Oh, Bite Me (Guardians of the Deep 1)

“Are you a cop?” Sylvia asked. “We’ve spoken to the cops. Unless you’re planning to arrest a shark, I don’t see how…”

“…Not arrest it,” he interrupted. “Kill it.”

The guy stepped closer to her bed and towered over her, looking down at her over the dark sunglasses resting at the tip of his nose. His intensity was unnerving. He didn’t smile. His lips hardly moved at all, only opening enough to let words flow out.

“Not a cop,” he said, his Australian accent thicker than any she’d h

eard so far.

He was almost difficult to understand.

“It’s my duty to patrol the shore, to keep people safe, to put an end to the monsters that attacked you,” he said. “We haven’t had the chance to talk so I thought I would pay you a visit and see if you could shed some light on the sharks that attacked you.”

Sylvia chuckled.

“One of them had a mustache,” she joked.

He whipped his head around and Penny couldn’t see him, but she could see Sylvia. Her smile faded, and she knew the man had warned her with his glance. She seemed spooked.

“It…it all happened so quickly,” Penny said, bringing his attention back to her. “A guy accidentally knocked me overboard.”

“Accidentally?” he asked. “How did he accidentally knock you off the boat?”

She had no answer for that. When she closed her eyes, she could feel the impact of the man’s arm against her chest and shoulders. He’d hit her so hard that it couldn’t have been an accidental stumble, but why would he purposely throw her into the water? That would make no sense.

“I don’t know,” she said, lowering her face to her lap like an ashamed child.

She couldn’t stand meeting the man eye to eye. She felt him judging her, ready to pick apart her words and label her a liar even though she’d said nothing but the truth.

“What happened in the water?” he asked.

“She was fucking attacked,” Sylvia interrupted again.

Penny loved her for it. His questions were stupid and redundant considering she’d already answered these same damn questions twenty fucking times.

“A shark grabbed me, grabbed my leg…”

“Grabbed you?” he asked.

“Pulled me under, and kept yanking me down, until I…until I shoved my hand…”

She held her hand up in an almost duck like form, showing how she’d squished all her fingers together and poked out its eye.

“…into its eye and did this.”

She opened her hand. Sylvia winced. The man finally smirked. He seemed to like hearing about the pain of a shark.

“Nicely done,” he said. “So, we’ve got a shark out there missing an eye.”

A second knock on the door and this time, the visitor standing in the doorway was one Penny had dreamt about. The man she’d met on the yacht. The gorgeous one who’d left her to go talk to the stunning whore with the red strip in her hair. That guy. Thane. With tan cargo shorts and a light blue shirt, he seemed so much more casual than he had on the yacht.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Am I interrupting?”

The police officer, or whoever he was since he’d never really introduced himself, turned toward Thane and stuck his hands in his pockets. He rocked back on his heels, passing his instant judgment on the handsome man who’d shown up unannounced.

“Friend of hers?” the officer asked.

“Maybe,” Thane answered. “You?”