Sharkbait Down Under

Vicki Corcoran’s POV

Dublin Airport, Ireland

Friday, June 9th, 2034

“I can’t wait to see my mate again,” I told Adrienne as we waited in the International Arrivals section of the airport. Adrienne had been here for two days, working with the European Council on the SWIM (Single Werewolf International Meet-Up) planning. I’d arrived an hour ago on my connecting flight from Washington, DC.

“Not long now,” she told me. Her security detail was unobtrusively surrounding us as we waited outside the gates for the flight from Dubai to arrive. My security was outside with the bus that would take us to our hotel.

She had no choice in the added security after an unsuccessful assassination attempt. While Adrienne was traveling through Western Canada in late March, attackers used spike strips to take out her car, then shot up her car. The attack killed two Council Enforcers before Leo’s car arrived a minute later. He left only one of the attackers alive to find out who sent them.

The Canadian Alpha responsible turned on his co-conspirators, and three old-line Alphas faced trial for the failed attack. A plea bargain stripped them of their Packs and imprisoned them for twenty years.

It was a better deal than Leo would have given them. Adrienne doubled down on her reforms, pushing forward with formal treaty talks with Master Cyprian and the Vampires, and beginning talks with the Mermaid population.

“How is filming going,” Adrienne asked.

“Good,” I said. “We just finished up a two-week expedition off Cat Island in the Bahamas, studying the Oceanic Whitetip population. Mom loved it.” Adrienne chuckled; while my wolf colors looked like a Great White, Olivia’s were like an Oceanic Whitetip. “Linda got some great shots of me free-diving with a big one, and I’m getting it turned into a print for her wall. The water’s amazingly clear.”

“Season two is going to be fun?”

I nodded. “It will be a little different since the four of us are married women now.” Makani and Noelani got married when their SEAL boyfriends had a week of leave in March, right before filming started on the new season. Ricardo and Manuel hadn’t taken the change yet, waiting until they had at least two weeks of leave saved up. “The diving is always good, and our photography is getting better. The Sea Scout is an amazingly stable and versatile platform for filming, and we’re taking advantage. We’re using remote-operated vehicles, drones, underwater cameras, even mini-submarines now. We still have some Bodyglove appearances, but the focus has shifted off of modeling and boys.”

Amy and I chose not to renew our Bodyglove modeling contracts, though they remained a sponsor of our show. Makani and Noelani were still under the company’s banner until November. Mercedes was trying to convince the twins to keep modeling, but it wasn’t going to be easy. All of us were multi-millionaires now that the settlements had gone through with Vespucci’s estate.

“Have you used the cage?”

“A few times,” I said. “The Scout can carry a much larger shark cage, so we can get camera divers down there and not be packed together. We often had multiple shark cages in use for filming.”

Adrienne used a deep, gravelly voice. “You go in the cage. Cage goes in the water. You go in the water. Shark’s in the water, our shark.”

“Yes, Captain Quint.” It was hard to believe that the movie Jaws was coming up on sixty years old and that we were still using lines from it. We’d smack Amy any time she tried to use a Sharknado quote, though.

“Is Amy showing yet?”

“We started seeing the baby bump from her twins three weeks ago, and she’s finally over the morning sickness at week twelve. Her doctor doesn’t want her on compressed air, so she’s restricted to snorkeling and free-diving this season. Makani and Noelani are getting more screen time as a result.”

The conversation ended when I saw the familiar face walking towards the door. Nicholas exited the secure area and into my arms, kissing me and swinging me around. “I missed you, my love,” he said when he finally set me down.

“I miss you too.” The twenty-three Pack members attending the meetup, fifteen women and eight men, moved to baggage claim while Master Alessandro, Terry, and Tina and greeted Adrienne. Terry and Tina were the Fremantle-based mermaids who helped kick off the Australian Council. We were taking advantage of the gathering to sign treaties with the two Werewolf councils.

I left them to it while Nicholas and I gathered up our Pack to the tour bus we’d rented. The driver took us towards the Wicklow Mountains to the southwest. We unloaded at a triangular park next to the Saint Nicholas of Myra Catholic Church in the town of Dunlavin. Waiting for us was the European Council Archivist. “It’s an honor to meet you, Henrietta,” I said to the grey-haired woman I’d only seen on video calls.

“Welcome home, Corcoran Pack,” she said with a wide smile as we gathered around. “How many of you are direct descendants of Philip Corcoran?”

All but four raised their hands. “As you know, Philip was captured and imprisoned in the 1798 Irish Rebellion. Only his age prevented him from the fate of the rest of his family,” she said. “English troops located their den and massacred almost all of them. Two men of the Pack, Philip’s Uncle Samuel and cousin William, were brought back for questioning and ended up here in Dunlavin. The two joined other prisoners held in the Market House.”

“What happened to them,” Ian asked.

“Following an attack on an English Captain by rebels, a group of prisoners were taken from the Market House and marched through town by English troops. The soldiers lined them up over here before the soldiers lined up across from them with their muskets. The firing squad executed them all, without trial, as a warning. The soldiers then returned to the market house and flogged or hanged more. In all, thirty-six brave Irishmen died in the Dunlavin Green Massacre.” I wiped away a tear. “Your ancestors were among the dead. Follow me, and we can see the memorial to these heroes.” We walked across to the church, where the Parish Priest met us. He led us to the stone that sat in the grass, a brass plaque marking the event.

I squeezed Nicholas’ hand as he fought to avoid crying, but some Corcorans were openly sobbing. Henrietta stepped forward when we’d all had a chance to touch the stone and take photographs. “The families of the dead hauled their men off for burial, but the Corcorans had no one left. Father, can you show us their final resting place?”

“Of course,” he said. He led us towards the town center in a large group, stopping at a cemetery and walking us to an open area. “The pauper cemetery was here,” he said. We stayed for a few minutes, paying our respects.

Word of our arrival had spread, and townspeople joined us in an informal parade to the Market House. Nicholas explained to the townspeople that their surviving ancestor, Philip Corcoran, had been sent to Australia on a prison ship. The crowd grew to over fifty by the time we reached the Market House and the Green adjacent to it. “There was a song written about the massacre,” one of the townspeople said. “Would you like to hear it?”

“I would love to,” Nicholas said.

The older woman and five others gathered together and started to sing.

A sorrowful tale the truth unto you I’ll relate

Of thirty-six heroes to the world were left to be seen

By a false information were shot on Dunlavin Green

Bad luck to you Saunders, for you did their lives betray

You said a parade would be held on that very day

Our drums they did rattle - our fifes they did sweetly play

Surrounded we were and privately marched away

Quite easy they led us as prisoners through the town

To be slaughtered on the plain, we were then forced to kneel down

Such grief and such sorrow were never before there seen

When the blood ran in streams down the dykes of Dunlavin Green.”

I clung to Nicholas and a few others as they mourned for the ancestors he’d never known.

The whole group headed to a pub for lunch and beers as the townspeople embraced our heritage. Finally, we loaded back onto the bus and headed into the mountains. The bus let us off at a trailhead. “Don’t bring anything along except water,” Henrietta told us. Once out of sight of the road, we stripped and shifted. Henrietta led us up into the mountains for an hour, finally stopping at a clearing. We all shifted back. “It took a week, but we finally located this place. We believe it is the location of the Corcoran Pack Den.”

We wandered around the site, seeing the loose rock foundations. What the English troops hadn’t burned and destroyed, the centuries had finished. It was a sad group that filed back into the bus just before dark.

We arrived at the Dublin Pack lands after dark, and hundreds were waiting for us. There was no scratch and sniff; most of the people here were single and ready to mingle. Some of my Pack members didn’t make it five paces off the bus before their mate swept them up.

I waited with Nicholas until they were all off, smiles on our faces over the pairings made. It looked like every unmated wolf we brought here would be mated by sunrise. “Luna has done a great thing here,” I told Nicholas as we walked hand-in-hand to the Pack House.

“Luna set these pairs up a long time ago,” Nicholas said. “YOU did this, Vicki. You formed our Pack. You taught us what mates were. And you convinced the Packs of the world to participate. You’re amazing, my love.”

“Come on, we have to check-in,” I told my mate. I was thrilled; bringing new blood into the Pack, already familiar with how a Pack operated, would help our Pack more than any visits and stories I could provide.

Two days later, the Werewolf world was a different place. Three dozen wolves didn’t find their mates out of all that attended, and almost all were female. For the younger ones, it was likely their mate was not of age yet. It was a numbers game; there were more female adult werewolves than male.

The other sticking point was who went where. My Pack was all Beta blood, and Luna addressed the imbalance by matching almost all of our Betas up with Warriors and Omegas. Since our wolves were higher ranked, the mates all agreed to come to the Southern Cross Pack. One of our Beta females mated the fourth son of an Alpha, but they chose to join our Pack instead of his. My Pack swelled us to over a hundred wolves in a day.

Four older females were in limbo. Each recognized their mate from the scent of the clothing I’d brought in ziplock bags; their fate mates were in Australia but didn’t want to put aside their wives. They gave me their contact information and pictures to take back home.

I brought my headache to the Alphas and Council in a private meeting. I told everyone what had happened with my Pack and the different paths taken regarding human females as mates. “I can’t force them to put aside their wives, the women have done nothing to betray our kind, yet four female werewolves are in limbo because the males won’t choose,” I complained. “They won’t join our Pack or travel because they don’t want to meet their mates.”

“You could send their mates to them,” someone suggested.

“That doesn’t always go well,” I said. I described how Fiona reacted to finding her male married to a human.

“Let’s say send the females to Australia, and the males reject them in person. The four females get second chance mates, but what happens to the males? If they don’t turn and choice-mate their wives, Luna could give them another female. You’ll move the problem around, and you haven’t solved anything,” another Alpha said.

“Would Luna do that to the male who rejects his fate mate?”

“There are cases when the male had no choice but to do the rejection,” the Alpha answered. “Would Luna treat this the same way? These men have families, and they’ve sworn fidelity to their wives.”

Chairman Lars spoke next. “The ones who have taken the change, how did that go?”

“Twenty-five females agreed, and all of them made it through the change.” Jaws dropped at this news; they would have considered it Luna’s favor if fifteen had made it.

“That is your answer,” Lars said. “Luna accepts the wives, so they must change and find their mates. If they do not, we know their fated mates will track them down and force the issue. None of us can stop that.”

“I know,” I said. It was going to take time.