Shark Bait (2 page)

A school of large fish passed close, and she dove after them. Most seafood she’d eaten in her life had been served on a bed of sea greens, caught by teams of the dragons’ servants, the mere. Of course, dragons dined on whole kill at feasts, but those animals were captured far from the Underwater City—sometimes even by humans. Before this journey, Sophia had never hunted a day in her life.

She rushed to follow the delicious-looking fish, circling them into a tight ball; then she speared through the group, mouth wide open. A couple caught in her jaws at each pass, and she chewed with a hungry moan. Wisps of red blood surrounded her kill, and she struggled to catch the tiny bits of flesh that floated away. Too late, she realized she could have used her claw to hold her capture still while she ate. Sophia filed that discovery for later use.

Surrounded by blood and destroyed food, Sophia felt the full weight of her loneliness. No one had followed her, and she wondered if her parents were happy to be rid of her. They had been trying to mate her off for years. Given a dragon’s three-hundred-year life-span, she wasn’t exactly an old maid. But noble women of her caliber tended to marry earlier, all the better to produce lots of little pure-bred dragons.

Lost in her self-pity, she swished her tail to swim on when a large, pale gray body flashed in the distance. She turned in the other direction and swam a few meters only to see another gray tubular torso with black eyes. Her gaze darted back and forth, and then down over her scales and claws. Blood surrounded her and hung suspended in the still waters.

The sharks edged closer. At least two dodged behind icebergs. She pulled deep breaths of water through her gills, readying to attack. True, she’d never been in a physical fight, but no doubt these dumb animals would depart once she proved she was neither injured nor helpless.

From behind a floating wall of ice, the largest swept forward, so close she saw the whites of its eyes.
Good Mercy!
She’d overshot Svalsbard and entered into the shark-shifter-infested Russian waters. She swung her gaze around, counting as more and more emerged, enough to tear her to shreds. The largest swept so close his rubbery denticles brushed her scales.

He rasped through the water. “What do we have here? A pretty little lizard from the Pacific? What a delicacy!” His chuckle filled the water, and his men answered with cruel laughs of their own.

Unable to speak underwater as mere and shark-shifters could, Sophia attempted a roar, which ended short as a yelp. The sharks circled closer, unimpressed. She swiveled side to side to keep them all in her line of sight, but gray bodies and broad jaws lined with rows of teeth flashed from every side.

The shark spoke again. “I’ll bet you’d fetch a nice ransom, dearest.”
Sophia thanked every god she knew that her body was not human at this moment. No doubt she’d blubber like a child. Instead she clenched and unclenched her talons to ease her nerves and allowed herself to be herded by the school.

* * * *

Raider ShaCrayz opened one eye and surveyed the metal cage, heavy chain and bed of cardboard that comprised his province in the bowels of the vessel
Cape Fear
. He listened. No feet scuffled above. Both eyes open, he glanced at the porthole. Night. Silent feet carried him to inventory his stores.

He eased his rusted coin from between the old cabinet joists and pressed hard into the furrow in the near-hidden screw. Twisting, he drew the small metal fastening from the weathered wood. He pulled forward the door and reached inside for his treasure.

His bread and cheese had run low, necessitating a trip to the kitchen. His dirty brown fingers roamed the rest of his belongings.
Raider closed the cubbyhole and fell forward onto his arms. He pressed his body upward, rushing to get in at least three sets of pushups while none of the crew was nearby to mess with him. His muscles burned, but he dared not stop to stretch. His arms worked in efficient, confined strokes. He exhaled through his nose. Not even breath escaped his lips.
Feet shuffled on the deck above, likely a shift change. Raider skimmed back into his corner and burrowed his head more deeply into the hood of his cloak. This time of night, the crew sometimes checked on him.
Heavy boots tromped directly overhead and shouts sounded. A
thunk
sounded on the deck above. Perhaps the crew had bagged a seal. A moment later, he heard a female voice, strident and grating. He couldn’t make out the words, but if she spoke to his father like that, she must be very, very stupid.
The hatch opened, but Raider didn’t look up. He listened as body after body descended. Our of the corner of his eyes, he noted his shark-shifter crewmates, dressed only in ragged sweatpants, with a female behind them. His hooded gaze took in her narrow, coffeecolored ankles and tiny bare feet.
“It’s totally unnecessary for you to keep me in a cage. It would be unreasonable for me to try to flee. If you need reassurance I won’t run, you can hold onto my ID!”
Raider tensed for the blow his father would deliver to the irritating female. None landed.
She must be rich.
A heavy thud sounded as his father threw a bag into the cupboard and a clang rung as he dragged out a set of shackles. “Try to shift wearing these, dearest, and you’ll slice off your hands.”
Oh, she’s dragon.
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.

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 shock. 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?”