Justoh.
She swallowed.
“Preeee!” Maggie slithered up onto her lap, standing four-square with her tail lashing behind her and her wings stretched big and scary as she glared up at Moss. “Eee! Ee ee ee!”
“Maggie!”
“Eeeeeeee!” Maggie stretched out her neck, looking exactly like a tiny baby dragon who wanted to bite Moss again. Images flashed through Carol’s mind. Sharp, pointy teeth and—oh god, that washer.Was that how Maggie saw her? Justteeth?
Moss held up his hands in surrender. “I agree, little dragon. She’s very beautiful and impressive,” he said. This time, when he raised his eyes to meet Carol’s, the expression in them was… different. Still kind. But warmed through with a heat that promised a thousand different things. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
“Pree!” Maggie puffed up her wings then, satisfied, turned her attention back to Carol. She curled up in Carol’s lap and tipped her head back, peeping bird-like up at her.
Carol barely noticed. Moss’s words were still echoing in her head. She didn’t think she would ever stop hearing them.
The most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.
He must be imagining her as she would be without her shark’s eyes. And—her teeth. Had he seen her teeth? Had he connected the dots between what Maggie showed him and the monstrous woman crouched beside him?
He couldn’t have. There was no way he could say the wordbeautifulwithout choking if he’d seen her teeth.
Even if she was his mate.
“You’re—” she began. Her voice cracked.
He reached out, covering her hand with his. “I know.” His voice was strange, like he was holding something back. “It’s a lot. If it’s easier… we can leave the life-shattering declarations for later. When we’re not both at risk of pneumonia.” His eyes flicked down to Maggie. “All three of us at risk, even.”
“O-okay. Um. You don’t happen to have something to light a fire in your pockets, too?” she joked, determinedly not thinking about when thatlatermight be, or how he might look at her when he found out the truth.
“Nope, sorry. Nor anything dry to light on fire.” He patted his pockets anyway and froze the same moment realization crashed through her.
“You didn’t shift, either.” The blood rushed from her face. “What were you doing out in the storm? Were you with other people? Oh, god. I’m so sorry. The storm—”
She’d been flying through it. What must it have been like at sea level?
“I was alone. It was only me.” His jaw tightened. “No one else. I was—”
“Were you on a boat?” It was the only reason she could think of. “Sailing in that weather by yourself—our pilot said the storm came up out of nowhere.”
“That’s about the shape of it.” He winced. “As for why I didn’t shift…”
He looked down at his hands as though he’d never seen them before. Carol looked, too. How could she not?
His forearms were firm and muscular, a scattering of burn marks and scars marring his brown skin. He was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt that had been hammered by the waves; one of the sleeves was torn, and the fabric was soaked and twisted, clearly showing the muscular body beneath. She could only imagine what was hiding under his pants.
She shouldn’t, though. Imagine. She should be focusing on other things. Not imagining what was in his trousers.
“My octopus—” he began, and his voice twisted. “My octopus prefers to hide away. When we hit the storm, the closest place to hide was in me. Which left me in human form. You know. Humans, famously able to breathe underwater and survive at sea. Thanks, octopus.”
There was something almost like grief underpinning his dry words. On impulse, she reached over and took his hand again.
There were too many terrible thoughts battling for her to pay attention to them. Too many painful things to acknowledge and know there was nothing she could do about them, out here, hiding from a storm on this island in the middle of the ocean.
“So,” she said, clutching at normality, “you like sailing?”
He stared at her. His cheeks puffed out, and then he burst out laughing.
“Sailing, fishing, diving. You name it. I’d rather be on the ocean than most other places. The kitchen being one exception.” He lifted the hand she wasn’t holding. Thin silver scars cross-hatched his fingers and palms. “Even if it took me a while to figure out what end of the knife was the pointy one. Shifter healing only goes so far, eh?”
