Promises (Book One of The Syrenka Series) (7 page)

Kain nudged me in the shoulder and
waved me closer. “Eviana, meet Lily Shannon from North Carolina.
She’ll be in our groups most of the day.”

Lily reached across Kain with a wide
smile and too much enthusiasm. “Eviana, I’m so glad to finally meet
you and Kain. Congratulations on your engagement.” She looked up at
Kain, which was kind of hard considering that she was pretty much
laying in his lap. “You’re so lucky.” I think that she was talking
to me. Realizing what she’d just implied, she hastily jumped back,
knocking over a glass of water with her elbow.

“
Oh crap. I’m such a
klutz!” She grabbed a napkin and tried to wipe up the
liquid.

“
Here, let me help,” Kain
said and I could she her blush when he touched her hand. I just
sighed and sat back in my seat.

Across the table, glaring at me with a
look I couldn’t quite interpret was one of the most beautiful girls
I’d ever seen. She was tall and slim with short black hair cut to
her chin, large earrings, and a halter top that showed off her
protruding collar bone. I think that she must have been at least
part Asian. Her legs were crossed and I could see that she was
wearing knee high black leather boots that accentuated her long
legs. I didn’t want to cower under her scowl, so I raised my
eyebrows to silently ask her what her problem was.

Catching my signal, she shrugged and
nodded towards the Kain and Lily spectacle. I didn’t know what she
was implying but when I turned back towards her, she was talking to
another boy. Even though I was curious, I still made a promise to
myself to steer clear of her as much as possible.

In no time at all, Pegotty stood and
announced that the Cotillion had begun. My stomach fluttered with
nerves in anticipation of what was to come next but when I stood, I
tried to exude confidence. We made our way into the small group
sessions and the rest of the day was a blur. All of the interviews,
etiquette lessons, how to speak, how not to dress, what fork to use
first when you’re at a council dinner was all a fog by the end of
the day. Kain, Lily, Daniel, Carissa (the tall girl giving me looks
at the table), and I were in a group together for all of the
sessions. Aside from a few hours here and there, we would be
sharing in the embarrassment together the entire
weekend.

I was surprised that Carissa tended to
stay by my side most of the time. She didn’t say much to me, but
her company was oddly reassuring. I discovered that she was a model
in New York, not an uncommon profession for mermaids, and that she
had her sights set on Milan. Attending Cotillion was the last thing
she wanted to do since her entire summer booking schedule had to be
rearranged. We were the same age and she already had a career in
place. Granted, I had the fiancé, but neither of those were really
part of my life plan. I just wanted to run away with Brendan.
Carissa seemed to have it all figured out. She was sure that she
would be promised to someone by the end of the weekend and she
actually seemed to be okay with that prospect.

Daniel was gay. At least I was pretty
sure he was, even if he didn’t quite know it himself. We paired up
a lot of the time, not only because we got along well, but also
since Lily or Carissa did their best to partner up with Kain at any
chance they got. I should have been jealous and maybe I was a
little bit. Especially when Carissa was around, but ultimately I
hoped that Kain might take some interest in one of them.

“
Aren’t you excited for the
ball?” Lily asked me during one particularly boring etiquette
lesson.

“
Hmm??” I was trying to at
least look like I was paying attention.

“
Tomorrow night silly,” she
nudged me in the shoulder. Her face was beaming and it made her
look several years younger. “At least you’re already promised.” She
sighed and looked blissfully at Kain who was getting too much
personal attention from the teacher. “I think that my family is
hoping to get me married off this year. There are a few interesting
guys here,” she shrugged her shoulders, “so maybe it will work out.
Regardless, I can’t wait to get all dressed up.” Her smile was back
and I couldn’t help but share in her enthusiasm.

“
Yeah, it should be cool. I
don’t think I’ve been to a fancy event in quite some time.” It
would be fun to pamper myself; I just had to play dutiful fiancée
the whole time. Looking across the room at Kain smiling and nodding
at his instructions, I realized that it wouldn’t be such a hard
task after all. As though he sensed my gaze, he turned his head
towards me and winked when he caught my eyes. I felt a slight blush
creep up my cheeks and quickly tried to suppress those feelings. I
really had to get a hold of myself.

Lily continued to babble on about the
ball and her hopes of coming away with an arranged marriage. It
still seemed so odd to me. I was constantly fighting the system
while Lily and Carissa had not only accepted their fate, but they
also seemed to be genuinely excited to become young wives. Lily was
the only female in her family and Carissa didn’t have any siblings.
Maybe that’s why they behaved this way. But as the day dragged on,
I continued to ponder the importance of uniting the Dumahls and the
Matthews through our marriage. It did make political sense. We
would be the largest and most powerful family unit. Kain was cute
enough and nice enough, so why couldn’t I just accept my fate? My
head began to hurt and by the time I had to stand up in front of
everyone for my interview session, I pushed all of these depressing
thoughts to the side.

The best part of the day came at dusk.
Even though our swim time technically counted as physical fitness,
Pegotty announced that this was the reef trip Kain had signed us up
for already. I was surprised to see that only about half of the
syrenka’s were going, but when we got to the end of the dock with
the awaiting boat, I understood why.

“
Where are we supposed to
fit?” I asked Mr. Miller who was behind the wheel. The small boat
was loaded with coolers and dive equipment. Only Brinsley and Vance
were on board and the rest of us were standing there like idiots.
Mr. Miller laughed.

“
You’re not. You guys are
swimming and we’ll meet you out there.” The mischievous grin on all
of their faces let me know that they must play this trick every
year on the newbies.

“
What?” Carissa gasped.
“It’s like five miles to the reef. I thought that we were done with
all training today.”

“
Training is never over,”
Mr. Miller replied seriously.

“
It’ll be fun guys,” Lily
chimed in with her annoyingly peppy voice.

“
It will be exhausting,”
Daniel added with a sigh.

Vance was still laughing when he waved
his hands at us. “Oh stop being such babies. The water’s nice and
the swim will be worth it. Trust me.” He patted one of the coolers.
“Refreshments are on us when you arrive.” It was probably just
water and fruit.

“
What’s with the dive
gear?” I asked.

Mr. Miller looked around the boat at
the scattered tanks and vests as though he was just noticing them
for the first time. “We have to pretend we need these, otherwise
some human might get a little too suspicious.” Alright, that made
sense.

I looked up towards Kain who was
staring off at the distant horizon. Pushing into him a little bit
to get his attention, I nodded my head towards the dock by our boat
house. He got the signal and started to jog in that
direction.

“
Where are you two going?”
Daniel asked with a squeak.

“
Swimming,” I yelled back
behind me. My shoes were off and I was trying to untie my dress
while chasing after Kain. I could hear the footsteps behind us
followed by laughing and teasing as the others also attempted to
disrobe. In no time at all, we were in the water.

Just like the night before, my
transition was relatively quick and smooth. I heard the boat
overhead and we all began to swim after it. The five of us stayed
in a little group, oblivious to the few stragglers who refused to
take part in our childish games. Kain and I took the lead with
Carissa close to my side and Lily and Daniel bringing up the rear.
The water was shallow at first which made it rather difficult to
stay completely submerged. We wanted to avoid the boating channel
for obvious reasons, but we still needed to skirt the edges to find
deeper water. After about half a mile the shelf dropped off and the
water got bluer. Several sea turtles dodged out of the way, not
quite knowing what to make of the five of us. Daniel grabbed onto
the shell of one of the larger turtles and tried to let it carry
him for a while. The turtle wasn’t thrilled with Daniel’s game, so
it repeatedly slammed his hands with its flippers until he let
go.

We were coming to the surface to
breathe as a group so that we could all watch out for boats. After
one of our breaks, we noticed that we were no longer alone in our
activity. Kain grabbed my arm and directed my attention out to our
left. The rest of the group swam by us since we’d stopped so
suddenly, but they hurried back when they saw what Kain was
pointing to. About fifty feet away, swimming around our perimeter,
was a pod of bottlenose dolphins. Kain’s face was beaming and
although I gave him a hard time about this before, he was right
when he said that our dolphins were not the same as these. Our
dolphins, or porpoise as Kain had corrected me, were much smaller
and darker than these beautiful creatures in front of us. I counted
at least ten and it was easy to see that three of them were
babies.

Carissa came up beside me since we had
all settled down against the sandy bottom to get a better view. I
looked at her and saw how enthralled she was. She was reaching a
hand out towards one of the larger females in the group hoping that
it would swim closer. I watched the dolphin dart in and out around
us; testing to see how much of a threat we were. Nobody moved for
the longest time. At home, it always seemed that if I stayed still
long enough the animals would decide that I wasn’t scary and treat
me as part of the scenery.

Apparently, that tactic worked for
bottlenose dolphins as well. Once the pod swam closer to us, they
would allow a gentle touch or subtle movement. We all started to
swim together as one big group out towards the reef. The dolphins
flanked us on either side and one adolescent male took a particular
liking to me. He kept nipping at my tail in an attempt to get my
attention. At one point, I had to push him away to let him know
that the biting was getting a bit hard, but he just continued to
bump into my side at every opportunity. When Kain and I surfaced
together, he warned me that the male seemed to have a crush and
that I should be careful that he doesn’t try to take it to the next
level. That freaked me out and even though Kain winked, I wasn’t
sure if he was entirely kidding.

The reef was wonderful and we spent
almost three hours in the water that night. Vance and Brinsley
joined us and the dolphins seemed to stay around as well. Carissa
caught my attention several times simply because she was so
graceful underwater. Even though her hair was short, her body
appeared to move like an extension of the tresses. Several of the
guys in the other group followed her everywhere, but she didn’t
even seem to notice.

Daniel and Lily paired up and explored
the rock formations. They told me later that they were looking for
lobster. Kain and I swam together the entire time, sometimes
holding hands. As it got darker, we made sure that we didn’t lose
sight of each other because this was when all of the really cool
creatures start to emerge. Even though I was looking, I didn’t see
any sharks.

Mr. Miller blew the boat horn and told
us that we were all to follow him in for dinner. They had packed
fruit punch and pineapple slices, but my stomach was growling so I
didn’t feel too bad about leaving.

Dinner was as uneventful as the
following day. There were no more embarrassing moments in the bed,
and since we had been swimming so much, I had fallen to sleep
before Kain even crawled in. Saturday’s sessions were basically a
repeat of the day before but with the instructors expecting us to
remember everything. The interview questions were grueling and the
political history lessons bored me to death. Just before we
finished, they gave us a list of everyone who would be attending
the ball tonight along with a photo and a brief description of
their political platforms. I rolled my eyes when they told us to
study up and gave us thirty minutes to cram before an oral
examination.

Carissa, Daniel, and I worked together
quizzing each other and creating silly names for each person to
help us remember them. Lily and Kain were at the far corner of the
table and there was more laughing and talking going on than
studying. I must have been staring at them because Carissa kicked
my leg.

“
Why don’t you go over
there and stop her?”

“
What?” I asked, trying to
act like she didn’t just catch me.

“
Please girl. She’s been
all over him since yesterday. You shouldn’t let her get away with
that.”

I just shook my head and picked up
another flash card that we had created. “I’m not worried about
Lily.” And I really wasn’t, but probably not for the reason Carissa
was suggesting.