Chapter 14

FOURTEEN

Merrick

I didn’t bother trying to find the boat or going back to the place where I knew it docked. After sensing the surrounding area wasn’t full of pissed off hunters, I vacated the area. The only scent more telling than Jesse’s around the cave would be mine, after all.

So I headed straight for home, knowing I was likely already too late. The other mers would have returned by now, angry and calling for my blood. I didn’t care, and would make the same sacrifice over and over again if needed.

Jesse isn’t safe yet. Keep moving. Figure it out on the way.

I didn’t make it far into my village before the other mers saw me and screamed with feral anger, over thirty of them rushing toward me. I didn’t turn to fight; I simply tightened my arms to my sides and shot as fast as I could like a porpoise through the water, toward my father’s throne in the open courtyard. My heart felt like it was exploding in my chest with my effort. If the pack of my brothers got to me first, they’d likely rip me apart before any of their fathers (or mine) could intervene.

Luckily, he was there, holding court with the other clan leaders, all of their faces drawn and serious. I zoomed past him and shot behind his throne like a little guppy being chased by a shark. There was no shame in it if it kept me alive.

“MERRICK!”

My father twisted my ear between his fingers and yanked me back out in front of him and the other elders. The horde of mers pulled up short, seeing their fathers and elders gathered around me, but their ugly looks remained in place.

“He stole the siren!”

“He attacked us!”

“He tried to kill the siren!”

“He didn’t even claim her!”

My father held up the free hand that wasn’t cutting off the blood flow to my ear. Everyone went silent. My heart was beating so frantically against my ribs I worried that all of them could hear it.

“Merrick. Explain yourself.” My father threw me forward, releasing me, his dark hair flowing freely around him.

I resisted the urge to rub my offended ear like a minnow. Instead, I stood firm, but met none of their eyes. I picked a spot of corral far beyond any of them and stared at it. If I could pull this off and get my father on my side, Jesse and I had a chance. “I met her by chance a week ago. I have been … courting her since.”

The words stuck in my throat like rotting seaweed as the mers mumbled among themselves.

“Courting? What is this courting?” my father asked.

“And it surely does not take a week ,” Aris sneered.

I noted with satisfaction that his nose was now off- center. I wracked my brain, trying to remember if I’d done, or if Jesse had.

“Gally taught us in history classes that courting was part of the old ways. The siren would choose the mer she wanted. Is that not right?” I challenged. It was the only shot I had.

My father blinked.. Whatever excuse he expected me to have, it wasn’t that.

“Lies! You lie!” Aris blurted out, his blue-ish skin tinged darker than normal in anger.

Fury burned through my veins. “No!” I shouted, but there were far more angry, frustrated mers than just me.

My father held up his hand, and the shouting quieted.

“That is why it is taking so long. I am not forcing her!” I shot back, trying to make them understand.

“Then, in the meantime, we should be free to take her if she wants!” declared Aris, puffing out his chest.

I lost my mind as the image of Jesse screaming as Aris forced himself on her plagued my thoughts. I hissed and withdrew my dagger, slamming him up against one of the stone columns and pressing the razor-sharp coral dagger against his throat. My knives were always sharp; to cut and work with my shells.

“She does not want,” I bit at him.

The fear in his eyes satisfied me. I shoved Aris away and glared at the remaining mob of mers. They all warily backed up, eyeing me and the elders. None of them had ever seen me like this, not even my father. Merrick was quiet and liked to tinker on his projects. Merrick was meek and didn’t cause trouble.

They didn’t know what to make of this Merrick.

My father raised an eyebrow. “Merrick, I admire this new side of you, but surely you must see you haven’t behaved fairly. Tell us where the girl is, so the others might have a chance to also … court.”

The very thought of them getting anywhere near Jesse made my blood boil.

“No,” I snarled, a deep, feral part of me awakening that I didn’t know existed.

My father’s eyes narrowed. “Merrick.”

My instincts flared, demanding I protect Jesse from these predators. I raised my knife in my hand and felt the tips of my ears flare out. My spine straightened to allow me to puff out as large as I could, and I bared my fangs at all of them.

Including my father.

“Fuck. Off.”

A collective gasp went up from the elders, but the young mers only growled. Then it happened in the blink of an eye. Aris roared and lunged. Behind him, all the other mers screamed in retaliation, and they fell upon me like sharks on a bleeding baby whale.

My father leaped into action along with the other elders. Fathers struck sons as the scent of blood filled the water, shrieks and groans echoing all around me. I slashed out repeatedly with my knife, uncaring and unknowing if I actually hit anyone. All I felt was rage. All I knew was fear that someone would take my female.

My father intercepted Aris before he reached me and slapped him across the face with his tail, hard enough that he floated upwards and away, unconscious. A rough hand wrapped around my throat and squeezed. I bucked uncontrollably against my father’s hand, but he didn’t let up for a single moment as red streaks opened up along his arms where I struck him with my blade.

Black crept into the edges of my vision, and my movements slowed. My knife dropped to the seabed.

“Done?” Father asked dryly.

I blinked once to say yes.

“Do you have control?” he asked.

I blinked again.

The hand loosened around my throat, and I doubled over, massaging my neck. My gills pumped furiously to bring oxygen into my body after being sealed shut by my father’s hand. My eyes were likely bloodshot. I picked up my knife and shoved it back into my satchel.

“Everyone, sit down,” Father commanded.

Black and bloodied mers sat next to their fathers and clan leaders (me included), temporarily chastened.

“He certainly displays all the signs of a mated male,” shot out Gastor, leader of the Jackfish clan. White scars decorated his tail, with big chunks of scales missing from when he’d had a run in with a boat in his youth.

Aris’s father, Oran, stood angrily. His blue skin matched Aris’s. “How would you know? All we know about mated females is simply myth and legend at this point! None of it matters if he hasn’t actually mated her!” Bubbles flew from his mouth with his vehemence, his son glaring moodily with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Are you shouting at me?” my father intoned darkly, eyes narrowing.

Oran shot a nervous look at the others as if suddenly remembering he and all the other clans were only here because of my father’s good will.

“I just … I think it odd that we are all here, yet your son has been the one to be stalking and hiding a female,” Oran mumbled, shooting glances at the others to gauge support. He moved back, Aris sulking just behind his shoulder. Like father, like son.

The other clan leaders mumbled among themselves.

My father rolled his eyes.

“We live here,” he pointed out, sounding bored. “Of course, it’s more likely he would find one. He is constantly flitting up to the surface.”

Oran continued, never knowing when to keep his mouth shut, much like his son. “I’m just saying your son has never hunted before. Yet the moment we arrive, he’s the first one to scent out a female. Why hadn’t he found her earlier since you all live here?”

My palms itched as aggression leaked through the surrounding water. My father shot me a look. I knew I had to give them something. Perhaps it was for the best that I outed the other female. It was her or Jesse, after all.

“There is another siren born I found,” I offered, biting my lip. “She was on the island Barrett used to bring you to shore. She will be at the spring break.” I scanned the eager mers, not seeing Barrett in attendance. “She has straight, dark hair and is very … forward. I think she would gladly take any of you for the sex. Her garment was a bright orange.”

Aris jumped up, and about half the other mers with him. “If she is forward, that means the female is in heat! That is better than Merrick’s female, who must be spurning him. Papa, let me go retrieve this female right now!”

Elders and fathers grabbed their young mers and forced them down to the chairs, ensuring another round of snarls, grumbling, and ear pulling. Gold scales flashed and skin scuffled, fighting for dominance.

My father stood, ending the little spats. “Merrick is sorry for any damage suffered while encountering his female.”

I glowered. No, I wasn’t.

“However,” my father continued, glaring at me to remain silent, “I believe instincts gripped him and it couldn’t be helped. He has rectified the situation the best he can by giving you the location of another siren born. Have all debts been satisfied?”

The young mers appeared more than ready to accept the information of a new, probably more willingly siren born on hand, but the clan leaders didn’t look as happy. I know it looked bad; the son of the host clan had somehow stumbled upon not one, but two siren born females.

I didn’t know what else to do.

Sensing the tension, my father continued, “Furthermore, there is no hiding. Whoever finds any siren born has free rein to them. Even if it is this female Merrick has found. Merrick, do you agree?”

Everyone looked at me, delight in their eyes. They thought they had me.

My hackles raised. If I agreed, then the first one who got to Jesse had her. Well, if they could subdue her. The very thought of watching someone try enraged me and also filled me with deep satisfaction. None of these mers would know what hit them.

Focus.

Realistically, I could agree to this, and lose nothing. Yet it still felt like a dead fish carcass in my mouth.

“Fine,” I grit out.

The mers and clan leaders smiled, thumping each other on the back. I shot up from my seat to leave when an achingly familiar scent filled the air.

No. It couldn’t be.

“You guys talking about me? Super rude.”

I turned, and swimming before us was Jesse—no longer human, but transformed into the first siren to be under the water in centuries.