After a quick stop in our rooms to change into tank tops, shorts, and flip-flops, we met in the lobby. Bruce's friend Isiah, the alpha shark shifter, joined us.
"Well, now I'm not going in the water," I joked.
"I thought you were a meerkat, not a chicken."
We teased each other all the way to the water's edge, and then we deposited our clothes on a driftwood bench overlooking the deserted beach. Bruce was the first to shift, his giant paw prints the only sign he was there as he sped down the coast. I shifted into my meerkat at the water's edge, waiting for Bruce to return before I entered the water.
Isiah splashed into the surf, the foam settling around his waist. He spun in the water, his white belly glistening in the moonlight for a moment before his dark gray skin and protruding dorsal fin vanished against the dark water. It was both the most awesome shift I'd ever seen and the scariest. Like most kids who grew up close enough to the California coast, I had a healthy fear of sharks. Knowing Isiah was human on the other side of those black eyes and rows of sharp white teeth didn't do much to quell that fear.
Compared to the other alphas, I was tiny. As a meerkat, I weighed twenty-five pounds at the most, while Bruce was a fewhundred, and Isiah was at least a ton. Bruce could chomp me in half with one bite, while Isiah could probably swallow me whole. I didn't let that stop me. I dove into the water and came up sputtering for breath.
Meerkats are bad swimmers. Our bodies aren't sleek like otters, and our tails are rat-like. My bowling pin shape helped with floating, but trying to move anywhere tired my back legs after a few minutes. By the time Bruce finally returned to our stretch of beach and joined me in the shallows, I was ready to get out.
He had another idea. He sank his nose into the water beneath my pinwheeling arms and tossed me into the air. I braced for impact with the water, but slammed against a wall of shark, instead. So that was what it felt like for a druid in Dungeons and Dragons to be knocked out of wild shape and back into human form.
I hit the surface behind Bruce, my human lungs taking in too much water. Isiah had thrown me right over the wolf's head. My life flashed before my eyes as the shark swam up on me in two seconds, but then Isiah's worried frown filled my vision. "You okay, Mika? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hit you that hard."
"I'm fine," I wheezed as he pulled me into the shallows.
"Shift again," Bruce said. "It'll help speed up the healing."
Isiah's hand against my ribs felt like fire. "Yeah. You need to heal."
They laid me out in the wet sand, and I did my best to shift. Getting popped out of my meerkat form hadn't hurt, but I went through all seven levels of hell trying to get it back.
Finally, I shivered, panting, in my meerkat form. I pulled my tail between my front paws and petted it, as though the simple act could console my beast for the pain we'd suffered.
Bruce patted my head, and I shook the saltwater from my fur. Isiah laughed until I walked over to him and shook again.
"Hey! I said I was sorry!"
The shift back to my human form was easier now. I leaned back, inhaling deeply. No pain. Satisfied the shift had put me back together again, I marched to the bench where we'd left our clothes.
Bruce and Isiah followed me, their heads down so low they almost touched their chests.
"In less than twenty-four hours, you'll be getting married on this beach," I said, hoping a change of subject would bring back the fun we'd had before the playful shark attack.
"Yeah." Isiah clapped Bruce on the back. "Congratulations, man."
"Thanks." Bruce's eyes were shiny when he met my gaze. "I never thought this day would come."
"She and Gabe might have fled the country without us," I teased.
"She still thinks I'm in debt." Bruce sighed. "Dad said I couldn't tell her about the trust until we're legally mated, married, or both, so …"
"So, she'll know the truth tomorrow." I offered my hand, and he shook it. "Less than twenty-four hours before you can tell the love of your life the truth."
He nodded. "I hope she doesn't hate me."
Becca could hold a grudge, according to some of the anecdotes Gabe had told me over the past week, but no family secrets would change the way she looked at Bruce. They were doing the whole fated mates thing right.
If only Gabe and I would be so lucky.
When we calledit an early night in the hotel lobby, I didn't expect to find Gabe alone in our room, no Becca in sight. I paused with my mouth open, unable to ask the question on my tongue. He looked so sweet and innocent, sitting with his back against the headboard, the blankets rumpled around him, holding a true crime novel a little too close to his face.
"Do you need glasses?" I asked.
"What? Oh, hi!" He put the book down in his lap and grinned at me. He looked so happy. And then he frowned. "Are you okay?"
