Authors: Tracy Deebs
I wasn’t hungry, so I stayed on the beach while everyone else went up to dinner. I was tired of talking, tired of thinking strategy. I wanted a break where I could just veg, where my battered body could relax and just be.
Stretching out on the sand, I pillowed my head on my bent arms and stared up at the stars. It was strange for a mermaid, I knew, but I had a habit of looking to the stars to calm me down. To help me figure out a problem. It was a habit my dad had helped me cultivate at an early age and one Mark let me indulge in whenever we were on the beach at night. I couldn’t begin to guess how many hours I’d spent staring at the sky, playing connect the dots as I made order from chaos—in the heavens and in my own life.
I felt a little twinge—okay, a big twinge—as I thought of Mark and my family. Just the idea of them was a fist to the gut, and I fought the urge to curl into a ball and weep. I’d done more than enough of that in the last few weeks. Now was the time for action. For resolve.
I found Andromeda in the sky right above me, panned over until I found Pegasus and had connected all of his dots. Then moved way down to Cassiopeia. It was amazing how close they were, how different the sky above this tiny island looked from the sky above my house in La Jolla. Then again, I don’t know why I was surprised. Everything else about my life was different here. Why not the stars and sky as well?
I shut that train of thought down quickly as I dotted my way over to Perseus. No crying also meant no self-pity. Besides, the point of this exercise was not to think. Not only was I thinking right now, I was wallowing.
Frustrated with myself and the whole world, I shoved to my feet. If I couldn’t stargaze my pain and worry away, maybe a night hike around the island would do the trick. I’d gone only a couple of steps, though, when something broke through the water.
I whirled around and prepared to blast whoever it was to hell and back when I realized it was the subbloon. Mahina had returned.
I headed down to meet her, figuring I’d help her and the guards with the supplies. But when one of the front windows opened, it wasn’t Mahina I saw crawl out of it into the water. It was a tall, muscular blond guy in blue board shorts and rash guard.
Even as I told myself it wasn’t possible, that I was seeing things, I started to run. I hit the edge of the water just as he turned and my knees nearly gave way.
I wasn’t seeing things. It was Mark. He was here.
“
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth
when it is quite clearly Ocean.”
—Arthur C. Clarke
“What are you doing here?” I screeched the second I found my voice. My knees were still wobbly, and I probably would have taken a header into the ocean if he hadn’t latched on to my arm to steady me.
“Give the boy a chance to explain, Tempest,” Mahina said quietly as she carried a box to shore.
“I think
you
need to explain. Why would you bring him here? How did you even find him?
Why
did you find him?”
“I found her.” Mark finally spoke up, his voice hoarse and a little ragged. When I turned back to him, I realized that for the first time since I’d known him, he looked like hell. Dark circles under his eyes, cheekbones a little more prominent than they had been the last time I’d seen him, board shorts baggier than usual. He looked lost, and I felt like a total bitch for doing this to him.
But that didn’t mean I could cave, even though every cell in my body was screaming with the need to throw myself at him, to press myself against him and hold so tight that nothing, no one, would ever be able to rip us apart again.
I hardened myself against the need. “You can’t be here,” I told him. “You need to leave.”
“What do you suggest I do?” He gestured to the wide swath of ocean that looped around the island. “Swim for it?”
“Mahina brought you here. She can take you back.”
My best friend, the traitor, said, “The subbloon’s out of fuel. I picked up what I needed to make more, but it will take a couple of days.”
Horror ripped through me. It was all I could do not to throw myself at Mark right then. There was no way I’d last a couple of hours, let alone a couple of days. Completely freaked out, I did the only thing I could in the situation. I ran like the sea witch herself was at my heels.
“Tempest! Tempest, wait!”
I heard Mark scrambling up the rocks behind me. If I had even an ounce of maturity, I would stop and deal with this like an adult. But if I did that, I’d be done. I’d forget all the reasons Mark and I couldn’t be together and we’d be right back where we started from—with Tiamat and her crew gunning for him.
I ran faster, trying to avoid the inevitable. But Mark had always been a faster runner than I was, and I’d barely made it halfway to my cave when he caught up to me.
“Come on, Tempest!” He grabbed on to my shoulder, pulled me to a halt. “Do you really hate me so much you have to run from me now?”
“You can’t be here,” I repeated, staring fixedly at the ground.
“I can’t be anywhere
but
here!”
“That’s not true. You don’t belong here.”
“Then where do I belong?” he demanded. “Do you think I really want to be on this island? Do you think I like chasing you halfway around the world when you’ve made it clear that you don’t want me anymore? When you’d rather run from me than listen to me? Or touch me?”
“It’s not like that!”
“It’s exactly like that! If I could be anywhere else, if I could just walk away, don’t you think I would? I can’t sleep without you. Can’t eat. Can’t think. I swear, I can’t breathe without you, Tempest.” He closed his eyes. Held his hands out in an appeal I would have to be heartless as well as desperate to ignore.
“Mark …”
“I know you love me. I saw it that night on the beach. I felt it. You don’t just turn that kind of feeling off and on, no matter how much you want to.” He reached out, hooked his fingers through the belly chain I hadn’t been able to take off since that night he’d refused to accept it back. “Please, Tempe, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t—”
“You have to. I can’t keep going on like this.
We
can’t keep going on like this.”
He tugged on the belly chain, and I stumbled closer despite my best intentions. “Don’t make me hurt you,” I whispered.
“You’re already hurting me. Can’t you see that? Without you, I’m dead inside.” He pulled me into his arms and I went—of course I went.
How could I not when he was saying everything I’d ever dreamed of hearing from him? More, really. I had his best interests at heart, his and my family’s, but standing here, listening to
him tell me that he’d been as miserable without me as I’d been without him, I just couldn’t do it. Not again.
For long seconds, we simply stood there, his mouth hovering several inches above mine as we relished the relief of being in each other’s arms again. The abrupt cessation of pain that was joy in and of itself. Then he lowered his mouth to mine, and Tiamat, the island, Sabyn, and all my aches and pains simply ceased to exist.
When he finally pulled away, I looked at him searchingly. “What are you doing here?”
“I already told you—”
“No, I mean, how did you get here? How did you find me? It’s a huge ocean out there, and I didn’t tell you where I was going.”
“Actually, your dad’s girlfriend, Sabrina, helped a lot.”
“Sabrina?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged at my questioning look. “I don’t know how she knows as much as she does about the merclans, but when I ran into her on the beach two weeks ago, I commented that I was heading to the Sahul Shelf. I didn’t know where Coral Straits was, but I knew that you had been near the Sahul Shelf last year. It seemed as good a place as any to start.
“And then Sabrina told me about a group of merpeople who live down here. I didn’t ask her how she knew, just took her advice and the GPS coordinates. Except, when I reached the coordinates, nothing was there. No mermaids, no city, nothing. I probably should have turned around and gone home, but I’d come too far for that. So I hired a plane and started searching for you from one island to the next—telling everyone about the girl with the purple tattoos.
“When Mahina came in with her turquoise ones, someone called me about her. And when I saw Mahina, I knew that I’d finally found you. I have to admit I expected a little bit warmer of a reception.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you,” I whispered, pulling his face back down to mine and pressing kisses to his face and shoulders. Part of me was worrying over how Sabrina knew about mermaids—and if my father had told her—but I was too happy to see Mark to dwell on it the way I probably should have. After all, whatever her knowledge, it seemed she was keeping it to herself. Or at least not sharing it with the whole world.
“I want you too,” he told me fiercely, and all thoughts of Sabrina disappeared from my brain. “So it’s ridiculous that you’re insisting we need to be apart. We need to be together.”
I backed up slowly, keeping a firm grip on his hand as I walked him toward the cave—I loved Mark, and even if we didn’t work out, I still wouldn’t go to Kona for consolation. One, because it was cruel. And two, because no matter how much I cared about Kona it was always going to be less, going to be different, than how I felt for Mark.
We made it into the cave and the first thing I did was turn toward Mark and rip his rash guard right over his stomach and shoulders. Then I pressed myself against his bare, beautiful chest and kissed him all over.
He let me, at least for a little while, and then he stepped back. I tried to hold on to him—I’d been to hell and back since I saw him last and I needed to feel him against me. To know that he was real and safe. And that, for now at least, so was I.
But Mark insisted on pushing me away. At first I was hurt, but then I realized he was cataloging my bruises.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded, brushing gentle fingers over the bruises on my upper arms. “I’ll kill Kona if he did this to you.”
“Kona would never do this!” I blurted, shocked that Mark would even think such a thing.
“Then who?” His hand brushed over my collarbone as his fingers traced the bruises on the part of my chest he could see over the bikini top.
“Sabyn. Do you remember him? He was with Tiamat—”
“I know who he is.” I’d never seen Mark look so fierce, like he was contemplating ripping Sabyn apart with his bare hands. Seeing him like this, I believed—if he ever got the chance—that he would do it. Or die trying.
The thought terrified me. Though I was pretty certain that sometime in the next few days I was going to die, the thought of something happening to Mark made me physically ill. “Don’t think about him,” I told Mark as I kissed my way down his rigid jaw. “He doesn’t matter.”
“He hurt you.” Mark lowered his head, ran his lips over the bruises on my shoulder before moving on to my neck and collarbone.
Shivers of need worked their way through me, and I wrapped my arms around Mark, pressing my cheek against his chest. His heart was going crazy, beating hard and fast beneath my ear. It was the best thing I had heard in weeks and weeks.
He bent his head, brushed soft, sweet kisses over my hair, and that’s when I knew I wasn’t going to walk away. Wasn’t
going to push him away. I’d tried to be noble, tried to give him up. That hadn’t worked for either of us. So this time I was going to take what I wanted, was going to take
him
. Tomorrow could worry about itself.
“I love you.” I hugged him close to me, kissed his strong, tanned shoulders. His rock-hard biceps. His broad, sculpted chest. I didn’t want to let him go. Not now, not ever.
And then Mark was lowering me to the makeshift bed. “Are you sure?” he whispered as he pressed gentle kisses wherever he could touch. “Is this okay?”
I thought about avoiding the question. But I didn’t have to be strong anymore, didn’t have to hide behind a mask that showed no emotion. This was Mark, the person who knew me better than anyone else on earth and loved me anyway. Why should something else—anything else—interfere with the fact that I loved him? Especially now, when I knew very well that I might die tomorrow.
“Tempest?” he urged, and I realized I’d taken too long to answer. He’d pulled back and I knew he was going to stop. The thought made a sick panic race through me, and I plastered myself against him.
“I’m more than sure.” I pulled his mouth down to mine.
Thankfully, it was all the encouragement he needed.
“What’s he doing here?”
I turned at the belligerent question, my hand already extended in a placating manner. We were on the beach, surrounded by people. Some were eating breakfast while others trained in small groups, but they’d all been casting surreptitious looks at Mark and me from the second we sat down. Obviously, they knew he was human and were just waiting for the fireworks to start when the other monarchs got a look at him. But the last thing we needed was a fight, especially now when we should be putting on a united front. “He came with Mahina last night.”
“He needs to leave. Now,” Kona said.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Mark moved to stand next to me.
“That’s not a decision you get to make, human.”
Again with the deriding tone, the one that made being human sound like an insult. Which got my back up, as I very often considered my human half the better part of myself. “No, it’s a decision I get to make,” I told him. “He stays.”
Kona’s eyes narrowed. “You’re overstepping, Tempest.”
Maybe I was. Kona had helped rescue me, after all. He had set up this island refuge and therefore he had the right to make the rules we lived by here. That didn’t mean I was going to bow and scrape to him, though. Not when I could feel two thousand pairs of eyes staring at me, watching, waiting to see what was going to happen between us.