She nodded, but she could feel her muscles wanting to tense. It didn’t matter; she was buoyant in the ocean water. It was easy to float here.
He moved away several feet. “Shark skin is rough. It can cut you,” he said. “Not fun for petting.”
A little smile tugged at her mouth. “This is like last night’s conversation,” she said, referring to when he’d finally allowed the spurs on his shaft to emerge. She’d stroked him the wrong direction and had ended up with a bloody palm, but it hadn’t hurt.
“You can do what you want,” he said easily. “Just remember that sharks can smell blood from quite some distance away, and we swim very quickly—”
“Got it,” she said. A lump had formed in her throat. “But if a shark comes…”
“There is nothing in the water that can hurt you. I wouldn’t allow it.” He moved back another foot. “I can hear and understand you, so you can talk to me. Obviously I won’t be able to talk back.”
Before she could tell him that it wasn’t so obvious given his ability to breathe underwater in human form, he was gone.
She’d known he would disappear, but anxiety twisted her insides all the same as she stared hard at the dark bit of ocean where, moments before, an extremely tall and muscular man had been gently teasing her.
Should have asked how long it takes him to shift, she thought. For all she knew, he’d be gone for several minutes.
The thought that a shark would be coming up toward her made her want to pull in her arms and legs and curl herself into a little ball.
If she’d said that to Koenraad, he’d probably have pointed out that it would have made her an easier morsel, snack-sized.
Something was underneath her, though. She could sense it. She craned her neck and stared into the darkness but saw nothing.
And then it was there, circling. A dark-bodied shark. Enormous. Longer than a New York taxicab for sure; she could tell that even though it was still submerged.
Her blood hammered in her ears, the sound louder than the ocean. Her mouth had gone parched, and she felt like she might faint.
As the tip of his dorsal fin breached the water, her heart stopped completely, then took off at breakneck speed. She cried out as she felt something ripping through her side, and her hands flew to her stomach.
Her skin was intact, but she felt it, that she was being bitten, and she believed she smelled blood in the water. Her blood.
“Brady,” she gasped, not knowing where the name had come from. She kicked away, trying to put as much distance between herself and the shark as possible. “No!”
Her voice rang out, loud and clear, and then the shark’s enormous head was shoving through the water. His mouth opened, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“No!”
Now she was sure she felt the blood. Koenraad had bitten her. But not Koenraad… he was too large. But Koenraad had…
Pain racked through her, making her nerve endings sizzle. Her eyes rolled back into her head and everything went dark.
Chapter 13
Monroe blinked up at a cloudy, nighttime sky. Her vision was hazy, and she couldn’t hear, but slowly everything came into focus.
“Monroe?” Koenraad leaned over her, his face creased with worry. “What happened to you?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Guess I freaked out when I saw you as a shark.” She grimaced. “I’m such a wimp.”
“You’re not,” he said, his mouth turning down.
“This is crazy.”
“Having second thoughts?” Koenraad asked. He pulled at something in her hair, and she saw him toss away a small bit of seaweed. The gesture didn’t at all obscure the stiffening of his shoulders.
“No,” she said truthfully. “I knew you’re a shark. I’m a wimp, that’s all.”
His smile was noticeably forced. “So seeing it wasn’t worse? You can change your mind, you know.”
“How could something I’ve known about all along be a deal breaker? We’re both crazy, that’s all.” She grinned, but to her surprise, his smile was fading. “What?” she asked. Had she offended him? “I didn’t mean crazy like it’s a bad thing—”
“Last night I wanted to tell you something,” he said. He spoke slowly, like he was thinking deeply about each word before allowing it to cross his lips. “Something that might be a deal breaker. I have a son.”
“You…” She felt her eyebrows climbing, and she forced her expression into something more neutral. A son? She couldn’t even imagine it, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Kids hadn’t really been part of her plan, at least not for several more years. “Well, we’ve only known each other a couple of days,” she said finally.
“That’s not the problem. One, I have a son,” he said. “Two, that’s who attacked you.” He touched his hand to her side, where the skin was new and pink, and she flinched as she finally remembered what had gone through her mind right before she passed out.
“Brady,” she whispered. “He… builds model ships.” Then she didn’t move, and worse still, neither did he.
“Yes,” he said. His head dropped, but then he pulled up again, seemingly forcing himself to meet her eyes. “Third, the scars on my back aren’t from him. What he did is wrong, but I could never hurt my son. The scars are self-inflicted. I needed a large quantity of my blood, and shark’s teeth are better than human teeth.”
“Your son attacked me?”
“Yes. Please don’t cross your arms.”
She looked down and saw that she had crossed her arms. She uncrossed them but then felt even more vulnerable and alone, even when Koenraad laced his fingers through hers, their palms pressed together.
Then she felt it again, the teeth biting into her. And when she looked up at Koenraad, she remembered him throwing her into a vast abyss of nothingness, his body outlined against the sky.
She remembered the look on his face. Pissed. At her.
The sob welled up from deep inside. No wonder he’d been so guilt-ridden after she’d woken up. And she’d kept thanking him for saving her.
He was moving away now, and a moment later he handed her clothes to her.
She took them without meeting his eyes.
Chapter 14
“This is so fucked up,” Monroe said as she brushed sand out of her clothes with a brusque snapping of her wrists.
Koenraad didn’t agree aloud. He couldn’t bring himself to. When she’d passed out in the water, he’d known something was wrong, and in the sixty seconds she’d been out of it, he’d had plenty of time to berate himself.
It had never occurred to him that she might have a flashback of the attack, but as far as he could tell, that was exactly what had happened.
Why hadn’t it occurred to him? She’d repressed the memory, but it wouldn’t have been wiped out of her mind.
Or had he known, deep down? Was this his subconscious at work again, forcing out the truth?
Either way, it was out in the open now. Not everything… She didn’t know the punishment for Brady’s attack was death.
He thought maybe if he talked to her, he could convince her that everything was ok. He could tell her all about Brady, explain the stakes and why he hadn’t wanted to tell another living soul. She might not forgive him, but he was sure she’d understand on some level.
But what seemed best, for her at least, was if he turned his back and walked away.
It was the humane choice. It was what she deserved. For the first time since he’d revealed himself in the crater lake, he had an opportunity to give Monroe her life back. Once she was back in New York, she wouldn’t have to worry about navigating the dangerous life as the human mate of a shark shifter. He could hire someone to erase all traces of her visit to Tureygua. Unless she hemorrhaged blood everywhere she went, not even a wolf shifter would be able to track her in New York. She’d be safe from kidnapping and from the Council.
As he cleared his throat and indicated a path back up toward the ca
r, he knew he was doing the right thing, but he could sense her confusion, her longing.
She wanted him to make this better.
She believed that he could.
Her faith wasn’t misplaced; by letting her go, he was fixing everything.
“Where are we going?” Monroe asked, her voice taut with apprehension.
“I’m taking you to the hotel,” he said. It was a partial truth. He was going to pack up her suitcase and get her off the island. With any luck, Spencer would still be in town, finishing up his so-called horrible date. Spencer could fly under the radar, get her to another island and use a bigger plane to get her to Miami. Koenraad would book her a flight to New York from there. She would be safe. She would be gone, out of his life, though there was no guarantee she’d want to see him even after he’d fixed the mess he’d made in Tureygua.
He didn’t know which would worry him more: if she argued with him or if she didn’t.
He’d find out soon enough.
Given what had happened the last few hours, he didn’t think it was a good idea to leave her alone while he sprinted to the mansion to get his car.
The alternative wasn’t exactly palatable, but it was efficient. He pulled Menendez’s car up the slope. When he turned it on, it hesitated, wheezed, and clunked, then sputtered to life. Both the headlights were out.
Monroe looked warily at it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ll only be inside a few minutes.”
“As long as you don’t put me in the trunk,” she said, her voice shaky. But her gait was steady as she walked around the abused vehicle and slid into the seat.
He felt her tensing up beside him as he drove down the dark roads. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I can see perfectly well.”
“I’m not worried.”
He wanted to ask her why she’d stopped breathing, then, but he knew what she was doing. She was denying that he was different. She was pretending he wasn’t a shark.
He had to admit, it hurt. She’d been the first person to truly see him, and now she acted like she hadn’t. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He’d never blame her for trying to protect herself. Look what lengths he was going to for his son. He wanted to take her hand, to talk things out, but he could tell she didn’t want to be touched.
Driving the whole way to the hotel like this didn’t seem fair to her, and there was a good chance he’d get pulled over once he got close to the town, so he stopped at his mansion. Spencer had left Koenraad’s car near the gate and had taken the convertible.
“You changed the codes,” Monroe said as the gate opened.
“I didn’t. I switched it back to biometric authentication. It scans my retinas. It’s an extra security precaution, but I’d disabled it because… well, because it’s slow and I’d gotten lazy.”
She huffed. “All you had to do was tell me not to come out here, Koenraad.”
He drew in a sharp breath and released it slowly. She couldn’t possibly think he’d done this because he wanted to cut her out of his life, especially considering he’d been minutes away from claiming her as his mate.
First she’d rejected him as a shark. Now she was rejecting the tenderness he’d shown.
He needed to let her go. She was furious, and she was a danger to herself and to Brady. It wasn’t easy, but he held his tongue.
His other car could have sat outside the gate, but a few minutes apart would do both him and Monroe some good, so he walked out to get it. When he handed Monroe her bag, which had been in the back seat, she barely looked at it.
He chose his Mercedes SUV to drive to the hotel. It was solid and comfortable and spacious inside, and he sensed that Monroe was more relaxed as she climbed inside.
They drove in silence, Koenraad wondering how he was going to tell her that he was sending her home. He couldn’t know what she was thinking, but her heightened pulse, coupled with the way she sat shifted on her seat as if she didn’t want to look at him, gave him a pretty good idea.
“I’m sorry…” He stopped himself there. If he wanted her to leave and not look back, he needed to let her hate him.
It wasn’t a stretch. He deserved it. He never should have introduced her to Brady.
Over the past few days, he’d come to realize that he wanted to reveal himself to Monroe, and that was why he’d taken her to the crater, to the water. That was why he’d pulled her underneath. He’d wanted her to see him, just as he’d wanted to see her.
If he was capable of that, he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t subconsciously wanted to chase her away.
Not the attack. Never that. But maybe he’d thought that meeting Brady would send her running, that learning that he had a troubled child would show him how things stood between them. If she ran, she wasn’t for him. If she stayed, it would be with full knowledge of the situation.
He didn’t think that was what had been on his mind, but he couldn’t know, couldn’t trust himself where Monroe was concerned. She’d been pushing him, wanting him to expose more of himself. Literally. She was exceptionally curious, and from the moment she’d learned that male shark shifters possessed two cocks, she’d wanted to see his. She’d wanted to see the barbs. He hadn’t intended to show her anytime soon, but after the attack…
Guilt had made him show her. After she’d gotten over her shock, then she’d wanted more. To touch him. To have all of him inside of her. His blood, still fresher from the transfusion than he ever would have guessed, had healed her hand immediately after she’d touched him.
Because of that, she’d begged to have him inside her. It had provoked the shark in him and had turned him on. She wanted him so badly she was willing to bleed for him, to be cut, to suffer. She wasn’t just willing; she craved it. He’d smelled her arousal and had known the truth: Monroe was a hell of a lot kinkier than she looked.
And he suspected it was a revelation to her, too.
So was it about her? Or was it about him? Did he bring this out in her just like she brought out his desire to shed the secrets and lies?
He was uneasy as he drove into the hotel’s underground parking lot. Monroe was still facing away, but she’d sucked her lower lip into her mouth, and he could hear the tiny vibrations as she nibbled on the thin, delicate skin.
Thinking of her mouth reminded him of how she’d begged to suck his cock, and how heartbroken she’d been when he’d stopped her.
One thing was indisputable: they were perfect together in bed. They exploded… And they’d only explored a small fraction of the possibilities.
He shut off the engine and pushed open his door. When the door slammed, it seemed it was closing on his hopes and dreams, too. But that was his own damned fault. A shark like him, with secrets as big as his, didn’t get to hope. His dreams were for Brady, and that was how it should have stayed until he’d found a cure.
“Koenraad?” Monroe asked, her voice uncertain. He could tell she’d worked herself up to whatever she was going to say.
He didn’t want to hear it, so he pretended to be distracted.
She wasn’t fooled. He smelled her flash of anger, and he smiled because even though she’d been slow to understand that he could sense her emotions on a level no human could, when she got it, she really got it. Which meant she was well aware that he was pretending not to hear her.
“I’m surprised you didn’t valet park,” she said, a defiant tone in her voice.
He stiffened slightly, then shrugged it off. She was going to find out in a few minutes anyway. “I don’t want anyone to see you leaving the hotel. It’s for your own safety.”
“Is that how it is?” she murmured. “Rather than talk this out, you’re sending me away.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how it is.” He headed into the elevator, and he could feel her eyes burning into his back. Something told him she wasn’t admiring his shoulders, that she wouldn’t be thinking about him in that way for some time, if ever again.
In the hotel room, Monroe packed her b
ags quickly and efficiently. She set aside the things he’d bought her—the dresses, the bikinis, a sun hat, a green Touch Paradise in Tureygua T-shirt that he’d had to buy because it brought out the warm fire of her brown eyes.
“I’m done.” She stood before him, her chin high, her breathing calm and steady. Koenraad’s gaze flickered to the things she’d left on the bed.
“You forgot a few things—”
She defiantly raised her bags, to show him. “No, I didn’t.”
And that was that. He grabbed up the suitcase that he hadn’t even unpacked the night before, and he held the door open for her.
In the garage, he loaded their things into the back of the SUV. Monroe stood, watching quietly. “You can get in,” he said. “I’ll check out.”
“I’m coming with you.” She held up the purse clutched in her right hand. “Half the bill is mine.”
“Monroe—”
“I’m not negotiating on this.”
He could hear in her voice how much his rejection had hurt her, and he instinctively knew how much it meant for her to pay her own way, that it would allow her a clean break.
But he couldn’t let her do it, not when he was well aware of how she struggled financially. “I chose this hotel,” he said. “Paying for it is the least I can do.”
She headed for the elevator. With a sigh, he locked the SUV and followed her. “It’s already paid for, you know.”
“Which is why you’re going to tell them to split it in half and give you a partial refund.”
He had no intention of doing any such thing, and when the receptionist gave the total for the room, which included an inflated replacement cost for the bike, Koenraad heard Monroe’s breath stutter out.
But her fingers were steady as she slid a credit card across the counter. Koenraad stood apart, hands shoved deep in his pockets. A quick phone call after she was gone and he’d get the charges reversed to her card, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing she could do about it.
Come to think of it, he’d have the things she’d left boxed up and shipped to her apartment. He might include a few extra gifts, and if she wanted to chuck the lot into the trash, that was up to her. But he suspected she wouldn’t.
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