“I don’t know if I’d call her strange. In fact, she seemed more like a PTA or soccer mom than the wild night human hunter I was imagining. Except for the driving.” It was easy to talk with Jax when he wasn’t giving her strange looks.
Jax laughed again. “I’m betting you expected a grown-up version of Jade.”
Whitney shrugged and nodded. She didn’t just expect it, she had seen it in Sam’s memories. That’s why Sam easily knew that Jade and Jax were hunters, and Rommy’s kids. Jade looked exactly like Rommy ten years ago.
“She used to be like that. I think that’s why Jade dresses like that. She thought our mom back then was amazing. She remembers Mom all dressed in black, dyed hair, and piercings, but one day she came home and said she was changing her look. She wanted to fit in better and be able to patrol nice neighborhoods. She said the night humans were getting smarter and blending in, so she needed to do the same. Overnight she went from punk mom to suburban soccer mom. Jade was disappointed, and I think her style reflects how our mother was as a sort of rebellion. So now even though Mom fits in better, Jade doesn’t.” Jax was still watching the water intently.
“Any sign of mer?” Whitney asked, changing the subject as Jax finished talking. His voice seemed to fade as he spoke and she took that as the cue that he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Nope. I’ve been here all day since school let out and not a sign. I moved out of the trees an hour ago, hoping that a lone person on the beach would attract someone, but still nothing.” Jax actually sounded disappointed about not finding a night human or having one try to eat him.
“Don’t you worry about them luring you into the water?” Whitney would have been afraid if she was still a day human. She had seen how easily the green siren couldn’t disobey the blue siren’s song.
“That’s the best part. They can’t control us. There’s all this training we do as kids to fight night humans. One thing is to disconnect and not allow night humans to control us. Mer use songs, but they aren’t the only ones that use mind control. We are taught how to fight it and not let it take over.” Jax finally turned to her and grinned. He seemed to understand her reluctance. “That why I wanted one to attack. They’d be surprised when I didn’t do as they said. I kind of want to see their expression.”
Jax was actually pumped to face one, which was strange considering Rommy ordered him home at dark.
“Your mother told me to tell you that she orders you to walk me home once it gets dark,” Whitney told him, already knowing he wouldn’t like that. His smile faded a little bit, but he wasn’t frowning or mad. He seemed to have already expected it. “Why is Jade a hunter and you aren’t?” Whitney knew very little of the hunters.
Finally, his smile faltered. “I can’t be a hunter. The best I can ever be is an apprentice,” Jax told her, disappointment lacing his words.
“I’ve never seen your moves, but you and Jade seem to be a package deal. Why can’t you be a hunter, too?” They were siblings after all.
Jax gave her a pity smile. “I know you’ve heard of hunters, but since the skinwalkers are good night humans, I doubt you ever met one before.” Whitney shook her head. Heck, she had only heard them mentioned a couple times growing up. Hunters were never the problem; the rival night humans in town called the wendigos were the problem.
Jax stared out at the water, reaching for the binoculars. Whitney followed his gaze, and before he got the glasses to his face, she could see that a small blip on the water was actually the edge of a tail. She would have in any other lifetime thought the tail was part of a fish, but she knew better. The best part was with her siren night human vision, she saw the color of the piece that was out of the water. It was a deep red. Sam never told her about the other clans of merpeople, but she didn’t know there were red ones. Was it possible since her own tail was pink that she was somehow related to the red kind of mer, also?
‘Sam?’ she tried mentally. He didn’t reply. In fact, she couldn’t feel a thing from him. That meant only one thing—he was back in the water and unavailable for questions. Great timing, she thought to herself.
“Shoot,” Jax muttered as he set the binoculars back down. “I was sure there was one there.”
“See again why I don’t understand why you can’t be a hunter? Your sister said you have a sixth sense for night humans and right there makes me think that’s true. Wouldn’t that be helpful for a hunter?”
Jax nodded. “They use me all the time. It’s not that I’m not helpful. It’s that I’m a guy. Only the female line is considered strong enough to be a hunter. Boys can only ever amount to raising strong daughters and helping them fight the battle against night humans. The hunter lineage is only female, and I don’t happen to have the right parts.”
Whitney couldn’t help her mouth falling open in shock. She had heard of a hundred archaic practices of different night human tribes, but not letting guys be part of a clan seemed beyond weird to her, especially her friend that seemed to have a better sense of night humans than most people.
“Um, don’t they get that it’s the twenty-first century? The sexes are equal?”
Jax laughed at her response. “I’ll let you explain that one to my mother, but I’d advise you don’t do it while she’s driving. You really don’t want to be thrown from the car when it’s going that fast.”
Whitney laughed, but she knew he was only half joking. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“So what does your dad think of all this?”
Jax averted his gaze to the water. “I’ve never met the guy, so I don’t know what he thinks. My mother wanted to raise us on her own, so we’ve never met either of the men that are technically our fathers. Men are typically considered not needed in the hunter world.”
Well, that explained a lot, and Whitney actually felt a bit worse for Jax. At least Jade was female and wanted around. Jax didn’t seem to have a place with the hunters.
“Have you ever fought a night human before on your own?” Whitney went back to a subject she was sure would cheer him up.
Jax seemed to appreciate the change in topic and launched into a story about how he met a night human that tried to eat him once on the way home from school. He was only thirteen, but he had been training with Jade since he was little. He knew exactly what to do and defended himself until his mother got there. As much as Jax didn’t like the policies of the hunters, he did love his family, even his mother who was more than a little rough around the edges. The whole soccer mom thing was just a cover to what she really was. By the time night came, there were no more sightings of any merfolk and Whitney hadn’t laughed as hard as she had with Jax in what seemed like forever. He had lots of stories of his childhood, and each one was better than the next. Their beach sitting wasn’t successful in finding mer, but it was successful in making Whitney see the hunters as not the scary enemy. Okay, Rommy was still scary, but Jax and Jade were teens trying to grow up with their extremely weird mother. Wasn’t that normal?
CHAPTER 9
It was already dark, and Sam wanted to go home, but he needed to be sure. He had seen various merfolk near shore when he was spying on Whitney over the last week, but he didn’t think anything of it until today. Now he wanted to see with his own eyes what he was dealing with. It didn’t take much to have him convinced that the Lara were working with the Mavkas. They both had it out for day humans, and didn’t like the current siren policies that limited killing day humans.
Sam had done his best to keep Whitney from finding out the Lara merpeople were involved. He knew that right away she would assume she was one of them when she saw their red tails, but more so when she found out they also used song to lure day humans away from shore. He didn’t think she would listen to the fact that she didn’t have their green eyes, which was a sign she wasn’t one of them, but he knew she was a siren. It was his blood that transformed her, so there was nothing else she could be even if her tail was closer to red than blue.
Sam ducked farther down into the
plants. As suspected, another tail flew by him. This one did surprise him. The yellow flashed quickly, but he was sure it was an Undine mer. They were usually the last to get involved in mer politics. They were mostly concerned with keeping the water pure and stopping anything from tainting the oceans. They never really targeted day humans unless they were harming the sea. Yes, that one was a surprise.
Keeping close to the ground, he followed the yellow tail from a distance. It was easy to do in the fading light, and Sam was happy for his dark blue fin, which kept him hidden better. Around a bend, he almost stopped in shock as the unknown Undine ducked down into the same caves Sam had used for years. On the beach Sam took Whitney to, there was this large rock formation that went out at least seventy feet into the ocean. Below was a maze of tunnels leading to a beach that was secluded inside the rock structure. It was his secret spot, or so he thought. Sam didn’t need to follow the Undine to make his way to the spot where they would be meeting.
Making his way through the tunnels, Sam took a detour that would bring him close to the open cavern but keep him hidden. Sam popped up from the water as silently as he could and listened to the Undine as she made it to the other side of the rock wall.
“About time,” a shrill female voice complained.
Sam had been hidden in the plants long enough to know that the Undine wasn’t far behind the others.
“Did Trenton agree?” the same annoying voice asked.
“He feels it’s best if we gather together to defeat the siren,” a much kinder voice replied. “King Trenton agrees to help the uprising if we are promised that no line of the king survives. He doesn’t want to have to fight a second, third, or however many more wars with the siren offspring. Are you sure you can stop all those children?”
“I already have that handled,” a male voice added to the conversation. Sam was positive he knew who that voice belonged to. “Tim is already setting Sam up to face the hunter Rommy. Once Sam is gone, no one will be able to stand up to us, and we can pick the rest of the children off one by one. Sam’s the only real problem, and he will be long gone before we attack. It is simple once we get rid of him. Longray will keep sending his sons until there are none left. Then he’ll leave the island long enough for us to get rid of him.”
Longray was Sam’s father. This was all a set up to get to the old man who never left the island. Sam had a feeling this was considerably more involved than anyone thought was going on, but now he knew where it was leading. His father still wouldn’t believe him, as he had no proof, but at least now he could plan how to fight back.
“What about the mate to Sam? The one he changed. Will she be a problem?” The Undine asked. She seemed to be the most sensible and logical of the group. Sam was really curious what had been done to draw the Undine into the plan.
“The girl won’t be a problem,” the male voice—which belonged to Chris, Tim’s Mavkas friend—answered. “Tim informed me that she has less power than Sam and doesn’t have a clue about the rest of us. Prince Sam refuses to teach her anything, so she’ll be the easiest one of all to kill.”
Sam’s blood was about to boil. Three mer, who were only a rock wall away, planning to not only kill off his whole family, but also his mate. There was no way he was going to let them get away with it. To hear that Tim was helping them was expected. He had never been loyal to the siren. However, Sam thought his hate was for him alone, not for everyone else. Maybe it was the years growing up together that had blinded Sam to Tim’s true ambition.
“And what about Tim?” the shrill Lara voice asked. “Will you be able to kill him? You’ve always seemed quite fond of him. I would be willing to take him into my harem. A strapping young man like that could be worth the effort to keep subdued.”
“I’d rather see him dead,” Chris said in disgust.
“So be it,” the lady replied, making her answer sound almost like a hiss. “Speaking for the Lara, I, Charlea, agree to this pact.”
The magic resonated behind her words. She was pledging to start war, and the sirens were the target. Not only did he have to deal with the hunters they brought to town, now he needed to find a way to protect the sirens, and most of all Whitney. She was a target because she was his mate. He was beginning to finally see her view on innocents. She was completely innocent in this war that was brewing. Nothing was fair about it.
“I was given the authority from King Trenton to agree as long as you promise his terms,” the Undine spoke.
“Of course,” the Lara replied.
“And my father, Min, also agrees to the terms,” Chris added.
“So be it. Let’s watch as the Longray family falls into oblivion, and we can finally get back to our place ruling the night human world,” the Lara Charlea added, not noticing the lack of magic coming from Chris. He was agreeing to help, but not putting his word behind it—which was typical Mavkas. Sam had tried to warn Tim that they couldn’t be trusted, but it seemed like Tim wasn’t the only one fooled by the shady, orange-finned mer who were notorious for playing both sides.
War was coming, and now he needed to figure out how to save everyone. It was bad enough when one clan decided they wanted more power, but going up against three clans was going to be hard. Sam waited in his hiding spot and let the three revolting mer leave the tunnels. This was going to take some planning, and he needed to act fast.
Sam didn’t return to shore that night, and Whitney kept calling out to him all night long. She was almost panicked now, even tempted to go back to the ocean and step in just to contact him. He made it seem like what he had found was just a clue, but now she knew better. He knew what he found, and he was off looking into it without her. Anger replaced the worry. Whitney hated to be left out. Yes, her evening with Jax was fun, but she needed to know what was going on.
By the time she finally dozed off, she ended up dreaming all night of sea monsters and Sam being caught by them. She was glad to drag her tired butt out of bed when the first rays of the sun peeked through her window.
‘Sam?’ she tried for like the millionth time. Still no response.
Disappointedly, Whitney got ready for school in record time and double checked her phone. Her friends still couldn’t talk to her, but she looked for messages from them or Sam. Something had to be going on.
Somehow she made it through the day, but even Jade couldn’t cheer her up at lunch. She tried with all her fish and water observations of the week, but that didn’t help. Whitney needed to know that Sam was okay. When Tim showed up at lunch and whisked Amber away again, Whitney was ready to follow and ask what was up. Unfortunately, her friends stopped her “from getting hurt by doing something rash.” What they didn’t know was it wasn’t rash. If Whitney could get them alone, she could command them to tell her what was going on. Yes, she was afraid of using her siren voice on her friends in case she hurt them, but she wasn’t afraid of doing it to Tim and Amber.
By the time the day was done, she was anxious to head back to the ocean to sit with Jax as he looked for more merpeople. She hoped the waves would calm her enough to think through everything.
Sitting down in the sand, Whitney pushed the small white grains through her toes. She had been sure Sam was back, but now he was gone again. She knew that could happen—his father could order him home at any time—but she had hoped he would tell her when he left. Now she was worried something had happened.
“Boy problems?” Jax guessed as he sat beside her.
“How’d you know?”
“I’ve seen that look before, and rock star or not, Sam has another thing coming for him when he finally talks to you. I remember once when Jade’s ex-boyfriend forgot to pick her up from training. Man, was she upset. I mean, yes my mother can be scary, but don’t get Jade mad. I think she might be worse than my mom, if that’s possible. I really wish I could have met her father. He had to have some temper on him to make my mom seem level-headed.”
Whitney couldn’t help but smile. Jax’s devotion to his famil
y was heartwarming, and his stories were refreshing. There was something about him that was real. She hadn’t known that her friends were siren until she was one herself, but looking back she could see all the secrets. Coming back from the island a siren was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be how it was now sitting with Jax, but with her siren friends.
“Want to take a walk in the water?” Jax asked.
Whitney really wanted to, but she had promised Sam she would stay out.
“Nah,” she replied.
Shaking his head, Jack grabbed her hands to pull her to a stand. “That wasn’t a no. That was an ‘I don’t think I should.’”
How did he know that?
“Come on. I promise we won’t get our clothes wet, and if you happen to fall down, I won’t let you drown. I’m lifeguard certified you know.” Whitney had to giggle as he placed his fists on his waist and made himself look like a superhero, not a lifeguard.
“Fine, but don’t leave my side. I never swam before I moved here, and although I have been taking lessons for months, I still don’t always feel safe in the water.”
Everything she said was true, though she made it sound like the swimming was why she didn’t feel safe.
Jax bounced into the water, splashing it on his clothes as he did so. Whitney just laughed. There went the whole ‘won’t get wet’ promise. She tentatively took a step into the water. It was relaxing and calming to be back in the sea. It had been a few days, but felt like months since she had been in the ocean. Her bathtub was enough to keep her siren side from taking over, but it was the real ocean that felt like home.
Jax walked a few feet in front of her. He was distracted enough, so she tried to see if she could find Sam.
‘Where are you?’ she asked. It only took a second, but she felt like something trickled back to her. She stopped where she was in the water. Shallow plants brushed against her ankles, but that wasn’t enough to distract her. She felt him out there. She was sure of it. Now she just had to be sure he was safe since he didn’t reply.