Read Making Waves (Mythological Lovers) for Free Online Page A

“You have a good memory.”
    “You were right.” I bit my lower lip. “What if... what if you leave the herd and stay here forever? Isn’t defiance better than death?”
    He shook his head. “I’d waste away and get sick again. We’re not like most shifters who can strike out on their own. A lone wolf can survive without a pack, but we’re a magical collective. Together in large numbers, we’re stronger. Separated, we weaken. Ask Abuelo about when I was a child. I don’t remember much of it, but when my mother died I washed up on the beach and he took care of me like a normal child. I got pretty ill as the months went on.”
    “What are our choices here, Dante? Maybe you’ve given up but I’m not going to. There has to be something to do to keep you from becoming shark kibble.”
    “There’s only one option, and I’m reluctant to ask you to help,” Dante said. “It’s a little extreme.”
    “I’ll be the one to decide that. What would you need from me?”
    “A baby.”
    Our eye contact held during the long silence between us. He didn’t look away and neither did I, but my mouth finally fell slack when I realized it wasn’t Dante’s brand of humor in an attempt to make me laugh.
    “Extreme is an understatement,” I finally ventured. “A baby is supposed to save you from becoming a snack?”
    “If I can produce a child for the herd, then I’ll be granted full rights. It’s like gaining citizenship.”
    “What if the baby is human? What if the baby is only half hippocampus?”
    “The shifter trait is a strong gene, Alessa. Any child born from a shifter parent is always a shifter, too. So he or she would come with me to the ocean to live with the herd.”
    My anxiety formed a hard lump in the pit of my belly. My chest tightened, tension creating an invisible cage around my lungs.
    This wasn’t the typical Dante request. Bumming a buck off of me for a Coke or asking for a ride deep into the mainland was the limit. This was...
    “Your baby. You want me to give you a baby I’ll never see again?”
    I sat down, harder than intended into a rocking bench. It felt unyielding beneath my bottom, the wooden edge pressing into my thighs.
    “Don’t humans do that all the time? Carry babies for others, or even just give them away?”
    I wanted to slap him, but he looked genuinely curious, so I sighed instead. “Not nearly as often as television would have you believe. There are usually special circumstances.”
    “Is this not special?”
    “I need time to think about it. I...”
    It meant I’d be having sex with Dante. My mouth became dry, a barren, parched desert where my tongue used to reside. I gazed up at the shirtless man in front of me then let my eyes travel over the heavy muscle comprising his athletic bulk. His broad shoulders, chiseled torso, the washboard abs I’d dreamed of touching for the past two weeks since his return.
    It also meant I’d be giving up my first child. Maybe my only child. “I will see you both again each year, right?”
    “Would you want to?”
    I did slap him that time. I was up and on my feet again, my hand flying at his face by reflex before my mind realized I was doing it.
    “You’re my friend . You think I wouldn’t want to see you again?” God, is he really that dense? Didn’t he realize I was always the first to greet him with enthusiastic hugs?
    Dante rubbed his reddened cheek. The other blushed hard to match it.
    “Your dad is a real prick. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree though if you’d think for one second I want to be without your friendship. I want you safe, but I want you here , too.”
    “Sorry,” he said, genuinely apologetic. “I don’t expect him to bend the rules for me, though. This is my thirtieth birthday and I’ve been a drain on the herd long enough.”
    Silent, I listened to him talk about the herd, their troubles, their dying numbers, and his father’s chilliness toward him since his mother’s death. By the end, I