And if it hurt to be this close to what had once been my life, I could fix that pain easily enough—by not coming back. When I was deep under, my previous life felt like a dream, nothing more. A bittersweet dream, absolutely, but a nebulous, unsubstantial one that was easy to ignore. It was only being here that made it all tangible again.
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.