Free Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Four by Various Authors

The shark closed on them, spun
    around and opened his terrifying jaws. Takumi ducked down, batted
    Riku out of the way and tried to stab the shark in the belly with his
    snout. The fish shook with fury and turned on him.
    Takumi’s awareness was on red alert. He saw a hundred teeth
    coming for him. He dodged them twice, but the shark kept attacking.
    Riku’s clicks and cries were fainter; Takumi hoped it was because he
    was getting away. The shark turned around and came for Takumi
    again. He leaped, but not fast enough; its teeth made contact with his
    right flank. Takumi escaped before the jaw closed on him but as he
    whirled around to duck under the massive fish, he saw blood in the
    water. His blood.
    Takumi figured this was it, he would soon be dead. Sharks go
    crazy for blood, and nothing would deter this one now. Shocked, tired
    and almost accepting his fate, Takumi couldn’t move fast enough to
    escape it for long. He tried to protect his injured flank but the shark
    came right back at him with open jaws, wanting to bite again where
    the flesh was open and the taste was good.
    Then suddenly, something came up from below and crashed
    against Takumi’s body, knocking him up toward the surface and out
    of the shark’s path. There was a crazy kind of turbulence in the water.
    A black and white bulk was between Takumi and the shark. It was

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    Asai, roaring furiously. He went for the shark, jaws open as if
    planning to lock teeth into teeth. At the last moment he dodged down
    underneath and rammed it in its weakest spot, the gills.
    Before it could recover, Takumi was there, attacking its other side.
    On the defensive now, lashing out blindly, the shark had no place to
    go. Each time it attacked one of them, the other would deflect it. They
    battered its gills over and over until Asai sank his teeth into its
    underbelly. Its eyes dulled, its body went limp. All the commotion in
    the water rocked to a stop. The shark was dead.
    Takumi would have stayed there and watched it sink to the ocean
    floor, to be sure that it was really gone, but Asai was nudging him
    toward home. Of course they shouldn’t stay where there was blood:
    other sharks might come. They located Riku and left the water at their
    landing place.
    Takumi lay on his left side on the smooth rocks holding Riku,
    who was crying. The wound in Takumi’s right thigh didn’t seem
    serious. Without speaking, Asai lay down beside him, curling around
    his back, and put an arm round Takumi to hold both him and the baby.
    Takumi began to shiver. He felt cold despite the sun, as if he had a
    fever. He felt that he wanted to stay here where it was safe forever,
    and never venture into either the human or the dolphin worlds again.
    “It’s OK,” Asai said. “It’s over. Everything’s fine.”
    “Riku was splashing,” said Takumi through chattering teeth. His
    mind loved having Asai’s arm around him but it wasn’t doing
    anything for him physically. “I let him splash, and the shark found us.
    You shouldn’t trust me with him. I don’t know anything about raising
    kids.”
    “You’re doing fine. He loves you, and you just saved his life.”
    “And you saved mine.”
    Asai stroked his shoulder. “I didn’t bring you here to watch you
    die in the jaws of some brainless fish.”

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    Takumi gave a gulping laugh. “So why did you bring me here?”
    Asai didn’t answer for a moment. Riku had stopped crying and
    Takumi saw that the baby had fallen asleep quite suddenly, the way he
    always did. He lay on his back with his mouth open and his arms up
    around his head, as peaceful as if there was no such thing as a shark in
    the world. He’d been frightened, but not hurt: may he had learned a
    useful lesson. Maybe Takumi had, too.
    Then Asai gently kissed his neck. “I brought you here because I
    wanted you.”
    It probably wasn’t the smart thing to say but Takumi