Outliers

Nine

"If the moon smiled, she would resemble you. You leave the same impression of something beautiful, but annihilating."

Sylvia Plath

The dirt I stood on quickly bled into grey rock that dipped down into a small, natural pool of water. Under the quickly darkening sky, the water looked so dark and inky, bottomless, as if it were waiting for the next creature to dare to dip into it and be consumed whole.

It was beautiful.

The water, perfectly still against the tall rock face surrounding it, beckoned me in a way I found only nature could. I wanted, needed, to venture closer.

"What are we doing here?"

"Strength building, swimming's a great exercise." I turned to find the Alpha already kicking off his shoes and stepping towards the water. I hated how my eyes were immediately drawn to his figure, following his movements, focused on the strong, shifting muscles beneath his tan skin. If he could feel my burning gaze on his back, he didn't show it. He didn't look back at all as he, in one movement, dove into the glittering black water.

When he re-emerged, the water dripping down his neck and from his broad shoulders, his dark brunette hair now black and hanging flat across his forehead and down the nape of his neck, he was grinning.

It honestly felt like I couldn't breathe for a second, frozen in the shock of the emotion warping the Alpha's expression, the pure joy that radiated from him.

At my prolonged gaping stare, the light in his eyes dimmed ever so slightly, and the smile stretching his lips eased. My stomach lurched at the sudden loss of emotion.

"Are you getting in or are you going to stand there gawping at me all night?" His gruff, familiar tone sprung me into action. I didn't respond, for fear of becoming a mumbling mess, as I kicked my trainers off, ripped off my sweatshirt to expose my black sports bra, and my joggers to expose my black boxer short underwear; very aware of the Alpha's gaze as I did so.

There was a gentle heat spreading up my pale neck, not from embarrassment - I wasn't any more exposed now than I had been in training countless times over - but from the intensity of Alpha Harris' gaze. His eyes didn't falter from me, and I couldn't tear mine away from him.

I held his gaze as I stepped up to the lip of the pool, the rock cool under my bare feet. And continued to do so as I lowered myself slowly into the icy water.

Hissing at the sharp temperature, my attention was stolen from the Alpha. I submerged myself quickly, head entirely under the water to adjust for as long as I could hold my breath before I burst back up, gasping for air. Alpha Harris had now moved across the pool, to the other side of a large central rock that jutted out from the water into the air like a prehistoric shark's fin.

"What are we doing?" My voice echoed against the tall walls of rock that surrounded us.

"Swimming," he answered simply, as if it were obvious.

"You want me to swim in circles?" I asked, eyeing the pool around me. It was beautiful, and big enough for a large group of people, but not so big that a lap would come even close to tiring me.

"You better get started if you want to be back in bed for a reasonable time."

I gritted my teeth, trying my best not to growl my frustration.

"For how long?"

"Until I say we're done."

Alpha Harris had me swim in that damn pool until the moon was glowing bright, the night sky was as black as coal and the muscles in my entire body were burning so bad I thought they were surely melting off my bones. Every few laps that I completed, he had thought it funny to splash me or disrupt my swimming in some way. I'd never seen the Alpha more at ease, more jovial. It was a damn pain. He did very little other than annoy or watch me swim, occasionally taking to diving into the water as I passed so I had to twist out of the way so as not to get flattened by his gigantic self.