"And if we're not lucky?" she asked softly, poking at the fire.
"Then they'll be looking for us. It's a lot of ocean to search, though."
"Oh, that reminds me of something I meant to ask. How did you know this island was here? Do you know where we are?"
"Not exactly," Dane said. "But if you go northwest in this part of the Atlantic, you're going to hit land eventually. We could be somewhere near Greenland, or off the coast of Nunavut."
"It seemed like it was more than that." Mira looked up from blowing on the newly kindled flames. Her hair was tousled and fallen out of its braid, and there was an arc of sunburn across her nose. She looked glorious. He had to wrench himself out of an admiring reverie to grasp that she was asking him an actual question.
"It's hard to explain," he said. "I could tell we were close to some kind of land, but I can't say how I knew. It's instinct, I guess. My orca can read the patterns of the waves and taste the ocean currents. That's all I can really tell you."
He couldn't possibly have told this to anyone else. Even with other shifters, his abilities were unusual, and he couldn't imagine talking to a human about it. If he wasn't met with absolute incomprehension, they might laugh.
But Mira looked fascinated. "It's like you have superpowers," she said with a smile. She sat back on her heels, waving smoke out of her face. "You can see with sound and taste islands."
Dane had to laugh at this. He was startled by the sound. For a long time, he had almost never laughed; it was an extraordinarily rare thing. In Mira's presence, it felt as if he was learning how again.
Laughter. Joy. Being truly present in the world. Everything that made life worth living.
"I like hearing you laugh," Mira said, once again seeming to echo his thoughts. Maybe she had superpowers of her own, he thought.
"There's something else about being what I am," Dane said. His heart raced. He had never tried to have a conversation like this with someone who wasn't a shifter, and now it felt like the most important conversation of his life. "I guess you could call it another superpower, although it doesn't feel like it to me. It's just how things are for shifters."
"If you shoot lasers from your eyes, that would have been really useful back on Black Rock Island."
Mira said it with a perfectly straight face, but then cracked up when Dane grinned.
"No, no eyeball lasers. I can't fly or turn invisible. But there's one thing I do have, a sort of extra sense. Not like echolocation. There's a thing we shifters always know ..."
He trailed off. It was surprisingly difficult to just come out and tell her.
"You know when people are lying?"
"No. Guessing isn't really helping."
"Sorry," Mira said immediately. "I'm listening."
"No, don't apologize." He touched her arm gently. "This is about you—it's all about you. You see, every shifter knows that there's someone out there who is just right for them. A single true mate. And we can tell as soon as we meet them. Mira ..." He met her eyes. "When I saw you, I knew that you were my fated mate, the one person in the world who fits me like a missing jigsaw piece."
Mira sucked in her breath. Her eyes brightened with a wild, wondrous light.
"Are you okay?" Dane asked. He was nearly alarmed by the sudden eager energy in her expression.
"Dane," she said, searching his face with her eyes. "That's what I thought when I metyou. I mean, not exactly like you were saying. I didn't think that you were a—a mate or something. But what I felt when I met you was that youfitwith me. Like you were a missing part I didn't even know was missing. I thought of the jigsaw puzzle analogy, too."
Dane had to catch his breath, he was so taken off guard by the wonder in her eyes.
"You really are meant for me," he whispered. "I always wondered if humans could feel it too."
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently, then as she responded eagerly, with more fervent desire. The kiss broke only when her hair flopped into her face and she had to stop to push it back again.
"Ugh, my hair feels like a salt sculpture. As much as I want to continue everything that's happening here, I'd like to do it without feeling like I've been rolled in itching powder. I wonder if there's enough water up in the rocks to bathe with." Her expression changed, brightening. "Oh, with everything else, I forgot to tell you my other news! It's not exactly a superpower or finding your other half, but what I did find is water. There's a distillation rig in the emergency kit, in case we need it, but there's plenty of rainwater trapped in the rocks. I found one pool and I think there might be others. Want to get clean?"
"I'm just going to get covered with salt again the next time I shift in the ocean," Dane pointed out.
"That may be, but I'm so itchy I feel like my skin's about to crawl off my body. Let's get some water, get clean, and eat something. At that point I might even feel properly human again."
The only container they had to carry water in was the collapsible cup from the emergency kit, until Mira had an idea and emptied out the tough, waterproof vinyl bag. She held it up. "If this keeps water out, it'll keep it in as well. Let's go get some."
