Tempest Revealed (20 page)

Your future is guaranteed
.

He shrugged.
Something like that
.

And what about Tiamat? What’s she going to do when she finds out you betrayed her? She isn’t exactly known for her forgiving nature
.

By the time the old hag figures out what’s going on, you and I will be married, our powers will have merged, and she won’t stand a chance against us. Besides, having you on my side pretty much guarantees that the rest of the clans will fall into line behind us. We won’t have any shortage of help to defeat her, even if she manages to pose a credible threat
.

Wow. You really have thought this out
.

He gave a little bow.
We aim to please
.

There’s only one problem that I can think of
, I told him.

Which is?

I would rather die than have anything to do with your sick, twisted, diabolically evil plans. So I’m afraid this whole marriage thing
—I moved my finger back and forth between us several times—
really isn’t going to work
.

That wiped the self-satisfied smirk off his face.
Oh, it’s going to work, Tempest. Of that much, I can assure you
.

How? You have to have my permission first, and that is not going to happen
.

Isn’t it?

There was something about his voice, about the look in his eyes, that was terrifying as hell. But I refused to let it influence my answer. After all, trusting Sabyn was a death trap, pure and simple. Better to die now when I was expecting it than by a knife in the back six months or six years from now when I wasn’t.

There were some things that were acceptable during war that weren’t acceptable any other times. Things like leaving my family behind, lying to my friends, breaking Mark’s heart. And then there were some things that would never be acceptable no matter what was going on. Marrying Sabyn to get control of a merkingdom that had obviously decided it didn’t want me as a ruler was not an acceptable thing to do. Nor was it smart.

In fact, even in the grand scheme of things, it was a pretty heinous suggestion, just the thought of which brought the nausea I’d been feeling right back around to the forefront.

No, Sabyn, it isn’t. I don’t marry men who slam my face into walls, chain me in dungeons, try to kill me, or plot to destroy everything that I’ve worked so hard for over the last year
. I paused.
And that’s just what you’ve done today
.

His eyes narrowed as he fished around in the picnic basket.
You know, I tried to make this good for you. I brought you a picnic, treated you like an equal, even picked out a ring for you
. As he said the last, he held out a small, glass waterproof box.

I physically recoiled, nearly slammed back against the wall in my need to get away from what was in that box.
Put it away
, I told him, my voice as shaky as my nerves. For the first time
since this whole farce started, it occurred to me that he was actually serious. That he expected me to marry him.

That wasn’t what scared me, though. What had me shaking was Sabyn’s track record in getting things that he wanted. He was a master manipulator and a sociopath—I had seen him in action when he first came to Coral Straits four months ago, and nothing that had happened since had changed my mind. He didn’t know how to take no for an answer when he wanted something. And I was completely at his mercy.

When it became obvious that I wasn’t going to open the box, Sabyn sighed heavily. And then did the honors himself.

Most of the room was still dark, but the lantern he’d brought with him cast a rosy pool of light around Sabyn and his picnic basket, so I got a clear look at the ring. It was magnificent: a giant, teardrop-shaped diamond was the center stone, but the ring itself was channel set with alternating diamonds and sapphires. It was a ring fit for a merQueen and it scared the hell out of me. As far as bonds went, I’d rather wear the chains than that thing.

Let’s see if it fits, shall we?
He swam closer to me.

You don’t seem to understand, Sabyn! I’m not going to marry you
.

No, Tempest, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. You don’t have a choice
. He grabbed my hand, jammed the ring onto my finger. I pulled it off, threw it as hard as I could, then watched—with him—as it sank into the darkness several feet away.

Sabyn turned, cocked his head like he was studying me.
That was a singularly stupid move, Tempest
. And then he lashed out, slamming a fist into my stomach hard enough to bring up the kelp bar I’d worked so hard to force down.

He stepped back and watched with distaste as I vomited. When I was done, he handed me a waterproof napkin from the picnic basket so that I could wipe my mouth.
I should have known you’d choose to do things the difficult way. You always do. But don’t say I didn’t try to make it nice for you
.

And then he was grabbing me, forcing me back against the wall. I screamed, kicked and bit and clawed and hit, but he was stronger, meaner, and more than willing to hit back as hard as he could. Within minutes I found myself chained to the wall again, my ears ringing from a particularly hard blow to the head.

What are you going to do?
I demanded.
Keep me chained down here forever?
I was trying to sound tough, but the words came out slurred, even just going from my mind to his. Which seemed like a problem, but I was so tired and dizzy that it was hard to work up any serious concern. Which actually seemed reasonable, because, next to marrying Sabyn, my head injury seemed like small potatoes.

You’d be surprised what I can do, Tempest. But not for long
. He walked forward, a wicked-looking syringe in his hand.

What is that?

Something to help you rest
.

I don’t need a tranquilizer
. Bad enough to be left in the dark, alone and powerless. But to be unconscious too—I shuddered. Sabyn could do anything to me and I wouldn’t be able to fight him. At all.

It’s not a tranquilizer
, he said as he neatly sidestepped my kicking legs.
Be a good girl
, he told me,
or I’ll send someone down to chain your legs too
.

The threat got through to me, even with the panic
ricocheting around inside of me as the needle approached my biceps.
What is it?
I asked again, because I couldn’t fight if I didn’t know what I was up against.

Something Tiamat and her minions developed after you barbecued her. It neutralizes merpowers, with the nice side effect of making you sleepy
.

You don’t have to do that!
I told him, nearly dislocating my arms from my shoulders as I struggled against the chains.

Oh, but you assured me that I did when you turned down my heartfelt marriage proposal
. He grabbed the belly chain Mark had given me, twisted it to keep my midsection still, then stabbed the needle into my stomach and depressed the plunger. Within seconds, everything grew even fuzzier than it already was.

The last thing I heard before I went under was Sabyn’s sadistic chuckle.
Sweet dreams, Tempest. I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll talk again
.

The next bunch of days passed in a blur. Hours of sitting in the dark, nursing my wounds, followed by minutes of abject terror when Sabyn showed up and demanded that I comply with his wishes. Part of me wanted to say yes simply as a means to stop the beatings and the druggings and the chainings, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bend my will to his, not when doing so was a total betrayal of everything I believed in.

And not when I was smart enough to know that while it would get me out of the dungeon, I’d just be trading one horror for another. Even if we were engaged or married or whatever, Sabyn would never allow me to have my own power. He’d keep
me on that damn drug of Tiamat’s until I was addicted to the stuff, until my brain was mush and my body craved its own destruction.

It was sometime on what I guessed was the eighth day—based on the number of times Sabyn had visited me—that something snapped in him. Came totally unhinged.

The visit started out the way all of his did. He unchained me, had me sit with him in the middle of the room, forced me to eat food I had no desire for. I knew I needed to keep my body strong, but the drugs he was injecting me with made me nauseous as well as sleepy, and they totally stole my appetite. Most days it was all I could do to take a few bites of sea vegetable or kelp. The sushi he brought, no matter how great a delicacy, turned my stomach and after watching me vomit a few times, he decided not to force the protein down my throat.

I was sitting on the pallet with Sabyn—or floating a little above it, actually, as it was getting harder and harder for me to control what my body did. I was groggy from the drugs, slow, and when Sabyn asked me to pass him a drink, it took a minute for the request to register. My slowness infuriated him, and he lashed out with a kick to my ribs that laid me out flat as I tried to breathe through the pain.

And then he was above me, kicking and punching, hitting and stomping. I curled myself into a ball in an effort to protect myself, but that didn’t matter. He just kept kicking me and screaming obscenities, ordering me to do what he wanted.

From somewhere, I don’t know where, I found the strength to shake my head. To whisper,
No
. But that only set him off worse. He slammed his heel down on the fingers of my left hand
and I felt them pop, all three at the same time and then my pinky a few seconds later as he ground his heel around.

I screamed, and it was such a high-pitched, bloodcurdling thing that it stopped him in his tracks. He stumbled away from me and for long seconds did nothing but stand there, staring at me in the dim light, his breathing heavy and erratic. Then, as if he couldn’t stand to look at what he’d done, he stumbled to the door, threw it open.

It didn’t have to be this way
, he said to me.
I didn’t want it to be this way
.

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. At that moment, it was all I could do to keep breathing.

Let’s see how much resistance you have after being left on your own for a few days
, Sabyn snarled before he closed and locked the door behind him.

I waited for long minutes for him to come back, afraid that he would bring a knife or a spear to finish the job. But when it became apparent that he wasn’t returning, I tried to sit up. It should have been easy. I was practically weightless, floating halfway off the ground, but just stretching my legs out from the ball I’d been curled into took more energy than I had.

Still, I forced the issue, straightening my legs and rolling until I was stretched out, flat on my back. Then, and only then, did I attempt to take a deep breath, pulling water into my oxygen-starved gills. But as I did, I felt something else pop deep inside of me.

I blacked out again.

I was cold, so cold. I tried to turn, to curl myself into a ball for warmth, but just that small movement made the room spin around me. I closed my eyes, went back to sleep.