From the "Brothers of Element series", an underwater tigershark shifter novel. "Max" a novella. When does the prey become the predator? When love is involved.
Suspicions
He was out now, he thought, toeing off his sandals and tucking them and a towel for drying off on the canal lockers footrest. Hiding his animal had been a choice he made in order to protect what he could not fully remember. Living amongst his animal's natural predators was difficult enough when he was the only one of his kind. But with his broken memories of living in the Indian Ocean, where King Augustine is banned to even travel through by his own father, has he placed an extra burden on the Bartholomew family having him there? Secrecy had become his and their protection.
Lately, his old memories had begun to surface and flash through his mind. Happy faces, then frightened faces, then bloody faces. His father's lifeless, pale human form on the shore, him trying to revive him-lifeless-nothing. His brother's body curled over his mother's-both dead, ten feet away. Tsunami storm debris cluttered the beach, but he had no visuals of where that beach was. And had Queen Pe'lonia not found him, he would have never known where he came from if he were still alive. He learned to live with the missing pieces, but others began to fill in the blanks with speculation and suspicion.
Now that the clan knew what he was, and where he originated from, many labeled him a spy for the Bartholomew's in the Indian Ocean. He knew the only way to convince them was to not react to it, but one person made it his mission to discredit him to the one women he did care if she trusted him. Chloe Rush. Ayden, one of the king's security, had been filling her head with tales Max couldn't repudiate until a month ago when he learned more of his past and his family. Cora Blu
Skin dark as obsidian, and her personality just the opposite, she was like standing before the warm and welcoming sun. More beautiful than any flower he'd every grown in his lab, she was simply an amazing woman.
He cast a glance out over the railing. The Atlantic's zone-five canal that ran through the streets, compliments of the new queen, lay quiet this morning-but not for long.
Unsnapping his jeans, he shucked the pants and briefs down his legs. Folding them, he tucked them on the top ledge of the locker beside the canal. Passing the fountain on the bridge, he brushed a hand over the foliage potted beneath its stone lip, making the fountain appear to be growing out of the flowers. The new breed of impatiens he had hybridized in the lab. The only true yellow impatiens. His chest tightened with pride as he bent and checked his handy work. Botany was his life.
The cool morning air teased over his bare skin. He drew in a deep breath. The scent of sea salt and fish filled his lungs. Muscles stretched around his ribcage. Tendons vibrated to life under the stretch. The tang of the ocean played throughout his system. Dragging in two deeper breaths, he dove off the bridge into the black currents of the canal. Kicking his legs, he raced to the bottom. The cold water bit at his human skin, but he continued. Pushing himself on mornings like these, flashes of the Indian Ocean came to him with its dangerous currents. And even more dangerous marine life. Being in the Atlantic within a clan, he could let his animal loose and get in a good workout. Seaweed forests swayed side to side. Small fish scurried in his wake.
That familiar tingle behind his eyes told him they glowed from the intense adrenaline rush surging through his veins. Heartbeat raging above his pulsing lungs, supplying him with the oxygen to make such a deep dive, he angled his body to catch a better current. Reaching toward the ocean floor, his strokes penetrated the quiet Max
sea. Sand and silt bellowed up as he met the bottom and pushed off, giving his animal space to be free.
He began to spin through the ocean now, running through his home territory, a gift from the new queen. Max allowed his body to change around him, until eight tentacles propelled him in powerful bursts through the early morning subterranean world. He figured he had enough time to swim to zone four and back and still be able to shower and get to work in the lab. Slowing down and angling low, he used his suckers to pick up a number of clams and a few oysters-lunch.
