Scales and Legends

by B. Kristin McMichael

  Slamming on the brakes, she threw the car into park and ran to the door. The siren were rushing down the hallway, and she jogged back to the vehicle. Taking it out of park, she waited as all seven siren rushed from the building and crowded into the van. Before the door was shut, she saw what they were running from—two burly men that had to be the fake uncles. She peeled out of the parking lot and only knew one place to go. They would be safe, at least for a little bit.

  Trudy paced around the decked-out recording studio. Whitney had explained everything to the siren and how they weren’t safe going back, or into the water, until they came up with another plan. Their drop-off island was going to be halfway impossible to get to from the water as the enemy mer were all over the place. On her way back to Florida, Whitney didn’t just have to lose the mer tailing her, but also avoid the ones roaming everywhere. It was like going to Disney World in the summer, for all the mer that were in the waters around the island.

  “So we just stay here?” Trudy asked.

  “No, we need to be close to the island to help and at least by the water. I don’t know what’s safe. My plans were to update Sam at eleven tonight. I need to get going. You guys make yourselves comfortable here and don’t let anyone in. I have the key, so I can get in, but no one else does. According to Sam, Tim doesn’t know where this place is, and I have to hope so.”

  “Tim?” one of the younger male siren asked.

  “How long have you guys been here on land?” Whitney looked at the young siren guy. Most siren went back home often. That’s why there were only seven left for Whitney to pick up.

  “I’ve been here three months,” the boy replied. “I was trying to get used to fitting in, and then I got caught up with doing school. It was harder than I thought it would be. I haven’t been back in a while.”

  Whitney nodded. Knowing she only had ten minutes at the most to talk, she quickly gave them all the details of what was going on with Tim. It seemed like some knew that Tim had deserted the siren and others knew about the blockade that was happening, but no one knew that war was coming. They all seemed to think it was just a phase and soon the mer would go back to their homes. The king had done well convincing everyone that it was fine.

  “Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. They will eventually attack, and we need to be close to the island if we want to help at all. War is coming to the siren island, and I don’t plan to sit in the shadows and watch everyone back there die. I need to talk to Sam, and then we will plan what to do next.” Whitney finished up as she grabbed the keys. She was going to have to head farther south to contact Sam and keep their location a secret.

  “I’ll go with you,” Trudy suggested.

  Whitney motioned for her to follow to the door.

  “I need you to stay here. Sam told me that you have combat training. He said it was protocol for all greens to train because most of them ended up in the guard. I’m not sure about the younger ones, but I need you here to keep everyone safe. Those men aren’t going to just stop looking. Just in case they find this place, I need you back here.”

  “But what about you? If they’re looking, wouldn’t it make the most sense to look by the water?”

  “They won’t find me in the water. Nic’s been training me well.” Whitney gave Trudy her best confident smile. She was hoping they wouldn’t find her, but by contacting Sam, it was going to be tricky. It was like tying a string right to her, and she would have to be on her best game to remain undetected.

  “Fine, but how long do we wait here?” Trudy didn’t believe her. Whitney grinned. That was much like her friend. She was always planning two steps ahead.

  “Wait here until someone comes for you, me or the men looking for you. I think I can beat them in coming back. I just need to talk to Sam, otherwise who knows what he will do.”

  Trudy nodded. That much she had to give her. Anyone that knew Sam and Whitney knew they were meant to be together, and Sam would fight anything keeping them apart.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” Whitney promised before giving Trudy a hug.

  “If it had been Amber left here on land, you would have stayed back with Sam, right?” Trudy teased about their siren frenemy. Whitney grinned. While it would be nice to think she could leave behind such a horrible person who had tried to get her killed more than once, Whitney wasn’t sure she could leave any siren behind to be murdered by the other mer.

  Slipping out the door, Whitney locked the place behind her. She was sure Trudy was double checking it all, too. With one last look around to be sure they would be safe being left behind, Whitney snuck off to the side of the studio and into the garage. Sam kept a spare car there, and it wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye like the large, white, eight-passenger van did.

  Without hesitating, Whitney drove south to the coast where she thought it would be the safest. She wasn’t completely familiar with the area, but she didn’t need to be. The song of the sea made it clear where to go, and stretching her night human senses kept her safe. She didn’t hesitate before diving into the water and going for deeper water to keep hidden. She could have stayed on the beach and just dipped a toe in the water to be able to communicate with Sam, but she would be seen much easier. In the deeper water, she could hide amongst the plants and sandy bottom if needed.

  ‘If you made me wait any longer…’ Sam scolded.

  Whitney couldn’t help the smile from forming on her lips. It was comforting to have his voice back in her head.

  ‘I had to get everyone to your studio. I got to the school just in time. Two men were trying to get a siren out of the school. They’re all safe now, but those two thugs didn’t like me leaving with them,’ Whitney quickly explained, and sent flashes of pictures to Sam as she talked to him.

  ‘Come back right now. We don’t need to do the plan. It isn’t safe.’

  Whitney just shook her head since she couldn’t laugh underwater. ‘I’m not going back without them. A couple of them are barely old enough to be in high school, let alone left to fend for themselves.’

  Whitney could feel Sam’s desperation across the bond. She didn’t blame him in the least for his worry. Those two men were only part of it. She had seen many mer as she left the island, and was more worried for Sam and everyone back on the island than herself. Outside of the war zone, she was free, as long as she didn’t need to feed. She hadn’t quite mastered that yet, and she was still feeding from Sam.

  ‘What do you mean you saw more beyond the blockade?’ Sam had been eavesdropping as usual. Whitney replayed the images for him to see.

  Anger bubbled across the bond. Sam was finally seeing why she worried just as much as him, and it had nothing to do with keeping the siren on land safe. When they kept saying war was coming, no one had an idea of what it meant; but as soon as the barriers around the island were dropped, there was going to be death, and lots of it.

  ‘I can’t go back to the island near the siren island. The greens will be spotted long before then, and honestly, I don’t think they will be much help when the fighting breaks out. Where can I stash them to keep them safe?’

  Sam’s mind whirled through places, but he vetoed them as soon as he thought of them. Finally, he stopped on a place Whitney had never seen before. It was a second island that the siren had. According to his memory, it was all set up to be inhabited, but no one had actually moved there since it was their back-up plan in case someone breached the siren island. The siren would be safe, as the island was guarded by similar spells that kept all non-siren out of it. It would be a secure, secluded place for them to stay.

  Whitney dashed back up above the plants to be able to swim freely. She needed to see that the island was safe before she’d drag any of the siren back out to the water. They would have to be quick and get to it before anyone noticed them. Following Sam’s memories, Whitney made her way back toward the city the siren called home on land. As she neared, she had to veer off course just a little to avoid scouts that were watching the shore
. She couldn’t be certain, but she suspected at least one of the guys was an “uncle” from the school.

  Easily skirting the mer in the ocean, Whitney made her way undetected to the island. At the rate that she kept crossing other mer, she was pretty certain she would have to take the siren one at a time to the island. It was going to take a while, but at the same time, it would be the safest. She was pretty sure taking a group would be very noticeable.

  Approaching the island, Whitney could make out the white, sandy beaches dotting the horizon as she approached.

  ‘There are two entrances to the village homes. There’s the one just in front of you, and one directly on the other side,’ Sam explained.

  Whitney swam close to where she could feel the siren magic holding the barrier. Again, in less than twenty-four hours, her sixth sense kicked in, and she felt like she shouldn’t go any nearer until she was certain it was safe. Sam felt what she was feeling, but he didn’t question it. Instead of heading onto the island, Whitney skimmed the barrier as she swam around to the north side of the island, not letting it out of her sight, but not crossing it either.

  As she rounded the last corner, she knew why her senses told her not to go closer. Lights lit up the beach, and there were lights visible in at least a few homes close to it. Someone was already living on the island.

  ‘Impossible,’ Sam told her across the bond even though he saw it, too. ‘Only siren can cross the barrier. To be there, they would have to be a siren, and all siren are accounted for now that you got the greens in the school.’

  Whitney watched someone walk out of the beach bungalow and to the second one across the beach.

  ‘It seems like it is a siren,’ she replied to Sam, sending him the image of his deserter brother.

  Whitney was getting used to Tim trying to kill her, but she was unsure what to do as she watched him for a change. It seemed like Tim was completely alone and it would have been easy to sneak up on him. With her new training, Whitney was confident she could take him. Heck, her voice alone would be enough to make Tim do as she commanded, but she had the seven greens back at Sam’s studio to worry about. It wasn’t the time or place to take Tim back to his father.

  ‘Get out of there. If Tim is using the island, then the other clans know where he is and where the island is. It isn’t safe.’

  Whitney completely agreed and was already swimming away under the cover of darkness and the plants swaying on the ground of the ocean. It took longer to get back to where her car was, but she wanted to be sure the greens would be safe. There was probably more than one mer looking for the missing seven siren. They weren’t about to let even one survive.

  ‘I’ll talk to my father and brothers and try to come up with something. Meet you back here tomorrow?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I’ll try, but if I’m not here tomorrow, try again the next day at this time. I’m going to have to find somewhere to stash the greens, and I don’t think staying around town in a good idea. There’s enough cash in the studio to let us get away. I plan to take them inland a little. Hopefully, the mer won’t follow us.’

  Sam was disappointed, and so was Whitney, but they both knew it was the best plan for now. Inland was feared by the merpeople in general with their need for water. It was a safe bet she’d find safety on land.

  ‘Stay safe,’ Sam pleaded as Whitney neared the shore.

  Whitney was on her own. There was nothing Sam could do from the island, and she had seven people to protect. She was going to do her best to do so, but she needed to know that Sam was going to not start a war while she was doing just that. She didn’t need a verbal agreement as she knew he was going to wait for her.

  ‘You, too.’

  Love crossed the bond from both of them, mixing with the worry they felt at being apart.

  ‘I’ll be home in no time. Don’t worry about me.’ Whitney tried to lighten the mood, but that was halfway impossible to do. The sirens were surrounded by hundreds of mer and Whitney was running amongst them every time she entered the ocean. Life was crazy complicated, and she was ready for a break. She kind of had a feeling that was never going to happen, especially with the way the mer worked in general, but she could keep hoping that there was a solution to everything. Now if she could just find it, maybe she could get that break she wanted.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sam paced his father’s office. He had been with his father and brothers for over two hours, and still, they hadn’t found a solution. What he saw in Whitney’s head had him worried, to say the least, but his family just couldn’t understand. Or more to the point, they couldn’t fathom all the mer being against them. He thought they were coming around, but they seemed to only be humoring Whitney. Sam knew otherwise. Even the greens weren’t happy about being kept subordinate to the blue siren on the island. The whole mer world hating them wasn’t that large of a step. They were all assuming that there were a few mer outside the magic barrier to keep them in, but in time they were expected to just give up and go away. His father was really planning to just wait it out.

  “If she can’t make it back, then she’s smart to go inland,” Ken replied, as if Whitney was making sense. Sam didn’t appreciate that plan. It was only so long before someone would follow them. Inland or not, the mer world wanted the siren dead.

  “We need to find a way back for her and the greens,” Sam told his brothers, who were essentially no help.

  “Why again can’t she just go to the island like we planned?” Nic asked again.

  Sam wanted to pull a Whitney and roll his eyes at his brother, but he didn’t. They just didn’t understand, and he wasn’t finding a way to get through to them. None of them were the least bit concerned about the mer blockade keeping them prisoners on their own island. At times like this, he hated the stubborn streak that they all had from his father. He decided to try again to explain the reality of the situation to them.

  “We need to prepare to fight,” Sam told them for what felt like the hundredth time. No one wanted to agree. He didn’t want to go there, but he knew he had no choice. “Look inside my head, Father, and see what I’ve seen.”

  The king raised an eyebrow. Sam hated his father in his head, and that was part of the deal Sam had made in becoming the heir to the throne—his father would stay out of his head. At least the king could get that Sam was serious, even if he didn’t believe him.

  “Do it,” Sam told him before his father could make a big deal out of it. He wasn’t going to be okay if his father went searching through his memories, but to show him what Whitney saw was necessary since his words weren’t swaying them.

  The king looked at Sam and nodded. He closed his eyes and Sam focused on Whitney’s swim to shore. He projected those thoughts to the front of his mind as his father entered it. It was always a creepy feeling to have someone else in your head that wasn’t your mate. When Whitney entered, it felt like his other half. His father didn’t feel like that. He felt like someone spying in his mind and Sam would have to do his best to keep everything he wanted secret locked away for the time being. Sam felt the pushiness of the old man and thought to himself he would be happy when he was king, no longer having to let someone have that kind of power over him.

  The king pulled out as Sam rewound and was starting to show him the scene again. Whitney was swimming in the ocean not with just a few mer, but tons of mer were swimming past her every couple minutes. There had to be hundreds of them waiting even miles from the island.

  Grimly, the king looked at each of his sons.

  “War is coming, and we need to make preparations.” His word would be believed as he was the biggest skeptic of them all.

  This is exactly what Sam had been saying, but it sounded much more ominous coming from his father. At least now his brothers finally believed him. Sam felt his father push toward the other six men in the room and knew he was sharing Sam’s memories with them. They didn’t need convincing to follow their father’s order, but this way there would be more urgency. T
he pressure in the room increased around him as they all received the same images at the same time. Yes, Sam wasn’t going to miss any of that once he was king.

  Whitney drove the huge white van through yet another town. They were far enough inland that she doubted the mer would come upon them by accident, but something inside of her said it still wasn’t safe. She didn’t know where this new sense was coming from, but it was growing stronger. It was like she could predict if something was going to work or not. A nifty new mer power she figured, but she didn’t have time to ask anyone about it. And the seven greens in the car didn’t really know what powers the blues possessed generally, let alone a new ability she wasn’t comfortable sharing yet.

  As the sun set, she knew they needed to get to a hotel soon. Everyone would need water and rest as they had been traveling all day and part of the night before. She wasn’t sure where they were beyond somewhere in northern Georgia. Passing a run-down motel, she felt it was the best chance to keep hidden.

  “Stay inside the van, and I’ll go get us rooms,” Whitney told the group as she hopped out with the wad of cash from Sam’s studio.

  Walking into the dingy lobby, Whitney was disgusted by the smell, but even more so by the stains on the furniture in the waiting area. Not her choice of places, but it was conveniently located on the road they were traveling. And she could tell there was parking behind the building, which would make it easier to hide their oversized and entirely too-obvious van.

  “I need two double rooms next to each other, preferably on the other side of the building. We don’t want the traffic to keep us up all night,” Whitney told the chain-smoking front desk person who seemed more interested in the small TV next to the cash register than in her.

  “Mm-hmm, sugar,” she said, not turning from her TV, but reaching beside her and grabbing two sets of keys. Whitney couldn’t remember staying someplace with actual keys. It was strange, but seemed to go along with the gross and weird hotel. “Rooms 104 and 105.”