by Zoe Chant
Sharks rarely had true mates. They were too independent, too individualistic, for such pair-bonding. Brief, fierce liaisons, fleeting moments of contact in a life of silent, solitary wandering—that was the way of sharks.
And he was the Master Shark. He was the shark. The heart and soul of his people.
No wonder his mate had taken one look at him, and shown him her heels.
“Hey.”
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from his mate’s retreating back. So little, so soft, yet so swift and fierce. Brown and ripened by a lifetime spent under open, cloudless skies. She smelled of things he’d never known: sun-warmed fur and long summer days, dry desert winds and laughter rising to the moon.
“Hey,” the bartender said again from behind him. “Is there some sort of problem here…sir?”
His mate had disappeared behind a concealing wall of greenery. The Master Shark turned at last, looking down at the bartender. To his credit, the bear shifter didn’t back down, although his feet set in a defensive stance.
“No,” he told the bartender, flatly.
“Begging your pardon, that’s not what it looks like to me.” The bear shifter held a large, iced drink in each hand, and looked fully prepared to employ them as weapons if necessary. “What did you do to make her run off like her tail was on fire?”
The Master Shark stared at him, silently.
“I guess that answers that question,” the bartender muttered. He raised his voice again, meeting the Master Shark’s eyes without flinching. “Look, I know who you are, and honestly, I don’t care. You can’t go around terrorizing other guests.”
He was well-used to other shifters treating him with suspicion. It was inevitable, given what he was. Nonetheless, his back stiffened at the inadvertent accusation that he might ever even think of threatening his mate.
“That was not my intention,” he said coldly. “I merely wished to…”
He stalled, words drying in his throat. What had he intended?
He didn’t know himself. All he’d known was that the instant he’d set foot on the island, he’d been pulled by a blood-scent more compelling than any he’d ever known. He could no more not have followed that siren call than he could stop swimming.
And he had found her. And she had fled from him.
The bartender grimaced, his tense body language relaxing a bit. “Well, whatever you intended, clearly all you succeeded in doing was terrifying that nice lady. I think it would be better if you just left her alone from now on, okay?”
“She is my mate.”
The bear shifter’s mouth hung open for a second. “No shit?”
“No,” the Master Shark looked back in the direction his mate had vanished, “as you say, shit.”
The bartender digested this for a moment. Then he handed him one of the drinks. “Here. I think you’re going to need this.”
The Master Shark sniffed cautiously at the alarmingly-colored beverage. “Alcohol?”
“Sure is. Uh, don’t you have booze under the sea?”
He shook his head, putting the glass down untouched. “The deeps are not a place for dulled wits. Only the suicidal would deliberately impair themselves.”
“Guess I can rule Atlantis out of my list of job opportunities.” The bartender stuck out a hand. “Tex. Never met a shark before. Or royalty, for that matter.”
The Master Shark regarded the proffered hand, then shook it carefully. “I am not royalty. Not for many decades. Now, I am merely the Empress’s Voice.”
“Not sure the word ‘merely’ belongs in that sentence.” Tex tipped his head a little to one side, studying him. “So. You and her. Really?”
He lifted one shoulder fractionally. “It appears so.”
Tex let out a low whistle. “And I thought I was unlucky in love. Well, assuming you’re going to try again, I’ve got a friendly piece of advice for you. Up here on land, we have this thing called ‘smiling.’ You might try it some time.”
The Master Shark did so.
“Sweet daisies,” Tex muttered, taking a half-step back. “On second thought, definitely don’t do that. Maybe you could just…loom less. Somehow.”
He looked down at himself. He looked back at Tex, who was large for a land shifter, but still at least six inches under his own height. Words seemed unnecessary.
“Yeah, okay.” Tex scratched the back of his neck, eying him rather dubiously. “Y’know, I’ve seen some odd couples in my years behind the bar, but this one sure beats all. A coyote and a shark? Not exactly a natural match, I hope you don’t mind me saying.”
The Master Shark’s jaw tightened, but privately he had to admit that the bear shifter had a point. His mate—his mate!—was clearly a creature of the desert, while he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in his long life he had ever ventured onto dry land. Fate clearly had a sense of humor worthy of a human.
Nonetheless, the inescapable fact remained. She was his mate.
To be a shark was to be driven by an unfillable void. He had heard other shifters speak sometimes of their inner animals as if they were the other half of their souls, a whisper in their minds. He had never understood what they meant. His soul was a silent predator, eternally seeking, never satisfied.
Now, he knew that he had never truly been hungry before. Not compared to this all-consuming need.
He’d had decades of practice at hiding his emotions, but the shock of the encounter had rattled even his control. Something of his thoughts must have shown in his manner, because Tex’s eyes softened in sympathy.
“Hey, you’ll work it out.” The bartender collected the unwanted drink. “So what are you going to do now?”
“What my kind do best.” The Master Shark allowed his lips to curl once again, exposing a brief, predatory flash of teeth. “Hunt.”
Chapter 4
“You thirsty, honey?”
Martha looked up from her waffle, expecting to find a waitress with a pot of coffee. Instead, a vast woman overflowing from a vibrant pink maxi dress gave her a cheeky wink as she put down her own breakfast plate down at Martha’s table.
“Because if you are,” the woman continued, her voice dropping to a delighted, throaty whisper, “I can’t help but notice that there seems to be a tall glass of water with your name on, right over there.”
Martha didn’t need to look round to know that the man she’d met yesterday—she was not going to think of him as her mate—was watching her from the buffet table. Ever since their brief meeting yesterday, she’d been acutely aware of his every movement, even from clear across the resort. It was like she was a fish on his hook; an unbreakable, invisible line connecting them together.
Martha scowled, resolutely keeping her back to him. No matter how much she wanted to sneak a peek to see if he really was as devastatingly charismatic as she remembered, she was not going to look round.
Manuel, she reminded herself, touching her thumb to her wedding band. Even though he was with the angels now, he was still her husband. She’d been married to him for thirty good, golden years, along with the inevitable few rocky ones. They’d had kids and raised them well; built a home and filled it with laughter. With all her heart and soul, she’d loved her husband, and the life they’d made together.
What sort of woman would she be if she let her head be turned by some stranger now, just because her coyote was no better than a bitch in heat?
“Oooh, honey.” The voluptuous woman’s grin widened. “It’s obvious you both got it bad. Who is he, anyway?”
“No idea,” Martha said, slicing a banana rather more viciously than the innocent fruit deserved. “Don’t know him.”
“I pretty sure he’d like to get to know you. In the Biblical sense, if you take my meaning.” The woman winked again, settling her impressive weight into the chair opposite Martha. “I’m Magnolia. This is your first time at Shifting Sands, right?”
Magnolia’s smile was so warm and generous, Martha couldn’t help but
smile back. “Is it that obvious?”
“I know all our regulars. Been here over a year now myself. Something about this island, well…” She glanced sidelong at Martha, sly as a coyote herself. “It makes you feel young again, doesn’t it? You can just feel your sap rising.”
Martha was pretty sure it wasn’t the island that was making her sap rise. Even now, the silent, unseen presence behind her was bringing an unfamiliar tingle to certain places best left forgotten.
“I’m a grandma,” she said, a touch too primly. “If the Good Lord had wanted my sap to be rising, he would’ve made me a tree.”
“Now, don’t go putting yourself in the ground before you’re dead.” Magnolia leaned to one side a little, looking past Martha. “You want to know what he’s doing now?”
She stabbed at her waffle. “Nope.”
“Menacing the fruit basket,” Magnolia reported anyway. “Does he hold a deep and personal grudge against oranges, or does he just always look like that?”
“Wouldn’t know.” Her fork screeched across the china plate. “Don’t care.”
“Well, I am just dying of curiosity. Like I said, I know all our regulars, and I can tell you that he is not our usual sort of guest.” Magnolia fluttered a ringed hand, attracting the attention of the politely unobtrusive waiter hovering nearby. “Breck! Dish me the dirt on that brooding slab of beefcake over there.”
Breck—a slim, breathtakingly handsome man who was probably young enough to be Martha’s grandson—wagged a reproachful finger. “Now, Magnolia, you know staff aren’t allowed to discuss guests.” His voice dropped conspiratorially. “And even if we were, I would not be discussing that one. Certainly not behind his back.”
“Why?” Martha asked, drawn despite herself. “Who is he?”
Breck shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. The boss would have me served up on a platter as the dish of the day if I breathed so much as a word. She’s very serious about protecting the privacy of…special guests.”
Magnolia looked intrigued. “So he is someone important. Well, in that case, guess I’ll just have to find out for myself.”
“Don’t.” Breck turned deadly serious, all his flirtatious manner dropping away. “I mean it, Magnolia. Don’t go near him.”
Magnolia raised her eyebrows. “Well, that’s going to be difficult, because he’s heading this way.”
The waiter stiffened, pasting a professionally blank smile onto his face. “Sir,” he said, turning. “Can I help you with that?“
The man looked down at the single plate he was carrying. There was a pineapple on it. A whole pineapple.
Who on earth takes the pineapple from a fruit basket?
The man contemplated his unusual breakfast for a moment, then switched his stare back to Breck. It was obvious that he was not in need of assistance. Martha suspected he could have comfortably carried Breck in one hand, and quite possibly the entire table as well.
Breck made a valiant attempt at rallying, despite the man’s cold gaze. “Sir, this table is occupied. Let me find you another one. I have a very nice, private table out on the-“
“No.”
The word was spoken with utmost finality. It was clear that this was The Table. There would be no Other Tables. If Other Tables were suggested again, there would be Consequences.
“It’s fine,” Martha said, before the poor brave waiter got himself killed over dining arrangements. She pushed her barely-touched waffle away. “I was just leaving, anyway.”
The man immediately abandoned his pineapple. It was clear that wherever she was going next, he would be going too. His impenetrable gray eyes fixed on her with such unnerving attention, she felt practically stripped naked.
She tore her own eyes away from him, praying that he couldn’t smell the sharp leap of her desire. Her immediate thought was to flee to her private cottage again. It was clear that she simply couldn’t trust her coyote around this man.
But damn it, her family had scrimped and saved over months in order to surprise her with the vacation of a lifetime. Even five-year-old Manny had contributed a nickel from his allowance every week. When they asked her how her trip had been, what was she going to tell them?
Oh, I just stayed within four walls all day with the curtains drawn, because my fool hormones made me want to bang a total stranger like a screen door in a hurricane.
Her coyote helpfully supplied a very vivid mental picture of exactly what that might be like. Those rough, scarred hands closing around her arms. His irresistible strength lifting her as effortlessly as a leaf in the wind, pinning her against a wall. Wrapping her legs around his waist, his hardness between her thighs-
Martha cleared her throat, mentally sitting on her inner animal. Down, girl.
If the stranger had sensed any of her thoughts, he didn’t show it. He simply stood there, watching her in silence, patient as an old hound dog.
There has to be somewhere I can go where he can’t follow.
Inspiration struck. There was one place in the resort where she was absolutely certain a scarred, muscle-bound, red-blooded alpha male like him wouldn’t possibly dare to venture.
“I,” she announced to the world in general, “am going to the spa.”
Chapter 5
The Master Shark knew a challenge when he saw one. His life had been evenly divided between war and politics; he was no stranger to struggles for dominance, whether they were fought with teeth or words.
The proud lift of his mate’s chin, the fire in her dark eyes, the oh-so-careful way she didn’t quite look at him; she was issuing a challenge. Demanding that he prove his strength and worth before she would deign to even acknowledge his presence.
He had never backed down from a challenge. He would win this one too.
Once he figured out what in the sea it could possibly be.
“A pedicure?” the tiny land-shifter woman in charge of the ‘spa’ repeated, as if she hadn’t quite believed him the first time.
“Yes.” He had no idea what one was, but from the triumphant note in his mate’s voice as she’d ordered her own, she believed that it was something a shark could not do.
He would prove her wrong. He would endure, no matter how she tested him. He would show her that he was more than the blood-blinded animal his reputation made him out to be. He would show her the best of himself; his patience, his persistence. Silently, with actions rather than words, he would destroy the stereotype she projected onto him, so that she could finally see the man underneath the monster.
And when she did, he could only hope that she would not turn away.
The spa attendant made a tiny shrug, as if to say that if he was determined to face the ‘pedicure,’ on his own head be it. “This way, sir.”
She led him through a curtain made of shells strung on thin ropes. He had to bend nearly double in order to fit through the low archway. When he saw what awaited beyond, he immediately understood.
Oh, clever, clever mate. Not a challenge of strength, or endurance. This is a test of softness.
The light, airy room was lined with comfortable wicker chairs draped in pristine white towels. Grooming instruments—for forms both animal and human—hung from the white-washed walls. A sweet, gentle scent hung in the air, drifting up from scattered candles. Wide windows kept the room pleasantly cool and offered soothing views of the sparkling turquoise bay.
It was a place for pampering. A place to be touched gently, by soft clean hands that had never known war. A place of peace and beauty.
No wonder she had thought a shark would not follow her here.
Well, he would show her that even he could enjoy softness. More than anything in the sea, he longed to enjoy her softness.
His lips curved a little at the intoxicating thought, but he forced the smile back. Dry-landers did not react well to the sight of a shark’s teeth, as Tex the bartender had demonstrated. He schooled his face to impassiveness as the spa attendant led him to a chair.
His mate was
enthroned like a queen a few seats down, her own attendant kneeling at her feet as if in supplication. They had been chattering away in some human language he did not know, but broke off at his appearance. They both stared at him as if…well, as if he was a shark. In a koi pond.
“If you please, sir?” His own attendant knelt down, gesturing at him.
Apparently she wanted his feet, though for what purpose still escaped him. He forced his muscles to relax, allowing the tiny woman to do as she pleased.
The spa attendant let out a soft, surprised breath. “No calluses. You have beautiful feet, sir.”
He didn’t know why she sounded so astonished. It wasn’t like he used them much, after all.
The land-shifter woman shook her head ruefully. “To be honest, sir, I’m rather at a loss as to what to do here.”
Nonetheless, she reached for some sort of lotion. Spreading it onto her hands, she began to rub his soles.
His mate had gone back to pointedly ignoring him. Pretending indifference, he tipped his head back, closing his eyes. The sensation of firm fingers running over his instep was surprisingly pleasant, once he’d managed to subdue his instinctive urge to kick his assailant in the face.
“I’ve got five kids,” his mate announced.
He cracked open one eye, but she was still pointedly not looking at him. She appeared to be addressing her own attendant. Since she’d chosen to speak in English, however, he was confident that he was the real target of her words.
“Juanita, she’s my eldest, she’s mated to a lovely jackalope girl, just sweet as pie. They’ve got two kids of their own. My boy Nic, he and his mate have got one on the way too. Due in September. Can’t wait to smell that new-baby scent again. Grandpups are such a blessing.”
Ah. Another challenge.
She was indirectly telling him of her wealth—not in the sorts of unimportant trinkets valued by dragons, but true wealth. A shark knew that blood was the greatest prize of all. He listened as she so-casually mentioned name after name, treasure after treasure: children and grandchildren, sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews and cousins.