Bite Me Harder (Guardians of the Deep 2)

“Cobalt,” the guy said. “Tell him Cobalt was here.”

The guy turned, dashed through the water at an amazing speed, and then dove forward and disappeared into the ocean.

Chapter 10 - Sylvia

Sylvia stepped off the dinghy and onto the island, thanking Juan Diego for helping her with the trip.

“You coming, girl?” Sylvia asked as Penny remained on the small craft.

“In a minute,” she said. “I’m waiting for my chariot.”

Sylvia watched stunned as Thane came out of the water, his skin still a greyish tint from shifting into human form and stood next to the dinghy.

“Careful,” he told Penny. “If even one of your feet touches the water…”

“I know,” Penny replied. “I’ll explode into a million pieces and take the baby with me.”

“Slowly,” he said as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her, keeping her up and away from the water.

Sylvia envied her friend and watched them quietly, thinking it was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen in her life.

Now this is true love. Fuck that Will and Jada shit. They have nothing on Penny and Thane.

She’d always been a big fan of the Fresh Prince and his costar romance. They were what love was made of, but they were only humans and it seemed tiger sharks were the new thing. Sylvia laughed to herself as she tried to imagine DJing a radio station with all the songs dedicated to shark love. #sharklove. That would be her new thing. She was on this island for two reasons. To visit Penny and to see this life her best friend had spoken so highly about. Finding her “one and only” would be a nice added bonus.

Penny’s friends came out to greet her and for the first time ever, she felt like she fit right in with the crowd. Usually, in all groups of people, there were stereotypes. There was always the self-absorbed one who couldn’t stop taking selfies and trying to convince everyone it was “picture time.” Then there was the thug guy who said the word nigga way too much for her liking. Sometimes that guy was black and sometimes he was white. A thug is a thug. Every group had the jock, the one who seemed to use the word bro after every sentence. Usually groups had the nerd and the total douchebag, who was sometimes the jock or the thug too. But most commonly, every group had the royal bitch. This squad of lovelies had none of the above. Every person seemed totally genuine. It was strange. When one of them hugged her, she didn’t feel like it was superficial. Smiles weren’t fake.

The names of so many new faces were hard to remember, but Sylvia did her best to catch up.

“Thank God we have someone else to chill with for a while,” a girl Sylvia was sure was Hailey said, “because Penny is getting boring as hell.”

“What?!” Penny shrieked. “I’m the life of this fucking party!”

Penny threw a hand to her mouth when she noticed the kids were around.

“Please,” the pregnant one, Ruby, said. “Have you heard the words that fly out of Kino’s mouth? He’s like a sailor. Or a truck driver. I don’t know which has the foulest mouth. Maybe a truck driving sailor?”

They all laughed.

“Vroom vroom, baby,” her man, Kino, said as he stepped behind her and wrapped his hands around her waist.

The tough, rocker chick, Faith, approached Thane and pulled him aside. For a moment, Sylvia thought maybe they were talking about her and she felt a little uneasy. But then Thane shook his head and looked worried.

“This isn’t good,” he said. “If he’s here, trouble’s headed our way.”

“Who is he?” Faith asked.

Thane ignored her question and walked away, with Penny doing her best to catch up to him. He looked to be deeply concerned about something. Her attention was stolen by Hailey and the guy with the tattoos, Jagger, as they started asking her a ton of questions.

“You planning to stay a while?” Hailey asked.

“I don’t kno

w,” she replied.

“Do you drink?” Jagger asked.

“Yes.”