Fierce Predator, page 2
“Did you?”
“Yes. I figured if one person working quietly in the water provoked him like that, a bunch of people invading his territory might really aggravate him. We’ve had a couple of incidents in one specific area, so now we try to avoid it. Discretion is always the better part of valor where the big sharks are concerned.”
“So, you’re afraid of them?” The father’s voice dripped with disdain.
“Not at all. I love sharks, but I afford them the respect they’re due as the ocean’s apex predators.” Trinity pulled on her raspberry diving suit. “Why don’t you all get into your suits while I get the cage in place and check out what’s going on below.”
She slid off the boat into the shark cage, lowering it down below the surface. As she’d hoped, the Sea of Cortez was abundant with life. Manta Rays glided through the ocean like the gulls soaring on the warm air currents above the sea. There were sea turtles and an abundance of sea life, which meant if the sharks weren’t here right now, they soon would be.
Trinity was especially sensitive to changes in the currents and the water around her, which was why the Tiger Shark had spooked her. Normally, she could feel something moving in the water, but this time she hadn’t, almost as if he’d snuck up on her. A ripple of motion drew her attention now, but it was far off in the distance. A whale, most likely.
When the enormous Tiger Shark rammed the cage, it startled her. No, that wasn’t right—it scared the shit out of her. She whirled around—as much as one could whirl around in a cage underwater—just in time to see the big male bat the cage with his tail as if she was nothing more than a bath toy. It circled around, brushing against the bars. She caught its eye, and Trinity could have sworn the damn thing was laughing at her.
Chapter 2
Zak
Prowling. That’s what he called it. Sure, he was theoretically protecting the sub, and he never strayed far from its compelling call, but Zak couldn’t help questioning if defending the Kracken would be—at the end of the day—his only accomplishment in life. He couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t something more. He tired of the sight of the same doomed vessel, grew weary of her relentless corrosion, and on days like today, he prowled the crystal blue waters of the Sea of Cortez.
Nash was still on guard by the Kracken, his approach to defending the sunken ship bullish, and others would be along soon. Zak had little doubt about that. All five of the men who shared the unique ability to shift into sharks took their obligations seriously, but even men of honor needed to play occasionally.
Plowing through the sea, displacing water around him, he sensed movement ahead. Not just the regular disruption caused by other marine life, but the distinctive vibration of something larger. Then came the unmistakable rhythm of a human heartbeat, its pace garnering his attention.
Someone was swimming in the water? His water? The Kracken’s graveyard?
That was unusual this far from shore and enough to send him rocketing in its direction.
Approaching the source, the sound of the pulse was so incessant, it was almost hypnotic. Zak’s gaze cut through the water, catching the glint of metal. A cage. Someone was cage diving. A low snarl emanated from his body as he swam closer. Why some people insisted on this pastime was beyond him. Couldn’t they work out it was far better to respect apex predators like sharks from a safe distance? Far better not to chum the water and amplify their presence with equipment like cages? Still, they kept coming, tourists who presumably had more money than sense, attracting the natural predators and expecting the marine life to perform on demand.
He neared the cage, catching sight of the diver inside. No doubt that one would soon be joined by others, countless moronic vacationers with no patience and even less experience in the water. If Zak could have shaken his head, he would have. These people and their cavalier attitudes… enraged him. Zak had always been filled with a sense of what was right and wrong, a sense of duty, and it infuriated him to see others’ inconsideration. The wildlife in this environment was precious and needed protecting every bit as much as the Kracken. If visitors kept cage diving, the inevitable would happen. They’d engage the wrong shark at the wrong time, and someone would get hurt—perhaps badly—then they would blame the sharks. They always blamed the sharks.
By the time he had sized up the cage, he’d detoured from the normal protocol—leaving them alone unless they came too close to the Kracken—but the Kracken wasn’t the only thing in the ocean worth protecting. Zak was bored; time to liven things up and have a little fun with them. If they wanted a show, he would put one on for them. This diver was about to get more than they bargained for.
With the cage in his sights, he shot forward, ramming the metal object. He didn’t use much force, but the metal, when up against something of his size, was precariously flimsy, and he was sure it would have given its occupant a significant fright. That was a pleasing thought. Moving away, he batted the cage with his tail, gleeful as he turned back to brush against its bars. The diver’s heartbeat had doubled its pace, the unremitting vibration confirming Zak’s desire. He’d scared the shit out of whoever was stupid enough to be in the cage in the first place.
Circling the pen, he made another pass before looking harder at the diver’s face. A woman. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him. He was certainly in favor of equal rights and had no problem with women diving, but a female alone in a shark cage wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He certainly didn’t mind seeing her in a wet suit. Granted, it might not be skin, but it still revealed a lot about the woman inside—lush, ripe, and familiar. He felt a stirring, which as a shark, he shouldn’t be feeling. There was a very human part of his anatomy that wanted him to shift… and it wasn’t his brain.
As he made another pass, he could make out the feminine features squashed behind the visor. Somehow, this female, who didn’t belong in his water, called to him, entreating him to remember. Some woman he’d fucked and forgotten? Maybe, but why the compulsion to get a closer look? His job didn’t exactly lend itself to a hearth and home kind of existence.
Her eyes were huge as she took in his sheer size. Tiger Sharks were notoriously large, often reaching twelve to fourteen feet in length, and had a reputation for aggression, but Zak was no normal Tiger Shark. His genetic mutation gifted him with increased strength and size—staring at the woman should have made him a frightening sight. No wonder her heart was about to leap into her throat. He smiled, reveling in her fear and revealing a mouth full of teeth designed to puncture and rip. That should be the final nail in her coffin, the moment she realized she was out of her depth and scampered back to her boat. So, it was perplexing to see her move forward in the cage, her tiny hand grasping one of the bars only inches from his jaws.
What the hell was she doing? Didn’t she understand how dangerous it was to approach a predator of his size and tenacity? She had no way of knowing he was playing with her, no way of ensuring her safety. Sure, he wasn’t giving her any reason to think he would devour her. In fact, he was practically stationary, pausing in the water while he assessed the state of his potential prey, but still, her audacity shocked him.
Her heart rate slowed as she pressed her face to the bars, almost as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was then he realized what had piqued her interest—he’d stopped and was floating in the ocean, suspended in the water. Regular sharks had to keep swimming to keep the water moving over their gills to stay alive. No doubt, his display was quite the conundrum, but it didn’t excuse her ignorant response, the way she had strayed too close to him, the danger she was in. Judging by how delicate the structure she clung to was, Zak reckoned a couple of powerful hits could break it apart. What was she going to do then? Stranded in the ocean with a Tiger Shark almost the length of one of the tour company’s double-decker buses?
What perturbed him the most wasn’t her stupidity; it was the way she appeared to have relaxed. Her shoulders had fallen, and her heart was nearly back to its normal rhythm. Her fascination with him seemed to lull her into a false sense of security rather than persuading her to flee. That made no sense.
Fixing his focus on her eyes, he noted their beauty. They were grey, not light blue, but grey. He had only seen their like once before. The diver’s hair was black, as hers had been. Zak retreated a few feet and watched with satisfaction as her gaze enlarged once more with her obvious disbelief at his ability to reverse.
Diving below the cage, he circled, contemplating his next move. Should he continue his original plan and give the little diver something to think about, or had he bemused her enough? Either way, her bold approach to the front of the cage had riled him. Zak was an enormous hunter. His sheer presence alone should have been enough to dissuade her, let alone his threatening rows of jagged teeth. Her unusual responses were intriguing, but more than that, they irritated him. Why wasn’t she dashing for the surface? How had she shown such courage in the face of the monster he became when he entered the sea?
Questions still pinballing in his head, he allowed his instincts to do the talking. Shooting back toward the cage, he smacked his snout at the base, sending the small box hurtling in his chosen trajectory. She was unlikely to have seen his rapid approach and understandably jumped into the middle of the cage, heart pounding as she acknowledged his return. Emboldened by her behavior and elevated heartbeat, he repeated his efforts, pounding into the base of the insignificant box, over and over, until the base of the metal bent at his snout’s intrusion. Exhilarated, he passed by the side of the metal structure, ogling the terrified diver.
Zak had no idea why her alarm amused him so much. Maybe it had been too long since he’d actually had a gratifying interaction with a woman. Perhaps Mason’s burgeoning romance had stirred more envy than he liked to admit, but either way, Zak relished her jittery movements, her accelerated breaths audible through the water.
“Go home, little girl!”
He sent the instruction reverberating through the water, aware she would never hear it but too elated to care. Hell, Zak hadn’t had this much fun since he’d nailed that firecracker behind the Rusty Pelican, and that had to be at least six months ago. Whoever she was, the diver had chosen the wrong shark to play with. Zak continued to circle, flashing her a chilling grin as he nudged the structure again. If he didn’t know better—and he usually did—the cage was weakened from his pummeling. He wasn’t sure how much longer it would entertain his game, then little miss diver really would be in trouble. He had no desire to really injure her, but the mood he was in, he’d have a lot of fun persuading her otherwise.
Swimming away, he turned back, taking a last lingering look at the diver. One final battering attack ought to do it, then he would see what she was truly made of. He hurtled at the cage, his heart racing with excitement. It wasn’t like him to be cruel, to play with people this way—it was people he sought to defend with his service to the Kracken—but this woman had caught him on the wrong day. He wanted to push her boundaries, see how far he could shove before he ripped right through them. Today, she would wish she’d never slipped into the cage.
Holding nothing back, he collided with the same aspect of the metal, the noise of the impact resonating through the water. The base buckled further, delighting him as he came around the side of the structure. Passing the top of the cage, a new thought emerged. His body grazed by one of the floats, keeping her pathetic cage buoyant as he determined what to do, and coming back around, his jaws opened. Gripping the float, he punctured it with ease, sending the metal structure lurching in one direction.
Moving away, Zak assessed the frenetic speed of the diver’s hammering pulse. Surely, that would be enough to get her out of the water? Whoever she was, she couldn’t seriously hope to survive in a free dive, face-to-face encounter with a shark of his size, particularly one who had shown a tendency for aggression? He’d shown her his strength and power. She should realize he was a vicious predator with the ability to kill—it should be caution enough.
Zak glided toward her, offering another menacing grin as he neared the second float.
“Come on, little girl,” he goaded. “You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to take me on.”
Gaping his jaws, his teeth brushed over the float, warning her. He paused, and for a moment, they were eye to eye again, sizing each other up below the waves. “Go!” he hissed, pressing down lightly. “Get out of here.”
As though she finally understood his counsel, she gazed at the surface, opening the lid on her little tin can and swimming up to clamber back to her boat. Zak’s final view, before he chomped down on the float, suspending the cage only by a steel cable, was of her fine-looking ass.
Chapter 3
Trinity
“What the hell!” the man exclaimed as she climbed onto the ledge on the stern of the boat.
“I think we’re going to have to move locations,” she said, engaging the hoist and lifting the cage out of the water.
All three of her clients gasped. Trinity had to admit, the cage looked pretty bad, and the damage from the shark’s ramming and loss of the floats had strained the tether. The company had enlisted her help in setting up the specs for their dive cages and had them built to order. This one now had numerous dents, and the floor of the cage looked like the undulating floor of a carnival’s funhouse.
“Holy shit,” the father snarled.
“Nope. Tiger Shark—the one whose dorsal fin never broke the surface of the water. We’ll just move to a different area and try again.”
“Won’t it just follow us?” the teenager asked nervously.
“Doubtful,” she concluded. “Tigers have fairly well-defined territories. They’re larger than we once thought them to be, and sometimes their territories can overlap. While sharks stalk their prey, in general, humans aren’t a preferred meal, and once the food source is out of the water, they quickly lose interest. Since we’re out of the water, we’ll just motor to a different locale and try again.”
“Weren’t you scared?” The girl’s eyes were wide with terror.
“No, not really. My master’s thesis was on sharks, with an emphasis on tigers. He startled me but didn’t frighten me. In fact, he was exhibiting some weird behavior which I found fascinating.”
“How did you know it was a boy shark?”
She smiled at the child’s innocent question. “Only the males have an extra set of fin-like appendages called claspers.”
“Fascinating?” the father said. “Some shark attacks, and you find it fascinating?”
“I do, but as I said, I’m a big fan of sharks.”
“Why Tiger Sharks?” the kid asked. She seemed to be the only one of the three actually interested.
“I don’t know. I think they’re beautiful. Did you know no two Tiger Sharks are striped the same? They’re kind of the forgotten predator. Great Whites get all the acclaim from the general public, Hammerheads have their easily identifiable heads, and Bull Sharks are actually the most aggressive. The marks on a Tiger can fade as it ages, so some get misidentified as Great Whites.” Trinity shook her head and smiled. “For all we know about sharks, there’s still so much unknown.”
Trinity secured the cage and piloted the boat out of the area, noting the dorsal fin that broke the water and paced them for a few miles. Once it dropped out of sight, she changed course and headed closer to the shore. Anchoring the boat, she dropped the cage into the water, repairing the frayed tether and keeping it closer to the side of the boat. They would still be able to go underwater but transferring from the deck to the cage would be with the top of the cage, even with the railing. They could duck down to be fully immersed, but Trinity was reluctant to have them in the water without the protective metal structure providing some semblance of safety.
The Tiger Shark’s bizarre behavior had put the mother off the entire experience, which really was a shame. The father had drunk more beer than anything, and Trinity thought he was too inebriated to get into scuba gear. She offered him a snorkel but refused to allow him to use underwater gear.
The kid had actually been worth having on the tour. She’d delighted in and listened to everything Trinity had to say, asking intelligent questions and documenting their time in the cage with an underwater camera. By the time they returned to the company’s dock, the child was exhausted but happy, the mother was grateful her daughter had enjoyed the trip, and the father was happily drunk and thought everything and everyone was just grand, tipping Trinity generously.
After ensuring he wouldn’t be driving the rental car, Trinity returned to the boat just as Jay, one of her co-workers, was offloading the cage.
“Jesus, Trinity, what the hell happened?”
“At the first location, a Tiger Shark decided to play cute with the cage while I was in it.”
“Shit!” He glanced from her to the cage. “Were the clients in it?”
“Nope, just me.”
“Did you use a bang stick?”
“No, never. You do know those things only work on the smaller species of sharks, right? You use one on a Great White, Bull, or a Tiger Shark, and all you’ll do is piss them off.”
“Man, this cage is really messed up.”
Trinity examined the bite marks, mentally calculating the PSI of the bite needed to contract the metal that way, and the numbers didn’t jibe.
“What’s the matter, Trinity?”
“That Tiger shouldn’t have been able to do that kind of damage. He was the largest I’ve ever seen, but still, the strength of the bite doesn’t compute. Where he bent the bars with his bite… I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right.”
Jay picked up the two punctured flotation devices.
“Yeah, when ramming the cage didn’t get rid of me, he bit one of the cables in two, then chomped both the buoys.” She chuckled at the memory, recalling how shocked she’d been.
