Thea sighed and didn’t argue with Penn, but Gemma thought she looked disappointed. Thea had seemed to be enjoying herself. She’d chased a sea turtle for a while, and Gemma didn’t want to make Thea leave if she was still having fun.

“No, that’s okay,” Gemma said. “Thea can stay with you guys. I know my way back to the shore.”

Thea and Gemma both turned to Penn, waiting for her response, and at length Penn nodded.

“Fine,” Penn said. “We’ll see you when we get back.”

Gemma turned and headed back toward the beach house, a little surprised that Penn had let her go. Apparently Gemma had proven herself enough that Penn had begun to trust her. That was probably a good thing.

She stayed close to the surface of the water as she swam, letting the sun warm her back as she headed toward the land.

When she’d said she was getting cold it hadn’t been a lie, but that wasn’t the only reason she’d wanted to go back. She was getting tired. It was hard for her to keep up with the other sirens, and she had a feeling that it had to do with the awful gnawing hunger in the pit of her stomach.

Her fins were slow to transform back to legs when she reached the sand, and her stomach lurched. Thea had told her that the daily swims would only hold off her need to feed for so long, but Gemma was determined to put it off as long as she could.

She swallowed hard and forced herself to her feet, though her legs felt wobbly underneath her. When she pulled on the bikini bottoms she’d left on the beach, she nearly fell over. She waited a minute, steadying herself, before slipping on her sundress over her head.

By the time she made it to the house, she felt a bit better. Her strength seemed to be returning, and the hunger pains in her stomach had abated. The transformation had just been unusually grueling today. That was all.

Gemma planned on heading upstairs to her room to lie down for a while, but Sawyer caught her just as she reached the steps.

“Hey, Gemma.” He smiled at her in a way that had only seemed mildly dazzling a couple days ago. But since yesterday, she’d been unable to completely shake this strange new attraction to him.

To make matters worse, he was shirtless and walking over to her.

“Hi, Sawyer,” Gemma mumbled, and looked away from him.

“The other girls are still out swimming?” Sawyer asked.

She nodded. “Yep. They’re out there. And I was just gonna head up to my room.”

“Oh, cool.” He moved toward her, like he meant to walk up the stairs with her. “I was just heading that way, too.”

“Why?” Gemma blurted out.