Atlantis: The King's Return (The Atlanteans Book 1)

by D. K. Combs

  It didn’t fool him. Cold determination and deadly intent coursed through his blood, jacking up the anticipation of a kill. He was more than ready for this. Ever since the death of his parents, he’d made it his goal to track, maim, and kill every single Octopian he could. They were the sole enemy of the Atlanteans and as many as he could kill, the better.

  The ink cleared slowly, and by that time he had all of his weapons strapped on. The akrina wrapped around his body, consuming him, covering him in thin armor. Shoulder blades were covered in red, while the rest was stark onyx. He didn’t take the helmet—it only left ink to get trapped inside of it and cloud his vision more.

  He narrowed his eyes through the blackness, and in seconds it was completely cleared. Staring at him like a meal long awaited, were seven of the second most deadly creatures in the sea, Deimos being the first.

  There was a very slim chance that he would make it out of this untouched. While he had the help of his akrina and years of experience with hunting and killing, there were seven of them.

  Each had eight tentacles, ranging in color from black to a dark violet. They slithered around each other’s bodies, creating a barrier against him. He only grinned.

  They all looked the same. Stringy black hair, thin chest, stick-like arms, fangs growing out of the side of their mouths. Their stomachs were caved in from starvation, which made the situation all the more dangerous.

  Ambrose took it as a good sign.

  The tentacles began at the hips. With ancestors half Atleantean and half octopi, they were the epitome of power and revulsion. He knew the story of how they’d come to be, which was something that most Atlanteans didn’t know. In part, the Octopians were almost his family.

  One of the Octopians surged forward, bearing it’s fangs and cackling. He stayed where he was, waiting for them to become more aggressive. The second that happened, he would attack.

  Whoever made the first move was more likely to win.

  It was something his father had ingrained into his memory. Hit first, hit hard, and cripple—which was exactly what he planned on doing. Ambrose clenched his fist around the hilt of the blade.

  “The heir?” one of them hissed. The voice wrapped around his head like a vice, scratchy and high-pitched. Despite their tentacles, their screams were the next worse things.

  “A treat for ussss all, indeed!”

  “Our pack will be pleasssssed.”

  Ambrose smirked, shrugging his shoulders. “That is, if you can get to me. How has your sister pack been doing? Last time I checked, they were at the bottom of the ocean.”

  Instantly, the smugness dropped from their ashen faces. “You mongrel! For doing that, you shall pay.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “you should learn how to drop a grudge.”

  “It was you who killed so many of our ssssister packs! Basssstard! You will die today,” another one snarled.

  Ambrose rolled his shoulders, loving the cool metal on his back and hefting the sword. “Have at it.” For threatening Mari, you’re all going to die.

  The barrier of their black tentacles loosened, the long appendages slithering in the water. On the far right, the Octopian at the end began to make its move toward him. Before it could attack, he slammed his tail into the ground and shoved himself forward, turning the blade of his sword at a precise angle. Using the momentum that his tail gained him, he released the blade and watched it go through the chest of the closest Octopian.

  Instantly, black blood began to pool at the corner of its mouth, streaming upward.

  Chaos erupted. All at once, the Octopians surged forward, their screech combining into one so loud that his ears nearly bled. The akrina was on it though, extending its oily paws over his ears and forming a sound-blocking foam. By the time the first Octopian was in striking distance, the screech was a dull buzz and his dagger was slicing through the water.

  Before the creature even had a chance to get out of the way, Ambrose had his blade buried into the thing’s chest. Shocked, oily black eyes stared him in the eyes. Two of the other Octopians surrounded him, the remaining three standing back. He eyed their tentacles.

  That was the real threat. The ink they were slowly leaking was clouding his vision again because they were obviously sensing that he was a greater threat than they had anticipated. The akrina sizzled around him, heating up his armor.

  He willed it to calm, and as he did, he felt it sigh. It was a soft, barely-there sensation that blew past his hair. It carried away the ink and blew it back in their faces.

  The three that stayed back narrowed their eyes at him.

  He grinned, surging forward. A tentacle wrapped around his arm, jerking him back, and he slammed his back into it. The akrina, at the same time, took control of one of his throwing blades, shooting the sharp dagger straight into the base of the tentacle that had grabbed him.

  The Octopian was close enough that the screech it emitted became more high-pitched than the buzz he had heard. Ambrose growled, reaching out with his fist.

  He caught the bloody, screaming Octopian in the face, and its head snapped to the side. Ambrose wrapped his hand around its neck, taking another one of his daggers out. Then, before the thing had a chance to wrap it’s tentacles around him, cut a nice little pattern out of the front of its body.

  He felt the swoosh of water from behind him, right before another tentacle wrapped around his chest, jerking him away from the already dead Octopian. He slammed his head back, catching the offender in the nose. Another muted scream shot into his ear before Ambrose shoved away from the weakened appendages, turning his body horizontal and banging his tail into the Octopian’s side.

  “Did Ceto send you?” he growled, catching the last active Octopian by the neck as it came flying at him. His hand tightened around its neck as the three bystanders began to move. Purple veins popped at the Octopian’s temple.

  Pained, black eyes widened and it struggled in his grasp, gurgling. “No! That bitch issss banned. We do not talk to her!”

  He felt something brush along his leg and narrowed his eyes at the simpering creature. Immediately, the tentacle removed itself and the surrounding pack stopped all movement.

  The dead Octopians were lying motionless on the ocean floor, their bodies quickly decomposing before everyone’s eyes. The tentacles detached from their bodies, floating off into the gentle current of the ocean, leaving them with just their torsos. Disgust rolled through him at the sight. Their thin skin was being pulled from the skeleton frame, papery patches hanging on by threads.

  All of the creatures of Atlantean descent in the ocean died like that. Quickly and effortlessly. It happened so fast and completely, that it was essentially impossible for mortals to wander upon a dead body.

  The other’s eyes followed his, and the fury that came over their face would have been terrifying to a lesser. But, alas, Ambrose was not a lesser—if anything, it got him going.

  “Attack!”

  Ambrose heard the cry and smiled with relish. The first couple kills had been done easily, but now all three of the Octopians were coming at him at once? He almost chuckled, tightening his grip on the thin neck before grabbing the thing’s stringy hair.

  The knowledge that he was going to die flashed in the Octopian’s gaze right before Ambrose shoved the neck holding hand backward and ripped the hair holding one forward.

  The head popped off with a dull snap.

  Meeting each of the Octopian’s gazes, he threw the head to the side.

  He smiled. Slowly, dangerously.

  The head floated to the bottom of the sea floor, passing his fin as it went. Flicking out his tail, he knocked it away from him like a ball.

  It crashed into the face of the Octopian floating before him.

  They all began to screech, and he laughed.

  The fight began.

  “Put me down!” Mari raged, slapping at Deimos’s tatted shoulder.

  He grunted at her, but continued slicing through the water faster tha
n the speed of light—or at least, that’s what it felt like. Her stomach rolled and her eyes had the hardest time of catching up to her surroundings. It seemed that whenever she finally managed to catch something with her eye, it was gone the next.

  “Do you want me to puke on you?” she asked, voice high-pitch. “’Cause I will—I really will!”

  Deimos looked at her narrowly, then grunted again.

  Of course. She would be the one to get stuck with a man that didn’t know what she was saying and had the ability to kill her without a thought, while she was about to vomit.

  Ambrose would kill her for this, but desperate times called for desperate measures. As the ocean began to swirl around her, and her stomach took to a new level of wanting to detach itself from her body.

  Reaching up, she put her hands in his hair. He flinched away from her touch and growled, but his speed never lessened. The heaving in her stomach intensified, and right as the bile began to find it’s way up her esophagus, Mari yanked hard on Deimos’s hair.

  Immediately, everything stopped.

  The spinning. The moving. The grunting.

  The heaving.

  As the vomit flew out of her mouth, she barely heard Deimos from behind her. Nah, she was way too concentrated on her stomach, which was taking everything she had eaten in the last two days and making a job of getting it out of her.

  “That,” she mumbled, pointing at the floating gob of vomit, “is what happens when you don’t listen to me.”

  Mari turned around and gave Deimos a hard look. He only stared at her.

  She jabbed her finger at it again. His glowing eyes flickered to it for a second and she nodded when she saw the flash of repulsion in his eyes. “See?” she said. “Gross.”

  “Gross,” he echoed hollowly.

  Then he nodded.

  “Now,” she said, wiping her mouth. “Take me back to Ambrose.”

  If she didn’t see him soon, touch him to know he was okay, she was going to explode. Deimos had taken her away from Ambrose only moments ago, but it felt like ages. The things that they had left behind were terrifying, like something out of a nightmare from The Little Mermaid.

  Take a goblin and mix it with Ursula, then times it by twenty. That’s the only way she could think of them.

  Deimos looked passed her impassively.

  “Hey,” she snapped, beginning to swim in the direction they had just swam from. “Let’s go.”

  She waited for him to follow her, but all he did was stare with his arms crossed over his chest, red eyes indifferent to everything that was going on around him. If his face hadn’t looked so harsh, so strained and controlled, he would have looked bored.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, although his eyes were impassive, his face was set and ready for a battle. His hands, even though they were tucked under his arms, were clenched. She could tell by the muscle that was tightening in his thick arms. The sword that was strapped to his back was steely and left ready for use, his back was straight as a board, and his jaw was clenched.

  All in all, he looked like a man who had fought so much, he didn’t know what else to do.

  She huffed, turning on her tail and flapping away from him. Fine, if he didn’t want to go with her and let her get killed, that was all on him. Mari, however, was not about to let Ambrose fight those nasty Octopians by himself. Deimos could sit there and pretend he was doing something all he wanted, but she—

  Thick, forceful hands wrapped around her arm, dragging her back.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed, trying to twist out of his grasp. He yanked at her, hard, and she turned around with a growl. “You might not know manners, or anything else, but at least learn how to treat a damn lady!”

  Deimos pulled on her again, this time more gently.

  That was what caught her attention. He was trying to force her to get moving because of—what? The Octopians had all stayed back to kill Ambrose, so why was Deimos getting—

  Creak.

  She paused. It had sounded like…

  Creeeeeak. Deimos pulled her behind him, simultaneously pulling out the long, sweeping sword. It left the sheath soundlessly.

  Creeeeeeeeeak.

  She pressed against his back, her blood turning cold. It sounded like a rickety wood, swaying back and forth, like an old house.

  “Quiet,” Deimos said quietly, his broken, grating voice making it all the more terrifying.

  Ambrose had said that Deimos could kill anything, that he was one of the best. And since Ambrose was back there risking her life for her, possibly dead, she was going to take his word for it. When she’d seen the nod between them, it had become clear that Deimos was a last resort—and she wanted to know why.

  What could he do that Ambrose couldn’t?

  Blackness exploded around them, and she held in a scream. Deimos had told her to be quiet, so she would. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t sit there and shake like the world was ending.

  If the Octopians had made it to them, did that mean Ambrose was injured?

  The thought had fear, intense and hot, shooting through her, as painful and as strong as a bullet. Following the pain, though, was fury. Cold, deadly fury that had all thoughts of anything else except Ambrose clearing her mind.

  “Deimos,” she said lowly. His head moved in her direction, but barely. “Is Ambrose dead?”

  There was a pause, and she saw his throat work as he struggled to make words. The fury was seeping through her veins, taking place in her heart, her soul. If anything happened to Ambrose because of her, she would kill the rest of the Octopians with her bare hands—and if Deimos wanted to have a say in it, well he could shove his interruption up his ass.

  “M…aybe. Cannot—sense.” That broken English was enough for Mari.

  The slow build of emotion took over her completely. Before she knew what was happening, a screech ripped from her throat as pain tore through her, and then a bright, blinding light overcame everything she saw. No darkness, no slithering tentacles in the corner of her eye. There was nothing but light surrounding her—as if something had possessed her.

  Deimos receded into the back of her vision, his roars of denial at what she was doing falling on deaf ears. All she could feel was her own movement, all she could see was white, all she could think was Ambrose.

  Like a trigger, he had opened something inside of her that she could feel flourishing within, growing, building, demanding it’s complete control over her.

  And she let it have it. Whatever was inside of her, she let it take over her. Mari lost track of her thoughts after that. His eyes, his mouth, his small laugh—it all resurfaced to the forefront of her mind. It was all she could focus on as the light began to ebb.

  Her body thrummed, a heat beginning to pulse from the center of her.

  The whiteness was gone abruptly, replaced by red. Glowing, bloody, red. It should have frightened her, made her try to stop whatever was happening.

  It didn’t.

  She reveled in the thrill as her vision returned, the red overlay that she was seeing through making her see through the ink that was again surrounding them.

  Something tried to grip her arm, Deimos probably, but she ripped herself out of his grasp, snarling. “Mine.” The rough, possessed voice that came from her throat was not her own, but something else entirely.

  Deimos didn’t grab for her again.

  The Octopian in front of her glimmered like a target, and her vision center on it. Something willed her to lift her hands, to move them in a circular motion around each other. Between her hands, energy began to form, taking shape as a large, golden ball of light. It heated her palms, growing bigger and brighter until even Mari couldn’t look anymore.

  “Now,” Deimos growled at her. She listened.

  The ball flew from her hands, right at the group of Octopians. Their screech rang around them like nails on a chalk-board, and Mari grew another ball, surging forward at the same time. There was no fear, no hesitation. />
  In seconds, the light exploded again, her vision being over taken by white. The ball of energy hit them again. One of them floated to the ground, wafting back and forth through the water as it met its coral grave at the bottom of the ocean.

  The other four remained, and wasn’t that great?

  With a sick, twisted smile, Mari shot forward and grabbed the Octopian closest to her by the neck. It stared at her with real, thriving terror. She laughed at it, digging her nails—now claws—into it’s neck.

  “Scared?” the voice that came from her throat grated. It scratched along her own ears, but the emotions coming off the thing she had in her grip were pleasurable enough to take away the discomfort.

  This son of a fuck had taken Ambrose from her, and she was going to make sure it paid—all of them.

  “Touch them, and you die.” The creature inside of her snarled at Deimos as reinforcement, and he reluctantly moved back, an odd glint entering his eyes. Fear? Concern?

  Mari turned back to the Octopian, dragging her nails down its neck, watching as the skin peeled away like plastic. The bone that was exposed had a small smile flitter over her face.

  “Scared?” she asked again, this time whispering, leaning in close. The Octopian tried to shrink away from her, but she tore her nails through his collar bone. Skin ripped away again, a whimper escaping his throat.

  The other Octopians stayed back, watching, shocked. The scent of their emotions rolled through her nose, spurring her on. It was good that they were weary of attacking her—she didn’t want a fight to be put up as she tore through their stomachs, grasped their hearts, and then crushed it in their faces just as they had done to her with the news that Ambrose was no more.

  Her merman, her companion. He was meant to take back Atlantis—had said so himself. But he wasn’t here anymore, because of them.

  She hissed, pain tearing through her.

  Ambrose…

  With him in her mind, her soul crying out for him and her heart slowly dying inside of her chest, consciousness left her mind and she slashed her hand out with a harsh movement.