“You’d be amazed,” Zander said.

He wouldn’t say anything more as they crept along and the menacing boats zoomed closer.

Piotr gave a little moan as he looked behind them. “Oh, my wife is very much going to kill me.”

Zander continued consulting with his snake. The man behind them blared over a bullhorn again. “We’re coming alongside. Come outside and line up on the deck.”

Zander’s hand hovered over the controls as he peered straight ahead. Rae went to stand next to him. “You can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Zander asked absently.

“Do what they say. Surrender to them.”

Zander spared her a surprised glance. “Do you think I’m going to let them take you?” He returned his attention to the front windows, where Ezra hung on in the bow. “I’d never abandon you, Little Wolf. We’re getting out of this.”

Though Zander’s words warmed her, Rae didn’t see how they’d escape. The sea was empty before them and full of boats behind. Those boats were coming up fast and soon Zander’s would be surrounded.

Zander whispered to his pet snake. “There? Yeah, I think you’re right. You’re very smart, you know that?”

Piotr exchanged a worried glance with Rae.

“Out on deck,” the man boomed, his voice hard and authoritarian through the bullhorn. “Now.”

“Or not,” Zander said. He brought his hand down on a lever. The fishing boat roared to life and sprang forward.

At the same time there was a boom behind them and something very large charged past them to fall into the sea.

Rae, Piotr, and Ezra jerked around but Zander kept his eyes to the front. “They’re shooting,” Rae pointed out.

“Yep.” Zander had one hand on the throttle, the other on the wheel. “Warning shots. They’ll do a few of those before they shoot to kill.”

“Well, that makes me feel better,” Rae said shakily.

“It should. Means we have time to get there.”

“Get where?”

“There.” Zander nodded ahead of them.

At first Rae saw nothing, then she blinked. On the northern horizon, blending with the dusk that would soon be sunrise, was a patch of fog.

Small at first, it grew larger as their boat rushed at it. Rae had no idea what the fog hid or whether it was a stroke of luck that it happened to form at that moment. But no, Zander had been searching for it, so it must be a constant phenomenon. Rae wasn’t familiar enough with oceans to know what it was a phenomenon of.

Piotr was staring at Zander, stricken. “Oh no, my friend. Not there.”

“Oh, yes.” Zander grinned at him. “There. Hold on—here we go.”

He increased the speed to breakneck, the boat lifting and slamming into waves toward the fog. The hull groaned with the effort and Rae imagined that any second the boat would break apart and they’d plunge to their deaths.

Another boom came from behind them. A bullet like a miniature missile whistled past the cabin. Piotr went pale. “That is close.”

“No longer matters,” Zander said.

He cut the engine at the precise moment they hit the fog, plunging them into a world of opaque whiteness and silence.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Zander checked the instruments, including the sophisticated depth and proximity indicators he’d installed, and steered with confidence into the ghostly world.

“Where are we?” Rae whispered.

Ezra released his hold on the rail outside and sat up, looking around with a scowl. Beside Zander, Piotr said, “The Graveyard.”

“That does not sound good.” Rae’s voice was subdued as she stood beside Zander.

Her hair smelled like flowers. Zander wanted to lean down and kiss it. He suppressed the wish and kept his eyes on the instruments, but it wasn’t easy. Maybe he should send Rae below for a while so his frenzy wouldn’t distract him. Not that he thought she’d obey and scuttle away because he asked.

Rae gazed bravely out the window, watching as Zander carefully piloted them around obstacles that couldn’t be seen by eye in the fog.

“I’ve been in and out of here many times,” Zander said, trying to sound reassuring. “And I’m still here.”

Piotr’s round face was pink. “But why do you come back here? It is notorious, this place,” he said to Rae. “Full of shipwrecks, too-thick fogs . . . and fire.”

“Don’t worry,” Zander said. “I haven’t seen any volcanic activity in months.”

“Months?” Rae repeated. “You really know how to make us feel better.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel better—I’m trying to keep you from getting captured.” Zander nudged the controls to go around a black rock that emerged rapidly from the fog.

The good thing about these waters was that they were deep. The bad thing was that pieces of islands jutted out unexpectedly, and because of constant new lava and old erosion, pieces appeared where they hadn’t been before.

Rae said, “You mean our choice is to float around here and hope we don’t wreck or go back out into the clear water and to cages.”

“You got it,” Zander said.

Rae’s chest rose sharply. Her gaze went to Jake, who’d uncoiled from Zander’s arm and now rested on the windowsill. Rae reached over and lifted him, warming him in her hands. Jake already liked her.

Rae let out her breath. “Then I vote stay here.”

“Piotr, you can get out here if you want,” Zander said. Piotr was terrified, and with good reason. “I’ll give you a radio and have you climb out onto the rocks. The Coast Guard will pick you up.”

Piotr sent him a look of indignation. “Abandon my friends? Never. Besides, they’d wreck trying to get to me. I’d only be another skeleton left behind . . .”

“Cut the drama,” Zander growled. “I’ve never seen any skeletons in this place. Not human ones anyway.”

“That is because they all fall into the sea,” Piotr said with a shudder. “Plenty of boat skeletons though.”

Zander didn’t answer because Piotr had a point. The first time he’d floated in here without meaning to it had scared the shit out of him. Only his Shifter senses of scent and hearing had saved him from becoming another wreck in the Graveyard. The sulfur odor here was strong but the subtle differences in it from place to place had let him find his way back out to daylight.