Hailey and Jagger approached hand in hand, leaving Oliver and Kino to chase each other with the football while Ruby and the children cheered. Oliver was not about to give up that football now that he finally got his hands on it.
“Fuck you and your monkey in the middle!” Oliver yelled.
“Good afternoon, children,” Kane yelled from the boat.
He looked to have no intention of climbing down, which was a good thing in Kalina’s opinion. She didn’t need to speak to the man and having him anywhere near actually dampened her mood. Seeing Rafe splashing through the water overpowered her dark cloud though, and she found herself giddy, smiling at him, wanting to accept him with open arms, like a lonely wife seeing her soldier return home for the first time after years in a faraway warzone.
If there were ever a more hopeless romantic than me, God help her.
“I’ll get there eventually,” Rafe said. “Just wait a second.”
She laughed.
“Take your time.”
She wished she could go out there to him and walk back with him, and she almost did without thinking of the consequences. Shifting in front of him and dropping down into the shallow water would have been not only horrifying, but downright embarrassing. She would have flopped around like a fish desperate for water.
“You could meet me half way, you know?” he said.
“Oh, but the scenery is so great from here,” she replied.
Finally, he stepped out of the water and approached her, panting. He removed his soaked polo and draped it over one shoulder. The sight of him covered in beaded water had her biting her bottom lip. He was exquisite.
“Put your damn shirt back on!” Kane called from the boat.
“I will in a second, geez,” Rafe replied.
He turned to Kalina and said, “He’s like a disgruntled father sometimes. I swear.”
“Guess we should leave you two alone,” Faith said as she grabbed Paisley’s hand and pulled her toward the guys on the other end of the beach.
As Rafe reached out and took her hands, Kalina was glad that touching saltwater removed from the ocean didn’t trigger her abilities. If she took one step into the water she’d begin to turn, but touching his body coated in the liquid did nothing to her. Horace had once explained that it was more than the water itself. It was the magic of the ocean, the power, the spirit of the water. The souls that had perished there, human and creature, that combined to give her the ability to change between two-legged woman and fin-sporting shark. This was her blessing and her curse. He once told her there were lake creatures as well, who would be able to go into a sea of saltwater and not be fazed, but once they waded into a freshwater pool, they’d immediately change into a gator or whatever their spirit animal was. Listening to the old sea turtle’s stories always fascinated her. He’d been a major part of her upbringing, like a grandpa helping young ones learn the tales of their ancestors.
“You look unbelievable,” Rafe told her as he reached up to touch the side of her face.
They’d yet to have a real romantic moment other than a conversation before the gang of hoodlums showed up at the bonfire and the fleeting seconds after. Yet, it almost felt as if they’d been dating for a long time. She wanted to kiss him, to welcome him the way a girl should welcome the boy who takes her breath away.
“Thank you,” she said. “I knew you’d find me.”
“Dad back there in the boat didn’t want to bring me out here,” he said, “but I convinced him.”
“You should tell him to leave,” she said. “Let you hang out here for a while and come pick you up later.”
“Do you think he looks like the type to swing back around and offer me a ride?”
She looked onto the boat where Kane was holding a hand up to his temples, shielding his face from the sun. He didn’t look the slightest bit happy about being here.
“We do seem like teenagers,” Kalina said with a chuckle.
“Yeah,” Rafe said. “Me asking for a ride to come see my girl.”
He said his girl. Oh my God. He said his girl.
Kalina’s knees knocked as soon as she heard the words. Nobody, not a single person in her entire life had ever called her their girl. Nobody had called her their anything. She’d always been on her own. Sure, she had an island full of people to hang out with, but even in that crowd she knew she was a loner.
“Is that what I am?” she asked.
Rafe smiled at her and parted his lips to speak, his words lingering there in his throat, and she knew he was about to say something sweet. The sparkle in his eyes told her as much.
“Hey!” Kane yelled. “Where’s Thane? We need to talk!”
Rafe turned to look back at his boss and it completely stripped the moment away. Kalina wanted so badly to hear his answer, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. If she asked him again, it would seem desperate. Kane had given her one more reason to despise him.
“He’s not here!” Kalina yelled. “He’ll be back in a little while. He went to mainland with Penny!”
“I need to talk to him about those attacks!” Kane yelled.
“I’ll tell him when he gets back!” she replied.
She turned to look at Rafe and repeated her words softly, “I’ll tell him when he gets back.”
Her words drifted on the breeze and weren’t meant for him. They were the result of her attention being yanked back to the one man on the planet she wanted to save her words for. Her mouth let them slip out while her mind was trying to catch up with her heart.
“Come out with me tonight,” Rafe said.
“Where?” she asked.
“Come on, lover boy!” Kane said. “We came to the island, we saw what it has to offer, and now we need to go back to work. Seems we have some sharks to hunt.”
“Umm…I’m kind of new around here,” he said, “but Tilly’s seems like a pretty cool place. Is that okay with you?”
“I like Tilly’s,” she agreed.
“Seven?” he asked.
“Perfect,” she said as she leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
He turned and rushed back to the boat, sloshing through the water. He turned back once to look at her and she waved. He reached the boat quickly and Kane had the boat speeding off in no time.
“Seriously?” Faith asked as she walked over to Kalina.
“What?”
“Did he ask you to the school formal?”
“I wish.”
“How old are you again? You need to be fucked. Like royally fucked.”
“No,” Kalina disagreed. “I need to be loved.”
Faith reached down, picked up a fistful of sand and tossed it at her. It thudded off her chest and fell to the ground.
“Cheese ball,” Faith said.
“No, you didn’t,” Kalina said. “You didn’t throw sand at me.”
“And if I did?” Faith asked. “You gonna throw some corny lines my way? Maybe bore me to death with ideas of true love and the meaning of life?”
“Fuck you!” Kalina said as she reached down for some sand.
Faith ran and Kalina chased after her. This was one of those moments where Kalina enjoyed the present. She wasn’t trying to understand the past and she wasn’t hoping for the future. She was simply sprinting barefoot down the beach, chasing after her friend.
When Faith froze in her tracks, Kalina was forced to skid to a stop herself. Then she saw the reason her friend had opted to let Kalina slap a squished-up ball of sand against her back. There, stepping out of the ocean and making his way onto the beach was one of the most powerful looking men Kalina had ever seen in her life.
His head was shaved bald with only the faintest of shadow coming back to it. His face was stern, and his chin was square. His skin was pale, nearly white, and his chest was thick, wide, massive. His legs were the size of tree trunks and his cock, his cock dangled down between his legs and was damn near the size of a traffic cone. The thing was unbelievably big. The guy
was stunning, but in a big, gym rat kind of way. He looked mean. He looked angry. He looked…decisive. Kalina knew from the moment she set eyes on him that he was the type of person who looked at you and decided right then whether or not he liked you, and if he didn’t, you better stay the fuck out of his way.
“Yo, where the fuck did you come from?” Kino yelled.
And he’s not going to like Kino.
“Thane,” was all the man said as he continued coming on shore.
“Faith,” Kalina said. “Is he one of the good guys or…?”
“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” Faith said. “But holy shit, I totally like what I’m seeing now.”
“Can we help you, man?” Jagger asked, stepping closer to Kino.
Ruby ushered the kids back to their cabin. Hailey, Paisley, Oliver and Rickshaw moved closer to Kino and Jagger. All huddled together like that, Kalina thought they looked like one ragtag gang of misfits. Tattoos and tanned bodies everywhere. The new guy stood out in stark contrast with his pasty skin, but damn if he wasn’t a good-looking hunk of man. Again, Kalina found herself staring at his cock.
“Is that real?” Kalina asked.
Faith didn’t miss a beat and said, “Only one way to find out.”
Faith stepped forward and walked ahead of all the others, until her toes were only a foot or so from the water.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Faith. It’s not every day that we have someone swim right up to our doorstep. Do you mind telling us who you are before you come any further?”
The man stopped and eyeballed her. He checked her out, starting at her feet and scoping her out all the way to her face, stopping to linger at her tits for a moment. He was one-hundred-percent alpha male and Kalina knew he was a shark. That, or a whale. She’d met a couple of whale shifters in the past. They were the most common of all the sea shifters, other than sharks of course. Looking at his gigantic cock again, she could imagine this guy being a…sperm whale? The thought made her giggle. But if he were a shark or a whale, he had amazing control over his body. Her kind was able to shift into human form as they were exiting the water, but they had to do it quickly. If they remained in the water too long, they’d shift back into shark form. This guy was in no rush, and he seemed to be fine there in his human skin. Like really fine.
Maybe Faith’s right. I need to get laid.
“Where’s Thane?” the guy asked again.
“He’s not here right now,” Faith said. “But I’m sure whatever your problem is, we can help.”
“You seem standoffish,” the guy said.
“We do?” Kino said. “Motherfucker you just walked up on us like…”
The guy turned his head in Kino’s direction and began walking that way.
“…like an umm…”
Kino obviously couldn’t think of anything badass enough to finish his comment, so he stopped and let the silence linger. Kalina looked at the stranger and tried to figure out why he looked familiar.
The Terminator. That’s it. He looks like a super sexy version of The Terminator. All anger and passion and moving on pure will.
Going to the movies was her favorite pastime. At least that was something she could do alone. She could swim to the mainland, change into something comfortable, and watch a movie. She lived vicariously through the women on screen, aching with their heartbreaks, soaring with their happy endings, and crashing whenever it was time to leave and head home to the island and her empty cabin.
“We’re nice people!” Kalina suddenly announced, seeming to surprise everyone on the beach.
The stranger looked her way and then checked her out the same way he had Faith.
“We don’t…bite,” she said. “Well, you know…we do…but we don’t.”
For the first time, the guy’s lips cracked open and his serious expression faltered. The faintest trace of a grin appeared.
“Tell Thane I’ll be back,” he said.
“Umm…okay,” Kalina said.
“Can I please take a message?” Faith said sarcastically. “And tell him who called?”
“Cobalt,” the guy said. “Tell him Cobalt was here.”
The guy turned, dashed through the water at an amazing speed, and then dove forward and disappeared into the ocean.
Chapter 10 - Sylvia
Sylvia stepped off the dinghy and onto the island, thanking Juan Diego for helping her with the trip.
“You coming, girl?” Sylvia asked as Penny remained on the small craft.
“In a minute,” she said. “I’m waiting for my chariot.”
Sylvia watched stunned as Thane came out of the water, his skin still a greyish tint from shifting into human form and stood next to the dinghy.
“Careful,” he told Penny. “If even one of your feet touches the water…”
“I know,” Penny replied. “I’ll explode into a million pieces and take the baby with me.”
“Slowly,” he said as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her, keeping her up and away from the water.
Sylvia envied her friend and watched them quietly, thinking it was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen in her life.
Now this is true love. Fuck that Will and Jada shit. They have nothing on Penny and Thane.
She’d always been a big fan of the Fresh Prince and his costar romance. They were what love was made of, but they were only humans and it seemed tiger sharks were the new thing. Sylvia laughed to herself as she tried to imagine DJing a radio station with all the songs dedicated to shark love. #sharklove. That would be her new thing. She was on this island for two reasons. To visit Penny and to see this life her best friend had spoken so highly about. Finding her “one and only” would be a nice added bonus.
Penny’s friends came out to greet her and for the first time ever, she felt like she fit right in with the crowd. Usually, in all groups of people, there were stereotypes. There was always the self-absorbed one who couldn’t stop taking selfies and trying to convince everyone it was “picture time.” Then there was the thug guy who said the word nigga way too much for her liking. Sometimes that guy was black and sometimes he was white. A thug is a thug. Every group had the jock, the one who seemed to use the word bro after every sentence. Usually groups had the nerd and the total douchebag, who was sometimes the jock or the thug too. But most commonly, every group had the royal bitch. This squad of lovelies had none of the above. Every person seemed totally genuine. It was strange. When one of them hugged her, she didn’t feel like it was superficial. Smiles weren’t fake.
The names of so many new faces were hard to remember, but Sylvia did her best to catch up.
“Thank God we have someone else to chill with for a while,” a girl Sylvia was sure was Hailey said, “because Penny is getting boring as hell.”
“What?!” Penny shrieked. “I’m the life of this fucking party!”
Penny threw a hand to her mouth when she noticed the kids were around.
“Please,” the pregnant one, Ruby, said. “Have you heard the words that fly out of Kino’s mouth? He’s like a sailor. Or a truck driver. I don’t know which has the foulest mouth. Maybe a truck driving sailor?”
They all laughed.
“Vroom vroom, baby,” her man, Kino, said as he stepped behind her and wrapped his hands around her waist.
The tough, rocker chick, Faith, approached Thane and pulled him aside. For a moment, Sylvia thought maybe they were talking about her and she felt a little uneasy. But then Thane shook his head and looked worried.
“This isn’t good,” he said. “If he’s here, trouble’s headed our way.”
“Who is he?” Faith asked.
Thane ignored her question and walked away, with Penny doing her best to catch up to him. He looked to be deeply concerned about something. Her attention was stolen by Hailey and the guy with the tattoos, Jagger, as they started asking her a ton of questions.
“You planning to stay a while?” Hailey asked.
“I don’t kno
w,” she replied.
“Do you drink?” Jagger asked.
“Yes.”
“How long have you known Penny?”
The questions went on and on, and she wondered how much Penny had told them about her and why they all seemed so interested. It was great feeling so welcome and she decided she did plan to stay a while. How long, she wasn’t sure, but she was in no rush to go back to the quiet solitude of home.
***
Sylvia had always enjoyed large parties with lasers flying all around and young people with neon lips and painted faces wearing revealing clothing. Maybe it made her feel younger than she actually was. Maybe it was all part of the DJ lifestyle. She played chill R&B tunes, everything from the classics to modern sexual sounds, but the crowd she associated with was a late-night one and it usually led to arriving home in the early morning by Uber or taxi.
This was her first ever beach barbecue by firelight. Sitting beside Penny, who was leaning back against Thane, she looked at the faces around her, the happiness of all these people who didn’t seem to have a care in the world, and she thought how great it must be to be them. Could she be one of them? She didn’t mean a shark. She meant carefree like them. She’d always lived by the “fuck it” mentality, but this was the ultimate in that mindset. No shoes? No shirt? No underwear or pants? Fuck it. No problem. No bills. No electricity. No jealousy or anger or frustration. They talked of things like play fighting with each other, swimming the waters and searching for anything dangerous to humans. At first, they’d seemed cautious about how much they said until Penny mentioned that Sylvia knew the truth about them. Then it was all out in the open and it seemed nothing was kept secret.
“First time you had sex,” Paisley said. “Kino?”
“Oh man,” he said. “You tryin’ to get me in trouble or what?”
Ruby laughed and slapped his shoulder.
“The kids are in bed,” Paisley reminded him, “so no excuse. Spill it.”
“Okay,” he said. “I was part of this welcoming group for tourists. I was…fifteen maybe? We would do fire dances and shake our asses and sing tunes and shit. You know, to make the locals feel like Honolulu was the coolest place ever! It was a tourist chick. She was older than me. She was there with her family and she was like one of those goth girls.”
Bite Me Harder (a paranormal shifter novel) (Guardians of the Deep Book 2) Page 9
