Sea Lion Shores oh, the world is dark

Szymon lunged.

Scarred paws thrust against the buffet of sand with a surprising amount of strength and speed. She’d slowed her pace, but she was still moving toward him, not away from him, and he’d given her more than enough warning. Kohl-lined lips peeled back to revealed cut and bloodied gums, a mouthful of pinkish froth — he roared toward her like a train off its tracks, and though he stuttered when he spoke, he was eloquent in his fury. One tattered ear was slammed back against his skull, but the other swiveled wildly, just in case Doe wanted him to stop and spare the girl.

Girl.

She was enormous in comparison to the wiry mariner, but she lacked his raw berserker’s rage and his tormented past — and she was young enough that something long dead in Szymon Cairn tried to awaken and warn him off. Whether it was his conscience or paternal instinct or plain-and-simple pity didn’t matter; he wasn’t listening. He crushed its wormlike wriggling beneath the thunder of his paws and feinted, sweeping in low, searching for an opening — and his golden eyes glinted madly as he sought to snap and clamp down, serrated cutlery begging for blood.