Oh my!
    "Sit
down, ceannbeag, before you fall down. You need some food in you. All I
could find were eggs, bacon, and milk. Do you never eat?" He winked at her
and put a mouthwatering plate of steaming, fluffy omelet in front of her.
    "I
was due a trip into town to stock up on groceries, before this big lout washed
up on my shore, you see." Penelope sat down with an inelegant thump, as
her mind struggled to process what he'd just told her. "So, if your last clothes
were breeches–" She swallowed audibly, and Doric's chuckle washed over her
senses. "Then, does that mean you have, I mean, you've been in the
Loch
all that time, as…as your other you?"
    God, that sounded lame, but what else could she call him?
    "Not
my other me, ceannbeag, as me. The form I take in the water is my true
form. This feeble body is not the true me."
    He
smiled at her muttered, "I wouldn't call that body feeble, Doric."
She picked up the fork and started eating automatically. The fluffy texture
exploded on her tongue, and she moaned her approval, making Doric chuckle.
    "Eat.
We can discuss this later."
    "No,
I can eat and listen. This is so good, Doric." Her fork clanged on
the plate loudly in her haste to stop him from walking away. She clamped her
hand around his biceps, once again marveling at the power under her fingertips,
and he pulled up a chair next to her and sat down.
    "Please
keep talking. I want to understand all this. I just know the legends, and I know that's not who you are."
    He
sighed and cupped her face in his large hand. He nodded, dropped his hand and
motioned for her to carry on eating. Only when she did, did he carry on
talking.
      "This body is merely the form my species
adopted to blend in. When we stopped having female offspring, embracing the
human living within us became of utmost importance.   In our desperation to keep our species alive,
we made mistakes. Some of our young males listened only to their hormones and
sought to mate with as many human females as possible. It was never going to
work. Our young look human, but their golden eyes and set of teeth give them
away at birth. Thousands were killed; the myth of the changelings from the
water was born, and our kind was hunted to extinction."
    The
quietly uttered words carried a wealth of pain and sorrow and sliced right
through Penelope's heart. Half-eaten omelet abandoned, she got up and wrapped
her arms around his neck. His sigh settled on her skin, and he pulled her down
on his lap, and buried his head in her hair.
    "So,
what happened to you? You said you couldn't leave the
Loch
?"
    Doric
let her go, and his eyes didn't quite meet hers, a slight flush on his chiseled
cheekbones giving his discomfort away.
    "Were
you one of those silly young males?" Penelope forced a smile on her lips,
even though the sharp stab of jealousy poked at her insides. Had he, too, run
around biting women willy-nilly? But that couldn't be. He'd said they only bit
the ones they loved. Had she been a complete fool, and lost her heart to the
fishy dinosaur equivalent of Don Juan? But if that was the case why hadn't he
bitten her? She wouldn't have stopped him. She framed his face in her hands to
make him look at her, and the emotion blazing in his eyes soothed some of her
anxiety.
    "I
was stupid, but not in the way you mean, ceannbeag."   He brought his hands up and removed hers
gently. Turning his head he dropped a tender kiss into the palm of her hand. He
kept hold of it, his thumb rubbing reassuring circles on the back of it. His
warmth seeped into her very being, and she relaxed marginally. He wouldn't hold
her this tenderly if he didn't care, would he?
    As
if he'd heard her warbled thoughts, Doric shook his head and smiled.
    "I
meant what I said earlier. We only bite the ones we love. That's the way it's supposed
to be, because every bite prolongs your mate's life. You see my kind, we don't
die easily. And we live a very long time indeed, in theory forever.