Page 34 of Duncan

“I cannae tell you that, for I dinnae ken.” Fletcher eyed her, expecting her to laugh at him, but she simply watched his face. “I expect ’tis something you yet hide from me and my clan. It doesnae reassure me when you skitter away as I cross your path, like a thief with full pockets. Indeed, I reckon naught could make me happier than seeing you sail off with MacLeir.”

She nodded, seemingly unsurprised by his savage confession.

“I’ve been told you have a very bad temper, and that I shouldn’t provoke you. That’s the reason I’ve been walking away every time I see you.” She touched the pendant she wore before she said, “I also apologize for lying about my surname. My father is very wealthy, and he taught me not to reveal my identity to strangers. Nicole Fairley was the name I used when I went to college.”

Fletcher grunted, although for the first time he understood her a little better. His filthy temper had always been easily roused, so staying out of his way when she knew he disliked her was clever. She was, after all, in a strange place surrounded by those she did not know. Why should she reveal all about herself?

“Please remember that I don’t want to be here, either,” Nicole told him. “The moment I am able to leave your island, I will. If you would just be patient a little longer, soon you won’t ever have to see me again.” She hesitated before she said, “Lark doesn’t ever have to know.”

For a moment Fletcher thought he might seize and beat her. But no, she had only recognized the desire he had been fighting since the moment he’d first seen her.

“I reckon she does.” He wanted to weep now. “Only ken ’tis no one else in my heart but my lady wife.”

“Good.” Compassion warmed her cool eyes. “Some men have had the same reaction to me in the past. I think it’s because they resent being attracted to me when they’re deeply in love with someone else.”

“Then I shall ask your pardon, my lady.” Uttering those words to her might have been the most difficult thing he’d ever said. “’Twas wrong of me even think such.”

“I’m actually in the same situation with someone else.” She bared her pretty teeth in a smile that seemed mocking, but then humor warmed her cool eyes. “Should we agree to a truce until I leave Caladh?”

Fletcher nodded, and waited for her to grip the next stake before he began pounding it in. Now that they had spoken about his unwanted desire, his hidden shame finally ebbed, along with his anger. When he returned to the stronghold he would go and speak with his wife, he decided. She understood him as no one else could.

Six stakes later, they had two rows of anchored driftwood between which they could tie down a being as large as a clansman. Their efforts proved timely, too, for a huge splashing tangle surfaced along with the two aquatics and Shaw, who helped them drag the netted creature ashore.

“Mind the teeth,” the chieftain warned as Fletcher reached for the net.

The four of them wedged the tangled kelp between the driftwood stakes. Connal and Shaw held down two fin-shaped arms that had emerged from the net as Merrick knelt on the lower body and Jamaran began cutting away the seaweed. Fletcher twisted several lengths of the kelp together to form a rough rope, which he then used to lash the creature’s limbs to the stakes. By the time they had finished, the hybrid lay gasping and writhing, unable to free itself.

Never had Fletcher seen such a hideous being; it appeared at first glance to be a dark green and gray shark with a slender torso, from which human arms and legs had grown. It also possessed a short head with a cone of a nose, and a small mouth filled with rows of jagged teeth, but its eyes were like that of a mortal. Some black hairs bristled above its eyes and on its neck, as if it were growing brows and a mane.

“’Tis like a thresher shark,” Connal muttered.

The lower part of the creature’s face suddenly changed shape, its mouth growing lips as a chin emerged from its flesh.

“Release me,” the shifter said in a woman’s voice. “Or my clan shall come for you. Dearg shall come for you.”

“We ken you hunted alone, monster.” Fletcher grew disgusted by its claim of kin. “Didnae you please your demented master? Or did he fashion you too small for his evil purposes?”

The shark shifter paid no attention to him; its mortal eyes had fixed on Nicole as the rest of its face bulged and twisted until it changed into that of a mortal female.

“Take care, Mistress,” Merrick warned as she knelt down beside the creature. “It may bite even with a woman’s mouth.”

“I will.” Her face filled with compassion rather than disgust as she looked over the shifter. To it she said, “I’m going to try to heal you now.”

As she reached for it a wave of water suddenly doused her and the creature, which broke free of the stakes and grabbed her by the throat. A stream of inky black came between them, severing the shifter’s arms and knocking Nicole away from it at the same time. The stream then punched through the belly of the creature, emerging on the other side to solidify back into Shaw. Behind him a small, dark shape streaked underwater across the bay, moving so fast it disappeared a moment later.

Fletcher helped Nicole to her feet before he regarded the dying shifter.

“No, my lady, dinnae touch the thing,” he said when she started to move toward it. “If you attempt healing the thing now, ’twill likely end you.”

The creature gurgled out something as its body began to bulge and then seemed to tear itself in two. Both pieces of it changed shape one last time, becoming that of a thresher shark and a woman with terrible lash wounds. Both went still and limp, and did not move or breathe again.

Jamaran crouched beside the female, inspecting her ravaged body closely. “These wounds came from the thresher’s tail. Only such a shark, ’tis shy and never attacks mortals.”

“When ’tis blood in the water, anything shall attack anything,” the king said.

When the commander turned the female over, her back showed different wounds that appeared much like blackened burns. Fletcher had never seen the like, but Shaw came down beside Jamaran and reached out to touch the scorched flesh.

“This, ’twas my doing,” the chieftain said. “She took part in the battle between me and the Cait Sith on the island. I reckoned her dead like the others I burned. No mortal ever survived an attack from the beast.”