Two Tribes, page 20
part #1 of Young Atlanteans Series
She was so incredibly easy to read, even without a scan. A rainbow of hurt, foolishness and then anger spread over her face until she scowled up at him, determined not to let him intimidate her. His anger disappeared and was replaced with the urgent need to kiss her. She was so fiery and ruled by her impulses. So opposite to all things Atlantean; always calculated and premeditated, at least eight moves ahead.
Her aura showed anger as well as shame, proving she knew what she did was wrong on some level but also fury that he was pulling her up on it. She really was an intriguing creature. Then his righteous anger switched to love when she shoved him in the chest and pointed her finger at him. ‘Now look, you! I’m really sorry that I upset you because you feel I went behind your back, but your sister is my friend too. And she was upset with my brother, which kind of made me feel responsible, and she asked me to go home with her. That’s it. She didn’t even know we were coming here. It got changed at the last minute, or something. I promise you. I had no idea.’ Then she scowled as if she’d just renewed her anger with a certain thought. ‘And to be honest, JJ, I thought you’d made it clear what you thought about us …’
Then it hit him. The nagging futility. ‘There is no us,’ he said, quietly, stepping into her again, with all the pointlessness he felt. She was right. What was he doing there? She would have had a slightly weird weekend that would have piqued her interest for a while, but she would have forgotten it and eventually moved on. But he couldn’t let it go.
Then she shocked him. She jabbed him in the chest again. ‘Don’t you dare try to bully me to scare me. It’s you who’s scared. You!’ she shouted.
His eyebrows rose at that. He tried to keep the smile off his face, but he couldn’t help it. ‘Scared of a little girl like you?’
Her eyes dropped immediately to his lips as he fought in vain to keep the smile out of them. She completely intrigued him. So much, that he couldn’t help toying with her. Like a cat with a little mouse. ‘What do you suppose I might be scared of?’ he said, narrowing his eyes, playfully.
‘You’re scared of letting me in. That I might actually get to know the real you … Oh, I don’t know.’ She threw up her hands and went to turn away from him.
He stood there, stunned, watching the way her shoulders hunched over as if with the huge weight of it all.
‘Maybe because you don’t want to care about me.’
It was clear she didn’t want to look at him, but he’d been too quiet for too long and she was forced to. He studied her features, feeling somewhere between being slapped and amazed. No one had been that honest with him before. And because he didn’t speak right away, it seemed to give her the courage to carry on. ‘I think you’re used to getting your own way.’
His mouth eased into a small smile at that. Then it fell away as soon as it came. ‘Your life is so simple, Latitia,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Well of course it is, in comparison to yours,’ she said, going to turn away again, angrily.
He took another step closer and put out a hand to stop her. ‘No, please, Latitia. Listen. Your life is going to school, doing homework, dreaming of being a dancer; that you will probably one day be. But if not that, you’ll train for something else that you want to do. If I was like that …’ He trailed off before he bothered to finish and the strength drained out of him.
Her eyebrows drew together as she took the words he’d tried to say and made them add up all wrong. ‘So you think I’m lucky, do you?’ she said, her voice almost a shriek.
He shifted his feet uncomfortably. This wasn’t how he wanted it to go down at all, but it seemed they were on target for a showdown anyway. ‘Well, yeah,’ he said, looking her provocatively in the eye.
She took a step into him and poked him in the chest yet again. He made a note to cut that fingernail in her sleep. ‘Lucky,’ she repeated as if she still didn’t believe he’d used that actual word. ‘I’m lucky going to that dump of a school, living in that tiny flat with too many kids and a mum I hardly see because she has to work long shifts and is too knackered to do anything with us, in an area that’s too rough. Sometimes I don’t know if she’s caught late at work or whether something’s happened to her on the way home.’ She was crying now but he let her continue, figuring it was something she needed to get out for herself. ‘I’m a second mum to my little brothers and I don’t want to be. I’ll do crap in school because our school is rubbish, which means dancing is my only ticket out of there. I have no fancy, quiet environment to do my homework like you, Mr Fancy Pants. I could go and do it at my dad’s but, oh, wait? My dad disappeared off the face of the earth not long after I was born,’ she ended shouting in his face.
In the end he had to catch her index finger in his hand as it was beginning to hurt with the jabbing. She dissolved into tears and he pulled her into his body, wrapping his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head. He’d never thought how tough her life might actually be on her. He could escape if he wanted but she couldn’t. It made him think of his own fathers and what they were trying to teach him about everyday people. He had two that cared for him a great deal, and she didn’t even have one. And the fact that she brought it up at a time like this meant it was a big deal to her that she normally kept bottled up. ‘I’m sorry, Latitia,’ he whispered into her hair.
She pulled away a little to look up at him. Her eyes were red and surrounded by a smudge of black from her mascara.
‘But Mr Fancy Pants?’ he said, raising an eyebrow, resting his weight on a hip.
She let out a blast of laughter and he pulled her back into his chest. ‘You don’t think so, but you are lucky, JJ.’ He felt her wipe her nose on the back of her hand. He bent down and pulled a tissue from a box by the bed and handed it to her. She blew it loudly. ‘You have parents who love you and all this,’ she said, holding out her hand to encompass the room. Then she let it drop as if the energy had gone right out of her. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe we are just poles apart.’
He stiffened. She’d only echoed what he’d just thought anyway, but it suddenly struck him what his miserable options actually were: to carry on in the way he was going; to remain single. Keeping girls at a distance. Eventually getting together with one of the daughters of the five Atlantean families to bring strength to his family by tying them to the crown.
That thought actually made him shudder and shift immediately to the last school full of bratty, entitled humans. Titled Atlanteans were even worse. They knew exactly who he was and what came with him. That would be lonelier than being single.
He became conscious of Latitia, small and trembling in his arms.
She seemed to sense his reticence and looked up at him with those trusting light-brown eyes.
Or he could take a chance on a human – much of which was in his genetic mix anyway. His mind churned. He could protect and care for her. Maybe help the school. Give her and her family all the things they were lacking, but then his mind switched back to all the restrictions and expectations of his station. ‘You think all this is great, Latitia, but it’s nothing more than a gilded cage.’
She frowned slightly, as if she was thinking about what he’d said. Then she surprised him. ‘All of us are trapped, JJ. We’re all just trying to find the best way to deal with the hand life dealt us. Just feeling our way through,’ she said, searching his eyes as if it was a fundamental truth he should already know.
Then something just switched in his brain. He let her go and reached down for her hand.
‘Where are we going?’ she said, as he led her to the door. ‘Can I at least clean my face?’
‘You won’t need to where we’re going.’ JJ had a single thought in his mind that he now knew he wouldn’t waver from. Nothing had ever been clearer in his head.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she said with more than a trace of fear.
JJ pulled her into the lift and pressed the button to the basement. Then, as the doors clanked closed, he stared purposefully ahead of him. ‘To the pool.’
CHAPTER 22
Xavier was initially stunned that the usually calm and calculating JJ had dropped the ball in this way. However he soon snapped out of it and seized the weakness. After all, such a gift from the Fates could not be ignored. It was exactly what JJ would have done. So while JJ was chasing his baser instincts, he, Xavier, true Prince of Atlantis, would take the reins of their budding empire and assert himself at the helm. Early impressions were everything and he would be making them way before JJ.
The first thing he did was to order all their furnishings for their new loft space. With the amounts he was spending, it wasn’t difficult to insist on next-day delivery or he’d take his business elsewhere. Besides, it was also a good test of how closely his father was keeping an eye on their spending. He hadn’t revoked their cards yet and that was a good sign.
The feeling of absolute freedom was thrilling. He bought the largest, most expensive bed and placed it in the optimum place, close to the walkway to the roof terrace. He ordered foosball, pool and air hockey tables, a jukebox filled with the music he liked, a professional basketball basket and a fully stocked bar for parties. Several deep-pile rugs followed, in various shades of blue and green and one white and one black three-seater sofa, purely because he couldn’t make up his mind. Then, finally, the pièce de résistance, a nine-feet aquarium filled with his favourite tropical Discus and Angelfish to remind him of home.
By the end of Saturday afternoon, all that was left was a large food delivery and some tasteful garden furniture for their terrace. In twenty-four hours he’d spent big and spent quickly and everything had gone through on the Central Atlantic Bank credit card, like a dream.
‘Thank you,’ he said, into his mobile phone. ‘Don’t bother to come up. I’ll come down now.’ The final thing on his order had just been delivered to the car park beneath the building. It was still light and he wanted to show Paige everything while he was on a roll. He turned and surveyed his handywork and chuckled. It was good – very good. Then he called out, ‘Lights off!’
He was weirdly nervous getting into his new silver Mazda MX5. It had been a deliberate choice. Expensive enough to be taken seriously, but not so over the top that his father would make him send it back. It was fast, fun and flashy, but modest compared to what he could have chosen. Just the antidote for the weeks of deprivation. However it wasn’t the sleek little tease that was really at the bottom of his cause for concern, it was Paige. He literally had no idea how she would react. Normal girls would love it, but he was acutely aware that Paige was not an ordinary girl – or rather she was and that was way out of his usual realm of experience. She was the first regular human girl he’d ever wanted to know, and his instincts told him she didn’t even conform to that. So with his heart pumping, he gripped the steering wheel, breathed in the wonderful New Car smell and screeched out of the car park. The garage door lowered behind him and so did his roof as he set off into the buzz of the London dusk.
The air was cool and dry, the sky clear. He immediately cranked the heating, put his phone into the cradle and turned up some XXXTentacion. The soft voice over great beats soothed the edges of his ragged nerves. London seemed to be alive at this time of the evening. People coming home or venturing out to discover what the night had to offer. Excitement prickled in his veins and, just for a moment, he felt like king of all he surveyed.
He had his loft apartment, kitted out like a dream for any boy their age. He had the car and now all he had to do was impress the girl. The one he’d singled out from the beginning. Then tomorrow, before JJ got back, he would make inroads to show his face to the people he’d do business with.
He eased back and relaxed in his seat. Life was good. He’d allow himself one night to enjoy himself. He’d overrun Paige’s senses, so all she could do was give in and be his.
* * *
JJ gripped Latitia’s hand and led her out of the lift to the pool area of the spa. It was deserted at this time and had a soft hue from the emergency lighting. They wouldn’t be disturbed. Staff at the Bluebell were used to letting the Dubonnettis’ nocturnal use of the pool go unchallenged. However, for Latitia’s benefit, he let go of her hand and put a broom through the door handles. Then he went and pushed two of the yellow and white striped sun loungers together to make a bed.
As he pulled his t-shirt up over his head and pushed his hair back in place with his fingers, he gazed out at the pool looking eerie – like a lake in early morning – with steam rising as it hit the cooler air of night.
‘Won’t somebody come?’
JJ saw she hadn’t moved and was hugging her bag to her chest. He shook his head, moving slowly towards her, until he was looking down into her eyes. ‘We’ll be perfectly safe here. He couldn’t resist running his thumb across her cheek The pool heat was making a perfect glow on her skin, now dewy with perspiration. Her eyes seemed large and dilated as they looked up at him a little fearfully. He almost wavered in what he was about to do, but her eyes slowly skated down to take in his chest and abs, covered in the tattoos of his people.
‘Why are we here?’ she asked, swallowing hard, her eyes still on his midriff.
‘Privacy,’ he said simply, bringing them back up to his. He gently took her bag from her iron grip and let it fall on the sun lounger next to him.
‘Don’t you want to lose some clothes? It’s so hot in here,’ he said, letting a small devilish smile creep over his lips.
She frowned. ‘I’ve been swimming today,’ she said, suddenly alarmed, which made him laugh.
Everything she thought was always so perfectly spelled out over her face. At another time he would remind her never to play poker. He pulled her into his body and noted how snugly she fitted. Her face on his bare skin almost made him moan as his mind went to how it would feel with the rest of her. Particularly as he felt her breathe in to sample his scent.
He forced himself to put her away from him before he got too carried away. ‘You asked for answers and I’m going to give them to you.’ He held the tops of her shoulders and for a second he let his mind wander to all the delicious things he’d like to do. ‘I came here to lay myself wide open to you, to come clean for one night for you to choose. Then the opportunity will be gone for ever.’
For a moment she looked up at him, shocked, searching his face to gauge if he was serious. ‘I don’t understand. What will? Her expressive brows pulled together with worry.
‘I’m giving you something I never had: the chance to choose.’
She half laughed and then schooled herself again when his expression didn’t change.
He was deadly serious, more than any other time in his life before. Because, honestly, he didn’t know which way she would go – or even if she should accept him. Part of him wanted to tell her to run and never look back. And the other, the selfish part, wanted her to stay and walk with him; through hell if need be.
‘What’s going on, JJ? You’re scaring me,’ she said, taking a step back out of his grip.
His heart was thrashing in his chest. He was losing her, but it was too late to go back. ‘You want to know about me. You want the truth? Well, I’m going to give it to you. The power. The money. Who my family is? The secrecy. I’m going to give you one shot at the answers, but by morning, you’re going to have to choose whether you want my life or not. Because there’re no half measures. You’re either all in, or all out.’
She grinned, her eyes skating over his face looking for the joke and then frowned in alarm when he continued to look intensely at her. He had to. She had to understand she couldn’t treat this lightly. It was huge. Life-changing. He was breaking every rule he’d learned since he was a kid and he was doing it for her. Was he, though?
When he took in the perfect curve of her cheek, he recognized that he was doing this as much for him. So he was no longer completely alone. He needed someone. Her. To be by his side to face what was ahead. Then, with a voice gone totally hoarse, ‘I’ll show you.’ He turned and went to walk towards the pool.
She was soon behind him. ‘What? Panic was making her voice high-pitched and squeaky.
He looked over his shoulder before he jumped in. ‘Or it will be like we never met. You’ll never see me or my family again because you won’t know us.’
Then he stepped out of his pants and took a perfect dive into the water.
* * *
Latitia moved to the edge of the pool, stunned. The dive took him almost to the far side of the pool. Then he swam gracefully back in an arc and came to a stop a few feet in front of her. The way he swam reminded her of the sealions she’d once seen at the zoo. He was obviously an excellent swimmer. But he didn’t come up. He held himself a few inches under the water. His eyes were wide, dark and held hers the whole time. The blue-green in them seemed to disappear to be replaced by wide pupils.
A tingle went up her spine, ridiculous in the current heat. She wanted to call him and tell him to stop messing about, but something stopped her. The mist, the temperature, the glow from the lighting; it all made him look so strange – almost otherworldly. His skin lightened. Even his tattoos looked weird, taking on a striped, almost animal skin look. Don’t be scared.
She looked around her in fright. It was his voice, but impossible as he was still under the water. ‘Stop it, JJ. Get out now. Please.’ She knelt and reached down a hand, as if to pull him out. He’d been down there ages and must be running out of breath. But she almost recoiled at how different he looked. His arms gently circled to keep him beneath the surface. There were no bubbles and he seemed perfectly at ease as he eased back a little more out of reach. ‘OK … enough now, JJ.’ The time for joking had way passed. Her heart was beating and sweat was running down her face. Then, as she pulled her hand back and sat on her lower legs, she understood. It was fear. JJ was showing her something way beyond her understanding and she didn’t want to face it. She didn’t like it. ‘Get out!’ she shouted in what sounded like desperation. It echoed around the walls, making her struggle back to her feet and take a step back.
