Page 108 of Pirate Witch

My old alpha starts for me again, only to do a double take much like I did.

He doesn’t shift, but his approach is slower. My lungs burn from holding my breath, but I don’t dare move as his massive snout presses against my body, his barbels stroking the water around me. Making certain.

Long minutes later, he opens his snout and chuffs a welcome noise. In a burst of motion, he rockets us both to the surface—me pinned to the top of his snout. The moment we burst from the water, he shifts back, revealing the man I’ve not seen for almost a century.

“Casimir,” he breathes, the second his mouth is human once more. “Myson.”

I gulp in air, hoping it will budge the tight feeling in my throat and the stinging sensation in my eyes.

“Pa.”

It’s a single word, but it’s heavy with years of unvoiced emotion. Everything I’ve ever felt towards this man, from the hero-worship of my childhood to the abandonment I nursed in the Circus, rushes to the forefront until I can’t speak.

He treads water in front of me, watching my face with an expression of wonder and grief. Nos and I were born with our mother’s honey eyes and messy brown hair instead of his darker features, but his bone structure is identical to ours. He froze into his immortality a year or two later than most shifters, so he looks like he could be our older brother rather than our father.

Of course, like most immortals, appearances are deceiving. Our pa is at least Kier’s age, if not older.

“Where have you been?” he finally asks. “We thought you weredead,but you’ve returned to us wearing a woman’s scent? Is your brother…?”

“Nos is fine… it’s… it’s a long story.” I’m not surprised he can still scent Nilsa on me. Barbels are sensitive, and my mate is ingrained into my pores. “One I’d rather not have while trying to stay afloat in the middle of the ocean.”

“Are you asking to come back to the pack? After all this time?”

I shake my head, watching his forehead crease in confusion. “No, Pa. We have a new pack and a mate. I’m asking to visit my family.”

Whatever life had planned for me before Nos and I were captured, I don’t want that future anymore. I can never be part of the pack again, and I don’t regret it.

Not one bit.

The bonds I have to the shifters I grew up amongst pale in comparison to the ones I have with the crew and my mate.

My Pa’s eyes twinkle for a second before he says, “I think your sister will be glad to hear that.”

I go so rigid with shock that I almost drown. My mouth drops open and I’m rewarded with a lungful of seawater.

“Sister?” I choke.

My pa rarely smiles, but I must make an amusing sight, because the corners of his lips definitely twitch.

“Come,” he says, not giving me a chance to reply before he shifts back into his leviathan form.

I follow his lead, only to pause as I get my first chance to look at his beast in the sunlight. When I was growing up, my father’s beast was always an awe-inspiring, battle-scarred behemoth. Even during my growth spurt as a teenager, I hadn’t managed to outgrow him.

Now there’s no doubt about it. I’m the bigger monster.

His beast bellows out a welcome, and my own responds in kind before following him beneath the waves once more. He must have been patrolling the outer edges of pack territory, because we swim for hours before the open sea floor starts to give way to rocks, corals, and reefs. It doesn’t take long for my beast to pick up the echoes of other leviathans. The hint of a roar carried through the water. Scales scattered here and there.

Breaching the surface reveals that the pack hasn’t changed much. Airy wooden hut-style homes, hung with woven decorations, are clustered around the main house just off the beach. Pa shifts back the moment we reach the shallow water, and I only hesitate for a second before doing the same. Nerves ball in my stomach, and I bite down hard on the inside of my cheeks as I brace myself for their reactions as we wade through the last few metres of ocean between us and the shore.

Children, playing in the sand, look up as we pass, and my father reaches out to muss their hair as he passes. I study them, looking for clues that one of them could be our sister, but I have no clue how old she is or what she looks like. The only thing I know for certain is that she’s younger than us.

“Amberle!” he calls.

My stomach, already a mess, damn near revolts at the sound of our mother’s name.

When her head pokes out of the door, her smile graces her mate for a second before she catches sight of me. Her hand clenches on the doorframe as her face drains of colour and her eyes turn wide and watery.

“Hey, Ma,” I mumble, feeling pathetic.