Stay calm.
I stroked once, and then once more—and the canoe split.
Dusky stars tilted overhead as I toppled into the waves among the broken halves of my belovedva’a. Salty sea rushed to drink me in, the underwater whoosh of erratic bubbles somehow far away. The world was stained red and thick with sediment, the water only deep enough to come to my shoulders. Dry land was right there, but I couldn’t outswim a shark.
Stay calm.
My back crashed into the sandy floor, and I threw my gaze in every direction, searching desperately for what I knew was in the water with me.
The pointed flukes of the shark’s tail swerved over my arm as it thrashed. Rope hung from its mouth, and as it jerked its head to the side, a broken piece of my canoe followed. My hands flewto shield myself from the stray wood, and the shark whipped around, sensing my movement.
Through the clouded water, a mouth emerged, jagged teeth aimed for my feet.
Heart in my throat, I scrambled, heels and fingers digging into grainy sand as I clamored against the seafloor to back away.
The shark’s jaw gaped, muscle rippling, razor-sharp teeth embedded in its maw. Its throat widened, and I could’ve counted the rows of its teeth.
It shot for me, lured by my noise and the water shifting as I moved.
And then a human torso thrust into its side.
The shark ignored the man, depthless eyes locked on me. Bronze hair lashed against an angular brow bone. A hip flashed above my knees. Something silver caught the dimming sunlight, glinting as it plunged into the shark’s gills.
Inches from my feet, the shark stopped.
The man withdrew the knife, then stabbed the shark a second time. A crimson cloud burst from its side, twisting and blooming like smoke rising from a fire. The shark rolled away as it searched for its attacker, and a hand wrapped around my elbow, yanking me to my feet.
I followed in dazed relief at the sudden realization I was still alive and whole.
Kye’s face met mine just over the surface of the water, eyes burning with a madness that teetered on the verge of control. He shoved me toward the water’s edge, though he didn’t release my arm, following so close his skin brushed against mine. As we reached dry land, his body toppled over me, the undertow leaving us in water ankle-deep.
Shivers erupted from my skin, my arms and legs trembling beyond my control. Kye seemed to have turned to lead. His body stilled as our chests heaved against each other. Golden eyesstared directly into mine. His heart pounded against my ribcage, his breath warm over my ear.
The weight of him forced my body flat. All too suddenly, I remembered he wasn’t wearing clothes.
A Calderian man fought off a shark without wearing any clothes and was now laying naked on top of me. I grappled with the thought, but my head seemed to have left me in the water. My mouth opened but no words found their way out. I gaped at him like a mindless fish, my pulse throbbing in my ears.
Neither of us moved.
Water slid over our shins, spraying our legs with flecks of sand and shell, shrinking away again. Vaguely, I became aware of an ache in my upper arm, glancing to find his hand still firmly gripped around it. Kye looked, too, as though he’d also forgotten. Splaying his fingers wide, he released me, shaking his hand the way someone does when their limb goes numb.
Blood dripped from his forearm, a thin red line halfway between his elbow and wrist.
“It got you,” I breathed, thankful my mind had calmed enough for me to speak once more.
Kye glanced at the wound and shuddered, his breath still shallow. “No. That was from me. My own knife.”
He rolled off me, propping his knees as his back fell into the moist sand. I swallowed hard between pants, watching the darkening sky—though the urge to glance down wracked my treacherous body from the inside out as I took in the sight of his bare skin from the corner of my eye. Now tanned and freckled from the island sun, it glowed.
Something firm and rubbery brushed my foot.
I squealed as I coiled onto my hip. Beached in the shallow waves, the shark stared at me, unblinking, its gills fanning the air hopelessly as its tail drifted in the water behind it.
Kye leapt to his feet, knife ready, though it was clear the shark was dying. Its jaw had slackened, blood carving runny tracks down its gills, muscles in its fins spasming as it gazed ahead, until it no longer moved at all.
My stomach and shoulders caved as I exhaled, watching half of a broken bucket roll ashore under a lazy wave. It landed in the wet sand, sinking through the foam. The pungent scent of fish chum drifted in after it, a frayed rope tied to its handle.
Not one of my buckets.
