Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Darcy meets me halfway to the lagoon, a towel draped over one arm.

I’d told Cassie about my conversation with Themis and how I was on the verge of getting kicked out of the assassination class. She then blabbed it to everyone else. Now the whole school knows. Tina and her friends are, of course, actively rooting against me. But at least my friends are in my corner. It’s kinda weird to use that word in the plural, but Greg, Fern, and Darcy—they’re all rallying around me, giving advice and basically doing what they can to help me shift.

The only problem is…I haven’t mentioned how I might not be ready to shift.

Now Darcy smiles and tosses a towel my way. “Ready for our date?”

“I…” Confused, I give him the side-eye.

A lot of the students at Mount Olympus are pretty casual about s*x and dating, but Darcy didn’t seem like the kind of guy to make a move on his future date’s roommate.

But when I take a better look, I see nothing but humor in his eyes. Darcy isn’t checking me out or being weird, he’s just trying to make a joke.

Geez, Greg and his friends really need a new playbook for humor.

“First step is getting into the water,” Darcy says as we reach the lagoon. It really is beautiful, but not in a Florida wildlife kind of way. Sure there are mangrove trees, but the water they surround is clear blue. No muddy swamp water here. There’s even a waterfall—several merfolk sunbathe on a rock nearby. I avert my eyes from their nudity.

I don’t want to be seen as prissy so I just act like it’s no biggie. “Yeah, I figured. But what about—” I start to ask, but immediately have to shut up and turn away. Prissy is one thing, but examining your best friend’s crush’s junk is on a whole other level.

Cassie was not kidding about the merfolk being the least modest species on campus. I hear Darcy’s clothes hit the ground, a splash, and then I’m hit by a wall of water.

“Hey!” I push my wet hair out of my eyes to see Darcy smiling, his tail-fin flicking playfully at me just above the surface.

“Get in already!” he says. “The water’s fine!”

I strip down to my bathing suit, tossing aside the wet towel. I don’t know what the point was of Darcy bringing it for me if he was just going to soak me anyway. Maybe merfolk don’t understand the function of a towel in the first place.

I slide into the lagoon and goosebumps roll up my skin, reminding me of the scales from the night of the fire. The water is cooler than any Florida water has the right to be. Apparently, mermen don’t understand what “the water’s fine” means, either.

I cross my arms in front of me when Darcy swims over, partly because I’m cold, and partly because the only suit I have is a bikini and I’m distinctly aware of the fact that underneath his school uniform, Cassie’s boyfriend is sporting a pretty decent body. Well, the top half, anyway. Right now his bottom half is pretty dolphin-like. No wonder Cassie likes coming to the lagoon with him—his chest is ripped.

“Okay, so we’re going to try to relax you a little bit first.” Darcy says, circling me. “How are you with floating?”

“I can float” I nod, rolling over onto my back. Darcy’s hands support me for a moment, but his touch is cool and light, not staying too long.

I shield my eyes as we float away from the edges and the shade of the trees, the sun beaming down on me. “This reminds me of something Val said,” I say, and I feel Darcy tense up beside me.

“He said his old roommate would meditate, and that it helped his whole family with the shifting process.”

“Mmm,” Darcy says, but doesn’t add anything else. I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to talk about Val’s werewolf-traitor roommate, or if he doesn’t like Val.

“Well, I can’t say I know a lot about shifting,” Darcy goes on. “We do it automatically in water, but I definitely know about relaxation. Merfolk are very chill.” He comes up onto his back beside me, crossing his hands behind his head.

I can’t help it. My eyes flick to his crotch…well, his tail area where his crotch would be. He catches me looking and I blush bright red. “Um…sorry”

“It’s fine. I’m not shy. Are you wondering about merman anatomy in general or mine in particular? Because I do really like Cassie even if our relationship is taboo.”

“I’m not interested in your p***s,” I shout. The other bathers look over at me and I lower my voice. “I mean, I was just curious. You know, you tell yourself not to look but then you do…”

“Maybe we should get back to working on finding your inner shifter.”

“Yes. Gods, please.” I say utterly embarrassed.

“First, close your eyes.”

I do, and my vision immediately goes red, the sun beating through my eyelids and giving everything the cast of blood. The eyes inside are there in an instant, rolling, searching, almost like they’re looking for me.

I gasp and open my eyes, body going taut. I flail, spraying water over both of us as Darcy grabs me.

“Whoa… Okay, yeah, you definitely don’t know how to relax.”

“Sorry,” I say, embarrassed. “Can we try again?”

“Of course.” He nods, kicking onto his back easily. “I’ve got all day.”

I take a deep breath, and roll onto my back.

If I want to stay in the assassination class, I need to shift. It was my whole reason for coming here. I’m also not dumb enough to believe that me as plain old Edie Evans will be able to bring down Leviathan. No, I’ll have to shift into whatever I am to make that happen.

I just wish I had a little more time to get used to the idea. Like maybe a decade or so…

I force myself to close my eyes. The eyes stare back at me. I force myself to look into them. And think.

Hermes unleashed my wings for me, and I wasn’t aware of those brooding, red eyes until I was in the swamps—technically on campus. Maybe being here had woken up something inside of me, weakening Dad’s spell that had first started to unwind when I blasted fire during the rogue wave. I’d never been in real danger in my life—Mom and Dad had made sure of that. Like all parents do, of course, but I realize now there was more to it.

They knew that if anything ever truly threatened me, I’d shift without meaning to, protecting myself. That’s why they’d always been so careful, making sure I never went too high on the swings, walked home alone at night, or even played any sports, where aggression was encouraged.

I smile a little to myself. They must have been totally thrilled when it turned out I had asthma. Unless…

I almost lose my balance again, but recover, thinking hard. My eyes wide open now. Maybe in more ways than one.

Did my parents give me asthma? Did they cast some kind of spell on me that would make for a convenient excuse to not let me out onto a soccer field, where I might accidentally sprout wings or set an opponent on fire? I stopped having breathing problems the second I got on campus—right when I saw the eyes for the first time.

Whatever Dad did, he thought he was protecting me, I remind myself. Of course, they probably didn’t know how fast Grandma drove… I wipe a tear away at the thought, then settle my mind back down.

I’ve got wings, I can make fire, and a few times I’ve spotted scales forming on my skin. But Merilee and Cassie had laughed at the idea that I might be a dragon, insisting that shifters only changed into regular animals, not mythical ones.

So, what am I?

I make myself relax again, floating back out into the sun, its rays turning everything red again. The eyes are still there, still looking. I know they’re looking for me, waiting for me to accept whatever it is that I am. Because whatever they are, is also me, and that’s exactly why I’m terrified.

Those eyes shout murder. I shift, sinking under until the water fills my ears, the cold closing over my head and shocking me back into reality—an easier place to be than inside my own head, where red eyes search for me. Eyes that want to kill. Want me to kill.

“Okay,” I tell Darcy when I surface. “I’m ready to go back.”

“Any luck?” he asks, splashing me happily.

“Oh yeah,” I tell him, returning a smile. “I feel like I learned something.”

Definitely. I learned that I’m a big weenie, too afraid of what’s inside of me to ever wanna let it out.