Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
For a second, I can barely move. Duncan’s eyelashes flutter, but he doesn’t seem to recognize me. Nor does he realize anything’s amiss. Instead, he gives a groan, and his eyes close again.
“Wake up!” I hiss, but he’s already dead to the world.
I dig my fingers into his shoulders and focus on hauling him out of the water. “Why are you so heavy?” I pant, like I’m expecting a response. Like I don’t expect a man who can turn into a wolf to have a surprising amount of muscle mass.
After what feels like hours, I’ve managed to move us a safe distance from the waves.
I give up then, sinking down to the ground until I remember that I’m not wearing pants.
My junk just touched the sand. What’s waiting down there?
Crabs? Sea anemones? All things I didn’t want near my toes, let alone my sensitive bits.
I leap up, start to panic. Unconscious beside me, Duncan Stirling is shivering.
Will he remember going in after me? Or is he going to freak out because he’s totally naked on a beach with a guy wearing clothes that look like they’ve been chewed on by a shark?
I need to mitigate this. Now. After a moment’s consideration, I shrug out of my wet coat, trying not to wince at how obviously tattered it is. I can’t afford another one, so I don’t think about it. Instead, I drape it carefully over Duncan, hoping maybe it will hold heat even soaking wet.
Then I remove what’s left of my shirt and set about trying to preserve my modesty. There’s not a whole lot I can do with the scrap of fabric, so I tie it around my waist. It skims the tops of my thighs, barely conceals my buttocks.
There’s a non-zero chance someone is going to see me like this. Hell, even if I walk back to Halea, someone will probably notice me.
I’m never gonna live this down, but it’s better than being arrested for indecent exposure. At least if someone is traumatized by the sight of me, I can claim I made a good-faith effort to cover up. Under the circumstances, it’ll be enough.
I hope.
There isn’t much left to do. My phone is gone, lost to depths of the ocean. Another thing I won’t be able to replace. Nor, I realize with a sinking feeling, can I call for help.
Somewhere far off in the distance, a tiny light flickers. I think it’s from one of the lamps lining the road, but I can’t be sure.
I won’t leave Duncan behind. Better to wait for dawn, when joggers and swimmers will surely begin to appear, than to try and get help on my own.
Not when I’m practically blind, and Duncan is defenseless.
If I leave him, I might not be able to find him again.
There will be nobody to drag him out of the tide when it rises.
Or—a shudder runs down my spine—what if something tries to eat him? With no weapon and no clothes, I’ll be useless.
OK, but what kind of animal hunts humans on a beach? I can’t come up with anything other than alligators, and I’m pretty sure we don’t have those here. Sharks aren’t able to traverse land. I’ve never heard of crabs eating people, just pinching the occasional stray body part.
I plop down into the sand and drag my fingers over my face. Fuck. What the fuck am I doing?
This is going to look so bad.
I’m already dreading the dawn. We’re going to have to go to the hospital. Talk to the police. We might even end up on the news.
And what then? Will people suspect the truth—that Duncan is a shifter, and I probably am too? Or will they assume that we’ve gone on some kind of misadventure? Maybe that we were fucking or fighting and ended up in the ocean somehow?
I’ve been shivering for a long time. So has Duncan. Slowly, reluctantly, I creep closer to him, lured by body heat, afraid to touch him without necessity.
But I’m so cold, and he’s hidden under a coat, and—
Fuck it. I sit beside him so that we’re hip to hip, and wrap my arms around my knees. Wind thrashes around us.
And then, finally, Duncan stirs. I’m on my feet at once, standing over him. He twitches, groans, blinks.
“Hey,” I say. “You awake?”
He blinks again, unseeing.
“Duncan?”
He moans.
“Oh, thank fuck,” I say, before I can stop myself. But he’s already drifting off, his face going lax, his lips parting.
Frantic, I drop to my knees and grasp him by the shoulders, afraid I’m going to lose him again. Afraid he’s really hurt, and I’m going to spend the night out here with a corpse. I need him to wake up. Now. “Hey, listen, man,” I begin. “You have to wake up. We have to go somewhere warm.”
His eyelids twitch. A strange little rumbling noise emerges from him. Is it a growl? It doesn’t feel threatening, but I don’t know what else it could be.
Still, he doesn’t rouse.
Suddenly, I can’t stand it anymore. “Wake up!” I cry. The palm of my hand connects with his sculpted cheekbone, which is nearly sharp enough to cut glass. I wouldn’t be surprised if it drew blood.
He gasps, blinks up at me with big, gray eyes.
I can’t believe I just hit him. I’ve never actually done that before outside a couple of playground fights in the third grade. I think about the expensive watch he wears and pray he doesn’t remember this. I’m gonna get sued, I think helplessly.
But there’s no time for that. I babble, “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m scared to death to leave you here and we’re gonna die if we don’t get help soon, OK?”
I help him sit up, surprised at how warm his skin is beneath my frozen hands.
“Where… Where are we?” he asks.
The words spill from me in a jumble. “On the beach. I…” My voice is tight. “Something happened. I don’t… Are you… Are you a wolf?”
Instantly, I know I’ve fucked up. Duncan staggers to his feet. I reach for his forearm, hoping he won’t fall as he spits, “Don’t say that!”
“I won’t, I won’t,” I insist, still thinking of lawsuits. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
Duncan just sways there. I’m afraid to let go. “I thought you were gonna die,” I say. My voice is so weak that the howling wind swallows it whole. “I, um, don’t know to give CPR to a wolf.”
His eyes flash. Actually flash, like lightning. Before I can ask how he did that, he demands, “What happened?”
Has he noticed he’s naked? I stoop to retrieve my coat and drape over his shoulders. There. Now he’s not cold. He can’t sue me for, like, neglect during an emergency or something. “I don’t know,” I say. “We were in the water and I—I don’t know—”
He wobbles on his feet, but his gaze is sharp. “Did you know you were a shifter?”
I flinch at the words. Decide it’s best to play stupid. “A-a what?”
“A shifter.” He takes a wobbly step towards me. “A merman, or whatever?”
Wait. A merman?
Does that mean there aren’t tentacles?
“Is that what happened?!” I gasp, nearly relieved.
He leans against me. I automatically wrap my arm around him, simultaneously seeking the heat of his body, and also afraid that he might fall. “You had fins,” he mumbles. “Like my mom’s fish.”
I can’t take much more of this. “Like what?”
He shivers beside me. “Like my mom’s betta fish. They were all long and shiny.”
“I… Really?” Fish fins aren’t so bad. Not compared to tentacles.
“Yeah,” he says, voice gone faraway and dreamy. “They were really pretty.”
My face heats despite the cold. My mouth runs on autopilot as I try to process this.
“Right. OK. That’s…” I can’t find the words.
“New and horrifying. Awesome. Um…” I can’t help but laugh.
This isn’t real. This can’t be happening.
Any minute now, I’m going to wake up, and this dream will be an entertaining story that I tell Jane over lunch, nothing more.
“We’re going to worry about that later.” I am going to freak the fuck out later. “Do you remember anything?”
This, I’m confident, is a good thing to ask. This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to discuss in an emergency, instead of asking someone if they’re a wolf.
I’ll never live that down. I’ll be incredibly lucky if Duncan doesn’t blackmail me.
He’s still leaning against me, warm even through the wet coat. I fight the urge to collapse against him. He gives a shrug. “I saw you fall. Went to rescue you. Now we’re here.”
I can’t get over the fact that he was a wolf less than an hour ago. “OK. Um, so you don’t remember turning back into a human?”
He doesn’t say anything, just shivers.
“I’m going to take that as a no,” I announce. We start taking slow steps away from the water. He’s silent a long time. Eventually, I ask, “Were you trying to take me to shore?”
I need to understand what happened. No matter how he’s here, it’s probably my fault, but I need to know exactly how guilty to feel. If he dove in after me… Well, that was his decision, I guess. But if he was nearby when the cliff collapsed, if he fell because of my antics… Well, I’d feel like shit.
“Yeah,” Duncan mumbles. “Sorry.”
It turns out that I’m going to feel like shit either way. Guilt smothers me like a tidal wave. I try not to let it show. “OK, well, I’m not sure if you noticed, but you saved my fucking life. Don’t apologize.”
He doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he’s worried that I know his secret. If he thinks I’m going to blackmail him. “I won’t tell anyone,” I promise, and I mean it.
There’s no answer, but he puts his arm around my waist, hangs on tight.
We mosey onward in silence. I can’t stop thinking about my legs—where did they go? What happened to them? I should’ve looked. I’m never, ever setting foot in the ocean again. I’m never going to know exactly what I looked like and I kind of regret it.
Duncan claims I had fins like a betta fish. That probably means they’re kind of… long? Maybe shimmery?
Fuck, I should’ve looked. I was so afraid that I was going to be stuck like that forever that I didn’t even bother. And now I’m never going to know, because like hell am I ever going through that again.
The silence is overwhelming. A hundred thoughts roll through my mind. I finally give voice to the most pressing. “Does it always hurt?”
“Yeah.” He stumbles over something, catches himself before he falls. I tighten my grip around him.
“I’m sorry.”