Tempest Unleashed

I didn’t know what I was doing there.

Didn’t know what I hoped to accomplish.

Didn’t know, even, how I’d found myself in these cold, dark waters when I was supposed to be thousands of miles away, in the heart of the Pacific Ocean.

But the fact that I shouldn’t have been there didn’t mean I didn’t want to be. Because I did.

I wanted to know.

To see.

To feel what I once had—even temporarily.

The need to reassure myself—of their safety and happiness—was a throbbing wound inside of me, one that grew larger with every day that passed. I left here eight months ago because I had to. Because I couldn’t not leave.

Choosing the sea had been as necessary to me then as the beating of my heart. It still was. But in doing so, I had left a lot behind.

Too much, maybe, including huge chunks of that still-beating heart.

I couldn’t resist the urge one second longer. With a few, swift kicks of my tail, I lifted my arms above my head and began to swim straight up. Within moments, I’d broken through to the surface. And was completely disappointed by what I found.

The sky above me was dark and endless, with stars dotting the landscape of the night like an overabundance of fireflies. When I’d been human, this had been my favorite kind of sky—and my favorite time to walk along the sand.

But now it meant the beach was completely deserted, the only movement that of the waves crashing against the shore under the tall, yellow lights lining the adjacent street. I looked as far as I could in both directions, but it was so dark that I had to struggle to see, even with my enhanced vision. I was hoping for a glimpse of something familiar—someone familiar—but there was nothing. Just the endless cycle of the ocean.

I had come all this way for nothing. The thought seethed inside me like an open wound, even as I told myself I needed to return to Coral Straits, the mercity I now lived in. The longer I floated here, the more I risked being discovered—by some lonely soul wandering the beach, by a passing boat, by another creature of the sea. For a second, Tiamat’s face flashed in front of my eyes and I whirled around, half-expecting to find the sea witch or one of her crazy henchmen behind me. God knew they’d been plaguing me for months.

But there was no one, nothing save the cold lap of the water against my shoulders. Just like always.

Knowing it was the wrong thing to do, but needing even this most superficial of contacts so badly that should-nots didn’t matter to me, I swam a little closer to land. I couldn’t help myself. It had been so long since I’d been here, so long since I’d seen them. Months and months—two-thirds of a year in human time—and my soul cried out for them like they held its very salvation in their too-fragile, human hands.

As I moved ever closer, my gaze fell unerringly on the large glassed-in house at the end of the block. My father’s house. My house—or at least, it used to be. It was as beautiful as I remembered, though as different from the underwater castle where I now lived as I was from the girl who had dived into the ocean all those months ago.

The house was dark, the windows sheets of glass that reflected the omnipresent ocean, as everyone inside was still asleep. The lamp my father had left burning the first time I went under was now extinguished. The lack of that light told me louder than words ever could that he had given up on my ever returning.

The thought was an all-encompassing blow, and I reeled under it like a boxer at the mercy of a too-strong opponent. Even after all this time, even after all the choices I had made and the things I had done, my feelings for my family were too strong to be ignored.

My father.

My pain-in-the-butt brother, Rio.

And Moku, sweet Moku, the brother I had all but raised in my mother’s absence. I still saw the blinding sweetness of his smile every time I closed my eyes.

But I needed to see him—see them—for real.

Needed to reassure myself that they were all right.

Needed to prove to myself that I had made the right decision choosing Kona and embracing my mother’s clan—and purpose—so completely. No matter that being mermaid was almost nothing like I had expected it to be.

That reassurance wouldn’t come, as long as I was out here and they were in there.

So again, I flirted with danger. Again, I swam just a little nearer. A few yards, then ten, twenty, thirty. And willed Moku to wake up with each inch that I covered.

I didn’t want him out here on the beach—it was dangerous, a lesson I had learned all too well last winter. But it would be nice if he turned the light on in his room, wandered to the window. Let me get just a peek at his skinny shoulders and crazy hair.

I smiled as I wondered if the nanny my father hired had managed to tame the crazy curls. God knew, I had given up on doing anything with them long before I’d ever gone under.

For long minutes I floated there, in the choppy waters off the shore of La Jolla, but Moku didn’t stir. No lights came on in my house, no slight figure looked out to sea. I really had come all this way for nothing.

Which is how it should be, I reminded myself viciously as I dove beneath the ocean, trying open myself up to the salt water, to the pain of that first, fiery gulp, but it hadn’t gotten easier, even after all these months. The water filled my lungs and the fear that I was drowning swamped me—again—before my lungs stopped working and the small gills behind my ears finally kicked in.

When was I going to get used to this mermaid thing?

When was my body going to give up its painful fight to be human and embrace what it had become? Kona kept telling me to relax, that it would get easier, but it hadn’t happened so far. Instead, everything kept getting harder and more complicated, until the simple act of breathing underwater burned like hell itself.

I needed to let go. The merQueen had pointed that out to me the other day, had told me that my body was fighting the change so much harder now because of the ties with the land I refused to completely relinquish.

And on this point, I knew she was right. I could feel it in every part of myself as I stretched out on the ocean floor that was nowhere near as far down as it should have been. In my desire to see my family I had wandered into much too shallow water.

But how was I supposed to just relinquish everything I had been for so many years? When I’d grabbed onto Kona all those months ago—grabbed onto my feelings for him and the images he painted of the life we could lead—I had thought I was ready. I’d been certain that, despite all the protests that had come before, what I found below would more than make up for the loss of my friends and family.

And it did, I told myself sternly. It really did. I had Kona and the freedom of the entire ocean. I had friends and responsibilities and more magic than I had ever dreamed possible. I had my mother’s clan. Wanting anything else was silly, selfish. Not to mention dangerous, when my mother’s people needed me so much.

I was supposed to save them, supposed to protect them from the most evil sea witch who had ever lived. Even supposed to one day become their queen in my mother’s stead. Getting cold feet now wasn’t an option.

So what if things were different, harder, than I had anticipated? So what if being mermaid was not everything that I’d expected it to be? My doubts didn’t matter. I was exactly where I had to be.

My mother had done it for years. Had relinquished her life in the sea to be human. If she could do it, surely I could do the reverse.

So what if it hurt to be this close to what had once been my life? I could fix that pain easily enough—by not coming back. When I was deep under, my previous life felt like a dream, nothing more. A bittersweet dream, absolutely, but a nebulous, unsubstantial one that it was easy to ignore. It was only being here that made it all tangible again.

The thought had me arrowing through the water like a bullet from a gun. I needed to get away. The pain of no longer belonging was crushing in on me from every side and I couldn’t take it any longer.

And yet, even with the need for escape foremost in my mind, I couldn’t force myself to dive deep without one more look. One more memory to hold tight inside of me when I was miles and myths away from here.

I shot to the surface one more time, and as I did, I realized my mistake. My sense of direction had failed me again and I had swum toward the shore instead of away from it.

Damn.

The pull was so much harder to resist when I was this close. It was so much easier to forget what I was and remember what I could be.

I closed my eyes, determined to tamp down on the longing. Kept them closed for as long as I could stand it and when I opened them again, I realized more time had passed than I originally suspected. The first rumblings of dawn were beginning to streak their way across the Southern California sky, painting it in shades of violet and pink and yellow.

I could see the sand now, see the rocks and washed up seaweed that lined the beach. I wanted to feel the rough graininess of the sand between my fingers, wanted to burrow in like I had when I was a child and my father buried me up to my neck in the warm, powerful weight of the stuff.

I was almost there now, was so close that my toes brushed against the ocean’s floor even with my head above water. The cold squickiness of the sand squished between my toes as the waves crashed against my shoulders, and it was all I could do to keep my balance against the raging of the early morning ocean. In that moment, as I dug my feet into the ground in an attempt to keep my balance, I figured out what I had done.

For the first time ever, I had changed without conscious thought. For the first time ever, my tail had effortlessly become legs again. Despite all of the powers my mother had handed down to me, shifting had never come easy. Moving between human and mermaid form usually took long, agonizing minutes.

Kona told me it was normal, as did my queen and many, many others. They assured me that, with time and practice, it would get easier—and faster. What would they say now? I wondered as I stumbled through the last bit of the shallows toward shore. Would they be proud of my instantaneous change, or alarmed by it?

I didn’t know, and as voices rang through the early morning air, I didn’t care.

Because they had come.

Yanking my bikini bottoms out of the small, waterproof backpack I carried, I shimmied into them even as I strained to get a good look down the beach.

At first I couldn’t see anyone, could only hear them. A laugh, a shout, the excited murmur of people about to do what they loved. But I knew those voices, those laughs. They belonged to—Scooter strolled across the sand, his beloved surfboard under his arm and his long, disheveled hair blowing in the soft wind.

Tony came next, his dark skin shimmering in the early morning sunlight.

Then Bach and Logan, my best buds from my former life. God, they looked good. It took every ounce of concentration I had not to run to them, to hug them. Logan was grinning hugely and I felt my own lips curve in answer, though I didn’t know the punchline.

Something strange happened then. A low-grade energy whipped through me, one I normally only felt when I was underwater. I began to glow, heat pulsing through me with each breath I took. My legs trembled, my heart raced, and panic shot through me. Had Tiamat followed me after all? Had I somehow endangered my friends by coming here? But I’d been so careful …

I glanced around wildly, freaking out at my own stupidity. There was no sign of the sea witch, but she was sneaky. She had tricked me before. Maybe she—

And that’s when I saw him. A little late, a little rumpled, he was bringing up the rear and closing fast the gap between him and the others.

Mark.

The mild hum inside of me became a maelstrom in an instant, my power rising up, ripping through me until it was all I could do not to rend the sky with lightning. As it was, the wind picked up and I watched the guys glance at the sky to see if they’d somehow missed an early-morning storm watch.

If only they knew.

I shuddered as I fought to rein in the energy, to hold onto my emotions. How could this be happening? I wondered frantically. How could one look at him stir me up this much? I’d put Mark out of my mind for all these long months, had refused to dwell on what we’d had. Or, more precisely, what I’d thrown away. But now he was here, right in front of me, and I could barely catch my breath. All my training, all my efforts at control these last, long months, dropped away like they were nothing and I strained for a better look, even knowing just how dangerous the game I was playing could become.

It didn’t matter. In those moments, nothing did but seeing him.

The board in his hands was new—and sweet—but everything else about Mark was exactly as I remembered.

Same wild blond hair.

Same warm brown eyes.

Same strong jaw and broad, well-muscled chest beneath his favorite electric green wetsuit.

Same wicked grin.

I melted at the sight of it, was more than a little surprised I didn’t turn into a puddle and mix right into the ocean that had taken so much from me. And given me so much, I reminded myself. The sea had given me everything these last months—as had Kona. But never had it been so hard to remember all this as it was in these moments, when my vision and my heart and my very soul were filled with Mark.

Just Mark.

I took a deep breath and could almost smell the sweet, musky scent of him. I longed for it, as I longed for the feel of his arms around me.

Would it ever go away? I asked myself bitterly. Would these feelings I had for him ever disappear completely? Or was I stuck with them forever? Mark had been such a big factor in my life for so long that there was a part of me—even after all this time—that felt empty without him. Incomplete. Like a surfer without a board, an ocean without a shore.

Without making a conscious decision to do it, I moved farther up the beach. Not so close that I could hear what they were saying but close enough that I could get a good look at Mark’s gorgeous face.

Like the rest of him, it was exactly as I remembered.

God, I’ve missed him. The thought I had held at bay, that I had refused to acknowledge for far too long, came crashing down on me like a tsunami. I missed him so much that I ached with it, glowed with it.

Missed him so much that I had embarked on this crazy, reckless trip just to see him.

Oh, I had told myself it was to visit my family. To feel the land. To remember who I used to be. But here, now, looking at Mark, I knew that I had lied to myself. I had come to see him, too.

How stupid could I get? How ridiculous? How wrong?

I turned, ran back into the water, no longer able to look at the boy I’d once loved. I’d made my choice, after all. Long before Mark and I had officially broken up, long before I had returned to the ocean to carry on my mother’s duty, I had chosen Kona. Beautiful, wonderful Kona, whose eyes were so deep and silvery that I could drown in them. Whose smile wasn’t wicked but sweet, whose scent wasn’t dark and musky but clean and fresh like a summer sea.

And Mark had made his choice as well—Chelsea, a cheerleader, for God’s sake—as different from me as he could have possibly gotten. No matter what I had told him, no matter what I had told myself, it had been a slap in the face.

As I swam away from shore, I held on to that thought, and the emotions it brought back, in an attempt to ground myself. To focus. I didn’t belong here, didn’t belong with Mark any more than he belonged out at sea with me. I needed to remember that.

But as I scanned the beach, memorizing the tableau they all made standing there, Mark turned … and looked straight at me.

Our eyes locked—across the wide swath of sand, across the endless yards of ocean—and I saw his beloved chocolate brown ones widen in shock. For long seconds, he didn’t move and neither did I. And then he was tossing his surfboard on the ground and running straight into the water.

Straight to me.

I froze for one long second, then dove deep as panic swamped me. Swim, my brain screamed at me. Get away from here! Get away from him. It’s too dangerous! Swim, swim, swim!

I started to put as much distance between me and the beach as I could in as fast a time as possible. But I hadn’t gone very far before I realized, with utter certainty, that self-preservation wasn’t what I wanted.

Maintaining the status quo wasn’t what I wanted.

I didn’t want to go anywhere. Not yet. Instead, I wanted to talk to Mark, to hear his surf-and-sand roughened voice as he demanded to know where the hell I had been for all these months.

Of course, that could just be wishful thinking. Maybe he’d forgotten what we’d been to each other as I had so desperately tried to forget him.

Suddenly, I knew I couldn’t go any farther until I was certain. I stopped swimming, turned around. I didn’t go back—I wasn’t that stupid—but I wanted to know what Mark would do. Would he write off his sighting of me to his imagination? Or would he stand in the ocean and call my name, sure that his eyes hadn’t been deceiving him?

I hoped it was the latter, even as I told myself I was being selfish, petty. I should be happy that he’d moved on with his life, with Chelsea. I had moved on with Kona. But nothing I told myself just then mattered—in those few minutes, all I cared about was whether Mark missed me anywhere near as much as I missed him.

“Tempest!” The wind whipped my name straight to me in Mark’s snarly voice. “Tempest, damn it, I know you’re out here!”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My heart had nearly stopped at the first sound of his voice. Instead, I stayed where I was, immersed in the ocean up to my chin, and watched as Mark’s powerful body waded through the water. He was thigh-deep, waist-deep, chest-deep and still he yelled for me.

It made me feel awful, made me feel wonderful, confused me as nothing had since I’d made the decision to be mermaid. I yearned to go to him, everything in my body straining to answer his call. My skin aching for just one touch of his fingers. I had even swum forward a few yards before reality came crashing down on me.
It was time to go.

I took one last look at Mark, told myself it would be my last. I would go back where I belonged and I would never, ever give in to the need to come to this cherished stretch of beach again.

But as I was watching him, memorizing him, Mark dove deep into the water. He was looking for me, as determined to find me today as he had been eight months ago when I’d nearly drowned during a routine early morning surf. Back when this whole alternate life of mine was just beginning.

I watched the surface anxiously, waiting for him to come back up. One minute passed as I counted numbers in my head, then two minutes as I struggled to reassure myself he was okay. Mark was a terrific swimmer, could hold his breath for a long time underwater. Not as long as I used to be able to, but then he was human and I never had been. Not really. Not completely.

My internal count had reached one hundred and fifty-seven before I saw Mark bob back to the surface. I was too far away to see him clearly, but the bright green of his wetsuit stood out against the opalescent azure of the waves. I knew he was sucking in air, gulp after gulp, and my lungs ached in sympathy.
I waited for him to catch his breath and head back to shore and the board he had so carelessly tossed aside. Instead, he disappeared beneath the water yet again.

And again, I began to count and wait and worry.

Every second dragged. One hundred one, one hundred two, one hundred three. There he was, his head and shoulders popping powerfully above the surface. He was closer to me now, so close that I imagined I could see his chest rising and falling.

I started to back up. To submerge myself, to flee. But I watched as he went under again and accepted that I wasn’t going anywhere. I had caused this mess and I had to see it through. Especially since it was Mark who had seen me, Mark who was out here looking for me.

He was the most stubborn person I had ever met and since it was obvious he hadn’t forgotten me, I knew if I just disappeared, he would keep looking until he was completely exhausted. Already, he had swum a good distance from shore. Who knew how much farther he would swim before he finally figured out it was hopeless? And who knew if he’d have enough energy to make it back to land?

I ducked under the water, started to swim toward where I had last seen him. Ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven. He should be heading up for air soon. When I got to one hundred nine, I propelled myself to the surface with a few powerful kicks of my legs.

He wasn’t up yet. I dove back under, swam a little more. Came up again. Still no Mark.

I started to panic. Was he in trouble? Was he caught in the undertow? Was he drowning because of me? I looked back at shore, saw that the guys had all jumped in after Mark. They were still pretty far back, but I knew they were good swimmers. I didn’t have much time.

Going deep one last time, I searched the water around me for Mark’s wet suit. I didn’t see it, didn’t see him. Oh my God, he was drowning, he was—

A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind in a clasp so tight it was almost painful. Instinctively I started to fight, images of Tiamat welling up in my head. She’d found me—or one of her followers had. They would drag me below and Mark would drown out here.

A different energy started to build in me, more powerful, less emotional. I felt it humming in my veins, and I concentrated on gathering it. Stoking it. There was no way I was going down without a fight.

“Tempest!” The word was low and growly and so close to my ear that I couldn’t mistake it for anything but what it was.

I whirled around. “Mark!”

“What are you—”

I threw myself at him, nearly took him under as I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed as tightly as I could. And then he was hugging me back, his firm, hard body pressed against me from shoulder to hip, while our legs kicked again and again to keep us from going under.

He pulled away. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for months—”

My voice froze in my throat. What was I supposed to say? What could I say after all this time?

“Damn it, Tempest!” he snarled. “Answer me.”

I opened my mouth, my mind racing for a response. An excuse. Anything. But before I could do more than take a breath, his lips were on mine and any hope I had of thinking dissolved like so much sea foam.