Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

Merrick

Protect Jesse. Get the others away.

I was still in shock, but my body was acting on autopilot, which was a good thing because there wasn’t time to stop and dwell on how Jesse had come to be a full blooded siren in front of me and then back again—not when her tail suddenly split back into two legs, and the gills on the side of her neck disappeared. Panic bloomed in her eyes as her head tilted toward the surface, which was much too far away.

I grabbed her around the waist and raced up, up, up. The other mers shouted and followed behind me, but I couldn’t think about them. Every second was precious, every moment a matter of life or death.

Don’t breathe in, I willed her, but she knew the consequences as well as I did. Jesse was strong. She wouldn’t give in. My own breaths were too panicked; I wouldn’t be able to give her any of my oxygen when my body struggled to get us up.

The surface was so far away, even as the water around me grew warmer and brighter, the sun from the surface bending down and reaching its arms out to us.

An explosion came to the rescue, propelling us the rest of the way. I broke through the surface first, dragging Jesse behind me, crystal drops of water raining down on us. She wasn’t breathing!

Adrenaline fueled my tail as my muscles burned. There was nowhere to go with only the open sea around us. Waves crashed over my head as we bobbed up and down wildly.

“Help!” I called out, choking and coughing as my gills transitioned to my lungs. I don’t know why I bothered. No one was around.

No. No one was around except for the dark shape under the water that hurtled toward us from the north. I gripped Jesse tightly, ready to flee if needed. I relaxed slightly as I realized it was too big to be a shark. A whale: one of the large kinds that didn’t eat meat.

Its massive body broke the surface, revealing a female figure gripping to its back. She tossed her head back to shake out the water, leaving an arc of sparkling droplets behind her as she arched forward. I didn’t have time to gawp at her indigo skin or at the octopus tentacles she had for a lower half instead of a tail. Her heavy black dreads hung nearly to her waist, and were interwoven with beads and gems. Where had she gotten the gems?

Not a siren. But … What the hell was she?

“Get her over here. Quickly,” she snapped at me.

I could only obey. Jesse always came first, and right now, she wasn’t breathing. I towed her over to the whale’s back, and the strange woman put both hands on Jesse’s face, and muttered something I didn’t quite catch. The strange woman took one tentacle and thumped it hard against Jessie’s chest .

Jesse’s eyes flew open and she vomited seawater. The woman grabbed her with two other tentacles and rolled her on her side, letting her clear her lungs and acclimate to air breathing. Her arms crossed over her chest as she glared at me.

“I don’t know what happened,” I babbled. “One moment she was a siren in front of me, and then she just … changed back into a human!”

As amazing as it had been to have the privilege of seeing the first siren under the water in centuries, I never wanted Jesse to risk her safety like that again. She could have died. She almost died!

“It’s part of the bargain … the magick. I will not confirm until she can speak to me,” the woman said, her voice deep and ethereal.

Jesse stopped hacking and grabbed onto me like a lifeline. I grasped her hand in mine and hefted myself fully up onto the whale with my other arm. The gold finish on my scales glinted in the sunlight. Jesse tried to cover herself, bits of black fabric slung across her breasts and hips in what remained of her torn black dress. I would never understand why humans cared so much about clothing.

“Merrick! I—”

Her hair dripped around her face as she vomited again over the side of the whale while I held her. Shaking, she wiped her mouth. Confusion and pain twisted her features, but she was still never anything but beautiful to me. Beautiful, alive, and unharmed. I gathered her to me in a hug, relieved she was here and breathing.

Her eyes snapped to the strange woman.

“Uh … sea witch?” she asked, one eyebrow raised as her voice went up in pitch.

The woman smirked, her tentacles undulating as she smoothly slid forward on the whale, making room for us. The whale was warm, its skin hard and bumpy under my scales. I couldn’t say I’d ever ridden a whale before.

“How did you know she’s a sea witch?” I asked Jesse.

She blushed. “A stupid cartoon.”

“What is a cart—” I stopped myself, because it didn’t matter what she was talking about. “You are a sea witch,” I repeated, inspecting this strange woman now that Jesse wasn’t dying in my arms. As I studied the female’s face, something about the way her eyes were set above her nose seemed familiar.

Her skin had an indigo tone, and her tentacles and torso were black. The undersides of her tentacles were a dark pink. Her eyes were the same color as her skin; a vivid indigo.

“We have no legends about sea witches,” I finally said, unsure of what else there was to say.

“I have returned because the siren has returned,” she replied tersely, her eyes narrowing at me. “I have and always will protect the sirens.”

“What’s your name?” Jesse asked, her eyes alight with a fire I’d only seen when she was angry or upset.

The woman raised her chin. “Calypso.”

That didn’t mean anything to me, but Jesse let out a small gasp, her eyes widening. Jesse knew something about the sea witch I did not?

“You caused the explosion,” I said, focusing on what I could understand. “You helped me save Jesse.”

The explosion had done a few things: it had propelled me to the surface faster, and it had likely dazed the other mers long enough that they had no idea what direction I’d gone.

Calypso sniffed. “I will always protect the sirens.”

I had so many burning questions, but one stood out above the rest.

“Jesse, how did you … how did you become a siren? I didn’t kn ow … siren born can’t …” I sounded like a simpleton. It was simply unheard of, though. We’d accepted long ago that the siren blood was too diluted in the human population for there to be true sirens again.

“The siren born were giving you mer young,” Calypso pointed out, her tone harsh, “so why would you think sirens themselves were extinct?”

“Well … because we haven’t seen any?” I said, confused.

Calypso rolled her eyes, but didn’t elaborate.

I shivered despite the hot sun beating down my back.

“I don’t know how I did it,” came Jesse’s quiet reply. Her lips were tight in a line, her brows furrowed in thought.

I was just shocked she wasn’t a catatonic mess next to me. She’d casually switched species and back, all while narrowly escaping being mauled by numerous clans.

And she was shaking off the transition from gills to lungs like she had more practice at it than me! When we did our first trip to the surface around our twelfth year, most mers were a mess after the first physical shift.

Calypso raised one tentacle up, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind Jesse’s ear. Jesse tried and failed not to flinch away from the slick appendage.

“What were you thinking at the moment you changed?” Calypso asked. “What was happening? How did you feel?”

Jesse bit her lip. “I was thinking … oh god, I was so pissed at Merrick.”

She turned and glared at me. I jerked at the revelation, then remembered I had abandoned her in a dark cave.

Anger was warranted.

Calypso nodded, silently asking her to continue.

Jesse took a deep breath. “I was angry at Merrick and wanted to follow him. He was going to confront the men—er, mers who had attacked me, but I wanted to confront them with him.”

Calypso stroked Jesse’s hand thoughtfully. “At the moment, your greatest desire was to...?”

“My greatest desire was to go to him—to be with him to face this together,” Jesse admitted.

My heart swelled even as I bowed my head in shame. I shouldn’t have left her in that cave, even if it was for her own safety. I’d let my fear rule my heart and my head.

“Then you changed?” Calypso asked, clarifying.

“Then I changed.”

Calypso smiled, her tentacles shifting a bit to grip the whale’s back.

“It all makes sense.”

“Glad it does for someone,” I muttered. Both females shot me a mild glare.

Calypso twined her hand in Jesse’s as if she were just as afraid she’d disappear as I was. “Do you know why the sirens disappeared, merman?” she asked me, her tone suddenly hard.

I thought back to my school days as a young guppy. We talked a lot about how to chase the siren born on land, but there was never much discussion about why or how the sirens had left to begin with. The way the elders told it, mers had woken up one morning and the sirens were simply all gone.

That made little sense, though.

“We … weren’t taught anything, really,” I began. “The sirens just … disappeared.” I frowned. How had I not noticed this glaring oversight before? Had the sirens been gone for so long we had just accepted it without wondering why? Without knowing how?

Calypso scowled. “I am not surprised. Grab onto my friend Sedna. We will retreat to a safe place and I will tell you everything, and hopefully, what will come next.”