Bite Me Harder (a paranormal shifter novel) (Guardians of the Deep Book 2)

by Chris Genovese

  Bite Me Harder

  Guardians of the Deep 2

  By: Chris Genovese

  Bite Me Harder: Guardians of the Deep 2

  1st Edition

  Copyright © 2018 by Chris Genovese

  Published by Chris Genovese

  Written by Chris Genovese

  Cover created by Riley Edwards

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  http://www.chrisgenovese.com

  To sign up for the Chris Genovese or Carver Pike newsletter please go to: https://chrisgenovese.com/index.php/newsletter-signup/

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note and Dedication

  Prologue – Penny

  Chapter 1 – Sylvia

  Chapter 2 – Rafe

  Chapter 3 – Kalina

  Chapter 4 – Sylvia

  Chapter 5 – Rafe

  Chapter 6 – Kalina

  Chapter 7 – Sylvia

  Chapter 8 – Rafe

  Chapter 9 – Kalina

  Chapter 10 – Sylvia

  Chapter 11 – Rafe

  Chapter 12 – Kalina

  Chapter 13 – Sylvia

  Chapter 14 – Rafe

  Chapter 15 – Kalina

  Chapter 16 – Sylvia

  Chapter 17 – Rafe

  Chapter 18 – Kalina

  Chapter 19 – Sylvia

  Chapter 20 – Rafe

  Chapter 21 – Kalina

  Chapter 22 – Sylvia

  Chapter 23 – Rafe

  Chapter 24 – Kalina

  Chapter 25 – Sylvia

  Chapter 26 – Rafe

  Chapter 27 – Kalina

  Chapter 28 – Sylvia

  Chapter 29 – Rafe

  Chapter 30 – Kalina

  Chapter 31 – Sylvia

  Chapter 32 – Rafe

  Chapter 33 – Kalina

  Chapter 34 – Sylvia

  Epilogue – Penny

  About the Author

  Author Links

  Other Works by Chris Genovese

  Author’s Note and Dedication

  Wow! Who would’ve thought people would be into a shark shifter book? I remember the first conversation I had with my wife about this. She loves the wild and rough wolves and can even get the whole fascination with bears. After all, her nickname for me is “Oso” the Spanish word for bear. When I told her I wanted to do something different, and that I was thinking of doing something with either dolphins or sharks, she said, “Dolphins are too wimpy. And sharks? No. Don’t do anything in the water.”

  I was feeling the sharks though. I knew it was a good idea. Sharks are totally badass. They’re the apex predator, the ocean’s alpha. One could argue that whales are the real ocean’s alpha but come on. Sharks kick ass. So, I asked a female friend about it and she agreed with my wife. “No, don’t do anything in the water.”

  But dammit! I wanted to write about fucking sharks! So, I wrote it. And you all seem to like it! I’m totally psyched about it now.

  Last night, I told my wife about all the love and anticipation I’m hearing for this second book in the series. Every time I mention it on Facebook or Instagram, people tell me they’re looking forward to the next one and can’t wait. Again, my wife was blown away. She still says, “Are you serious? I don’t get it. Sharks?”

  I guess she’ll need to read it to find out what all the hype is about! Sharks rock.

  So, this book is dedicated to all the believers, all those people out there who read everything I write, and to the new fans who were willing to give a shark shifter book a chance, even if these creatures aren’t your typical ferocious and furry alpha studs. You know what I say… not all alphas are on dry land. Thank you for believing in me enough to read. Love you all!

  Prologue – Penny

  Thane was out somewhere in that gigantic ocean, patrolling the water the way he always did. He kept them safe. All of them. Penny wished she could join him. She’d had so little time to ride the waves beside him, gliding as a tiger shark couple through the deep waters around Queensland, Australia, and her home, Shamrock Island.

  As she walked along the beach and caressed her belly, she wondered what kind of life she’d give her baby. Thane had taken her to meet Horace, the old man on the opposite side of the island. Rumored to be a sea turtle shifter, but barely seen in the water, the guy reminded her of an Aussie version of Mister Miyagi. He was so wise and spoke so little.

  A sea turtle shifter. How ridiculous. I bet he looks like the turtle on Kung Fu Panda.

  Penny watched the waves break and wondered how many different shifters there were in the ocean. Could an octopus transform into a super-hot stud like Thane? Could a sea snake become a tattooed bad boy like Jagger? Could a whale hit the shore and step out of the water with the perfect tits and ass of Kalina?

  Kalina.

  The beautiful blonde sweetheart who’d befriended her the moment she stepped foot on the island. She’d been nothing but kind to Penny, even as she swept in and stole her man. Not that Thane had been spoken for, but it turned out he and Kalina had had a fling of sorts.

  Now, Penny wished she could do something for the girl. If she were back home in Arizona, she would hook her up with someone. She’d take her out to bars, nightclubs, and…

  Where else does a woman go to meet a guy nowadays? Chipotle? Church? Never mind. I didn’t have the best luck with that, did I? Well, not for myself, but who knows? Maybe Kalina would find someone back home in the U.S. and love would hit her like a Mack truck going eighty down the freeway.

  American guys always loved accents, especially Aussie ones. What man didn’t have a crush on Grease’s Sandy at some point? It was a stupid thought, really, since Kalina would never leave the ocean. Who the hell would leave a place like this to move into the hot, dry ass desert? Not Kalina, that was for sure.

  Penny wished Sylvia were here. She and Kalina would be good friends. Sylvia had a way about her. She could charm the socks off of anyone she met. Or at least the old Sylvia could. The last time Penny went home to visit, her friend hadn’t quite been herself. Thanks to Evelyn and the attack on the barge, Sylvia had barely escaped with her life, and now she seemed stuck inside her head. She wasn’t the fun old sexy DJ she’d been when they’d first arrived in Queensland.

  If I could get her to come here, I know I could make her see that sharks aren’t all she imagines them to be. They’re beautiful creatures unless provoked. Or unless they’re led by a bloodthirsty demon like Evelyn.

  Lightning cracked in the sky over the ocean and Penny felt a storm brewing. A gust of wind blew across her face and an ominous feeling washed over her. Something bad was coming. Was it her new shark senses causing her to question things and register negative happenings long before they ever reached her shores? Or was it nothing at all? Maybe just concern for the man she knew was out there somewhere and for the baby inside her. Both of the loves of her life were fighting to make it in this world. One was out there in the water while the other was right here at home. She needed to keep them both safe. God willing.

  Chapter 1 - Sylvia

  The song was almost over. Usually Sylvia would sing along to Childish Gambino. In the past, she’d sway in her seat and belt out the tune while making sexy faces at her manager, Brian, who’d always had a thing for her. She loved her job and never had a hard time doing it. What wasn’t to like about sp
eaking seductively to late-night listeners in between playing your favorite jams? She was Sylvia Foxx, and life was great.

  So much blood. Anthony was his name. He was only a kid getting drunk and having a good time. One second, he was smiling, winking at me, trying to get an older woman in the sack. I was tempted. He wasn’t that young, twenty-two as I later found out, and he was so goddamn handsome. It changed in an instant. The look on his face was pure agony as the shark leapt up from the water and snatched his entire leg in its mouth. Then there was blood. Blood everywhere.

  Music died down as the song came to an end and it was time for Sylvia to snatch up the mic and say something to her audience. Yet, she found herself at a loss for words.

  Who gives a shit about music? It means nothing. Anthony won’t hear it anymore. None of those kids will. So much blood. And that fucking song.

  Sylvia had been on a party barge off the coast of Queensland, Australia when it happened. College kids were getting wasted as the sun began to set. Her best friend, Penny, had told her earlier that day she was moving to some island to be with her tiger shark shifting boyfriend. It seemed absurd. Sylvia had met shifters in the past. She’d dated a wolf for about a month, off and on, and she’d met a couple others through him. Yet, a shark that could turn into a human seemed illogical. Of course, she’d believed her friend, but she hadn’t given it enough thought when she’d stepped onto that floating drunken frenzy.

  That fucking song.

  Brian was staring at her and that meant only one thing. She’d fucked up. Quickly, she grabbed the mic and hit the button projecting her voice to the masses.

  “Hot damn those men have sexy voices,” she said. “That was ‘Adorn’ by Miguel followed by ‘Redbone’ by Childish Gambino. Let’s keep it going with an oldie but goodie…oldie meaning 1990s, y’all. That qualifies as old nowadays, right? Here’s Az Yet with ‘Last Night.’ But first, a quick word from one of our sponsors.”

  She got the commercial started, queued up the song, and leaned back in her chair. Her head throbbed. Before the trip to Australia, she never had headaches, but now it seemed a nightly occurrence. She needed to get fucked and fucked really well. She was convinced that was the problem. She hadn’t had sex since she’d fucked one of her sponsors on the trip. He was great in bed, but he wasn’t boyfriend material. He was married, technically. Going through a messy divorce, but not completely free. Not free enough to be hers.

  The song from the party barge ran through her mind. It was a modern, hard hitting version of Madonna’s Hey Mr. DJ. It had never been one of her favorites, but the DJ’s revamped version of it was good. She was half drunk when it played, and she sang along, surprising herself that she actually knew all the words. The screams interrupted the song. So much screaming. So much blood. She kept seeing the severed foot lying on the wooden deck, and she could still feel the rocking of the barge, the way it bucked and jostled around as underwater monsters tried to topple it.

  “You OK, Sylv?” Brian popped his head into her chamber and asked.

  She liked her privacy and usually would have told him to back off and let her handle her business, but this time she found herself staring into space, not sure how to answer him.

  “You kind of dropped the ball a minute ago,” he said. “You need me to take over?”

  Having him cover for her would have been great, but she wasn’t one to give up and call it quits. Her listeners demanded more than the silly soft sounds he liked to play. Easy listening, as much as she’d tried to make him understand this, was not R&B. Sailing by Christopher Cross didn’t fit well sandwiched between R. Kelly and Maxwell. Justin Bieber didn’t belong beside J. Cole. She hated even considering letting her audience down. Yet, she couldn’t get her head back in the game. Ever since she’d left Australia, she’d felt like a part of herself was still there. The sane part. The part that was fun loving and carefree. Somehow that part had detached itself and was still basking in Australia’s warm rays. Or it was floating on the ocean on a broken party barge deck, still terrified of the sharks. If Penny was here, she’d feel so much better. She missed her friend and feared for her safety. She was out there so close to that water. That ocean of blood.

  The worst part was she didn’t even know how to get ahold of Penny. She was on Shamrock Island, she knew that much, but where the fuck was Shamrock Island?

  “Sylv,” Brian said, repeating the shortened version of her name he always used. “Why don’t you get out of here for the night? And for the record, I think you need to see someone. That shit you went through…that was madness. Maybe you’ve got that post-traumatic stress stuff going on.”

  Post-traumatic stress. Sounds about right.

  Sylvia had never thought about it before, but that made sense. Maybe she needed to see a shrink. For now, she only wanted to leave work and go home. She wished so badly she could call Penny like she used to and discuss her problems with her. In the past, Sylvia had always been the one to say, “Get over it. Who gives a shit? Life goes on. Stop whining and complaining and live your life.” Come to think of it, she’d been a shitty friend. Penny had been diagnosed with leukemia and was always feeling down. Rather than deal with the fact that her best friend was suffering and might not make it much longer in this life, she’d chosen to ignore it, to try and convince her friend that not giving the disease room to breathe might actually kill it. Penny had been silently suffering while Sylvia had been loudly ignoring her pain. Now, Penny was gone, cured, and living her life somewhere with the shark people.

  The shark people.

  The thought of it made her feel like she’d stepped into some cheesy movie with sharks flying around in tornadoes or piranhas growing feet and chasing college coeds on vacation. It hadn’t been long ago that people didn’t know paranormal shifters existed. Now, they lived among the humans, and it was hard to tell which was which or whom was whom.

  When Sylvia reached her apartment, she pulled off her clothes and climbed into a hot bath. It was the only thing that made her feel good. Holding her breath underwater, leaving the breezy emptiness that hit her ears at all hours, and plunging herself into a truly silent world, made her feel at peace. Nothing could bother her under water. She wondered if that was how Thane and his shark shifter people felt. Did they feel an escape from the real world when they were under water?

  No, fuck sharks. They attacked me. They killed so many of those kids. Thirty-six deaths that day. Amber, Michelle, Rodney, Eduardo, Cynthia, Rose, Claudia, Michael…Anthony.

  The list went on and on. She’d committed most of their names to memory but found herself forgetting at least one of the names each day. When that happened, she read the newspaper article she’d saved. She owed them that much. So much blood. So much screaming. Girls falling overboard, guys thrashing around in the water, so many kids gripping the wooden deck, trying desperately to climb back onto the barge with their limbs floating away in bloody pools. The images hit her again and again. They woke her up at night. Even holding her breath in the bathtub wasn’t working tonight. She needed a drink, a very strong one.

  Sitting alone at her kitchen island, Sylvia poured herself a shot of tequila. She drank it and poured another. Three shots later, she wept into her folded arms.

  Why can’t I go back to the way I was before? Why can’t I rewind time and never get on that barge? If I’d never talked Penny into going to Australia with me…

  But if she’d never talked Penny into going to Australia with her, her best friend would still be dying from leukemia. Sylvia would be better, but Penny would be worse, and she knew that wasn’t a fair trade. If keeping things the same meant she had to suffer inner turmoil and her friend would live a long healthy life, she wouldn’t change it for the world.

  Sylvia reached for her purse and dug through it, searching for the newspaper clipping she always carried around with her. Reading the list of names had become a nightly ritual. Another shot of tequila helped dull her demons, but she became frustrated quickly. Tequila alwa
ys brought out her bitchy side, and that’s why she chose to only drink it when alone. Tears and a wicked tongue usually accompanied the golden liquid. Dumping the contents of her purse onto the kitchen counter, she finally found the folded-up clipping and peeled it open to reveal the headline: Slaughter Barge Down Under. She hated that headline. It was too much like the title for a horror movie, and what she’d seen wasn’t a fun-filled fear fest to entertain the masses.

  As she read off the names, one by one, her teary eyes blurred. Reaching for a pack of tissues that had tumbled out of her purse and onto the island, her hand touched a hard, rectangular piece of folded-up paper. She opened it and saw the information for the hotel where she’d stayed in Queensland. She held it up and read it, turning it over in her hand a couple of times. She’d never discarded it because she’d always hoped it would help her get in touch with Penny if she ever needed to. She’d actually forgotten it was in her purse until now.

  Why now?

  The pamphlet in her hand felt like an omen, like it was a trail left behind by her friend. Like she needed to find Penny and see if the life she’d described was all she’d made it out to be. She could call the hotel and ask how she could get to this Shamrock Island Penny always talked about. It couldn’t be that hard. Penny had told her about a man named Juan Diego and his boat. If she could get in touch with him, maybe he could help her find Penny. She wasn’t sure why, but she was suddenly hit with the overwhelming feeling that she needed to return to Australia.

  I’m so fucked in the head. In what world is it smart to return to a place that terrifies you?

  Yes, she was fucked in the head. That was the conclusion she came to. What she needed was to be truly and royally fucked…in a bed. Her fear turned to rage which in turn transformed into desire. She wanted the world Penny had left this one for. She wanted, no, needed to understand these sharks. She needed to either accept them and overcome her fear, or she needed to have one fuck the fright right out of her. She needed a man like Thane, one who’d not only protect her from the evils of this world, but would train her how to protect herself from the evils of theirs.