Tempest Revealed (26 page)

That solidified it for me. I gave in gratefully, let him pull me into the shelter of his arms before we took off speeding through the early-morning ocean. It was a measure of both my exhaustion and my trust in him that I managed to close my eyes and sleep through the next several hours of the journey.

We surfaced late that afternoon, off the coast of a small island in the South Pacific.

“Where are we?” I asked Zarek as we swam ashore.

“An island off the coast of Australia. It’s been in Kona’s family for centuries.”

We walked slowly out of the water. This was the first time I’d stood on my legs for more than a minute or two since I’d been injured. I was a little leery of it, expecting pain with every baby step I took. But I’d underestimated Zarek. There was nothing but a slight tenderness left, just enough to remind me to be careful.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, surveying the golden beaches, numerous caves, and wild copses of trees.

“We like it.”

“This is where he’s brought his people? The ones who managed to escape from the Leviathan?”

“And those from other selkie and mer clans who fled their own lands after the invasions.”

“How many of you are there?” I asked, braced for disappointment. After all, to the best of my knowledge, Mahina and I were the only two people to get out of Coral Straits.

“A couple thousand, including Kona, three other selkie kings, and a merKing.”

I whistled. That was a lot of royalty to have in one place. Especially when the few kings I’d met tended to be a lot more hotheaded and spoiled than Kona.

Zarek snorted. “Tell me about it.” Then he grabbed my hand and started hustling me up the beach. “Come on, then. Let’s go in, get some food. And then you need to go to bed for about twenty-four hours, just to ensure that head injury is on the road to recovery.”

I made a face at him but didn’t argue. Besides, as long as I was following the healer’s orders, I wouldn’t feel honor bound to go make up with Kona and Mahina. Especially when I was still so pissed I could barely see straight.

A large buffet of fruit and sandwich items had been laid out beneath a billowing white canopy, so obviously we’d been expected. As we settled on the beach to eat, I looked around, tried to spot signs of the thousands of people who were supposed to be on this small island. The only ones I saw, however, were those working the buffet, keeping the dishes replenished and the water pitchers full.

“So, where is everybody?” I finally asked. “I don’t see a house or a hotel or anything.”

“No. Kona’s parents chose to keep this island as close to nature as they could. There is a small building nestled in the trees up there that is basically a working kitchen. But there are small coves all over the island. Most people are staying in those.”

I nodded. I was a little leery about sleeping in a cave—visions of spiders and scorpions and any other number of nasty creatures came to mind—but I would reserve judgment. Besides, I wasn’t exactly in a position to be picky. Anything was better than that damn dungeon.

As we ate, I peppered Zarek with questions about the island, the state of the clans, the Leviathan. I was trying to amass as much information as I could as quickly as I could so I would be able to form a broad picture of what we were up against. I knew what Kona and I were facing, but what about the others? What sea horrors had invaded their lands?

And finally, as we pushed our plates away, I asked the question that had been on my mind since we ran into Kona outside of Coral Straits. “If you have all this set up here, what were you guys doing so close to my territory? Wasn’t that just tempting the Leviathan or Tiamat or even Sabyn to come after you?”

Zarek looked surprised. “Well, yeah, but you didn’t expect Kona to just leave you there, did you? When he realized all of the clans had been invaded, that it wasn’t just his, he went crazy trying to get ahold of you. When he couldn’t, he headed out to find you on his own, not wanting to endanger any of his people by asking them to come on what I’m sure he thought was a suicide mission.”

“But you went anyway.”

“A bunch of us did, and we had to leave a whole host of volunteers behind. He’s our king. If he believes something or someone is worth fighting for, we’re going to believe him. He and his family have never led us astray before.”

He picked up my dried-seaweed plate and his own, headed for a nearby trash can. I sat where I was for a while, watching him and the others as I went over his words in my head. Kona, who hadn’t been able to dump me fast enough on the swim back from La Jolla, had risked everything to come get me. To make sure I was safe. He must not hate me as much as I thought he did, or as much as he wanted me to believe.

I wasn’t sure what that meant, didn’t know if we’d ever be friends again, but I figured if he could forgive me for breaking up with him, then I could forgive him for drugging me against my will. I stood up and, after brushing the sand from my legs, went to find him.

He was about half a mile up the beach, under another huge canopy. Only this one looked more like an operations center than a dining area. He was alone, standing over a large round table covered in some kind of papers that he seemed to be studying in great detail. Next to him was a forgotten plate of food and an untouched pitcher of ice water.

A gentle breeze danced past me, lifting my hair and tickling my nose. Seconds later, Kona’s head came up, and as he scanned the area, I knew he had scented me. Though he was in human form, he was still very much a selkie.

I stepped out from behind the tree where I’d been hiding and began walking down to him. He met me more than halfway, bounding up the path between us like the loose rocks and steep incline were nothing. And for him they probably weren’t. For me, right now, they posed more of a problem.

“What are you doing here? I thought Zarek was going to order you to bed.”

“He did. But since I don’t yet have a bed, I figured I’d come check on you, see what you were up to.”

“Come see.” He started tugging me down the path, and I tried to follow, but the second time my ankle twisted, I couldn’t contain my gasp.

Kona froze. “I’m sorry. I forgot about your leg.” Then he swooped me into his arms and carried me the rest of the way.

It was an uncomfortable few minutes for both of us. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but on my side, I was totally confused. I didn’t have a clue how to feel about the proprietary way he was holding me or his astonishing about-face. When he’d left me in Coral Straits, he’d been surly and furious. Now he was acting like the past few months hadn’t happened, like we were still friends. While I longed for the days when things were easy between us, I more than understood his anger at the way I’d broken up with him. Which only made the care he showed me now even stranger.

But when I called him on it, he just looked at me with swirling silver eyes. “You nearly died because I couldn’t get past my
feelings for you, Tempest. I was so worried about how I felt that I left you unprotected and at Sabyn’s mercy. That’s not going to happen again.”

“You don’t need to feel responsible—”

“I
am
responsible,” he growled. “Besides, it’s impossible to look at you and not think about everything he did to you. I know you’re hurting. Let me help you while it’s still possible.”

“Still possible? What does that mean?”

“I know you think you’re safe here, but that isn’t the case. This is just a stopgap measure, but we all know that we can lose the island at any time.” He deposited me in one of the chairs that belonged with the circular table.

“Fine,” I said, bracing myself. “Tell me exactly what we’re dealing with here.”

“This is a map of the Pacific,” he said, leaning over to point at certain key places. “Here’s where we are now. Here’s the Sahul Shelf, where we fought Tiamat a few months ago. Up here is where Coral Straits is. I’ve marked it as compromised and written that it belongs to Sabyn.” His jaw clenched as he said the merman’s name, but after a minute and a few deep breaths, he moved on.

“These are my lands, also compromised. And these are the lands of other selkie clans that now belong to Tiamat.”

I was shocked to see how many clans had fallen—mer and selkie alike. “Zarek told me there were only five other clans here, besides you and me.”

“There are only five other monarchs. But in some of these clans, their monarchs were killed fighting Tiamat and her gang of monsters, and I couldn’t turn people away who had managed
to escape. Plus, some of the other clans aren’t represented here. I’m not sure where they’re hiding out, or even if anyone managed to escape the coup. But the lands have been seized. Tiamat now holds them.”

I stared at the map in horror. “But that’s
every
clan. According to this map, she controls the entire Pacific Ocean.”

Chapter 21

Later that night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what we were supposed to do now. After offering to let me share his cave—which I declined, determined not to let him get the wrong idea about us—Kona had found me this very nice cavern just a few hundred feet down the beach from his own.

By the time his people were done outfitting it—tapestries on the wall, thick rugs on the floor, silk quilts for me to sleep under—I was more than ready to give cave dwelling a try. And so was Mahina. She and I had made up soon after I’d returned from talking to Kona. After all, it would have been ridiculous to forgive him and not her, when both had had my best interests at heart. Though I did make them promise never to do anything like that again before I let them off the hook.

I glanced over at Mahina, who had curled up under her quilt and gone straight to sleep about three seconds after her head hit the pillow. I’d had that long nap this afternoon, though, and combined with the horrors of Tiamat’s ocean
domination, it was enough to keep me awake long after I should have succumbed to sleep.

As I lay there, I couldn’t help thinking about Mark, wondering what he was doing at this exact moment. I’d spent the last three weeks—when I was coherent, anyway—deliberately not thinking about him. But here, now, knowing I was safe, or as safe as I could be at that moment, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering to him.

It was late here, a little after midnight, which meant that it was early morning in San Diego. He and the others were probably just hitting the beach for a dawn surfing session before school. Or maybe he was studying. If three weeks really had passed since I’d been home, then it was finals week. A few more days and he’d be free for winter vacation.

We’d been planning on spending it together at my dad’s beach house in Hawaii—that was back before I’d realized I wouldn’t be able to get away again with Hailana so sick. Definitely back before I’d decided I couldn’t be with him at all because it put him at too much risk. But since it was late and there was no one here but me, I couldn’t help closing my eyes and imagining what it would have been like to spend this Christmas with Mark and my family.

We’d go surfing every morning, go exploring every afternoon, and cook fabulous meals every evening—meals that were in no way related to fish tacos or sushi. And at night, Mark and I would walk along the beach. He would hold me and kiss me and—

I was crying again, tears pouring slowly down my face. I wiped them away, then rolled over and curled into a ball. I
needed to stop torturing myself. Wasn’t I in enough pain without dwelling on everything I couldn’t have? But that was easier said than done when my whole body, my whole spirit, longed to be anywhere but where I was.

I lay in bed for hours, staring at the fancy rock formations on the ceiling of the cavern. I tried to sleep, but whenever I started to drift off, nightmarish images flooded my mind. Images of Sabyn looming over me, of that octopus thing killing my father, of Tiamat destroying everyone and everything I cared about.

Finally deciding there was no way I was going to be able to sleep, I threw my covers off, climbed to my feet, and gingerly made my way through the loose rocks to the mouth of the cave. It was beautiful out here, the stars shining brightly over the water. As I was watching, a shooting star streaked across the sky. Instinctively, I made a wish on it, then promised myself to help that wish come true. I believed in a higher power and all that, but I also believed in old-fashioned ingenuity. In helping fate, the universe, along any way that I could.

I found a rock to sit on and stared out to sea. The ocean looked different down here, clearer without the algae and microorganisms that lived in the San Diego water I was used to swimming in. It was beautiful, no doubt about it, but it just emphasized how far I had come from home. In every way.

Here, with none of the sounds of the city to drown it out, the ocean was a loud, overwhelming source to be reckoned with. Not that I ever forgot that—it was pretty impossible to think of it as anything else—but sometimes the ocean as source of reckoning got drowned out in the routine of everyday living.
Of just being. Out here no one would make that mistake, least of all me.