Roan Sinclair knows the moment Nikolas Hansen walks into the Great Lakes Aquarium that his life will never be the same. The federal inspector is rigid, suspicious, and utterly maddening—but he's also wearing a selkie's coat like he has no idea what it means, and Roan's soul has just recognized him as its other half. The aithne is absolute. Irreversible. And completely one-sided.

Nik Hansen has spent his career trusting evidence over instinct and facts over feelings. His grandmother's strange stories were fairy tales, nothing more. The unsettling pull he feels toward the aquarium's evasive seal handler is just stress. He has a job to do, and he's not going to let an inconvenient attraction—or an impossible inheritance—get in his way.

But coats keep secrets, and blood remembers what the mind forgets. When a solstice night forces them together and a desperate act tears them apart, Roan and Nik will have to confront the truth of what they are—and what they could be to each other. Because for selkies, love is not a choice. It's a recognition. And some doors, once opened, can never be closed again.