He raised eyebrows. “Chicken.”
I snorted, lifting my eyebrows in return. “Dude, I’m not five. Taunting me won’t force me to jump into the sea to prove my bravery.”
Connor’s grin was huge, and I wished for the tenth time that he wasn’t so good-looking. Assholes who kidnap people and assist evil god-bitches should not be attractive. Their faces should cause women to run in the opposite direction.
“You were supposed to come and see me a month ago, Maddison James,” Connor said in his rumbly, annoying-as-fuck voice. “I have been very patient, but now it’s time for you to get your ass in the water and embrace your Atlantean side.”
Jesse growled at him. “And what about the rest of us? We’re all Atlanteans here. Why are you focusing so much of your attention on Maddi?” He leaned over the edge, his next words rumbling through his clenched jaw. “She does not belong to you.”
Connor’s stupid happy smile faded, and I found those dark eyes right on me. “Sorry about Asher,” he said softly, “but at least the sacrifice wasn’t you, right?”
My world stopped spinning. It was like everything ground to a halt as his words hung in the air between us. I’d heard this before. I’d had similar thoughts myself, but hearing it put so bluntly was absolutely gutting me.
“How dare you,” Larissa snarled, and for once her fangs were very visible. She was the least vampire-y vampire I’d ever met, but right now she was channeling her race hard. “Maddi would never be happy about anyone being sacrificed instead of her. Fuck off. Stop talking to us.”
Jesse’s arm was around me as he held me up, no doubt ready for me to collapse into a puddle of despair and anguish, but I was heading in a much healthier direction.
Pure rage.
My legs shot me up and over the side of the boat, the massive well of energy inside me exploding out in visible waves. By the time I hit the water, my vision was tinged in shades of blue and green, and my brain was single-mindedly focused on smashing Connor into a million pieces. He dropped below the water and started to speed swim away from me, but there was no way in hell he was going to outpace me in my current rage.
I caught him in seconds, my hands wrapping around his throat as I poured water magic into him, knocking him back into the statue beyond. I didn’t have time to really notice the statue, but I did see a crown, ornately detailed, on the top of its head. It was probably one of the Atlantean royalty, then, which was fitting. Connor might be getting crushed against his long-dead family.
I hit him again and again with my magic. He tried to defend himself, but he had nothing on me. Eventually he just covered his face and pressed himself into the statue so that he’d stop getting so smashed around.
He looked so small and pathetic that some of my fire faded, and I sort of slumped, pulling the energy back inside. Part of me felt better, having expelled a ton of pent-up rage and sorrow and fear. Another part of me felt just the same: dead, broken, angry.
I kicked a few times, rising to the surface without even sparing a look for whatever world of Atlantis lay below.
When my head broke the surface, I wasn’t surprised to see Calen, Jesse, and Rone in the water with me. They’d been at my back, like always, keeping me safe. Even when I was the one who should be feared.
“You could have killed him,” Calen said, and it wasn’t in a reprimand way; it was in a “why didn’t you kill him? You had the power” way.
I shrugged. “He’s not worth it. I just needed someone to beat up on a little until I felt better.”
Connor’s head appeared above the water. He looked paler than usual, his face creased. “That hurt,” he groaned.
“Good,” I shot back. “Maybe next time you’ll think before you speak. Trust me, Asher was twenty times the supe you’ll ever be, and you probably don’t want to hear who I would have sacrificed had I been given the choice.”
Connor groaned again. “Harsh, babe.”
Babe?Did he just fucking—?
“Call her that again and I will drain your blood and feed you to the sharks,” Rone warned.
Connor eyed the huge vampire before shaking his head. “You guys are all as psycho as each other. I can see why Maddison fit right into your group.”
“Why are we here?” I asked Connor, changing the subject. “Atlantis has not risen. It’s like ten statue tops and that’s about it.”
Connor looked less pained and more businesslike in that second. “Yes, right. It appears to have stopped again, and we think it’s because Asher’s sacrifice—” He flinched and paused for a second, but I managed to hold on to my temper. “—wasn’t quite enough. I’m thinking it’s going to take your blood and mine to finish the transition.”
Connor believed a lot of crazy shit. “You said I was born just before Atlantis sank, and that somehow I stayed in stasis for ten thousand years, only to be released by someone … Asher’s parents maybe. Do you believe you and Asher were the same?”
Connor hesitated. “Well, at first I didn’t, but after what we all did together last year, after we broke that magical seal that held for a century, I have been digging deeper. It appears there’s a possibility that all three royal families had babies at the same time. Babies that were sacrificed to appease the gods. Only they were not appeased. They were incensed that their children were sacrificed in such a way, and they cursed Atlantis to sink.”
“So you now believe that you and Asher are from original Atlantis too?”
He nodded.
