2. CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
“Baz, you need to take a break,” Saber Thorsen, Council Leader, and extremely strong Alpha, commanded.
In the past, Baz would have done as the man had ordered. Technically, Saber wasn’t his Alpha, but as a Beta, he was used to following the orders of his superiors. But that had changed more than a year ago.
Rage boiled within his veins that anyone, even the Council Leader, dared to tell him what he should do. “It’s been thirteen fucking months since I learned I had a mate. Thirteen Gods’ damned months of searching for him, not knowing if he’s dead or alive and you want me to fucking calm down?”
Unable to control the fury that burned through him, Baz picked up the table with the map they’d been looking at fruitlessly searching for something they’d missed before to discover where his mate might be. Slamming it across the room, he nearly exploded when he realized just how little effect the move had when they were inside a tent. All it did was collapse the far side of the temporary structure.
Catching the knife he hadn’t stopped tossing up in the air despite Baz’s show of aggression, Chadwick lifted an eyebrow at him. “How did that work for you?”
Flipping the irritating mate of their Council Leader off, Baz stalked out of the tent, not stopping until he’d reached the water’s edge of the island, they’d made their base camp. Striping off his shirt, his hands went to his shorts, prepared to take them off to shift into his octopus and do what he should have been doing instead of agreeing to this meeting, searching for his mate.
“Baz, wait,” Braydon called out.
Clenching his hands into fists, he was more than ready to tear Braydon apart for abandoning Baz’s mate and the man’s supposed best friend. Still, Braydon was the only connection he had to the person who fate had created just for Baz. If he ever found his mate, Baz was fairly certain he wouldn’t appreciate him killing Braydon.
“Don’t even think about it,” Karim growled.
Asshole.
Braydon, ever the peacemaker, put a hand on his mate’s chest to stop Karim from knocking Baz on his ass. Much as he hated to admit it, Karim could easily do it. Not that he couldn’t hold his own in a fight, but Karim was even better. In fairness, he was an Alpha great white shark.
“Please, don’t make this worse,” Braydon told his mate. “Baz has a right to be angry and hurting.” His voice caught when he added, “Channing’s been missing for too long.” A tear tumbled down Braydon’s cheek. “I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have scented you, but not know if I’d ever find you.”
Baz’s heart ached not only at Braydon’s words, but the way Karim could comfort his mate. He should be able to do that too. Hurting too much to take it, Baz shoved off his shorts after he’d kicked off his shoes and waded into the water. “If you hadn’t abandoned him, I would have found Channing by now.”
Not giving Karim a chance to punch him for verbally attacking his mate, he shifted and slid through the water, letting the sensation of it slipping over his flesh soothe him. No. That wasn’t exactly true, for there was no such thing, but it felt better than being in his human form with no ability to figure out where else he could find his mate.
Reaching out with his senses, he tried to find some clue to where his mate might have ended up. It was pointless near their base camp as he’d never once sensed him nearby, but he couldn’t help himself.
The splash of water, even though he was already quite a distance from the island already, warned him that Karim and Braydon had shifted into their animals, a great white shark and dolphin respectively, to join him in the search. Irritated only because he would have preferred to be alone after spending an hour trying to find fresh places to search for Channing, only because they had no clue where he’d ended up, Baz was also grateful to have their constant help.
They never wavered in their determination to find Channing. Only when Salvation, the island that was owned by one of his best friends and boss, Yosi, was under attack had they returned to save it.
But that meeting only proved to Baz no one was going to help him find his mate. He feared it meant Channing had died, but he refused to accept it. Wouldn’t he have known if that had been the case?
Nole, a shifter doctor, hadn’t been positive that would have been true since Baz hadn’t actually met Channing. He’d claimed it could have been true, but there just wasn’t any guarantee. Not that it mattered. Baz would never stop looking for the one person who was his.
Braydon clicked and whistled as he surged past Baz with Karim hot on his tail. Even though he’d rather be alone, Baz followed the excited chatter of Braydon as they headed west. He doubted it was anything, but he had no other plan.
After an hour, he was berating himself for not going his own way. Seeing Braydon and Karim together, rubbing up against each other every so often in affection, tore Baz apart. It wasn’t fair. Not for him so much as his mate.
According to Braydon, Channing had been involved, unknowing, with a married man, lost a job he’d been promised after graduating from the University, came home with his proverbial tail between his legs only to be kicked out because of a few bad choices his parents considered sins to end up being taken prisoner by humans who forced him to mine uranium of all things. Talk about having a rough time.
If that wasn’t already bad enough, Channing had been injured when their captors had taken them to help transport the uranium to another island and load it on a plane. It had been Braydon who had fought for the right to take Channing to the medic they had on the ship they had been on to transport their cargo.
Miraculously, the humans had unchained both Channing and Braydon and sent them to the medic. Instead, Braydon used the opportunity to plunge them both overboard since he feared Channing’s injury would end up getting him killed because it would stop him from working until he healed.
Shifters might heal quickly, but sometimes it still took time. Something the humans most likely wouldn’t tolerate. Even though Baz knew Braydon had risked leaving his nieces and nephew, who were also working that mine to save Channing, he couldn’t help but resent him for leaving him in the middle of the fucking ocean with no way to get to shore.
Yeah, technically they had been chased by Karim’s shoal of great whites at the time, but how in the hell was a seahorse supposed to swim hundreds of miles which may or may not eventually get him to land? Worse, he was positive Braydon had been holding something back about Channing that made the situation even worse. He had no clue what that could be, but for some reason, no one would clue him into what it was.
Two high-pitched whistles, followed by a bunch of chattering from Braydon, brought Baz out of his morose thoughts. He had no clue what the shifter was trying to say, but he could hear the near giddy excitement in each sound. He started darting even faster through the water, while Karim’s shark bolted in front of him and slowed him down, refusing to allow his mate to rush headlong into danger without him by his side.
That only caused Braydon’s dolphin to whistle, chirp, and click faster. Not having any experience with this side of Braydon, Baz couldn’t be positive, but he sensed Braydon was arguing with his mate as if it was imperative they move faster.
Moving up alongside of them, Baz flicked a tentacle to let them know he was there, and they could all move together. He would be a lot slower, as swimming meant his heart had to stop beating. It was why crawling along the ocean floor was preferable, but if Braydon thought there was even a chance, he had sensed Channing, Baz would exhaust himself to get to him.
Karim already knew what it would mean if they were needed to fight, and Baz was exhausted. Not that it would be necessary, but Karim was always several steps ahead with the possibility of trouble. Giving his mate a shake of his head, Karim then swam just under Baz.
Braydon chittered excitedly, as if encouraging Baz to wrap his tentacles around Karim to let the shark carry him. If he could, he would have given Braydon the finger for even daring to suggest he allow Karim to carry him anywhere. Yet…assuming Braydon thought he could sense Channing, was Baz in any position to deny the help to get to his mate?
Already knowing that answer, he slipped two tentacles around Karim’s body, plastering himself as close to that torpedo-like body as possible to not hinder his movement. It was like he’d been shot out of a cannon when Karim surged forward. Never in his life had Baz moved that quickly. As a shifter, he was quicker than a typical octopus, but this was…like being in a race car, going from zero to outer space in mere seconds.
Hating himself for doing it, Baz gripped Karim even tighter. If the shark shifter were in human form, he was positive he’d been laughing at Baz. If it meant there was even a possibility of finding Channing, Baz didn’t give a shit. Karim could make fun of him all he wanted. It would be worth every fucking insult the man could hurl at him.