Seas Of Passion

Chapter 6

Back at the whale carcass, Lara had nearly managed to ambush Shanice, but at the last second the shark instincts in her mind filled her with the sense of danger and broke her from her thoughts. Shanice dodged Lara as she attacked by inches and was so stunned that she didn’t know what to do at first. Again, her shark instincts overrode her human shock and she propelled herself after Lara but found that she was far too experienced with using her shark form in combat. She could scarcely keep up with Lara and soon the gap in skill became even more apparent when Lara turned sharply and shot upwards like a massive torpedo, slamming into Shanice just under the gills. Lara had never spoken to an opponent in mid-combat before, but she did with Shanice, feeling that there was no danger of her losing her upper hand.

“I could have killed you just now, all I had to do was open my mouth and I’d have torn your gills out but I’m going to ram you until I crush your gills instead, then it will look like you were just attacked by the other sharks who were here. Do you understand? You’re in the way of my plans, so you will die. I’ve always done things this way, I killed the former shifter that had the position I wanted, Jacob stopped being useful to me and is being killed by Alan right now and you dared to steal him from me, so you will die right here.”

Shanice didn’t answer and turned quickly, heading for the surface of the water. Lara followed her and caught up with her quickly, biting at her tail and slicing into the skin just above her tail fin. Shanice expected pain, but felt nothing but a minor burn and immense anger from the shark part of her, which was now taking her over more and more. Her shark mind felt no anger, just indignation that anything else would dare to attack it. Fear was a foreign feeling to it as well, and even as Lara struck again, ramming into her underbelly, Shanice turned and used her momentum to finally attack Lara. She felt her jaws hyper-extend and then crunch into the right side of Lara’s head, slicing her face to ribbons and filling the water with her blood. Lara felt a twinge of fear in her human mind at being so viciously attacked and poured energy into healing herself, feeling her eye regrow immediately as she got her bearings. The possibility of failure had been far from her mind, but she called her guards anyhow, instructing them to fire on Shanice as soon as they got her command. Shanice was feeling herself slipping as the damage to her gills was being repaired at a slower and slower rate due to the energy it took to fight and keep dodging Lara, but she felt something else within her as she grew weaker; a part of the shark mind that was hidden except in certain situations. She thought back to the times Alan had spoken about the frenzy and felt afraid that it would send her human mind so far down that she would lose control of herself, but as damage kept mounting from Lara’s attacks, she felt the shark portion of her mind speak directly to her for the first time.

“Human, let me free, we will be beaten like this. I refuse to lose to any other creature.”

“I don’t want to lose control of myself, I can’t…I’m getting tired…Will you let me control myself again afterwards?”

“Yes, hurry up. Just say yes and I will take over.”

As Shanice thought the word yes, she felt relief wash over her as the frenzy began and adrenaline flooded her body along with chemicals that dulled all sense of pain and heightened her other senses. Lara didn’t notice because Shanice pretended to still be injured, though the damage was healing at an accelerated level. After ramming into her once more, Lara turned and swam away to put distance between them and build up to her full speed, but Shanice flicked her tail and sped after her, closing the gap and hitting Lara from the back, nearly biting off her entire left fin. Lara was shocked by the follow up attack and saw that Shanices eyes had become red, realizing her opponent was in a frenzy. She abandoned her thoughts of victory in combat and poured all of her speed into retreating to the surface, feeling the icy grip of fear as Shanice sliced through the water after her.

“Guards, I’m about to breach the surface, as soon as you see the second shark, hit it with the toxin darts. If she de-shifts, do it again, I don’t care if you use up all of your ammunition.” Lara called to her guards as she saw the surface approaching. She felt herself clear the water, but then saw Shanice do so as well and felt her jaws close around her entire tail, severing it before she splashed back into the water. Lara began de-shifting instantly, the damage too great to heal while in shark form and writhed in pain as her human body was forced to build new legs. She hurried out of the water, feeling certain that she would make it until she saw Shanice breach the surface again, her jaws closing around Lara’s human ankle. Before she could pull Lara back into the water however, darts filled with powerful toxins thudded into her as the four guards fired repeatedly. Lara screamed as her foot was sliced off in the jaws of her foe, but felt triumph as she saw Shanice floundering, her massive shark body growing sluggish as she tried to turn away and swim back out from the shore.

“Guards, go and pull your darts from that shifter, I don’t want them left in her,” Lara said as she healed her foot. The guards were terrified of getting close to Shanice and only one began walking forward.

“The last guard to reach the shifters body will lose an appendage,” Lara said simply, watching the guards’ race for Shanice, literally fighting one another not to be the last. Soon the darts were all pulled from Shanices body and the guards helped Lara back to the waiting car where she watched the shore, hoping she would be able to tell the moment Shanice died and her plan was complete.