Blood in the Water

by Cleo Peitsche

  Contents

  ARe Header

  BLURB

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Other Stories

  BLOOD IN THE WATER

  All Romance eBooks Edition

  Copyright, Legal Notice and Disclaimer:

  BLOOD IN THE WATER © 2015 by Cleo Peitsche. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the author. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events, locations and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This book is for entertainment purposes only.

  This book contains mature content and is solely for adults.

  Cover Photo ©2014 by Cormar Covers

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for purchasing this ebook. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I look forward to sharing more of my stories with you.

  Why join my mailing list? Because I release new stories at a special price to thank my readers!

  xoxo,

  Cleo

  BLOOD IN THE WATER (The Shark Shifter Paranormal Romance #4)

  Even though their world is crumbling, Monroe only wants more of Koenraad. She knows it’s dangerous to keep tempting him, but she can’t help herself.

  Koenraad struggles against his shifter urges while he tries to fix the life-and-death disasters piling up on his doorstep. If Monroe knew what he was capable of, she’d stop her dangerous games.

  He doesn’t want to damage the beautiful human who stole his heart, but there’s only so much teasing a shark can take.

  Chapter 1

  Monroe bobbed in the ocean, the handle of an eight-inch rubber knife between her teeth.

  She felt like a cork someone had tossed into a washing machine. Her fingers and toes had passed the prune stage fifteen minutes earlier. Despite the wetsuit and the constant churning of her limbs, she was getting uncomfortably cold.

  In contrast, the sun seemed to be broiling her cheeks, and her eyeballs ached from the brightness reflected off the water.

  The end of her long braid floated into her peripheral vision. Panicking even as she recognized what it was, she jerked back, her heartbeat shooting into the stratosphere.

  She hated this.

  She forced herself to take a calming breath. Fingers splayed wide, she waved her arms back and forth in the water as she turned in a small circle, her eyes alert for any sign of movement.

  In the past week, she’d progressed from being terrified of deep water… to being terrified of deep water and forced to spend large amounts of time in it.

  She tried not to think about things like the Mariana Trench. She was in the Caribbean, but who could say there wasn’t an even deeper trench below her thrashing legs? Something twenty times larger than the Grand Canyon, and filled with nothing but heavy, dark water.

  No, not nothing.

  There were jellyfish, with their stinging tentacles.

  Slimy tangles of seaweed.

  Schools of fish.

  And sharks.

  She definitely didn’t want to think about sharks.

  But the more she tried not to think about them, the more she saw triangular dorsal fins in the swell of every wave. Huge teeth powered by muscular bodies. Sharks longer than a minivan, than a school bus.

  A whimper escaped from her throat.

  She was never coming out here again.

  And then she saw it. It started as a shadowy mass that quickly resolved into a torpedo-shaped body. Monroe’s stomach clenched painfully, then tried to force its way up her throat.

  She took the knife in her shaking hand, which threw her off balance in the water. She churned her legs faster, her breath coming in panicked gulps.

  The shark was closer. Circling.

  Koenraad had explained to her that great white sharks liked to attack prey from underneath. She’d seen it, too, a massive body launching into the air, twisting almost gracefully. Dolphins had nothing on sharks when it came to murderous acrobatics.

  This shark wasn’t going to swoop from underneath and tear off the lower half of her body. Koenraad had told her many times: as long as she could see an attacking shark, all hope wasn’t lost.

  Whatever that meant.

  Now her whole body trembled, and she kept swallowing, which turned the rising bile in the back of her mouth salty from the ocean spray. It was a thoroughly revolting combination, but she didn’t have time to dwell on that because the shark was circling closer, and now she could see the animal’s top line, the deep gashes between its dorsal fin and its tail.

  She squeezed the knife handle and waited, just as she’d been instructed. She held her position, too, at least until the shark suddenly came at her, its enormous jaws agape.

  Fuck this! Shrieking, she blindly slashed out with the knife. It went flying from her fingers and landed several feet away, where it floated on the waves.

  Monroe thrust her hands in front of her. If she could hit the shark just right on its nose…

  But she missed, her fist glancing off the side of the animal’s face. The neoprene gloves she wore protected her hands from the shark’s rough skin. The shark stopped immediately, then dove.

  Sharks like to attack prey from underneath. Koenraad’s words were as fresh in her mind as if he’d just said them.

  “Koenraad!” she screamed, terrified.

  She didn’t know if he could hear her, but then the shark was at her side, nudging her toward the waiting yacht.

  She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see the disappointment in his face—though truth be told, she’d never seen recognizable facial expressions while he was in shark form. She tried not to look at him too closely when he was like this.

  His shark form terrified her. To think she’d begged to see him shift.

  She clambered onto the yacht’s swim platform and collapsed on her hands and knees. The shark disappeared, then it launched into the air.

  The moment of change was impossible to see. One moment he was a toothy killer, the next he was the man of her dreams, naked, bronzed, dripping wet.

  He landed gracefully on the boat next to her. His hands wrapped around her shoulders as he pulled her into an embrace against his tall, muscular body.

  “I suck at this,” she moaned.

  His pause was a moment too long. “You’re getting better. Let’s take a quick break—”

  “Can we be done for the day?”

  His handsome, angular features hardened, then relaxed. “Yeah. Turn around.”

  He unzipped her wetsuit and helped her peel it off. Underneath, she wore a bikini, though it was completely unnecessary. Out here, there wasn’t anyone to see her in her naked glory.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. She glanced up at him to see if he was disappointed, but his face showed only concern. “Don’t forget the knife,” she said, uncomfortable with his scrutiny.

  Koenraad gently touched her arm, then dove back into the water in human form and swam smoothly out to retrieve the knife. When he climbed back aboard, he tossed it to
the side of the deck, where it bounced.

  “Do you keep dropping the knife because you’re afraid of hurting me?” he asked as he slicked his blond hair away from his face. The sight of his dilated predator’s pupils made her shiver. Even in human form and despite his refined bearing, Koenraad radiated danger.

  She shook her head.

  Even if it weren’t a rubber training knife, she wouldn’t have been too worried. Koenraad was practically indestructible, which made her wonder again about his old scars.

  The ones that wrapped from the base of his neck and sliced down his torso were from a boat propeller. He’d told her that, but she still hadn’t gotten the whole story.

  The scars on his lower back were far worse, and they hadn’t been there when she’d first met him. She’d thought he’d earned them the night he’d saved her life by protecting her from the shark that had almost killed her.

  Now she knew they were self-inflicted. He’d mutilated himself to save her life.

  She couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around that. Whenever she saw the evidence of how calculating he could be, her blood ran a little colder.

  Koenraad was a gentleman. He was kind and sophisticated and attentive and very protective.

  But he had a dark side. The shark nature. The practical mindset that resulted in things like maiming himself to save her… like pressuring her to get into the water and practice warding off shark attacks.

  His reasons she understood perfectly well. Victoria had challenged her, and it was a fight Monroe had no hope of winning, knife or no. Then there was the matter of Bamboo Menendez, the shifter who’d been hired to kidnap her. Monroe had gotten away… barely.

  Koenraad needed to find his young son, and that meant he spent hours every day away from her while he carefully searched the Caribbean Sea near Brady’s last known whereabouts. She understood why he had to do it. Brady was dangerous. He’d attacked one human already. The penalty for that was execution, and Koenraad had risked everything to cover it up. The faster he found Brady, the better.

  But she was terrified when Koenraad left, and even though she hid it, he surely knew.

  All this training was supposed to make her feel more secure, but it didn’t.

  If anything, it proved how woefully unprepared she was.

  Chapter 2

  After showering and putting on a fresh pair of board shorts, Koenraad found Monroe sleeping on the aft deck, her lemonade glass nearly empty, her book shut beside her on the lounge chair.

  Her thick hair, now thoroughly sun streaked, was tangled from the water and the wind. Her long, dark eyelashes fluttered softly against her tanned cheeks, but she didn’t wake.

  He stared at her ripe, luscious body with appreciation. As a large male, he needed a strong woman. A sturdy woman. It was like Monroe had been made specifically for him. The visual of her full breasts nearly overflowing her bikini top made him want to wake her in a thoroughly wicked way.

  Monroe was stunning, and every day he found her more and more irresistible. It had been that way even before he’d claimed her as his mate.

  Memories of the mating came back to him, and as he thought of the smells and sensations of that night, heat scorched through him. They’d had sex plenty of times since then, but he longed to mate with her again. To indulge his true nature and to push her to her limits.

  As a shifter, the urge was sometimes so powerful that it ached.

  Monroe would be up for it, too, but he’d hurt her the first time. He was well-endowed to start with, and as a shark shifter, he had attributes that human males didn’t.

  He didn’t like hurting her. Sure, her pain called to something in his nature, but he now worked harder than ever to keep the animal inside him controlled. Soon, though, he’d need to find a safe place in calm water so they could mate again.

  They couldn’t return to the crater. Not with Victoria hunting Monroe.

  Monroe’s lashes fluttered, and her brown eyes, which reminded him of striated miter shells, opened. She didn’t see him immediately, and as she pulled herself up to sitting, he appreciated the gentle swaying of her breasts and the soft rocking of her hips.

  Yeah, he needed to take her again, and not on a comfortable mattress. He wanted her in the water.

  She suddenly looked over at him, and her body jerked in surprise. “You scared me! How long have you been there?”

  Instead of answering, he bent to kiss her soft lips. The heat in his lower body intensified. Even though he hadn’t willed it, both his cocks had swollen to their full, heavy lengths. Before the mating, he’d never had a problem controlling himself; using both had required a conscious decision on his part.

  That, unfortunately, had changed. It was hard enough to ignore one unwanted erection, but two? Impossible.

  What he needed, he decided as he straightened, was to jump into the ocean and cool off.

  Monroe rolled onto her side and reached for her glass, giving Koenraad a glimpse of the mating scars on her back. Any shifter who saw her would know she was claimed.

  Koenraad stepped into the galley to grab the pitcher of lemonade. He refreshed her drink, then poured himself a tall glass before sinking into the chair next to her.

  “Do you want to get rid of me?” she asked. “Throw me back and try to catch a better mate?” Her tone was light, her brown eyes sparkling, but Koenraad could smell her apprehension.

  “Never,” he said.

  “Even though I suck at fighting?”

  He smiled. “We’ll work on your wrestling moves tonight.” Naked. In bed.

  His cocks got harder, and he turned away so she wouldn’t see him wince, though there was nothing he could do about the bulge in the front of his shorts.

  He left when the sun went down.

  Swimming away from Monroe was difficult, but there was no perfect solution. He had to search for Brady, and he couldn’t very well take Monroe with him.

  At least she was armed, and he hoped she’d be less shy about firing a gun at an intruder than she was about stabbing him with a flexible rubber knife.

  He picked up the search where he’d left off the evening before. The choice made little sense; Brady wasn’t a dropped keyring just waiting to be picked up.

  But Koenraad had no leads, and he had no help. If he was going to find Brady, it would be through brute determination, just like the first time he’d found his son.

  Never mind that it had taken eighteen months and that Brady was now older and savvier.

  The best chance at capturing Brady had already slipped through Koenraad’s fingers. He’d nearly killed himself searching right after discovering that Brady had escaped from the inlet. There hadn’t been any trace of the young shifter then, and hunting now was probably a fool’s errand.

  But Brady was his son, and despite everything, Koenraad would never give up. Never.

  It simply wasn’t an option, and thank goodness Monroe understood that.

  Koenraad kept to the swaths of clean water untainted by the sick that permeated stretches of ocean in dense formations. Dozens of shifters had descended on Tureygua to help out, but their efforts had been useless. No one knew what it was.

  Now they waited for a good storm to disperse the sick. One threatened to bash the islands in the next few days, but whether this storm, like the last few, would turn back out to the open ocean was anyone’s guess.

  But the sick wasn’t Koenraad’s problem anymore. Patrolling Tureygua was no longer his job.

  After hours of frustrated searching, Koenraad decided to revisit the ocean near his mansion.

  He detected nothing off the coast.

  Since he happened to be there, he fought his way through the rip currents, shifted human, walked across the beach and let himself into the mansion via a side door. The sprawling building was a U-shaped maze, but he knew the corridors intimately. He moved from room to room, remembering how optimistic he’d been when he’d purchased it.

  There was no proof that Victoria or anyone else
had been here since he’d left, and that was a relief. Koenraad had done some very bad things, and he didn’t need anyone snooping around.

  Finally he stepped back outside and walked down to the inlet.

  He still hadn’t figured out how Brady had escaped. He was trapped as a shark, unable to shift human again. He couldn’t have walked out, nor could he have unlocked the gate that closed off the inlet’s mouth.

  Koenraad stood there a moment, water lapping his ankles, and stared into the depths.

  It was depressingly easy to fool himself, to believe that the tips of Brady’s fins would cut through the water, that his son would swim up to him.

  Koenraad clung desperately to the feeling, so tightly that his heart ached.

  One step.

  He did it. Then he took another until the water came to his waist.

  There wasn’t anything in here except fish, eel, crabs.

  Still, he lowered himself under the surface and shifted before swimming around the inlet. Frustration was making his teeth itch with the urge to tear into something.

  When Koenraad had first discovered Brady missing, he’d assumed Victoria was behind it. She’d discovered his mansion that day, and there had been female footprints in the sand. She didn’t care about Brady, and she had always used her role as Brady’s mother to manipulate Koenraad.

  But it had turned out that Victoria didn’t know anything at all. The footprints must have been from Monroe, or perhaps Victoria had been to the inlet but hadn’t noticed anything.

  So how had Brady gotten out?

  Only two people even knew that Brady had been there. Spencer, Koenraad’s best friend, who had generously agreed to oversee the research into Brady’s condition, and Monroe.

  And Koenraad trusted both with his life.

  Everyone else thought the young shifter was still lost in the ocean.

  Well, now they were right. And because Koenraad had publicly called off the search—not that anyone beside him had still been combing the ocean—restarting it now would only raise suspicion.

  Cursing his luck, he inspected the gate that kept the artificial inlet separate from the ocean. Brady was much smaller than Koenraad, but the gaps in the fencing were too small for anything larger than twelve inches to wiggle through.