Blood in the Water (11 page)

But then she’d see something like a road that should have needed a crew with chainsaws and a bulldozer to clear it, and it reminded her that the man she loved wasn’t just a man.

It kinda made her wonder what the hell he needed her for.
 

The aquarium was a bit of a drive once they hit the major road, which was mostly clear. As Dunphy pulled into the parking lot, Monroe found herself frowning.
 

So this was where Koenraad was keeping Brady. Was he on display or something? She sincerely hoped not. If the aquarium hadn’t had signs announcing what it was, she never would have guessed. It was mostly made of concrete and looked more like a WWII prison than a fun place to learn about marine life. The construction was sturdy, she supposed, and it would withstand storms just fine.

It actually reminded her of the compound where she and Spencer had crashed Koenraad’s trial, and that wasn’t a pleasant association at all.
 

She looked around but didn’t see any other vehicles. Maybe Koenraad had left for some reason?

As she got out of the pickup, she noticed Spencer walking over to her, a warm smile on his face. His brown hair was slightly messy. “Glad you made it,” he said.

She glanced at the building behind him. “How bad is Brady?”

His smile faltered as he shook his head. “Koenraad is making the best out of a very bad situation,” he said.
 

He started to lead her to the building, then looked her over. It wasn’t in a checking-her-out sort of way. More like he was examining a specimen for indications as to what it might be. “How are you?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re asking out of friendliness or if you’re going to dissect my answer for clues.”

“Monroe, you offend me,” he said in a wounded voice. “I’m a scientist first and foremost.” He grinned. “But if it makes you feel better, we can exchange social pleasantries first.”

Monroe swatted at him. She liked Spencer. He was like the older brother she’d always wanted but had never had.
 

“I’m fine,” she said. “I feel normal. The first few days after the…” She remembered the bodyguards and glanced behind her. They were leaning against the pickup, but she already knew they had excellent hearing; the sounds of the surf had been extraordinarily loud, but they had heard the phone.
 

Instead of finishing her answer to Spencer’s question, she posed one of her own. “Do different shifters have different talents?”

“Are you wondering why Koenraad can’t sing? It’s not a shifter thing. The solution is to prevent him from drinking too much.”

Monroe smiled. Spencer would definitely be a good match for Tara.
 

“That’s not what I meant.” She told him about the ringing phone as they walked through a heavy concrete door.
 

“Any of us could do that, assuming the wind was blowing in the right direction. To be more on point, Koenraad has excellent tracking skills, but he’s honed them over the years. Does he have innate talent? Sure.” He cleared his throat. “We’re not superheroes with superhuman powers depending on what kind of animal bit us.”

“Yet look at me. I had that transfusion and I’m changed. It’s not a ridiculous question,” she said.

“There is that,” Spencer agreed with a nod. Monroe suspected he was being nice. “So you were explaining something about the first few days after the transfusion?”

“I felt, well, superhuman. Am I allowed to use that word?”

Spencer considered. “As my best friend’s mate, you can say or do anything you want.”

“I felt superhuman, like myself but a thousand times better. Now I feel normal again. I think I was even more surprised than Koenraad when I healed so quickly.”

“For all we know, this is normal,” Spencer said. He stopped walking. “Transfusions are outlawed. It doesn’t mean they don’t happen, but the people who do them don’t talk about it. The typical recipient also tends to be older.”

“Older?”

“When it happens legally, it’s typically a shifter mated to a human with cancer or some lethal or chronic disease correlated with age. The humans usually aren’t healthy to begin with. However, I did some research and I can’t find any instance of a case where the effects didn’t degrade quickly without ongoing transfusions. But there’s not much information available, to be honest.”

“I’m surprised no one has studied it,” Monroe said.

“Oh, I’m certain it’s been studied, but that’s the sort of thing that’s kept well under wraps. Perhaps if my field of concentration included shifters…” He rubbed his chin. “I wonder if Koenraad’s parents know anything about it.”

“His parents?”

“They’re marine biologists, and they study shifters. I’ll try to get in touch with them when I’m back in Boston.”

“They’re retired. Koenraad says they just swim from vacation spot to vacation spot.”

“His parents are the most driven shifters I’ve ever met. I haven’t seen them in a few years, but I don’t believe for a second that they’re truly retired. They might tell their son, who is prone to worrying about them, that they’re just swimming around and having a grand old time, and they might be doing that, too, but I’d bet money that they’re studying something. They share a driving, obsessive curiosity.”

“I don’t think Koenraad inherited that,” Monroe said.
 

“He’s much more laid-back,” Spencer said. “Though who knows what would have happened if Victoria hadn’t gotten pregnant, if Brady hadn’t needed such intense care. The man Koenraad would have been is surely not the man he’s become.”

Spencer began walking again, but Monroe’s head was buzzing. She wanted to hear more about what Koenraad had been like before. All she knew was that after Brady had shifted into a shark, Koenraad had grown very serious and somber. Spencer had claimed that meeting her had changed Koenraad’s life.

The night Brady bit her, Koenraad had definitely changed, she realized.

He’d gotten much more serious. Sure, he was still lighthearted at times, but she often felt like he was only partially there, that even when he was relaxing, the things that worried him were playing in his mind.

Monroe and Spencer went through a winding, sloped corridor. They must have come in through some employee entrance because so far, Monroe hadn’t seen anything that looked like educational displays or seating for a marine show.

Then they were going up another sloping walkway. At the top of the ramp and through a heavy door, she found herself in a large room. There was an enormous tank that had some outside space; she could see where the artificial lighting turned into daylight.

Suddenly Koenraad was there. When he kissed her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. She wished she had the power to make his troubles go away.

“Sorry I had to change the plan,” he said as he released her. He’d changed into tan linen pants and a lightweight shirt that was unbuttoned enough to reveal the strong column of his throat and a peek of his broad, rock-hard chest.

“It’s not a problem,” she assured him. “Where’s Brady?”

Koenraad indicated the indoor-outdoor tank, but Monroe didn’t see anything.

“You should give him the tranquilizer,” Spencer said. There was a focused look on his face that suggested he was hearing or smelling something that she couldn’t.
 

“You’re probably right,” Koenraad said, “but he’s eating, and I don’t want to make him sick.”

“Is Brady freaking out?” she asked. When Koenraad had given Monroe a crash course in shark biology, one of the things he’d told her was that sharks would regurgitate the contents of their stomachs when they were stressed.
 

“He’s not happy,” Koenraad said neutrally.
 

“Arm,” Spencer said, tapping her shoulder. He held a damp antiseptic wipe. It smelled tart, of alcohol.

Monroe shoved her sweater sleeve up and held out her arm, and Spencer filled two small vials of blood from her vein.

“You’re better than most doctors I’ve been to,” Monroe said when he’d finished.

“He was at the top of his class in med school,” Koenraad said.

“I didn’t know you’re a doctor. Well, that kind of doctor.”

“I never practiced.” He looked down. “You’re healed. We just saved a penny’s worth of bandaging.”

Monroe looked down. “But needles never really make me bleed.”

“There’s no continuing damage on the tissue level,” Koenraad said.
 

Spencer glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to leave in five minutes,” he said, “but I have a few questions for you, Monroe.”

“I’ll go quickly check on Brady,” Koenraad said.

“Questions?” Monroe asked.

“Is there any history of blood disease in your family?”

“Blood disease?”

“Leukemias, hemophilia, thalassemia, anemia—”

“No.” She’d never heard of thalassemia. “At least not that I know of.”

He asked her a dozen other questions about her medical history before looking at his watch again. “I’ll have to leave it at that for now.”

“Wait.” She glanced in the direction Koenraad had gone. “What’s going on with Brady?”

Spencer motioned for her to follow him out of the room. He waited until the door had closed before answering.

“In short, he’s becoming psychotic. Great white sharks don’t do well in captivity. Long-term survival is a perfect zero percent. If Brady were just a shark and not a shifter, I’d say that Koenraad has a few weeks. But Brady is still a shifter, and I think his awareness of his predicament only exacerbates the effects of the inherently insidious nature of captivity—”

“Say it plainly,” Monroe said.

“He needs to get Brady out of here as soon as possible.”

“And then what?”

Spencer sighed. They’d been talking about weighty matters since the moment Spencer had walked out to the parking lot, but this was the first time he looked troubled.

“What?” she persisted.

“He needs to take Brady away from humans,” he said. “There have been two attacks in the last week.”

Monroe gasped.

“Neither of them fatal, thank goodness. We don’t even know for sure that Brady did it, but Koenraad found him near enough to the location of the second attack only a few hours later, and I don’t have to tell you about Brady’s history.”

So Spencer did know that Brady had bitten her. She was relieved that Koenraad had another shifter to talk to about it. “So Koenraad has to… what? Release him in the wild?”

“He’d need to stay with him to keep him away from coastal areas.”

Monroe felt the blood drain from her face. “What are you saying?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

But Spencer didn’t have an opportunity to answer because the door opened and Koenraad walked through. His hair was wet, and he only wore his pants.

Some unspoken information passed between the shifters, and Monroe didn’t dare ask what it was about. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“Off I go,” Spencer said.
 

“I think I should leave, too,” Monroe said to Koenraad. Clearly he was in no position to waste time with her. “We can have lunch some other time.”

Koenraad nodded. “Thank you.”

She wanted to wrap him into a comforting hug and never let go, but she could tell his mind was already racing ahead, and his goodbye kiss was distracted.

Spencer walked out with her to the parking lot, and to her surprise, he went right for the pickup and got into the back of the cab.

“What are you doing?” Monroe asked.

“Koenraad brought me here. Originally, one of your new friends was going to drive me to the airfield and then return, but I guess we’ll all go together.”

“You’re flying yourself to Boston?”

“No, just to the mainland. I’ve got a charter from there.”

“Oh.” She swung into the back and dropped onto the seat next to him. She welcomed a few more minutes with him; she was burning with questions.

But she had to be careful how she framed them because of the bodyguards, who were now getting into the front of the pickup.

“What were you saying earlier?” she asked.
 

Spencer was already nodding. “Koenraad’s parents like to swim around the world. They don’t need to fly or take a boat. If Koenraad wanted to spend time in the open ocean, and if he wanted to take you with him, he could simply take a boat. It would require more planning than just swimming around, of course, but it’s doable.”

She looked at the back of Theo’s head. “And how long do you think he’d want to stay in the ocean?”

“He’s a shark,” Spencer said. “The water is his home.”

If she was understanding correctly, Koenraad would need to stay permanently at sea, not just until Brady was an adult and able to care for himself.

All because of the attacks.

It seemed like a life sentence for Koenraad. And he would do it. He would have to do it because he was responsible for Brady.

And even though the idea of living on a boat in the middle of the ocean frankly terrified her, she was damned sure going with him.
 

Oh, her mother was going to love that bit of news.
 

Monroe decided that because she and Koenraad hadn’t discussed it yet, there wasn’t any point to mentioning it when her mother got in. The only goal for her mom’s visit was to convince her that Koenraad would be the perfect son-in-law.

Spencer suddenly swiveled in his seat. Monroe glanced behind her. All she saw was the usual traffic, heavier than she would have expected the morning after such a destructive storm, but she supposed people needed to get out, repair their homes, clear away the fallen trees.

After all, not everyone had a shifter to take care of things.

“I believe Darius and Victoria just drove past us,” Spencer said.
 

Monroe turned to look harder, but she couldn’t see them. The cars that had recently passed were far away and turning tinier by the second.

“It was,” Theo said. “I saw them.”

Spencer pulled out his phone. Monroe listened as it rang. Frustrated, Spencer hung up and dialed again. And again.