24. Beneath the Water

Chapter twenty-four

Beneath the Water

S unday really makes a name for itself when it's this bloody hot. Hugh lets everyone know that he's going to take Kane out for a walk around the suburb before bringing him back in about two hours, giving everyone enough time to take a dip in the pool without a merman possibly drowning them. It takes me a little while to find some shorts that I'm willing to go out with that still covers some of the bruising. At least it's lightening up now. Some of the guys are already in the pool when I get there, but I do my best to jump quickly before anyone can see anything they shouldn't.

The water is absolutely perfect, especially on a hot day like this. I expected that over the summer that I would be with sorority sisters, so I ended up packing almost four pairs of bikinis that I thought were at least a little bit attractive. I didn't wanna be the one girl in a one piece suit. As Hendrik swims past me, I can hear him humming a song. I'm pretty sure it's the tune to yellow polka dot bikini.

“I'm wearing purple.” I say to him.

“Yeah, but it's still got polka dots on it.” I originally didn't have the intention to get my hair wet, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to splash him in the face. The retaliation, however, was completely brutal. His brother's end up joining his side and the only people that come to my aid is Nolan and Valentine, who was more concerned with his hair getting wet than I was. Eventually the splashing settles when Niles accidentally kicks up enough water that it ends up on Oliver, who had been calmly reading a book under the nearby tree. Everyone goes dead silent, and I don't understand what's going on.

“Seriously, do you want to start this again?” Oliver questions, glaring at Niles.

“I mean, we're a lot better at the game than you are, but-” He doesn't get to continue his sentence. Oliver waves a hand and somehow the water’s surface seems to splash up towards Niles, which also hits both of his brothers. My mouth drops open in awe.

“What the hell was that?” I squeal too loudly, even for me.

“Hey, no powers in the open.” Nolan barks.

“Lighten up a little dog breath.” Now all of us are definitely concerned about what is going on with Oliver.

“Nah, bro.” Nolan shakes his head coming towards the edge of the pool where Oliver is, “, you cannot say something like that and not get your ass in here.”

“If you're the one game enough to play Marco Polo with a vampire. I'm not gonna stop you.” By the sounds of it, that seems like a really twisted version of Marco Polo, where the vampire goes looking for people by biting them. I'm still amazed that these guys have powers I don't even know about yet. I look around me and I can see Valentine nearby, so I swim over to him.

“Hey,” I say, “, so do all of you guys have powers or is it just Oliver?”

“We probably all have some powers we don't know about. But for the powers we do know about, I've got to admit we don't use them very frequently.”

“So what are your special powers?”

“You're asking an incubus what his special powers are? It's like you don't wanna sleep for a week.”

“What? I'm confused.”

Richard clears throat, obviously overhearing us. “If I may, the powers of an incubi usually revolve around sex. If I were you, I would probably just Google it while also watching a movie about kittens. Because if I'm being polite, what they can do is absolutely disgusting.” I look back and forth between the boys and it seems like even more people interested in our conversation.

“I've already gone this far down the rabbit hole.” I swim to the edge of the pool and pull myself up to give myself a seat and face everybody. It's still nice to feel the coolness from the water on my feet.

“Please let me tell her.” Hendrik chuckles. He seems more like a giddy teenager at the moment.

“You’ll make it sound way worse than it is.” Valentine says between clenched teeth. He comes over towards me but doesn't come too close. “Without trying to make it sound as ‘disgusting' as possible, please be reminded this is just in my nature.”

“I'm not about to judge you.” I assure him.

He looks around at the others. Not really sure he wants to say this out loud, “So, obviously, as the others suggested, any abilities I have do have to do with sex. That includes a certain amount of stamina and strength, but also we do have the ability to slightly… alter ourselves.” I look at him with a very concerned glance, but then I look around at the others and ask them,

“Does that mean what I think it means?” No one’s willing to speak out loud, but quite a few of them nod. “Right, well I can see why you're popular with the ladies.” He shoots me a wicked grin before continuing,

“And of course I do have suggestive abilities over women.”

“Which is totally cheating by the way, do you actually know how to flirt with a woman or do you just use your abilities?”

“She's got you there.” Nolan adds. Valentine gives him a pair of dagger eyes before turning back to me.

“Hey, you're the one who wanted to go down the rabbit hole.”

“That much is true.” He comes up to the side of me and uses the pools edge as leverage to hop out and sit down next to me, but his expression changes to something similar to alarm.

“Is that why Oliver killed that guy?” He whispers out of earshot. My face drops as I saw his line of sight down towards my legs. I guess my shorts were just too short.

“Ah, no, I mean, that's not what you think it is.” He tilts his head at me and I can tell that he's not going to let this go too easily. “Okay look, it probably is what you think it is, but it wasn't because of that guy. But please just keep this to yourself.”

“I didn't even know you had a boyfriend. You work quick. Just tell me it's not one of those dorks from the drama class you apparently joined. You can do so much better than that.”

“How do you know who is or isn't in the drama club?”

“Just a hunch that anyone who's in it just must be a dork.”

“I'm in the drama club.”

“And you are a dork.” I give him a solid push, which lands him directly back into the pool.