Tempest Revealed

by Tracy Deebs

Page 50

 

  Kona stood to meet the attack. But Kenji bypassed him completely, lashing out with his foot and delivering a solid blow to my still very tender ribs.

  I went flying.

  Chapter 22

  I hit the rocks, hard, my bare back skidding across them for a few feet before I finally came to a stop.

  “What the hell?” Kona yelled, throwing a punch straight at Kenji’s jaw. Kenji ducked it, landing a solid blow on Kona’s ribs instead. It was obvious he’d been preparing for this fight for some time, while Kona was completely blindsided.

  Kona bellowed in rage, went for Kenji again. But I had had more than enough of being knocked around by men and I wanted in on the action. Rising onto my knees, I sent a shaky blast of power straight at Kenji. He dodged, deflected most of it, but enough got through that he staggered back a couple of steps.

  I climbed to my feet, threw another, steadier blast at him. This time he did a backflip to avoid the energy pulse, but I was waiting for him and followed up with a stream of electricity that set his choppy blue hair on fire.

  He howled, ran for the water. While he ducked his head in the Pacific, Kona and I turned toward Vikram and Dimitri, hands raised preemptively. If they were going to attack, I would be ready. There were days, weeks, even, when I worried about how much power I had and what it was doing to me …

  This was not one of those days.

  I was fed up with being beaten by jerks. No one else was going to mess with me. Not today.

  But Vikram just grinned as he put his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. Dimitri, on the other hand, threw back his head and laughed. “Got more than you bargained for that time, didn’t you?” he called down the beach to Kenji, who stopped smoothing his hands through his singed hair long enough to flip off the other selkie.

  “Does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” Kona demanded, still looking like he wanted to break every bone in Kenji’s body.

  Kenji, finally satisfied that his hair was no longer in imminent danger, pushed to his feet and headed back up the beach to us. “Hey, no hard feelings, Tempest,” he said, hand extended. “I just wanted to test out your girl, Kona, see what she’s made of. ”

  Kona knocked his hand away. “So you hit her? When Sabyn’s already beat the crap out of her?”

  “That was my point. If she fell to Sabyn, I wasn’t sure how much juice she was actually going to have when it came to fighting Tiamat. ” He nodded at Vikram and Dimitri. “They may think she’s the new savior, but I’ve been a little more skeptical. I wanted to see for myself what she could do. ”

  “That’s none of your business!” Kona told him sharply.

  “It is if you want us to fight with you,” Kenji asserted. “If I’m going to unite against Tiamat, I need reassurance that you won’t leave me hanging out there. I know what you can do, Kona, and the others, but Tempest is an unknown quantity. ”

  “So you kick me in the ribs? A little warning might have been nice. ”

  “I didn’t think I’d connect. ”

  There was a note of censure in his response that I couldn’t miss, and it ticked me off all over again. “Well, excuse me for not being super-mermaid, but I’ve spent the last three weeks as a prisoner of one of the biggest sociopaths in the Pacific. If I don’t live up to your expectations less than twenty-four hours after escaping from him, I don’t actually care. I’ve never been very good at the trained seal act anyway. ”

  With that as my parting shot, I turned and stalked up the beach. I had better things to do than deal with these jerks. Like getting a root canal.

  I was halfway up the beach and moving fast when Mahina came over the crest of the hill, a backpack slung on her shoulder and a fully laden food cart in front of her. Behind her were two more mermaids, each also pushing a cart.

  “Breakfast is here!” my best friend sang out. Though she was pretending to be oblivious to the tension in the air, I knew she was concerned—when she looked me over, her gaze seemed to linger on my ribs. I really hoped it wasn’t because Kenji had made the bruising worse. Kona might have freaked out a little about the kick, but I had a feeling Zarek and Mahina would make his freak-out look like nothing.

  Deciding to brazen my way through, I nodded at her backpack. “Where are you off to?”

  “I’m taking the subbloon for supplies. The kitchen is out of a bunch of stuff, and I volunteered to run over to the closest settled island. I figured it would give me a chance to get the lay of the land. ” She glanced over at the kings, then arched an eyebrow at me. “You want to come?”

  I kind of did, actually, but the way Kona stiffened at the suggestion dissuaded me. Though I couldn’t decide if that was because he wanted me here to talk strategy or if he thought the trip was unsafe. I was really hoping it was the former, because if it was the latter and he didn’t speak up about it, I was going to be really upset. Mahina might not be merQueen, but she was my closest friend and one of the very few people I trusted down here. If he thought she was putting herself in danger, than he’d better speak up about it.

  Vikram was the first one to breakfast, grabbing a huge platter of fruit off the cart and settling himself on one of the benches. Dimitri was second, followed by Kenji, who was looking warily at the food, almost like he expected us to have poisoned it.

  My anger at Kenji slowly drained away. If we were going to defeat Tiamat, we needed to work together, not constantly second-guess each other’s motives. A glance at Kona told me he was still livid, but I just didn’t have the energy or the will to maintain my own anger. Too many other things were going on for me to be spending so much of my time and attention on the selkie king. I’d just be careful around him, and the others, for a while. See where that got me.

  Breakfast was a subdued affair. Mahina stuck around; it was obvious she knew something was up. Even though she didn’t know what, she stationed herself right next to me and refused to move, refused to take her eyes off Kenji or the others. She even seemed a little uncomfortable with the fact that Kona was sitting on my other side. Which I would probably find funny if he wasn’t hemming me in, his leg and shoulder and arm brushing against mine in a subtle signal to the others that I was his.

  I should probably be grateful for the protection, but it just left me feeling a little sick. I loved Kona and always would, but not like that. Not now, when my heart was breaking wide open for Mark. I hoped he understood that just because Mark was out of the picture didn’t mean I wanted to get back together with him. I’d certainly made it clear enough on the subbloon. And yet here he was—defending me, touching me, trying to claim me in front of the others. I prayed he was doing it for protection only. I had already hurt him enough. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was hurt him again, in any way.

  The interminable meal finally over, I jumped up and started clearing the dishes. I needed something to do with my hands, something that would get me out of Kona’s immediate proximity.

  Mahina left in the subbloon a few uncomfortable minutes later. Kona insisted that she bring two of his guards with her—much to my everlasting gratitude—and I watched as the three of them climbed aboard the subbloon and took off. I wanted to call Mahina back, to beg her to take me along too—anything was better than sitting here with these four men, none of whom seemed to think there was anything wrong with staring at me like I was a bug under a microscope.