Chapter 15 - Fates, Fins, and Fangs

I WAS WRONG.

It definitely could get weirder. It was like the universe had heard my thoughts and interpreted them as a challenge. "Hold my beer," seemed like something the gods would say when it came to my life.

I gaped at the gorgeous dark-haired woman as she swam across Gesa's over-the-top ridiculous saltwater pool. I got little flashes, moments of craziness that I knew weren't crazy, when I saw her entire lower body was made up of purple octopus tentacles.

She rolled over to float on her back, her dark hair floating around her in an inky cloud. "Chike! Come swim with me."

The twins both sat at the edge of the pool paddling their feet in the water. I had plopped myself down in a lounge chair while Chike paced, clearly still pissed at having been left behind.

The...merman glared at his adoptive mother. "Does it look like I'm in the mood for a swim?"

She laughed. "It looks like you're as sullen as ever. I thought maybe getting a girlfriend and an overly possessive boyfriend would loosen you up a bit."

He scowled down at her. "Shut. Up."

I smirked. "Was that what all that drama with Rhys was?" I asked, resting my chin in my palm as I watched Chike. "Are you and Rhys...?"

He spun to direct his glare at me. "Don't you have better things to worry about right now?"

I shrugged. "Probably, but this is more amusing than contemplating all the ways my world just went kaboom."

He rolled his eyes heavenward as if praying for patience. Then he turned away from my smirk. "The leach is your boyfriend, Troy. Not mine. He's just old as dirt, so he thinks everyone should do whatever he wants."

I glanced at Kai as she paddled by. She waggled her eyebrows and winked. Yeah, I wasn't buying it either. But clearly, Chike didn't want to talk about his love life right now.

"What are they doing now, do you think?" I asked. Then I darted my eyes to the twins. Could we even talk about that when they were listening? Their parents were out there in danger, after all.

Kai swam over and heaved herself up to sit on the edge of the pool near me. "White has had a perimeter set around his territory for a while now. He'll be activating it tonight, to try to keep anyone dangerous outside the city. Gesa and the others were asked to take care of any supes or humans inside the city lines who decide that now is the time to start trouble." She shrugged, unconcerned.

I shook my head. "You realize none of that makes sense, right? What does all of this have to do with Derek White? I mean, I know everyone says he thinks he owns this town, but I thought they were being funny."

Chike made weird, scoffing sound, his eyes still on the woods past the large yard. "He considers Ontonagon his territory. And he thinks he fucking owns the people who live here too."

Kai studied my face curiously. "What do you think of the man?" She waggled her eyebrows and her dark blue eyes twinkled. "He's rich. Powerful. And dangerously hot. Wouldn't you just love to find out how he is in bed?"

Chike walked away, his motions sharp and pissed.

I watched him go, bemused. "Um," I said to the weird octopus lady. Kai really gave no fucks about little things like what was appropriate to say out loud. "I don't even know the guy. And he kind of seems like an asshole. Or maybe a serial killer."

I watched Chike as he paced around the yard, his long braid swaying and his shoulders ramrod straight. The twins gave a little battle cry and rushed over to launch themselves at him, and he engaged them in a game of tag.

Kai sighed. "He'll learn to share," she whispered to me. "He's just being stubborn."

I blinked at her. "Actually...um, him and Rhys have been...sharing just fine." My entire face was probably fire engine red.

Kai laughed at the expression on my face and waved a dismissive hand. "I didn't mean with him."

I narrowed my eyes. I really didn't like the insinuations everyone was dropping. I opened my mouth to say something, but I was hit with a weird, pulse of something. "What the fuck was that?" I gasped, rubbing a hand over my gut, where it felt like I'd just been punched.

Chike glanced toward me, and Kai patted my leg, her voice calm as ever. "That was a really powerful ward going up. Probably White setting his perimeter. It's interesting that you could feel it."

I stared at her, wide eyed. "Ward? You mean like...magic?"

She grinned. "Yep."

Chike whooped and I looked over to see him go down under the weight of two small children. They crashed to the ground and rolled around in the grass while he took turns tickling the little fiends. He was so damned cute when he wasn't being all aloof and pissy.

Kai smiled fondly at her sort-of-son. "I'm happy for the two of you," she said, serious for once. Her hand fell to her stomach and her expression went wistful. "Nothing is more amazing than finding your mates."

I eyed her stomach, feeling myself blushing again. I wanted to ask her who the father was. Because there were so many possibilities. But I didn't get the chance.

I'd had a slight headache building behind my eyes all night, and it chose that moment to go from dull ache to pounding throb. Kai's appearance stopped wavering, and her real form emerged for good. She really was half octopus. And she had the most adorable purple freckles and weird webbed hands. I didn't get the chance to ogle her for long, though, before she sat up taller and shouted to Chike.

"To me!" she yelled, her strong alto full of command.

I watched as Chike scooped up...holy fuck the twins were little winged fox pups. The merman charged over to the pool and tossed the poor little pups into the water. Then he gestured at me. "Get in. Make sure they don't drown!"

I gaped at him, but my feet moved to do as I was told before the poor puppies drowned. What the hell was he thinking, throwing them in the pool?

I jumped in, clothes and all, and the pups paddled over to me, making pathetic little yips of distress. I wrapped an arm around each one to keep them afloat, their little white wings tucked against my sides. Chike stayed out of the water, pacing around the edge of the pool with his borrowed daggers in his hands as some kind of weird animals emerged from the forest and made their way into the yard.

"How are they breaching the ward?" he yelled to Kai.

She swam to the middle of the pool before answering. "Possessed, I think. They must have enough demon magic to get through, even in their borrowed bodies."

One of the weird creatures lunged for Chike. It was a wolf, or at least it probably had been at one time. But its limbs were moving all wrong, things re-arranged at impossible angles, and its eyes glowed red. Chike moved faster than I thought possible, hacking at the thing with his blades, slitting its throat. It slid to a halt near the pool, dripping dark blood into the water.

I held the little pups closer and backed up against the wall at the shallow end of the pool. The water started churning with waves around us and I glanced to the deep end as more weird forest creatures poured into the yard. My jaw dropped open and I stared in absolute shock as Kai morphed into a monster. Tentacles bubbled up out of the water, some thicker than my waist, covered in sticky pink suckers. The woman's human torso disappeared as she became a towering creature that looked like something out of a nautical sci-fi horror flick.

The beast's yellow eyes darted around, taking in me, huddled with the cubs in the shallow water, Chike hacking up forest creatures, and the horde of things coming at us from the woods. Tentacles lashed out, grabbing our attackers and flinging them into the air, where they disappeared off into the horizon like something out of a cartoon. A few of the bigger beasts were torn in half, and I flinched and closed my eyes when gore and body parts rained down on us.

I opened my eyes, blinking away bloody saltwater. I didn't want to see what was going on around us. But...Chike was out there somewhere in the chaos. I saw him open his mouth and let out a high-pitched burst of sound that made my ears ache. A possessed bear exploded.

I blinked, wondering if I was ever going to be able to sleep again after this. Whatever Chike had just done, it was rapidly becoming obvious that he was far, far stronger than I ever gave him credit for. Between Kai and Chike, what seemed like an endless army of monsters was taken care of in the span of a few, heart-stopping seconds.

I stood there panting, my breaths loud in the sudden silence. Chike straightened from a crouch and wiped blood off his cheek. "I think that was all of them," he said, his voice rich and weirdly seductive, given our gory surroundings.

Kai let out a deafening roar and began shrinking back to human form. "I don't sense anything else," she said evenly. Then she paddled over to me and took the pups into her arms. They morphed seamlessly into two naked and completely unconcerned kids, clinging happily to their mom. "Come on," she said, hefting them up to get a better hold. "Let’s go find some clothes.

Kai was also buck-assed naked, thanks to her shift. But that seemed unimportant, given everything else that had happened. She stopped by the edge of the pool and pressed a recessed button with her toe. I felt a wash of something over me and the bloody water was suddenly...clean.

Chike dropped his knives by the edge of the pool and pulled off his shoes. Then he dove into the deep end and arrowed rapidly over to me, washing off the traces of blood and gore from his body and clothes as he went. He came up right in front of me, streaming water and glistening like a...merman. I looked around the yard, still waiting for more monsters to emerge. But...I guess the bigger monsters were on my side. "What did you do to them?" I heard myself ask, as if from a distance. "When you yelled?"

Chike pushed his wet purple hair back from his face and grimaced at me. "I'm half-siren," he said tiredly.

I stared at him, just now realizing he was still looking like a supernatural. My vision wasn't going back to normal. "Why did you say you were a merman, then?"

He shrugged and looked down at where he'd taken my hand in his own claw-tipped appendage. "Because mer and sirens don't mix. Ever. Sirens are the worst kind of elite bitches. It's why I couldn't stay with my own family. My pod didn't like that I was too feminine to be a real merman. They thought it was vaguely gross that I liked both girls and guys. But my siren blood was the straw that broke the camel's back. When I started showing more and more siren traits as I got older, some of the pod were in favor of exiling me. Others were all for executing me." He shrugged. "My brother leads the pod. He decided to send me away, rather than let things keep escalating. He had to keep the peace."

I let out a breath. Well, that certainly explained the giant chip on his shoulder.

"Can we get out of the pool now?" I asked, plucking at my wet t-shirt.

He laughed. "Yeah. I'm sure the others will be back soon. The self-cleaning spell for the water is handy. But we should rinse off in the actual shower and get dressed."

He went to climb out of the pool, but I stopped him, grabbing his arm and pulling him back to face me. "I still feel like nothing makes sense. But thanks for protecting me from...whatever that was. And...we'll figure everything else out eventually. Right?"

He smiled faintly and nodded. "We will. I'm just afraid you won't want me in your life anymore, once you know everything."

I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips, unafraid of his mouthful of sharp teeth. "I'll always want you, idiot," I said when I pulled back.

He cupped my cheek for a second before pulling away and heading toward the steps. "Come on, weirdo, before the rest of the freaks get home and we have to deal with them."