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Instead of milk, they provide us with stuff to steal close enough to the
water we can reach it. And of course, you can eat them, too.
When her jaw dropped, he laughed. Sharks hardly ever do that
anymore. His face turned harsh. Supposedly only the tails were any
good.
Her stomach clenched with nausea. Ew.
He lifted his head, propping it in his hand. He rolled his eyes in an
uncharacteristic display of emotion. I grew up among them, so,
yeah.
Sophia shuffled to turn, but he held her bottom in his hand,
pressing her close into where his leg met his hip.
Don t.
She relaxed into him, resting her face on his chest.
He settled down onto the thin mattress. His one foot poked
through the curtains separating their little cave from the outer cabin.
Shark Bait 123
Raider?
Hmmm? She could tell he was drifting off to sleep, using her as
a blanket.
Why didn t you swim? Why did you stay on that boat if you
could have gotten away? She traced little circles on his chest, from
brown, to pale, and back again. When he didn t respond she doubted
she d get an answer.
He would have found me. He said it quickly, a rush of air across
her tingling skin.
Something in the ways he d said it made her think he didn t want
more questions. But as usual, she couldn t resist. Who? The
captain?
His body shifted under hers. The captain, my father.
Do you mean the captain and your father? Or that the captain is
your father? Her lip curled at her tease.
He reached out and delivered a light smack to her rear end. He is my
father, smart aleck. And he would have found me.
She pressed a little kiss into his chest, comfort for a male she d
now come to think of as her best friend.
He burned my mother s village to the ground. The words were
reluctant, and offhand in a way meant to hide how he really felt.
She held back a million questions. When his body stilled and his
breathing deepened, Sophia wondered if he had drifted off.
His boat hovered on the coast for months, trying to get her to
give me up, trying to lure me to him. Everyone in the habitat but my
mother wanted to serve me up to him, anything to get the sharks to
leave. But my mother fought all of them. Said I was better than this
life.
When Crayz left, everyone just thought he d given up. I mean no
one even knew why he cared so much. It s not like he hadn t left a
dozen other bastards in mere habitats, right?
124 Daisy Harris
She knew his rueful chuckle hid something dark and hurt,
something that maybe hadn t ever seen the light of day. He hadn t
really left though, had he? she whispered.
Nah. He recruited some mercenaries. Mostly mere from what I
heard, one or two rogue dragons. They razed the whole town.
She didn t even want to ask the question poised at her lips. And
your mother?
He shrugged. Said nothing. But she felt the aching black hole in
him as if it were her own. Since she saw it so clearly, she didn t even
have to ask.
* * * *
Nereus circled his body. This deep underwater, the ocean cast a
green light on the merman s handsome features. That strong tail
pumped hard, his face fierce as he gripped David s hand and tugged
him forward through the gentle currents.
In the distance, David saw the whirlwind, water swirling like a
tornado. He pulled back, trying to break Nereus s grip.
The merman looked at him, kindness and lust all in one. A strong
pale hand wrapped at the back of his neck and dragged him into a
drugging kiss.
Shots of desire bucked down David s body and he gripped at the
merman s tail, squeezing where his backside would be, feeling an
echo of human hips below the rubbery exterior.
The merman pulled back, angry now, though David didn t know
why. He dragged him forward again, closer to the bubbles and
whipping water. A moment later the swirl flipped David, like a wave
crashing over his body. He struggled to right himself, figure out
which way was up, but Nereus had released his hand and the water
swallowed him whole.
* * * *
Shark Bait 125
David sat at his desk, looking through his emails. Friedson had
forwarded some of his preliminary theories to his superiors. They
were requesting a project proposal, saying that if David s suspicions
about shifting-shark cytokine cascades were correct, they might plug
several million into the project. Even more important, human
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