Tempest Revealed (27 page)

I’m not sure how long I sat there, just watching the push and pull of the waves. Feeling that same push and pull inside of me as I tried to figure out how to get my life—and my clan—back on track. There was no easy answer, no simple plan I could devise. Whatever was to come next would take everything Kona, Mahina, and I had. And even that might very well not be enough.

Eventually I became aware of another human presence. Not because he said anything, but because—even after everything that had passed between us—I was still attuned to Kona. Could still sense him as he walked over the makeshift path from the cave to the rock where I was sitting.

“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” I asked.

“Hard to sleep when I don’t know what’s happening with my people.”

I nodded my understanding. I was struggling with it myself, and that was even after my people—or at least a group of them—had tossed me out for Sabyn. I could only imagine how much more difficult this was for Kona, who had been raised from an early age to consider the throne, and the tens of thousands of people he ruled, as his responsibility.

“How are
you
feeling?” he asked softly.

“Better. Zarek’s a miracle worker.”

“I’m glad. You scared me.”

“
I
scared me. Being at Sabyn’s mercy—it was bad. I don’t ever want that to happen again, to me or anyone else.”

“Do you want to tell me about what happened?”

I thought of Sabyn, of the blank look on his face when he did so many of the terrible things he’d done. Sometimes he’d been in a rage when he’d hurt me, but most of the time he’d just been blank, resolute. Like beating me was just another chore he had to get through. Being on the receiving end of that attitude felt a million times worse than the anger. And more dangerous.

“I really don’t,” I told him.

I could tell he wanted to argue, but in the end he just nodded and said, “Fair enough.”

“Why don’t you talk instead? Tell me what’s going on here. What you’re planning.”

He nodded. “To be honest, we’re still working out the growing pains. There are more than two thousand of us on the island, with three princes turned kings in the last few weeks and months. Which is …”

“Difficult for you.”

“You have no idea. Everyone wants to be in charge, to make the final decision, but no one is thinking clearly. So much of what they propose is nonsense.”

“And what do you propose?”

“I’m not sure yet. But whatever it is, it doesn’t involve sacrificing great quantities of my people.”

“Of course not!” I answered, shocked and a little horrified.

“You’d be surprised. At the moment, it feels like you and I are the only two rulers who think that way.”

“Then why are the others here? Why don’t you get rid of them?”

He shrugged in a self-deprecating way I’d never seen from him before. Almost as if he was embarrassed by his decision
and what he was about to say. Which, on further reflection, I suppose he was. “There’s safety in numbers. I may not believe in what they preach, but working with the other selkie kings and merKings can help provide shelter and food and protection for my people that they might not otherwise get.”

“They can also get your people killed. I’m not sure that’s an even payoff.”

He swallowed convulsively as he watched the waves, staring at them like they had all the answers to the really hard questions. I recognized the look, and the sentiment.

“You don’t have to deal with them anymore,” I told him. “I’m here and I’ll back you one hundred percent. Surely, together, we can come up with a way to get our kingdoms back, a way that doesn’t involve war or sacrificing our people to the almighty machine. We can find a way to defeat Tiamat without them.”

He shook his head, bemused. “Looking at you right now, I could almost believe what you’re saying.”

“Believe it.” I grabbed his hand, squeezed tightly. Took comfort as much as gave it, and for the first time since this thing began, I started to feel confident. Like somehow this was all going to turn out okay. Or at least not as badly as I imagined in my nightmares. “I’m not going to spend my life exiled on this island, not when Sabyn has my people at his mercy. And not when Tiamat is out there somewhere, just waiting to cause as much chaos as she possibly can. Haven’t you had enough of living under her shadow, just waiting for her next move? I know I have and I’ve been doing it for only a year. You’ve been doing it—”

“My whole life.”

“Exactly. At some point, enough is enough.”

Kona was nodding, but his eyes were guarded, sad, as they took in the bruises Zarek had lightened but not healed completely, as he’d concentrated on my bigger injuries. “People are going to get hurt.”

It was my turn to make a big deal of the bruises. “People are already getting hurt. Hiding isn’t going to change that. It’s just going to make it worse.”

He nodded. “I know.” Then he stood, pulled me into a hug that somehow felt like more. Warning bells went off inside my head as his lips brushed against my cheek, a little too close to my mouth. I stepped back, smiled to soften the blow of my rejection. I wanted to keep the peace between us, but I didn’t want to lead him on. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone.

“It’s good to have you back, Tempe.” He smiled a little sadly.

“It’s good to be back,” I said, pushing the memories of Mark and my family and La Jolla down deep inside of me where they belonged. Where they couldn’t hurt me. “Now why don’t we head over to those maps and see if we can figure out what to do about Tiamat and her damn army?”

Kona and I worked through the rest of the night, adding to the map that he had just begun when he’d come to get me. It showed the entire Pacific Ocean by political boundary, meaning all of the different territories were outlined, complete with a list of the rightful rulers as well as who we believed were in control of the different territories at this point.

According to Kenji, the selkie king whose territory stretched from Japan to the Philippines, Tiamat herself had taken over his lands. Ceto, one of Tiamat’s most fearsome monsters, had seized control of the mercity of Abalone Shores, which was in the far North Pacific, up near the Bering Strait, deposing the merKing Dimitri in the process. The third and final king on the island with us—the selkie king Vikram—had been run out of his territory by the half-octopus, half-man creature that had come for my dad and me. Its name was Turisas and, next to the Leviathan and Tiamat, it was the most dangerous of the sea monsters. When I mentioned to Kona that I had fought him in La Jolla, his reaction was a mixture of pride and horror. I figured I’d concentrate on the pride and forget all the stories he’d told me about Turisas. I had more than enough trouble sleeping as it was.

Dawn’s crimson glow had already begun streaking across the sky before Kona decided that I knew as much as he did about what was going on. Without the history behind the clans and monsters, of course, which left me feeling at a huge disadvantage, especially when Kenji came stumbling across the rocks to us. I’d met him the night before and he’d seemed nice enough, but there was just something about him that made me nervous. It wasn’t the blue hair or the facial piercings that made him look more like the lead singer of a boy-band than a selkie king, wasn’t even the bright blue tattoos that looked so garish compared to Kona’s black tribal bands, though I admit they didn’t help the overall image either.

It was something about the way he held himself, and the way he looked at me, that freaked me out. It reminded me of the way Sabyn looked right before he hurt me. A little angry, a
little smirky, it left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach and a desperate need to put myself just out of his reach.

Which was ridiculous. I had nothing to fear from him—we were on the same side. And even if we hadn’t been, I knew Kona wouldn’t let him near me if he thought he was any kind of threat.

Still, sitting with him was awkward, and I found myself scooting farther and farther away from him. Which, unfortunately, meant that I was also scooting closer and closer to Kona. At one point he noticed what I was doing and put a comforting, and proprietary, arm around my shoulders. I didn’t want to shrug him off, to make him look weak in front of the other monarch, but I couldn’t relax into his embrace either. Not when I knew I couldn’t lead him on.

Being friends was one thing, but anything else was out of the question.

What’s wrong?
Kona asked, using the private telepathic line between us.

Nothing. I’m just cold
. Which wasn’t exactly a lie. But then his arm tightened around me and I pushed away from him. Stood up.

Whether I wanted to go back to my cavern or not, it was past time for me to excuse myself from this little impromptu gathering before my neuroses turned into full-blown PTSD. Ugh. I’d been in lots of difficult, and painful, situations since becoming mermaid. Who would have thought that a few weeks at Sabyn’s mercy would turn me into a scared, whiny little girl who felt better only when hiding behind a big, strong guy?

Everyone stared at me, and I tried to pretend it didn’t bother
me. But it did, especially Kenji’s stare. I knew Kona noticed my discomfort because he was suddenly giving the other selkie king the flat, blank stare that usually meant trouble.

You okay, Tempest?
he asked, without ever taking his eyes off the other king.

I’m fine
. Then I forced a steadiness into my voice that I was far from feeling. “The all-nighter is catching up to me. I think I’ll take a nap.”

“You can’t go yet,” Kenji protested, gesturing behind me. “You haven’t met Vikram and Dimitri.”

I turned just in time to watch two of the largest men I’d ever seen walk out of the sea. I could tell right away who was who by the sealskin pouch tied around the tallest one’s neck. Long and lean, with mocha-colored skin, close-cropped black hair, and a massive chest tattoo of an impressionistic wave, he was clearly Vikram, the selkie king. Which meant the muscled-up redheaded guy standing next to him was Dimitri. Both seemed to be about twenty, but down here, appearances could be deceiving. Kona looked about eighteen and was actually centuries old. While merpeople didn’t age at nearly that slow a rate, Dimitri could still be a lot older than he looked.

“So, this must be that storm I’ve heard so much about,” Dimitri said as he approached, a huge smile on his face. He had a slight accent, but I couldn’t quite place it. Wondered if it was from a merlanguage instead of a human one.

“Tempest,” Kenji corrected with an eye roll. “Not storm.”

“They’re the same thing, no?” He wrapped me in a huge bear hug that somehow didn’t make me anywhere near as uncomfortable as Kenji’s flat, black stare had.

“Pretty much,” I told him.

“I am Dimitri.” He lowered me back to the sand. “And this sour face is Vikram.”

“Hello, Tempest.” Vikram held his hand out, and when I placed my palm to his, we shook very circumspectly. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

I smiled. “You too.”

“Have you eaten?” Vikram asked.

“Um, no, I haven’t.”

“Perhaps you would be so kind as to attend breakfast with me? I would love the chance to speak with the mermaid who vanquished Tiamat.”

“I think you’ve got me confused with my mother.”

He cocked his head to the side, studied me. “I don’t think so.”

“If I’d actually vanquished her, do you think any of us would be in this situation now?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” The way he said it made it sound like there was more to the story than I knew.

I had just started to ask what he meant when Kona cleared his throat. “I ordered breakfast sent down so we could continue working.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and slowly inched me away from Vikram.

I shot him a
what the hell
look and almost shrugged his arm off from around my shoulder. But something in his face—in his eyes—stopped me, and I allowed him to drag me close. I didn’t know these guys, nor did I understand all the politics at work here. If Kona thought it necessary for us to present a united front, then I would go with it. At least for now.

Kona sat at one of the hand-carved benches pulled close to
the table and kept a firm grip on me so that I had no choice but to do the same. I waited for the others to join us, and when they didn’t, I glanced up to find them all staring at Kona and me—eyes narrowed in calculation.

Neither Vikram nor Kenji looked happy, while Dimitri simply looked speculative. At least until he caught me watching him watch me.

“Breakfast sounds great!” he boomed with a wink and a smile. “We’ve been waiting for you two to get back to discuss the plan.”

“There’s already a plan?” I asked.

“Yes—” Vikram started.

“Not yet,” Kona interrupted. “There are a couple of different ideas going around, but nothing’s been decided on.”

“Because you won’t decide,” Kenji said furiously. “You know there’s only one way to win this thing, but you’re too stubborn to acknowledge it.”

“Wanting to keep our people alive isn’t stubbornness. It’s my top priority and it should be yours.”