He stood up. “Right. Enough of this. I’m going to build a fire.”
“How?”
“The old-fashioned way. With sticks.”
Some time later, he still didn’t have a fire going, but he’d also managed to dodge any further questions. Good to know his ability to slither out of tricky situations hadn’t disappeared along with his octopus.
Avoided any questions abouthowandwhyhis family knew about dragons—check.
Dodged the whole if-dragons-exist-then-what-about-other-mythical-shifters issue—check.
His mate had no idea there was a monster hiding in his soul—check.
God, he was a prick.
But the worst thing of all was hiding how bloody hot he found her. She was trapped where no shifter wanted to be, partway between her animal and human sides. Her mouth was full of razor-sharp teeth. It didn’t matter that he found them sexy; it mattered that she must constantly have to watch herself to avoid cutting up her lips and tongue. And her eyes? He wanted to lose himself in them. He wanted to turn around in the dark to find her watching him. Meanwhile she must be counting the seconds until whatever mental block was stopping her from shifting properly disappeared.
Even her desperation to go swimming—she must have hoped that taking her shark form might reset things and let her shift back fully into human form. Poor bloody Maggie had put an end to that.
He should be thinking of a way to let her try again, not wondering what her teeth would feel like dragging against his skin.
But what was he doing, instead of either of those things?
Rubbing two sticks together like an idiot.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Carol sounded cautious, like maybe he didn’t already know he looked like a dumbass, and she didn’t want to break his delusion.
He had scoured the island for dry wood. Problem one. The island had just been smashed by a massive storm. Dry wood was in short supply. But he’d managed to find some driftwood that had washed into sheltered cracks in the cliffs, probably during previous storms, and had brought it back to their little cave.
Now he was holding one stick between his palms, rubbing them back and forth to drill the pointy end into another stick.
“What, you never tried this as a kid?” he joked.
“If any of us wanted to play with fire, there was usually a match or lighters around. If my brothers had anything to do with it.”
“You and your modern technology…” He trailed off. Was that smoke?
“How about you?”
“Oh, sure. We did the magnifying glass thing until one of the aunties caught us at it. Cracked rocks together to see which ones made a spark. And there were always bonfires or barbecues going… hangi pits when the whole crew was together and we had the time…”
“Hangi?”
“Earth oven. Dig a hole, light a fire in it to heat up rocks, chuck the food in and bury it while it cooks—bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist…” He trailed off, peering at the stick. Even if he squinted and pretended really hard, there was still no smoke.
“We could try that. If we’re going to be stuck out here a while.”
He looked up. Damn. He didn’t deserve the smile she was giving him.
“If we get the fire going,” he added. “And if you don’t mind a couple rocks exploding on you, cos I’m not sure I can remember how to pick the sort that don’t go bang when you heat them up.”
Maggie nosed her way over. She’d gorged on mussels, and now she was glaring—suspiciously—at what he was doing with the sticks.
Which were nowhere close to smoking, let alone kindling a flame.
And eeeeveryone was watching.
Something moved in the depths of his soul, and the backs of his eyes prickled with awareness. Great. Now the fucking kraken was watching him fail to light a fire, too?
