Sam watched from his locker as Whitney made her way down the hallway. He tried to hide his stare as his friends talked around him, but he was still worried. She had been close to death just over twenty-four hours ago, and yet she seemed fine. Seemed was the part that bothered him. Whitney was great at “seeming to be” a lot of things. No one saw the tears or the sad eyes she had when she watched the ocean at his favorite surf spot.
The first time Sam had seen Whitney was before he knew who she was or that she would be going to his school. The pier was usually busy, and he hated to be around so many day humans. He had been on land for years, but at times it still got to him. They always smelled delicious. There was a better spot down a ways from the pier, but still within view of it. That was his spot, right after the bend that kept him away from all the non-stop chattering of a world he was never going to be part of, a world on the land and not the sea.
Sam was alone when he spotted her. At first, he thought she was an illusion from the sun shining just right on the sand, but as he got closer, he realized she was real. She never noticed him as he snuck into the water to get closer.
From beneath the waves, he was able to circle around her spot on the rocks of the bend. She was staring in the direction of the pier, and thus he was hidden as he surfaced. Luckily she didn’t see him, but there was more than one occasion since that he wished she would have.
“What do you think?” someone asked from beside Sam.
Shaking from his thoughts of Whitney, he realized he was calmer now that he saw her walking into the school and not suffering any lasting effects from his blood. He needn’t have worried; she was just as graceful as ever and completely alive.
Sam turned to the voice beside him.
Amber batted her eyes lashes at him. Sam was growing sick of all her advances. They had grown up together, but he had made it very clear that he wasn’t choosing a mate until he was forced to. Amber seemed to take that at a challenge, and as his eighteenth birthday approached, she was trying harder to get him to notice her. And he did notice her, but that didn’t change anything. She was like a sister to him. They had swum their first times together, learned how to catch fish, climb a tree, and sneak away from the island altogether. He never once saw her as anything but family.
“About?” Sam asked vaguely. He hadn’t heard a bit of the conversation as he watched Whitney. He tried to act as if he was just spacing out and not watching the day human none of them ever saw instead.
“Whether we should skip the party also,” Amber replied, latching her arm on to his. “I’m voting for staying here with you in protest.”
Sam wanted to pull away since Whitney was coming closer, but that would make Amber suspicious. She already was watching each of the people he taught swim lessons to. She constantly told him that the only way he could really tell her no on being together was if he found someone else. He almost said he had, but stopped himself before he did.
“I say we should all stay back on land,” Leo stated from the other side of Amber.
“I agree,” Amber added, fluffing her blond curls with the arm that wasn’t hooked on to him.
Amber had the same blond hair and blue eyes, but she still didn’t compare to Whitney. Her arm holding him in place couldn’t make his heart beat faster like Whitney could do with just a glance. Sam had no idea how else he could get through to Amber that he was never going to choose her. She was either too dense to understand or didn’t want to. It was more than likely the latter.
“No. You guys will all get in trouble. My father called everyone back. You can’t defy him without getting him upset. Heck, if you all stayed, he might be upset enough to exile you guys,” Sam repeated what he had explained the week before and the week before that. It was great that they all wanted to have his back with him defying his father, but he couldn’t let them do it. He would get in enough trouble as it was.
“But if you aren’t going to be there, then what’s the point?” Mark asked.
“The party will go on with or without me. Me showing up won’t make a difference,” Sam replied. And it was true. It wasn’t like his father would ask him his thoughts on anything. He never did. Sam was to be the obedient son. That was his role.
Whitney had her books in her hands now and was walking back past them on her way to her science class. Sam’s class was right next door. Quickly, he reached into his locker and grabbed his own books.
“You guys will attend, as my father asked. That’s the last of it,” Sam ordered them.
Sulking, Amber nodded her head. She had no choice when Sam commanded it. That was the only perk of being the head of the guard. Everyone, beyond his brothers and father, had to listen to him. His friends, even though meaning well, would be at the party he was going to avoid. They would be safe, and he would have done his job yet again.
Sam untangled his arm from Amber as gracefully as he could, hopefully without angering her, and made his way down the hallway after Whitney. She had paused at her friend’s locker. He slowed to stay behind her. He wasn’t sure if he had been caught watching her by anyone, but he kind of suspected a few times she had caught him. It was easier to stay behind to not get caught another time. They took off toward the science building, and he kept pace with them, listening just a little to their conversation. Whitney was unusually quiet, and that worried him. Something was up. He had followed her around long enough to know, around friends, Whitney was never quiet.
Whitney slipped into her classroom, and Sam slowed down to be able to catch a glimpse from the doorway. She was already seated and staring off into space. Her eyes were distant, as were her thoughts. Sam was getting worried. Could the blood have done something bad to her? Was she feeling sick? He would never forgive himself if his blood had hurt her. He didn’t know what to expect, but at least she was alive. Her heart beat loudly as he walked past the room. She sounded healthy from what he heard, and the color was completely back in her cheeks, but it still worried him. She was never quiet and pensive at school. That was always left at the beach. He had wished a hundred times he could ask her about that, but then it would give away that he saw her there, and she might actually look for him.
Sam sighed as he turned to his own classroom. The bell was going to ring soon, and he couldn’t just stand in the hallway watching her. The draw of Whitney was as strong as ever. Sam was never going to be with Amber or any other person as long as Whitney was alive, and no one could ever know that was the real reason.
Whitney was beyond happy for it to be Friday. She needed the weekend, and she needed it badly. Her life had completely turned upside down. Her shower the night before was weird, but as soon as she turned it off and dried off, her legs reappeared. It had been a pain to get that large fin out of the tub to dry it off, but she did it and then had legs again. She really had no clue what it all meant. Mermaids weren’t real. Well, at least everything she had been told growing up had led her to believe that they weren’t.
Lessons in night human history were required in all the different night human territories. From what she had been taught, there had been merpeople at some point, but they had all died in the war between the night humans that had happened hundreds of years ago. She was certain of it. Yes, werewolves and vampires were real, but not mermaids. Everyone knew that. Well, everyone except her legs that had melted together into a fin when she tried to take a shower. At least she hadn’t completely turned into a fish like she was afraid would happen. She used to be a skinwalker that completely turned into a mountain lion, so anything was possible. Being part fish was easier to work with than being a whole fish, hopefully.
Why she had changed was the mystery. She needed time to figure it all out. There was no reason for her turning into a mermaid that she could come up with. And she wasn’t craving blood either. All night humans craved blood. So now she felt more like it was just her imagination playing with her. Maybe her blood sugar was low, and it had all been a hallucination.
She was left with too many questions to pay attention in school. Swimming in thoughts from the night before and trying to remember every little detail from her childhood when she learned about merpeople, her head wasn’t making sense of anything she had been taught all morning. It really was a good thing that it was Friday. She had completely checked out of school mentally already. After lunch, she was sure to not have any more luck with her classes since she was completely preoccupied and those classes were really boring without her mind elsewhere.
Whitney vaguely listened to her friend Tina fight with her twin brother, Noah. Noah had the same dark hair and glasses as his twin, but stood almost a foot taller than her five-foot-two frame. Luckily their argument was over a comment made in the only class they had together, and Whitney wasn’t taking calculus, so she didn’t need to chime in. Instead, she used the time to glance around the room.
There was no sure way to become a night human unless your parent was one. Whitney’s mother was a witch, but not a night human. Only a day human could do magic, and since her mother was good—really good—at being a witch, Whitney knew that there was no hidden night human merperson blood coming from her. Whitney’s father was a completely different story. He was a night human, but not a mer. After her parents and a stranger had died tragically, she found out the second man with them was actually her birth father. It hadn’t taken any convincing for Whitney. She saw herself in his face. They looked more alike than she and her mother. She knew nothing about her mysterious father, and there could have been a secret, hidden merperson history. That was most likely not true either, though, since she had already been a night human. You could only be one kind. Whitney was pretty sure there were no hidden mermaid genes from him, either, that popped up over her vacation from the night human world. Skinwalkers and wendigo stayed only with their own kinds, too.
Then again, there was one more very slim chance of a way to become a night human—night human blood. Whitney had heard of this, but she had never actually seen it. The skinwalkers were born, not changed, but other night humans grew their clan by changing people, or so she had been told. While she lived mostly outside of the politics, she had heard her share over dinner conversations about it. That, too, was a problem, though. From the little bit she had heard, the person changing had to know, and be willing to change. Along with that, you needed powerful night human blood. Not everyone in the clan could change someone, only the people on top. Was it possible she had met a strong night human mermaid that had put a spell on her, and who forced her to drink their blood and change?
Whitney rifled through all her recent memories. She really had no idea how else she could have become a mermaid the night before. She considered calling her friends back home, but then thought against it. Her best friend was mated to the clan’s beta, who was next in line for alpha. He would have no choice but to tell the alpha, and then she would be in for the treat of finding out what they did with night humans that shouldn’t exist. Yes, Whitney wanted to go home, but she didn’t want to go back as a prisoner or to a science lab to be studied.
Being raised a witch made Whitney a very cautious person. She couldn’t think how someone would have been able to change her without her knowing. Changing a person into a night human took blood, and Whitney was sure she had never drunk blood as a day human. Some people would use night human blood to heal since it could heal a day human from most injuries, but she had never been hurt or even to the hospital in her life before. There was no way she could have accidentally drank blood.
“You think, just because you are a stupid boy, you should save me,” Tina complained to her brother, pulling Whitney out of her thoughts as her braid whipped around her head and smacked into Whitney.
Tina’s words resonated in Whitney’s mind. Her head snapped up, and she glanced across the lunchroom. She might not have drank blood on purpose, but there were five times that she could count where she was unconscious long enough that someone could have given her blood. And there was only one person that someone could be. Across the lunchroom, a pair of golden brown eyes stared back at her as the girl next to him chattered away to him. Sam was watching her.
His eyes were always unsettling to Whitney. The color was brown most of the time, but it always seemed like if she stared long enough, the brown color would get lighter and actually turn a bit blue-green. This had unnerved Whitney the first time she saw it happen, and she tried not to look too long at him, afraid that her overactive imagination would be correct. Now she didn’t avert her gaze. He was the key to it all. She was certain of that.
Sam’s eyes never left Whitney as she stared back at him, trying to understand her own thoughts. He was possibly a night human. He probably wasn’t the only one, but he was the only person alone with her long enough to have fed her blood. She wasn’t sure she believed it. Who had ever heard of a male mermaid? Weren’t mermaids ‘maids,’ after all?
Someone leaned down in front of Sam, blocking Whitney’s view of him.
“Is Prince Sam still giving you crap about saving you?” Tina asked quietly from beside Whitney. She had been staring and didn’t notice that the argument between Tina and her brother was done.
“No. But I still owe him meals,” Whitney added. That’s it! She could invite him to dinner and throw some water on him. Then she’d be able to tell.
Whitney picked at her food and pretended to not be keeping tabs on Sam. Throw water on him? That idea wouldn’t work. She had already seen in him the water on more than one occasion. He was her swim instructor. He didn’t have a fin. But maybe he knew who did. It wasn’t uncommon for day humans to be able to get ahold of night human blood if you knew the right people. He could have night human blood on hand to save people when he was life guarding. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t one of them; he might know one. Whitney had to talk to him.
“Hey. You could always buy him McDonald’s and give it to him at your swim lesson next week. That’s dinner, right?” Tina suggested, thinking Whitney’s disappointment was from owing Sam dinner.
“Yeah, you won’t use up your first paycheck that way,” Trudy chimed in from across the table. She was always good about ignoring the guys sitting with them, and even better when Tina was fighting with her brother. They were more like sisters than friends.
Whitney smiled at her friends. It was a good idea, but she couldn’t wait until her next swimming lesson. She needed to talk to him now.
“Who’s that with Sam?” Whitney asked as casually as she could.
A dark-haired stranger that looked similar to Sam was standing next to him in the middle of the lunchroom. Whitney didn’t know all the people at the school, but she was sure he wasn’t a student even though he seemed like he could fit right in.
“Sam’s older brother, Tim,” Trudy replied. “You think everyone does what Sam wants, look at how they are all waiting to do anything for Tim. It was much worse two years ago when Tim was in school. Sam isn’t even an ounce of bossy compared to his brother.”
That was the first compliment Trudy had given Sam. Most of the time Whitney’s friend didn’t talk too nicely about him. Maybe that was part of her fear to speak to Sam in front of everyone. Normally she wouldn’t care what her friends thought, but with being new, she was just happy to have friends and fit in.
Tim spoke, and Sam’s face turned to a scowl. Everyone around them was watching Tim and Sam even though Tim didn’t seem to notice. Sam put a hand up to stop Tim from talking more and walked away. Tim smiled at the people at the table and followed behind Sam as he left the lunchroom. Whitney didn’t want to let Sam out of her sight. So far she figured that he wasn’t a mermaid, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t the one who turned her. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure Sam had something to do with it.
“Not fair,” Noah complained to their other friend, James, waving his arm and knocking over his water.
It was strange. Whitney could have sworn that she heard the water swoosh in the air as it made its way to the table and toward her. Without hesitation, Whitney stood up quickly before any of the water could touch her and accidentally make her grow a fin.
“I’ll go get more napkins,” she suggested, hurrying away and avoiding the close call.
She had experimented the night before and found the fin only appeared if the lower half of her body got wet. Right now she was in her school skirt and would easily have wet legs if she hadn’t moved. Actually, she would have had a wet fin.
As she turned the corner to the lunch line supplies that were stacked neatly and had all the extra paper towels, the voices of two people arguing grew louder. They weren’t in the same hallway, but around the corner. Whitney crept forward; all her years in cat form were very helpful in keeping completely silent.
“So what if you don’t want to come home? He wasn’t asking you,” one voice said.
“If Dad wants to give an order, tell him to come here and do that. Until then, I’m busy,” the other replied. Sam was the second person talking.
“He hasn’t been here in years. That’s what he has us for.”
“Are you sure? I figured he had us because he can’t seem to keep everyone safe on his own, and it’s easier to sacrifice a son than lose his throne.” Footsteps sounded as one of them seemed to be walking away. They halted before Whitney needed to find a place to hide.
“He’s heard a rumor you plan to revolt, that there are several more blues who plan to skip the party.” Tim’s voice was soft but harsh as he spoke. “You are playing with fire, little brother. I’d advise you to not go down that road. Father can forgive almost anything, but if you plan to overthrow him, you’d better hope I’m not alive when you do.”
“Thanks for the advice, but you might want to be a bit more worried what father might have heard about you,” Sam replied back as harshly as his brother. “Just because I’m not home doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on.”
A loud laugh made Whitney jump and almost give away her sneaking around.
“Ahh, little brother, you’re so much fun. I can’t wait until you move home. It will be just like old times.”
Footsteps sounded again, and this time, Whitney grabbed the napkins and fled back around the corner. Hurrying over to her friends, she discovered the water was still on the table but not dripping. Whitney tossed the napkins on the water.
“Thanks,” Noah said, giving her a sheepish smile for his klutziness as he wiped up his mess.
Whitney nodded and tried not to watch as Sam came back around the corner behind his brother. Tim had a smile plastered on his face as he walked over to Sam’s table and sat down in Sam’s seat. Sam wasn’t in the same jolly mood. Whitney caught Sam’s eyes before quickly looking away. She wasn’t close enough to see for sure, but they didn’t look brown. Sam was hiding more secrets, and she was sure he was the one that knew what was going on with her. Now she just needed to get him alone and force him to tell her what he had done to her.
Whitney made up the worst excuse about needing to use the restroom just to get out of the last five minutes of class. Her face was flushed red from embarrassment, especially since she didn’t really need to go at all and never had needed to bad enough to interrupt class! Instead of heading to the bathroom like she asked, she grabbed her books out of her locker just in time for the bell to ring to end the day. Without saying good-bye to anyone, Whitney hurried off in the direction of Sam’s locker. Passing him on her way, she tried to not look at him and give herself away. She turned the corner near enough to peek around, and then pretended she needed to search through her backpack.
Students passed Whitney and didn’t take notice of her there as they ran from the school, a typical Friday afternoon. She kept her spot where she would see Sam again as he passed. Sure enough, ten minutes later, Sam walked right by. Whitney kept tabs on him and followed him out of the school. She was relieved to see Sam not head toward the parking lot. She hadn’t thought about what she would do if he just took off in a car after school. She didn’t have a car, and it would be impossible to follow him on foot. Thankfully, he was still walking with his friends
Whitney kept her head down as her cousin texted her to tell her he was leaving without her. She responded that she would get a ride home later from a friend. She really didn’t care if she had to walk home. She needed answers and wasn’t letting her only source of them out of her sight.
Sam and Mark went around the school together and walked off the school grounds. Whitney kept pace, but stayed hidden as she did so. She had no idea where they were going. There was nothing that direction out of town besides a few warehouses, but she didn’t care. She needed Sam.
The boys talked as they walked, seemingly like they were in no hurry. As they turned and headed toward one of the warehouses, Whitney stayed outside the chain-link fence and crouched behind the old board with the address on it. Peeking around the corner with her phone, she watched as Sam and Mark walked onto a waiting bus. They were only on the bus for a few moments before they stepped back off. Whitney had no clue why a large bus was sitting outside a rundown building, but it was something she planned to look closer at. Once they exited and walked into the building, Whitney didn’t hesitate to move closer to be able to hear them if they came back outside. She hid behind the bus.
They weren’t inside long before a car pulled up to the warehouse and their friend Leo stepped out of it. He went inside where Sam was. Whitney waited, unsure if she should try to go in or wait for them to come out.
The door to the building slammed open, and the guys came back out. She could hear them as they talked. She was in a much better spot to figure it out now.
“How far away this time?” Leo asked, almost like he was complaining.
“If I was driving? We could be there in three hours, but you know how Mr. Max drives. It will probably take him at least five hours to get there,” Mark complained.
They were going somewhere, but where was the question. Whitney couldn’t afford to let Sam escape. What if he didn’t come back?
There was a thunk from the other side of the bus that made Whitney curious. She whipped her phone back out and looked around the vehicle. The guys were all packing something into the storage spots beneath the big bus. They were definitely going somewhere and taking large bags with them.
“This would be much easier if we’d just let them send a crew to load all our stuff up,” Mark replied. For as smooth as he was when talking to Whitney, she was surprised to see the complainer side of him. Nothing at work seemed to ever bother him.
“But we all agreed not to. It is safer for us this way,” Sam reminded his friend. “So we pack.”
All three guys headed back into the gray, worn-down building. Whitney didn’t think, but used their absence as an opportunity. If the guys were going somewhere on the bus, then she was going with them. The bus was big enough. She could just hide in a row of seats and hope they didn’t walk by. Whitney climbed up the stairs and ducked down as soon as the door opened to the warehouse again. Pressing her back against the panel, she held her breath, hoping they wouldn’t come up inside the bus where she wasn’t even close to hidden.
They talked more as they packed and soon enough the door to the warehouse opened and shut again. Whitney tentatively stood up, trying to hide as much of herself as she could under the windows. Finally looking around the bus, she was confused by what she saw. She had expected rows of seats. Instead, she found two benches against the windows on either side of the bus, with doors at the back. Whitney half walked, half crawled toward the other end of the bus. She would need a good hiding spot.
Beyond the benches in the first door on the right was a bathroom—basically a small closet with a toilet and sink. Not a good choice for hiding spots. On the left side was a door that led to a shower. The door appeared to open right into the shower; it was a possible hiding spot, but since the bus would be moving, a slippery shower wasn’t ideal. She would keep searching.
Whitney glanced out the windows and saw the guys come back out with more equipment. That was just another mystery. Hiding space first, figuring out what was going on would have to be second. Whitney slid down and hoped they hadn’t seen her.
Voices came through the open bus door as they packed, but instead of coming up, they headed back in. She was safe for now, so she hurried to the back of the bus and stopped in shock. There was what looked like a bathtub in the back of the bus. Prying off the corner of the cover confirmed what she thought it was—a hot tub big enough to fit several people. Certainly not a good hiding spot since any sort of water turned her into a fish. There were bench seats also in the back, but that wouldn’t work as she would be in plain view of the bus driver.
Making the way back to the front of the bus, Whitney continued to try to find a hiding spot. She didn’t want to get off the bus. She needed to talk to Sam, and if he was going somewhere, she was going with him. Think, think, think, she told herself as she tapped her head. While a natural blonde, Whitney was anything but dumb, regardless of all the jokes she had heard over the years. She needed somewhere to hide.
The guys came back out the door, and she dropped to the ground next to the bench seat. This was never going to work out if they found her. She turned her head and waited as she listened to them talk. Hopefully, they weren’t done, as she needed more time to search the bus. There had to be a way to hide. Whitney turned her head toward the bench seat as she listened more. Then she saw it: the bench seats had a cloth running down the front and sides to make them look like solid seats, but they weren’t. They were empty underneath.
Whitney scrambled to the end of the bench and pulled up the fabric flap. The guys still hadn’t gone back inside, which wasn’t good news. She slithered under the seats and luckily they were long enough that she could fit by lying straight as a board. Whitney reached down and grabbed her phone, turning off the ringer just to be safe as she smashed herself as far away from the front of the seat as she could.
Her hiding spot was perfect and perfectly timed as someone came onto the bus. Whitney sucked in her breath and plastered her body as close to the wall as possible, trying to make sure that if the cloth moved a little, she would still be hidden. Three sets of shoes walked past her.
“Where is he?” Mark complained.
“He was just inside. Did anyone tell him we were almost packed?” Sam replied.
“Yeah, yeah, you brats already told me. Can’t an old guy take a few minutes longer to get on the bus?” a gruff voice complained as the speaker slowly, but loudly, walked up the stairs.
The seat bounced a little as someone sat down.
“Don’t take all day, old man,” Leo said to him teasingly. “We still need to perform tonight, and the opening act won’t last all evening.”
“I’ll have you guys there by eight, don’t worry about that,” the older man replied, shutting the door to the bus with a clank and turning the engine on.
The noise rumbled beneath Whitney, and she could no longer make out the words of the guys. If they were going on a four-hour bus ride, she sure wasn’t going to be home by curfew. She needed to make a few texts to make sure she didn’t get in trouble. It wasn’t like her aunt really would notice. She was probably working, but Whitney didn’t want to take the chance she would actually be home and call the cops. She had done that on more than one occasion for her younger cousin. Tina would lie to her aunt and say she was there. Heck, if needed, Tina actually did a really good impression of Whitney that could even fool her aunt.
The bus lurched forward, and Whitney braced herself beneath the seats. It was going to be a long four hours, but at least she would get an answer to one question. What the heck was Sam up to with his friends?