Now to wait. They had only to sit here until those on the other craft grew tired of looking for them. Zander was pretty sure their fears would win over their need to capture a couple of Shifters, and they’d turn around, getting out while they could. Not long now . . .
Bright light blazed abruptly into the ship boneyard, lighting up the fog. Water droplets glittered around the boat and on the black rocks that jutted into the sea. The dead in the ships seemed to whisper and stir.
A man’s voice, calm and detached, spoke through a loudspeaker. “Surrender to me or I will blow everything in my path out of the water.”
Ezra got to his feet, silence moot. “Who is this guy?”
Good question. Zander squeezed Rae’s hand and rose. “I’ll talk to him. Piotr.” He gave his friend a nod. Piotr understood—Rae’s safety was his priority.
Piotr and Ezra were peering into the light, trying to see, both of them unnerved. Zander rummaged in a cupboard, brought out a bullhorn, hoped it worked, and stepped out on deck.
He clicked it on. “What do you want?” he asked, contriving to make his voice shaky and elderly sounding. “We were only trying to bring in a catch.”
Silence. The boat’s floodlight was so strong Zander could see nothing behind it. The comforting thought was that the fog was so thick that, in spite of the light, the other guy probably couldn’t see him either.
Zander heard another click. Not a bullhorn, he realized too late.
A small missile came out of the fog, right at him. Zander tried to duck but it hit him and sank deep into his side.
Not a bullet, a tranq dart. The man had shot, probably using a rifle with a heat scope. No visual necessary.
“You bastard,” Zander managed to say before the deck rushed up at him and he fell like a sack of wet cement.
* * *
Ezra tried to push Rae toward the lifeboats. “Piotr, take her.”
“No way in hell!” Rae yelled.
She twisted from him and ran to where Zander lay face down on the deck, a tranquilizer dart in his side. Rae yanked out the dart and quickly tossed it overboard.
“Is he mad?” Piotr peered into the fog as the second boat loomed. “He will ram us and both boats will go down.”
“Help me.” Rae tugged at Zander’s weight. “We’ll go in the life raft. Hurry.”
Another shot, this one from a gun with bullets. Rae squealed and dropped flat, Ezra and Piotr slamming themselves down as well.
Piotr crawled on his belly over to Rae. “Yes, we will go in the raft. We will be more maneuverable and can escape.”
“Escape to what?” Ezra snapped in an irritated whisper. “Straight into the arms of the Coast Guard?”
“You have better idea?” Piotr asked.
“No,” Ezra grumbled. “Let’s get him over there.”
The boat rocked sharply, bumped by the other craft. The other boat was so well guided that the two vessels only lightly touched, the second boat gliding a few feet back after the tap.
A man stood in the bow with a large rifle with a scope, which he pointed at Ezra. “You’re under arrest, Shifter,” he said, his voice cold and clear.
“Leave them alone,” Rae shouted at him. “They’re not hurting anyone.”
“They’re rogue Shifters,” the man replied. “Illegal and dangerous. Step away from them and you won’t get hurt.”
He made a curt signal behind him. Two other men came forward on the foggy deck, also carrying weapons.
There had to be someone manning the tiller—so much for outnumbering the crew. With Zander out and the men having guns, Rae and Ezra going Shifter and fighting might only get them all, including Piotr, killed.
“What do you want to do?” Piotr whispered to Rae.
Rae thought rapidly. If they could get over to the other boat, see how many they were up against, and maybe disable whoever they were, they might be able to take over that boat and sail it out. Once Zander woke up, their odds would be even better of surviving. Then they’d have to figure out what to do with whoever they captured and get away somewhere in the world where they wouldn’t be found and arrested.
Sure. Easy. Rae wasn’t a military strategist. She was a Shifter Lupine, whose most difficult decision up until the Choosing was whether she’d go to a Shifter bar with her girlfriends or out camping with her brothers.
Now she was a Guardian, being chased by Shifter hunters in the middle of a weird island, in a part of the world she didn’t know. Both Ezra and Piotr were looking at her, waiting for her decision.
Ezra wasn’t dominant, the realization hit Rae with a bang. Rae was Guardian—no longer bottom of the pack. She was now in that ambiguous place just below leader, like Daragh had been.
What would Daragh do?
Rae had no idea. She had the feeling Daragh wouldn’t have put himself into this situation in the first place. Rae had no idea what her father would do either . . .
Not true. Eoin would sacrifice himself so the others could get away and then work to escape on his own. But that didn’t seem to be an option here.
What would Zander do?
That answer came a bit more readily.
Rae screamed like a frightened cub and flung her hands in the air. “Please don’t shoot me!” she cried. “I had to do what they said.”
She sank to her knees, her back to the other boat, bowing her head and trying to look as submissive as possible. She felt Ezra’s glare and hoped like hell he’d catch on.
While her body shielded what she did, Rae quickly removed the top half of the sword and tucked it inside her jacket, then folded the leather sheath over the bottom half and tucked it into the other side of the jacket. She’d borrowed the jacket from Zander, so it was huge and easily accommodated the pieces. Or maybe the pieces wanted her to hide them.
She zipped up and looked behind her, still acting fearful, which wasn’t entirely an act.
The leader on the boat made another signal to his men. “Take them. Put the girl inside, the Russian below.”
His two men moved to the rail. The two boats drifted closer together but the pilot must be talented, because the hulls didn’t touch.
The men leapt easily from their deck to Zander’s. One man pointed his gun at Ezra’s head, the other gestured Piotr and Rae to move ahead of him to the other boat.
Rae deliberately didn’t look back at Zander as she went, but fear gnawed her. If they dropped him overboard in his tranqued state, he’d drown.