Revel (12 page)

But how did I ever imagine him as an angel?
His wasn’t a face you’d see in a Renaissance painting. Unless it was at the bottom, where they depicted hell. Yes, he looked like he’d be down there, mixing it up with the sinners and brawlers.

“You’re the one who saved me,” I said softly. “A First One.”

“My name is Jax,” he answered, swimming closer. “I am of the Aitros clan. Landers call us the First Ones.” His voice was deep and resonant. It was the same voice that had warned me away from the water three nights ago on the moonlit beach.

“Landers?” I finally asked.

“You.” There was a faintly derisive curl of his mouth as he tossed his blunt, square chin in my direction. “Air-bound mortals. Humans.” His gaze swept over me. “I’m surprised to see you in the water so quickly.”

“I’m
not
in the water.” Then, looking down, I realized that I
was
. Water curled around my ankles, and my feet were sunk into the sand.
How did that happen?
I wriggled free and splashed back to the sand.

“You’ve recovered from your accident?” Jax asked. His tone was formal and courteously distant.

“Um.” Unbidden, the memory of his lips against mine came back so clearly, it was almost a physical sensation.

I pressed my lips together, trying to erase the thought as heat flooded my cheeks. “I didn’t have an accident,” I said, fumbling to adjust the right earpiece of my glasses; it seemed to be bent out of shape and—oh,
great
—tangled in my hair. “I was dumped overboard, remember?”

“You came here without permission,” replied Jax. “The
Lander Gunn did not have authority to transport you. Just as Ben Deare did not have authority to bring you.”

“So you decided to sink Sean’s boat?” I retorted. “Very mature. Is that how they do things on Olympus these days?”

Oh, not wise
.

It was as if a storm cloud had come into his eyes, they went so dark, and his voice was the unexpected clap of thunder that makes you jump. “If I
had
decided to sink that frail husk,” he snarled, “it would be another shell on the floor of the sea. That was not my intent. The Glaukos are clumsy creatures.” His voice fell to an irritable grumble. “But they meant you no harm. The creature responsible will be punished.”

“Punished? There’s no need for that. It was just an accident. I’m fine. You … saved me. Thank you.”

Jax frowned. Instead of saying “You’re welcome” or “Don’t mention it,” he looked as if my owing him my life annoyed him. A lot. Maybe he resented having to give a mere mortal mouth-to-mouth. Although from what I could tell, he’d seemed to enjoy it at the time.

“There is something strange about your voice,” he said, as if wanting to change the subject. “You don’t speak like the Landers here.”

I blinked through my glasses. They still didn’t seem quite right; everything looked a little fuzzy. “Probably my accent. I’m from Kansas.”

“Where is this Kansas Island?”

“It’s not an island,” I laughed. “It’s a state.”

He straightened, rising a little from the water. “Every piece of earth is an island. Some are merely bigger than others.”

He didn’t seem accustomed to being laughed at. Or talking to people, for that matter. “I guess that’s true,” I said. “I’m sorry. I really don’t mean to be rude, but can you walk? I mean … do you have a tail?”

In reply he strode out of the water toward me, moving so fast that I backed up in surprise.

Why can’t you learn to keep your mouth shut, Delia?

“You’re fortunate that you risk this impertinence with me rather than one of the elders,” he said. His eyes sparked with blue fire. “They’re not so tolerant of Landers. No. We do
not
have tails.”

Jax had a body. A very human, very male body a little over average height with a trim, muscular build. And I was grateful that part of it was covered with a dark blue garment tied around his hips. A long knife hung from his side. Handle and blade appeared to be fashioned from one gleaming, rippled mass of silver. It was fastened with a piece of leather to his powerfully carved thigh.

“We are descended from Poseidon, who had legs. Two of them,” he added. “Only the children of Triton have tails. Which is very lucky for you. They like land meat. Even such a small portion.”

“Good to know,” I whispered, taking in other details. He had a shimmering green fin protruding from his back—the same segmented, elaborately scaled fin that I had mistaken
for a wing in my loopy condition under the water. But within moments of emerging from the water, the fin flattened and disappeared, leaving only three spiny raised bumps along his upper back.

“Wow.” I felt a little breathless. Where was my inhaler? I couldn’t remember where I’d left it.
Please don’t let me have an asthma attack now
. I took a slow, steady breath. “That’s an amazing trick.”

“On land we look as you do,” said Jax. “In the sea our form changes. It is no trick.”

I nodded. In daylight I saw what the moonlight had hidden. His chest was perfectly molded but crisscrossed with ugly scars that stood out pale against his sun-bronzed skin. I was curious about what could have made such wounds. But I thought it would have been rude to ask him.

But you had no problem asking him if he had a tail, did you?

My mind worked in weird ways sometimes.

From what I could see, only small things kept Jax from looking completely human: his hands and feet had thin webs at the base of the digits. But even these retracted as he stood before me, until they were barely visible. And on his flatly planed abdomen two vertical slits interrupted the muscles on either side of his belly button. They rippled with each breath he took.

Gills. The guy has gills
. Interesting. For some reason I found it hard to tear my eyes away. He seemed full of energy and
strength. It glowed in the rich golden color of his skin and the fierce intelligence of his eyes. It was almost as if I could feel the radiant heat warming me. But his face was somber.

“Do you find me dazzling, Lander?” asked Jax with a contemptuous curl of his narrow mouth.

“No,” I said. “I mean … what?”

“You’re staring.”

“Sorry.” Embarrassed, I looked away and felt a blush color my cheeks. “I just never saw anyone like you before. What
are
you exactly?” That sounded rude. “I mean, what are the Aitros?” I asked. “Where did you come from?”

“We are demigods. Lineage of Poseidon,” he said. “We originated in the Ionian Sea, near an island the humans call Corfu.”

“And how did you ever come to Maine, so far away?”

Jax’s brilliant blue eyes transfixed me. “Once, the children of Poseidon could be found in all the waters of this world. But the time of man came, and as the old gods left us, the demigods dwindled away. Eventually only a few strongholds remained where the waters retained the power of our ancestors.” He shrugged. “Our powers become diminished the farther we swim from this island. A source of the old power rests inside it.”

“The Archelon,” I murmured.

“Yes,” said Jax, leveling a sharp gaze on me. “What do you know of this?”

“Ben Deare told me some of the stories about the island.”

Jax nodded. “To humans they are only stories. Even to some of my people, the old gods have become distant memories. Stories.”

But obviously the young man standing before me was all too real. He looked like a descendant of Poseidon, born of something ancient and powerful. But in a way he was trapped here too.

“What powers?” I asked.

Jax shrugged. “Compared to Landers we are stronger and faster. We live longer but are not immortal. We have some abilities in the water that you might see as supernatural.”

He held a hand over the water and murmured something under his breath. Immediately the water beneath his hand began to churn and a thick fog rose from the surface to drift in delicate swirls around his fingers. He waved it away with a careless gesture.

“You create the mist that surrounds the island. To keep outsiders away.”

He nodded. “And if they become too persistent, we sometimes must resort to other means.” He cupped one hand and swept it through the water. A ripple coursed away, against the tide, traveling in the direction of the open sea. As I watched, the ripple rose higher, becoming a racing, glassy slope. Finally it crested, a dark wall of water twenty feet high. It slammed down with the sound of a thunderclap, creating a momentary craterlike depression in the sea before dispersing.

I stared as the tumult of roiling, bubbling water subsided. “You wreck ships,” I whispered.

“Not nearly as many as we used to,” replied Jax, his voice almost regretful. “The island has a reputation for treacherous seas and a deadly reef. People know to stay away. Most people,” he added, looking at me. There was a spark of challenging amusement in the slight lift of his eyebrow and the curve of his mouth.

“You don’t think very much of people, do you?”

Jax watched me. “They serve their purpose. As long as they know their place.”

Our
place
? His condescending tone put my back up.

“If we’re so far beneath you, why are you talking to me?”

He folded his arms across his chest. Once again my eyes were drawn to the network of scars that disfigured the smooth, broad muscles.

“I do what pleases me,” he said slowly. “When it pleases me.”

If I hadn’t seen him underwater, I might have laughed at the proud angle of his shoulders, the arrogant lift of his chin as he spoke. But I
had
seen him. Up close and really personal. And I might have drowned if he hadn’t intervened.

“Why did you tell me to stay out of the water? That was you, wasn’t it?”

Jax nodded brusquely. “Landers have their own beach, your people should have told you. And why do you question the orders of a First One?”

“Orders? I thought it was just
advice
.”

“It was for your safety,” Jax replied. “Something has changed—there are creatures from the northern depths here.
They shouldn’t be in these waters; it’s as if something has called them.” He looked at me curiously.

“Oh?” I said. I was thinking about something else entirely.

Why did you kiss me?

I know I didn’t imagine that kiss. I’d never been kissed like that in my life. But obviously it didn’t make a big impression on Jax. And if he wasn’t going to mention it, then I certainly wasn’t either.

“Why can’t I leave the island?” I asked instead.

Jax scowled. “I’m not accustomed to a Lander speaking to me so freely. Or haranguing me with questions. I wouldn’t recommend that you speak so to the others; you won’t live long if you do.”

“You’re the only First One that I’ve seen,” I said truthfully. “Answer my question, please. What makes you think you can keep me here if I don’t want to stay? I’m sure there must be a way for me to leave.”

Jax strode back to the water, scooped one hand in and lifted it high. Water coursed through his fingers and down his gleaming, muscular arm. “This,” he said. “Water surrounds you, and it’s our domain, not yours. You will stay as long as the Council deems it right for you to stay.”

“Maybe I could talk to this Council.”

“That would not be pleasant for you, believe me,” he called over his shoulder, wading deeper into the sea. “And they’re occupied with more important matters right now. The clan is gathering for Revel.”

“None of this is fair,” I shouted. “I didn’t agree to any of this!”

“There is only one thing you need learn,” Jax said, turning to face me once more. “First Ones rule. Landers obey.” He slid into the water on his back.

He was going to disappear again. I should have been relieved, and yet I didn’t want him to go.

“One more thing, Lander,” he called to me as he glided away. “Tell your people there is a dead man over there on the rocks.”

I stood staring at the water and unable to move for a few seconds. Jax was gone. Had he really just said what I thought he had? Slowly, as if dragged by some invisible rope, I walked farther down the beach, back to the outcropping of black rock.

A tangle of cloth was caught in a crevice. The loose end washed back and forth in the turbulence. I went closer, my heart beating so hard and slow inside my chest that I thought I could hear it over the roar of the sea.

It was only when I stood right over the spot that I could make out a blue shirt and a pair of pants. But it wasn’t just clothes. A man’s body, gray and bloated, lay wedged in the rocks. He stared up blindly, his mouth open and brimming with seawater.

His eyes were gone.

I gasped and looked away—but not before the image of those two bloody, open sockets seared itself into my brain.

Leaping from the rocks, I landed hard on the sand, my palms and knees pressing into the hard wet grit. I jumped up and ran.

“Help!” I yelled as I raced down the beach, but my voice was swallowed up by the wind and the crash of water. And soon, with my running and panic, my breath was reduced to hoarse cries.

I stopped running and tried to calm my breathing before I started a full-blown asthma attack. That wasn’t going to do any good. Raising an alarm wouldn’t help the poor man on the rocks anyway. He was dead.