The Texas Shifter's Mate

Of the three of them, naturally Carmen felt most at home with the dark alleys and empty warehouses. She glided through the shadows, making Shayla realize her friend was a perfect fit for the Shadow Agency. They each had their own set of skills to bring to the table.

Maddie strode along confidently, too. Only Shayla felt off. Not exactly in the moment, somehow. She was conscious of the distant pull of the harbor and the need to soon slip into the water. Land was fun, but it never would be her true home.

Despite the late hour, the other two women were still energized with excitement. Maddie wanted to get started searching immediately and Shayla agreed with her. Carmen, on the other hand, seemed more focused on getting their business up and running. There were, after all, a hundred things that needed to be done. Flyers and business cards made and printed. A mission statement written. Rates and fees for various services agreed upon. She and Maddie chatted back and forth, assigned each other numerous tasks, though Maddie clearly was itching to leave and get busy. Shayla listened, still feeling a bit detached. She wanted to focus on the case at hand first, even though, of the three of them, she had more spare time. Carmen and Maddie, each with their jobs and other activities, would have to parcel out slots of time for this new venture. Maddie also let them know she’d decided to wait before quitting her job, at least until she could be certain her salary would be enough. She had bills to pay.

Since both Shayla and Carmen could set their own hours, neither would be impacted as severely as Maddie if the Shadow Agency failed.

“But it won’t,” Carmen declared, her sultry voice ringing with certainty. “Because we’ve found a niche with a need. As long as we provide good customer service and fulfill that need, we’re a shoo-in for success.”

Shayla nodded, still lost in her thoughts. Maddie noticed.

“You’re awfully quiet.” She elbowed Shayla in the side. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t stop thinking about that poor missing Mermaid,” Shayla admitted. “Nantha. She’s young. The young ones are often overconfident and reckless. I have a feeling that there’s a lot more to this story than Zach realizes.”

“Or maybe more than he’s letting on,” Maddie interjected.

“No, that wouldn’t make sense,” Shayla argued. “His number one priority is finding his sister. Why would he hide anything, especially if it might be helpful?”

“True,” Carmen said thoughtfully. “I admire the way you’re so focused on this case.”

“She’s also pretty focused on him,” Maddie pointed out.

Carmen’s brows rose. “Really?” she drawled. “I’m guessing he must be easy on the eyes then. So tell me, Shayla. Was he sexy?”

Maddie laughed. Shayla blushed. “Maybe,” she allowed. “He’s Shifter. I’d definitely call him hot. Tall, dark blond hair cut short in one of those deliberately messy styles and light gray eyes. Rugged features, which match his muscles.” She stopped when she realized both her friends were staring at her.

“What?” she asked, her face heating. “You asked if he was sexy. I was just describing him for you.”

The other two women broke out laughing.

“If you think he’s sexy, then he must be to die for,” Carmen teased. “You hardly even notice when I try to put some really gorgeous Vampire men in front of you.”

“Same here,” Maddie interjected. “I’ve made it a habit to have a few of my unattached Shifter friends stop by our table over the last few months, and you didn’t react to any of them.”

Shayla’s blush had become an outright burn. “Well, maybe that’s because this one is different,” she said, flustered.

“Is he now?” In true Carmen fashion, the Vamp wasn’t going to let this go. “Interesting. Very interesting indeed.”

“I agree.” Maddie and Carmen exchanged looks. “Sounds like that’s settled then,” Maddie said. She seemed so satisfied. If she’d been a feline Shifter she would have purred.

Confused, Shayla glanced from one to the other. Her two best friends appeared to find this massively amusing, whatever this might be. Finally, she just had to ask.

“What’s settled?”

“You called dibs!” Both Maddie and Carmen spoke at once, grinning from ear to ear. “Finally. We’re so happy for you. It’s about time.” They high-fived.

Shayla opened her mouth to protest and then closed it. She could tell the more she spoke, the deeper a hole she’d dig. Let them think what they wanted. Zach Cantrell was attractive. She was female, so of course she’d noticed. End of story. Her friends knew better than anyone that she had no intentions of getting involved with a man right now. Not for a long, long time, if ever. Her fiancé had died and she never wanted to feel that kind of pain again.

Later that night, once she’d let herself into her house, she went out on the back deck, the side that overlooked the water. The sounds of the waves lapping up against the shore always comforted her and tonight was no exception.

When she’d first made the impulsive, heartbroken decision to abandon the sea for land, she’d gone upstate, to a small town between Houston and Dallas. The town sat near a large, freshwater lake. She hadn’t realized lakes wouldn’t work the same as the sea, and it had taken her becoming seriously ill for her to understand she’d need to live close to the ocean. So she’d moved to Galveston Island. She’d rented for six months, just long enough to see if she liked it. She did.

Her business procuring and selling rare artifacts found on the ocean floor made more than enough money for her to purchase a single-family home right on the water—a steal at less than a million dollars. From her house, she could not only see the water, but swim in it from her own small, private beach. This brought her peace and no shortage of happiness. And since the house came with a small boat slip, whenever she needed to go under the sea, she simply took the boat out and anchored it before letting her tail grow back.

Perfect solution. She’d truly come to love Galveston Island, even though in the spring and summer it became crowded with tourists. For her, it was the perfect compromise between her new life on land and her old one under the sea.

Maddie lived on the island too, though farther inland, close to The Strand. She shared a small apartment with another woman, also a Shifter. As for Carmen, when anyone asked where she resided, she simply answered in a warning tone that they didn’t really want to know. Shayla assumed that meant a cemetery crypt, but who knew? These days, the Vamps had gotten away from their traditional dwellings. It could be entirely possible that Carmen might have a luxury house or condo near the bay. She had that well-groomed look that money brought.

* * *

The next morning, after her breakfast of kippers and eggs, Shayla went out in her boat. Her body had already begun to let her know she’d stayed away from her natural habitat too long, and, even though Zach Cantrell hadn’t signed a contract yet, she planned to do some investigating while she was under the water. While she didn’t know Ion or his missing daughter, Nantha—just like on land, the Merfolk had numerous cities with thousands of residents—she could still ask around. The news that a Mermaid had gone missing would travel like a tidal wave among her people. For all she knew, it might already have.

The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Overcast and slightly chilly, the steady mist that fell ensured she’d have privacy on her swim. She motored past Stewart Park, the beach where most of the tourists swam in the late spring and early summer. Since it was late March, a few weeks after spring break, she knew the beach would be mostly deserted, and it was.

She moored her boat about two hundred yards out, in the area where she’d once seen someone conducting a scuba diving class. Dropping her anchor, she slipped out of her raincoat and shirt, leaving only her bikini top. Brightly colored swimsuit tops had become popular among Mermaids, especially since so many of them enjoyed spending time appearing human. With the sea calling her, she slipped over the edge of the boat, beginning the change from legs to tail as soon as her skin hit the icy water.

The first shock of the cold had her sucking in her breath, but then as she slipped under the waves, her Mermaid nature took over, joyfully reuniting with her still-beloved sea. In her grief after losing her fiancé Richard, she’d had to forgive the very nature of the thing that was part of her essence. The marriage had been arranged, true, but the two of them had hit it off immediately, minutes into their first meeting. Sometimes, she’d thought, you meet someone and you just know. They’d both felt that way.

The wedding would unite two separate kingdoms. The celebrations had started immediately. Though they’d met several times in the weeks that followed, they hadn’t yet gotten around to discussing where they would live. Even though she’d known she’d have to move to his kingdom where he would someday rule, she’d been so blinded by love that it hadn’t mattered.

The wedding plans had gone into full gear. It would be an elaborate ceremony with dignitaries attending from seas all over the world. Her dress had been chosen and fitted, the sea anemones ordered and the invitations mailed out.

And then everything had changed in the flip of a fin. Richard had been out celebrating with his friends. He’d been drinking, and was clearly inebriated when he’d run into the massive great white shark in an isolated area.

Shayla often hoped the substantial amount of alcohol meant he hadn’t suffered as much pain.

The shark had later been hunted down and killed, far too late.

The kingdoms had also been stunned. His family went into mourning. Her family did, as well. As for Shayla, her grief turned into rage. She’d gone crazy, acting out, hurting the ones who’d only sought to comfort her. At least as long as she filled herself with fury, she had no room for the pain.

But once this had burned through her, she felt hollow and empty. She became a shadow of her former self, taking comfort in the gray numbness, glad she couldn’t seem to remember how to think, how to feel.

She’d sworn off the sea and tried to turn her back on the ocean. Coming ashore on South Padre Island, she’d headed north, inland, hoping to put as much distance between herself and the water as she could. She’d even managed to convince herself the tales of a Mermaid needing to be around water were old wives’ tales without a single kernel of truth in them.

Now she knew better. She needed the sea as much as she needed air to breathe when she was in her human form.

For its part, the ocean recognized her, too. Just like the land, the sea was a living, breathing organism, and as such, the instant she touched its surface, Shayla became an integral part of it. Joy flooded through her, joy and wonder and a tiny bit of aching grief that she pushed away.

Time to swim. She dove under. As usual, a few minutes passed before her eyes adjusted to the murky depths, but as she swam away from land, gradually going deeper, the entire seascape changed.

Use of sonar by humans to discover shipwrecks had made life more difficult for the Merfolk to keep their cities hidden. But in the deeper parts of the ocean, there were mountains and valleys, just as there were on land, and it was in those valleys where their civilizations had grown. In all of the history of humans, there had only been a few documented instances of them being able to travel so deep, though they’d started using unmanned probes, which Merfolk had taken to destroying if one came too close.

Shayla would have to swim for at least an hour to reach her former home. She’d have to assume that Ion and Nantha had come from the same city, as it was closest to the Gulf coastline of the southern United States and Mexico. Though there were several other possibilities, most farther south, though she knew of at least one settlement northeast near Florida.

In her search for the missing Mermaid, her family’s home seemed like the perfect place to start.

During the long swim, several sea creatures came to say hello. Fish of all kinds, small schools of striped bass, winter flounders, shad and drums, and so many others she stopped trying to identify them. Dolphins, a huge eel and then some sharks, including one ancient great white shark that she carefully avoided. Most times the sharks left Merfolk alone, as they recognized them as fish too large to be taken without a fight. In Richard’s instance, he’d cut himself on some coral. Drunk, disoriented and bleeding, he’d been easy prey for a huge shark.