He shook his head slowly. “No need to worry about her shifting into a tiny human baby. She’ll stay safe in her flying, biting, fire-breathing, teleporting form. Consider me reassured.”
“And she can turn invisible.”
“And she can turn invisible,” Moss echoed faintly. “Maybe you should go before I change my mind.”
The wind picked up as she made her way down the beach. She shivered as clouds scudded overhead. What would they do if the weather turned? They’d been lucky so far. The wind was constant, but the sunlight had enough heat in it to keep them warm during the day, and they’d been able to keep dry. If another storm like the one that had brought them here hit—how much protection would their little cave be?
She began to undress. She thought back to the first night they’d huddled together, sodden and shaking, the cold so deep it had dragged at her bones. And last night, lying with the fire on her face and Moss’s huge, warm body at her back, wrapped around her like she was the most important thing in the world. Like she hadn’t just dissolved into a blubbering mess.
There was no way she was the sort of mate he must have expected. He was so capable and warm and outgoing, and she was…
She sighed. You didn’t get to choose your mate. That wasn’t how it worked.
She would just have to try harder to be the sort of mate Mossmighthave chosen.
The sort of woman who went to parties like the Diazes’ wedding had been. Who went on mountaintop dates and out for dinner. In public.
Her shiver this time had nothing to do with the sea wind, or the water lapping around her ankles.
Lying about her face wasn’t the get-out-of-anxiety-free card she’d hoped. Moss didn’t look at her like she was permanently broken. It was worse.
He thought she could be fixed.
She made sure her clothes were above the high tide line and glanced back one last time at the shallow cave where she’d left Moss and Maggie. If only everyone was like Maggie. The littledragon treated her teeth like the best thing ever. Like they made her special and exciting.
If only…
She shook the thought away, and before she could change her mind, she plunged into the water.
Cold water closed around her. She hung in it, held by that strange mixture of buoyancy and pressure. There was no need to fight it this time. The ocean was as calm as it ever could be, a world of constant movement. She kicked, and the water parted around her. Welcoming her in.
Would it let her go, that was the question.
She squeezed her eyes shut, grimacing at herself. She knew the ocean. It didn’twant. It didn’t welcome you, or keep you, or throw you out. It justwas, and if you lived or died in it, it didn’t care.
She cared.
Her lungs began to burn. A flinch of panic jerked through her limbs. It was gone less than a heartbeat later, but a heartbeat was long enough.
She surfaced, half expecting the thud of wood between her shoulders pushing her down again. But nothing touched her. She sucked in a breath of sweet, fresh air.
See?she told herself.That wasn’t so hard.
And if that bit wasn’t hard, then this shouldn’t be, either.
Pulse hammering in her throat, she closed her eyes and searched inside herself for her shark.
It wasn’t there. Her jaw tightened, teeth gritting together. Of course it wasn’t there. That wasn’t how this worked, for her. Shifting into her animal form wasn’t a joyous connection to her soul’s true nature; it was a struggle. Every time. Like getting dressed in the dark, in clothes that didn’t fit. As though this form was something she had stolen, not something that was really hers.
She swallowed. Somewhere in the dark of her mind, or soul, or whatever it was—there.
A long, thick body, brutally hydrodynamic. A shape that evolution had abandoned millions of years ago because it already had everything it needed. Fins and tail. Strength and speed. Black eyes staring out either side of jaws built for grabbing and tearing. Death in the water.
Her body slid into its other shape slowly, reluctantly, and then all at once, as though some part of her or her shark or both of them had accepted even she couldn’t cringe so far she escaped her own self.
She cut through the water, swimming deeper. No need to worry about breathing underwater now. Water flowed over her gills, and oxygen flowed into her body. So long as she kept moving, she could breathe.
Safe.
