Page 35 of Mated to Team Shadow

"What these guys aren't saying," said Kane, "is that the sailors trawled the Caribbean for five hundred years at least, not counting the natives. This is all well-traveled, more like your everyday neighborhood than the wild mid-Atlantic. We haven't seen a ship is an aftermath of the storm, but if we hung out another day someone would run into us."

"If it weren't for your propensity to jump ship, we'd just hang out."

"Yeah, drinking whiskey." I snorted.

"And eating fisherman's sushi," said Gunner with a wink. "What guys don't like to hang out, drink and fish?"

I rolled my eyes. "You make a joke of everything, don't you, Gunner? I'm sure if we were drowning you'd make a joke of that too."

"Anything to keep up morale," said Gunner.

"Who made you morale officer?" said Damon.

"First, take back those nasty words. I'm not an officer. Second, Ivolunteered."

This set the other three men laughing, and I didn't understand the joke. I sat and crossed my arms.

"What?" said Kane.

"I don't get the joke."

"No one volunteers. Officers do that for us," said Gunner with a big grin.

I shook my head. What the hell have I gotten into? Sure, they were hot, like I mean, I could melt at looking at any of them. Ryker with his muscles and dark eyes Gunner, blond, tan, and succulent; Kane, with his chestnut hair and green eyes; and Damon with his blue-black hair and blue eyes. They were all delicious.

But they were shifters.Shifters? Jungle cats?

No, I can't process it.Damon changed before my eyes, and I still couldn't believe it. I'd rather chew on Ryker's lie that the sun got into my eyes.

But I'm a journalist, damn it—dedicated to the truth, and sometimes you just have to look at the stark naked version and put it out there.But how do I tell this story without looking like a lunatic?

No way, that's how.

However, I still needed to find my friend, Surma, and learn her fate. I didn't accept that she was dead and needed to see the evidence if she was. I had to get back to St. Lucia and track down Aedan Morgan. It would be harder, now that my cover was blown, but I'd manage. All I had to do was to escape from these guys, these impossibly sexy men, and I'd attack my mission once again.

The island loomed larger, and when we moved closer to shore, we saw an expanse of white-sand beach and a tropical forest rising above it.

"Where are we?"

"Not sure yet. One of the islands," said Gunner. He had pulled out the satellite phone and stared at the GPS.

"An island," snorted Kane. "That's informative."

"Doesn't do much good without a map, does it?" sniggered Damon.

"You guys rag on each other hard, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah," said Ryker.

"It shows how much we love each other," sneered Gunner.

They were more relaxed as we got closer to land, and they'd lost their grim expressions. The tropical forest became a solid wall of green straight ahead, and a jut of land rose on the left covered in scrubby bushes. The closer we got to the beach, the crashing of the waves on the shore became louder. We bobbed in the surf, and then they jumped out and dragged the raft up on the shore.

"Okay, recon," said Ryker. "Let's figure out what country we're in and who we need to call. Gunner, Kane, Damon, spread out, and find some landmarks."

"Right, Chief," said Gunner, and they sprinted off into the jungle.

"Landmarks?"

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