Madly (2 page)

As my mind sifted through options for what to do next, I heard the noise of approaching feet in the hallway outside Lady Sheelah’s door. The three of us looked at each other, silently wondering what we should do. But before any of us could speak, the room began to fill with the ghostly forms of the Seers.

Their dark, smoky presence overwhelmed the small space to the point that I felt instantly suffocated. I was almost glad when they wordlessly forced us out into the hall.

It was when I stepped through the doorway and turned the corner that I suddenly felt breathless for a totally different reason.

Standing in the hall right outside the door, hovering like an ominous, disapproving cloud, was Jackson Hamilton, Jersey’s brother and one of the most promising Sentinels the Mer had ever seen. My mouth dropped open for a second before I brought my jaw shut with an audible snap of my teeth.

Though I hadn’t seen him since I was almost fifteen and he was sixteen, I was instantly transported back to the days when I idolized him. At one point, I was crushing on him so hard my parents actually grounded me for pining away over a Sentinel, a match that was strictly forbidden in the Mer culture.

Now, at nineteen, Jackson was fully matured and every inch the Sentinel. Standing nearly a foot above my tallish 5’8” frame, his shoulders looked wider than the doorway behind me. His hair, cut short for his assignment in Slumber, was the same blue-black as the other Sentinels, denoting his station, and his skin was as tan as ever. His jaw seemed a little harder than before, probably because he was gritting his teeth, but it was his eyes that caught and held me, eyes I had thought I’d finally managed to put out of my mind.

They were the clear, pale blue of shallow water and they were glaring at me furiously from beneath a straight, heavy brow and thick, raven lashes.

I was taken aback by the anger I saw in their mesmerizing depths, so much so that I lost my tongue.

Jersey, however, had no such problem.

“
What crawled up your butt and died?” she demanded tersely.

After a few more seconds of blatant intimidation, Jackson swung his gaze to Jersey. He said nothing until his startling eyes moved on to pin Aidan.

“
Get them out of here,” Jackson ground out in a deep and booming voice, his expression growing even more thunderous if possible. “What were you thinking, bringing them here?”

Although Aidan was royal, he wasn’t exactly a warrior like Jackson. I could almost see him shrinking back inside himself.

“
I didn’t…we didn’t know that…I never expected that she might…”

Poor thing, he never did form a complete sentence, just stammered nervously.

“
If you even
suspected
that something was wrong, you should have called. Never, ever,
ever
bring the Princess out without protection.”

“
But I was here with her, I didn’t think—”

“
No, you didn’t think. And don’t imagine that the Warden Major won’t hear of this.”

Beneath his tan, Aidan paled visibly. It was then that my pity for him turned to anger—toward Jackson.

“
Look,” I said, my voice rising angrily as I took a brave step toward Jackson. “He had no idea that there might be danger and, besides that, it was my idea. So you can just back off, Mr. High-and-Mighty.”

Jackson stared down at me, his face a hard mask of fury. I thought for a second steam might actually start pouring from his ears or his nostrils.

“
Then
you
shouldn’t be so reckless,
Princess.”
The way he said
Princess
made it sound like an insult. “Furthermore, you know the rules. You should’ve known better, too. But then again, I guess I should’ve expected this kind of behavior from you.”

His top lip curled up in a sneer of distaste that was both infuriating and devastating. When had he come to dislike me so? We’d once been friends, buddies even. In fact, there had been a time when I thought he might have begun to reciprocate my romantic feelings for him. But then he left…

I jacked my chin up a few notches and squared my shoulders, burying deep the sting of his words.

“
Well, just because I’m royalty doesn’t mean that I’m afraid to come to the rescue of someone in need. And don’t think for one second that I’d do it any differently just because
you
don’t approve.”

It was Jackson’s turn to take a step toward me, one meant to intimidate, which it did. Though I had to crane my neck to maintain eye contact, I stubbornly stood my ground.

“
Then you’ll have round-the-clock surveillance.”

I laughed smugly.

“
Good luck finding junior Sentinels that can keep up with me.”

Jackson’s lips twitched.

“
Then I suppose
I
won’t be letting you out of
my
sight,
Princess.”

My mouth wanted to drop open again, this time in indignation. Jackson was probably one of the few Sentinels that I couldn’t outrun or outwit. I wanted to argue, but I quelled the urge, grinding my teeth together so hard I could barely push my next words out.

“
We’ll just see about that.”

With that, I turned on my heel and stalked off, leaving Jersey and Aidan hurrying to catch up. Behind me, I heard a velvety laugh followed by the words, “Yes we will,
Princess.”

My insides melted at the sound of his laugh, which only added fuel to the raging inferno that was my temper.

“
Wow!” Jersey said when she reached me. “Look who’s got a little fire in her belly.”

“
Can you believe the nerve of him?” I was positively fuming.

I flung the dormitory door open, causing it to snap back on its hinges. I stomped down the steps and stopped at the bottom to pace in fury.

I turned back to Jersey and Aidan, my angry words dying on my lips when I saw Aidan’s expression. It was obvious that Jackson’s words had affected him, too.

“
Aidan, just ignore him. We both know you’d never put me in danger.”

Though he nodded in agreement, Aidan’s downcast eyes said he was nowhere near ready to let go of his guilt.

“
Why would you care what a disgruntled giant thinks anyway? I mean, seriously, would you be this upset if he’d come in his true form, stomping around and saying, ‘Fe, fi, fo, fum’? How in the world can you care what he thinks?”

Even as I spoke the words, however, I once again felt the pinch of Jackson’s obvious disgust. There was no reason I should care what he thought of me either. But for some reason, I did.

Aidan looked at me from beneath his lashes, but I could see the grin that tugged at his lips. I smiled at him, feeling better for having eased his mind.

“
Just remember that when you’re Warden Major, you’ll be able to kick his brawny butt right back down to the bottom of the beanstalk.”

Aidan’s grin faded somewhat. “Even though that sounds, like,
awesome
right now, I know he was only looking out for you. I can’t really blame him for that.”

“
Hey!” I snapped playfully. “Don’t make excuses for him. You’re ruining the pile-on. You can agree with him later. Right now, let’s call him ugly names on the way to the pier. I need the salty sea water to calm me before I go see about having Jackson reassigned.”

Jersey and Aidan looked at each other, shrugged and then nodded in agreement.

“
How ‘bout ‘Gigantor’?” Jersey said as we started back across campus.

“
No, no. How ‘bout Lurch,” Aidan suggested. “That’s what he should’ve said when he got to Lady Sheelah’s room: ‘You rang’.”

Jersey and I both giggled over that one, the mental picture too funny not to.

“
Maybe they’d come pick him up and take him away if we called in a Sasquatch sighting.”

We made our way thusly across campus and straight through the middle of the tiny town of Slumber, to the pier and, beyond it, the Atlantic Ocean.

It wasn’t until we were stopped on the sand, taking our shoes off that the details of Lady Sheelah’s death came rushing back.

Merfolk were very difficult to kill. In fact, the only creatures I knew of that could take the life of a Mer were the Lore, spiritual creations of Lucifer and Proserpine before Lucifer took over the Underworld. But the Lore had been safely contained inside the prison at the heart of Atlas, my true home, for hundreds of years. So what had changed?

A tight fist closed around my lungs when the next thought drifted through my mind.

What if a prisoner had escaped? That could only mean one thing.

“
My parents,” I breathed, closing my eyes against the rising panic.

When I opened them, Aidan was looking at me, his eyes wide with shock. I felt Jersey’s hand come comfortingly to my shoulder.

If one of the prisoners had managed to get free, that meant that the Warden Major and Warden Queen, Hennessey and Ophelia James, were compromised. That mattered more to me than anyone else because I had different names for them—
Dad
and
Mom
.

I took off toward the water at breakneck speed, sand flying through the air around me. One phrase was running on a loop through my brain—
Please God, no!

The closer I got to the waves that crashed restlessly against the shore, the harder it became to carry the heavy blanket of fear that had settled about my shoulders.

Without hesitation, I ran, fully clothed, into the water and dove beneath a wave. Swimming frantically, I could feel the transformation taking place beneath my clothes as I shed my school uniform.

By the time I had unclasped my bra and slipped out of my panties, I could feel the protective sheath of shimmering blue-green scales covering me from nipple to nipple and down across my belly to obscure my nudity.

Inch by tingling inch, I felt them covering my legs, joining them together with a thin web of scales that ended in a wide fin just beyond my toes. I could will them away if I wanted to and swim like a human, but I did not. They would give me less resistance and much more speed in the water, which I needed and put immediately to use as I darted into the depths.