Bite Me Harder (Guardians of the Deep 2)

“No,” he said. “I’ve been polishing that one up for years, waiting for the right time to use it. I’m like a ninja. I build my arsenal and choose my weapons carefully. Certain enemies require the big guns.”

“And was that one of the big guns?”

“Oh my God, yes,” he said. “You couldn’t tell? I’m hurt.”

“There you are,” a stern voice said over Rafe’s shoulder.

A man Kalina hated came into view. Keelan Kane, the shark hunter, and the one man she refused to accept as an ally, stood behind Rafe with that smug look on his face that he always wore. The scar on his face looked even more menacing than usual with the bonfire light giving it life.

“Oh,” Kane said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt whatever you have going on here.”

“Whatever he has going on?” Kalina asked, immediately becoming defensive.

“Was it more than that?” Kane asked. “I’m sorry. Was it something more major? Was he proposing?”

“That’s not cool, Boss,” Rafe said.

Boss? This guy works for Keelan fucking Kane?

Anger led to an instant feeling of heartbreak as Kalina realized there was no fucking way she was going to date the protégé of Keelan Kane.

“I should go,” Kalina said.

“You’re one of Thane’s friends, right?” Kane said. “We’re all cool right now aren’t we?”

She remembered the truce that had been called between them. Thane had promised to help patrol the waters off the Queensland coast and Kane had agreed to stop hunting them. The animosity was still there, and it was strong.

“We’re cool right now,” Kalina said, putting emphasis on the last two words to make sure he understood that it could change at any moment, and if it did, she would kick his fucking ass.

“Do you two know each other?” Rafe asked.

“Not really,” Kane replied. “But we have mutual friends.”

“Friends,” Kalina said under her breath and laughed.

“Wait,” Rafe interrupted, scratching his head as he realized something. “Are you a…a…are you…?”

“He knows?” Kalina asked Kane.

“He knows about Thane,” Kane said. “He needs to know if he’s going to follow me out there into that fucked up world of yours. So, yeah, I suppose he does know now.”

Kalina looked into Rafe’s face and saw a change there. He didn’t dislike her, and he wasn’t repulsed by her. It was more of a look of awe. Like this was the moment he’d found out his best friend moonlighted as Batm

an. Rafe smiled and it was adorable. His expression made everything okay again. He not only understood, but he seemed fascinated by her.

“Well,” Kane said. “I came over here to tell you something, but I guess it makes sense for her to hear it too. Two more shark attacks were reported off the coast today.”

“Two?” Kalina said. “There was the diver in the submarine. That one I know about. It was a great white. The biggest damn thing I’ve ever seen. What was the other one?”

Kalina noticed Rafe’s confused expression so she reached out for his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She didn’t know how much Kane had revealed, but it was clearly enough that he knew she was paranormal in some form.

“A couple on a yacht,” Kane said. “They went for a swim. Neither of them survived.”

“If neither survived,” Rafe stepped in, “then how do you know it was a shark attack?”

Kane raised one eyebrow in Rafe’s direction, his nonverbal cue to stop questioning him or stop asking dumb questions, Kalina wasn’t sure which.

Kane rolled his neck around on his shoulders, loosening himself up, or quite possibly trying to calm his nerves, and said, “The husband reached up to grab the ladder. His arm was found still wrapped around the second rung. The rest of his body had been ripped free from the shoulder down…in a very shark attack kind of way.”