The bright blue water hid nothing; no need to wonder if the sharks were on us. They swayed lazily around the boat. I counted eight. Eight, ten-foot-long sharks with bad attitudes and insatiable appetites. Thank the mother goddess for the syrup Finley had given me. The wounds from the hooks weren’t even bleeding—I could only imagine the sharks frenzy if I still had been oozing blood.

Dolph and I swam toward them and I thought for just a moment that this was going to be easy. They didn’t see us—we were below them and they weren’t exactly looking down. I swam under the first shark and sliced upward with my spear, arcing from the tip of its tail to the base of its mouth, cutting through the soft under belly.

Blood and guts poured into the water as the shark rolled, flailing as it died. Teeth snapped, black eyes went dull, and the gray body dropped like a stone. The water was muddied by the blood and I didn’t think about one simple factor.

Feeding frenzy.

The blood set off the rest of the sharks, and they went wild, darting through the pinkish water, grabbing at the bits and pieces of their buddy. I swam backward, bumping into something hard and pointed. I was lifted up like a dancer arced backward over her partner’s head as the shark opened its mouth, trying to get its teeth into me. I rolled over its head and down its back, diamond rough skin tearing at me, which added more blood to the water.

Grabbing its tail, I did the only thing I could. I drove my spear forward into the shark’s spinal cord. Killing creatures of any sort was not something I liked, nor wanted to do. But these weren’t any creatures belonging to the mother goddess. They belonged to Requiem. This would be a battle to the death and I had no intention of crossing the veil anytime soon.

Swimming hard, trying to get to clearer water, I spun in a circle. The water was a mess and even though I couldn’t see the sharks, they could still find me.

Without warning, a maw of teeth clenched my left calf, a thousand razor sharp blades cutting into me as the shark dragged me away from the others. The moment slowed as I stared into the black eyes and I realized the shark was not bearing down. He was holding me, yes, hurting me, yes. But biting my leg off, he was not.

I swung my spear around and held it in front of his eye. The grip on my leg increased. Worm shit and green sticks. I couldn’t kill him, or he’d snap my leg off. I just didn’t understand why . . . until his eyes slid from black to a shimmering violet.

An elemental who could shape shift. These sharks were not familiars any more than I was. I put a hand on its head, between his eyes and the shape shifter’s thoughts flowed over me.

Bring her in, don’t kill her. Bah. Requiem and his dick need to get their priorities straight. Funnily enough, his thoughts didn’t make me feel any better. I knew what Requiem wanted with me, and I would do everything I could to make sure he didn’t get it.

My captor swam in a lazy circle and started toward the boat. I counted only five sharks left. Dolph had taken out one, which seemed like too few until I saw him, his body being held by one of the sharks, the same as me.

The water around us seemed to shift, the current changing. I put a hand on the shape shifter’s triangular head, picking up his thoughts once more.

Requiem is pulling us home. The black eyes flicked to mine and if a shark could frown, he did, a slight wrinkle forming along what would have been his forehead if he’d been in his human shape. Can the Terraling hear me?

I nodded.

How is that even possible?

I wasn’t going to explain my ability with Spirit. At least, that was my assumption about why I could understand its thoughts. Not that it mattered, really. Even without his words I knew what was happening.

We were done.

A shiver ran through the Undine shark holding me and his mouth popped open, releasing me as it spun away from me. As if fleeing. I swam free of him, looking back to see what was so frightening.

A black and white body twenty-feet-long cut through the water, bumping past me and clamped down on the shark with six-inch teeth. The orca thrashed its head, tearing through the shark as if it were nothing. The eyes on the shape shifter flashed violet, then dulled to black as it floated to the bottom of the ocean.

The remainder of the sharks swarmed the orca. They darted around her, attacking in pack formation, taking chunks out of her side. Maybe if they’d been just sharks, she could have done more, but there was no way she stood a chance next to these shifters.

The orca’s beautiful bright white hide was ripped into, her belly spilling into the ocean. The sharks dove into her body cavity, pulling pieces out while she still lived. I shuddered, grief wracking me for the creature who had traded her life for ours.

Losing a familiar was supposed to be as painful as losing one of your own limbs, and behind me, I saw Dolph jerk hard. As if the blows to the orca were blows to his own body.

Unable to move as shock set in, something below me caught my eye.

From the depths, a smooth current flowed up and around us. Tentacles shot upward, grabbing one of the still attacking sharks. Sucker cups rounded the bull shark, one tentacle on the front half of its body, one on the back half. What looked like a gentle, casual pull ripped the shark in half, his violet eyes meeting mine as he died.

Unfrozen with the thought of the tentacles coming my way, I scrambled toward Dolph. I didn’t have to convince the shark to let him go.

Dolph was spit out, and the remaining sharks fled, and we were left facing the giant squid on our own. Dolph wrapped his arms around me, pinning me to face him. He shook his head and even in the water, I could see how pale he was. How much blood he’d lost, not to mention the loss of his familiar. He pressed his forehead against mine though I doubted he realized I could hear him.