Harris, Daisy - Shark Bait [Ocean Shifters 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 2

  The female argued again, the noise rubbing Raider raw, slowly driving a spike of annoyance into his composure. “It would make no sense for me to shift to dragon. My reptile form can’t withstand these temperatures outside of the water. I’d never even make it off the boat. I…”

  The metal arm cuff clicked shut, and the female emitted a soft, desperate gasp. The sound of it dripped like warm honey down his spine and settled behind his balls. He fought the urge to lift his eyes, but lost. Those ankles rose to shapely calves that disappeared under a fancy, navy-blue woolen dress. The thick material clung to her small hips, and gold buttons lined up over her generous tits. She was short for a dragon, with Kewpie-doll features, like she was part pixie or fae. A ripe bottom lip trembled wetly, making the shark in him want to bite to draw blood.

  Tiny girl like that? Raider could think of a thousand uses for her. And it had been a long, long time.

  * * * * Her shark-shifter captors locked her cell door and climbed one by one up the metal ladder. When the hatch closed, Sophia kicked aside a chunk of the foul-smelling hay that lined the floor of her cage. Her fear wasn’t sharp enough to drown her temper at being caged like an animal. She pulled her dress tighter around her torso, wishing it covered more of her human-form body. The vessel lurched on a tack, throwing her against the bars.

  Gods how she wished she’d taken her father’s advice and learned to fight! This was just humiliating, not to mention a waste of time she didn’t have.

  Her hands gripped tight the rusted metal bars. She shook with all her might. Dust rained down and the door’s hinges creaked. She looked around the cage. Her strength would never break the door, but perhaps the right pressure at the right angle…

  A gravelly voice spoke from out of the gloom. “Stop.” Her head snapped in the direction of the sound. She felt grateful to be inside the box instead of outside. “Who’s there?”

  “Your worst nightmare.”

  Sophia pondered his response for a moment and tried to imagine her worst nightmare. Wallpapered staircases, incessant small-talk, and spiky bits of metal attached to her teeth came to mind. “I very much doubt that.”

  The voice chuckled, a harsh, masculine sound that warmed and terrified her in equal measure.

  “Are you a prisoner as well?” She couldn’t make out another cage, but gloom filled the edges of the hold.

  “No, sweetheart. I’m your guard.”

  He didn’t elaborate, but Sophia had guards back home and was familiar with the concept. She pictured a man of strong back wearing a uniform, standing tall to defend her. “Wonderful, I require fresh blanket and some warmer clothing. And I need my sat phone to check my email.”

  The voice laughed again, this time bitterly. “Not likely.”

  A single bulb trained directly above her illuminated her cage. Small portholes provided little light. All around her dark corners faded to black, but she squinted to see her conversation partner.

  Another tack and the hanging bulb swung, slashing light over a form resembling a large, square pile of rags. A head bowed over raised knees. He wore a hood, but it fell back when he scrubbed his hand through spiky black hair. His skin blended with the grayish background, appearing to be coated in dirt and grime.

  A heavy chain sat beside him, connected, as far as she could tell, from his ankle to the wall. With each swing of the light she studied the hunched shape, blinking to counter the dark. Huge knuckles covered his knees from under the sleeves of his robes. The fingers looked gaunt and flexed tight, olive skin pallid over bone. The guard’s shoulders sat wide and heavy under the corded muscles of his neck.

  At a final swing of the bulb, he flicked up his gaze to meet hers. Sophia couldn’t make out his features, but a broad scar split his face in half, harsh white against the grayish-tan skin. Sunken eyes, one electric blue and the other shark-shifter black met hers.

  “Scream for me, sweetheart.”

  Her heart leapt to her chest and pounded as almost without realizing it, she did as he ordered.

  Chapter 2

  Geneticist David Weber tugged at his lapels and pushed his glasses up his nose. He pressed the round gray buzzer beside the door and waited on tenterhooks for the reply.

  Dendric Research’s Oceanic Research Center in Panama City was a far cry from the tall glass and steel skyscraper in Washington DC where he’d interviewed. The squat building crouched behind a hill, surrounded by sticky foliage and cheeping animals. Several summercamp-like cabins surrounded the building, dormitories for the staff.

  A voice came through the intercom. “Yes?”

  David pressed the button again. “David Weber here to see Dr. Friedson.” A loud buzz cut him off, and the door automatically unlocked. David clutched the handle and opened the heavy door to his first day at his dream job.

  He winced at the tan-painted concrete block walls of the entryway. Of course, interior design shouldn’t affect his feelings about his new position, but the place did feel like a Junior High School, or perhaps a prison.

  Several opaque doors surrounded him. One opened to reveal a pasty middle-aged man in a lab coat holding out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, David. I’m Dr. Friedson. May I see some ID?”

  David held out his passport, New Jersey driver’s license, and the packet of identification papers supplied in his job offer. The older man leafed through the pages then led him through the doors into a long hallway filled with the sound of clicking computer keyboards and shuffling paper. Doors on either side hid what must be the various researchers’ offices. Friedman gestured to a scantly furnished room with a door ajar. “This will be your office, but let’s start with the labs, yes?”

  David’s pulse quickened and he tightened his grip on his carrying case. In the long years he’d spent on his dissertation on epigenetic influences on tissue healing, he’d never encountered the type of work done by Dendric. Not only had the company discovered a host of gene signaling mechanisms barely conceived of, much less understood, by the rest of the scientific community, they had developed over twenty products based on genetic manipulation. Rumors circulated that Dendric had access to rare species, and that these unknown samples fueled Dendric’s success.

  Dr. Friedson swiped a card through a reader at the side of broad double doors. David’s mind swarmed with possibilities—previously unexplored paramecium, new species of sea slugs or maybe even sea snakes. Maybe the company’s extensive search of the Amazon had led to the discovery of new insect specimens. With private funding like Dendric’s, anything was possible.

  Behind the double doors, thick slats of rubber hung from the ceiling, obstructing the view.

  “We need to hold in the humidity,” Friedson explained.

  Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, David reached between the thick black strips and pulled them to the side.

  Holy. Shit.

  Enormous tanks of water created the outer wall of the broad room, and housed sharks of a species David had never seen before. Some had odd appendages attached to their fins and tails, but all were alive and swimming. The floor was glass, and looking down David saw that under his feet was an aquarium of sorts, complete with sea plants, lights and a bubbling filter, and full of those same weird sharks, all with strange, too-intelligent eyes. At the room’s center, a large tank housed, no…no, he wouldn’t believe it.

  David swiped his glasses from his eyes and cleaned them against his shirt. He approached the tank and struggled to see through the murky water. Long blond hair covered the top half of the creature’s body, but a dolphin tail stuck out the end. The creature shifted, as if twitching at the attention. A mermaid? This can’t be real.

  The body swiveled fully, and a pair of angry aqua-blue eyes met David’s. A merman! That stare pinned him in place, probably the only thing stopping him from collapsing with shock.

  “A bit much to take in, Dr. Weber?”

  David blinked, trying to process the older scientist’s words while waves of confusion alternated with sho
ck. The creature’s jaw stiffened and he jut out his chin. David struggled to close his open mouth and licked his over-dry lips.

  “Don’t mind Hank. He’s not terribly cooperative,” Friedson said jovially.

  David swallowed. “His name is Hank?”

  “It won’t tell us its name.”

  The creature tensed, every muscle in its chiseled torso bunched. It opened its mouth and screamed, a sound like a dolphin’s call but infinitely louder and more abrasive. It screwed up its face and screamed louder, a pulse that physically pressed David back a few feet.

  With hands over his ears, Friedman approached the tank and pressed a large red button. A sound crackled, and the merman shook like he was receiving an electric shock. The older scientist held the button down, and David’s eyes widened and his stomach clenched. He wanted to push Friedman away and yell at him to stop, but he’d worked too long for a job opportunity of this caliber to risk angering his boss on the first day.

  Friedman finally released the button, and the merman sank to the bottom of the tank, falling onto a bed of his own hair. With his eyes closed, the creature was beautiful. He had a long nose, hard lips, a chest that looked like a carving of a sea god. Twin ropes of muscle at his waist led down to his smooth tail. David studied the front of his tail, bizarre sexual fascination warring with scientific curiosity about the creature’s reproductive organs.

  Friedman cleared his throat, shocking David back into reality.

  “We only keep the one mere on hand here. The funding for mere research dried up. They’re surprisingly hard to catch and hold. Most of our work here is on shifting-sharks.”

  David fought the urge to look back at the other tank as Friedman urged his attention to the enclosures along the wall. “I’m unfamiliar with that species.”

  The older doctor laughed. “Of course you are! Dendric is the only company on earth with access. Very few humans outside Dendric’s ranks know about part-human species.”

  David re-adjusted his glasses as he peered into a tank holding an injured shark. The animal looked at him with uncanny intelligence, and opened its tooth-filled mouth. The sound it made was obscured by bubbles, but clear nonetheless. It looked at David, and rasped, “What the fuck are you looking at?”

  * * * * Those eyes had watched her all morning like a cat on a mouse. Sophia trained her gaze dead forward. She felt his stare like a dark shadow on her side. Her bladder screamed for release, but embarrassment stopped her from relieving herself in the cell’s small chamber pot. Her stomach clenched in hunger and thirst, but she held tight her lips, determined not to cry and waste the salt and water.

  She’d only glimpsed him full-on the once, and Sophia wanted to look again the way she wanted to look at car accidents when she visited the human world. Her mind’s eye pictured that wide scar sliced from his hairline to his jaw, diagonal across his face and those mismatched eyes. She struggled to remember if that matted, spiky hair held a tuft of white-blond right above the electric blue eye. She peeked to find out, but swallowed a yelp when he moved.

  “Hungry?” He didn’t move to stand but shifted position, waiting for her answer. When he didn’t receive it, he crawled across the floor to a half-height cupboard, rifled around inside, and retrieved a loaf of bread and jug of something. Then he returned to his spot against the wall and broke a hunk off the loaf. “Don’t you have to piss or anything?”

  His crude inquiry caused her head to whip around so that she saw him again. A thick layer of dirt covered his hands, his face, and his neck above the shapeless gray rags he wore. She wondered what color his skin was beneath the grime. “Are you offering?” Her hopes were low, but then again if she died from thirst, they would never collect a reward.

  He seemed to think about it for a moment before answering. “Yeah.” A lump of bread flew through the bars and landed on her lap, and he leaned forward to place the jug within her reach. She hesitated, wondering if it was a trick but then rose and grabbed it into her cage and drank in deep droughts before he could take it away.

  After draining the last drop, she sat back down to her bread. Her forehead wrinkled at the effort to hold her water.

  “Go on then, do it already. You’re making me want to cross my own damn legs just watching you!”

  Her bladder clenched painfully at his words, but she belted out, “Well, at least turn around, then.”

  To her surprise, he did, abruptly shuffling until he faced the wall. She stood, rushed to the pot and lifted the lid, trying not to think about whom or what might have used it last. At least it was currently empty. She sat, but stage fright hit. “Can’t you at least leave the room?”

  He tugged at the chain holding him to the wall, and the metal clanked in loud peals. “Only way out is the ladder, sweetheart, and I can’t reach that far without hurting myself.”

  The sound of his voice provided cover enough and her stream began, but when he stopped talking, her center clamped down. “Can’t you, maybe, sing a song or something?”

  He cursed, but it sounded more frustrated than angry, and a moment later he launched into “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” He sang in curt phrases loud enough for the notes to clang off the aluminum walls. Oddly, he had a nice singing voice, low and melodic and familiar. She finished her business, cursing her lack of toilet paper, and lowered her dress.

  Sophia turned to thank her jailor, but the look on his face stopped the sound in her throat.

  * * * * Footsteps approached the hatch. Fuck. Raider glared at the human-form dragoness, who’d wheedled him with her sighs and shrugs and big, brown eyes, and crossing and uncrossing legs. He’d wanted to be left alone with his thoughts of getting between those thighs, but the idea of her being hungry or uncomfortable had itched at his calm.

  Now that he’d drawn their attention, he’d pay in skin. She lowered her eyes from his, and her bottom lip quivered again. Good, she should be scared.

  He hoped that this time Crayz had sent one of his underlings. But when the hatch lifted, his father appeared framed in sunshine. The light burned Raider’s eyes.

  “Was that singin’ I heard?” Boots descended the metal ladder. “Pretty deep voice for a gal.”

  The lady dragon popped the crust of bread into her mouth before the older shark noticed.

  Crayz dropped to the floor with a thunk and swiveled to look at Raider then Sophia. His right-hand men, Thorlo and Zrah, descended and stood like twin boulders behind their boss. The storage area stretched twenty feet in either direction, but still the men’s bulk filled the room.

  Crayz spun on the girl. “So, was it you singing, little miss?”

  Her eyes darted to Raider. The three sharks’ gazes followed. “Friendly now, are we?” Crayz strode to his son and lifted the younger male to his feet by the neck. “If you weren’t such a damn embarrassment she wouldn’t do that! Instead you’re singing lullabies. Next thing you’ll be knitting together!”

  He knocked Raider’s head back against the bowed metal wall once then signaled to his men. Thorlo and Zrah pulled his poncho over his head and threw it like a pile of trash to the spot that served as his seat, bedroom, and bed. His long chain clanked as the men threw him against the bars of Sophia’s cage and locked his arms above his head.

  Sophia let out a little scream and scampered backwards to the far corner. Good. If she had started with that irritating talking of hers, it might be her against the bars.

  His father sent Thorlo for his whip, and Raider’s muscles bunched against his bindings. More than chains held him captive. If his father razing his birth home wasn’t enough to keep him prisoner, the way Crayz destroyed the next place Raider ran sealed his captivity.

  Raider stared more closely at Sophia’s heart-shaped face. Gods, it had been a long time since he’d had a female, especially one he didn’t have to pay. As he watched her, some of the fear left her eyes. Instead he saw interest, and pity. Fuck, she better stop that right now. He widened his eyes to get her attention then mouth
ed a single word. Scream. The first blow landed across his back, and thank the gods, she did.

  Her cry covered several hits. Each lash tore a new strip of skin, the whip soaked in standing water to slow down his healing. He closed his eyes as the next landed, fisting his hands to resist a flinch. The female gasped at every stroke, the sound rhythmic and not a little erotic, like she was taking a small part of the beating for him.

  Crayz worked to exhaustion, and then handed the weapon to his lackey. Raider’s eyes met the dragoness’s, wide with fear and wet with tears. When Thorlo laid into him, Raider watched the female’s face, so open in its terror, contained and yet abandoned as she whimpered for him. He hardly felt the last few strikes.

  * * * * “Don’t forget what’ll happen if you try to leave, kid!” The leader shouted behind him as he and his men climbed the ladder. Not until after they’d closed the hatch did her jailor collapse. The sharkshifter’s bloody body hung on his chains against the rusted iron bars of her cell. His eyes were pressed closed, and his jaw clenched, but whether in pain or anger, she couldn’t tell.

  His wiry muscles still tensed as if to take a blow. Without his bulky cloak, he seemed more slightly built than the other sharks in the crew and maybe a little taller. Most shark-shifters were built square and barrel-chested, but this one narrowed from the wide shelf of his shoulders down to a chiseled waist and thin hips. Ancient jeans hung at his hipbones. Clearly, he’d lost some weight since he’d gotten said jeans and they perched precariously, in danger of falling off completely.

  A soft swelling formed in Sophia’s human reproductive organs, and her breasts, which she could never get used to no matter how often she took this shape, seemed to tighten. Mercy, it was bad enough she neared heat as a dragon; Sophia didn’t need this reminder of her impending heat in both her forms.

  Now that she saw him up close, she realized his mark was not a scar, but a strip of depigmentation that stretched from his hairline down his body. It crossed one eye, and passed over his lips, leaving a path of soft pink against the brown.