Tempest Unleashed (2 page)

The thought had me arrowing through the water like a bullet from a gun. I needed to get away. The pain of no longer belonging was crushing in on me from every side.

And yet, even with the need for escape foremost in my mind, I couldn’t force myself to dive deep without one more look. One more memory to hold tight inside of me when I was miles and myths away from here.

I shot to the surface again, and as I did, I realized my mistake. My sense of direction had failed me again and I had swum toward the shore instead of away from it.

Damn.

The pull was so much harder to resist when I was this close. It was so much easier to forget what I now was and remember what I could be.

I closed my eyes, determined to tamp down on the longing. Kept them closed for as long as I could stand it, and when I opened them again, I realized more time had passed than I originally suspected. The first rumblings of dawn were beginning to streak their way across the Southern California sky, painting it in shades of violet and pink and yellow.

I could see the sand now, see the rocks and washed-up seaweed that lined the beach. I wanted to feel the rough graininess of the sand between my fingers, wanted to burrow in like I had when I was a child and my father buried me up to my neck in the warm, powerful weight of the stuff.

I was almost there now, was so close that my toes brushed against the ocean’s floor even with my head above water. The cold squickiness of the sand squished between my toes as the waves crashed against my shoulders, and it was all I could do to keep my balance against the raging of the early-morning ocean. In that moment, as I dug my feet into the ground in an attempt to keep my balance, I figured out what I had done.

For the first time ever, I had changed without conscious thought. For the first time ever, my tail had effortlessly become legs again. Despite all of the powers my mother had handed down to me, shifting had never come easy. Moving between human and mermaid form usually took long, agonizing minutes.

Kona told me it was normal, as did my queen and many, many others. They assured me that, with time and practice, it would get easier—and faster.
What would they say now?
I wondered as I stumbled through the last bit of the shallows toward shore. Would they be proud of my instantaneous change, or alarmed by it?

I didn’t know, and as voices rang through the still-cold morning air, I didn’t care.

Because they had come.

Yanking my bikini bottoms out of the small, waterproof backpack I carried, I shimmied into them even as I strained to get a good look down the beach.

At first I couldn’t see anyone, could only hear them. A laugh, a shout, the excited murmur of people about to do what they loved. But I knew those voices, those laughs. They belonged to—

Scooter strolled across the sand, his beloved surfboard under his arm and his long, disheveled hair blowing in the soft wind.

Tony came next, his dark skin shimmering in the first rays of dawn.

Then Bach and Logan, my best buds from my former life. God, they looked good. It took every ounce of concentration I had not to run to them, to hug them. Logan was grinning hugely, and I felt my own lips curve in answer, though I didn’t know the punch line.

Something strange happened then. A low-grade energy whipped through me, one I normally felt only when I was underwater. I began to glow, heat pulsing through me with each breath I took. My legs trembled, my heart raced, and panic shot through me. Had Tiamat followed me after all? Had I somehow endangered my friends by coming here? But I’d been so careful …

I glanced around wildly, freaking out at my own stupidity. There was no sign of the sea witch, but she
was
sneaky. She had tricked me before. Maybe she—

And that’s when I saw him. A little late, a little rumpled, he was bringing up the rear and closing fast the gap between him and the others.

Mark.

The mild hum inside of me became a maelstrom in an instant, my power rising, ripping through me until it was all I could do not to rend the sky with lightning. As it was, the wind picked up, and I watched the guys glance at the sky to see if they’d somehow missed an early-morning storm watch.

If only they knew.

I shuddered as I fought to rein in the energy, to hold on to my emotions.
How could this be happening?
I wondered frantically. How could one look at him stir me up this much? I’d put Mark out of my mind for all these long months, had refused to dwell on what we’d had. Or, more precisely, what I’d thrown away. But now he was here, right in front of me, and I could barely catch my breath. All my training, all my efforts at control these last, long months, dropped away like they were nothing. I strained for a better look, even knowing just how dangerous the game I was playing could become.

It didn’t matter. In those moments, nothing did but seeing him.

The board in his hands was new—and sweet—but everything else about Mark was exactly as I remembered.

Same wild blond hair.

Same warm brown eyes.

Same strong jaw and broad, well-muscled chest beneath his favorite electric-green wet suit.

Same wicked grin.

I melted at the sight of it, was more than a little surprised I didn’t turn into a puddle and mix right into the ocean that had taken so much from me.
And given me so much
, I reminded myself. The sea had given me everything these last months—as had Kona. But never had it been so hard to remember all this as it was in these moments, when my vision and my heart and my very soul were filled with Mark.

Just Mark.

I took a deep breath and could almost smell the sweet, musky scent of him. I longed for it, as I longed for the feel of his arms around me.

Will it ever go away?
I asked myself bitterly.
Will these feelings I have for him ever disappear completely? Or am I stuck with them forever?
Mark had been such a big factor in my life for so long that there was a part of me—even after all this time—that felt empty without him. Incomplete. Like a surfer without a board, an ocean without a shore.

Though I didn’t make a conscious decision to do it, I found myself moving farther up the beach. Not so close that I could hear what they were saying but close enough that I could get a good look at Mark’s gorgeous face.

Like the rest of him, it was exactly as I remembered.

God, I’ve missed him.
The thought I had held at bay, that I had refused to acknowledge for far too long, came crashing down on me like a tsunami. I missed him so much that I ached with it, glowed with it.

Missed him so much that I had embarked on this crazy, reckless trip just to see him.

Oh, I had told myself it was to visit my family. To feel the land. To remember who I used to be. But here, now, looking at Mark, I knew that I had lied to myself. I had come to see him too.

How stupid could I get? How ridiculous? How wrong?

I turned, ran back into the water, no longer able to look at the boy I’d once loved. I’d made my choice, after all. Long before Mark and I officially broke up, long before I returned to the ocean to carry on my mother’s duty, I had chosen Kona. Beautiful, wonderful Kona, whose eyes were so deep and silvery that I could drown in them. Whose smile wasn’t wicked but sweet, whose scent wasn’t dark and musky but clean and fresh like a summer sea.

And Mark had made his choice as well—Chelsea, a cheerleader, for God’s sake—as different from me as he could have possibly gotten. No matter what I had told him, no matter what I had told myself, it had been a slap in the face.

As I swam backward away from shore, I held on to that thought and to the emotions it brought back. I didn’t belong here, didn’t belong with Mark any more than he belonged out at sea with me. I couldn’t let myself forget that.

But as I scanned the beach, memorizing the tableau they all made standing there, Mark turned … and looked straight at me.

Our eyes locked—across the wide swath of sand, across the endless yards of ocean—and I saw his beloved chocolate-brown ones widen in shock. For long seconds, he didn’t move and neither did I. And then he was tossing his surfboard on the ground and running straight into the water.

Straight to me.

Chapter 2

I froze for one long moment, then dived deep as panic swamped me.
Swim
, my brain screamed.
Get away from here! Get away from him. It’s too dangerous! Swim, swim, swim!

I started to put as much distance between me and the beach as I could as quickly as possible. But I hadn’t gone very far before I realized, with utter certainty, that self-preservation wasn’t what I wanted.

Maintaining the status quo
wasn’t
what I wanted.

Instead, I wanted to talk to Mark, to hear his surf-and-sand-roughened voice as he demanded to know where the hell I had been for all these months.

Of course, that could just be wishful thinking. Maybe he’d forgotten what we’d been to each other, the same as I had so desperately tried to forget him.

Suddenly, I knew I couldn’t go any farther until I was certain. I stopped swimming, turned around. I didn’t go back—I wasn’t that stupid—but I wanted to know what Mark would do. Would he write off his sighting of me to his imagination? Or would he stand in the ocean and call my name, sure that his eyes hadn’t been deceiving him?

I hoped it was the latter, even as I told myself I was being selfish, petty. I should be happy that he’d moved on with his life, with Chelsea. I had moved on with Kona. But nothing I told myself just then mattered—in those few minutes, all I cared about was whether Mark missed me anywhere near as much as I missed him.

“Tempest!” The wind whipped my name straight to me in Mark’s snarly voice. “Tempest Maguire, damn it, I know you’re out here!”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My heart had nearly stopped at the first sound of his voice. Instead, I stayed where I was, immersed in the ocean up to my chin, and watched as Mark’s powerful body waded through the water. He was thigh deep, waist deep, chest deep, and still he yelled my name.

It made me feel awful, made me feel wonderful, confused me as nothing had since I’d made the decision to be mermaid. I yearned to go to him, everything in my body straining to answer his call. My skin ached for just one touch of his fingers.

As I was watching him, memorizing him, Mark dived deep into the water. He was looking for me, as determined today as he had been eight months ago when I’d nearly drowned during a routine early-morning surf. Back when this whole alternate life of mine was just beginning.

I watched the surface anxiously, waiting for him to come back up. One minute passed as I counted numbers in my head, then two as I struggled to reassure myself he was okay. Mark was a terrific swimmer, could hold his breath for a long time underwater. Not as long as I used to be able to, but then he was human and I never had been. Not really. Not completely.

My internal count had reached one hundred and fifty-seven before I saw Mark bob back to the surface. I was too far away to see him clearly, but the verdant green of his wet suit stood out against the opalescent azure of the waves. I knew he was sucking in air, gulp after gulp, and my lungs ached in sympathy.

I waited for him to catch his breath and head back to shore and the board he had so carelessly tossed aside. Instead, he disappeared beneath the water yet again.

And again, I began to count and wait and worry.

Every second dragged.
One hundred one, one hundred two, one hundred three
. There he was, his head and shoulders popping powerfully above the surface. He was closer to me now, so close that I imagined I could see his chest rising and falling.

I started to back up. To submerge myself, to flee. But I watched as he went under again and accepted that I wasn’t going anywhere. I had caused this mess and I had to see it through.

Mark was the most stubborn person I had ever met. Since it was obvious he hadn’t forgotten me, I knew if I just disappeared, he would keep looking until he was completely exhausted. Already, he had swum a good distance from shore. Who knew how much farther he would swim before he finally figured out it was hopeless? And who knew if he’d have enough energy to make it back to land?

I ducked under the water, started to swim toward where I had last seen him.
Ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven.
He should be heading up for air soon. When I got to one hundred nine, I propelled myself to the surface with a few powerful kicks of my legs.

He wasn’t up yet. I dived back under, swam a little more. Came up again. Still no Mark.

I started to panic. Was he in trouble? Was he caught in the undertow? Was he
drowning
because of me? I looked back at shore, saw that the guys had all jumped in after Mark. They were still pretty far back, but I knew they were good swimmers. I didn’t have much time.

Going deep again, I searched the water around me for the green of Mark’s wet suit. I didn’t see it, didn’t see him. Oh my God, he was drowning. He was—