Tempest Revealed (6 page)

“What if she doesn’t wear pajamas?” Scooter demanded.

“Well, that’s even more incentive for us to drag her out of bed,” Logan told him.

Mark shook his head, but he was laughing as hard as I was when he called, “Just for the record, Tempest sleeps in flannels!”

“Bummer.” Scooter winked at me before climbing into the front passenger seat of Bach’s Blazer.

Mark and I watched them go before climbing into his car. “I really missed them,” I told him as we headed toward home.

“The feeling is mutual.” He reached over and brushed a hand down my jaw. “Sorry for keeping you out so late. I know you’re tired.”

“It was great. I had an awesome time.”

“So did I.” He paused. “They aren’t the only ones who missed you, you know.”

My stomach tightened—not because he’d missed me, but because I had yet to tell Mark how long it was going to be before I could see him again. With Hailana at death’s door, things were getting critical in Coral Straits. There was a tension in the streets that hadn’t been there before the attack that had injured her, a new sense of being unsettled. I needed to be there when she died, and for a while afterward—just to keep things stable
and prove that the mercity still had strong leadership. Which meant I had no idea when I was next going to be able to swim the huge distance to La Jolla. I refused to acknowledge the fact that I might never make it back.

“Tempest?” Mark prompted. “What’s wrong?”

More things than I could name. My conversation with Logan weighed heavily on my mind, as did the fact that I didn’t trust Sabrina. I was worried about losing what I had with Mark and my friends and family, and absolutely terrified of taking on the role of sovereign of Coral Straits. And that didn’t even begin to touch how I felt about facing Kona and the other sea clan leaders as the new merQueen of the most powerful merclan in the Pacific.

I was going to make mistakes as merQueen—I was smart enough to know that much. But how big the mistakes and how many? And would the clan suffer for them? Would the entire Pacific? With Tiamat wounded but sure to resurface and her grandnephew and number-one minion, Sabyn, still on the loose, this was the worst possible time for a shift in leadership. Though I didn’t get along with Hailana and often thought she was a cold, merciless bitch, I still wasn’t ready for her to die. Not if it meant I had to take her place. And definitely not if it meant I had to lose every trace of humanity I had. Like Hailana had. Like my mother had.

Mark reached over and flipped on the heat, and for the first time it registered that I was freezing, my teeth all but chattering in the silence of the car.

“Thanks.” His hand was still resting on my cheek, so I turned my head and brushed a kiss over his palm. “I don’t deserve you.”

“I don’t think you know what you deserve, Tempest.” The words sounded harsh in the cozy interior of the car, like they were ripped from him. I didn’t comment on it, though. How could I when I so often felt the same way about him? God knew he deserved more than being a part-time boyfriend to a girl who couldn’t guarantee anything much beyond the next sunrise.

Neither of us spoke again until we were parked in my driveway. The light in the living room was still on, left burning for me by my father. Some of the chill deep inside me melted away at the sight of it. For too long, the light had been out, my dad assuming that, like my mother before me, I had taken to the sea never to return. Now, every time I came home—from a date with Mark or an extended trip into the depths of the ocean—and saw that light burning, I felt like someone believed in me and what I was doing. Someone believed I could do everything, be everything I needed to be, even when I was riddled with doubt.

“Do you want to come in?” I asked, reaching for the door handle.

He stopped me with a hand on my arm. “No, I, umm …” He shoved a hand through his hair and suddenly he was looking everywhere but at me, which so wasn’t like him.

“You okay, Mark?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” But he still hadn’t made eye contact.

“You sure?”

“Yes.” He turned abruptly, climbed out of the car. “Do you, uh, want to go for a walk on the beach or something?”

I stared at him, bewildered. Was he serious? He’d rather
walk on the freezing beach than go inside and hook up? It didn’t make any sense.

“No, that’s stupid, right?” He shoved a hand through his hair. “It’s cold and you’re already freezing.”

“No, it’s fine. We can walk on the beach if you want.”

My mind was whirling, all kinds of weird and unwanted thoughts running through it. Considerations, worries that I hadn’t been aware I had until this moment. The night had gone well, or at least I thought it had, but maybe Mark hadn’t been as impressed.

I racked my brain, trying to figure out if I’d done something to upset him. He’d seemed amused at the game, had taken Logan’s and Scooter’s teasing in stride. He’d even lied for me in the pizza parlor, telling Scooter that he had seen pictures of me surfing the North Shore.

Maybe that was it. Mark hated lying. In all the years I’d known him, the closest I’d ever heard him come to telling an untruth—before tonight—was when he’d told me he was interested in Chelsea the cheerleader in an effort to save face when I was about to dump him for Kona. It’s why I had believed him unquestioningly, even though cheerleaders weren’t really Mark’s type. He’d spent his life with parents who were experts at lying—to him, to each other, to themselves—and hated every second of it. He’d told me once that he wouldn’t accept that kind of life for himself.

And yet here I was forcing him into exactly that kind of life, expecting him to lie for me whenever things got sticky. No wonder he was acting so strangely.

By now I was walking so fast I was practically running,
desperate to escape my thoughts. Mark kept pace with me easily, but he grabbed my arm right before we reached the sand. Pulled me to a stop. “Hey, where’s the fire?”

I shook my head, not trusting myself to answer. He didn’t speak either, choosing to wait me out instead. The downside of having a boyfriend who knew me this well—I hate tense silences, will always try to fill them.

“Just tell me. If you want me to apologize, I will. I never wanted—”

“Apologize? For what?” He shook his head, looking very much like I felt. Confused and anxious and maybe even a little desperate. “I just—I wanted—” He stopped himself, took a deep breath. “I got you a present.”

The words were so unexpected that it took me a long while to process them. Too long, judging by the look on Mark’s face as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small box with a silver ribbon on top.

“A present,” I finally repeated dumbly.

“Yeah.” He held the box out to me. “Originally it was going to be for your birthday, but I don’t know. It just feels right to give it to you tonight.”

My hand trembled as I reached out to take the gift from him. “That wasn’t—I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Yeah, that’s fairly obvious.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Not yet, when relief was coursing through me, making my knees weak and my stomach jumpy. I grabbed on to Mark’s arm with my free hand, let his warmth steady me.

“Well, are you going to open it?” Mark asked. I could see
his face in the hazy yellow glow of the streetlight, could tell that he was smiling. But it was a crooked half smile at best, the dimples that signified true happiness or amusement nowhere in evidence. Obviously, in jumping to conclusions, I’d screwed this up for him too.

“Yes. Of course.” I pulled gently at the ribbon, watched as the bow unraveled. Then lifted the lid and pulled out a long silver chain with thin interlocking loops. Attached to three of the loops were intricate glass beads in varying shapes and shades of purple.

“If you don’t like it, I can take it back. Get you something else.”

“Are you kidding? It’s beautiful,” I told him, lifting the beads up to get a closer look at them. The necklace was long—really long—and would probably be a hindrance in the water, but it was still a lovely gift. One I would cherish. “Will you put it on me?”

“What, now?” He looked confused.

“Of course. I want to wear it.” I turned my back to him, lifted my ponytail out of the way.

Mark started to laugh. “It’s a belly chain, Tempest, not a necklace.”

“Oh. Right.” I felt my cheeks flame.

“It’s made of platinum, so you can wear it in the ocean. I thought a necklace would just get in the way when you were swimming, and I know you hate wearing things around your wrists.” He cleared his throat. “An anklet was out of the question for obvious reasons, so I decided a belly chain would probably be the best bet.”

“It was. I mean, it is. It’s perfect.”

He pulled me against him, my back to his chest, while his fingers burrowed under my sweater and gently stroked my waist. “Still want me to put it on you?” he whispered in my ear.

“Y-yes.” My breath hitched at all the crazy things his touch was letting loose inside me.

“Good.” His fingers glided lower, dipping inside the low-rise waistband of my jeans to trace the top edge of my hipsters.

It felt good, really good, and I gasped a little. He stopped right away, his warm, callused fingers resting just below my navel. “Too much?”

Was it? I could barely think past the pounding of my heart. “No.” But my voice sounded shaky even to my own ears.

Mark exhaled then, a long, low breath that tickled my ear and only ratcheted up the tension inside of me. I squirmed against him, wanting closer, wanting more, but he gentled me with soft kisses across my jaw and up to my temple. Then he just stood there for long minutes, arms around my waist, forehead resting against the crown of my head. Nothing had ever felt so right. Even the cold slap of the wind didn’t bother me while I was in his arms.

Eventually he moved, fumbling the chain out of my hands and draping it around my waist. It fit snugly but not too tightly, and while the jeans kept it from settling into place, I knew the second I got undressed it would find the perfect spot, right above my hips. Right where my torso ended and my tail began.

I couldn’t resist tracing the chain, any more than I could stop myself from playing with the beads. They were so beautiful, so delicate yet strong, that I couldn’t wait to get a better
look at them in the light. Even in the dark they were more intricate than any I had ever seen before.

“Where did you get the glass beads?” I asked him, thinking I might buy one for Mahina, my closest mermaid friend.

“Do you like them?”

“Of course. They’re gorgeous.”

“I’m glad. It took me a while, but I finally found a glass-blower in Coronado who was willing to do what I wanted.”

“You designed them?”

“I did.”

“So all that stuff about returning it if I didn’t like it—”

“Was a load of bull. I would have been crushed if you hadn’t wanted it.” His fingers moved to the first bead on the chain, which currently rested just to the right of my left hipbone. “This one is made of sand from that beach in Del Mar.”

“Where you took me on our first date.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I tried desperately to blink them back. I didn’t want to ruin this moment by crying, even if it was from happiness.

He moved on to the second bead. “This one is from Trestles, near San Onofre, where—”

“You kissed me for the first time.”

He nodded, picking up the third bead and rolling it between his fingers. “And this one … This one is from right out there.” He tilted his chin toward the beach in front of us. “That way, no matter where you go, you’ll always have a tiny piece of land with you. A tiny piece of home.”

“And you. I’ll always have you with me.”

I felt his grin against my hair. “That was the plan.”

I couldn’t help it. I started blubbering like a baby.

“Tempest?” Alarmed, Mark whipped me around to face him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I could barely choke out the word. “It’s just, it’s a really good plan.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because I love you. I really, really love you.”

And just that easily, the air seemed to go out of him. He sagged against me, and it was my turn to put my arms around him, my turn to hold him up. As I did, I realized he was trembling more violently than I ever had. “Mark?”

“I really love you too.”

And then he kissed me and it was as endless as the ocean.

As extravagant as the star-painted sky.

As perfect as that first kiss all those months and years ago.

I never wanted to let him go.

Chapter 5

We stayed on the beach until my fingers and toes felt half frozen and my teeth were chattering—another side benefit of being a mermaid out of water. Mark had tried to get me to go in earlier, but it felt so good—so right—to be with him, that I never wanted this night to end. But eventually the cold grew to be too much, and though I might have braved it for a few more minutes with him, Mark would have none of it.

“You’re going to freeze to death,” he told me, ignoring my protests as he moved me up the beach.

“Not if we went in the water.”

“No, then I’d be the one to freeze to death.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Besides, we’re supposed to be back here in four hours.”

“I don’t want to leave you.” Even as I said the words I knew I was talking about much more than this moment.

Mark understood too, because his voice turned fierce. “Then don’t. Stay. There’s no law that says you have to go. That you have to be mermaid.”

He was right; there wasn’t. But there were a lot of people, a lot of creatures, depending on me, and I couldn’t just walk away from them. Not now, when their fate hung so precariously in the balance. Not when leaving meant I handed them over to Tiamat on a silver platter.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“It should. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

I didn’t answer him. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I didn’t want to get into it now and ruin this wonderful night. I knew my duty, was fully prepared to do what had to be done. But that didn’t mean I had to let it intrude now, not when I knew it would cause a fight between Mark and me.