"They'll be fine. They're wild animals. If they don't find anywhere to hole up under the trees, they're clearly getting into the hold somehow, so they can take shelter in there."
Eren closed and latched the door, and they were shut into their own cozy little world. Just in time too: the sky darkened further, and soon rain was bucketing down onto the boat. The trees bent under gusts of wind. In their cove, however, the boat's rocking was gentle, like a mother's motion to soothe a restless baby.
"I radioed home to let them know we'll be out overnight," Eren said. They both went down into the cabin, where he turned on a lamp and opened the cooler. "Inga said it might last through the night, according to the forecast. There's no need for us to go anywhere until the weather improves. We have plenty of food, and the batteries for the lights and heater are fully charged, so we'll be warm and comfortable."
He used the cabin's small galley to heat water and made them cups of strong, sweet tea. Lucy's appetite had rebounded, and she wolfed down two sandwiches and several cookies.
"I don't remember the last time I ate as much as I seem to eat here," she said, laughing, and accepted a second cup of tea and a bottle of cold soda. "I feel like I'm hungry all the time."
"Sea air," Eren said.
"I thought that was a rumor!"
"I think it's mainly that you're probably doing a lot more than you're used to," he pointed out. "You've been walking all over town, and today you've been out on the boat in the wind all day."
"Don't forget fighting a tiger."
She was smiling, but the memory sobered her.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Eren asked her gently. "I'm not going to force you, but if the only reason why you didn't want to talk about your past was because your uncle's men are shifters, that's not a problem for me."
"Wow. Yeah. You know, I have about a million questions about that, too. Have you always been able to turn into a bear, or did a radioactive polar bear bite you?"
Eren laughed. "I was born this way. Most shifters are. I suppose it's theoretically possible for someone who isn't a shifter to become one, but I don't think I've ever met one who was like that."
"So my uncle's men were always like that. My uncle ..." She trailed off, looking thoughtful.
"Did you ever have any hints that some people in your family might be shifters?"
"I was going to say no, but now I'm not so sure." Her gray-green eyes were wistful. "My father died when I was a kid, and he was always kind of strange and distant. It was like he didn't know how to relate to me. My best memories of him are also of the sea. He used to take me to the beach and I'd play in the sand, but he—he would stare out across the water. He seemed fascinated with it. Or—no—it was sadder than that. As if the sea made him long for something he had lost."
"Do you think he might have been able to shift and fly?"
Lucy started to shake her head, then hesitated. "I wouldn't have said so before today, but I guess it's possible that I might have seen him or my uncle shift, a very long time ago. It would explain why the trash griffins seemed so familiar to me, as if I'd seen something like them once, and then forgot. I must have been extremely young."
"Where did he and your uncle come from? Do you know?"
"I don't," she said, between sips of tea. She was sitting on the sleeping berth with her legs tucked up under her, the mug wrapped in both hands. "I always thought they'd had some kind of falling out with their family and just didn't want to talk about it. And after Dad passed, there was never any opportunity to find out. My uncle certainly never talked about it."
"What about your mom?"
She shook her head. "I guess it's hard to explain, with your family being so close to each other, but my family wasn't really close like that. Oh, we loved each other, and my parents were very protective of me. But we couldn't just talk about things, the way your family can."
Eren thought about all the secrets he was keeping from his family. "It's not always a perfect paradise, you know."
"Oh, I know," she sighed wistfully. "But it's better than what I had." Then she blew out a breath and laughed ruefully. "I know what that sounds like. Poor little rich girl. But it really was a very lonely life."
Eren thought of the way he had grown up, with a house full of love and laughter. Her life did seem very lonely compared to that. "What kind of company did your parents run?" he asked curiously.
Lucy smiled. "It's really esoteric. We make locks for high-end safes and banks. Copeland Security?" Eren shook his head. "Yeah, see, nobody's ever heard of us aside from banks and armored car makers. But my mom comes from a family of locksmiths, and basically, together with my father, invented a kind of lock that's very hard to open. The patents made my family a ton of money, and we have contracts with a lot of big financial chains and that sort of thing."
"So you really did grow upthatrich." Eren couldn't even imagine it.
"I did. It wasn't, like, Bill Gates levels of rich, but we were definitely very well off. When I was a tiny kid, I remember that we lived in a one-room apartment where my bed was in the living room. By the time I was grade school aged, we were in a mansion and I had private tutors."
"Did your uncle always run the company with your parents?"
Lucy made a face. "No, they didn't get along. He and my dad weren't that close, and after Dad died, he kept muscling in, trying to get Mom to make him a full partner, which she would never do. It was the money he wanted, of course. He never cared about the company or my parents' legacy. He was furious when Mom passed and left everything to me in her will."