Chapter One
“I cannot vacation at a nude resort,” Mary North said in horror. “I even have to change into my swimsuit in a toilet stall at the health club.”
Her co-worker Alice, a bear shifter, rolled her eyes. “It's not nude, it's clothing-optional. There's a big difference, and if you're shy, you can spend the whole time in animal form.”
“Oh, I don't know,” Mary sighed. “The pictures are lovely, but I'm not sure I like the idea of a shifters-only resort. And it's in a foreign country, and they have poisonous snakes there, probably. Plus, two women traveling alone? We might get robbed, or kidnapped!” She shuddered dramatically, and sniffed the coffee pot cautiously. Like the deer she could shift into, Mary was wary of everything. She suspected it had been sitting out for hours on the burner.
“I'm sure they don't have poisonous snakes at a fancy all-inclusive place like Shifting Sands Resort,” Alice scoffed. “And it's not like Costa Rica is some third world nation. Did you see the photo of the pool?”
“I did,” Mary admitted wistfully. She loved swimming, and the brochure made the pool look amazing: huge and crystal-blue in the sparkling sunshine, with pseudo-Greek columns, waterfalls, and palm trees around it.
“And the snorkeling!”
“I couldn't swim in the ocean,” Mary said swiftly, deciding to dump the coffee out and wait for a new pot. She had just enough time before the next block of classes to brew one.
Alice snagged a cup before she could pour all of the coffee out, but Alice lived dangerously like that.
“Have you ever been in the ocean?” Alice asked, taking a sip of the molten sludge.
“They have sharks in the ocean! And stinging jellyfish and eels and things. Besides, this resort sounds expensive.” Mary measured the coffee grounds carefully, shaking each scoop perfectly level.
“It's not so bad, once you realize that you don't have to pay for any food, and it even includes massages and kayak rentals and guided hikes...”
“A tippy little kayak out on the ocean? You have to be kidding me!”
“... And I know you aren't spending your whole salary, living like you do. You haven't taken a vacation in years.”
Mary smiled down at her second hand outfit. Alice wasn't wrong about her spending habits, and she did have a nice little nest egg put aside specifically for a vacation, someday.
Still…
“I'm not sure. It's so far away!”
“That’s a great deal of its charm,” Alice said dryly. “And I'll be with you, so it's not like you'd be going alone! I speak Spanish like a native, and I can protect you from eels and poisonous snakes and strange men.”
“But...”
Alice shook her coffee cup threateningly at Mary. “If you don't come with me, I will undoubtedly do something reckless and regrettable, and you will have to live with the guilt of not being with me to keep me from being foolish forever.”
“I can't even keep you from drinking terrible coffee,” Mary said plaintively, pouring her own fresh cup as the ancient coffee pot beeped its tired announcement of completion.
Alice grinned, probably sensing her victory. “But at least you won't have the guilt of not trying hanging over your head.” She drained the last of her bitter cup defiantly, just as the class warning bell rang.
Mary blew at her superior java as she gathered her teaching plan and purse. “I'll probably catch some terrible tropical disease and end up spending the entire vacation desperately ill,” she predicted direly.
Chapter Two
Neal Byrne turned the bottle of water in his hands. Even this early, the heat and humidity left a cloud of condensation on the cold surface, and he traced a pattern in it until he recognized the tattoo he was drawing and wiped it entirely out with his thumb.
That wasn't his life anymore.
He lifted his gaze and looked out over the green lawn and tropical foliage. His life now seemed equally absurd: a gazelle cropped at the grass nearby, ignoring him.
“Aren't we a pair,” Neal told her.
Neal made a point of searching her out every morning, offering an anchor of humanity and familiarity from which to start her path back to civilization.
The gazelle had been imprisoned in Beehag's horrific shifter collection for longer than Neal had been there, and he had spent ten wretched years in that place. Freedom and speech still felt strange to him, and clearly the gazelle had not yet acclimated either, never shifting to her human form, barely tolerating bipedal presence at all.
Neal, by contrast, now refused his own animal form. Beehag had forced him to be a red-maned wolf in his zoo, for his entertainment. Neal rejected everything that reminded him of that captivity, burying his wolf so deeply now that he couldn't even hear its voice.
Mostly, he was ignored by the gazelle, his rusty conversation entirely one-sided, but he noticed that she came to this part of the grounds every morning, despite having the run of the island, so he continued to return, too.
“Breakfast is out,” a cheerful voice announced. The gazelle moved swiftly to the far end of the lawn, ears twitching in alarm, then put her head down to graze again.
Breck, head waiter of the resort and a leopard shifter, came over to the bench where Neal sat, holding a heaped plate of food from the gourmet buffet, followed by Graham, the groundskeeper. Although the staff was allowed free rein of the resort food, they were not permitted to eat it in the guest dining room. The picnic table where Neal met the gazelle every morning had become a gathering place for a few of the staff, and somehow, despite his attempts to remain aloof, Neal had found a new place to belong in their motley ranks. He did whatever odd tasks were assigned to him, and used his free time to work at getting the remaining survivors of Beehag's prison back to their lost families.
Strangely, he could face helping them, but not the idea of returning to his own life.
Graham, a lion shifter, sat down opposite him, grunting wordlessly in what Neal now recognized was a greeting.
Breck filled any conversational space left by the surly landscaper and the
quiet refugee with practiced ease. “Avoid Scarlet today,” he advised needlessly.
Scarlet, the owner of the resort, had a short temper and a ferocious will. Neal knew that he and the other rescued shifters were there by her generosity and was grateful for it, but kept out of her way as much as possible. He didn't want a reminder that he and the others were costing her money to keep, and he couldn't tell her when he was going to be ready to leave the insulated island.
Breck continued despite the stony silence. “I guess there are some legal inheritance issues with the island property now that our friend Beehag is out of the picture, and there may be some uncertainty for the long-term lease of Shifting Sands,” he said conversationally, eating a slice of quiche with a fork. “We're over capacity in free guests, and under in paid.” He paused, giving an eloquent shrug and nod at Neal. “No one blames you, but you might want to keep out of her way, just the same.”
Neal shrugged back, and Graham put an entire slice of the quiche in his mouth.
“What needs done today?” Neal asked, snagging an extra slice of the egg pie from Breck's plate over his feigned protest.
Neal hated any reminder of Scarlet's charity and avoided the dining hall whenever possible. It hadn't escaped his notice that Breck's breakfast plate had doubled in size since they first started meeting at this table, but none of them actually mentioned it out loud. Neal pretended he was stealing Breck's food, Breck pretended he was bothered by it, and Graham studiously ignored it all.
“There aren't enough guests to need any extra waitstaff,” Breck answered him, picking a questionable vegetable out of his food with a fork and setting it aside.
Neal was glad. While he could feign good manners and keep from swearing, he didn't fit the dining hall any better than the waitstaff uniforms fit him.
“Always weeds,” Graham growled. “And the pool needs to be scraped.”