“Makes perfect sense,” Kalina agreed.
“What kind of war?” the woman sitting on the floor asked. “Am I in danger, Rafe? I’m just a marine biologist. I don’t even go out on the boats.”
“Rafe, maybe you should get her home,” Kane said. “Can you take care of that while I talk to Kalina?”
He seemed a bit miffed that he would be sent on an errand while the two shark shifters talked behind his back, but Kalina hugged him and promised to tell him everything they spoke about when he returned. With that, Rafe led the trembling woman out of the building.
“Does she know what you are?” Kalina asked Kane.
“No,” he said. “Well, she didn’t. She might figure it out now. I kind of snapped. Tore into one of those guys like a feral animal. It was bad. She may think I’m a fucking Tasmanian devil shifter.”
Kalina laughed and it echoed too loudly in the empty room. The sound of joy seemed oddly out of place here. She took a seat next to Kane and put her hand on the desk. He reached out and placed his on top of hers. Her kneejerk reaction was to pull back, and it caused him to flinch and slide his hand away. When she placed hers back down, it was the signal for him to do the same. With his fingers on top of her knuckles, it was perhaps the most tender thing anyone had ever done to her. No passion. No wanting. It was brotherly love, something he’d probably wanted to express all his life. Now he was and even he seemed baffled by it.
“Cali,” he said.
“Kalina,” she corrected him.
“Ok,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You know what,” she said. “You can call me Cali. I didn’t mean to be cruel. It’s just strange hearing that name again after all this time.”
He smiled.
“Thank you,” he said.
Silence.
“Where do we go from here?” he asked.
“Small steps,” she said. “I suppose. We get to know each other again.”
“Do you remember anything?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said. “Bits and pieces but nothing significant. I’d like to learn about my parents. Sometimes I think I can see them, but their faces are blurry.”
Keelan’s face lit up and he clapped his hands together, rubbing them vigorously.
“Oh, you’re in for a surprise,” he announced. “I have photos. And a video with us both in it.”
His head lowered, and his smile faded.
“I’ve watched it a thousand time,” he whispered.
His pain was etched in each wrinkle of his face. He’d become such a tough, violent man, and she was the cause of it. Not by her doing, but still, she was ultimately the reason he’d become the man he was now. She had time to learn about her parents and about everything she’d missed. She could pick his brain now whenever the time was right, but with the office in total disarray and the floor covered in blood, it seemed now wasn’t that time. She did, however, want to know how he’d become a shifter.
“Tell me how you became…you know…one of us,” she said.
“One of you,” he said, again looking hurt as if she’d broken his heart by choosing the side opposite humanity to define her people. “The story’s not that interesting. Once you were gone, my life fell apart. You don’t need to hear all the shitty details about our parents, but let’s just say the light went out when you disappeared that day. Dad was bitter and drank himself into a nightly violent rage and mom fell so deep into depression that there was no way to pull her out. I was caught somewhere between them both. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and maybe I was a piece of rotten fruit that had fallen and gotten kicked far out into the yard. I got into a lot of trouble as I grew up. I never strayed far from the beach and I always kept my eye out for you. At first, I thought maybe you’d survived. But your body never washed up anywhere, so you must have gotten eaten. Once word got out about supernaturals with the ability to shift into animals and creatures, I figured there must be ones in the ocean too. It couldn’t only be wolves and panthers and shit.”
Kalina reached out and took his hand as he spoke.
“At some point, I fell in with some surfers. They were like me. Drifters with no sense of responsibility. I guess that’s why I like Rafe.”
Hearing him talk about Rafe like that worried her. What did he mean drifters with no responsibility? Was Rafe the kind of guy who’d grow bored with her or worry too much about all this press
ure and drama in her life and suddenly take off to travel the world with his beach bum buddies?
“Word got out about this woman who was…well, she was known to be a bit of a whore. A guy I knew who’d fucked her claimed that she was a mermaid. Everyone made fun of him, but he swore by it. He said they’d fucked on the beach one night, and as he drifted off, he heard her get up from the blanket they were lying on. She thought he was asleep. Then she ran toward the ocean, dove into the water, and disappeared. He waited for her to pop up and maybe call out for him to wake up and join her, but she never did. In fact, she never came back. It freaked him out. Nobody else believed him. But I did. Only I didn’t think she was a fucking mermaid. I mean that’s ridiculous. But what else could disappear into the water like that? A shark shifter. So, I found her. She worked at a surf shack, waxing the boards, running the cash register…you know. All that shit. So, I went in, flirted with her, fucked her a couple of times, and then told her I knew what she was. She didn’t even deny it. She admitted that she was a great white shifter. Hell, I’d expected her to say she was something smaller. Maybe a tiger shark.”