With the salty taste of the sea on her tongue, she drew in a long, deep gulp of air. Wet hair whipped her shoulders as she shook her head in anger, still seething about the sea god’s threat. “You are the only one of the lhiannan shee who gives me problems. All the others use their beauty to lure and seduce men then drain their blood into red cauldrons,” she imitated Mannan beg mac y Leir in a clownish voice. Margaid swept her long red hair back from her freckled face. Maybe he was right. She deserved to be turned into a water horse. She hadn’t been a good lhiannan shee all these centuries. She never once did what the lhiannan shee were supposed to do. The muscles in her neck clinched like a knot tugged tight. She didn’t like blood. It was too red and smelly and…yuck bloody. Her attention shifted to one of the poles supporting the dock. With the gentle sway of the waves, water rose and fell against the wood, moving up and down the thick pole, again and again. The muscles in her abdomen pulled tight and her breath grew shallow.
