Blood in the Water (3 page)

Flicking his crescent-shaped tail, Koenraad tightened his circle. He could feel murder in his teeth, a tingling, aching sensation.

As a shark, killing was his nature.
 

He moved into position.

Chapter 4

Monroe reluctantly turned the last page in her book. The star-crossed couple had gotten their happily ever after, and good for them, but now she had nothing left to do.

She eased her stiff legs out of the chair and carried the book into the bedroom she shared with Koenraad. Just crossing the threshold was enough to make her heart pound. So many amazing things had happened here…

Hopefully Koenraad would get back soon.

Kneeling, she slid the book into her suitcase, then checked that she hadn’t overlooked a paperback. But no, she’d read them all.
 

There were televisions on the yacht, but most of the channels were in Dutch. The ones that weren’t featured newscasters screaming at each other.

Monroe had enough drama in her real life.
 

She could get online, but the service wasn’t great, and anyway she didn’t know the password to Koenraad’s computer. He’d offered to tell her, but she’d declined because… well, because at the time she couldn’t think of a single reason she’d want to be surfing the web.

That was five days earlier.

Now it seemed that every day Koenraad was gone, he stayed out a bit longer than the day before. She hated it. When Koenraad was by her side, nothing about the ocean scared her.
 

But when he was away, it was as terrifying as ever. Every creak, every small movement, and she became convinced the yacht was going to plunge straight to the bottom of the ocean. The dark sky overhead didn’t help matters. Suppose the storm hit and blew the yacht off course? Instead of drowning, she’d starve to death. To her, the autopilot thingie was like magic. Koenraad had explained that it worked with GPS and by measuring the wind and water speeds, but suppose the satellite went down or something?

Desperately in need of a distraction, she picked up Koenraad’s MP3 player and put it on random, then slid it into the speaker dock.

Alternative rock. She pumped up the volume, and then, in a fit of industriousness, pulled out the sponges under the kitchen sink and began wiping down the kitchen—the
galley
—which Koenraad kept pretty clean.

When that was done, she rinsed the sponges.
 

If she hadn’t been looking out the window, she wouldn’t have seen the enormous yacht approaching. It was easily twice the size of
The Good Life
. A smallish cruise ship? She watched it a moment and tried to track it by the movement of its lights.

It seemed to be on a slow collision course with Koenraad’s yacht. But that was unlikely.
The Good Life
was well lit. She was hardly invisible.
 

But the boat didn’t seem about to change course.

Nervously, she left the galley and climbed the stairs to the upper helm. She could watch the boat’s progress from here. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel. Koenraad had let her steer the boat once—had insisted on it, actually—but that was the extent of her experience. But how many times had she sat close by and watched him manipulate the controls?

She knew what to do.

She glanced to her right, and a hellish thought made her palms slick with sweat.

What if it was Victoria?

“Koenraad,” she whispered, as if saying his name could summon him.

Back home, in New York, she was confident and capable. Whatever came up, she could handle it. But here in the Caribbean, in Koenraad’s world, she was a helpless infant. The expression “fish out of water” had never felt so apt.

If she survived this, she was going to make Koenraad show her how to work the controls. It was her fault for being so prickly whenever he wanted to teach her yet another procedure.

And the boat was still bearing down on her. No doubt about it now.

She toggled the levers, pushed the button, just like Koenraad always did, but the engine didn’t hum to life.

The autopilot.
 

She needed to turn that off. But she didn’t know how to. The screen said
Hold-Point
. Whatever that meant. There were six identically shaped buttons across the top of the box, and they were all different colors. She tapped her fingers along the sides. No master on/off switch. However, there was a cable that looped from the box under the steering wheel. That was probably the power.

Maybe don’t start pulling out cords
. She pushed the leftmost button instead, held it down. There was a beep, then all the lights on
The Good Life
went out.

She glanced over at the approaching yacht.
 

Adrenaline coursing through her veins, she pushed the button and felt the boat begin to respond. She toggled the levers, pushed another button. The lights came back on. Next, she dropped her hand to the joystick and the yacht surged underneath her. The sudden acceleration made her stagger back.

The other yacht—was it changing direction?

It was, and it wasn’t moving any slower.

Forgetting about the steering wheel, Monroe threw her hands up in front of her face and braced for impact.

Chapter 5

With a flick of his crescent-shaped tail, Koenraad’s circle tightened. Darius was perfectly outlined above him.

But still, Koenraad didn’t charge.
 

A feeling of unease was taking hold of him.
 

But why?

The reason sprang vividly to the front of his mind: Monroe.
 

It didn’t make sense. She was his mate, and she was in danger from Victoria. That was the main reason they were in hiding.
 

But what would Monroe’s reaction be if he murdered another shifter? Darius might be making their life hell in his own special way, but he’d never threatened them. That was all Victoria’s doing. And Koenraad didn’t have proof that Darius had hired Bamboo Menendez. For all he knew, that could have been Victoria as well.

Killing Darius to be rid of Victoria was efficient, but Monroe might not see it that way.

Of course, he could just not tell her. That was always an option.

And if she were just his girlfriend, maybe he could go that route. But she was his mate, and he’d sworn not to keep secrets from her. At least, not huge secrets like murder.

Could he convince her that it was an absolute necessity? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think so.

Sweet, gentle Monroe, who was unable to keep her grip on a rubber knife. She hated violence of any kind.
 

If he did this, she would be horrified.

Worse, she’d be afraid of him. All the trust he’d worked so hard to build would be destroyed in one snap of his jaws.

Dammit
.

He swam out straight, then rose through the water, approaching Darius at a tangent. The shark still didn’t see him.
 

It wasn’t too late to change his mind again…

And then he sensed another shark approaching, and now it
was
too late. The realization was a relief.
 

Koenraad slowed. Seconds later, he learned that it was Victoria.
So close
, he thought. Because if she had been alone, he’d have ended this, and Monroe would have had to deal with it.

But Victoria wasn’t alone.

Like Darius, she seemed oblivious to Koenraad’s presence.

Now Koenraad was convinced he had some sort of relative immunity to the
sick
thanks to countless hours spent in the ocean, searching for Brady.

What the hell were they doing out here, anyway?
 

Angry, he swam right at the two shifters. Victoria noticed him first, and she reacted by darting away. Koenraad’s amusement at her fear was tinged with irritation; he couldn’t stand the sight or smell of her.
 

Then Darius saw him, and while Koenraad could feel the older shifter’s surprise in the way his tensed muscles vibrated through the water, Darius didn’t flee.

Instead, he turned to face Koenraad. A powerful shifter meeting a subordinate in the middle of the ocean.
All hail King Darius
, Koenraad thought.

Victoria returned, but Koenraad ignored her. Let her attack him. Given the amount of fury that sat restlessly in his bones at the moment, he welcomed a fight.

Darius swam toward the surface, and Koenraad followed. Some distance away, Victoria was doing the same.
 

Darius headed west at a moderate but steady pace. He wanted Koenraad to continue following, and Koenraad did.
 

Little by little, the murderous urges relaxed their grip, allowing a worrisome theory to dawn on Koenraad.

Suppose the two shifters were out here because one of them had stumbled across Brady’s scent? Koenraad was confident that if he couldn’t smell his son, the other shifters couldn’t, either. Not as impaired as they so obviously were.

However, that didn’t mean they hadn’t tracked Brady to the general area.

He was probably being paranoid, but the stakes were too high to shrug it off.
 

Ten minutes later, Koenraad sensed Darius’s large yacht. It wasn’t like Darius to swim so far from the boat, from safety.
 

Something was definitely going on, but Koenraad couldn’t even begin to guess what it might be.

Darius shifted first, and Victoria right after. It was her way of establishing dominance to Koenraad, a way of showing that she wasn’t afraid of him even if she was in human form. It would have been offensive if she hadn’t panicked earlier.

As it was, he found her posturing laughable.

Good thing for her, Koenraad didn’t give a shit about power dynamics. It was the prerogative of a large shifter; others could play all the games they wanted, but it didn’t change the fact that he was physically stronger than just about everyone he came across. It was one of the reasons Victoria was so hell-bent on getting him to impregnate her again.

Finally, Koenraad shifted human and climbed the long ladder that ran up the side of Darius’s yacht. When he reached the top, Darius handed him a large towel and walked away.

To Koenraad’s surprise, Victoria was already covered up. Victoria knew she had a great body, and she would have walked around town naked if it were allowed.

“What are you doing out here?” she demanded as she squeezed her dark hair, wringing out the seawater. Koenraad couldn’t quite read the expression on her delicate features.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. He wrapped the towel around his hips.
 

Darius returned, his snow-white hair damp and hanging straight around his head, making him look a little bit like a monk. The similarities surely ended there.
 

Even though Darius was quite a bit older than Koenraad, he was in superb physical condition. Shifter bodies didn’t soften with the passage of time. All things being equal, an older shifter was far deadlier than one in the prime of his life.
 

Experience counted.

Darius stepped into a pair of linen pants, then slipped into a red Hawaiian shirt. He took his time getting dressed, and that irritated Koenraad. Monroe was waiting.
 

“I was just telling Koenraad that we were looking for him,” Victoria said.

Koenraad knew the claim was a lie, but he wasn’t surprised when Darius nodded in agreement as he smoothed his fingers over his short, neat beard. “We were. I have a proposal for you. One that I think will make everyone happy.” He looked at his niece. “Why don’t you go keep the bodyguards company?”

Pique flashed in her eyes, but she stalked away.

Koenraad was going to press Darius on what he was really doing out in the middle of the ocean, so close to the
sick
, but Darius turned and walked inside.

Koenraad followed.

Darius slid a coffee capsule into a machine. “What kind would you like?”

“I’m fine.”

While the espresso brewed, Darius opened a cupboard and removed a package of muffins. “I can’t get enough of these,” he said. “Cranberry walnut. The combination of tart and sweet makes my jaws ache right here.” He tapped under his ear. “Have a seat, Koenraad.”

“I’ve got things to do.”

“You’ll want to hear my suggestion,” Darius said easily.

“I hear just fine without sitting.”
 

Darius smirked. “First, I want to apologize for Victoria’s actions. She hasn’t been herself, you realize. Not since she lost her unborn baby last month.”

Koenraad hadn’t heard about that, hadn’t even realized that Victoria was pregnant, but frankly, he didn’t care. Knowing Victoria, it was a lie she’d spun for compassion. Regardless of the veracity of the statement, if Darius was bringing it up, it was because he intended to manipulate Koenraad.

The family was consistent like that.

“I’d like to accept your apology, but we have a problem,” Koenraad said. “Victoria challenged my mate.”

“She was upset,” Darius said dismissively. “We talked about it, and she’s willing to drop the challenge.”

“In exchange for what?”

Darius grinned. “Smart boy. You’re so apolitical that sometimes I forget…”
 

“Forget that I’m not stupid,” Koenraad supplied.

Darius laughed as he added a teaspoon of sugar to his cup of espresso. He held it up to Koenraad in a toast, then sipped the contents.

“I’ve never thought of you as stupid,” he said finally. “Sometimes I forget that just because you don’t play the game doesn’t mean you’re not following every move. So I won’t waste your time by beating around the bush. Kendra is quite upset about what happened in court.”

“I recall. She doesn’t like having her time wasted with nonsense trials.”

Darius squinted, took another sip. “Don’t go getting ahead of yourself. Victoria tells me she saw things, and I believe her. Now, she’d like to dig into it, try to make sense of what happened that night. But really, what does that serve?”