Chapter Two
Naura surfaced somewhere in the general vicinity of the place where Tony assured her the boat would be waiting.
She’d searched for Vaulcron to no avail. It had been obvious after calling out to him for twenty minutes that he’d left without her.
Not to be deterred, she’d tucked a knife into the waistband of her sharkskin pants and struck out on her own.
The thought of them leaving without her hurt more than she cared to admit. All of her life she’d been treated like an infant by her brothers. They’d protected her, coddled her, and berated her when she’d attempted to follow them on their outings.
Vaulcron had given in on a couple of occasions, allowing her to join him on his trips above. But Hauke had never been as generous.
With a huff of rebelliousness, Naura ducked back under the safety of the water and swam like the wind toward shore. Tony was out there somewhere, headed for land, and most assuredly…trouble.
* * * *
Naura came to a stop beneath a boat about a half-mile offshore. The anchor sat on the bottom, keeping the vessel from drifting out with the tide.
She pressed her ear to the hull, listening for sounds of occupants, but encountered only silence.
With caution, she eased her head above water and gripped the bottom of the ladder before climbing aboard.
Vaulcron had recently been here. The evidence stared back at her in the form of his gray vest and pants.
The two men had already gone ashore, she ascertained, diving over the side and swimming for the beach.
If she hurried, she had no doubt that she could catch up to them. They couldn’t be more than a few minutes ahead of her. After all, Tony was only a man and lacked the speed of a Bracadyte when it came to moving through the water.
Naura made it to shore in record time. Fresh tracks could be seen in the sand long before she emerged from the gulf.
Following the footprints, she came to a stop as the sound of a twig snapped in the trees up ahead.
It had to be Tony and Vaulcron, she assumed, crouching low and quietly moving forward.
Naura reached the dunes and hovered behind their mountainous swells, maintaining enough distance to stay undetected.
She listened for several heartbeats, satisfied they’d moved on, and stepped from behind the hill of white sand.
A hand suddenly covered her mouth, and she was jerked off her feet before she could react.
She would recognize Tony’s scent anywhere.
He shook her hard enough that her teeth clicked together before setting her on her feet. “Damn you. What are you doing here?”
The fact that he’d cursed her wasn’t lost on Naura any more than the snarl surrounding his words.
Tony removed his hand from her mouth and spun her around to face him. Other than the red tinge of color in his cheeks and the anger fairly dripping from his voice, no emotion appeared on his face. His eyes remained as lifeless as always. “You better have a damn good reason for being here, little girl.”
Naura couldn’t speak. She’d dreamed of this day many times, contemplated what she would say if she ever saw him again. But as she stood before him now, the words refused to come.
“Go,” he demanded in a deadly soft tone that scattered goose bumps along her flesh.
“I-I will not leave,” she managed around the lump in her throat.
He leaned in until their noses nearly touched. “You can either walk your ass back to water and return home, or I will carry you there. Either way, you’re not staying.”
Her chin lifted in defiance. “I will only come back and follow your trail after you have gone.”
“What are you doing here?” Vaulcron appeared from the other side of the dune.
“You lied to me,” she accused, swinging her gaze in her brother’s direction.
He shook his head. “I did not lie. I merely left without alerting you. It is far too dangerous out here for you, little sister. You need to return home while the cover of darkness is in your favor.”
Naura narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “I will tell you as I told him.” She tilted her head in Tony’s direction. “If you do not take me with you, I will only follow you.”
“Son of a bitch,” Tony swore, throwing his hands up. “Why can’t you understand that this is too dangerous for you? You risk the lives of everyone involved just by being here now.”
Pain sliced through Naura at the venom in Tony’s words. It became abundantly clear in that moment that he felt nothing for her but contempt.
She fought back the tears that threatened to rise and turned to her brother who stared back at her with a mixture of pity and anger in his emerald-green eyes. “If I am not assured of your survival by the new moon, brother, I will return with an army in tow.”
Vaulcron visibly relaxed. “I will check in with you before the sun sets on the morrow.”
Naura reached up and touched her brother’s cheek before turning toward the water. She came up against a wall of immovable muscle.
Tony’s hand clamped over her mouth once again. He jerked her off her feet and dove behind the dune, twisting his body around in midair to take the brunt of the fall.
Naura’s breath left her lungs in a whoosh on impact. She lay there for a heartbeat, sprawled across Tony’s rock-hard form, staring into his deadpan eyes.
He motioned for her to stay quiet before slowly removing his hand from her mouth.
Her heart raced out of control as she lowered her gaze to his tense lips, marveling at their fullness hidden beneath his beard.
“Tony?” she mentally whispered, unable to remove her gaze from his mouth.
With a quickness that belied his massive size, Tony flipped her off him and jumped to his feet, leaving her lying on her back in the sand.
“Do not speak,” Vaulcron mentally whispered, glancing toward the beach. He inched his way over in a crouched position and helped her stand.
“What is it?” she sent back, scanning the darkness for signs of trouble.
“Land walkers.”
Vaulcron touched Tony on the arm, signaling that his sister understood the danger surrounding them.
Tony nodded, pulling a knife from his boot, and motioned for them to move to the trees while keeping his gaze trained on the impending danger on the beach.
Accepting her brother’s hand, Naura followed closely behind Vaulcron to the safety of the underbrush.
“Where is Tony?” she silently inquired as the two of them stopped behind a copse of tall pine trees.
Vaulcron stared back at her for long moments before answering, his eyes glittering in the moonlight. “You should not have come. If something were to happen to you…”
“I can take care of myself,” she mentally retorted without backing down.
Tony seemed to appear out of nowhere, ignoring Naura as he spoke to her brother. “We need to get out of here. There are too many along the beach, carrying weapons that we don’t have.”
“What about her?” Vaulcron hissed, jerking his chin toward his seething sister.
Naura could practically taste the anger seeping from Tony’s pores. “We have no choice but to take her with us. I’ll figure out what to do with her once we get to our destination.”