However, as much as she’d enjoyed exploring as a turtle, she certainly didn’t wish to spend the rest of her life under a giant shell, unable to communicate, and she certainly didn’t wish that fate on Ari, either. Making love with him had been awesome, and if both of them got stuck in this turtle’s body, she’d never be able to repeat the incredible experience.
She suspected it had been difficult for Ari to place his fate in her hands, flippers. If she failed, he, too, would be caught in turtle form forever. And she really didn’t understand the specifics of the shapeshifting. Was all of Ari’s mind and will in the Inf? She controlled the turtle’s body. Her will decided when to feed, when to swim, when to return to the sand beach.
Their organs and blood and cells had combined, but what of his mind? Was he totally locked away in the Inf, or was he aware of what their turtle body was doing? Could he see what she was seeing, feel what she was feeling, read her thoughts?
She should have asked more questions and wondered why he hadn’t told her more. She lugged her big torso and heavy shell up the beach and settled near the campfire but not too close. If she managed to change back, she didn’t want to risk a limb landing in the embers.
Closing her eyes, she sought to recall the merge. How had Ari altered their cells to slip and slide into one another? She needed to duplicate the process so they could return to human form.
She imagined the cells re-forming into human shapes, but nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing.
Now what?
Suspecting Ari’s mind was in the Inf, knowing most of hers was there, she tried thinking at him. Again nothing happened.
Frustrated, tired, she fought off sleep. What was the answer?
Why hadn’t he explained better? He’d told her shapeshifting was a sixth sense. Obviously, she could do it. She’d frickin’ changed into a sea turtle. According to Ari she had the ability to go back to her human shape.
But how was she supposed to use her new sense?
The part of her mind that remained in the Inf was connected to her turtle brain in ways she didn’t understand, and the thinking process was a bit different from human form. It was as if her mind were on a hard drive and she had to call up the information onto a screen in her limited turtle brain where she could only process a limited amount of information at a time.
Maybe she needed all of her mind to figure it out. She tried to force her turtle brain into the Inf. Nothing.
Damn.
She had to think outside the box. If she couldn’t bring her turtle brain into the Inf, perhaps she could bring the Inf brain cells into the turtle. Samantha’s brain cells felt very compressed inside the turtle. And the Inf stretched out forever, but she gathered her mind, condensed it, tried to reel it into herself.
Her brain cells budged. Flipped. Rolled over trying to make room for her Inf mind.
Only there was no room. And her turtle body began to morph. Yes. Yes. Yes.
She’d created a change—of sorts. Bringing her mind together seemed to be key. And since there wasn’t enough room to hold all of her in the turtle, the extra cells forced the turtle to morph.
Pulling, gathering, merging was hard mental work. She concentrated with fierce determination, fueled by her success that she was on the right track.
And as she sucked her brain back, she noted a hitchhiker clinging to her mind and prayed that was Ari. She had no idea if she could bring back both bodies and accidentally leave behind his mind in the Inf, but she was not changing him to human and leaving any delicious part of him behind. So she grabbed the hitchhiker and used the very last of her mental strength to take him with her. Her mind stretched, expanded, popped.
And then everything went black.
“YOU DID IT.” Ari raised her beautiful head into his lap, smoothed back her hair, and watched her eyes flutter open and slowly focus. “You were wonderful.”
She blinked sleepily, muttered a few words he couldn’t understand, and closed her eyes again, succumbing to a deep but natural sleep. Apparently the shapeshifting had exhausted her, depleted her energy reserves.
Ari’s teachers had warned exhaustion might happen. Shapeshifting took energy, and she would have to build her mental muscles just as a weightlifter had to create physical ones. He’d go slowly, not tax her too much. But the most dangerous part was over.
She’d brought them both back. And he held her in his arms and let her sleep, rocking her gently, very much content with her and the world. As eager as he was to speak, he could wait for morning.
He held her tenderly through the night, watched the sun rise in the eastern sky to create quiet rose streaks with slashes of hot pink. And this time when Samantha opened her eyes and awakened, she was seemingly back to her normal self.
He smiled. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.” She sat up slowly and held up her hands as if counting her fingers.
“You did great. When you headed into the sea, I was certain you’d lost control—”
“You were there?”
“In the Inf. I watched you from there. And now that you’ve learned what to do, we can morph into two animals, and it’ll be much—”
“Hold up. You’re going too fast.” She shoved a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
“Sorry.” He grinned. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling from ear to ear. He handed her a Powerbar and a water bottle. “Have something to eat and you’ll feel—”
She frowned. “I’m still stuffed. I ate . . . shrimp.” She screwed up her nose. “I ate raw shrimp?”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Yuck.” She spat into the sand as if she could still taste the shrimp. She couldn’t, of course, but this part of the shapeshifting could be almost as dangerous as the actual morphing. Some people couldn’t accept themselves in the animal state and literally went insane.
Twisting open the water bottle, she took a healthy swig. Then she peered at him, her eyes narrowing. “Why didn’t you tell me I had to take the part of my mind in the Inf and fuse it with the part in the turtle in order to shift back to normal?”
His eyes widened. “I’ve never heard shapeshifting described anywhere near like that. We all do it differently, and if I’d told you what works for me, it probably wouldn’t have worked for you.”
“What do you do?”
“I shrug into myself.”
Her eyebrows raised in disbelief. “You shrug?”
“And a friend of mine can only shift as he’s falling asleep. I’ve heard of shapeshifters who require the taste of sour pickles or the smell of raspberries. Or—”
“But there aren’t raspberries or pickles here. If I’d needed them, I would have failed.”
“Those stimulants are rare. Most of us use our minds.”
“And you watched the entire process of me swimming around as a turtle from the Inf?”
“Only the tiniest part of my brain remained with you—just enough to observe.”
She dug her toes into the sand. “I don’t know if I want to shapeshift again.”
Uh-oh. He cocked his head to the side, trying to remain patient. “Was there any part you liked?”
“The sex was good.” She half smiled, and then it faded. “And once I waddled into the water, the swimming underwater was cool. But you know, now that I’ve done it, I’m not that eager to repeat the experience.”
“What if you were a dolphin?”
She shuddered. “Don’t they eat live fish?”
Samantha was having a problem with the eating. He picked his words with care in order not to criticize. “When you’re in the animal shape, animal feeding habits will be normal. Once you return to human, you may have a little difficulty adjusting to the idea—”
“You think?”
“But animal feeding hab
its are part of nature. We aren’t doing anything wrong.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Imagine what it’s like to fly like a bird. It’s fun.”
She winced, and he recalled that birds ate everything from beetles to worms. “You could eat seeds.”
“Somehow the prospect of eating seeds can’t compare with a filet mignon.”
“Yeah, but wait until you fly under the power of your own wings. It’s mind-blowing.”
“And addictive?”
He shrugged. “What if it is?”
“I’m not sure I want to become addicted.”
“Shapeshifting isn’t like taking drugs. It can’t harm you.”
“When I tossed the firewood at you, you elongated your arms to hold the wood. I’d imagine that it wouldn’t take long to become accustomed to the luxury of that kind of shifting.”
“So?”
“So if I don’t stay with you in New Atlantis, I don’t want to rely so heavily on my new skills that I’d be uncomfortable staying in human form.”
“Once you shapeshift, you’re never the same.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes narrowed with suspicion that slashed at him.
He forced his tone to remain calm. “Once your mind accepts what your body can do, it becomes instinctive. Can you tell yourself not to use your eyes? Or your ears?”
“Are you saying I can never go back to staying in human form?”
Eight
“I DON’T KNOW.” Ari spoke with a sincerity that chilled Samantha. “No one in my people’s history has ever shapeshifted then refused to do it again.”
Samantha suspected his people had a long and interesting take on history. “So there’s nothing to stop me from shapeshifting into a bird and flying home and resuming my former life?”
“Nothing unless . . .”
“Unless?” she prodded, fascinated by the changing light in his eyes that made reading his emotions difficult.
“Unless you can give up living with your own kind.”
“My own kind live in the world.”
He had the good sense not to argue that she no longer fit with those who couldn’t shapeshift and instead changed the subject. “Wouldn’t you like to visit my home and see New Atlantis for yourself before you make such a decision?”
She noted that he didn’t say anything at all about their personal relationship. He hadn’t tried to convince her to stay with words of love or even a mention of their lovemaking. He spoke of being with her own kind. Of seeing his home. And yet he’d said they were soul mates, and she’d felt that connection so strongly that surely he’d felt it, too?
“If we go to New Atlantis, I’d be free to leave at any time?”
His tone was gruff, threaded with hurt that made her feel guilty for asking. “Do you think so little of me that I’d force you to stay where you’d be unhappy?”
“You forced me to come here,” she countered. And then he’d made love to her so sweetly that her heart still beat with joy. She so badly wanted to kiss the hurt from his face, but she also owed it to herself to ask lots of questions.
His eyes darkened. “I thought we’d moved past—”
“We have. I have. I just like to understand all my options so I can make the right decision.”
“Don’t you ever choose with your heart?”
The question ringing in her ears, she stood, brushed the sand from her palms, and realized she was nude and hadn’t given it a thought. She’d been naked when making love, naked as a turtle, and was carrying on a conversation as if she were fully clothed. And it seemed so natural.
She hadn’t particularly noticed his nudity either. She’d become accustomed to seeing his bare chest and with his sitting on the beach, she simply hadn’t noted he wasn’t wearing his boxers. She could blame the oversight on the distraction of shapeshifting—but in truth, if she hadn’t been so damn comfortable with him seeing her own skin, she surely would have reached for her shirt sooner.
One whiff and she scrunched up her nose. The shirt smelled. She picked up her clothes and carried them down to the water and tossed them into the sea. After swirling them around for a few minutes, she wrung them out and carried them back up the beach and laid them out in the sand to dry.
“Clothes are a problem for shapeshifters,” Ari told her with a smile. “We’re forever leaving them behind and arriving naked.”
“How do you cope?” she asked, curious about his lifestyle but oddly not the least bit uncomfortable walking around naked in broad daylight. And it was more than that he’d already seen every inch of her flesh. She simply didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious around him, no doubt due to his attitude. He wasn’t indifferent to her body, but she could tell that the way her body parts went together wasn’t his primary concern.
“Sometimes we carry clothing in our mouths. Or have someone tie them to our animal shape. Or we hide them in a place where we can shapeshift. On New Atlantis shapeshifters contribute more to the force field than many of our people with other powers. Perhaps that has gained us a measure of respect. If we’re caught nude in public, people don’t make a big deal out of it—although nudity isn’t our practice. Many public places keep robes on hand to offer us.”
He’d sounded so happy when he spoke of his world. She lifted her chin and locked gazes with him. “I’d like to visit New Atlantis.”
Approval shined in his eyes and warmed her. He gestured across the sea. “I’ll take you there. We can swim there in a day.”
She recalled swimming with fondness—except for the shrimp-eating incident. “How long would it take to fly?”
“A few hours, but mastering the bird form is more difficult.”
Soaring through the sky under her own power excited her. She couldn’t imagine the freedom. Heights had never bothered her. And if she ate, she could eat seeds, although she’d seen none here. But she also wondered if what he’d told her was true—that if she kept shapeshifting she’d never again be satisfied to stay in human form. However, she had to get off this island—so she didn’t have much choice. She’d have to change shape to leave—of course which animal form she chose was up to her. “I’d like to try, but I’m not sure I’m ready to greet strangers without any clothes.”
“Even dry clothing is too heavy to fly with us. But my home is isolated on a beach. There are no neighbors nearby, and I have clothing you can borrow.” He took her hand. “I understand you have not yet decided whether you want to remain with me, but I’m glad you’re considering it.”
She hadn’t thought much about escaping from him—not since they’d made love. What was happening to her? It was one thing to choose to go with him, but it was unlike her not to consider what spending more time with him would cost her. She could lose the Miami deal. The theater renovation would come to a complete standstill.
And yet, if she didn’t spend more time with Ari, if she didn’t take this opportunity to visit New Atlantis, she might never have another. If she didn’t go with him, she suspected she’d regret it for the rest of her life.
His warmth and sincerity had gotten to her on levels she hadn’t suspected. And unlike other men who admired her for her wealth and her business acumen and her looks, Ari looked deeper to her core. And that’s what he wanted. Her.
Her wealth didn’t matter to him, at least not that she could ascertain. Neither did her looks. Sheesh—once she became accustomed to shapeshifting, she could change to any shape she wished.
Ari looked beyond the usual trappings. No man had ever looked so deep into her character and wanted what was pure Samantha. And it scared her because that kind of love was for life. That kind of love could shake her entire world, and thinking it could be hers was both exhilarating and terrifying.
She didn’t know if she wanted to allow Ari to mean
that much to her.
But she couldn’t shapeshift and fly away either—not before seeing if they were meant to be together as he’d claimed. Soul mates. She’d never expected to meet a man who understood her as well as Ari. He’d seemed to instinctively know what would convince her to consider staying with him—and it wasn’t words, but actions.
Knowing he would welcome her embrace, she stepped into his arms. With him, she felt anything less than giving him real truth about her feelings was dishonest. But he already seemed to know, and, therefore, she didn’t feel kissing him was leading him on or promising anything she couldn’t deliver.
His arms closed around her, and his mouth angled over hers, taking what she offered. And with the gentle breeze bathing her flesh, the sunlight warming her with a golden glow, she’d never felt so certain of her attractiveness.
She could see he wanted her by the gleam in his eyes, by the fierce beat of his heart and the pulse throbbing in the cords at his neck. Most of all, she was touched by the tender way he held her, even as his mouth took fierce possession.
Warmth and happiness suffused her from the inside out. And when she imagined waking up beside this man for the rest of her life, giving up her life at home didn’t seem so much of a hardship.
“When we make love again, I want to do so on New Atlantis.” He pulled back, his nostrils flaring with desire, leaving no doubts how much he wanted her. “And if you want to fly there, we have work to do. Are you sure I can’t talk you into swimming?”
“An all-day swim or a few hours flight?” She grinned at him and arched a suggestive eyebrow. “The sooner we arrive, the sooner we can—”
He cleared his throat. “If you’re through distracting me, we should begin.”
“All right. But I thought if we made love again, it would lead to shapeshifting.”
“You must come to New Atlantis on your own. It’s one of our laws.”
“So what do I do?”
“Close your eyes.”
She followed his directions and enjoyed the smooth cadence of his voice. But she also noted the way her toes dug into the sand, the way her breasts lifted with every breath, the way her hair whipped over her face during a gust of wind. “Now what?”
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