Clashing Tempest (Men of Myth Book 3)

by Brandon Witt

  Finn walked to the center of what looked like the inside of a pink globe and motioned toward a circular pool. “They’re in there. I haven’t been in, obviously, but I guess there’s some sort of passage you’ll notice once you’re under the water.”

  Even as he spoke, he wouldn’t meet my eyes for more than a second or two. It was enough to tell me the man I’d known before wasn’t there anymore. Older, more stressed, a little thinner maybe, but still the beautiful man I’d fallen for all those months ago. But there were walls up that he’d never had. From the first night I’d met him, Finn had been an open book. Not so much anymore. What had I expected, anyway? Between me breaking up with him without more than a two-second good-bye and then ending up here, well, that was bound to change a guy.

  Somehow, after seeing Sonia and watching her kill the monster that had haunted my nightmares, I’d forgotten to be nervous about seeing Finn. Now I wished I could hit a pause button on all this craziness and hold him. I’d not stopped thinking of him for all those months in the ocean, and now here he was, and we were alone. This might be the only chance we had before all hell broke loose. And I didn’t really believe my promise that we’d all make it out of this alive. I doubted Finn really put much stock in my promises either.

  As I stepped up beside him and peered down into the water, Finn moved to head back out the door.

  Turning, I watched him retreat. I should let him. Focus on what I came here for. “You’re leaving?”

  He paused, back rigid, then turned stiffly. “I guess so. I should get back up to… It would be good if Gwala saw me this morning. Just in case.”

  I nodded. “So, uhm, that fairy is your boyfriend?”

  His cheeks flushed and his gaze darted to the floor, like he’d been caught cheating. “Yeah. Schwint.”

  “Cool.”

  Cool? Cool? That’s what I came up with.

  Finn stared at the ground a couple more seconds, then began to turn back around.

  I rushed forward, closing the distance between us, then paused less than a foot away. “Wait. Please.”

  Slowly, he lifted his eyes. When they finally met mine, they didn’t look away, but they were more heavily armored than the Cathedral itself. “We don’t need to do this, Brett. We shouldn’t. You have to help the mers. I have to help Cynthia. Now that the ball is rolling, it’s not going to take long. We don’t have time to waste. What’s done is done.”

  My hand shot out on its own and grasped his bicep before he could turn away again. “I have to. I’ve not stopped thinking about you. Wishing I’d handled things differently.”

  “Brett—”

  “I’m sorry. Finn, I’m sorry. There’s a million reasons I did what I did, but none of them are good enough. I never should have left you like I did.”

  He stared at me, his expression unreadable.

  I faltered. “I’m not saying that you needed to be all torn up or anything. I wish I’d—”

  His bitter laugh cut me off. “All torn up? That doesn’t even begin…” He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “No. We can’t do this. I don’t want to.”

  I couldn’t put my finger on what I was feeling. Guilt, of course, but also something more. I wanted to see Finn again. Really see him. The man standing in front of me who looked like him was so far away that it was worse than not seeing him at all. “Do you love him?”

  He flinched. “I don’t think you get to ask that.”

  “Please. I know I shouldn’t. I just need to know you’re happy. I need to know you’re okay. Do you love him?”

  He snorted in disgust, then gestured around the room. “Am I okay? Really? Do I look okay, Brett? I’m in the Vampire Cathedral. My sister is trapped. Mom and Dad were both nearly killed. And I about fucking lost my sanity—and that was before any of this shit happened! And you ask if I’m okay?” He halted and glanced up, as if worried his heightened tone might make it all the way up through the stone.

  I let go of his arm and took a step back. “You’re right. Again, I’m sorry.”

  I turned around and headed toward the pool.

  “Brett.”

  I looked back at him.

  He let out a long sigh, his shoulders slumping. He looked older than ever, but when his eyes met mine, I saw a hint of the man I’d loved before. “Sorry. I thought about what words I’d say to you countless times. None of them were that. And I never thought it would be here, like this.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s okay.”

  “I do love him. Schwint. I love him.”

  Beneath the sting of that, I was happy to realize a part of me was glad. I knew I’d never be what Finn needed, even if I could stay on land. I needed him to be okay. To be happy. “He’s good to you?”

  Finn laughed. This time a real one, and with it, I saw more of the man who’d been so full of life. It was good to know he was still in there somewhere. “He came here with me. Willing to die to help me and my family. Yeah. I’d say he’s good to me.”

  “Good. You deserve it.”

  Finn didn’t say anything for a moment, but I could see he was battling with something. Debating what to say. “So, you found out what the other part of your bloodline was, it seems.”

  I glanced behind me toward the pool. “Yeah. Crazy.”

  “Is that where you were? Living in the ocean?”

  I nodded. “I never dreamed anything like it.” Suddenly I wanted to sit down and tell him everything. About finding my father, dealing with the tribe. Lelas. Wrell. To tell someone who knew who I was before. Someone who loved me.

  “That explains why I couldn’t find you. Never thought to look there.”

  So he had looked for me. Guilt at the thought of him searching aimlessly for me dampened the comfort of him caring so much.

  Finn motioned back toward the stairs. “I need to get back to Schwint.”

  “Sure. I guess I should be getting down to see how the mers are, let them know we’re going to try to get them out of here.”

  Finn grimaced. “They’ve been through hell, Brett. I don’t even want to tell you what’s been done to them. What Gwala was going to make me do to them.”

  I was pretty sure I had a good idea. “Now you won’t have to. This is almost done.”

  “I hope so.”

  “It is, Finn. It is.”

  He started to turn away but paused once more. “I’m glad you’re here, Brett.”

  “Me too.” It hurt how much I needed him to say that. Luckily, Finn had started up the stairs before my eyes stung with tears.

  I stared after him for far too long, such a rush of emotions I wasn’t able to identify one underlying feeling or thought. After a time, my gaze focused on the rosy hue of the marble stone that had rolled back into place as Finn walked away. For such a sinister place, everything was beautiful. Even the cavernous dock. Granted, I hadn’t seen the main portion of the Vampire Cathedral, but so far it was nothing like what I’d expected. When Caitlin had threatened to call the Royals when Finn had first brought home the ignorant demon, I’d pictured a scene out of an old Dracula film. Transylvania and the whole bit.

  Forcing my gaze to leave the stone—Finn wasn’t returning—I glanced around the strange spherical room. The swirling patterns of pink and caramel gold in the stone made it seem more like Cinderella’s castle than the fortress of vampires. Even when Sonia had led us into the cave and hidden us in the boat, something about the structure of the place had felt familiar. The sensation grew as Finn led me down the steps to the mer pool. I felt like it should be obvious. The place was so otherworldly, yet more a part of the earth than anything else I’d ever seen, like it had been birthed in one perfectly solid formation.

  My gaze continued to sweep over the smooth surface, and the realization hit me as I looked from one torch to the next, taking in the perfect transition from marble to precious stone that made up the sconces. The demon’s cave in the cliffs of San Diego. Though minuscule in comparison, it had been just the sa
me. The curving wall that transformed into a bookcase had seemed like it had been grown that way somehow. Exactly like every part of the Cathedral I’d seen thus far. Everything seamless. Everything smooth and perfect. Instead of feeling pleased I’d made the connection, I felt like I’d missed the biggest part somehow.

  Leaving the sconces, I focused on the surface of the water. Nothing about it suggested it contained the enclosure that held the mers. Maybe Finn was mistaken. I dismissed the thought as soon as it formed. He wasn’t. As terrified as I was, I had a certainty we were on the right path. It all felt right. Finally. The pieces had fallen into place, whether placed there by the nymphs, Moheetla, or the God of my grandmother.

  I stepped to the edge of the pool and curled my toes over the sloping marble lip. Surety filled me, making me feel both indestructible in my confidence and frail in the scheme of the overall picture of life. It had all led to this. The alleyway. My love for Finn. Sonia’s death. All to this.

  Words from the nymph’s prophecy at Rodrigo’s funeral flitted through my mind—“fulfillment of freedom from slavery.” The truth of it hit me with such force, I took a step backward to keep my balance.

  I wasn’t certain we were all going to make it out alive. But two things I knew without a doubt. The mers would be free. Finally. So certain, I doubted I could fuck it up even if I wanted to. For once, I had no doubt a higher power was facilitating their freedom, or had at least foreseen it. The other, while I didn’t have the same surety of divine intervention, I would make happen or lose my immortality in the process. Cynthia would be free as well. I promised Finn. I’d promised him many things and broken every one. This one, I was going to follow through on.

  I wanted to run back up the stairs and find everyone. Let them in on the truth I knew I’d been given. Even Sonia. Let her know she was going to get what she wanted. While I didn’t understand her reasoning, or even who she’d become, she was as much a part of this as I was. The truth of it had begun to dawn on me as I’d watched her revolted expression as Shane fed from her, then gaped as his wounds healed before my eyes. In some way, her life had been sacrificed for this purpose.

  There were three things I knew. The mers would be free. As would Cynthia. And the vampire king was going to die, ensuring Sonia would have her liberation as well.

  Forty

  BRETT WRIGHT

  They seemed numberless. I’d never dreamed there’d be so many. My heart swelled with hope at the sheer number of mers spread throughout the maze of underwater caverns and passages. Not only that, but in addition to the massive quantity of them, so many different tribes were represented. I hadn’t known there were so many. All different variations of appearance. It was easy to identify those who were offspring of the Chromis, Scarus, and Volitan. But there were so many others, and even more that seemed a combination of qualities.

  Not only would the mers be saved from being hunted to extinction, but their numbers were about to explode.

  The mers’ appearance kept causing me to doubt what I was feeling, but I continued to shove it aside. We’d gone too far. Suffered too much for these mers who’d been captive for so long not to make it. So many looked sickly. Their tails, skin, and hair seemed malformed and wrong. Some of them simply reminded me of Akamaii’s aged appearance, but most felt different somehow. Even some of the young looked weak and frail.

  I’d stripped out of the cargo shorts as soon as I’d exited the first tunnel that led to the chamber with the mers. Though tailless, I felt like one of them. I thrilled at their existence and filled with indignant fury at their condition. Clothing made me a different species entirely.

  Even so, though I attempted to communicate with many of them, every mer either gaped at me in terror or looked through me entirely. Communicating with them only increased their fear and confusion. I quit trying.

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t need anything from them. They’d be free soon enough. Nothing they could tell me would stop that or make it quicker.

  After endless offshoots and nearly countless identical sphere rooms, I found one that was different. Not in appearance—the flames behind the crystalline panels filled the space with a soft light, but instead of the warming glow it lent to the other spaces, here it cast a gloom and pallor over all the chamber held.

  The tunnels around it had been absent of mers, which made me think I was reaching the end of the enclosure. And maybe I was, but that wasn’t why they were avoiding this place. Bones were piled in heaps, several mounds of them reaching the curved ceiling. Such quantity it took me a moment to grasp what I was seeing.

  I couldn’t begin to fathom how many mer lives were represented by the heaps. The weight of it all had smashed the bases into nearly solid foundations of broken and shattered bone. Only the tops and sides displayed nearly intact mer skeletons. A few—less than ten—skeletons still had decomposing flesh clinging to them.

  Closest to me lay a few forms that had died most recently. The one that held my focus was the body of what had to have been a child. Its face was turned from me, so I couldn’t distinguish if it had been a boy or girl, but enough of the scales remained that the child had obviously been from the Scarus tribe. I remembered Akamaii saying they had recently lost one of their children. Try as I might, I still couldn’t remember if she’d said whether it had been a boy or girl, much less the young one’s name.

  Forcing myself, I swam closer and laid my hand over what was left of the long black hair. There would be no more. No more death like this one. This was a thousand times worse than any mer war that might happen. Even more atrocious than the fate that had befallen Nalu and Wrell.

  No more. I promised as much to the Scarus child before I turned and swam out of the room.

  I knew it was him before I saw him fully. Even before I completely entered the room. Simply from the mass of fiery-red hair that clouded around his upper body.

  “Ventait.”

  At the sound of his name, he looked up, his blue eyes wide in shock, then blazing with fury.

  I swam closer.

  The merman lunged at me, the muscles of his chest and arms straining as his wrists were ripped backward, restrained by the shackles binding them. I glanced over his body, taking in the other golden bonds at his waist and tail.

  A memory of Wrell’s image of the young merboy being pulled onto the boat, his emerald tail gleaming through the nets that bound him, superimposed itself over the reality of the male in front of me.

  Despite his imprisonment, my heart swelled at the sight of him, both that he was here and that he seemed more alive than the rest. The golden chains confused me. I’d not seen any others so confined. Maybe the fact that he was so alive had forced the vampires to bind him. Either way, he’d been set apart from the others. It didn’t matter. Not right now. He was alive. He was the crown jewel of all I’d discovered. At least for my tribe. I’d found the one they’d all been devastated over. I’d found the one Lelas longed to see. The one who might bring some joy back to her life.

  I’d paused at his distress but couldn’t stop myself from lifting a hand toward him. “Ventait.”

  This time, he stilled at his name. His blue eyes darting back and forth as he searched my form, trying to make sense of what he saw.

  “The Chromis have been searching for you.” I felt the smile break over my face. Somehow it felt wrong to smile in his presence, with all he must have gone through. With the room of bones not far away. I couldn’t help it.

  He narrowed his gaze, stretching his head out as far as his confined body would allow as he inspected me.

  I paused, simply letting him look at me.

  Finally, a low, slow voice filled my head. It was hard and cold. “What are you?”

  “I am family. I am a Chromis.”

  He searched my form again, his gaze pausing in their inspection to stare at my penis, then traveled down my legs to glare at my feet.

  I swam forward in the small space and stopped in the light of the enclosed fire. Once
there, I twisted my body slightly.

  It had the desired effect, as I’d hoped it would. His eyes widened at the familiar opalescent sheen over my skin. Though not as strong as his own, it was there. Enough to convince him.

  “How?”

  I grinned at him again. “My father is Therin, your dad’s friend. My mother was… a different species.” No need to bring up the demon thing. There was enough to deal with.

  At the mention of his father, his demeanor changed. For the first time, something besides anger and suspicion flitted behind his eyes. I prayed he wouldn’t ask about his parents. I’d lie to him. I couldn’t tell him of his mother’s suicide and his father’s disappearance. I wouldn’t.

  Abruptly, his expression hardened. “Why are you here?”

  I shrugged, suddenly overwhelmed with the task at hand. “We’ve been searching for you. It’s time to go home. For all of you.”

  He didn’t respond, and I couldn’t read anything from his appearance. His mask was stoic.

  “I’m not sure when. It may be today or tomorrow. I can’t imagine we will have more time than that.”

  I paused, waiting for a response. None came.

  “Either way, it will be soon.”

  Still, no reaction.

  I almost asked his permission before I approached him, but didn’t. For some reason, the silence that fell between us seemed right.

  Careful not to touch him, I reached out and grasped the base of one of the gold chains that secured him to the wall. I kept my eyes opened and focused. If there was ever a time I had to control my fire, it was now.

  The water bubbled ferociously around my fist, blurring the scene beneath. Ventait didn’t flinch away or react, though I could feel his gaze on me. Within seconds, the gold melted and was consumed by my fire, and I pulled away. The golden chain fell to the merman’s side, coming to rest against his emerald tail. As it did, I noticed the blue that shone from the center of each crescent scale. My eyes flashed up and met his.

  My cheeks burning, I turned back toward the marble wall and repeated the process on the chains that held his other hand, his waist, and then his tail.