Tempest Rising (22 page)

“It’s dark under the sea, so after we’ve been in the water for a while we give off light, so we can see each other.”

“So, you glow.”

He winced. “That isn’t exactly how I would describe it. More like a phosphorescent reaction to—”

“You glow.”

“All right. Yes. We glow. But don’t get too cocky—you look different too.”

“Yeah, like a drowned rat.”

“More like a flower about to open.” He paused. “I’m sorry. That was totally lame.”

“No. It was …” I burst out laughing. “Yeah, pretty lame.” But sweet too, especially coming from a guy like Kona. I’d been around him long enough to know he didn’t just say things like that—ever. Plus, the faint blush on his cheeks was kind of endearing.

“So, what’s a Lusca?” I asked, searching for a way to change the subject.

“That is.” He nodded to the tapestry. “He’s one of Tiamat’s enforcers. A giant octopus-type creature that lives underground. He comes out every once in a while, gorges himself on our blood and causes as much trouble as he can, then heads back underground until she needs him again.”

Tiamat. There was that name again. “She needs enforcers?” After what she’d done to us on the beach, I had trouble believing that she needed help with anything.

“I wouldn’t say she
needs
them so much as she
wants
them. They make her job easier.”

I studied the creature with distaste, even more disgusted by it now that I knew it lived off human—or semihuman—blood. “I’m still not clear on how a giant, vampiric octopus could make anyone’s life easier.”

“That’s because you don’t know enough about Tiamat.”

“That’s true. I don’t.” I gave him a pointed look. “Is that ever going to change?”

“Absolutely. But—” He turned serious. “Are you sure, Tempest? I didn’t tell you before, because once you know …”

At his words, butterflies trembled inside me but I tried to laugh them off. “What? Is this one of those if-you-tell-me-you’ll-have-to-kill-me things?”

He looked startled for a second, then laughed. “Are you always so dramatic?”

“Actually, no. But swimming all night after being confronted by an evil sea witch brings out my inner drama queen. Besides, you can’t diss
Top Gun
like that.”

“
Top Gun
?” He looked even more confused.

“Yeah, you know. Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis. Fast airplanes. San Diego?” He shook his head and I pretended to be dismayed. “How could you
not
know that movie? It’s where the whole tell me/kill me line originated.”

“Oh. Right. I must have missed that one.”

Of course he had. Did they even get movies over here? Everything else seemed so normal, so
human
that it was easy to forget that some things just didn’t translate.

“Just tell me,” I finally said. “I saved your life, after all. You owe me.”

“Nothing like using your altruism as a bargaining chip. Maybe you should have asked before you saved me—dangled the carrot of life over my head.”

“I would have, but you were unconscious.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s coming back to me now.”

“Glad to hear it. So spill.”

He leaned toward me, eyes sparkling, and I felt a little hitch in my breathing. Was he going to kiss me again? Was I going to let him?

In the end, all he did was reach forward and grab a lock of my hair. He tweaked it softly. “So, what do you want to know?”

It was an effort to stay focused with him so close, but I’d been waiting to hear those words for too long to let the opportunity pass. “Well, to begin with, you said it makes her job easier. What kind of job does she have that she needs creatures like that to make it easier?”

“Okay, maybe job was the wrong word. I guess I would have said her ambitions.”

“Which are?”

“To rule the Pacific Ocean and everything in it.”

His words set off a weird, low-grade buzz inside of me, one that made me feel like I was shaking apart. Yet another strike against this mermaid thing—I was completely sick of my body wigging out with absolutely no warning. I mean, was it too much to ask to have a simple conversation without vibrating like a giant tuning fork?

Kona didn’t seem to notice my discomfort and I wasn’t going to clue him in to it. Now that he was actually talking, I wasn’t going to do anything to get him off track.

I reached out, traced a finger over the decapitated mermaid in the tapestry. Her tail was bright green like my mother’s. “Just the Pacific Ocean, huh?”

“For now. I’m sure her plan includes conquering all seven of the seas eventually.”

“But she’s starting here.”

“Yes.”

“What is she?”

“I’m not exactly sure how to explain that to you.”

“Try hard.”

“Okay, okay. No need to get testy.”

“Says the guy with so many secrets he needs a chart to keep them straight.”

“Oh, there aren’t enough for a chart. A graph maybe.”

I shot him a look that showed him just how unamused I was.

“Sorry. I’m trying to figure out how best to describe her. Part sea witch, part dragon, part Loch Ness Monster, I guess. And one hundred percent evil.”

I closed my eyes, trying to form a picture of what Tiamat looked like, but all that came to mind was a strange dinosaur/dragon–looking thing with a human face. As it was kind of cute in a cartoonish way, I figured it wasn’t quite the image Kona had been going for.

But he seemed to understand my dilemma, because he draped an arm over my shoulder and started pulling me up the stairs. “Come on. Let’s get some of those cuts cleaned up before they get infected. I’ll tell you all about her after you take a shower,
and
I’ll even try to see if there’s a picture of her lying around somewhere.”

He was saying all the right things, but still I wasn’t convinced. “Are you trying to distract me?” I asked as I followed him up the stairs to his room.

“Would it work, if I did?”

“No.”

“Then maybe I’m just trying to take care of you. I don’t always have to have ulterior motives, you know.”

“Just most of the time.”

He grinned. “You know me too well.”

That was the thing—part of me felt like I’d known him forever, like I could look inside of him and see all the way to his soul. But another part of me—the skeptical one—felt sure I didn’t know him at all.

As we climbed the stairs, I looked down below us and realized his house was built very much like mine. Most of the walls were actually windows facing out toward the ocean. They provided a ton of light and a feeling of freedom even when inside.

Of course, that’s where the similarities ended. Everything in this house screamed money and prestige, from the ornate furniture to the jeweled sculptures to the incredible paintings and tapestries hanging on every nonwindowed wall. We passed a bunch as we climbed to the fourth floor and headed down the hall.

The artist in me was dying to get close to them, to study each brushstroke and woven thread, but Kona was moving too fast, as if he wanted to shuffle me down the hall as quickly as possible.

We finally reached his bedroom and for a second, all I could do was stand at the door and gape. It was gigantic, probably half as big as my entire house—which was saying something. And yet every available surface was covered with huge bookshelves loaded with leather-bound volumes, a state-of-the-art entertainment center that included a PlayStation 3 and an Xbox, and piles of CDs, DVDs, and video games. In the corner sat two surfboards complete with stands.

In other words, it looked a lot like every other guy’s room I’d ever seen, just on a much grander scale. Weird. He had all this and he’d never heard of
Top Gun
?

I perused the titles, wondering what kind of movies he
did
like, then shuddered at what I found. It looked like he had every horror movie ever made. If I stuck around, we were seriously going to have to work on his taste.

“So,” I said, searching for a way to get our discussion back on track. “What are you the heir to?”

Kona whipped his head around to stare at me. “What did you say?”

“Earlier, you mentioned that they didn’t want to take chances with the heir. What are you the heir to?” I paused for a moment, then decided to go ahead and push his buttons. God knew, he’d pushed enough of mine in the short time we’d known each other. “Are you king of the mermaids or something?”

“I already told you, I am not a
mermaid
.” He said the word like it tasted bad.

“Merman, then?” I teased.

“No.” He looked so insulted that I almost took offense myself—but since I wasn’t overly happy about that part of my heritage either, I thought it might be hypocritical to call him on his obvious distaste for the things.

“So are we going to play twenty questions all morning or are you just going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Kona. Spill it. If you’re not a mermaid, then what exactly are you?”

Chapter 18

My question hung in the air between us as Kona studied me, almost as if he was trying to assess how I’d react to his answer. I have to admit I was getting a little nervous—the way he was acting, I was afraid he would admit to being a bloodsucking octopus himself. So when he finally shrugged and said simply, “I’m a selkie,” I didn’t know whether to be relieved or confused.

I spent the better half of the next minute racking my brain, trying to remember exactly what a selkie was. I had heard the word before, but the definition danced just out of reach. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly up on my mythical, or in this case not-so-mythical, water creatures, but I was pretty sure I remembered reading something about them at some point.

A picture of the creatures I’d seen earlier formed in my head and everything suddenly clicked into place. Before I could think better of it, I blurted out, “You’re a sea lion?”

“I’m a
selkie
.” This time the words came out through gritted teeth. “It’s an entirely different thing.”

“Okay. Right. Yeah. Of course.” My mind was whirling. “But still, you’re a shape-shifter. You change from human to …” I trailed off, not wanting to use the dreaded “sea lion” words again.

“Seal.”

“Right.” It was coming back to me now. There’d been a story about selkies in a book of sea tales my mother had read to me when I was little. “And you have a pelt, don’t you, that you slip off when you’re on land?”

“I do.”

A horrible thought occurred to me. “Did you leave it in San Diego, near my house? Is that why you’re still …” I gestured to his human form.

“No. I’m in human form because I was expecting you.” He grinned. “And because I prefer it. I always have my pelt with me.” He gestured to his necklace.

“That’s what’s in the pouch?” I asked, amazed. I stepped closer to get a better look at the thing.

“It is.”

“But how does it fit? I mean, you’re huge and that thing is …”

“Not?”

“Exactly.”

“Shrinking the pelt is an easy spell. Not all selkies can do it, but my family’s pretty gifted with magic—not to mention paranoid about keeping our pelts with us at all times.”

I thought of the story my mother had told me, about the woman who had bound a selkie to her by holding on to his seal skin. “If somebody finds it, you’re under their control, right? You can’t shift back and you can’t leave them, ever.”

“That’s right.” The smile had faded from his face.

“No wonder you keep it with you.” I shuddered at the thought of being held against my will. The whole mermaid thing was bad enough, but jeez. The selkies had it so much worse. “I’d never let it out of my sight.”

He laughed then, and I watched in amazement as everything about him relaxed. Strange that I hadn’t realized how tense he was until he’d loosened up.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are.”

I faked a scowl. “I’m pretty sure I should take offense at that.”

“You shouldn’t. It’s just crazy that I spent so much time worrying about how you would react when you found out I was …”

“What?”

“Different.”

I started to ask him why he’d worried about my reaction, but the look in his eyes said it all. Dark, intense, and so hot I could barely breathe, it told me all I needed to know about Kona’s feelings for me.

He inched closer and my heartbeat kicked up until it could keep time with the drums in an eighties heavy-metal song. My palms grew damp and my tongue twisted around itself. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I didn’t have a clue how to start.

And in the end, I didn’t have to. He broke the silence first. “By the way, I wanted to thank you in person. You kept me alive until my brothers could find me. I appreciate it.”