by Sonya Blake
Sam sighed, a small part of his resolve deflating inside his chest.
“I mean, not that I just met you,” she said, brushing away a stray tear. They had known each other since they were teenagers, albeit circumspectly. She sniffled. “And now that you’ve got this show coming up and you asked me to go on a date, like a real date, it made me think you wanted this to be more serious.” Her large eyes widened as she looked up. Her low, smoky voice was quiet and hypnotic. “Can you please not cancel our date? Can you give me the chance I deserve?”
Chapter Fourteen
Kaia drove back to Foley’s Point after picking up everything she’d need to make sushi at Penfeld’s Market, which she had found to be surprisingly well-stocked. She called her father as soon as she walked inside, palms itching with sweat as she sat at the kitchen table, bouncing her knees in anticipation. The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
“H-hello.” Not a cheery greeting.
Kaia could tell from that one word that Hank Foley was well into his daily six-pack, and possibly on to the whiskey that often followed. In the background was the sound of a football game on TV.
“Who’s there?” Hank blustered. “If this is one of you idiots from the—”
Kaia hung up. She couldn’t talk to her father about her being a siren when he was in this state. She was half tempted to call him again and give him a piece of her mind for getting trashed all by himself, but no. She’d been there too many times and was wise enough to know there was no point in wasting her energy.
Instead, she walked a pathless mile over snow-crusted rocks and through dense trees, hoping to distract herself until Sam arrived for dinner. The property of Foley’s Point neighbored state land, and from where Kaia stood there was not a single house to be seen. That total privacy would be a selling point, she thought, and made note of it as something to mention it to the realtor, once she finally called their office.
She stood on a rock at the edge of the water, on the northern-most border of the property where a river emptied into the tide. God, she wanted to get into that water. No—she needed to. Her ears began to ring. Her eyes watered. Her skin burned.
Don’t deny your truth. It’ll make you sick.
She clambered over the rocks toward the water, removed her clothes, and got in. The transition hurt less this time, and seemed to happen faster than previously. Maybe she was getting good at this. As she swam out toward the beckoning darkness, the water became deeper and, oddly, warmer against her skin. Far beyond where she could see, she heard the chatter of porpoises.
If she ran into the other siren, maybe this would be an opportunity to introduce herself properly, and have a little chat about boundaries. Could she even speak in this state? Curious, Kaia drew in as much water as she could and opened her mouth to let out a Hey!
A long, high-pitched squeal came out instead.
Shocked and somewhat embarrassed, though there was no one to hear, Kaia tried to vocalize again. She only managed a series of unintelligible chirps. Wondering if she could control her pitch, Kaia opened her mouth and began to sing the lilting melody of an Irish ballad, and found, to her relief, that singing came a hell of a lot easier than speaking. She still couldn’t quite get words out, but melody and rhythm were no problem.
So she sang and swam, flipping and turning, shooting in and out of the shadows, twisting to look at the splendor of her tail. It was nothing like any artist’s interpretation she’d ever seen. She reminded herself more of a dragon than a fish. A sea dragon. The idea made her laugh, and she let out a strange, musical sound.
Suddenly, a flash in the water caught her eye. Kaia remained motionless. She hadn’t even thought about predators until this moment, she realized as she watched the darkness beyond, waiting for whatever was out there to reappear. If she wanted to swim like this she ought to at least have something to defend herself with. The ocean was a wilderness, after all.
Just as she turned for land, something slammed into her back and cracked into her right shoulder blade. Before she could move in reaction, she found herself pinned face-down into the rocks with her own blood and something white and soft floating around her. Hair. Long, pale, and silken.
The albino siren proved to be strong enough to hold Kaia down, but when Kaia grabbed a rock and shoved it backwards overhead, connecting with what felt like a shoulder, her assailant recoiled. Kaia twisted and took in the sinewy siren’s white tail, gleaming and iridescent, larger and more developed than her own. The siren was bleeding from her shoulder. She put her webbed fingers up to touch the wound.
Seizing this chance, Kaia began to swim toward shore as fast as she could, keeping her arms close to her sides and letting the muscled tail do all the work. She got past the shelf and made it into the tidal zone, but found she had drifted north of where she had entered the water. Depending on the terrain, getting out of the water might be impossible here.
As Kaia scrabbled for a grip on a seaweed-covered boulder to get a better look at the land, the white siren advanced toward her with smooth, silent speed and seized her by the neck. Bucking against her as they sank together back into the water, Kaia took a handful of the colorless hair and yanked hard to one side, feeling the grip of the other siren’s strange, webbed fingers release her. She managed to jab an elbow into the white siren’s ribs, but the siren lashed out in retaliation and scratched the side of Kaia’s face with long, sharpened nails.
Kaia’s eyes shut involuntarily as her skin stung. She tasted the metallic tang of her own blood giving itself to the salty ocean. It would be fatal to try to fight this animal off. And that was what she was, clearly—an animal. Escape was the only option.
Wrestling free, she managed to swim a few strokes toward land. But before she could make it to the shore-break, the siren clutched her around the waist once more. They tumbled in the rolling waves. At last, the ribbed curve of a large bay scallop shell caught Kaia’s eye. A weapon. She barely managed to grab it. The shell sliced deeper than she expected into the soft, almost-human flesh of her attacker’s belly. The siren let out a strangled, wailing cry and fell back from Kaia as blood unfurled from her body.
Oh shit. That was one sharp shell.
Kaia had never hurt anyone intentionally before. She felt instant remorse, but had to check her instinct to try to give aid to the creature who had been trying to kill her moments ago.
She’ll kill you if she has the chance. Get out while you can.
Kaia swam away, but gave one more glance at the siren, whose huge, luminous eyes looked much more human now that she was injured. Moving as quickly as she could, Kaia hauled herself onto the rocks and dragged her body away from the water. She watched the white foam of the waves as she breathed and waited for her human form to return.
Exposed in the dying afternoon light, Kaia stared down at her tail. Ten feet long, striped fox-red like her hair, ending in dark, rich auburn fins streaked with deep maroon. Anyone passing by on a boat would see her in all her oceanic, metaphysical glory.
She wished the transition would happen faster. It seemed air brought on the change, for the more quickly she breathed, the more deeply she filled her lungs, the more rapidly the tail shrank and reformed into legs. So she breathed with all her might, watching her tail shrink and go dull and split.
As soon as she was able, she scrambled up to the sheltering trees and ran the short way back through pines and hemlocks, through damp sphagnum moss thick as a pile of pillows, all the way to where she’d left her clothes. She trembled, pulling the clothes onto her wet body, not bothering to dry off as she tried to figure out why the other siren had attacked her.
Is it territorial? Is it simple animal instinct? Are there others? If the siren has the ability to come onto land and transition into a human, why hasn’t she followed me?
After dressing, Kaia lingered behind a sticky, resin-scented pine, watching the water and waiting for a sign of the siren, but she never reappeared. After several minutes, wet and cold and trickling blood f
rom her cheek, Kaia gave up and began the hike back to the house.
*
Sam steered the Angeline toward Foley’s Point, leaving the quiet sanctuary of Thursday Island behind him in the dying blue of twilight. It had taken a good-sized dram of Laphroaig to help him gather the balls he needed to go tell Kaia he’d have to cancel the dinner they’d planned, and that he was a general ass.
“Hope you like sushi,” Kaia said, bustling past him quickly once she’d let him in through the main door.
She was dressed in an un-dyed Irish sweater that came nearly to her knees over a pair of leggings, with thick wool socks pulled up over the tops of a pair of classic Beaners. Adorable.
“You’re looking like a real Mainer,” he told her, unable to stop himself from grinning.
She laughed, a deep, womanly laugh unlike her soprano speaking voice. Sam felt a tug at his heart and dropped his gaze to the floor.
Of course, he could have just called, but Foley’s Point was on his way to Violet’s and it only seemed right that he should say it to Kaia in person—they couldn’t have a relationship. Not at this moment, anyway. Not when he ought to give Violet a chance. A real chance. And he thought Kaia deserved to hear that from him directly.
And then, of course, there had also been the plain fact that he wanted to see Kaia for his own selfish reasons. He had to admit that to himself now as he looked up at her face.
There was something wrong with it. She was injured.
“What the hell happened to you?” He stepped forward and pushed her hair away from her cheeks. There were scratches on her right cheek, and redness around her temple and cheekbone that looked like it could develop into a shiner.
She drew away, frowning. “I… got into a fight,” she said. “In the water. With the siren. It’s like she’s just out there all the time, waiting for me.”
“What the fuck.” Sam rested his hands on Kaia’s jaw to tilt her face upward, examining the lesions on her cheekbone. He felt the whoosh of her breath on his mouth and nearly dipped his head two inches closer, but stopped himself. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She shook her head. He felt her fingers touch his beard, saw the fringe of her eyelashes drop as she gazed at his lips. His own breath quickened, but he pulled away from her.
“Where’re you going?” Kaia protested.
“I’m going to make sure she’s not out there now,” he said, “and if she is, I’m going to find out what the hell she wants from you.”
“Sam, no.” Kaia pulled on his arm, drawing him into the warm light of the kitchen. “She’s not coming back for a while.”
Sam stopped short at the edge of the kitchen table as he caught sight of the spread Kaia had laid out: rows of salmon nigiri glowing like pink gems, California maki, a bowl of pickled ginger and another of wasabi, and a platter of steamed dumplings. His mouth watered at the scent of fresh fish, which wasn’t a scent a human nose could detect, but a delicate and sweet perfume he knew by heart.
“You made all of this?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. Sushi’s my favorite food.”
“Me too,” Sam told her, smiling. “Must be the animal in us, wanting to eat raw fish.”
Kaia’s bubbling laughter cascaded over him. “Well, don’t dilly-dally—I’m starved,” she said. “Pull up a seat.”
Sam stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “I, ah… dammit.” He was a fucking idiot. And an asshole. “I forgot I told, ah, the woman I’m seeing that we’d get dinner. I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” Kaia tucked a curl behind her neat little ear and gazed morosely down at the spread on the table.
Sam wanted to bang his head against the wall. He hated seeing her so disappointed, hated knowing it was because of him. Every cell in his body was screaming for him to stay, to eat this food—which was making his mouth water—and be with this woman.
“You—you said you hurt her? The other siren?” he asked, wanting to stall his departure.
Kaia’s brows gathered over her stormy blue eyes. “I feel terrible. She was bleeding all over the place. Screaming.” Kaia’s gaze went to the window over the sink, where the cove was visible.
“You think she’ll try to come back?”
Kaia lifted her shoulders. That was all Sam needed. He began unzipping his coat.
“Wait, what’re you doing?” she asked. “Don’t you have dinner with—what did you say her name was?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam told her. “Not when the thing that did that to you is probably coming back.”
“She’s not a thing,” Kaia said.
“Sorry.”
“And Sam—I’ll be fine. Really.” Kaia crossed her arms. There was a closed look to her face now, something he hadn’t seen before. “The last thing I want is to destroy someone’s relationship by being the other woman.”
Sam hated the cold, unreachable feeling he was now getting from her. Somehow the idea of losing Kaia’s simple friendship was worse to him than the idea of losing his whole relationship with Violet.
“It was me who messed up,” he admitted. “I got carried away last night. I said things and did things… things I should’ve thought about for a while before saying and doing.”
“Me too, Sam.” Kaia groaned and hung her head, shaking her ruddy curls. “You said you had a—a someone and I should’ve respected that by stopping you from saying what you did, and the rest… well, the rest… I don’t think I had the willpower to stop that.” Her large blue eyes landed on his, bare and honest. “Which is why I think you should probably leave.”
“Nope,” he said, yanking down his jacket zipper all the way and shrugging off his coat. “Not leaving you here alone.”
“But, Sam—”
“I’m staying for the food, not you,” he said, and sank his weight into a chair at the table. He pulled out his cellphone and texted Violet.
At Foley’s Point with Kaia. She’s been having trouble with an intruder at the house and was attacked today. I want to make sure the place is secure. Sorry.
There was no point in hiding it. Violet would see the Angeline there if she looked out the windows of her house. Violet began texting back and Sam watched the three dots avidly, awaiting her response. The three dots disappeared.
“Want a beer?” Kaia asked. “I got this Smuttynose Shoals Pale Ale in the fridge.”
Sam lifted his brows, impressed. “That’s a damn good beer,” he said. “Penfeld’s must’ve started stocking it, like, yesterday.”
He looked back at the screen of his phone as Kaia opened two bottles of beer. Violet had responded.
It’s okay. I get it. Hope she’s okay. And I trust you, Sam. I’m sorry for acting like I didn’t before. I was being stupid and jealous.
Violet, jealous? It was something Sam couldn’t quite imagine. He was pretty sure jealousy was something Violet Wilde had never felt in her whole life. Not her, the woman with parents who had given her everything as a kid, who had seen her dream of a successful business come to life, who had been born with a model’s looks and the brains of a mad scientist.
“Everything okay?” Kaia asked as she sat across from him.
“Yeah,” he answered, putting his phone—and thoughts of Violet—away.
They ate without much conversation for a while, nothing more than pass the soy sauce or non-verbal noises of appreciation. Sam was grateful that Kaia didn’t talk much while eating. Eventually, though, he had to ask.
“So what do you think the other siren wants?”
Kaia had just popped a dumpling into her mouth and was chewing. She took a sip of beer before answering. “I’m not sure, but I think Felicia Dunne might know,” she said.
Kaia explained how she’d met the woman who owned the hardware store on Milk Street—how she’d called Kaia out on being a siren and indicated that she knew there was a whole clan of sirens living in Wapomeq Bay.
“I’ll admit, she kinda took me off guard,” Kaia said.
“Felicia will d
o that.” Sam nodded. “She caught on to me pretty quick, too. Back when I’d run in there for boat parts and lamp oil for my dad and could barely speak English. She was the one who taught me about the selkie curse. Had some kind of book on it.”
“I guess I could just go out there into the bay and try to find out what the clan wants from me,” Kaia said with a doubtful shrug.
Sam stopped chewing and swallowed the last lump of salmon nigiri whole. “That sounds like suicide.”
Kaia grimaced. “It’s either that or wait around for them to attack me again.”
“Talk to Felicia,” he said. “See what she knows.”
After finishing dinner, they went into the living room, where Sam knelt at the hearth to stoke the fire. He noticed Kaia gazing at her guitar case.
“Will you play something?” he asked.
She lit up with a smile. As he twisted newspaper and broke kindling twigs she began picking, the strings vibrating with life as she pulled a melody out of them. Soon she started to sing a country tune about falling in love with the wrong kind of man.
“I’ll take a wrong turn, take a wrong turn, darlin’, if it means I’ll end up in the right place,” went the hook of the chorus.
“That’s a damn good song,” he said, when she was finished and he was sitting beside her on the couch.
“Thank you. I think it was my best one,” she said, quietly. “Just sold it to an up-and-coming country singer trying to make it big. Made myself a few thousand. Not much really, but it paid my last month’s rent at my apartment and the security deposit I lost for breaking the lease.”
“Is it about… him?” he asked. “Your ex?”
Kaia nodded, clutching her guitar to her body. “He was the guitarist in my band,” she said. “Found him with my best friend, our fiddle player. No more boyfriend. No more best friend. No more band.”
It was no wonder she didn’t want to be the other woman. Sam felt a pang of guilt for putting her in that position.
“Then I got fired from my job, so…” Kaia trailed off and shrugged. She diddled out a riff on the guitar and then kept talking. “I moved my shit into my dad’s garage and here I am. Thought I’d sell this place and make some money to start fresh, go back to college, maybe buy a little place of my own down in Tennessee and become a schoolteacher… but then I got here and this place is so beautiful, and I met you, and I found out… found out I’m not even the same species I always thought I was. And it’s only been two days!”