Naturally, she ran away from him.

Sharks rarely had true mates. They were too independent, too individualistic, for such pair-bonding. Brief, fierce liaisons, fleeting moments of contact in a life of silent, solitary wandering—that was the way of sharks.

And he was the Master Shark. He was the shark. The heart and soul of his people.

No wonder his mate had taken one look at him, and shown him her heels.

“Hey.”

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from his mate’s retreating back. So little, so soft, yet so swift and fierce. Brown and ripened by a lifetime spent under open, cloudless skies. She smelled of things he’d never known: sun-warmed fur and long summer days, dry desert winds and laughter rising to the moon.

“Hey,” the bartender said again from behind him. “Is there some sort of problem here…sir?”

His mate had disappeared behind a concealing wall of greenery. The Master Shark turned at last, looking down at the bartender. To his credit, the bear shifter didn’t back down, although his feet set in a defensive stance.

“No,” he told the bartender, flatly.

“Begging your pardon, that’s not what it looks like to me.” The bear shifter held a large, iced drink in each hand, and looked fully prepared to employ them as weapons if necessary. “What did you do to make her run off like her tail was on fire?”

The Master Shark stared at him, silently.

“I guess that answers that question,” the bartender muttered. He raised his voice again, meeting the Master Shark’s eyes without flinching. “Look, I know who you are, and honestly, I don’t care. You can’t go around terrorizing other guests.”

He was well-used to other shifters treating him with suspicion. It was inevitable, given what he was. Nonetheless, his back stiffened at the inadvertent accusation that he might ever even think of threatening his mate.

“That was not my intention,” he said coldly. “I merely wished to…”

He stalled, words drying in his throat. What had he intended?

He didn’t know himself. All he’d known was that the instant he’d set foot on the island, he’d been pulled by a blood-scent more compelling than any he’d ever known. He could no more not have followed that siren call than he could stop swimming.

And he had found her. And she had fled from him.

The bartender grimaced, his tense body language relaxing a bit. “Well, whatever you intended, clearly all you succeeded in doing was terrifying that nice lady. I think it would be better if you just left her alone from now on, okay?”

“She is my mate.”

The bear shifter’s mouth hung open for a second. “No shit?”

“No,” the Master Shark looked back in the direction his mate had vanished, “as you say, shit.”

The bartender digested this for a moment. Then he handed him one of the drinks. “Here. I think you’re going to need this.”

The Master Shark sniffed cautiously at the alarmingly-colored beverage. “Alcohol?”

“Sure is. Uh, don’t you have booze under the sea?”

He shook his head, putting the glass down untouched. “The deeps are not a place for dulled wits. Only the suicidal would deliberately impair themselves.”

“Guess I can rule Atlantis out of my list of job opportunities.” The bartender stuck out a hand. “Tex. Never met a shark before. Or royalty, for that matter.”

The Master Shark regarded the proffered hand, then shook it carefully. “I am not royalty. Not for many decades. Now, I am merely the Empress’s Voice.”

“Not sure the word ‘merely’ belongs in that sentence.” Tex tipped his head a little to one side, studying him. “So. You and her. Really?”

He lifted one shoulder fractionally. “It appears so.”

Tex let out a low whistle. “And I thought I was unlucky in love. Well, assuming you’re going to try again, I’ve got a friendly piece of advice for you. Up here on land, we have this thing called ‘smiling.’ You might try it some time.”

The Master Shark did so.

“Sweet daisies,” Tex muttered, taking a half-step back. “On second thought, definitely don’t do that. Maybe you could just…loom less. Somehow.”

He looked down at himself. He looked back at Tex, who was large for a land shifter, but still at least six inches under his own height. Words seemed unnecessary.

“Yeah, okay.” Tex scratched the back of his neck, eying him rather dubiously. “Y’know, I’ve seen some odd couples in my years behind the bar, but this one sure beats all. A coyote and a shark? Not exactly a natural match, I hope you don’t mind me saying.”

The Master Shark’s jaw tightened, but privately he had to admit that the bear shifter had a point. His mate—his mate!—was clearly a creature of the desert, while he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in his long life he had ever ventured onto dry land. Fate clearly had a sense of humor worthy of a human.

Nonetheless, the inescapable fact remained. She was his mate.

To be a shark was to be driven by an unfillable void. He had heard other shifters speak sometimes of their inner animals as if they were the other half of their souls, a whisper in their minds. He had never understood what they meant. His soul was a silent predator, eternally seeking, never satisfied.

Now, he knew that he had never truly been hungry before. Not compared to this all-consuming need.

He’d had decades of practice at hiding his emotions, but the shock of the encounter had rattled even his control. Something of his thoughts must have shown in his manner, because Tex’s eyes softened in sympathy.

“Hey, you’ll work it out.” The bartender collected the unwanted drink. “So what are you going to do now?”

“What my kind do best.” The Master Shark allowed his lips to curl once again, exposing a brief, predatory flash of teeth. “Hunt.”