Master of the Deep (12 page)

“It’s my vacation, not yours,” Monroe said.
 

“Maybe I can push it off until next week.” He’d thought he hated Victoria as much as it was possible to hate someone he wasn’t actively plotting to kill, but apparently there’d been room to grow. And it was weird, but he almost felt he could smell her, though quite faintly.
 

“Of course I want to spend all the time I can with you, but I don’t want to make trouble,” Monroe said.

“That’s the same thing I thought when I let you go at the airport,” Koenraad said. “I wanted to convince you, but I didn’t want to make trouble with your job.” He smiled. “Your boyfriend I was less concerned with.”

“My
ex
. And why?” She sounded genuinely perplexed.

“It was obvious that you were done with him. You said you were supposed to meet at dinner and discuss things, but there’s nothing he could have said. You didn’t love him.”

“I… never even thought of love as entering into it. Love, real love, takes years to develop.”

“Have you ever been in love?” He noted with pleasure that his question caused her heart to race.

“Never really had time for relationships,” she said. “I’m not the spontaneous type. It takes me time to make a decision.” She was being careful, and he didn’t fault her for that.

“You seem spontaneous to me.”

She seemed to seriously ponder that a moment, then she grinned. “It must be your daredevil persona rubbing off. So what’s the story with the propeller?”

He groaned lightheartedly, but inside he meant it. Spencer had set him up. Obviously, Spencer liked and approved of Monroe. Koenraad knew his friend was just trying to be helpful, trying to help him along. He hadn’t realized he’d become such a pity case.

Koenraad couldn’t imagine interfering in Spencer’s life in that way unless the situation were dire. He wouldn’t even have a chance. Spencer never dated anyone for long before he was on to the next one.

They’d had that in common.

In Spencer’s case, though, it was related to boredom and not to the logistical problems of being a shifter responsible for keeping Tureygua safe. Spencer was one of the smartest people Koenraad knew, and he was also sensitive. Spencer’s loneliness—and while Koenraad would never say it to his friend, the shifter was lonely as hell—came from a life dedicated to the pursuit of scientific perfection. Spencer had no problem finding bedmates, but that would get wearisome, and Koenraad only hoped that one day Spencer would meet a woman or a shifter who could hold his attention.

Maybe then Spencer would have something more interesting to do than meddle in Koenraad’s love life.
 

“I’m just making idle conversation,” Monroe said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s not as interesting a story as Spencer led you to believe.” He carefully cleared his throat. “I’ll tell you about it while we make dinner together.”

“If you like stick-to-your ribs pasta, I’ll make dinner.”

An hour later, Koenraad stared at the cream, butter and cheese they’d bought at the grocery store. Monroe finished chopping up shallots, and he watched her dump an entire stick of butter into a frying pan.

“I can’t imagine that you eat this often,” he said. Monroe’s glass of Sauvignon blanc wasn’t empty, but he refilled it.

“Heart attack on a platter,” Monroe said with a laugh. “I like rich food. The creamier, the better. You can probably tell that, though.”

Koenraad frowned. “In what way?”

Monroe held her arms out as she turned to face him. “C’mon. Obviously I could take better care of myself.”

“If you’re suggesting there’s something wrong with how you look, I disagree,” Koenraad said. “Vehemently.” He took her by the shoulders and tilted her face toward his. Staring her in the eyes, he said, “I dare you to tell me I’m wrong.”

Monroe shrugged and forcefully turned back to the counter, but not before Koenraad saw her spreading blush. “Fettuccini Alfredo with tomatoes is the only thing I can make without using a cookbook. Got the recipe from watching my great-grandmother.” Monroe slid a sly glance his way. “She would have liked you. She always appreciated a man with muscles. The older she got, the more openly she leered. I could never decide if it was creepy or awesome.”

He grinned. “So you knew her?”

“Oh yeah. She lived to be ninety-six, and she was sharp right up until the end. She was a bit of a wild child in her day, and she was always telling me to stop being so obedient. Which my mother loved, of course.”

“I bet. What’s your mother like?”

“She’s… nice.” She handed him a wooden spoon and pointed at the frying pan.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to read into that.”
 

“Stir.”

“I meant you calling your mother nice.”

“Nothing. I mean it. She’s a genuinely nice person. I don’t think she has a malicious bone in her body. We’re not particularly close, don’t have much in common. But she did her best to raise me and give me a good life. She took on a lot of debt to put me through college. She didn’t have to, but she did. Of course I promised I’d pay her back, and I’m doing that now, but it was still a show of faith and trust. It meant a lot.”

“Yeah. That’s a vote of confidence.”

“You want kids?”

He slowed the stirring, and the question hung in the air while he tried to think of one good reason not to tell her about Brady.
 

And if he didn’t tell her now, it was as good as lying.

“I don’t know if I want to have any,” she said quickly, probably thinking she’d committed a faux pas by asking about kids. “Sometimes I think it’d be nice, and other times I’m glad I don’t have anyone dependent on me.”

“Do your friends have kids?”

“Not yet. Seeing them with screaming babies might make up my mind.”

“Or show you what you’re missing.” He shook salt into the pot of heating water. “I never thought kids were in my future before I had Brady.” The words slipped out, so natural and casual.

“Who’s… I mean.” She shook her head and laughed, trying with everything she had to act casual even though he could hear her heart racing, could hear her dry swallow. “Your son, obviously.”

“I don’t talk about him. It’s a sore subject. Things got complicated, and I don’t mean custody battles, though we fought over that, too.”

“Do you have photos?”

He nodded slowly. “I don’t like to look at them. Brady is special. And he’s…” He could feel it, the familiar desire to hide this. He didn’t want her to run, and he really didn’t want her to feel sorry for him.

Was he in or out? Did he want to see if this relationship would work, or was he going to sabotage it?
 

“Would you like to meet Brady?”

He felt her hesitation, but of course she said, “Yes. Absolutely.” Because what else could someone say in a situation like that?

He turned off the stove. “Then come on.” He almost added,
Before I change my mind.

Chapter 11

Bewildered, Monroe stared at Koenraad, but he was already at the back exit of the kitchen. Waiting for her. His entire body was rigid, tense.

She slowly wiped her hands on a terry cloth towel. “Right now?”

“It won’t take long. I don’t think you’ll have much to say to each other.” His mouth curled down almost imperceptibly, but Monroe saw.

He headed down the hallway toward the back of the mansion, and Monroe followed, growing more and more perplexed with every step. This made no sense. The garage was the opposite direction.
 

As they passed the hallway where they’d had sex on a table the day before, Monroe snuck a glance over. The table was still there, the shelf still splintered by Koenraad’s lethal bite.

He opened the back door and stepped outside, then took her hand as she joined him. The night had gotten cloudy, but she could still see enough of his features to know that he was miserable. Grieving? Was there a grave out here?

“Brady was unplanned. I wasn’t even dating his mother.” He paused. “Actually, I rather dislike her, and I did, even then.”

“Then why—”
 

“I wish I could say that I was young and naive, but it was just stupidity. I knew she wasn’t trustworthy.” The way he snapped his mouth shut told her there was
way
more to the story. Who the hell slept with a woman he hated? He must have been really, really drunk. But she couldn’t see that, either.

Wow.
And she’d thought having a boyfriend flake on being her wedding date was a disaster. She got the impression that Koenraad hadn’t even gotten to the worst part of the story yet.
 

“Brady’s birth changed everything. I was drifting, unfocused. I suppose it’s a cliché, but he gave me purpose. I was born wealthy, even for a shifter, and I took a lot of things for granted. Having a son with the challenges that Brady does… it snapped me out of my ignorance, my assumptions about the world.”

Brady
does
? Present tense?
 

They were past the large pool—and Monroe suddenly realized where he was leading her.
 

To the inlet.

A cold feeling swept over her, like she’d walked through a spray of freezing water. She wanted a time-out, to stop Koenraad. A moment to prepare herself…
 

Her mind raced, the thoughts jumbled, piled atop each other, yet everything that happened outside of her head seemed to be in slow motion. She didn’t know much about shifters, but Koenraad had just made it crystal clear that there was something wrong with his son, that it was a sore subject, and now she knew what she was going to see in that water.
 

He stopped at the edge of the waterline. Soft waves licked the shore. “Brady,” he called out. “I want you to meet someone.”

“I met him,” she said quietly. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“You haven’t met him properly.” He squinted into the darkness, then he peeled off his clothes, and Monroe wasn’t even thinking about what it would take to seduce him into bed as quickly as possible. Instead, she wanted to pull him into her arms and cradle him.

“He prefers being a shark, then,” she said. “You can’t force him to change back?”

“I wish I could. He’s stuck.” He strode into the water, and when it reached his knees, he launched himself into the rocking surface.

“Stuck?” Monroe whispered. Nothing Koenraad had said up until now had given her the impression that shifters didn’t have control over when they changed. So maybe
that
was the reason so many preferred to stay in one shape: change back to the other shape and you might get stuck that way.

There was splashing in the water, and then Koenraad’s head appeared. “He’s being shy. He’s probably worried it’s a trick, that I’m angry with him for revealing himself yesterday.”

And that was weirdest of all. “He’s supposed to stay hidden?”

Koenraad looked down and to the side, then he swam toward her with confident strokes. What he did was less like a human swimming and more like the water forming and reforming around him. His grace was astounding.

He continued until he was able to stand, but stopped there. “He’s a good kid,” Koenraad said. “I hate that he’s in limbo, out here, living like this, but I have to keep him safe.”

What was safe in the ocean if not a shark? But Monroe wasn’t going to argue. She didn’t know the first thing about parenting humans, let alone shifters. “But he used to be able to go back and forth?” she asked, uncertain.

“No. He spent most of his life only in human form. It was for his own safety. Getting stuck happens sometimes with shifters, usually when they’re sick or very old. Or if there’s a congenital problem. For young shifters, like with Brady, there are warning signs. We tried—well,
I
tried—to keep him away from the ocean so as not to trigger…” He twisted to the side. “Come on, Brady. She saw you yesterday.”

He turned to look at her. “I know he understands me, but he can’t talk to me, so I have to guess at what he’s thinking. It’s not always easy to read his moods, but I think he’s been a bit dejected lately.”

A triangular fin slowly emerged from the water, then circled away. Monroe’s heart jumped into her mouth. Even knowing that it wasn’t some hungry predator, the sight was almost enough to make her knees give out.
 

And then the shark was there, in the shallows. The night obscured so much that she sensed rather than saw the shadowy mass of his body. She was very happy not to be in the water.

“How old is he?”

“Eight.” Koenraad cleared his throat and looked at her. He seemed nervous as he went a few steps deeper, then fell to his knees, the water now coming up to his chest. “I’ve never done this before, but here goes nothing. Brady, this is my friend Monroe. She lives in New York, and she’s visiting for a few days.”

The animal—no, not
animal.
Monroe instinctively knew that was wrong. But he wasn’t a boy. Was he? And she had a hard time thinking that a shark that size could be young. He wasn’t a child and he wasn’t just a shark. A shifter, then? But he couldn’t shift. Well, whatever he was, he was poking his nose out of the water, pointing it in her direction.

Smelling her? Or just watching? She barely repressed a full-body shudder.

“Monroe, this is Brady. He’s the best swimmer I’ve ever met. It’s like he’s got the ability to make himself invisible, and when we figure out a way to help him shift back, he’s going to show his old man how he does it. He’s also brilliant with model ships. A rare talent, and a good kid.”

“It’s so nice to meet you, Brady,” she said, taking a tentative step forward. Koenraad was still on his knees, now touching the young shark. Stroking him.
 

“I’m sure he’s pleased to meet you,” Koenraad said. “I do what I can for him, but it gets lonely out here. He’s tired of seeing me, and he can’t go far.”

Monroe’s gaze darted to the gate at the inlet’s mouth. Even though the gate was open, unease wound through her. But this wasn’t any of her business, of course; she didn’t understand the situation.

“Did you do the model ship in the library, Brady?” she asked. Her voice was too high, trying too hard like people did when presented with kids they didn’t know.