"We'll call the Coast Guard and let them know you're here," the mercenary shouted back. He hesitated, then leaned down and rummaged around in the speedboat's storage, coming up with another bag of supplies. He hurtled it with a spectacular throwing arm; it cleared the surf and landed on the beach.
"Gosh, thanks for that, jerk!" Mira yelled back. "I don't know what we'd do without you! You're a regular Good Samaritan! Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale rolled into one!"
As Mira ran out of insults, Dane spoke up, calling out, "Not the Coast Guard. Send a radio message to a friend of mine."
"Who?" the merc shouted. The boat continued to motor away.
"Tor Nilsson," Dane called. "In a town called Westerly Cove, Newfoundland. He'll get the message where it needs to go."
The boat receded through the waves. Eventually they were alone on the beach.
Mira, after a moment, got up and went to pull the bag of supplies out of reach of the waves. Then she collected the scattered clothing left by the men who had transformed into beasts. Some of it was too ragged to wear, but she found enough that was intact or could be easily repaired. Mira collected a badly damaged shirt to tear up for bandages and a pair of cargo pants, and took them back to Dane.
"Looks like your days of walking around completely starkers are over," she said, crouching beside him. "At least if you want them to be. Not that I'd complain if you don't. How about we get you back to our comfy bunker home, break out the first-aid kit, and you can tell me just what exactly happened out there." She got him up with an arm around his ribs and slung the new bag of supplies over her shoulder. "Did I hallucinate, or did he turn into an albino Loch Ness Monster?"
"Something like that," Dane said wearily. Now that the fight was over, fatigue came down on him like a crushing weight. "A sea dragon, I think. I didn't even know there were any."
"Is he dead?"
Dane looked back out to sea, where he saw a flash of distant dorsal fins as the pod swam on their way. There was no sign of the Colonel anywhere. "I don't see how he could possibly have survived that."
"I guess orcas are their natural enemies."
"I don't think it's that," Dane said. "I think they saw the commotion and came to find out what was going on, and then they saw me being attacked. It's not unreasonable to think that if a sea dragon is going to attack one orca, it might attack more. Ow."
"Sorry," she said, helping him clamber over the rocks. "Has that ever happened before? Do you regularly swim with orca pods?"
"Sometimes. They do seem to find me intriguing. I think most of them have never seen an orca shifter before." He managed a grin. "The next time a pod comes around my island, I'll need to take you swimming to meet them."
"After what I just saw, I might pass on that." She was quiet for a moment, then said, "Are you thinking about going back to your island after all this?"
"Only if you want to. But ... I'd like to see it again, at least. I don't think there's any danger now that the Colonel's gone. The rest of them clearly are scared enough of me that I can't see them making trouble. But," he went on, after a pause for breath, "the important thing is what you want to do."
"I want to be where you are." She laughed a little. "Which hopefully will be somewhere other than this island, which I'm very tired of."
"Maybe there's an emergency beacon in this bag of stuff."
There wasn't, but there were more blankets and more food. After she had dressed his wounds, they wrapped up in blankets and made careful love, and sat together as the sun set over the sea.
MIRA
It wasthree days after that—three slow, lazy days of healing, recovering, and gentle lovemaking by the fire—when Mira spotted something flying over the island.
She dropped the water bag, which she had been filling at the cistern, and bounded down the rocks to the bunker. By now she was so used to the walk up to fetch water that she had no fear of tripping, even when she was in a hurry.
"Dane!"
Dane emerged from the bunker, bare-chested and barefoot as usual but wearing a pair of military cargo pants that at least made it possible for her to think a little more clearly when he was around. "What's wrong?"
"I think we're being reconnoitered," Mira said. She ducked inside the doorway of the bunker, glancing up. "But I'm not sure what it was. If it was an airplane, it was completely silent. A drone, maybe?"
A shadow passed across the beach, oddly shaped and chunky, with wide-spread wings. Dane looked up and suddenly broke into a grin.
"It's all right," he told Mira. "It's a friend."
"A ... flying friend?" Mira asked warily. She followed him out onto the beach.
The flying shape circled and landed. Mira stared in amazement. At least this was less impossible than it would have been to her before she had seen an orca fight a dragon. The creature was a griffin, but not exactly one from a storybook. It was fluffy, mottled white and gray, with a falcon's wings and a lynx's long-legged, large-pawed body.
