Page 16 of Chasing Tail
“Taron? Are you going to get offended if he touches you instead of me?”
Taron just smirked at me.
“I won’t know until he touches me. This is my first time being anything but a shark, Kishi. This is new to me.”
Forrest was eyeing both of us a little too curiously for my tastes.
“I get the feeling the two of you can communicate just fine with each other. Can you talk to us the same way?”
Damn. Forrest was way too smart for his own good. He wasn’t even close to figuring out what we were or what we were here for, but we definitely needed to be careful around these men. We communicated with sonic pulses land-dwellers couldn’t hear under the water. Taron and I could still do that. I knew Forrest and his brothers couldn’t listen in, but damned if he hadn’t figured out something was up.
I shook my head no to indicate that I couldn’t communicate with Forrest the same way I did with Taron, then gave a half nod at my shark friend that there was a fifty percent chance Forrest would get stabbed with a fork if he laid a finger on him.
“Okay, big guy,” Forrest said. “I’m guessing you got that scar over your eye defending Kishi, and you didn’t lose that fight. I have no desire to fight you. We’re just learning how to eat with utensils.”
I fell out laughing because I hadnothingto do with that scar. I had to listen to Taron bragging about it for ages. A fine looking female shark came into our home to breed, and Taron got that scar fighting off the other male sharks. He was way prouder he won the fight than the fact that he got to breed for the first time. It was a total one-eighty from how he was with legs because now he seemed hyper-focused on mating.
Forrest cocked an eyebrow at me.
“I sure wish you could tell me why that is funny. I can heal it, but I would imagine getting stabbed with a fork isn’t remotely pleasant.”
I’d give it to Forrest. He didn’t know what Taron was. His scar was pretty impressive when he was a shark, but it gave him his air of danger now that he had legs. I’d been cut by plenty of things in the ocean, and that fork didn’t seem sharp at all. It would take a lot of force to break the skin, and Taron was capable of that.
I held my breath as Forrest reached out to Taron. It was like he was in a strong current and moving in slow motion. The brothers had been nothing but patient, but I swear to Trident, if Taron ruined this over a fork, I was going to be furious with him. I was more nervous about this than Forrest was, and Taron would never hurt me.
Taron didn’t assault Forrest with the fork when their skin made contact. He didn’t growl either. Instead, Taron just let out a grunt and let Forrest teach him.
“This is more acceptable than him having his hands on you, but I would rather it be you touching me.”
“Oh, shut it, Taron. Pay attention to what he’s showing you. He could be teaching us both, but you tried to stab him.”
“I regret nothing.”
“If they don’t end up killing you, I might. I don’t care how pretty you are.”
“No, you won’t. You love me, and we’re in this together.”
“Then stop acting like Zale. Remember him? I was nice to him once. He thought that made me his girlfriend and his property. Zale acted like it was adorable when I threatened to gut him with an oyster shell. You had to threaten to eat him to get him to back off.”
“I am so not acting like Zale!”
“You just threatened to stab a druid prince for trying to teach me to use a fork. You’re acting worse than Zale.”
“Zale was the spoiled son of a councilor. He thought everyone was his property. I know you’re not, but I really don’t like it when they touch you. I don’t trust them just yet, either. I get they are kind and our best shot at pulling this off, but you are forgetting everything you know because it’s easy. Vicious, uncontrollable sharks never give birth to decent offspring.”
Taron wasn’t wrong. We revered sharks and lived side by side with them. Most of them. Some sharks preferred the criminal life. They swam in gangs and didn’t care about who they killed. Not a single one of their offspring ever decided to be a decent shark and get away from them. The same could be said for plenty of sea creatures.
“I know, Taron. But your instincts have gone a little mad since you became like them. We can still stay here while we figure out if we can trust them. We have a bed and food. They are teaching us how to fit in here. They haven’t given us a reason to think they are like their father. They gave their clothes to the people we stole from. Maybe they are just nice.”
“Yeah, they’ve been nice so far, but something makes me want to bash their heads in when they touch you. Remember Seira and my family. Think about all that blood in the water. We may be totally fucked by the time we figure out they are exactly like him.”
I knew that, and I was still risking it. But, if they were playing some weird mind game, they were playing it exceptionally well. By the time Taron and I finished our conversation, he could use a fork, and no one was bleeding.
Forrest stayed safely in his chair while Taron got all grabby. He insisted on teaching me from his lap. He definitely would have stabbed Forrest for that. I wasn’t angry about it. It was kind of nice. Taron was dealing with some things right now, and if he needed to touch me to do that, it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.
I just needed him not to get angry when the brothers touched me. I knew there was a chance they could be just as bad as their father, but I just had this feeling they were allies.
