Page 10 of Midnight Serenade
He had warm, light-brown skin and pale-blue eyes, and was built like a swimmer. I suddenly wanted to change my manuscript and put Rafe in as the MMC instead of the male I’d already chosen. He was ideal for the role. After all, he was an avian shifter. It didn’t get more perfect than that.
“So, Rafe.” I put my chin on my palms. “Would you mind being the star of a paranormal romance I’m writing?”
He choked on the sip of hot chocolate he’d just taken, and then roared with laughter.
I thought our friendship was off to a great start.
By noon,Kazi had found me again. We were currently lounging together in the sun. I was on a tube, floating on the water, anchored to the side of the pool with my hand as people played all around me. Kazi was snoozing next to me on the deck of the ship, shamelessly flopped onto his back, his mouth wide open. I was happy the humans could only see his Main Coon form, or else they’d be terrified of his teeth.
I poked him, and he snorted, eying me to see if I needed something. “You freaked me out this morning.” I kept my voice down. Plenty of people talked with their animals, but few, I thought, expected the animal to listen. I fully wanted Kazi to listen. He’d created a mess—a mess that had ended well—but still. “Just... wake me up if you sleep with me again and want to leave in the middle of the night, k?”
He moved his head a few inches to snuffle my face in apology. I laughed and batted him away. “Don’t come any closer. You’ll pop my tube.” After a few more minutes, I sighed and pulled myself out, looking at the lazy river that circumnavigated the ship. Most ships had waterslides. Sebastian’s had a lazy river,complete with tropical plants, blue tile on the bottom of the riverbed, crystal clear water, and plenty of waterfalls. I wanted to try it. Lazy rivers were up my alley.
I kissed Kazi on the head and walked to the entrance, dodging couples and individuals. When I reached the tube entrance, I felt someone’s eyes on me. I glanced behind me, only to find about ten guys, their eyes all intently following me. I whipped back around to the lazy river attendant, fear spiking through my body. The female attendant seemed confused at my hesitancy to get in, and at the sight of the guys behind me that were holding up the line. I leaned forward and whispered to her, “Could you please call Sebastian on the walkie? Tell him where I am and that it’s an emergency.”
It wasn’t yet, but I knew that it soon would be.
She nodded slowly, as though unsure she should really bother her boss, but when a few of the guys came forward and threw their arms around my shoulders roughly, her eyes widened and she immediately started talking into her walkie.
“Get off me!” I said, trying to throw their arms off by jabbing my elbows out.
When guys moved from following me to putting their hands on me, I used my elbows judiciously. I wished I’d been allowed to bring my taser onboard, at the very least.
“Now, sugar, a sweet thing like you could use some relaxation. What do you say you and I go up to my suite and get to know one another?”
“Let her go, dude. I saw her first.”
“She’s not a chew toy,” a female further down the line said. “Leave her alone!”
My pulse pounded harder. The surrounding crowd was growing restless and people were starting to take sides. I felt like a cornered rabbit as some of the other guys moved forwardto surround me, touching me and my hair, stroking my bare shoulders, grabbing my hand and trying to pull me toward them.
“Back off! I don’t want to go with any of you!”
The attendant, after a moment of complete confusion, scowled and started forward, plowing through the guys to get to my side.
“Getoff!”she said. “The lady said no!”
A snarling roar came suddenly, breaking up the shouting, and then two of the men crashed to the ground as Kazi took down the two guys who wouldn’t release my shoulders. I rubbed my arms, staring at Kazi with wide eyes and a pounding heart. My arms ached and stung. The grip of the men had been so tight that my arms bore marks of a twist burn.
Kazi snarled in their faces once they were down, and the rest of the men backed off quickly, holding their hands up to show they weren’t touching me. Unfortunately, the two men on the ground were fine. Just a little shaken up from being thumped into the deck by a lion. I wondered if they were paranormals, or if they just thought a very large house cat had taken them down. I almost hoped they thought he was a house cat. It’d do their egos good to think a domesticated feline had bested them.
I was so grateful to Kazi showing up that I wanted to wrap my arms around him and promise him anything he wanted to eat, as well as endless belly rubs. The situation could have escalated into something truly horrible.
And then Sebastian showed up, looking like a feral hedgehog that had come out of hibernation too early.
“Grace!”
He took one look at me in my swimsuit, shivering from nerves and fear, and came over to wrap his arms and a towel around me, leading me out of the line a little. Three security guards followed him, and Sebastian nodded toward the guys Kazi was still snarling at on the ground. They were hauled totheir feet and carted off, and the rest of the guys who had been harassing me left peacefully, melting away from the crowd. The line moved forward once more, and one of the sweet women that had been further back in the line stopped to check on me.
“You alright, doll?” she asked. She looked like a Southern belle, in full makeup and a white bikini that showed off her long, tanned legs. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. Thenerveof those men, treating you like that!”
I just stood there, shivering, unable to say anything. I must have been looking at her with big, traumatized eyes because shetskedand wrapped me in a warm hug. “Aww, honey, I’m so sorry. People can be such jerks sometimes. You hang in there, okay? It looks like help has come.” She smiled and waved as she picked up her tube and got into the lazy river.
“Grace, what happened?” Sebastian was trying to warm me up with his hands, frisking them over the towel, which had been warmed by the sun. It smelled really nice, like sunshine and the tropics, and the scent was enough to snap me out of my funk.
I shook my head. “I just wanted to go tubing on the lazy river. I think those guys followed me from the pool.” I looked at Sebastian. “Kazi and I were by the pool for a little while, and then we split off. He went... somewhere, and I came here. I noticed them following me. They had that missile-locked look, and I got a bad feeling about them. I told the attendant to get you on the walkie. A few of the guys started grabbing me, the people in the line started taking sides, everyone was yelling... It happened so fast.” I shook my head. This. This was why I was a hermit in my late thirties.
Tears started pooling in my eyes. A reaction to the adrenaline spike and subsequent fall junking up my system. At the sight of my tears, Sebastian gently took my arm and led me to the poolside lounge area.
