Page 60 of Shifting Tides
“The Prince?” What was he talking about?
Kendall nodded his chin in Tobias’s direction, a look of disdain on his face. “All the girls at this school fawn over him because he’s descended from dragon royalty. Nevermind if he’s a different species from them. I thought you were different.”
I frowned at that and jerked my head. “I had no idea Tobias was royalty. And I wasn’t fawning over him. He invited me to this party. He was actually the first student to acknowledge my existence. We’re… friends, I guess.”
“Ha! No girl isfriendswith Tobias Dracul,” Kendall snorted. “I wouldn’t say he’s a player, exactly, but he’s burned more than one girl at this school.”
My heart hardened. That was two people now who told me what a womanizer Tobias was. I was all for the two of usmutually using each other, but I was not about to be strung along and toyed with by him.
“And what about you?” I asked, eager to take the subject off Tobias, to forget about him entirely. “I’ve heard that you and Letti have a thing.”
“Hadis the correct word,” Kendall said. “Trust me, that whole nightmare is one hundred percent over. I kinda have my eyes on someone new.”
He winked at me, and dammit, my angry, crestfallen heart fluttered like a butterfly getting back up after a harsh wind knocked it to the ground. I liked Kendall. I could picture myself ending up with him. He was funny and sweet, and he had abs that could cut diamonds.
And yet, as I pressed myself against him with every sexy trick in my dance book, I knew that I wasn’t dancing for Kendall but for Tobias, trying to make him jealous. I knew he was watching. I could feel his hot gaze on me, like the heat of an old light bulb, and it was getting more and more heated with every twist of my hips.
After a while, my body gave in to the dance, and the music took over. Soon, I was dancing just for the sheer joy of it. Music had always been my escape, and tonight, it whisked me away from my conflicted feelings over Tobias.
“Ready for a drink?” Kendall asked when one of the songs ended.
I nodded, and we went to the kitchen to scrounge for something—preferably non-alcoholic. Now that I knew I was a mermaid, I was much more aware of the fact that I needed to drink three times as much water as a normal person, and it really showed when I exerted myself. And though I really wanted to drown my frustrations in booze, I desperately needed to rehydrate first.
Kendall found some bottles of water in one of the many ice chests and tossed one to me. We both unscrewed the tops and chugged down the chilled liquid.
“So, I know you’re having some trouble fitting in with the other mermaids,” Kendall said as he tossed his empty bottle in the trash. “Most of that is from Cora just being a nasty bitch. But if they got to know you, they’d see that you really are one of us. You’ve just been missing.”
His words sparked a desire in me that was as old as time—the desire to fit in. In all honesty, I had never put in too much effort before. With every new school, I knew it would be just a matter of time before I had to leave again and forfeit any progress.
But this was different. Mom wasn’t going to uproot my life and drag me somewhere else. This school was where I was going to stay for a long time, and I had no one else. Fitting in was now a necessity, otherwise I didn’t know how long I’d survive.
Befriending dragons and phoenixes was nice, but why shouldn’t I want to be liked and welcomed by my own kind, too?
“I would really love that,” I admitted, screwing the cap back onto my bottle. “But I can’t even get them to acknowledge I exist. How can I show them who I am if they won’tseeme?”
“Because I’m going to help you.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go reintroduce you to some merpeople.”
With a giddy bubble in my stomach, I took his hand and practically skipped after him toward a group of mermaids that were currently laughing at one of Shea’s jokes.
“Lenore, Trevor, Helena,” Kendall greeted the trio as we approached, and he and Trevor fist-bumped. “You might have seen her shyly gracing the halls of our common room, but I don’t think any of you have formally met Arya.”
Their smiles slowly fell as they took me in and looked down their noses at me.
“Come on, guys. She’s a mermaid, just like the rest of us,” he said.
The girl with the bob-cut dark brown hair shot him a narrowed glance. “She’s an outsider,” she stage-whispered to him like I wasn’t even here.
“Lenore, just because she didn’t grow up in our tribe doesn’t mean she doesn’t belong in it,” Kendall argued, putting his arm around Lenore’s shoulders. “All our ancestors were once outsiders to each other, but they learned to come together for the sake of the species. Honor their memory by doing the same.”
“But Cora said—” the curly-headed blond, who must be Helena, started to say.
“Screw Cora!” Kendall cut her off. “Why the hell would you believe a word Cora says, anyway? You remember that nasty rumor she spread about you two summers ago.”
Helena looked down and shrunk with shame. I wondered what the rumor had been, and more to the point, what rumors Cora was spreading about me.
“You brought Shea, didn’t you?” Trevor asked, tipping his cup toward Shea, who was attempting to form flames into a bird. Or a butterfly?
I nodded.
