“But she’s alioness.” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “The rules are different for us.Youknow that, working for that ridiculous man MacInnis. Trying to make us hold to human laws, as though the powerful should bow to the weak. But once He returns, that will all change. Those of us who deserve our power will keep it. Those whose presence weakens us—” He traced the line of Carol’s lips, and she almost gagged. “Shifterhood is a blessing, Carol. And that blessing will shine all the brighter when it is only the deserving who possess it.”
She should have been ready for this. It was part of the training MacInnis had insisted all his new hires complete. The training she’d been partway through when she was attacked and her life had become ruled by fear.
This is how I’m going to die, and I’m not ready. The thought skittered around her brain.I don’t know how to die. I haven’t done the reading.
There was meant to be a test, wasn’t there? And a practical. A practice run of being about to be killed, so that when it actually happened, she didn’t make an embarrassment of herself.
Because that was the big risk here. Being embarrassed.
She imagined her shark looming up inside her and rolling one dark eye. It didn’t, of course, but it was easier to pretend she was talking to it than herself.
I know that isn’t what I should be worried about. It’s not about being embarrassed. It’s… it’s…
It was Lance MacInnis seeing through the nightmare of her face and giving her a job when no other shifter would, and her failing him.
It was Keeley trusting her to watch Maggie, and her failing at that, too.
It was every twisted-upnot good enoughandbe careful, be small, don’t scare anyoneand memory of people flinching away from her all boiling together inside her. It wasn’t that everything good in the world was taken away from her—it was that she took what was offered and ruined it.
And now…
No one was coming for her.
She didn’t know how long she’d been Fairchild’s captive—unconscious after he first caught her, then those uncountable hours trying to keep her face above water in the cells. She only knew it was long enough.
Long enough for Moss to find her, if he was looking. What was he waiting for?
Her heart twisted.
Moss was a good man. And she’d told him he wouldn’t have to kill anyone.
If he came here, the kraken would murder everyone in its path.
She bit back a sob.
She was a shark shifter who looked like a monster, and she’d spent every minute since her shark first found her trying to be anything except what people expected of her.
What if she stopped worrying about what people thought and sank into her shark self like submerging herself in dark water? What if she let go of all her human complications and became sleek, fast teeth in the depths, a predator from a forgotten time, hunting and eating and not caring what became of the world she left in her wake?
If she’d cared less about Maggie, she would never have been caught.
If she’d cared less about the poor bastards Fairchild had tricked into being his holy army, she could have fought her way out.
If she let herself be the monster everyone thought she was…
She could call Moss now. Let him kill everyone and save her.
And afterwards? When he realized what he’d done?
Turning herself into a monster was one thing. She couldn’t force him to be one, too.
41
Moss
“PRR-EEEP!”
42
