Page 33 of Free for Adventure
“I own the hotel, and I train for this. This far out, you have to be able to step in to take over for any of your staff.”
She grunted, and he kept massaging. The room was quiet, and Dorian was politely sitting so she could relax. When Ohno got the knots out of her shoulders and moved down her back, she was out.
Chapter Six
Thera sat on the boat and watched the open ocean. She missed this. Since her father passed, she hadn’t been diving. This was going to be her first time back in the water in two years.
Orc came up and sat next to her. “So, do you dive much?”
“I was just thinking about that. It has been a few years. I used to dive with my dad when he was on research studies. I held the camera for him.” She smiled.
“Did he do nature work?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Whale biologist.”
She had all of their attention now. “Let me guess, one of you was going to try to scare me with your orca form?”
Orc looked at her in shock. “How did you know?”
“Why are you obsessed with my eyes? Don’t think I didn’t notice that it aroused each one of you when I met your gazes. Gosh, guys are easy.”
“But... how did you know?”
She smirked and pulled her shirt off, leaving the bikini top covering her, and she slowly turned her back to him. “How do you think?”
She could feel his fingers tracing the three killer whales on her back. The whales were all different. One was hyperrealistic, one was painterly, and the third was a Haida design.
“So, you knew?”
“When I saw the three of you, yeah. Trust me, three wasn’t my preference, but that is what something put on my back.”
“So, you don’t have a problem with what we are?”
“Did you know Andrej Sakorow?”
Orc was still tracing on her. “Yeah, of course. He was an amaz—he was your father?”
“Yeah. I swam with his other form all the time.” She sighed. “I wish I had been with him when he had the stroke, but he knew he had issues, and he was in his eighties.”
Skaay took the helm, and Kayak sprinted over to look at her back. “Wow. I look amazing.”
Orc continued to touch her and murmured, “How can you be so soft?”
“Don’t know. How long until we get to the reef?”
Skaay spoke over his shoulder. “We are twenty minutes out.”
Orc got up and moved to stand in front of her. “If he was your father, you are... Teehee?”
Thera rolled her eyes and then blinked a tear away. “My dad called me that. He was the only one.”
Skaay looked back at her. “No, we all called you that. He was here to teach us how to manage what we were.”
She shrugged. “I was fourteen when I was here, and to come to a tropical island and still do homework was a bit of a pain in the ass. I didn’t pay much attention to my dad’s fanatical followers.”
Orc said, “We needed to learn how to work together, and he taught us that. He was a great man.”
“He was.” She smiled. “I am going to have to charter you guys before I leave. He wanted his ashes scattered over his favourite spots.”