Chapter 6 - From The Water

• MALIUS
• As evening was beginning to descend, I knew the time had come.
• Time for me to walk the surface.
• I was going above water.
• A venture now condoned by our liege.
• I’ve waited.
• There were moments, after I’d seen her up close, that I wondered how I’d ever wait until the proper day and hour.
• But the time had come.
• I lifted my head just above the water. Watching the dark swirls framing my face. I allowed only my eyes to scan the beach. Ensuring it was empty before I swam to the edge of the water. My sleek, gray body shadowed in the night. From above it would’ve looked as though a shark approached the sand.
• When I reached the shallows, I straightened. Beginning to lift my body from the water. Every inch that the water ran off of, revealed a tanned masculine body. Thick-chested with arms wound with muscle. Black hair slicked back from my forehead and rested down along my shoulders. Thick and dark as midnight, it didn’t detract from the distinctly male frame, emerging naked from the chilly water.
• I heard a gasp in the distance and saw the woman who had been surfing with my mate, days before.
• She was lying just near the dock. Barely wearing a string bikini. She was blinking rapidly in my direction, unsure of what she was seeing.
• I barely glanced at her. Taking in enough of a ripe body to know that any of my brothers that might be emerging tonight, may find her just to their liking.
• No girl is safe on our beaches beneath the full moon.
• And tonight, it was bright, silvery and a full globe.
• Meaning I can walk on land.
• Though it would not last more than a night. I had two weeks.
• Two weeks to make her mine.
• I could hear the slosh of water behind me and knew my brothers were rising to walk with me.
• I didn’t know how many, I didn’t bother looking back. I was intent on one thing.
• Tracking her down.
• ***
• Ashley couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
• A man was rising naked from the water.
• But it was impossible.
• She’d been lying here for hours and knew no one had gone in for several hours. And this cove was too far from the other banks and beaches for someone to have swum all the way here.
• So, where did they come from?
• The one at the front was the biggest. Towering over six feet tall. And so thick, he looked like a body builder.
• He glanced at her, and her spine crawled. Instinctively recognizing danger. She lay back. Trying to become as flat as the sand beneath her. Sensing she should be hiding…Or fleeing.
• She breathed raggedly.
• The black-haired man stepped from the water completely. The droplets coursing over his sleek body and sliding along a bare cock which moved against his thighs as he walked. He seemed totally unashamed of his nakedness. Almost inhuman in his lack of awareness.
• He was covered in dark spots.
• As her eyes focused, she realized they were some sort of block tattoos. They went up along his side and circled around his chest. The lines mimicked down his biceps.
• But from this distance, Ashley couldn’t tell what they looked like.
• The only thought screaming through her mind, was that this man was not human.
• The man didn’t move like a human. Didn’t act like one.
• When he turned his head, it was slow and purposeful.
• Predatory.
• Ashley had rarely seen men built so solidly.
• All thoughts of what Erin had described to her before, were the last thing on her mind now.
• She couldn’t look away.
• These men didn’t look like sharks.
• Their dark heads bobbed over the surface of the water, as they peered out.
• Flickers of light caught in their eyes, making them luminesce like a dog’s might, in nighttime headlights.
• Their shadows moved slowly from the water. Their gazes scanning in that same careful way as the first man’s, had.
• And the way he was looking at her, was as if he stared straight into her mind. Assessing if she was a threat.
• She felt like he knew precisely what she was thinking. Like he could feel her fear.