Moss’s voice thrummed, somehow in tune with the waves hushing on the beach. “You were saying you grew up near the ocean, too?”
“My dad worked on a fishing boat most of my childhood. He and a few of my brothers run charters now.”
“Sounds like a good job for a family of shark shifters.”
Carol laughed. “If they can’t find anything exciting for the client’s trophy wall, they can at least give them a cut-rateJawsexperience.”
“Cut-rate because…?”
“No way my dad would actually let them bite a hole in his boat.”
Moss chuckled, and for some goddamn reason, the fact that they were bonding over both their families being so connected to the ocean made her add, “Not that I spend much time near the sea these days.”
“No?”
“I—” She licked suddenly dry lips, stalling. What was she going to say? Why had she even mentioned it? “You know. Work, and… everything.”
“Life gets in the way?”
“Sure.”
How did sheknowhe was looking at her, even without using any of her shifter senses? She grabbed a stick and poked at the fire until he looked away.
Sure. Life gets in the way. You grow up knowing that even though the water is your element, it’s a dangerous one.
It just doesn’t prepare you for someone to use it as a weapon against you.
Unthinking, she brushed her fingers along the corner of her eye, where the texture of her skin changed so subtly from human to something else.
And Moss was watching her again.
“Maybe spending more time in it would help?” he suggested.
“Help how?” She waved a hand to stop him from answering. She already had her own answer.Help remind yourself that the ocean isn’t out to get you, any more than the air is. It’s just a place. A place you should belong.
Instead of feeling like you belong nowhere.
“Whenever my head feels like it’s in a thousand places, swimming in the ocean always helps. Helped. Helps.” There it was again—that strange shadow, half grief, half guilt. “Why not give it a go now?”
She swallowed back a sigh. She had so many excuses for why she’d avoided the ocean since her shark emerged.
And now, one very good reason to go swimming in it.
Two very good reasons. Those blazing distant stars in Maggie’s hoard. Lance and Keeley. If she could swim far enough to find them… “You’re right.”
Even if what she really wanted was to stay here with Moss and eat smoky hot fish and mussels with him in their cave. Guilt plucked at her. She should want to do everything she could to get them all somewhere safe.
Not stay here, away from the real world.
Moss smiled.*Now that the little dragon’s asleep. Go out and—*
“Preee eep? Eep? Eep?” Maggie was suddenly, startlingly awake. Moss made an incredulous noise.
“I didn’t even mention her out loud!”
“EEP?”
“But youdidstop talking. That’s suspicious. Besides, Maggie knows that we’re always talking about her. What else would webe talking about, if not the most adorable, shiniest, most fire-breathing baby dragon in the world?” Carol grinned at his rueful expression and the suspicion gathering on Maggie’s scaly snout as it wrinkled. She booped Maggie on the tip of her snout. “I thought you were going to sleep?”
