Scales and Legends

by B. Kristin McMichael

  Whitney stepped forward to the house even though she knew Sam wasn’t there. Cassie waited tentatively by the tree, taking in the whole island from their front step. It was a spectacular view. Sam wanted to be away from everything, so his house was kind of up a hill and was the last one on the path. Everything stretched out before where they stood and they could even see all the way down to the ocean.

  “You didn’t tell me you lived in paradise,” Cassie commented as her panther sat down. He was enjoying the view, too.

  “That depends on how you describe paradise. Personally, I love it here, but Sam’s not the biggest fan of the island. It’s too isolated for him. Truthfully, though, I don’t know how I’d feel about it if I couldn’t get away from it for over a decade.”

  “There’s always a downside to everything,” Cassie replied, looking at the cat at her feet. Jared only had his night human cat, which he had yearned to be for years, back in the days before his human life was taken away and he became permanently stuck in that form.

  “We need to go down into town to find Sam. I figured he’d be home, but it seems like he isn’t,” Whitney told her. It would have been easier to find Sam’s mind and a tree next to him, but she wanted it to be a surprise. Now she just needed to follow the pull to him. He’d feel her coming, but he didn’t expect her to be on the island, so it still could be a surprise.

  Whitney led the way down the paths. She’d expected to get a lot of stares with a non-siren and panther walking with her, but now that they’d arrived, she found no one out and about. It was strangely quiet.

  “It’s not normally this empty. They must be busy,” Whitney explained to her friend, though she was really just trying to reassure herself.

  “An island preparing for war should be busy. I guess they don’t plan to hide here in town if something happens, which is a smart choice,” Cassie analyzed the situation.

  As she traveled down another hill and around the bend, Whitney knew where the bond was leading her. Sam was somewhere near the amphitheater, and with the empty town, she wasn’t too excited to surprise him now. Yes, surprising him sounded fun, but in front of hundreds of people, not so much. Whitney cautiously kept going toward Sam and only peeked into the amphitheater. No one was in the seats or on the stage. Sam was near, but he wasn’t there.

  “Siren are into theatre?” Cassie asked as followed Whitney down the stairs to the stage.

  Whitney couldn’t help it. She had to laugh. Thinking of the siren performing a musical number on the stage was actually quite funny.

  “No, this is our central meeting place,” Sam said as he came out from behind the stone wall of the stage.

  Skipping the last few stairs, Whitney jumped onto the stage and ran over into his arms. Sam easily scooped her up and hugged her before setting her down to kiss her like he hadn’t seen her in years. Whitney melted into his lips. Everyone was right—mates should never spend long times apart. Whitney only drew back when there was a cough behind her.

  “So, Sam, this is Cassie. Cassie, this is Sam,” Whitney introduced them with her cheeks flaming red. She really wasn’t one for public displays of affection, but everything had changed with Sam. She didn’t care who was watching. She needed that hug and kiss just as much as she now required blood to live.

  “Pleased to finally meet the guy who’s been keeping my best friend from me, and I’m glad I don’t have to beat you up for making her into an outlawed night human since she took care of that now, too,” Cassie replied. Then she gave him a nice smile.

  Whitney wasn’t sure if her friend really was mad at Sam or not, but her non-aggressive ways seemed threatening with a panther beside her.

  “Oh, yeah, and this is Jared’s cat,” Whitney introduced the panther.

  “The one that saved your life?” Sam asked. He walked forward and knelt down in front of the cat. “Thank you for your sacrifice. Whitney told me that you, along with Cassie and Nate, saved her from dying. I can never thank the three of you enough. Without you guys, I would have never had a mate.”

  Now Cassie appeared taken aback by Sam’s honesty. He was truly grateful for the skinwalkers, and not mad at her hostility toward him. And what he said was more than true. They had saved Whitney, and he had planned to never take a mate until he met her.

  “I came to find you and ask if the siren and hunters can all come back to the island,” Whitney explained, getting back on track. Before Sam could answer, she added, “They have killed over one hundred mer thus far. They’re on our side and will be safe around us. The siren are pardoned.”

  Sam nodded, but didn’t reply. He briefly closed his eyes, and then looked back at her. It was one of the quickest conversations she had ever seen him have with his father.

  “I think my dad is actually scared of what’s to come. He said yes, but we have to keep them at our place,” Sam replied.

  “That’s the house we first came to,” Whitney told Cassie, who nodded.

  “I’ll bring them right away.” Cassie jogged back up the stairs to find the closest tree without having to be told. That’s what best friends were like, and especially Cassie with Whitney. It was as if they could finish each other’s thoughts almost all of the time, and even though they had been apart months without any talking, it was still like that.

  “So why are you hanging out here?” Whitney asked once Cassie was gone. She had thought he would be soaking at home. His father was driving him nuts, and everyone had a job to do but Sam lately.

  Sam reached forward and took her hand, keeping her beside himself.

  “We were able to get Nic back, but it’s going to take a long time to heal him,” Sam replied. “He lost most of his fin and lots of blood. We can’t feed him until the wounds heal, and hopefully, the tail grows back.”

  Whitney could see the images in Sam’s mind of what it was like to find his brother. He was almost eaten through by the trap, and freeing him actually brought sharks to the island due to the blood that was floating around. Not only did Sam have to get his beaten brother back to shore, but he had to do it with sharks nipping at him.

  Sam led the way he had come, and Whitney found Nic lying in a bathtub-sized bucket of water. His fin was missing the lower half, and his eyes were closed, like he was sleeping. He didn’t look much better than he had in Sam’s mind.

  “It’s the healing water,” Sam explained.

  “Is he dead?” Whitney asked as she watched him. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

  “No. He’s in a self-induced coma. He’s keeping a block between him and his mate so that she doesn’t have to suffer with him. He’s been doing this since he got caught. She’s doing fine and taking care of their kids. As long as he can keep the block up, she won’t get hurt, too.”

  Whitney walked over and looked at Nic. He was in pain as he grimaced, but if he was keeping his connection to his mate shut, then he was doing what every male siren would do. He was protecting his loved ones.

  “Where does the water come from?” Whitney asked. She had experienced the water once when Sam was flayed for saving her life. It was the reason the siren accepted her, when she realized now that they shouldn’t have. She wasn’t technically a siren.

  “There’s a fresh spring behind here that we get the water from,” Sam replied with a raised eyebrow. He knew she was up to something.

  “Do you have to keep changing it for Nic?”

  “Yes …” Sam still stared at her.

  “Would there be enough to fill that glass ball thingy from before that I sat in?”

  “Yes. It refills more often than we need it.”

  Sam still was confused, but Whitney wasn’t. An idea had come to her, and she just might have the solution to keep the innocent mer safe. She didn’t know why, but she knew it would work. It was her Oceanid senses kicking in again. Her plan was fail-proof. Now all she had to do was convince Sam.

  CHAPTER 9

  Sam stared at Whitney from inside the glass bowl. It wasn’t a position
he ever wanted to be in. He was sitting helpless and couldn’t do anything but watch. This wasn’t how he was supposed to take care of his mer, or his mate. It was only months ago that she sat in this very glass bowl and had to watch him be fried. It would be easier to be the one being punished now than to sit and watch everything. He’d complain that it wasn’t fair, but he knew better than to add that, because Whitney would say that was exactly how she felt when he went through it. But it still wasn’t fair.

  “I’m going to need hundreds of scales,” Whitney told her four siren friends that were with her on the same block he once laid upon.

  The king stood off to the side. He wasn’t about to hurt her like he did his son. He knew now what she was and believed in her bringing luck as much as the night human Loan had, but instead of just good luck, the king thought his involvement would bring the siren bad luck. At least her greens weren’t as superstitious, or they didn’t think she was some legendary creature. Either way, they were going to help in her plans and Sam had basically no say.

  Sam had already seen how she had changed her friends with just one scale. He, along with his family, had been amazed what it had done. The grotesque second-class greens looked normal when they transformed now. The pink scales of the Oceanid were mixed into their green scales now. Sam hadn’t admitted to his family that he had also changed at the same time Whitney became a full Oceanid, but they would see soon enough. The only one who had seen his new mer form was currently unconscious.

  “So if I just used the blade scraping backward, it should pull the scales off?” Whitney asked again, and the king nodded.

  She had never skinned a fish before, and his father had on more than one occasion. Sam doubted she would be able to do it. He had seen his father punish by removing scales and it wasn’t a pretty sight. It was going to be painful for both of them.

  “And when I have to stop, you promise me you’ll continue?” Whitney looked at one of the green guys that she was friends with. Sam knew their names, but right now he was still angry she was going through with her impossibly painful idea. He didn’t mind pain, but he minded that she was going to take the brunt of it.

  Whichever guy it was nodded.

  ‘You don’t have to do it this way,’ Sam told her, knowing it would fall on deaf ears.

  ‘I need to make my people, and the sooner, the better. There could be innocent mer going into this war, and they don’t know that they stand a chance of a new life if they don’t fight at all. I have to give them the chance.’

  It was the same argument she had been using for the last hour. Sam still wasn’t happy about it. He understood what she wanted to do and he understood that it was important, but why the heck did his mate have to suffer and feel the pain she was about to go through? It wasn’t fair. He would much rather be the one on the cutting board getting descaled.

  Sam knew the determination in her eyes meant he didn’t get a say in it. In reality, he understood that, too. She was making the choice, and she was choosing to harm herself. He would do his job and sit in the water to heal them both. That was as much as he could do at this point. She was more stubborn than she would ever admit. Even now she was blocking him out; otherwise, she would have scolded him for calling him stubborn. She was actually going to go through with her plan.

  Whitney held the knife by her tail. Taking a few deep breaths, her hand didn’t move at all, and she shook her head. Sam smiled. She didn’t have it in her to hurt herself, and he didn’t blame her. It was going to hurt … and hurt a lot. He may have been to blame for putting that idea into her head, since his thoughts were constantly trickling into hers. He didn’t care.

  Whitney turned to her friends. The greens with her looked as queasy as she did. It seemed like Sam might get his way after all, but that wouldn’t win them the war or make his mate happy. Whitney wanted to save the mer, and she needed her scales to do it. He’d much rather she picked one off at a time, but she wanted more than she could easily pick off. He knew she was right, but he was still happy she wasn’t going to go through all the pain.

  Whitney glanced up at her friends, and none of them moved. He could see her indecision. She hated to use her siren song to make her friends do anything, but it was going to have to come to that. He wasn’t about to help. He liked her in one piece. They could find a different way, and he was willing to sit all night looking for one.

  Whitney pleaded with her friends with her eyes. She needed their help, and the rest of the siren weren’t about to give it. Sam hated that he won this battle, but he would look for different options, and if he had to sit and pick each scale off by hand, he would do that, too.

  Whitney stared at her friends. They weren’t moving. She had failed. She couldn’t cut off her own scales because she was too afraid of how much it would hurt, and none of them could hurt her either. She should have expected that. They were her Oceanids now. There was probably something built in that made them unable to hurt her. She was asking too much of them.

  When she looked over at the siren king, she knew there would be no help there either. He was beyond superstitious about her new mer standing. He even went to bowing his head to her when she entered a room or talked now. It was more than a little strange. What she needed was someone she trusted to not kill her to scrape off her scales, but the island still wasn’t completely home to her. The people she trusted fully were either skinwalkers or humans.

  ‘Go get Jax and Jade,’ Whitney told Trudy silently. Trudy’s eyes bugged as she knew what Whitney wanted, and Sam was going to be mad. ‘Don’t worry about Sam. I don’t trust anyone but you guys, Jax, and Jade. They won’t harm me.’

  Trudy seemed to agree with that and hurried away.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ Sam asked as he watched from his bubble.

  ‘To get me help. I’m doing this whether you approve or not. You can’t come up with a better solution, and we both know it needs to happen now. Every little thing we can do to win this war needs to be done, and we don’t have time to sit and pluck one scale off at a time. I’m not going down without a fight.’ Whitney was determined to save these mer, and this was her part to play.

  Sam couldn’t argue against that, and he was smart enough to not try to.

  It took only minutes for Trudy to return with Jax and Jade. Her face was as red as her curls like she’d run the whole way there and back. Whitney smiled at her friend, who tentatively returned it.

  “I know this is what you want, but I’m still kind of with Sam in wishing there was another option,” Trudy told Whitney as Jax and Jade stood beside her on the stone slab she was lying on. Trudy was almost as much against the plan as Sam, but she knew what it felt like to go from a green to an Oceanid. She couldn’t deny that for her family and friends who were green, and knew Whitney was right in what she wanted to do.

  “Trudy didn’t explain anything beyond you needed our help,” Jade said as she gazed down at Whitney.

  Whitney slipped her arms back into the metal chains attached to the slab; the same ones that held Sam down as his father poured hot coals over his fin months ago.

  “Basically I need you to flay me … well, not flay, but I need you to scrape the scales off my fin. I need to be able to change the mer into Oceanids before the battle starts. There might be some that are innocent and will want to live a free life instead of fighting. I need to try, and I need to mark the Selkie and Siren so that you guys know who not to attack.”

  Jax nodded and took the knife from Noah. The hunters were coming in handier than she had first expected.

  “So I imagine this is going to hurt a lot?” Jax asked, picking up on the expressions of the people around them, and maybe even the glare coming from Sam.

  Whitney nodded and tried not to show how nervous she was about all of it.

  “And Sam in that fish bowl has something to do with it?”

  Yes, he had caught the glare from Sam.

  “Sam’s in spring water that heals siren. When you cut me, it shoul
d transfer to him, and he should heal, which should transfer back to me.” Whitney was letting the secret out as to how they fooled the siren before, but she didn’t care now. She wasn’t exactly a siren, so she didn’t have to follow their rules anyway.

  “Jade, hold her arms down,” Jax told his sister. Jax reached down and flicked a scale, judging what he needed to do. They were pressed tightly to Whitney’s tail, but they were loose. They weren’t attached completely around all the edges. Jax nodded as he understood what needed to be done.

  “Sam won’t come after him for doing this?” Jade asked as she held Whitney’s hands rather than holding down her arms.

  “No, he won’t,” Whitney said, looking across the way at Sam. ‘And you won’t. I know you don’t like hunters, but I asked them to do this, and you can’t hold a grudge.’

  ‘I can’t hold a grudge against someone that came to help you when they didn’t have to,’ Sam said, admitting defeat and referring to the fact that Jax and Jade came to the island when the hunter council hadn’t sent them. ‘By the way, does my dad know Rommy is here, too?’

  Whitney’s eyes bugged. She hadn’t thought about that. Rommy and the siren king seemed to have some sort of history which made them hate each other. Sam didn’t know much about it, and neither did Jade or Jax. But there was definitely bad blood between them. Over the years they had tried to kill each other more than a dozen times, and neither could succeed. It probably wasn’t the best idea to bring the hunter to the island, but they did need her help.

  ‘Oops, I guess I forgot to mention that detail,’ Whitney replied as she glanced over at Sam’s dad. He was eyeing Jax and Jade like he recognized them, and he probably did even though he’d only met them once. ‘Guess he knows now.’

  The king looked like he was ready to leave when Sam called to him.