She would,he decided. And that gave him pause, because flinging himself at Black Rock Island in a suicide mission was no longer an option. He would never, ever send Mira on a suicide mission. And with her by his side, he no longer wanted it for himself.
They could work it out later. Right now, he found himself wanting affirmation, not destruction. He had survived. He had escaped.Theyhad escaped. And now he had Mira in his arms, and he wanted nothing more than to make love to her again.
"Were you satisfied earlier?" he asked her, placing slow, sweet kisses along her cheek. "Or do you think you could go again?"
"Are all shifters this insatiable, or is it just you?" But her arms were around him now, and she responded to his kisses with her own increasingly heated replies.
They made love on the blanket by the dying fire, and curled up together, wrapped up in the blanket and each other.
No, Dane wasn't going to let this go. He wasn't going to risk losing it. This was a fight he was going to take to the Colonel, and this time, he was going to win once and for all.
MIRA
Mira stirred sleepilywhen Dane got up. Dawn light was coming in through the open door of the bunker. "Where are you going?" she asked.
"Quick swim," Dane explained. "I'll explore a bit more and catch breakfast while I'm at it. We should probably save most of the food in the emergency kit for you."
Mira gave him a sleepy kiss. Then, too awake to go back to sleep, she sat up and watched him stride, graceful and naked, down the beach in the light of the rising sun. He waded waist-deep into the water, dived forward into the waves, and was gone.
This has to be the strangest stranded-on-a-desert-island experience that anyone has ever had,she thought.
There was no point in going back to sleep. The bunker was chilly without Dane, and she was stiff from sleeping on the ground. She stretched and got up, had a quick wash from the last of the water in the bottom of the bag, and dressed in the brisk morning air.
By the time she was done with that, the sun was up and it was starting to warm up a bit. She unwrapped an energy bar for breakfast (Peanut Brittle flavor), and left the bunker with the bag slung over her shoulder to get some water for their morning needs. It all made her feel very Robinson Crusoe-like.
She filled the bag from the pool, zipped it shut, and then clambered to the highest rock on the island to look around. Standing in the morning sun on top of what she was coming to think of as "her" rock made her feel even more like an explorer surveying uncharted lands. She shaded her eyes with her hands and looked out over the sun-glittering water.
She thought that she caught a glimpse of Dane's dorsal fin surfacing, and gave him a cheerful wave, though she wasn't sure if he could see her.
Then she glimpsed something beyond that. She shaded her eyes with her hands and squinted at it, wishing she had binoculars.
Whatwasthat? It was dark and tiny, but on the great, shining, empty sea, it stood out. Some bit of flotsam? No, it must be large to be visible at this distance. But then she remembered how close she and Dane had been to the island before she had been able to see it. The reverse was probably also true. The island was low and flat, and it didn't give her much of a vantage point.
A sudden splashing in the shallows drew her attention closer. Dane's great black-and-white bulk heaved out of the crashing waves, shifting in mid-motion to run across the sand.
"Get down!" he called.
Startled, she grabbed the bag and slid off the rock. "What's wrong?"
Dane's chest heaved, glistening with water. Despite his obvious agitation, she had to fight not to be distracted. "Boat," he said.
Mira joined him on the beach. "Rescue?" she asked hopefully.
"Don't think we can count on that," Dane said. "Not out here. It's heading straight for the island. I don't think a lost tourist would be doing that."
Mira was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of their lack of weapons. "What should we do?"
"Go to the bunker," Dane told her. He turned around, giving her a gorgeous view of a long expanse of water-beaded back and a flexing ass. "I'm going to swim out there and do some recon."
"Be careful!" Mira called as he splashed into the edge of the water. "Don't let them see you!"
Dane raised a hand in acknowledgement, then belly-flopped into the waves and was gone. She glimpsed a flash of a powerful tail.
Mira took the shortcut across the island rather than going the long way around, though she knew there was a danger of being spotted if the men in the boat had binoculars, which they almost certainly did. She tried to stay low and paused frequently to look back.
By now the boat was close enough that Mira, with her comprehensive knowledge of boats, could tell that it was a compact, powerful speedboat. That definitely was not any of the kinds of boats that she would expect to see out in these remote northern waters. A fishing boat, a tanker, a tourist liner—those would be unsurprising. But this was a short-range vessel that must have launched from somewhere nearby. It could only have come from Black Rock Island.
This realization galvanized her into speed. She scrambled over the rocks and reached the bunker, where she dumped the water out of the backpack and began shoving their gear haphazardly into it.
