Blood in the Water by Cleo Peitsche

shook his head. “Koenraad is making the best out of a very bad situation,” he said.  
    He started to lead her to the building, then looked her over. It wasn’t in a checking-her-out sort of way. More like he was examining a specimen for indications as to what it might be. “How are you?” he asked.
    She narrowed her eyes. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re asking out of friendliness or if you’re going to dissect my answer for clues.”
    “Monroe, you offend me,” he said in a wounded voice. “I’m a scientist first and foremost.” He grinned. “But if it makes you feel better, we can exchange social pleasantries first.”
    Monroe swatted at him. She liked Spencer. He was like the older brother she’d always wanted but had never had.  
    “I’m fine,” she said. “I feel normal. The first few days after the…” She remembered the bodyguards and glanced behind her. They were leaning against the pickup, but she already knew they had excellent hearing; the sounds of the surf had been extraordinarily loud, but they had heard the phone.  
    Instead of finishing her answer to Spencer’s question, she posed one of her own. “Do different shifters have different talents?”
    “Are you wondering why Koenraad can’t sing? It’s not a shifter thing. The solution is to prevent him from drinking too much.”
    Monroe smiled. Spencer would definitely be a good match for Tara.  
    “That’s not what I meant.” She told him about the ringing phone as they walked through a heavy concrete door.  
    “Any of us could do that, assuming the wind was blowing in the right direction. To be more on point, Koenraad has excellent tracking skills, but he’s honed them over the years. Does he have innate talent? Sure.” He cleared his throat. “We’re not superheroes with superhuman powers depending on what kind of animal bit us.”
    “Yet look at me. I had that transfusion and I’m changed. It’s not a ridiculous question,” she said.
    “There is that,” Spencer agreed with a nod. Monroe suspected he was being nice. “So you were explaining something about the first few days after the transfusion?”
    “I felt, well, superhuman. Am I allowed to use that word?”
    Spencer considered. “As my best friend’s mate, you can say or do anything you want.”
    “I felt superhuman, like myself but a thousand times better. Now I feel normal again. I think I was even more surprised than Koenraad when I healed so quickly.”
    “For all we know, this is normal,” Spencer said. He stopped walking. “Transfusions are outlawed. It doesn’t mean they don’t happen, but the people who do them don’t talk about it. The typical recipient also tends to be older.”
    “Older?”
    “When it happens legally, it’s typically a shifter mated to a human with cancer or some lethal or chronic disease correlated with age. The humans usually aren’t healthy to begin with. However, I did some research and I can’t find any instance of a case where the effects didn’t degrade quickly without ongoing transfusions. But there’s not much information available, to be honest.”
    “I’m surprised no one has studied it,” Monroe said.
    “Oh, I’m certain it’s been studied, but that’s the sort of thing that’s kept well under wraps. Perhaps if my field of concentration included shifters…” He rubbed his chin. “I wonder if Koenraad’s parents know anything about it.”
    “His parents?”
    “They’re marine biologists, and they study shifters. I’ll try to get in touch with them when I’m back in Boston.”
    “They’re retired. Koenraad says they just swim from vacation spot to vacation spot.”
    “His parents are the most driven shifters I’ve ever met. I haven’t seen them in a few years, but I don’t believe for a second that they’re truly retired. They might tell their son, who is prone to worrying about them, that they’re just swimming around and having a grand old time, and they might be doing that,