Opera House

It was late when we got to our room, and Nicholas was SO getting laid. I kept looking between my engagement ring and my man all night; mating was a private affair, while this was VERY public. He opened the door let me in; our bags were on a stand, and the fancy room awaited. “What is this,” I asked as I looked at all the lace and decoration.

“Bridal suite,” Nicholas said. He led me to the center of the room. A king four-poster canopy bed was on one side, with a gas fireplace and a large jacuzzi opposite. Sheer fabrics hung from the canopy, and a champagne bottle was chilling next to glasses and chocolate-dipped strawberries. “And you’re wearing too many clothes for my liking.”

I reached up and detached the neck hooks of my dress, letting it fall over my hips and to the floor. Nicholas sat on the edge of the bed with eyes full of lust as he looked me up and down. I gave him a smirk, then stepped out of it and picked it up to lay over a chair. Of course, I made sure I was facing away from him when I did this; I heard his breath catch when I bent down. Standing up and still facing away from him, I unhooked my bra and tossed it on top of my dress. He had his shirt off and was pulling off his socks and pants. “Still too many clothes?”

“Yes.” He was pulling out a condom, and I heard the foil as he opened it. I hooked my thumbs over the sides of my thong, pushing it over my tanned hips. Shaking my body, I let them fall to the carpet, then stepped back and bent at the waist to get them. “Don’t move,” he said.

I wrapped my arms behind my calves, grateful to the yoga routines that kept my body flexible. He stepped to me, grabbing my hips, and plunged his perfect cock into me in one long thrust. “NICHOLAS,” I yelled as I felt him stretch me. It didn’t hurt, I was more than excited enough, but this position touched places I didn’t know I had. He pushed me back until just the tip was inside, then slammed forward until he bottomed out. It took my breath away, but it felt SO good. I couldn’t do anything in this position except squeeze him, and the domination had my wolf panting with lust. He took me hard and fast as I held my legs, unable to move. The only sounds were the slap of flesh and the moans of pleasure as we built to a peak.

“Give my your hands,” Nicholas said. I let go of my legs and held them up where he could grab them. He pulled my shoulders up until I was bent over ninety degrees, still getting pounded hard from behind. I came hard, my legs giving out as he kept going, his hands moving to hold me up by the waist.

He pulled out and caught me before I collapsed to the floor. I was still recovering from my orgasm when I felt him lift me. He laid me on the edge of the bed with my legs over his shoulders. “I’m not done with you yet, my love.”

I looked at him with hooded eyes as he plunged his steel into me again. I loved how he looked; strong, muscled, and with a sheen of sweat as he took his mate to new heights. It only took another minute, and I was climbing the mountain again. “NICK!”

“Come for me, baby,” he said as his thumb started rubbing fast over my clit. He pinched it, and I went off like a bomb. My greedy pussy clamped down on him like a vise, pushing him over the edge. He slammed as deep as he could with a shout, and I could feel his cock begin to pulse into the condom. He pushed forward twice more before it was done. Turning me on my side, he collapsed next to me, both of us breathing hard. “Crikey,” he said as he rolled to his back. “Are you all right?”

“I might be a little sore in the morning, but it was worth it,” I said honestly.

“Shower and bed?”

“Shower, make sweet love again, then bed,” I countered. The second round was slow and sweet, leaving us satisfied and exhausted as I fell asleep in his arms.

We woke to our alarms, taking some time to soak and make love in the jacuzzi. We were getting dressed in clothes over swim gear when Amy mind-linked to me. “Vicki, there are some people who would like to meet you down here in the restaurant,” she said. “It’s a buffet.”

“Magic words. We’ll be down soon.” Today’s adventure was in the waters off Rottnest Island, this time with scuba gear. Linda had chartered a dive boat, and the local guides told stories of encounters with large Grey Nurse Sharks and other species. With the water clarity I’d seen yesterday, it was going to be fun. “Are you diving with us or watching,” I said as I pulled on my boat shoes.

“I want to dive with you,” he said. He may as well; he was part of the reality show now. It wouldn’t hurt the ratings to have him out there. “Linda said I could take Fiona’s spot, and Makani will run a dive camera. Fiona’s back hasn’t healed enough to dive. Besides, I don’t want you out of reach until you have to leave.”

I squeezed his hand as we got to the door. Fiona and Carly were waiting for us, and we took the elevator down to the main floor. When we arrived in the dining room, we found everyone in a private room, and there were four people I didn’t recognize. I took a smell, and it was distinctive.

“Mermaids?” Nicholas felt confused over the bond. Meeting Linda had been a revelation; he’d run into their kind before but hadn’t known what that smell meant. No one in his family did; in Australia, there wasn’t the hostility between species that North America had. The Mermaids didn’t show themselves as supernatural to the Werewolves they came across, and the Werewolves didn’t seem to care they were around.

“Let’s get our plates and sit down,” I said. I loaded up my plate as Amy filled us in. “Linda has been in contact with her family, and they have relatives here in Australia. Now that you are staying, they are worried that the wars with werewolves that drove them from England to here will reignite.”

“Are they local to this area?”

“One couple is from here, while the other two are from Bunbury a bit south.”

We sat down, and Linda introduced to Matt and Nicole from Fremantle, and Terry and Tina. “Good to meet extended family of Linda’s,” I said. “How can I help you?”

Matt looked around, making sure that the wait staff was out of hearing range before he talked. “We didn’t want to cause a public scene this morning when you join us. We run the dive shop and charter you are using today.”

I looked at Linda; she booked the travel, so she must have known. She looked a little embarrassed. “I told them it was all right, but our kinds haven’t mixed down here.”

“You haven’t learned about me, then,” I said. I gave the four a short background; my life as a human before finding out my true nature, my experience with vampires, and my friendship with Linda and other mermaids I’d brought on board the project. “One of the worries associated with my television show is that we would accidentally expose our nature. I wanted to have an all-werewolf crew, but there aren’t enough of us interested in the ocean and sharks. I’m the weird one,” I said with a shrug.

“That’s for sure,” Amy teased. “I’m not much better.”

“I found the people I needed among the mermaids, and it’s working well. Your people have the skills I need to crew my expeditions, and we get to build bridges along the way.”

Terry didn’t look convinced. “I’ve heard you are forming an official Pack and claiming all of Australia. Where does that leave us?”

“Nothing has changed for you unless you want to change it,” I said. “If you want nothing to do with us, I’ll sign a treaty with you, establishing territories and rights, and leave you in peace. I didn’t claim all of Australia because of you; I claimed it to prevent other Alphas from trying to move here and start problems. Our Pack is not under the North American Werewolf Council, no matter how hard they try to insist that I am.” They relaxed a little. “I’m hoping you will work with us because my Pack is different than the ones in America. I expect that I’ll be filming shows in Australia eventually, and I’ll need a new ship and crew to do it. Hell, I’d even make you a part of my Pack if you want to join us. We should be able to live without fear of attack by another.”

“You’d have our kind in your Pack?”

“Why not? I have humans in my Pack already, and I like you guys. You’re more at home in the ocean than I am.”

“I didn’t know what you were until recently, and it doesn’t bother me either,” Nicholas said. “My family knows Curt and Nancy Flood; they run a salmon farming operation across the bay. Good, hardworking people who smelled weird.”

“My cousin,” Nicole said. We talked more as we ate; there were more mermaids than wolves in Australia, scattered around the continent in fishing villages and ports. “I’m booked solid through summer and fall, but I’d like to put a show together after that focused on Australian sharks. Linda can let you know what kind of people we’d need; if you can spread the word to your family, we can see if any would be interested in working on it.”

“I can do that. We should eat quickly and go. It’s almost seven-thirty,” Linda said as she looked at the time. Our boat would leave at eight. I did the disappearing act with my food, knowing we wouldn’t have a big lunch today.

Our diving gear was already at the charter, so we loaded into a hotel shuttle and followed Matt and Nicole’s truck to the pier. It wasn’t a long transit out to the far side of Rottnest Island, our first diving spot. Linda rigged up stationary cameras on the boat, and she had multiple handheld cameras to record the trip. She also rigged GoPro cameras to the sides of our masks and made sure the underwater cameras were ready. We pulled on our Bodyglove wetsuits over our bikinis or trunks, checked our gear, and sat down for our diving brief.

Nicole led the brief while Matt drove the boat, while Fiona filmed it. “We’ll be diving the Opera House today; it’s an underwater cave with a wide entrance a few clicks west of the island. The cave entrance is at fifteen meters, and the back of the cave reaches twenty-six meters. You’ll be using double tanks for more bottom time.” She went through the dive plan, including the safety stops and decompression plan. “Matt will be in charge of the divemaster topside, and I am the dive leader. I’ll pair with Linda, and I’ll be helping her set up for the shots she wants. How are you pairing?”

“Nicholas and I will pair up and go with you and Linda,” I said. “Carly and Makani will pair up and film Amy and Noelani.”

“Visibility is good, and there is a lot of sea life around. We can expect to see multiple Grey Nurse sharks using the cave to rest in during the day. They are also known as Raggedtooth sharks and are similar to Sand Tigers. These sharks are still listed as ‘Vunerable’ in Western Australia and Endangered in Queensland. Touching and harassment of the sharks are prohibited.” Grey Nurse sharks were nocturnal hunters, so a dark cave was a great place to hole up, outside of ocean currents and bigger predators. They weren’t the same as the laid-back nurse sharks I’d seen in North America waters, who would rest on the bottom and had whiskers like a catfish. These looked like a stretched-out Tiger Shark, with a conical nose, a tail a quarter of their body length, and a mess of sharp teeth. “The nurse sharks can be big, but they are skittish and will take off if you approach them. The best strategy is to stay in one place and allow them to come to you. The best camera shots are looking out of the cave, so the sharks are backlit. The corals and marine life are just as good, so enjoy the dive.”

“Any other sharks expected in the area,” Linda asked.

“There have been Great White sightings around the island, but I haven’t seen any here. Hammerhead sharks and blacktips are more common outside of the cave on the reefs. As always, keep together, and scan everything around you,” Nicole finished.

Linda went through our shooting plan, which focused on getting sharks and good-looking people in silhouette. We anchored near the entrance, put on our tanks, and started the first dive. “I love how peaceful it gets when I’m in the water,” I sent to everyone. We did our safety stop on the way down, checking each other’s equipment and adjusting our ballast, then descended to the coral and sand below at a twenty-meter depth. Looking around, I could see a twelve-foot Hammerhead swimming in a sandy area. Linda got some shots before we followed Nicole to the cave entrance.

The three Grey Nurse Sharks were between six and ten feet long. They scattered as we got close. Following our shooting plan, Nicholas and I headed for the back of the cave with our camera team following. Amy and Noelani set up on one side of the entrance.

It was worth the wait. The cave dive put us with a dozen or so adult Nurse Sharks slowly moving around schools of smaller fish. As the sharks got used to our presence, they came closer and closer. Linda got a great shot of a big one swimming between the camera and us. Amy’s group was having just as much fun, with more sharks hanging out near the cave entrance.

All too soon, the dive computer told us it was time to head for our first safety decompression depth. We left the cave and headed for the anchor, then made our prescribed decompression stops before finally coming out of the water. “That was AWESOME,” I said as I climbed on board.

“Great film,” Linda agreed.