Mated to Team Shadow: A Military Shifter Reverse Harem Romance Page 6

  "One thing that's reliable about you, Ryker, is your healthy sense of paranoia."

  "It's kept us alive, hasn't it?"

  That's true. Ryker watched our six and kept us out of deep trouble most times.

  My eyes strayed to Jeanine again. My breath hitched, and my jaguar stirred within uneasy about watching my brothers-in-arms spooning her. I wondered just how this could work out without four jaguar shifters killing each other.

  Kane

  "Hey," said a voice in the dark with a hiss. "Time for your watch."

  What the hell? No. I did not want to move from this warm spot with Jeanine next to me. I hadn't had such a good sleep in ages, and I would defend to the death my current position.

  "Go away," I said waving my arm to ward off the person assaulting my sleep.

  "Kane, get the fuck up. Rise and shine."

  Oh hell, it's Ryker. I don't know why I listen to that cranky old bastard, especially since he wants me to get up and go to work.

  "Let me finish my wellness check of Jeanine," I mumbled.

  "Get up," said Ryker. He yanked at my collar which then cut into my throat.

  "Okay, okay," I choked out, as I rolled on the raft away from Jeanine. This just wasn't fair. And my jaguar agreed, but hell, as we say in the SEALs the only easy day was yesterday.

  "What's the sit-rep?" I asked.

  "Do you see a change?" growled Ryker. "Still in the middle of the ocean. Still, haven't seen another ship." He pushed a flare gun in my hands. "You know what to do with this."

  "Light up my world?"

  "Don't stick your pecker too far over the side. The sharks are looking for a little snack."

  "Yeah, yeah," I groused as I watched Ryker settle in next to Jeanine and wished it was me instead of him. Damon sat at the other end of the raft with his head lolled to the side. He was out for the duration leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  Gunner and Ryker had talked loud enough before I fell asleep, at least for someone with shifters ears, to catch Ryker's rumination on our situation. One woman, four guys? That's overcrowded. But what the hell, it's not like I hadn't done a threesome. What's a couple more bodies? Could be fun.

  "Kane?"

  Jeanine's sweet voice floated toward me.

  "Yeah, babe?"

  "You the only one awake?"

  "Yep. We're trained to catch sleep when we can."

  "You are?"

  "No. But as a practical matter that's what we do."

  "Kane. You guys are weird."

  "How so?"

  "Well, for one I've got two men hanging on me."

  "Is that a bad thing? They are trying to keep you warm."

  "And you guys growl and purr like cats. That's weird."

  She was right. I couldn't deny it. We weren't normal men, hence the current situation. But what could I tell her?

  Jeanine added, "I feel sick to my stomach. I think it's the rubber and glue smell of the raft."

  "How about some jerky? You need food."

  "No. That sounds horrible. The boat rocking on the waves doesn't help."

  "I think I have some sea sickness pills here."

  "You mean Dramamine? That makes me sick to my stomach too."

  "Well," I said as I fished one from my pack, "you need to take it. Dehydration from vomiting in the middle of the ocean is dangerous. Besides, it will relax you and put you to sleep."

  "I think I slept enough. And what's with these guys on either side?"

  I leaned forward. "Open your mouth and lift your tongue." I spoke in my best, "I'm the medic, so do what I say" tone. She glared at me but did as I asked and I slipped a tablet under her tongue.

  "Now let the pill dissolve, and the medicine will ease your stomach."

  She mumbled, and I shook my head.

  "Wait until it has melted. You need as much of the Dramamine as possible."

  Her nose twitched as she raised an eyebrow and that combination struck me as the cutest thing I'd ever seen.

  "Okay," she said. "It's melted. Do we have water? That stuff tastes foul."

  "It does. The bitterness doesn't help" I said handing her a bladder from my backpack. "Survival tip. Wet your lips, mouth and tongue first then swallow. Try not to take more than a swig or two. We don't know how long we must make this last."

  She took two only swigs, and her restraint made me proud. My team was used to these survival measures, but she had to pick them up and apply them on the fly. It was a small thing, but it took discipline to drink two swallows when you wanted to down the whole thing.

  "Thanks," said Jeanine as she passed the bladder back to me. "So, you guys are used to floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean?"

  "We've trained for this contingency, but no, it's not a usual occurrence."

  "What situations do you guys get into?"

  "Holy hell," grumbled Damon. "Can't a guy get some sleep?"

  A snarky remark died on my lips as I caught the drone of an airplane engine. At once, the rest of my team stirred with the whip-quick reflexes of our feline natures and eyes strained into the pre-dawn dark.

  "Fire that thing!" growled Ryker.

  I pointed into the sky and pulled the trigger. The flare shot into the dark blazing in an arc in the gray dawn until it faded out. The airplane's engine grew farther away.

  "Did they see us?" Jeanine asked hopefully.

  "There is no way to know," said Ryker as the raft rocked to the rhythm of the waves. "We'll just have to wait until someone comes back."

  "How do you guys take this?" she huffed.

  "We're adrenaline junkies," said Gunner.

  "Yeah," deadpanned Damon. "We live for danger."

  "Oh, brother," said Jeanine.

  "Let's get to work," snapped Ryker. "Damon, pull up the raft survival kit and deploy the solar stills."

  "Aye, chief."

  "Gunner, deploy the sea anchor."

  "Yes, chief."

  "Kane, inventory the food."

  "Okey-dokey."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "You can sit and look beautiful, doll," said Gunner.

  "Please," she scoffed.

  Ryker handed her the flare gun.

  "You can keep watch for passing planes and boats. If you see one, send up a flare."

  "Now, listen up. You all know that hygiene is important on a raft. Jeanine, it's a small space, and relieving yourself won't be easy. You can either hang over the side, or take a swim and do the job, but whatever you do, we'll be here to give a hand."

  "And anything else," said Gunner. Most of the time we liked his jokes, or at least put up with them, but now I just wanted to knock his head off.

  "Damn it, Rhodes, keep it professional," snarled Ryker. "Things are tense enough on a raft with five people."

  "Yes, sir," said Gunner and Ryker's eye's narrowed. Gunner did that on purpose because as we all knew we did not call non-commissioned officers "sir."

  "Hey," said Jeanine. "There's one of me and four of you, and I can't expect you boys to change your raffish ways just because I'm here. Just keep your hands to yourself, and I'll deal with the rest, okay?"

  "Well then," said Gunner. "I do have to take care of a piece of business." He pulled up on his knees and unzipped his pants.

  "Don't forget to take it in spurts," said Ryker.

  "What are you? My mother?"

  "Wait," said Jeanine. "What?"

  "It's to avoid attracting sharks," said Damon to Jeanine. "We need to make sure we let our pee dilute, so sharks don't pick up the scent."

  "Holy hell," said Jeanine. "And I'm supposed to go swimming to do my business?"

  "Don't worry," grinned Gunner over his shoulder. "We'll pull you out before you lose a foot or hand."

  "Fuck you, Gunner," I said. Gunner worked my last nerve. "Can't you tell she's frightened enough as it is?"

  "I thought laughter was the best medicine, Doc."

  "Not when it causes your team to throw you over the side," said D
amon.

  "Okay, okay," groused Gunner. He turned toward the sea to attend to his private business, which we all had to do.

  "And," added Ryker, "let's pull the oars and rig a sunscreen. Do we have a tarp?"

  Ryker kept us busy organizing our survival and making things more comfortable. Damn, Gunner even had a pair of sunglasses in his backpack, and we passed them around to the person doing lookout. The two solar stills, which looked like triangular beach balls, bobbed in the water trailing the raft. These things worked damned slow. So while we had water now, by the time we needed more, we would have a few quarts. But Ryker looked grim. It was not that we couldn't survive out here, but Jeanine concerned us all. We knew what could come, but she didn't.

  We could fish and get food that way, but it would be sailor's sushi all the way. And we could only eat if we had enough water because there was nothing worse than dehydration clogging up the pipes. Staying healthy was job one in sea survival. And that's hard when you contend with sun and salt. Our lips hadn't cracked yet, and our skin hadn't dried by the relentless salt in the water splashing over the sides. But that would happen if we were out here long enough.

  Gunner was always thinking and fashioned a sea anchor from his backpack and saved the dinky plastic cone masquerading as a raft sea-anchor to scoop out the sea water. When Jeanine licked her lips while his arms scooped and tossed water over the side I reached for a water bladder to hand to her when I caught the gleam in her eye. Yeah, her tongue sliding on her pink lips signaled hunger not thirst and not for food.

  What could I do to get her to look at me like that?

  Yeah, I'd heard Gunner and Ryker discussing the "sharing the mate" thing. I didn't like it, but neither did challenging my brothers-in-arms tickle me. And it was not as if Jeanine was giving any of us the green light, even if she cast covert lustful glances. Women found us irresistible, and that's not a boast. You could call it pheromones or animal magnetism, but we weren't lonely in port if we wished company.

  And Holy Hell—mate? Now that's a concept. When did I ever think of one woman as mine? Never. Marriage, kids, the-white-picket-fence were not in my lexicon of life choices. I figured I'd go down in a blaze of glory fighting the good fight. Now there was a woman in my life even if she didn't realize it. Besides, there was the whole shifter thing. What would she think when she learned of our true nature? That would be a shit storm right there.

  One time, about three years ago when we were on leave in Calcutta, a woman saw my animal form. She didn't mention she was married. When her husband walked in and yelled, I was so startled I shifted. Then she screamed loud enough to make my ears ring. I jumped through the closed window smashing it to pieces. But slinking through a back alley with paws filled with tiny pieces of glass was not fun. And removing the shards out of my paws was a bitch, and I tell you, Ryker sucks as a medic. But he was the only one I could turn to, and he did the job, though I'm sure he was rough on purpose to teach me a lesson. But it taught me to be careful about not shifting in front of regular humans. So, four horny cats and one woman unaware of shifters would not make for fun times.

  A bump under the raft jolted us.

  "What was that?" said Jeanine. Her eyes were wide, and my ears caught the uptick of her heart.

  "Big fish," said Damon.

  "What sorts of big fish?" she said with her eyes narrowed.

  "In the middle of the ocean could be anything," said Ryker noncommittally.

  "Dolphins," said Damon.

  "Sturgeon," said Ryker.

  "Sharks," I said.

  "Sharks?" Her voice shot up an octave.

  Damon

  Damn it. Kane better shut his mouth.

  Gunner might be our number one jokester, but Kane was our second. How dare he upset Jeanine? If there was a back alley around, I'd take him to it and pound some sense into him.

  "Look," I said as I edged closer to her. "Chances are it is not sharks. Fish get curious too when they see something floating on the surface."

  "That's a crock," she said.

  "No," said Ryker. "It's not."

  "Shark attacks are very rare," I said.

  Another bump on the underside of the raft caused her to jump, and she landed in my arms. Or rather, I reached for her and pulled her in. Even after a night on the water, with salt crusted on her skin, she smelled delightful, and the crush of her body against mine made my cat rumble with approval.

  "Why do you guys do that?" she said breathlessly. "I mean why do you purr?"

  Her blue eyes drew me like a magnet, and she felt "right" in my arms in a way no woman had. My chest warmed, and I breathed in her scent with another deep draw, and my dick tingled. I heard the thudding of her heart and caught a whiff of the cream between her legs that said she wanted me.

  Mine.

  My cat stuffed deep inside for so much of my life, now hovered below the surface, infusing his wild thoughts with my rational ones. It was instinctual, this thought, that this woman in my arms belonged to me.

  Ryker cleared his throat, and I lifted my head to meet his glare. "Bail the water," he groused. "The raft has to be dry, or you know what will happen."

  "What will happen?" said Jeanine.

  "Salt sores," I said. "Not pleasant."

  "That's not the only thing that's not pleasant here so get moving."

  "Aye, aye, sir," I said.

  Ryker growled because he hated when any of us called him "sir." Because he was a noncommissioned officer, and we shouldn't, but we did it to yank his chain, which today appeared shorter than usual.

  "Well, darling—" I said loosening my grip, but then a shadow fell over the raft, and water splashed as the great fish flew over us.

  Many things happened at once.

  Jeanine screamed and with my cat so close to the surface of my thought the primal instinct to protect my mate overtook my good sense. I leaped toward the creature, causing the raft to wobble in the water. Ryker swore, Kane dove to throw himself over Jeanine, and Gunner whipped out a handgun. His eyes were wide as he watched my body lengthen, my muzzle form, and my fangs flash. I slammed into the gargantuan fish, not sure what I connected with, but the concussive force of head meeting muscle caused my ears to ring. It fell back into the water, and I went over the side and clamped onto to it. The fish's blood filled my mouth and spilled into the water as red puffs. I hung onto as it thrashed by digging my claws in until it finally went limp. Lifeless, it floated upward, and I went with it.

  With the tail of my prize in my mouth and proud of it, I surfaced only to hear Jeanine screaming, and the frantic voices of teammates trying to calm her.

  "What the fuck was that! No! Don't lie to me. No! You bastards."

  Oh hell, I'd frightened her, and I felt sick. What she saw we should explain, though Gunner tried to feed her some bullshit line about the sun hitting her eyes wrong.

  "I know what I saw. Damon changed! Into a cat! What the hell? Oh, fuck. Get off me. Let me off this boat. Oh, hell. Oh, holy hell. Help! Help!"

  Her panic stroked my protective nature, and I wanted to make this right for her. I shifted, hating myself with my stupidity, and swam to the raft through the water. The blood of that fish would draw sharks, and I didn't want to be their dinner.

  I reached the raft and hung my arms over and noticed the raft walls were no longer tight.

  "Hey! The raft is leaking!" I called.

  Ryker turned to me and swore and barked orders to Gunner to find the leak and fix it. Water sloshed over the weakened side, and Kane rushed to bail it out while Ryker stayed by Jeanine's side talking to her in a low voice. He projected his natural calming presence and held her chin to make her gaze into his eyes. She stopped screaming, but her breathing remained ragged, and her eyes were wide as she stared at him.

  Gunner frantically pressed his hands on different sections of the wall of the raft and found where it collapsed because of the leak. After swiping the area around the hole with an alcohol swab from the medical kit, he slapped a pa
tch with glue over the hole. He pressed on it while the glue dried and at least the raft stopped losing air.

  I bobbed in the waves and Gunner waved me over and held out the end of the inflation tube connected to the raft.

  "Go at it," he said.

  "Me?'

  "It was your claw that punctured the raft, idiot. And get at it so we can haul you into the raft before sharks arrive."

  "Sharks," squeaked Jeanine.

  Ryker spoke to her in his calm Alpha voice, and she stopped speaking although her gorgeous eyes sported worry lines. He rubbed her back, and my gut clenched with the green-eyed monster. Why does he get to touch her while I'm stranded in the drink? Well, I'm not stranded, but no one offered me a hand since Ryker's attention centered on Jeanine and Kane bailed seawater.

  "Be quiet," I said. "Can't you see how upset she is?"

  "And who did that, bro?"

  "Shut up."

  "You too. And blow."

  Gunner put another inflation tube to his mouth, and between us, we huffed to re-inflate that raft section. Something bumped my legs, and I swore.

  "It's time to get me out of the water," I said.

  "Naw, you haven't stewed enough."

  "Dude, there are visitors here."

  "Good," said Gunner stubbornly. He went back to huffing on the tube.

  "What the hell?" I said.

  "Kane," said Ryker, "help Damon."

  "No, no, no," babbled Jeanine.

  "Shh, darling, shh," said Ryker.

  My gut twisted because I caused this. Jeanine was in a bad state because I hadn't held back my cat. And I didn't blame her. Few human women see a man turn into a jungle animal. She must think she's crazy.

  Much like I thought when I'd experienced blackouts in my teens, and the police found some poor animal gutted. But the worst was waking in the morning half-naked with no pants, and the dried blood under my fingernails. The blood on my ripped and torn t-shirt freaked me out. I didn't know what would have happened if Lieutenant Rogers hadn't shown up and told my parents about a special entry program into the Navy for gifted teens. They didn't want me to go, but they worried about my frequent disappearances at night which they could not control. My adoptive parents relinquished my care to the tender mercies of the Navy. At least that was what they thought.