DANE
There was a storm coming.
Dane stepped out of his cabin and squinted up at the sky. He didn't need a weather forecast to tell him—which was good, because he didn't even own a radio.
But the signs were all around him. The sky was still blue, but fast-moving banners of clouds flowed rapidly over the treetops above the island, heralding a rapid change of weather. The trees bent under the rising wind. A swirl of gulls and other seabirds flew over the island, then whorled down to settle on the rocks and tree branches, seeking shelter.
"Gonna be a bad one," Dane murmured to himself.
It wouldn't be the first storm he had weathered since he had lived on the island. After another concerned glance at the sky, he left the cabin and strode up the path that wound across the spine of the island beneath the fir and pine trees.
Dane moved with a swift and graceful stride, making barely any noise, flickering in and out of the shade under the trees. He was bare to the waist; he rarely bothered with a shirt when he was alone on the island. The cool ocean breezes felt good against his skin. His loose hair was down to his shoulders, brushed back from his face by the wind.
By the time he reached the highest point on the island, the wind had kicked up to a rushing current flowing through the trees around him. From here, he had a commanding view of the surrounding ocean, and what he saw made him frown. There was a line of dark clouds on the horizon, blotting out the luminous blue-green water. Its leading edge was already threatening to hide the slanting afternoon sun.
Big storm, and it would get here soon.
He strode swiftly back toward the cabin, pausing briefly at his small garden in a clearing in the woods. The tender green plants were growing bravely, but there was little he could do to protect them. He would simply have to clean up afterward.
The storm was rushing onward swiftly. The sky turned gray, and the first drops of rain had begun to hit his bare shoulders by the time Dane reached the cabin. He went to work, nailing boards over the cabin's windows to protect them. He checked to make sure the fire in the stove was completely out.
Dane was not planning to weather the storm in the cabin.
He had other plans.
After checking that everything loose was stowed or tied down, Dane took off his jeans, boxers, and boots. He carefully folded each item of clothing and placed it in the cabin to await his return. Then he locked the door.
He stood naked in front of the cabin. The rain was coming down heavily now, sluicing over his bare body.
Dane turned and strode barefoot down the path that wound downhill to the bare rocks beside the crashing sea. The scars on his back tugged with mild discomfort as he moved. He was more aware of them when the air was cold, causing the damaged skin and muscle to pull in ways he was still getting used to, even years after the original injuries.
The storm's intensity was growing. All around him, the trees whipped back and forth as if in a fury, their supple trunks bending and groaning. Some would surely snap off in a storm of this magnitude. Dane hoped that none of them hit the cabin. There was nothing that he really minded losing—it had been a long time since he had cared about physical belongings—but he did need it to live in, and didn't relish the work of fixing it up again.
The wind had churned the sea into a high froth. The mooring place where Dane's friend Eren tied up his boat when he came to bring a fresh shipment of supplies had vanished beneath wild white surf. Towering waves slapped the bare rock. Dane winced as a shower of icy needles of sea spray stung his bare skin.
Leaving the shelter of the trees behind, he walked barefoot across the slippery rocks, striding into the full fury of the growing storm. This would be a terribly dangerous situation for a normal human. One slip on the wet rock, and he would plunge into crashing, grinding waves that would batter him against the rocks.
But Dane had never feared the ocean.
He stood for a moment on his favorite point of rock overlooking the ocean. There was a steep plunge from this rock to a deep basin, and on calm days it was a delight to leap from the rocky point into the cool water. On a day like today, all he saw below him was roiling white foam, but he still felt no fear, only the exhilaration that always came before a swim.
With perfect form, Dane leaped off the rocky point.
He shifted in midair.
It was a man who left the rocks, but six tons of killer whale that hit the water, diving in a long curve that took him far below the roiled surface of the ocean into the quiet, peaceful depths beneath.
The water no longer felt cold to his sleek black-and-white skin; it was now pleasantly warm. The breath he had taken before diving sustained him as he coasted slowly toward the surface and finally came up to breathe again.
Surfacing into the thrashing waves and rain was a minor shock after the peace of the depths. Dane inhaled deeply and thrashed his flukes to turn around and look back toward the island. It looked small from here, a long ridge of rock covered in trees, rising out of the cold waters of the Atlantic.
He had heard that the local name of the island was Dead Man's Island.
Appropriate, Dane thought, for a dead man such as himself.
He had nothing in particular to do while the storm raged on, and from experience he knew that these nor'easters could last for days. But this storm seemed freighted with an unusual sense of urgency. Now that he was in his shifted form, he was more aware of his animal's instincts and intuition, and it was telling him—through their unvoiced bond—that there was something important about this storm.
There was areasonwhy he needed to be in the water this time.
