Standing in front of his father, Sam did his best to not let a single nervous thought cross his mind. The moment his father’s order stopped, he had found the truth: Whitney was stronger than anyone on the island, including the king. That wasn’t going to sit well with the old man. Sam wasn’t sure how to get around it, but whatever they did, his father wasn’t going to be happy.
“Did you two have a fun time?” the king asked. Sam knew his father wasn’t one for chit-chatting and was likely up to something.
“Yes, sir,” Sam replied curtly as he squeezed Whitney’s hand. He had begged her on their swim back to let him do all the talking. So far, so good. Now he just hoped his father would get right to point and they could get it over with. Sam was prepared to flee with Whitney if his father made any motions of hurting her.
“And I take it she sung for you,” his father continued when no more answer was given to him.
Whitney opened her mouth, and Sam squeezed her hand again.
‘If he refers to me again like I’m not standing right here, I might give him a piece of my mind,’ Whitney threatened silently.
Hiding his smile, Sam nodded to his father. It was nice to have found Whitney, what with her lack of fear of the king. She should have feared him. It wasn’t just that his father’s voice was the strongest on the island; he was also the most cunning of all of the siren, and quite ready to fight anyone. The only reason his father was still king was because he didn’t just rely on his voice. All the others before him thought ultimate control came by singing. Sam’s father knew otherwise, and that was what Sam dreaded the most. He wasn’t going to be happy in the least that his song wasn’t more powerful than Whitney’s.
“So what did you decide?” The king turned back to them from viewing the water just outside his office window.
“I think she might be around the strength of me,” Sam replied, not wanting to give a certain answer. He still didn’t have a plan.
“Either she’s weaker, or she’s stronger. It can’t be both, son.”
Crap, Sam was caught. He had to say something, and nothing was coming to mind that would work.
“It’s an easy enough question. Can she control you?” the king added.
Oh, she could control him. After hours and hours of practicing, it was close to impossible to get her to not control him. It was like asking someone driving at sixty miles an hour to slow down to ten without using brakes. They hadn’t found a way to tone it down. Whitney had made him jump in the lake, squawk like a chicken, and hop on one leg. Each time a more embarrassing thing, and he had no choice but to do it. Yes, Sam knew where she stood in power, but he wasn’t about to tell his father. Then he would want to see more and test her himself. Once he did that, it would be over. His father would know the truth and Sam wasn’t sure how he would respond.
‘If I tell you to tell me the truth about something, will that count as controlling or not controlling you?’ Whitney asked.
‘Sure, but I can’t lie to him. He can see inside my head.’
‘Don’t worry about that. I think I know how to get around this.’
It seemed that Sam wasn’t the only one worried about telling his father, and it was a good thing his other half was ready for it. Again, Sam was thankful to have found Whitney.
“How about I tell him to tell me something, and he lie about it?” Whitney suggested, causing the king’s sea-blue eyes to turn to her as if he finally noticed she was there.
“That would do. If you can get him to tell the truth and he can lie about it, then we know he’s stronger than you.” The king looked back at Sam and shrugged. “At least she understands that there’s no ‘kind of’ in siren power. Everyone here falls somewhere on the power scale. Either she’s higher than you or lower.”
Sam hid his worry as his father talked. Whitney, though well-meaning, was playing with fire. His father wasn’t someone to cross; and even though he did it all the time, Sam knew how far he could push the old man. Whitney didn’t. But being that he didn’t have a plan of his own, he had to go with her. He had to trust her.
“How about you tell me when you first met me,” Whitney said, batting her eyes and using the smallest amount of push she could in her voice, just enough so that the king could feel the magic behind the order.
Sam tried not to turn and stare at her. What sort of question was that? Sam was about to ask when he felt his father pushing into his head and sifting through his memories without Sam’s permission. Quickly the image of Whitney arriving at school the year before flashed in front of his eyes. That was the answer, and Sam didn’t need to say it out loud for his father to know. The king backed out of his head while Sam tried to formulate a lie, but knew it was never going to come out.
‘Is he gone yet?’ Whitney asked like she had sensed him there.
‘Yes.’ Sam’s head was his own.
‘Then here’s your lie,’ Whitney added before sending new pictures to his mind.
Images floated from her childhood to him of a black-haired boy standing on the edge of the pier, asking her where he was. Realization set in as Sam recognized the scene from his own memory. When his father had sent him off to find his way home by the way of a rite of passage that every mer had to endure, Sam had been dropped in the Pacific Ocean. He had swum upriver to find out where he was and talked to a young girl. Whitney had been that girl. He had met her years ago.
Sam chewed his lip as he pretended to think up his lie. He was in awe of the truth. Now, more than ever, he felt like he had been fated to meet her.
“We met as children playing in some small town in the middle of nowhere,” Sam pretended to lie.
Whitney faked a gasp. “That’s not fair,” she complained, continuing her act. “When I tried to make you tell the truth before, it worked perfectly. Why are you lying now?”
Sam knew she was playing it up to make his father believe, and not want to pry more.
“I told you the truth before because I wanted to,” Sam answered. “I believe in honesty in a relationship, no matter how embarrassing.”
“That will change,” the king said, moving past them and out of the office, signaling that the meeting was done.
Sam took that as a good sign. Hopefully, it was enough to convince the old man that Whitney wasn’t a threat. Now he just wished he had more time to teach her how to control it better. And, heck, more time to teach her how to defend herself. He hadn’t had time, with all the singing practice, to tell her the truth about her new friends. Maybe they’d spent too much time practicing, or it might have been from too much time kissing, but he was never going to get enough of that. He didn’t need the bond to prove that he was completely head over heels in love with Whitney.
Whitney sat on the edge of the rock as Sam swam before her. They had taken the boat back to shore with their much lighter packs and even tried to go ashore, though Sam promptly had to hop in and hide in the water since his father’s rules still applied to him. She had taken Sam’s car back around to the diner and climbed out on the rocks to be able to sit and talk with him a little more before it got dark. She hated having to go back so soon, and doing so without him was torture.
“So why can I talk to you way back at the island when I go in the water, but not when I’m on land?” Whitney asked. She had learned more over the weekend about their bond, and bonds in the night human world in general. The amount of space that people could talk to each other over a bond had to do with their strength. From their singing lessons, they had discovered that Whitney was a very strong siren.
“I think it has to do with it being two different worlds: the land world and the sea world. I bet if I was on land and hundreds of miles away, you could talk to me then. It’s just not between the two sides.”
Sam kept himself upright, but bobbed in the water with the waves as they came by.
“Do you have to go back?” Whitney asked. Not being near him was bad, but to have him far away and somewhere she couldn’t get to him quickly was worse.
“Yes, because I have to train. If I want to come back on land, I have to work my way up through the ranks.”
He’d already told her that, but she still had to beg. Their short weekend together hadn’t been enough. She wanted him on shore and able to kiss her whenever she wanted. Thinking of kissing him was enough to make him move closer to where she sat. Sam used his water magic and made the water rise high enough to take him to her. Whitney grinned, knowing that he had read her mind and was giving her just what she wanted.
“I’d give anything to be with you, and I’ll be back before you know it. There’s no way you’re walking graduation in a few months without me there.”
His words were meant to reassure her, but it hurt more now. His plans were to be back in a few months, not days, which was all she figured she could tolerate. Her life over the past year had been rough with losing her mother and father, and then moving away from her brother and best friend. Now she finally had that bond she craved, and she had lost him, too. Sam understood, and his hands cupped her face.
“We will have next weekend together and every weekend after that. I’m not leaving you, ever. Bonding is for life.”
Sam’s lips were upon hers before she could respond. Whitney sighed as she gladly kissed him back, wishing it could last forever. Sam kept her balanced on the rock as they continued to kiss, neither one wanting to actually say good-bye. The sun was slowly setting, and they just didn’t care.
“I have to let you go now, but know it’s not because I want to leave you.”
Whitney smiled sadly. She didn’t want him to leave, either. It was going to be quiet in her head, and even quieter at school. Sam had told her she didn’t have enough control to sway her friends without potentially hurting them. It was fine for her to practice on him all weekend because he was strong enough himself, but her friends were all greens. He said that while all blues could control greens, it was painful for them if not done right. That was enough to squash her hopes of getting them back. He had offered to make them come to the island, and he would take care of it, but she was sure that it was her battle. Amber wanted to test her, and Whitney was going to pass with flying colors once she got control better. At least she had her new friends.
“Um, about those new friends,” Sam said from his spot down in the water again. “Do you know much about them?”
It sounded like a loaded question, but Whitney took the bait.
“They move around a lot for their mother’s job and never stay any place too long. They’re both a little different, but that’s not a bad thing. Jade’s actually quite funny once you get her to open up, and Jax reminds me so much of my old friend, Owen. Don’t worry; there’s nothing between him and me. It’s strictly platonic.”
“Did they ever mention what their mother does for work?”
Whitney shrugged. Not that she could recall. What was Sam’s interest in them? Did he only want her to have siren as friends? Fat chance that was going to happen. The only siren that actually liked her were told to not go near her.
“Did it ever cross your mind that they might be hunters?” Sam asked, obviously trying out what he wanted to say nicely.
“Hunters?” Whitney replied in disbelief. “No way. Jade is quiet and nice. I can’t imagine her hurting a fly.”
“I think Jade and Jax are the children of Rommy Kristian.”
“Rommy Kristian,” Whitney repeated. She had learned very little of hunters growing up. They were almost as mythical to her as merpeople, but certainly neither were a mystery now.
“The Rommy Kristian,” Sam repeated.
Images flashed before Whitney’s mind. Letters upon letters from various mer divisions. All had lost dozens of their people to that one woman. Then there were more siren Sam had to help carry back to the island. He’d been too young the only time he had seen her, and one of his older brothers had kept him out of the brawl. Young Sam watched as a lady who looked like she could be an older sister to Jade threw punches, ducked, and weaved around the three sirens she was fighting all at once. Sam’s brother dragged him away from everything before he could see the outcome. But because Whitney was sure Jade’s mother was still alive, she had a feeling all three sirens died.
“She’s one of the all-time greatest hunters. She fights with a passion that none of the others have, and no one has been able to kill her. Hundreds of night humans, if not more, have fallen to her.” Sam now sounded worried, maybe even a little panicked.
From Sam’s memory, Jade’s mother wasn’t a pleasant person, but then again she hadn’t missed the memory image where the three sirens had a dead day human body at their feet. She figured they probably drained their victim. It was hard to take sides when Whitney wasn’t sure where she belonged.
“You have to be careful with your new friends,” Sam said as the water lifted him back up to her. He touched her face to get her to look at him.
Whitney stared into his eyes. It was shocking to find out her friends were hunters, but that wasn’t what was bothering her. Sam’s memory showed the siren feeding on a human, killing the human. No one but the hunter Rommy seemed to care. Not even Sam, in his own memory.
“They’ll kill you just for being a siren. I know you don’t understand the siren and all their ways, but it doesn’t matter to them if you’ve taken a life or not. All the children running around the island have never taken a life, and they’re just as innocent as you are. Remember those are the people we protect.”
Yes, that much was true. There were still innocent mer, at least she had to hope so.
“I will be careful,” Whitney replied, reaching over and touching his cheek, too.
Sam leaned into her hand like he was drawing all the strength he would need for the week. Whitney knew the feeling all too well. Leaning forward and pressing her forehead to his as he stayed there, she wished there was another way for them to be together.
“Sam, I promise to stay safe as long as you do, too.” If there were hunters around, it wasn’t the best idea to be sitting near shore talking.
Without warning, Sam wrapped his arms around Whitney and pulled her into the ocean. As she hit face first, she didn’t hesitate to transform into her siren form to be able to breathe under water. She wasn’t sure if her tail was in the water when she transformed, but she didn’t really think too much about it.
‘They’re on the shore,’ Sam said as he pulled her deeper down in the water. ‘We have to go back to the pier, and we have to say good-bye now. I’m sorry; I was too lost in saying good-bye, I didn’t notice them.’
Whitney’s heart beat a mile a minute as Sam led her around the bend to the old pier. She trusted him to keep her safe as she realized he had a sixth sense about the hunters. Mark and Leo had told her more than a few stories about how he had kept them safe over the years, and now she believed it. Just a little glimpse into his mind told her that there was more than one person on shore that he had sensed. Hunters in town became a little bit more real, and what was even better was that she had to go to school in a couple hours and pretend she didn’t know. The siren world was complicated enough without throwing in hunters wanting to kill her, her friends, and the guy she loved.
The walk home had felt long as she couldn’t stop thinking about everything. The weekend was filled with so many emotions that she couldn’t think straight as she snuck back into her aunt’s house. She had just enough time to get changed and grab her bag before heading off to school with her younger cousin. Now she just had to hope all her thinking about it would help her not seem different around her new hunter friends.
Classes whizzed by as Whitney tried to pretend nothing was wrong and everything was normal. It was hard. What was she supposed to do? Her four siren friends were forbidden to be near her, and now she had two new friends that would kill her when they found out the truth. Okay, they would try to kill her, but she was pretty sure if she got anywhere near water she would make it to the island. That in itself stunk, too. Her life on land would be completely over if that happened.
Why can’t I just have a normal life? Only a few months before Whitney had been missing her night human life, but normal sounded absolutely great now.
Before she could think more about it, Whitney was on her way to lunch and her biggest fear: pretending in front of her new friends. She sure hoped that since they had only known her a week, they wouldn’t notice the changes she couldn’t hide. It was time to try out her acting skills, and she hoped they had improved since the last time she had to use them.
“So are you going to tell me anything more about your singing boyfriend?” Jade asked as she stepped into line behind Whitney.
“My singing boyfriend?” Whitney squeaked out. Her heart dropped. If Jade already knew that Sam was a siren, then they’d be hunting him, and in no time figure out she was one, too.
“The concert was awesome! No wonder you keep him to yourself,” Jade added.
“Oh yeah, the concert.” She wasn’t talking about Sam being a siren after all.
“My brother was bummed that you guys ran off quickly, but then again, he’s never had a girlfriend, so he doesn’t get it.”
Whitney smiled. It must be hard to have a girlfriend when you run around all night killing monsters, and moved from town to town often. But Jade saying that Jax didn’t get it, meant one thing. She did.
“You have a boyfriend?” Whitney tried not to sound surprised, but she was. Jade barely said boo the first couple days at school. Imagining her with a boyfriend was hard to do.
Jade laughed. “I know. I get that all the time. And the answer is: I had a boyfriend. For a very short time. It turned out he was actually much more into my mother than me. Stinks to have a mom that looks like she could be my older sister.”
Even though she had never experienced that, Whitney smiled and nodded as best she could since that was exactly what she thought of Rommy Kristian from Sam’s memory.
“Back a year ago I dated a guy for a while. It wasn’t worth all the heartache. My brother, though, has never dated anyone. I keep telling him when he finds the right girl he’s going to get it bad. Jax never does anything halfway.”
Moving down the line, they each grabbed a tray and began taking the food they wanted.
“Really, fish again?” Jade complained, and Whitney couldn’t help but laugh.
Jade was the first person in school that understood how weird the school really was. Whitney just couldn’t picture her as a cold-blooded killer, no matter how much Sam had warned her. As Jade made another face at the fish, sucking her cheeks in like Whitney used to do as a kid when she was making fishy faces, Whitney had to turn around to not drop her food from laughing.
Whitney made it to the table without dropping anything as Jade kept cracking more and more fish jokes. Soon the jokes turned into the popular people all needing fish names. By the time Whitney set her tray down, she was happy to be able to let out the laugh that had been building up. Amber and her crew shot Whitney an evil glare, but that just made them both laugh harder. That was why Whitney was never going to fit in with the siren. They just didn’t get it.
“Making friends?” Jax asked as Whitney sat across from him and Jade beside him. He nodded his head to Amber’s table. Only she was still staring daggers at them. She must have heard Jade describe her as an octopus with her hairstyle sticking out in several directions.
“That’s what I do best.” Jade grinned at Jax as she took a bite of her salad.
“Everywhere you go,” Jax added, and they both laughed.
“All I did was say that Amber looked like an octopus with her hair today,” Jade added, and now Jax laughed with them.
Across the lunchroom, Amber stood up and huffed. Quickly she spoke, and everyone at the table stood with her and left. Whitney’s friends reluctantly gathered all the leftover lunches and then followed behind the blues that were heading out the side doors to the outside lunch area. Tim stood outside, and Amber went right to him, ranting as she walked with her posse behind her.
With the nice weather most of the students were outside, but with Amber and her table now gone, it was even emptier in the cafeteria.
Jax looked around and then nodded to Jade. Jade nodded back, and Whitney tried not to show any fear as Jade stood up and moved around to her side of the table. Whitney really liked Jade, but if it came down to it, she would fight back. And that was a bummer. Jade and Jax were the only two friends she had left.
“So we wanted to talk a bit more with you,” Jade said quietly.
Jax now stood up and joined them on Whitney’s side of the table. Her heart began to beat hard in her chest as her hands clenched her fork tight. She’d have to stab one and hope the other would be shocked enough to let her get away.
“I did some research into the last name Malla and found a teenage girl who had an uncle named John,” Jax said, speaking almost as quietly as Jade.
Whitney’s heartbeat slowed down as they didn’t seem to be going on the siren train of thought like she was expecting.
“Owen Malla happens to be a night human along with a teenage boy with the last name Mallory.”
Jax paused like he was waiting for Whitney to add more. She didn’t. Instead, she looked between Jade and Jax still clutching the fork a bit tighter than she should. They were hunters after all. They just admitted they knew her friend was a night human and were referring to her little brother, also. They had to have put two and two together. While she never had any dealings with hunters growing up, now she was petrified of her two new friends. Between them, they probably knew a dozen different ways to kill her.
“Whit, we know what happened to you—how the witches took away your skinwalker animal, and you had to be sent off to live here because you’re a day human now. Our mother looked into it for us after Jax found your friends and brother,” Jade explained as if she was trying to diffuse the tension in their little bubble at the lunch table.
“Jade and I are hunters, and we need your help,” Jax said, bringing the attention back to him. “You’ve lived here long enough to observe all these people, and you know night humans. We were called here to find a night human merperson that has been killing off innocent day humans in the area.”
Whitney immediately understood that the best way to play the situation and keep suspicions off her was to play along.
“Hunters?” she said in the best surprised voice she could muster over her quickly-beating heart. She could act when she needed to, but under stress, she always felt like it wasn’t good enough. “But you’re just teenagers.”
Smiling, Jax shook his head. “Jade’s a full member, but they won’t let me join until I marry a hunter,” he explained. Whitney had heard that the hunters were a female-centered hierarchy, but she thought it was just a rumor. “So technically Jade is the hunter, and I’m her apprentice.”
“We’ve been here for two weeks, looking for the night human responsible, but we haven’t had many good leads. We want you to help us.”
“What can I do?” Whitney asked. “I’m just a normal day human.” Boy was that a lie.
“We’ve made a list at school and have been narrowing it down to who it might be.”
“You think it’s someone at school?” Whitney asked. This was something she wanted to know more about. She’d been in the school more than a year and had suspected that not a single person was a day human.
“The most recent victim was last seen with someone that went to this school, but no one knew the name of the girl,” Jade explained.
“So it’s a girl?”
“It might be a girl or a guy, or maybe both. Our lead took us to this school, and we’ve been slowly crossing off names of the students when we hear them sing.”
“Sing?” It was getting easier to play innocent.
“The people that were the last ones to see the victim alive can’t recall the details, but remember going to the ocean with her. That’s why we suspected a merperson. They can sing and muddle the mind of normal people. My mother has encountered dozens of mer night humans over the years, and they all have a way to do that.” Jade was explaining more now, and Whitney was glad to turn to her friend. There was something about Jax’s stare that was unnerving. It was like he was watching her reactions very carefully.
“So you’re asking everyone to sing for you?” Whitney was still confused by their approach, and thankful to look at Jade.
“That’s the only reason I’m trying out for the talent show. I’ve crossed off everyone in the three choirs as not being a mer night human, and the talent show should get a few more off the list.”
“What if they’re just tone deaf like me?”
Jade laughed. “You can’t be that bad.”
Whitney felt her palms sweat a little. How could she prove otherwise without actually singing? Sam had explained that bad singing, just as well as good singing, could hurt humans and she didn’t need to go there with her two friends; especially since they thought she was a normal person. She was lucky she hadn’t hurt her little cousin, Ben, when she first turned into a siren. And just like that, she had the key.
“Just ask my cousin, Ben. He’ll tell you that I’m never to sing in public again. Actually, I think he said I’d save the ears of mankind if I refrained from singing, even alone.” Quick thinking to the rescue.
“Well, we don’t have to keep testing everyone,” Jax turned the conversation back to him. He was no longer making Whitney’s sixth sense tingle. “This morning we caught two mer in the ocean, actually near shore. The girl was blond, and the guy had dark hair. We think it might be Amber and that guy that just showed up the other day. We were kind of hoping you’d help keep track of them with us, and maybe together we can see them slip up. Skinwalkers are protectors, and even though you aren’t one anyone more, we kind of hoped you still felt that, especially now.”
Whitney didn’t have an answer beyond nodding. She had been seen with Sam that morning, but they didn’t recognize that it was her. It was easy enough for them to guess Sam was Tim—since they looked alike—but to be mistaken for Amber was a little insulting, not that she would ever tell them that. She wasn’t on their radar, but they were more than correct that Amber and Tim were merpeople.
“We have about a week before we think they’ll strike again based on the pattern they’ve had. Please say you’re in,” Jade begged.
There was no way of getting out of it without drawing suspicion. Jax was right. Skinwalkers were raised from the time they could talk to protect humans. It was ingrained in her. That was what felt wrong about the siren, and she kind of wanted to help. Innocent people shouldn’t have to die to feed night humans. Yeah, she was in, even if it meant helping out the people that would kill her in a heartbeat if they knew what she was.