Tangled Tides (The Sea Monster Memoirs) (15 page)

"Wow," I gasped, looking down in awe as we walked across. "It's like wet glass."

Once we were on actual solid ground he lowered his arm. The bridge went soft and fell splashing into the ocean below. I stood at the edge of the rocks, looking down and gaping. "You'll teach me how to do that, right?"

His lips twitched at the corners like he wanted to smile. "If you behave, yes, I'll teach you how to do that."

"Deal."

I squeezed water out of my dress and tried not to gawk at his chiseled body. I was curious to see if his hallmarks covered
every
part of him, but I couldn't lift my gaze from the scrolling artwork on my own feet. He must have noticed my nervous fidgeting.

"I apologize for not having clothes on. We can follow this trail to the nearby stream. Once we're in the water—"

"Treygan, its fine."

His eyes drifted downward and lingered at the low-cut neckline of my dress. I stepped back and crossed my arms over my chest. "Exactly what are you staring at?"

"Your emotions."

"What?"

"I'm trying to figure out what orange means."

Looking down, I gasped. "Why is my skin orange?"

"Your mer traits are developing. Our skin changes color when we feel strong emotions."

"Oh, dandy. We're real-life mood rings." Koraline's skin had turned purple when she fought the sharks. Did purple mean scared?

"So?" Treygan urged.

"So what?"

"Will you tell me what orange means?"

"Don't you know what it means?"

"Colors vary from person to person. What were you feeling when you turned orange?"

I wanted to say offended or insulted, but I couldn't. It was more like embarrassed, but also flattered and excited, like my skin ached to be against Treygan's again. Every time he touched me it felt like a million dragonflies fluttering along my skin. If he knew that, I'd be humiliated. "I plead the fifth."

"What?"

"The right to remain silent. I choose not to answer."

I scanned the moonlit mountains around us, trying to think about anything but the fervent sensations Treygan caused inside of me.

The silence didn't last long. "We should get you into a resting pool," he said. "I'll send for a Violet to heal your shoulder. In the meantime, Koraline will have supplies at her house to treat it."

How could I be so self-centered? Koraline was attacked by sharks! Treygan should be the last thing on my mind. I turned to face him again. "How badly was she injured?"

"Severely. She may have lost too much blood. They ate her fins away entirely."

I threw up. It was pure water, but I buckled over and wretched, making awful, mortifying sounds. Treygan pulled my hair back, keeping it away from my face. A few more stomach spasms passed, but nothing else came up. I stood up, silently wishing it had been me instead of Koraline.

"Gross. Sorry," I mumbled, convinced I would die from humiliation.

The quizzical tilt of his head combined with the moonlight reflecting in his eyes almost made him look concerned. Between his hallmarks his glistening skin lightened. Speculating what the silvery shade might mean caused my heart to hammer in my chest. I looked up at the starry sky and squeezed water out of my dress again. This
must
be a mer thing. I
could not
be attracted to Treygan.

"You're bleeding." He stepped closer and examined my shoulder. "Let's get it taken care of. A stream to the village is just around that bend."

Blood made me queasy so I didn't look at it, but I felt the warmth trickling down my arm. We walked side by side as he guided us along a pathway.

"Too bad the sirens aren't around," I joked. "They could clean this up for me."

"Don't let them drink from you again. If they ever attempt to make you drink blood, refuse it. No matter what they say or promise."

"Ew, I would never drink blood. That's disgusting."

"Glad to hear you feel that way. Now that you've seen it firsthand, you might as well know that selkies are also blood drinkers."

The beginning of a laugh escaped my lips. Surely he was kidding. Then I froze. My legs went numb and I stopped walking, remembering the mystery juice at Rownan's house. No. It couldn't have been. I would've known if I had been drinking blood.

Events of the night clicked into place, one after another: the red liquid, spilling it all over myself, wiping the counter clean with my dress, Koraline asking if I was bleeding, the frenzied sharks, and my last glance at Koraline's wide, green eyes.

"Oh, my God, Koraline," I blurted out, clutching my stomach. Treygan had walked ahead, but he turned and made his way back to me. "I'll never forgive myself."

His voice softened. "You're not to blame."

He could say that because he didn't know yet. But I
was
to blame. I should have never left to find Rownan. I should have stayed and let Koraline teach me what I needed to know. She would still be safe. I would have never drunk— My stomach flipped over just thinking about it. An entire container. Almost a gallon of it.

"Treygan." I glanced apprehensively at my wound. The blood didn't make me queasy. It should have, but it didn't. When my mouth watered it confirmed my fear. I swallowed hard. "What would happen if I did drink blood?"

By the look on his face you would have thought I had ripped his heart out.

M
orning shed a new light on things. I gawked at the empty bottle sitting in the sink. It had to mean something, but what? Merfolk didn't drink blood. They were repulsed by it.

I searched the trash can for any sign she had just spilled the blood and cleaned it up. I found nothing. She drank our blood. A lot of selkie blood.

This wasn't in any of the rule books. This went against the natural order of things. What if the instinct to live like us—to be one of us—ran deeper than we thought?

"This could change everything," I said, slapping my hands against the counter. What would Treygan do when he found out his precious mermaid had become a blood guzzler? I grabbed my coat and the keys to my bike and flew out the door. This newsflash had to be broadcasted as soon as possible.

J
ack Frost's wasn't open yet, so I used my key and let myself in the back door.

"Jack?" I shouted. No answer.

Jack was like a father to me, but I couldn't predict his roaming patterns. If he was in the water, I could guess where to find him. If he was in human form, he could be in any female's bed anywhere in the Keys.

I made my way down the hidden corridor and slid open the door to the walk-in freezer. Steel screeching against the floor and the smell of wet animal hair triggered the memory of the man who had died here.

A human patron found our hiding place once, years ago. If humans knew we were selkies and that we sometimes kept our skins hidden in the bar's freezer, they would probably steal them. Without our seal skin we couldn't return to the ocean—much less to Rathe. We had to make sure a siren drained the trespasser of every memory he had of the bar. The problem was we asked Mariza to do it.

After his death we made sure the myst on the freezer was ironclad. No human had come close to this room since. Regardless of what merfolk believe about selkies, we don't like watching others die needlessly.

Jack's black seal skin hung in its place. He was on land somewhere, but there wasn't enough time to look for him. I needed to go to the Catacombs and start working.

I heard the sound of footsteps approaching and my claws shot out reflexively.

Dina walked into the freezer and laughed at me. "Easy, killer. It's only me."

"She drank our blood," I blurted out, itching to tell someone.

She hung her wet coat on her appointed hook. "Who did?"

"Yara."

Dina's head snapped around so fast her wet hair sprayed droplets across my face. "Legit?"

I nodded.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. That's why I need to talk to Jack."

She pulled a seagarette out of her wristband, tapping it against the top of her hand. "Did she enjoy it?"

"Must have. She downed an entire bottle."

A grin spread across her face. Dina would be wondering the same thing as me. Did this mean Yara was meant to take our side?
Be
on our side?

"Jack thought this would happen," she said. "Genes have major influence. You should tell her the truth about her father. Imagine how much stronger that would make our case."

Many times I had wanted Yara to know her father had been a selkie, but if her own parents kept it a secret, what right did I have to tell her? "Vyron made it very clear that none of us could tell her anything about selkies."

"Only until she turned eighteen."

"The eighteen stipulation was her mom's idea. If Vyron had his way, Yara would never know about any of us."

"Screw Vyron! He broke his promise. Did he care when the gorgons sealed the gate? No! He abandoned us. Tell his mongrel child what she really is. Maybe she has daddy issues and she'll come running to us," she pouted and continued in a baby voice, "hoping we'll give her the love and acceptance she never had as a child."

"Dina, stop it. The girl's been through enough."

She rocked on her heels, scanning the seal skins and frozen goods surrounding us. "Would it matter, though?" she asked, suddenly thoughtful. "Surely the merfolk will tell her what needs to be done to open the gate—their interpretation and ours. Even if she prefers our way of existence, she wouldn't give up her life for us."

"Maybe not for
only
us," Jack said, startling me. He was so light on his feet that I hadn't heard him approach. A seag bobbed between his chapped lips. "But she'll have a hard time condemning both species to this world for eternity. That's a lot of lives to ruin."

Jack had a way of finding a solution to every problem. His casual lean against the doorway made me relax.

"You know, don't you?" I asked. His smile revealed the gap in his teeth. "How'd you hear about it already?"

"Ran into Nixie. You know how she likes to gossip."

"How did she know?" Dina asked.

Jack tossed his seagarette on the floor and smashed it with his boot. "Who cares? It's true, right? Yara drank from you?"

"Nah. She drank a donor container from my fridge."

"Did she enjoy it?"

"No idea. I was asleep. She probably didn't know what it was."

Dina laughed. "If she drank the whole thing then she must have loved it. We've got her, fellas. She's as good as addicted."

Jack shook his head. I knew what he was thinking before he said it. "She needs to drink from you, Rownan. Direct from the tap.
Then
she'll be addicted."

Jack knew I refused to drink directly from anyone, or vice versa. Everyone knew. "It would crush Vienna if I shared myself with someone else."

"You're the only one she would ever consider drinking from. If you don't do this, you may never see Vienna again. Yara needs to bond with you. Really bond. It's our one sure shot."

Dina voiced the concern I didn't want to say out loud. "Jack, if she drinks from him, she'll consume his gorgon blood. Look at what that did to Vienna. What if it works against us?"

Jack and I glared at each other, but for different reasons. I wanted to curse him to hell for making me do this. He wanted to knock me upside my head for being so vulnerable. As if I had any say in who or what my father was.

"Why couldn't you have gotten Treygan's power?" Jack grunted.

At that comment I left the room. As part gorgon I inherited the ability to shadow other gorgons, dial in on their location, watch over them and sometimes see through their eyes. The first time Vienna drank my blood she developed the same ability. We were connected, always able to find each other, until the gate closed.

"You have to do it," Jack called out behind me.

I kept walking, but he was right. Soon Yara would crave blood again, and when that time came, she would have to drink mine.

W
e had been at it for hours. Yara and I were mentally drained from the ongoing Q and A session, but she wanted to learn more.

"Okay." Yara looked up from her history book. "Let me get this straight. Medusa was turned into a gorgon because she shacked up with Poseidon in Athena's temple. She was banished to live in a cold, dark, secluded grotto along with her two sisters, Stheno and Euryale. All of them could turn living things to stone."

"Right."

"Poseidon was immune to the petrifying thing because he was a god, so he secretly visited Medusa and continued the affair—even though she was a hideous monster."

I nodded. "He still saw her as beautiful. Blinded by love, I suppose."

Yara shook her head in disbelief. Her fingertips glided across the page. "Okay, so then he created a siren for each of the gorgons; bird women who could travel through water or fly to the heavens to find Poseidon or relay messages for the sisters. But the sirens hated the grotto, so they hardly ever returned." She flipped a few pages back, then forward, scanning chapters she had read several times. "Then Medusa and Poseidon had kids, and Stheno and Euryale were jealous and wanted their own, but couldn't have any because of the petrifying issue, right?"

"Right. Plus, what man would go into the grotto to have sex with a hideous monster?"

Yara blushed and tucked her hair behind her ears. "That's why Medusa asked Poseidon to create the selkies. So she and her sisters had creature children that loved the cold and darkness and would stay in the grotto."

I sat back in my chair, impressed by how much she absorbed so quickly. "Until the grotto couldn't hold all of them, then Poseidon created an ocean to harbor them." 

Yara scanned over the pages again. "But the sisters got bored with the dark selkies, so they asked for children who liked to play and sing. Poseidon created merfolk, modeling them after fish and dolphins. But they needed sunlight and warmth, so he created a whole different realm for them?"

"Not exactly. We all live in Rathe. Think of our separate halves as different countries. The grotto sits in the middle, directly on the border of our light and dark territories."

"And Medusa is the one who requested selkies and merfolk be able to travel to the human realm and explore land?"

"Yes, because the original sea creatures grew bored and restless. The sisters arranged it so they had to return to Rathe regularly or they would die. They didn't want them disappearing for long bouts like the sirens."

Yara glanced down at her book again. "Is that why the gorgons had the all-seeing mirror in the grotto? So they could watch over their children wherever they were?"

"You're a fast learner."

"Who is more powerful, the gorgon sisters or Poseidon?"

"Hmm, well, Poseidon pretty much gave Medusa and her sisters whatever they wanted. That included the ability to create rules, gift abilities, and control the gateway between the realms. When Medusa was killed by Perseus, the other sisters lost most of their power."

Yara's eyes widened. "Stheno and Euryale aren't still alive, are they?"

"They are. Medusa was the only mortal of the three."

She studied the drawings of the gorgons on the page in front of her; their heads full of snakes, claws for hands, huge fangs, serpent-like tails, and pinwheels of fire and ice for eyes. A small shiver ran through her and she snapped the book closed, placing it back in its case.

"Why is every book kept in glass?" she asked.

"They're waterproof so we can store them underwater, and they're charmed so that if a human found them they'd appear to be chunks of useless concrete."

One nod. From observing her the past several hours I learned her single, firm nod meant she was accepting truths, saving them to memory, not questioning my words anymore—definite progress.

She pushed a book and plate of food away from her and stretched her arms over her head. "My shoulder feels a lot better."

"The Violets are amazing healers." One of the Violets, Prynne, had been waiting at the house when we arrived. She nursed Yara's shoulder right away, and confirmed her injury wasn't severe.

Yara picked at the bandage on her arm. "I still don't get the whole drinking blood thing."

Explaining the siren and selkies' blood-drinking habits had been daunting, but Yara seemed genuinely disgusted by it and agreed to fight future cravings. I blamed myself for her drinking blood. I should have warned her right away. Moving forward, my job would be to make sure no selkies—especially Rownan—came anywhere near her.