“Get your hands off of him. I wasn’t done yet.” Charlotte cursed the wetness that flooded her eyes. She blinked like crazy to keep it away. “I’m not a wolf and I don’t share.” She shoved the woman’s hand off her hip and fumbled to close the shell clasp. Damn Ivor. She was having flashbacks to schoolyard bullies.
Isabella lifted her head, while Ivor lay very still.
Charlotte rolled out of the hammock and stormed around the palm tree. Grabbing one side, she yanked down on the rope until Isabella flailed at Ivor, at too steep an angle. “I said hands off.”
The woman clung to him like a monkey.
Something dark and ugly rose up out of Charlotte. She grabbed Isabella by her pretty black hair and yanked, dragging her from the hammock. Ivor sat up in the swinging bed, blue eyes dark and slitted, big jaw locked.
She danced back to avoid him. Isabella rolled and bounded to her feet. Nothing on her body jiggled. “Well, well, look who has some baby claws.”
In a blurring rush, the woman slammed Charlotte with two hands, sending her sprawling on her ass into the gritty sand and scrub. She gasped at the sting.
“Not good enough, ghost.”
“Isabella, that’s enough.” Ivor stood, one hand on her shoulder. “Don’t touch her again.” He stepped past her and leaned down to Charlotte, offering his hand. “Are you hurt?”
“What? You wanted to see how dominant she could get. Well, we barely got started. Let’s see where she goes.” Isabella crossed her arms and canted one hip.
Charlotte stood with Ivor’s help, brushing shell bits from her stinging cheeks. She continued to blink the tears from her eyes. Then the woman’s words filtered through. She knocked away Ivor’s softly stroking hand. “What does she mean?”
Ivor lowered his chin and looked at Isabella, who pouted. “I don’t see any blood, just some red scrapes. Perhaps we’ll get some ice from the snack stand.”
Charlotte stepped back. Breathing hard, she asked quietly, “Isabella, was this some sort of a test?”
“Sure. His. Do you think I’d settle for sharing some guy’s attention with the likes of you just for fun?”
Ivor pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What is she talking about?” Charlotte crossed her arms, feeling an undressed fool.
“I’m sorry. I rushed you, I know. But last night was amazing, Foxfire. I wanted to see how you reacted with the pack.”
Charlotte chewed on air for a minute. “So you chose her to represent the pack? You asked her to make me jealous? Did it please you to watch girls fight over your arrogant stupidhead?”
Ivor snarled at Isabella. “Go.”
She crouched. “Oh, I don’t think so. You wanted to see if she claimed you, and she did. But I’m not going to stand for some pasty, soft, so-new-she’s-bloody moon fairy to think she’s hot shit in the pack.”
Isabella sprang. Charlotte stumbled back with a gasp. Ivor snatched the angry woman out of the air and threw her against a nearby palm so hard a coconut fell and bounced in a spray of sand.
Isabella merely laughed. “If you want her to stand by your side, she’s going to have to do her own wet work. Otherwise, she’s nothing but a concubine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She knows nothing of our world, let alone the pack. Back off, Isabella.” He paced toward her, shoulders high, hands in fists. “I told you not to lay a hand on her again. Since breaking your spine wasn’t enough to teach you humility, I’ll be sure to enhance your damage this time.”
Isabella pointed a long dagger finger at him, rigid. “You stupid fuck. What do you think you’re doing, asking her to face me for skin rights, then stopping a strength match? You’ve lost your marbles along with your hide. You don’t have any right to protect her, after letting her toss me from your side.”
Charlotte sputtered. “He didn’t let me do anything. You put your hands where they weren’t wanted and I stopped them.”
Isabella’s big brown eyes bulged in fury. She lunged. Ivor knocked her down with a roundhouse hammer fist. Blood burst across Isabella’s face. Her cheek sagged, cut wide open.
He knelt with one knee on her chest. “Leave now if you want to walk for the remainder of this cruise, or so help me, I will chain you at my feet and drag your broken carcass behind me for the next six days.”
She snarled, but it faded into a mutter. He stood. She raced away, in not quite a straight line, to the thatched snack bar hut. Charlotte and Ivor stood in the shade, cleared of all couples now, and watched her hunch on a bar stool over a fat bottle of Red Stripe.
After long moments, she said, “Thank you for helping me. She could have killed me.”
Ivor stayed silent but for a soft sigh.
She pivoted to face his profile. She’d kissed every inch of his face last night. “However, she was right. What the hell were you thinking setting us against each other?”
He turned to face her as well. “I was thinking that you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. Being with you is so easy, so natural. I wanted you to be more, too soon. I’m sorry.”
“So this was to prove something to the wolves in general?”
He shrugged. “It is too soon for you to move with such confidence. You are both right to be angry with me.”
She waved her hands wildly. “I don’t even know how to work my own power, let alone know how to stop a werewolf!”
Turning in total frustration, she stomped out into the sun, following the path that led up the small hill. She stood in the hot sand, digging her feet down until she got to the damper, cooler layer. The grass whispered and waved around her in sympathetic agitation.
He followed her up. “Can I be a stupidhead and still take you to dinner tonight?”
“An arrogant stupidhead.” The horizon was a glittering line of deep azure, with a bright cerulean edge along the beach, like his eyes. Her tears finally spilled over. “I trusted you.”
“I would not have let things go too far.”
Whirling on him, she struggled against the urge to strike out. “That was too far! She had her hands on me. You were trying to get her to touch my . . .” She gestured at her hips. “Junk.”
He stared at her a moment, blinked, then burst out laughing. It was a deep, rich, easy laugh, the same that had lured her into the ballroom the night before.
“Well, that’s just not right.” Charlotte worried at the string on one hip. It wasn’t fair that he could drain her anger so easily.
“Ivor.” Isabella was back, like a blob of gum on your favorite sandals. “I need to talk to you. A perimeter alert has been tripped.”
Charlotte couldn’t believe it when he nodded at her in dismissal. “Excuse me.”
He turned and went down to the serious-sounding woman. She gestured gracefully toward the sea, their voices murmuring as they stood close. After all that incredibly bad behavior, he just accepted Isabella like a favored . . . lover. The tropical heat now felt like a bursting corona around her head.
“No!” Charlotte shouted. “Excuse me!” She stomped in a circle and did an exaggerated imitation of an old comic. “Excuuuuusemeeeee!” She jumped up and down. “Excuse me!”
Ivor and Isabella stared at her, both with mouths hanging ajar.
She pointed at him. “I was almost ready to forgive you, you stupidhead!”
An alarm wound up out of nowhere. It was hugely deafening, gaining pitch and volume like the old fire station near Gram’s house. From all across the beach, people splashed out of the water, leaped from their towels, and bolted toward the dock. Isabella turned and ran, too.
Ivor bounded toward Charlotte, grabbed her wrist despite her batting at him, and dragged her down the soft incline. “Isabella was telling me of a radio report she heard at the snack stand. The mermaids have returned.”
The alarm was so loud she could hardly think. “Mermaids cause panic?”
“Caribbean mermaids are the cruelest in the world,” he shouted. “They particularly hate men.”
The grass was sharp against her shins. “Aren’t we safe on land?”
“Mermaids are shapeshifters, Charlotte. If we stay, they’ll capture us.”
They were running flat out, stride matching stride. The sand burned her feet, and the sun beat down with blinding white light. The siren wailed, niggling at her to remember something important. Strangely, she felt more exasperated than terrified, as if she’d handled running from mermaids before. Her boobs bounced every which way. She tried holding them down, but they still hurt. “So why are we on their island?” she gasped out.
He grinned at her. “Because it’s pretty and they travel for months at a time.” He wasn’t out of breath at all. “It’s not like we’re going to stay away from every speck of paradise just because of a little danger. There’s not that many of them.”
Pointing breathlessly, she watched in horror as the big glass-bottom tour boat roared from the end of the dock, overloaded with people.
Ivor swore in a tumble of three languages. “Decide! Sea-Doos or a Sunfish?”
Charlotte stared, stricken, at the handful of vehicles bobbing along the dock. Even as they slowed to a jog, others clambered into them. The Sunfish was a tiny sailboat, but it was bigger and had two lovely yellow life jackets sitting on it. The Sea-Doo was a big, loud motorcycle for the water. People had been playing on them nonstop. It might not have much gas. She had no idea how to work either of them, but surely Ivor would be in control.
Which should they jump to, a jet ski or a sailboat?
