Bite Me Harder (Guardians of the Deep 2)

“What do you mean finding Penny?” Beanie asked. “Ain’t that the pregnant chick back at the island?”

“Yes, Penny, as in your leader’s wife,” Sylvia reminded him.

“Penny?!” Thane’s voice sounded off louder than all the others. “What about Penny?”

“There you are!” Kalina said.

“Evelyn has Penny!” Rafe said. “On a boat.”

“On a boat?!” Thane cried. “No!”

This was the first time Sylvia had ever heard anyone in mental anguish before. She’d never been privy to anyone’s thoughts prior to becoming a shark, and now, as she listened to Thane’s frantic panting and desperate cries of worry and fear, she knew more than ever how much the man loved her best friend.

A tiger shark suddenly shot into view, swimming past them at a speed Sylvia never would have thought possible. It seemed Thane had abilities even she and Coby couldn’t cont

end with. That, or he’d found a rush of adrenaline only the threat of losing a loved one could provide. Like mothers with the sudden strength to lift a Buick off a small child or fathers who could hold onto a falling wife even when his tendons were being ripped apart in the process, fury and desperation had given Thane a boost of rage that propelled him ahead of all the other sharks. Even Coby seemed surprised.

“Was that Thane?” he asked.

“Faster!” Thane ordered. “Evelyn has both pieces of my heart on that boat!”

As Coby passed her, Sylvia saw a trickle of blood coming from a gash near the top of his head. She knew her kind had healing abilities, but the fight with Kane had been too recent.

“You’re bleeding,” she told him.

“It’s no big deal,” Coby said. “He’s bleeding too.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Me,” Kane said as he too passed her.

She hadn’t realized he’d been behind them, but sure enough, the internal voice of the Fishery officer rang out as he soared faster than she or Coby. Her man may have been stronger, and bigger, but Kane was a bullet. His speed was astonishing.

“You really think you’re going to stop me?” Thane’s voice asked and even before Sylvia and the others caught up with him, she knew what she’d find.

There, circling the water beneath the boat, was a school of about ten sharks. Not only hammerheads but tiger sharks too. At least half of them were the same species as Thane and his friends. None were great whites though and that seemed almost comical to Sylvia. She imagined they must be about to shit their pants, or the water behind them, as they saw three great whites headed their way with a gang of tiger sharks. They could have had fifty of their kind and they would have been no match for the giant beasts of the ocean. Sylvia was an apex predator and she couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into one of those pestering fucking punks.

Thane attacked. Blood swished through the water violently in a cloud that expanded out, starting at the first hammerhead’s body and rolled through the ocean, shading the others from existence. Sylvia sped through the crimson fog and searched for a victim of her own, wanting to show Thane that she could tear one completely in half, not only nibble on one like he’d done. She would show them all that she could earn her keep. If any of them happened to think she was Coby’s sidekick, they’d soon learn that she was his queen. She was the Elizabeth fucking Bathory of the sea.

Give me blood!

A tiger shark came into view first and it soared around her quickly, attacking her from the side, but she dipped down low and led it on a chase into the depths. Its speed was no match for hers and as they dove into the darkness of a trench at the ocean’s floor, she circled around with blinding speed and found herself behind the shark, flipping the scenario and forcing her attacker to become the prey. Its caudal fin at the rear lay before her like a delicious snack. With her mouth open in the widest grin she could physically assume, she chomped down with the ferocity of a metal-toothed bear trap. Its fin came off in her mouth with a spray of tart juice that seeped red out her jaws like smoke rolling out of her mouth. Mentally, she heard the enemy cry, and it was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. The shark slowed down, and she came at it again, snapping her razor teeth over its body, tearing off a gigantic chunk of meat. She swallowed and savored the taste. One more bite, and the shark was lifeless and falling toward the ocean floor.

Above her, sharks swam in all directions cutting each other off and ramming into each other like Japanese kamikaze pilots on suicidal paths toward allied ships. The dialogue there inside the ocean was a hodgepodge of maniacal voices screaming profanities and psychotic threats.

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Come and get some, bitch!”

“Ha! Too slow, fucker!”

“No! Don’t do that. Please! Not like…”

On dry land Sylvia knew she might hear a death rattle at the last moment of desperate breath before life dissipated. Under water it was only suffocated cries that trailed off as energy left the body.

“Sylvia! Where are you?!” Coby called out to her.

“I’m here, Love!” she replied.