Water and Blood

  With one motion, Tim pulled Whitney into the pool. She didn’t have a chance to take a breath before she was plunged into the chlorine water. Water immediately filled her nose and lungs, and she was only minutes away from dying and moments away from being unconscious. Whitney struggled against his grip, but Tim was stronger than her. As she turned, she saw his blue tail swishing in the water beside her. He wasn’t going to just kill her; he was going to drain her of blood too. Because she couldn’t come up with a solution, her friends were going to die, she was going to die, and Sam would be forced back home to a life he didn’t want. Tim was truly the worst brother ever. The only real monster in the pool was him.

  The world started to blacken around her. How was it fair that Tim had this much power? He was evil. Everything she had ever been told about night human mers was completely true. They were hideous, evil beings. But she couldn’t think about that. She knew better. Sam wasn’t evil; he was good. Whitney kept his face in her mind as her body began to shut down. She had failed him.

  With one last ounce of effort to hang on, Whitney had enough time to decide to instead let go, expecting to die.

  CHAPTER 9

  Standing at the edge of the pool, Sam stared at the water. He could feel that Whitney had just been there. He knew she had, and he didn’t need to see her phone in the bottom of the pool to confirm it. But she wasn’t there now. Where had Tim gone, and where did he take her? Tim had lured him to the pool, and Sam was expecting the worst, but now there was nothing.

  When Tim called him, Sam thought that ignoring him and heading back to town was the best option. He led Tim over two hundred miles away, which would give Sam enough time to collect and hide Whitney. Tim’s new sudden interest in her was something to worry about. He hadn’t expected Tim to do anything yet.

  Try as he might, Sam wasn’t able to keep Whitney from being a target. He had tried to convince everyone she was just a toy or a new feed, but Tim would see through that. He’d expected that much. But he didn’t expect his brother would be at the concert. Sam knew that was the downfall, where he made the mistake of leaving her alone. He should have insisted she stay backstage. Then again, Tim would have found her there. How the heck was Sam supposed to protect the sirens if he couldn’t protect his own girlfriend from his brother?

  Sam paced the side of the pool. He could tell from the scent that there was more than one mer in the pool. He had to guess, Whitney had been forced to change and possibly the other residue was Tim, but it didn’t feel like just Tim. It actually felt like greens. And that was strange. Tim didn’t know a single green, nor would he ask them for help. No, that was what blues were for.

  “What are you doing out here at this time of night?” Amber asked as she came up the walkway to the pool.

  Sam turned to her and tried to come up with a good excuse.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. He had no excuse, and his mind was running wild with worry for Whitney.

  “I saw the lights on as I drove by and figured I should check it out,” she replied, finally making it to Sam.

  Sam didn’t reply. It didn’t sound like the best excuse, but he didn’t have one either that would cover up his worry. It was possible Amber saw something, and it might be worth asking her more.

  “Late night swim?” she asked, sweetly, coming up to his side.

  Sam wanted to push her away, but let her cling to his arm instead as he thought.

  “Nah, one of my swimmers lost their cell phone. See?” He pointed to the pool. That was a good excuse, and at least he thought of it now and not later. It was actually a really good excuse.

  Amber pouted.

  “Are you really not going back as your father commanded?” She changed the subject expertly, like the cell phone in the pool made her too upset to talk. Amber possibly knew more, and Sam had to keep her talking.

  “No. I have to stay here and keep everyone safe,” Sam replied.

  He had this argument with his father weeks ago, with his brothers, each one that came to talk to him, and every other siren who asked. They were all very shocked and somehow seemed to think that if they kept asking, his choice would change.

  “Not all the sirens are heading back, and there’s a new hunter family in town.”

  That had been his argument all along with his father. The greens were still on land. Some would go back if they wanted, but they weren’t invited to the party anyway, so most didn’t plan to leave. Only the blues were ordered back for the party. If Sam left, then there was no one to defend the greens against the hunters.

  “Who cares about the greens? If they follow your rules, they’ll be safe. If they can’t, then they deserve to be found,” Amber replied callously.

  “Amber, they are sirens—blue or green. They are still sirens, and my oath was to protect sirens. Not just the blues.” He unwrapped his hand from her arm as he walked around the pool. There had to be some sort of clue as to where Tim had taken Whitney.

  “Seriously, Sam, seriously?” Amber complained, stomping her feet like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

  He didn’t look back at her as he looked at the water drops outside the pool. He could see which direction they left. That was a start.

  “You care about the greens. You care about your ridiculous day human, but you can’t find it in you to care about me.”

  Sam turned around, not sure how to respond. Amber would never understand about caring and protecting someone else because she could only think of herself. She was exactly what Sam hated in the sirens, and exactly what he had told Whitney about. How he didn’t see it sooner was beyond him. He didn’t get to time to respond and tell her so before he felt a jolt of electricity run through him.

  “Hurry up,” she yelled behind her. Several of his friends and fellow blues came out of the shadows with ties to bind him.

  “Sorry, man,” Leo said as he knelt down beside him. “Your dad gave my parents an order and you know I can’t refuse them.”

  Sam was still unable to move as the shock continued to course through him.

  “You’re such an idiot, Sam. We would have made a great pair, and I’m certain that with me beside you, your dad would have chosen you as his heir. Instead, you get to die. Stupid choice. Just to let you know, I’ll never forgive you for ruining my life.” Amber dropped the stun gun and walked away while the guys finished tying him up.

  One point for Tim. Sam would have never thought his friends would turn on him. Now he knew better. All he could hope was that they would take him wherever Whitney was, and he would get the chance to tell her he was sorry he couldn’t protect her.

  Whitney woke to a strange scent in the air. It was fruity and flowery at the same time. She slowly cracked open her eyes and tried to remember what had just happened. Pulling her hands up to rub her face, her eyes shot open at the realization that she wasn’t able to move. She was strapped to a chair with her arms and legs tied tightly.

  Whitney looked around frantically and finally realized why she woke. Someone was sitting at her feet, washing them.

  “Um, excuse me,” Whitney said, interrupting the woman. She glanced up from her spot, and Whitney sucked her breath. The woman’s eyes were familiar; they were identical to Sam’s in their shape and color. Without a doubt, the lady was a siren.

  Quickly, everything rushed back to Whitney. Tim had tricked her into going to the pool. He had tried to get her to lure Sam there, and she had refused. He then tried to kill her, and planned to kill her friends. But what she couldn’t understand was why she was alive now. And she knew she was alive because she ached from head to toe.

  Whitney looked around the room as the woman stared inquisitively at her. She had no idea where she was. The room had one long cabinet in front of her with a sink and an open window. There were no screens on the window. The cabinets were made of some sort of brown wood and the sink didn’t appear to be a normal sink. She could see to one side was more open windows that showed the woods around the building and
the other side of the room was a light green wall with nothing on it. Off behind her was a table and more chairs like the one she was tied to, but it still wasn’t a place Whitney had ever been. Closing her eyes, she could sense that the ocean was only a walk away.

  “My friends. Did Tim kill my friends?” Whitney asked as she opened her eyes and looked back at the woman that was still watching her.

  Wrinkles formed in the woman’s forehead. She didn’t seem to know what Whitney was asking.

  “I had four friends that Tim had ordered into the pool. He made them change and said that they would be sentenced to death. Did he kill them?”

  Whitney didn’t expect her to answer, but was hoping the lady’s face would give it away. If this woman was one of Sam’s relatives, she was sure they wouldn’t give her information. They had to be related to Tim also, and were probably doing exactly what he asked. She had to hope there would be enough in the other woman’s expression to tell her what had happened to everyone.

  “Do you mean the greens?” the woman finally asked, her voice soft and barely audible.

  “Yeah, I suppose.” Whitney remembered seeing their fins were green and the scales that covered most of their bodies were also green, but to her, they weren’t just “greens”. They were her friends.

  “Timothy was going to punish them, but since they broke no laws, they remained in town when he brought you here,” she explained, reaching for something before turning back to Whitney’s feet.

  The stench hit her first as the woman poured a new liquid on her cloth. First, she felt a bit of fear and worried that the woman was going to use the foul-smelling stuff to hurt her, but soon enough Whitney wrinkled her nose and really wished her arms were free to itch it. So far the smell of the stuff was the worst part of it. Nothing stung as the lady worked more on cleaning her.

  “What are you guys going to do with me?” Whitney asked. The woman seemed friendly enough and answered her first question. Maybe she would talk more. Whitney needed answers to form some sort of plan. She wasn’t just going to sit and do what the sirens wanted as clearly what they wanted wasn’t anything close to what she did.

  The woman began to rub Whitney’s toes with the awful-smelling stuff. It was cold but didn’t sting, so that was a relief. It seemed it wasn’t something to hurt her.

  “I’ve been ordered to clean you to be presented to the king,” the woman replied as she worked. Soon enough she moved to Whitney’s other foot with the stinky stuff.

  Whitney glanced at the foot the woman had been rubbing. Her bright pink toenail polish was gone. Whitney sighed. She had just put that on two days ago, and it was perfect. She was getting good at doing her nails; she wasn’t embarrassed to wear flip flops with everything now. When she had first moved to Florida, she realized how much better people had their finger and toe nails done. She couldn’t afford a manicure or a pedicure, so she had to practice time and time again to get it done well.

  “Does the king have something against dirty feet?” Whitney asked, trying to keep the conversation going. She wanted to know as much as she could. It didn’t seem like there was going to be a way out of it, but that didn’t mean she had to go down without a fight.

  “No,” the lady replied as she worked. Soon enough she was done with the second food.

  Whitney sighed. All that hard work painting her nails had been for nothing. The woman went back to the first foot to be sure it was perfectly cleaned.

  Whitney waited a second. Would the strange siren say anything more?

  Nope… and Whitney didn’t have the patience to wait.

  “Then you just like to clean feet?”

  The woman stood up and walked away from Whitney to the sink without a word, but she gave a small smile. She dumped out the bad-smelling stuff and refilled the bowl, pouring something much better smelling into it as she did so. Returning to Whitney, she continued to wash her feet again.

  “Has my son not taught you anything about being a siren?” she asked in her same soft voice.

  Shock was all Whitney felt as she stared. The lady was older, but not much. She didn’t look a day or two past thirty, and certainly not old enough to be an eighteen-year-old’s mother, let alone a mom to anyone older than that, like his twenty-something siblings.

  The lady rubbed the better-smelling stuff on Whitney’s feet before going up her calf muscle also. When both feet were clean and smelling as wonderful as the air around them, the lady returned to the sink to dump everything out. Whitney found her voice again.

  “You’re Sam’s mom?” she asked in disbelief.

  After the lady rinsed out the bowl and turned it upside down on the edge of the sink, she wiped her hands on a towel.

  “Yes, Samuel is my son,” she replied, turning to Whitney with those eerily similar eyes.

  “But you can’t be old enough to have that many children,” she added. Sam’s family was huge.

  The lady laughed. “I’m plenty old enough to have a young man as a son. And he’s my only son. Sam’s siblings are his half brothers and sisters.”

  “Oh,” was the only response Whitney could come up with. She hadn’t thought of that.

  “I’m the king’s fifth wife, Queen Mira,” the lady continued. “And I wish I were meeting you under different circumstances. From how angry Timothy has been, I’m guessing you’re really important to my son. Timothy doesn’t want anything unless Sam wants it, also.”

  “Wait. Sam’s a prince, like literally a prince?” Whitney asked as she finally realized what it meant when his mother said she was wife to the king. Her friends didn’t call Sam “Prince Sam” because he bossed people around like she thought. It was because he really was a prince.

  The lady who had been washing her feet, a queen at that, just smiled.

  “Sam’s never really been one for titles. I’m glad to see that didn’t change when he went landside.”

  Whitney still stared at her in awe. The queen pulled up a chair across from Whitney and sat, gazing at her.

  “Samuel seems to have left out a lot about the mer world,” she began, looking Whitney over. “Like once you reach eighteen, you age at a quarter of the pace of day humans.”

  Whitney searched her mind. It wasn’t like Sam didn’t try teaching her, it was just that he started with her least favorite subject, history, which in turn made her tune him out a little bit. Okay, a lot.

  “That’s one of the main reasons sirens return to the island in their early twenties, because people realize they aren’t aging. It also makes you stand out for hunters.”

  That made a lot of sense. Sam never mentioned any older sirens and had said several were heading back after graduation. It now seemed like most of them headed back quicker than she imagined. How much more had she missed from his first lesson? It was her fault for not listening, and also for not asking more questions. They had spent the last night together after school, but they didn’t spend it talking. That would have been a bit more helpful.

  “So the whole washing me thing …” Whitney began to ask, coming out of her surprise finally. Beautiful auburn eyes stared intently at her. “If I’m going to die like Tim wants, why wash my feet? Sorry if I offend you, but it seems a bit odd.”

  The queen laughed, it was almost a very quiet twinkling-like noise, very melodic.

  “I can’t imagine how strange this must be for you. Yes. I’m sure Tim wanted to kill you.”

  Wanted? He tried, Whitney thought, but she didn’t add it to the conversation.

  “But he isn’t in charge and might have had a change of heart. My husband will decide what to do with you based on where you fall in the siren world. Normally you would be killed for knowing about us, but since you are siren that makes thing complicated. There’s a lot of politics involved.” She left her answer open-ended.

  “Yeah, Sam tried to explain all of that to me, too. It didn’t really take.” Politics was her second least favorite subject.

  “I now see why Tim went to his father,
asking for you to be his mate. You have quite a bit of spunk to you. I’m sure that’s something Sam saw right away, too, and something Tim would miss because you were just a day human.” The queen sat in her chair, her back straight and appearing very regal now as she talked.

  Whitney’s mouth dropped open. “His mate? First, he tries to kill me, and then wants to marry me? How crazy does he think I am? No way I would agree to that. Tim wouldn’t be a choice for my mate if he was the last living person on the planet. Yeah… That’s never going to happen.”

  The queen gave her a pitying smile. “You have no one to claim you as their family. The king is the one who decides what will work best for you,” she replied, like she knew exactly what that meant. Whitney wondered if there was more behind her words. The queen didn’t elaborate, and Whitney didn’t feel it was quite her place to ask more.

  “How does the king decide where I belong and if I live?” Maybe that was a question she could answer.

  The queen gave a little shrug. “He wants to see your fin again. When you were brought in, it was pink, but since siren are blue and green, we needed to get you cleaned to find out what color your fin really is.”

  “Cleaned. Yep, you confused me again.” Whitney really wished her hands were free as her nose itched, and she wiggled it a bit.

  “I really need to scold my son. Not only did he forget to tell you normal stuff, he forgot to tell you even the basics about the sirens and transforming.” She shook her head with a sad smile. “When you transform you know that your clothing doesn’t disappear, right?”

  Whitney nodded and then got the idea to bend down to get that itch. She could just make it to her finger and successfully scratched her nose.

  “If you were a blue and you were wearing bright red pants, your fin would be slightly purple in color.”

  Whitney shot back up. “What?” Sam had never mentioned that.

  The queen shook her head again, obviously disappointed with her son.