Sam stared at Whitney from inside the glass bowl. It wasn’t a position he ever wanted to be in. He was sitting helpless and couldn’t do anything but watch. This wasn’t how he was supposed to take care of his mer, or his mate. It was only months ago that she sat in this very glass bowl and had to watch him be fried. It would be easier to be the one being punished now than to sit and watch everything. He’d complain that it wasn’t fair, but he knew better than to add that, because Whitney would say that was exactly how she felt when he went through it. But it still wasn’t fair.
“I’m going to need hundreds of scales,” Whitney told her four siren friends that were with her on the same block he once laid upon.
The king stood off to the side. He wasn’t about to hurt her like he did his son. He knew now what she was and believed in her bringing luck as much as the night human Loan had, but instead of just good luck, the king thought his involvement would bring the siren bad luck. At least her greens weren’t as superstitious, or they didn’t think she was some legendary creature. Either way, they were going to help in her plans and Sam had basically no say.
Sam had already seen how she had changed her friends with just one scale. He, along with his family, had been amazed what it had done. The grotesque second-class greens looked normal when they transformed now. The pink scales of the Oceanid were mixed into their green scales now. Sam hadn’t admitted to his family that he had also changed at the same time Whitney became a full Oceanid, but they would see soon enough. The only one who had seen his new mer form was currently unconscious.
“So if I just used the blade scraping backward, it should pull the scales off?” Whitney asked again, and the king nodded.
She had never skinned a fish before, and his father had on more than one occasion. Sam doubted she would be able to do it. He had seen his father punish by removing scales and it wasn’t a pretty sight. It was going to be painful for both of them.
“And when I have to stop, you promise me you’ll continue?” Whitney looked at one of the green guys that she was friends with. Sam knew their names, but right now he was still angry she was going through with her impossibly painful idea. He didn’t mind pain, but he minded that she was going to take the brunt of it.
Whichever guy it was nodded.
‘You don’t have to do it this way,’ Sam told her, knowing it would fall on deaf ears.
‘I need to make my people, and the sooner, the better. There could be innocent mer going into this war, and they don’t know that they stand a chance of a new life if they don’t fight at all. I have to give them the chance.’
It was the same argument she had been using for the last hour. Sam still wasn’t happy about it. He understood what she wanted to do and he understood that it was important, but why the heck did his mate have to suffer and feel the pain she was about to go through? It wasn’t fair. He would much rather be the one on the cutting board getting descaled.
Sam knew the determination in her eyes meant he didn’t get a say in it. In reality, he understood that, too. She was making the choice, and she was choosing to harm herself. He would do his job and sit in the water to heal them both. That was as much as he could do at this point. She was more stubborn than she would ever admit. Even now she was blocking him out; otherwise, she would have scolded him for calling him stubborn. She was actually going to go through with her plan.
Whitney held the knife by her tail. Taking a few deep breaths, her hand didn’t move at all, and she shook her head. Sam smiled. She didn’t have it in her to hurt herself, and he didn’t blame her. It was going to hurt … and hurt a lot. He may have been to blame for putting that idea into her head, since his thoughts were constantly trickling into hers. He didn’t care.
Whitney turned to her friends. The greens with her looked as queasy as she did. It seemed like Sam might get his way after all, but that wouldn’t win them the war or make his mate happy. Whitney wanted to save the mer, and she needed her scales to do it. He’d much rather she picked one off at a time, but she wanted more than she could easily pick off. He knew she was right, but he was still happy she wasn’t going to go through all the pain.
Whitney glanced up at her friends, and none of them moved. He could see her indecision. She hated to use her siren song to make her friends do anything, but it was going to have to come to that. He wasn’t about to help. He liked her in one piece. They could find a different way, and he was willing to sit all night looking for one.
Whitney pleaded with her friends with her eyes. She needed their help, and the rest of the siren weren’t about to give it. Sam hated that he won this battle, but he would look for different options, and if he had to sit and pick each scale off by hand, he would do that, too.
Whitney stared at her friends. They weren’t moving. She had failed. She couldn’t cut off her own scales because she was too afraid of how much it would hurt, and none of them could hurt her either. She should have expected that. They were her Oceanids now. There was probably something built in that made them unable to hurt her. She was asking too much of them.
When she looked over at the siren king, she knew there would be no help there either. He was beyond superstitious about her new mer standing. He even went to bowing his head to her when she entered a room or talked now. It was more than a little strange. What she needed was someone she trusted to not kill her to scrape off her scales, but the island still wasn’t completely home to her. The people she trusted fully were either skinwalkers or humans.
‘Go get Jax and Jade,’ Whitney told Trudy silently. Trudy’s eyes bugged as she knew what Whitney wanted, and Sam was going to be mad. ‘Don’t worry about Sam. I don’t trust anyone but you guys, Jax, and Jade. They won’t harm me.’
Trudy seemed to agree with that and hurried away.
‘Where’s she going?’ Sam asked as he watched from his bubble.
‘To get me help. I’m doing this whether you approve or not. You can’t come up with a better solution, and we both know it needs to happen now. Every little thing we can do to win this war needs to be done, and we don’t have time to sit and pluck one scale off at a time. I’m not going down without a fight.’ Whitney was determined to save these mer, and this was her part to play.
Sam couldn’t argue against that, and he was smart enough to not try to.
It took only minutes for Trudy to return with Jax and Jade. Her face was as red as her curls like she’d run the whole way there and back. Whitney smiled at her friend, who tentatively returned it.
“I know this is what you want, but I’m still kind of with Sam in wishing there was another option,” Trudy told Whitney as Jax and Jade stood beside her on the stone slab she was lying on. Trudy was almost as much against the plan as Sam, but she knew what it felt like to go from a green to an Oceanid. She couldn’t deny that for her family and friends who were green, and knew Whitney was right in what she wanted to do.
“Trudy didn’t explain anything beyond you needed our help,” Jade said as she gazed down at Whitney.
Whitney slipped her arms back into the metal chains attached to the slab; the same ones that held Sam down as his father poured hot coals over his fin months ago.
“Basically I need you to flay me … well, not flay, but I need you to scrape the scales off my fin. I need to be able to change the mer into Oceanids before the battle starts. There might be some that are innocent and will want to live a free life instead of fighting. I need to try, and I need to mark the Selkie and Siren so that you guys know who not to attack.”
Jax nodded and took the knife from Noah. The hunters were coming in handier than she had first expected.
“So I imagine this is going to hurt a lot?” Jax asked, picking up on the expressions of the people around them, and maybe even the glare coming from Sam.
Whitney nodded and tried not to show how nervous she was about all of it.
“And Sam in that fish bowl has something to do with it?”
Yes, he had caught the glare from Sam.
“Sam’s in spring water that heals siren. When you cut me, it should transfer to him, and he should heal, which should transfer back to me.” Whitney was letting the secret out as to how they fooled the siren before, but she didn’t care now. She wasn’t exactly a siren, so she didn’t have to follow their rules anyway.
“Jade, hold her arms down,” Jax told his sister. Jax reached down and flicked a scale, judging what he needed to do. They were pressed tightly to Whitney’s tail, but they were loose. They weren’t attached completely around all the edges. Jax nodded as he understood what needed to be done.
“Sam won’t come after him for doing this?” Jade asked as she held Whitney’s hands rather than holding down her arms.
“No, he won’t,” Whitney said, looking across the way at Sam. ‘And you won’t. I know you don’t like hunters, but I asked them to do this, and you can’t hold a grudge.’
‘I can’t hold a grudge against someone that came to help you when they didn’t have to,’ Sam said, admitting defeat and referring to the fact that Jax and Jade came to the island when the hunter council hadn’t sent them. ‘By the way, does my dad know Rommy is here, too?’
Whitney’s eyes bugged. She hadn’t thought about that. Rommy and the siren king seemed to have some sort of history which made them hate each other. Sam didn’t know much about it, and neither did Jade or Jax. But there was definitely bad blood between them. Over the years they had tried to kill each other more than a dozen times, and neither could succeed. It probably wasn’t the best idea to bring the hunter to the island, but they did need her help.
‘Oops, I guess I forgot to mention that detail,’ Whitney replied as she glanced over at Sam’s dad. He was eyeing Jax and Jade like he recognized them, and he probably did even though he’d only met them once. ‘Guess he knows now.’
The king looked like he was ready to leave when Sam called to him.
“Father, we need you to stay here and make sure this goes okay. If Whitney loses too much blood, you need to put her in the spring water with me,” Sam told his father. The old man seemed to debate and realized Sam was right. From inside the bubble, Sam couldn’t transfer her into the water with him if it went bad. Sam might not have wanted Whitney to do what she planned, but he wasn’t going to let her possibly get hurt further, either.
“Are we ready now?” Jax asked, locking eyes with Sam.
Sam nodded to him as the king stayed in his spot. Jax turned back to Whitney, and she nodded, too, squeezing Jade’s hand before anything started.
“Look at me,” Jade said as she stood over her friend’s head.
Whitney gazed up into the hunter’s eyes. She could see in the depths of them that her friend had endured and knew about pain.
“Can’t be much worse than shaving with a dull razor, right?” Whitney joked. She didn’t know what else to do. The pain she couldn’t inflict on herself was coming as soon as Jax began.
Jade grimaced at the badly timed joke. “Focus just on me.”
Whitney did just that as her fin felt like it was being burned. Grimacing and closing her eyes made it feel worse. More was coming off her. Whitney gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. She was sure with just one scream Sam would call the whole thing off. She needed to be strong. Looking back at Jade’s eyes seemed to help. There was strength and compassion there waiting for her as more pain ripped through her. For what seemed like an eternity, Whitney stared at her friend—a siren and a hunter. An impossible match for a friendship. As she felt the last of her scales on the front of her fin be ripped away, Jade held her place over her with her eyes never leaving hers.
Jade was a friend for life. It seemed unimaginable, yet it worked. They had completely different upbringings, and came from completely different worlds, but there was something they shared. It was like Whitney found someone who was facing the same odds she was always facing—survive or be dead. And her friend was surviving and helping her survive.
“Can we get some of that healing water on her before I get the other side?” Jax asked, finally breaking Whitney’s concentration from Jade.
Whitney felt the cold, soothing water rest on her fin. It still burned, but it wasn’t as bad as it was when he had started. Actually, as he took more scales, it was like her tail had gone completely numb. If she didn’t know better, she would have assumed shock. Then again, maybe it was.
Jax finally finished and stood up. He nodded to Jade, and Jade, in turn, nodded to Whitney. The torture session was done for the moment. Whitney took a deep breath to try to calm her beating heart. It was done for now.
Finally letting go of Jade’s hands, Whitney pulled her arms from the chains and sat up to see the damage. Her beautiful tail was ragged with scales. Only a few had grown back, and bits remained of others. Another one popped through the surface of her tail skin and began to grow. Amazingly, growing scales actually hurt, too. Here she thought the only painful part of the process was getting the scales off.
‘It will hurt less as more come back,’ Sam explained.
Whitney nodded to him and finally saw that inside his bowl a few of his own blue scales were floating around. As her scales were ripped off, so were his. She felt more than a little guilty for that. She never in her life wanted to cause him pain, but she had.
‘Never,’ Sam scolded her. ‘I had you burned alive. Don’t feel guilty about a few scales coming off. I barely felt it.’
“How long before she’s back to normal?” Jade asked, turning to the siren king. She knew who he was.
The king shrugged. “We punish with burning coals, so I’m not sure how long it will take.”
Jade nodded and looked at her brother.
Jax held up the bucket the green had collected the scales into. “Will this be enough?” Jax asked, holding it up for Whitney to see inside.
The bucket was more than half full. She wasn’t really sure if it would be enough. It wasn’t like she had time to count it, or even count how many people she might need to change. She was more than ready to turn over and have him skin off the back side of her tail even knowing how bad it would hurt. She was willing to do whatever it took to save the siren and her new Oceanids.
“It has to be enough because I won’t let her do that again,” Sam said from his bowl.
Jax got the hint and nodded to the slightly angry siren.
Now Whitney just had to wait for her scales to grow back. The growing back part was slower than scraping them off. They were coming along great, and one by one it was looking closer to normal. Feeling each one poke through was quite itchy, and she kept her hands away from her fin in case it hurt to touch. As red and raw as it was, it looked likely that it would.
“So what do you do from here?” Jade asked, distracting her from watching the scales grow back and wincing as new ones poked through her delicate skin.
“We turn all the good guys into Oceanids, and I send them home. Well, I will give them the option to leave and hope they will just go home. I really don’t know what they will do.” Whitney had a lot of hopes, and she crossed her fingers that this would work.
The king waved his hand at Sam, and he was out of the water. Immediately transforming, he hurried over to Whitney’s side. Gingerly, he touched her fin. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected it to. Sam scooped her into his arms.
“We are heading home until you’re fully healed. You can transform everyone later. Now you need to rest.” Sam wasn’t taking no for an answer, and Whitney didn’t have much fight left in her. She needed to change the people soon and let them know they didn’t have to fight, but she did need rest.
Jax and Jade turned to follow, but Sam stopped and motioned for them walk in front of him. Jax raised an eyebrow at Whitney, but she had no clue what it was about. Sam wasn’t going to stab him in the back or anything, and she got the feeling from him he was protecting the hunters, not getting ready to get revenge on them. He turned back to his father.
“Rommy is here as an ally. You need to leave your differences alone and let her help us. She’s worth at least half a dozen trained siren in this fight. You take her out, and we might lose because of it, so leave her alone.”
Sam’s argument must have been good enough because the old king didn’t get mad or respond at all. Sam nodded to Jax and Jade to keep walking, and Whitney laid her head on Sam’s shoulder. He was correct, but she didn’t want to tell him so that he could gloat. She was tired. Soon enough she found her eyes drooping and they weren’t even back home yet. She didn’t care. She was in Sam’s arms and safe. The hard part was done—at least the painful part was done—and it was time to sleep.
Whitney woke in Sam’s arms. She could hear the people in the house, but their bedroom was empty aside from them. It was nice, safe, and warm, and she almost didn’t want to open her eyes to admit she was really awake. It would have been easier to just stay in her safe place and pretend the siren island wasn’t going to be attacked. Sam’s other arm snaked around her and pulled her closer. He knew she was awake and yet didn’t say anything. He was pretty comfy in her safe place also.
A crash outside the bedroom made her lift up her head. Sam gently patted her back down to his chest.
“It seems that the great hunter Rommy doesn’t do well with cooking and is a bit frustrated,” Sam said, explaining the noise. He wasn’t worried in the least.
Whitney kind of wanted to go peek and see what was going on. It was bound to be fun to watch, but then again, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see an angry hunter. It was a hard choice.
“How do you feel?” Sam asked, running a hand down her head and tangling his fingers in her blonde curls.
“Better,” Whitney replied. And she did feel better, but was still tired. It took a lot more energy to regrow her scales than she expected. “What did your dad think of your new tail?”
The old king never said anything out loud, but she was sure he scolded him mentally. Sam was still connected to his father, even if Whitney wasn’t, and he hadn’t told his father about the new Oceanid scales he was sporting now.
“He says he hates it, but I can tell he’s jealous. He never told us anything growing up, but he knows a lot of legends about Oceanids. He seemed to think you bring good luck and is jealous that I will have good luck now, too.”
“Does he think what we’ve been through is good luck?” There had been more pain and heartbreak in the past few months since she had joined the siren than she had all year living in Florida.
Sam shrugged. “It’s kind of been good luck since the get go when you really think of it. There were many times that Tim could have killed you; that the other mer could have kidnapped you; that others could have found out about you changing into a siren or about our bond. Yet it never happened. While I fully admit it hasn’t been easy, we’ve had our share of good luck. And that kind of makes me look forward to this war. I have the only Oceanid in existence on my side. I’d say that might just push things in my favor.”
Whitney sat up and stretched as there was another crash in the house. She didn’t jump this time. It sounded like pots hitting the floor or maybe the wall. There was some cursing that went with it.
“Sorry they had to stay here,” Whitney told Sam. He was one for privacy.
He just shrugged. “They’re here to help, so I can’t complain. At least I bear your Oceanid mark, and they haven’t tried to kill me. Yet …” Sam held up his right arm. Her pink circle was there on his arm, too, but she was sure she had never put a scale on him.
“How?”
“I think the mate bond makes me one automatically. As soon as you changed, I felt it. Then the first time I turned into a siren, I saw my tail had changed. We’re together in this; so if you’re an Oceanid, then I’m one, too.”
Whitney smiled as he reached for her hand to pull her back to the bed. She resisted, though she would much rather spend all day in bed with him anytime. They still had one more step to go to finish making her Oceanids.
“What do we need to do now?” Sam was already on the same page. He knew she wasn’t going to stop until she finished what she needed to do.
“Tell your father to order all the siren into the water, just at the edge should be fine as long as their arm is under the water, and I’ll contact the Selkie to do the same,” Whitney explained some of it.
Sam nodded as he stood up and pulled board shorts on.
‘Mace?’ Whitney tried reaching out to the Selkie king. If you could have the mark passed from a mate, then he was now an Oceanid, too.
Sam held out his hand, and they began walking down to the nearest shore with the bucket of her scales in his other hand. They had snuck out the back door of his place to avoid the cursing hunter who was still trying to cook.
‘Whitney?’ the Selkie king replied back. ‘How the heck are you in my head?’
‘The same way you are now probably sporting some cool purple marks on your body.’
‘Shoot. I didn’t notice,’ Mace replied.
Whitney could see through his eyes that he had more markings on him than his daughter did. How he couldn’t notice was beyond her.
‘Can you get all your Selkie into the water? I want to turn them before the fighting starts so that the hunters on the island don’t attack any of you if you make it to shore.’
‘You’re around here somewhere, and I didn’t notice you?”
‘No. I’m still on the island. I plan to dump some into the water, and they should make their way to you. I think—’
‘You’re going to send scales to us where we’re hiding?’
‘I have no idea how, but it’ll work. I know it will. Just get in the water.’ She didn’t have time to explain it or how she knew. It was like a deep feeling of what to do without actually being told—like intuition.
Sam stopped at the water’s edge. Men, women—old and young—and children were all standing in the water. Sam saw each face turn to them as they drew near and he was beginning to feel what his father felt being king. Every face gazed back with hopeful, trusting eyes. Not a single siren worried or questioned what they were doing. Sam was going to be their leader eventually, and they were already ready to follow him. He was beginning to feel the power of what it meant to be king. It was overwhelming and awe-inspiring at the same time.
“Should I say something?” Whitney whispered to him. She wasn’t as comfortable with the stares they were getting. Sam squeezed her hand.
“For those of you gathered here in the lagoon,” Sam started; he didn’t let go of her hand as he talked, but Whitney was glad he didn’t expect her to say anything, “we’ve been given a great gift by the ocean gods. As it turns out, my mate, Whitney, isn’t a siren after all. She’s an Oceanid. This alone will bring us luck in the coming battle, but even more than that. Whitney went before the night human council and brought us clemency. We are allowed to go ashore and will no longer be hunted. To be part of the group that’s now safe, we need to do one more thing. We need to make you all into Oceanids, too.”
Faces around the water were filled with awe and happiness. No one had ever thought they would be allowed on shore. Most of them had grown up on the island, as had their parents before them and their parents before them. Going back to land had never been an option because of the hunters. And now it was. Whitney got the distinct feeling that many of the mer wanted to be able to be on land, but even more so they wanted to exist in a world where they didn’t fear their every move. She completely understood that after only living as a siren for months, not years as everyone around her had.
“Would you like to do the honors?” Sam asked, holding the bucket up for Whitney.
“I suppose since I’m the lucky one after all.” She winked at him as she accepted the bucket.
Whitney wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but she was sure all she had to do was pour her scales into the water. Without any more fanfare, she did just that. At first, they floated on top of the water, leaving a big pink circle, but soon enough they began to swirl and moved under the surface. On their own, they moved away, not following any current pattern or even being pulled by the waves that hit the shore softly. From there she couldn’t see them anymore, but she felt them as they moved. One by one, her scales attached to people. Each new person was added to her new mer world, and she felt each one of them. Flashes of memories and feelings hit her each time a new person joined her.
The siren in the waters around the island were all marked, and the scales spread out farther. They found their way to the Selkie and began to mark them. It was amazing to feel each person as they were added into her new clan. As if the scales knew exactly what she wanted, they continued to move and mark people as she knew they would. Once the Selkie were marked, there were still more scales left. There were really going to be enough to do what she wanted. The last of the scales scattered in the water and sought out the good mer lurking around the island among the ones that wanted to kill off the siren. She felt as each new kind of mer was added to her group. As she suspected, there were good mer in each clan. They had more allies than they could have ever imagined.
Without wasting any time, it was time to give them their out. Speaking mentally to her new clan, she gave them the message she had been waiting to share.
‘If you look down and see a pink mark on your right arm, you have been deemed good enough to join the Oceanid race. My name is Whitney, and I’ve been given the gift of being an Oceanid. On behalf of the mer, I went before the night human council, and they gave a pardon to the siren I protect, and any person I’d given that mark to. With that mark, you are now free to go to land and even collect blood from night human blood banks. As long as you are deemed good by not harming other mer or killing day humans, you’ll be free from the hunters. I’m asking any person that wants to join this new mer world to not fight against the siren. This is an island filled with Oceanids, and if you do raise arms against us, you lose your chance at freedom on land forever.’
That was it. Now it was up to them. She hoped what she said would be enough to sway them as it had the Selkie, and a small part of her knew it would be. The majority of the mer that her scales found would be returning home. She could live with that. Some would stay to fight out of what they thought was honor. She couldn’t save everyone, and they all had a choice. It was theirs to make, and it was her job to give them the option their clans weren’t offering them. Now it was time to prepare for war, because it was coming. Soon.