by Sonya Blake
Chapter Forty-Nine
At the sound of the door swinging open, Tommy jumped up from under Kaia. He overturned the chair as he lunged toward the door, sliding a knife out of the knife block on the counter with a swiftness that could only mean he’d already scanned the room for potential weapons. In the commotion, Kaia wanted to hide under the table, but it wouldn’t be fair to leave Tommy to fight the sirens off all on his own.
“Drop the knife,” said a low, growling voice.
Kaia stepped to the side and saw a man standing at the door, pointing a gun right at Tommy. The man’s thick, black beard was frosted with ice. His dark eyes burned beneath an ice-encrusted black wool cap.
“Sam?” Kaia said, stepping closer.
“Drop the fucking knife!” Sam shouted.
His face was different than she remembered it. Harder. Colder.
Turning toward Tommy, Kaia stammered, “T-Tommy. It’s okay. I know him.”
Tommy’s head twitched minutely in her direction, but he still held fast to the knife, his fit, muscular body coiled to spring.
“Kaia,” Sam growled through his teeth, “tell your boyfriend to back the fuck off.”
Kaia angled herself between them, anger prickling over her skin. “Both of you! Stop!” she shouted.
Tommy’s eyes swiveled to her. “You know him?” he asked.
“Yes,” Kaia replied, exasperated. She put her hands on Tommy’s arm, gently forcing him to lower the knife.
Sam lowered the gun and clicked the safety into place, then placed it on top of the ancient refrigerator. “Who’s he?” he asked.
“Tommy, Sam. Sam, Tommy,” Kaia said, glancing back and forth between them just to be sure neither was about to lunge for the other’s jugular. Her heart was thudding in her throat.
Sam’s eyes finally found hers, and in the next moment he stepped toward her, cupping her cheeks with his cold, damp palms. “Your face,” he said. More like cried. Tears filled his eyes as they searched her features, taking in the bruises and scrapes. “What the fuck happened?”
Despite how badly she wanted to wrap her arms around Sam and bury herself in the warm expanse of his chest, Kaia pulled away, putting him at an arm’s distance.
“I was abducted by the Wapomeq Bay clan,” she replied. “There’s twenty of them. Tommy was also a prisoner, and he helped me escape.” Tommy’s bloodshot eyes met hers in solidarity. “And they’re probably coming for us.”
“Not probably.” Tommy set the knife down on the table and crossed his arms over his chest. Kaia wondered distantly if Sam recognized the flannel shirt that Tommy was wearing, and what he thought about how he’d seen them together when he bursted into the house. A small part of her hoped he was jealous. Well, maybe not a small part. A fairly large part. “They’re definitely coming for us.” Tommy paused, tension flickering in the jawline under his reddish-blond beard. “I didn’t get the chance to explain everything to Kaia yet, but they’re—we’re going extinct.”
“And what? What are you saying?” Sam demanded, kicking the door closed behind him. “They wanted Kaia to be a brood mare?”
Tommy nodded. His pale blue eyes met Kaia’s with sympathy. “We’re a dying kind,” he said. “And Frances, the leader—”
“She has a name?” Kaia interjected. “Do they all have names?”
Tommy chuckled, but none of the tension left the room. “Yes,” he replied. “Frances, the one with the short silver hair and the dark blue”—he gestured toward his legs—“you know. That’s their leader. And she’s your grandmother.”
Kaia felt the room sway like she was on a ship. She grabbed the back of a chair and leaned on it.
“And the one you fought with, the one who brought you down to the Davis?” Tommy continued. “That’s Zoe. She’s your sister.”
Kaia shook her head, feeling flashes of hot and cold sweep through her body. Grandmother. Sister. The floor wobbled beneath her feet as she stared at the uneaten pizza on the table. Sam was suddenly by her side, his hands on her shoulders.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, gripping the back of the chair so hard her knuckles went white.
“Kaia,” he pleaded. “Can we talk? Privately?” His hands remained on her shoulders, warm and reassuring.
“Fine,” she snapped, reaching for a slice of lukewarm pizza and dragging it off the plate. “Let’s go into the living room. Tommy, you’ll keep watch?”
He nodded, picking up the knife. “I’ll be outside,” he said.
Sam cast Tommy a suspicious glance before grabbing his gun off the top of the fridge and following Kaia out into the living room.
She bit into the pizza, desperate for food no matter how rubbery and tasteless it was, no matter that there were more serious matters at hand. Chewing as she sank into the couch, she eyed Sam. He crouched to add more wood to the fire before taking the chair across the hearth. He looked stiff in his coat and cap, the gun gripped between the chair arm and his right hand.
“I want to explain myself,” he told her, his dark eyes resting on hers. “I need you to know I never lied to you.”
She lowered her gaze to the half-eaten piece of pizza in her hands. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. Wouldn’t let him know how he’d broken her.
“I should’ve cut it off with Violet the minute I met you,” he admitted, his voice low over the steady crackle from the hearth. “Because I knew right then that I loved you.” His eyes brimmed with tears as he leaned towards her, the firelight dancing off his cheeks. “The minute I heard your voice, I knew you had this power over me,” he explained. “And the way I want you, I’d give up anything else—everything else.”
Kaia laughed then, but she also started to cry. She shook her head and swallowed hard, trying to gain mastery over herself. It seemed that any show of emotion at all would reveal the cracks in her, making her vulnerable to him yet again.
“But you didn’t give up everything else,” she argued. “Violet told me you were with her that day you disappeared and left me stranded on the island. Sam, you just said you’d never lie to me. So tell me the truth. Were you with her that day?”
She didn’t want to hear his answer. She wanted to go on believing that what they had shared together was pure and sacred, and that it belonged to them, and them alone. She wanted to believe that the man who had pulled her from all-encompassing numbness and fear that she’d never have fun in bed again would be hers, forever.
He dropped his head between his sinking shoulders. At last, with a sigh, he answered. “Yes.”
“And, that day, did you… did you and Violet… ” She couldn’t even say it.
“Yes.”
Kaia sank deeper into the couch, covering her face with her hands. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Couldn’t bear to hear his voice. Even hearing him breathe hurt her.
“Go,” she said from behind her hands.
“Kaia—”
“Go, I said,” she repeated more firmly.
“Please, Kaia,” he pleaded, his voice cutting through her, filling her with pain the way he had once filled her with joy. “She’s—she’s a witch. I didn’t go to her because I wanted to. I didn’t even know I’d been there that day till she told me. She’s jealous of you and she’s torturing me because of it.”
A stream of hot tears slid between her face and her hands. Strangled sobs choked her.
“Get out,” she whispered shakily.
“Kaia, look at me,” Sam implored. “Please? Violet is a witch—a bad witch. A witch and a skinwalker. She forced me to be with her. My heart is yours, Kaia, believe me. I need to find a way to stop her from destroying my life. Please, I need—I need you.” His last words were uttered in a broken whisper.
Letting her fingers trail away from her swollen eyes, she gazed at him in the firelight. Tears burned molten lines down his cheeks, reflecting the light from the hearth.
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
Did she?
Was Violet a witch? A
skinwalker, whatever that was? With all her herbs and potions, her silvery skeleton key necklace, sure, Kaia could believe Violet was a witch—but the kind that read tarot cards to sort out her personal problems and cast little spells for success on the full moon.
“Do you believe me?” Sam persisted.
But look at you, siren, said a sly voice inside her. You never would’ve believed your kind existed until you found out what you yourself are.
“Ugh,” Kaia groaned, wiping her face on her sleeves. “So, what, you’re saying this was all against your will? She put some kind of spell on you?” She laughed bitterly. “You have to admit, that sounds kind of ridiculous.”
“I know,” Sam said. “But it’s the truth.”
“Okay. Look, I want to believe you. It’s better than—than the alternative of you doing this of your own free will. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. It doesn’t make it hurt any less to know that you were… with her.”
A swell of nausea threatened to rise in her throat, surprising her. How had she become so attached to a man so quickly? Was she that desperate? Or was it the fact that they had a special bond, a bond she’d never felt with anyone else? Either option sucked.
“And while I was gone?” Kaia asked, her voice feeling raw in her throat. “Have you been with her in these past two weeks?”
Sam leaned back against the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. His expression was closed as he stared at the fire. “She has a way of making me come to her whether I want to or not. It’s like she’s inside my head. I have no control.”
Kaia shook her head, her anger returning and taking the place of the whimpering, quivering grief that wanted to swallow her. She was thankful for it.
“No control?” she parroted, sneering. “Am I supposed to believe that, too?”
Sam shut his eyes, sighing heavily. “I don’t expect you to,” he said. “But I’m telling you the truth, Kaia, I swear it.”
She let out a short, angry laugh. “I don’t know what you want from me, then. You say you have no control, that she can summon you whenever she pleases, that she’s a witch and a—a whatever you called it—”
“Skinwalker.”
“Yeah. Whatever,” Kaia scoffed. “But where does that leave us? She can have you whenever she wants. Am I supposed to live with that?”
Sam shook his head slowly, his face lined with despair. “No,” he muttered, his voice cracking. “I don’t expect you to be with me, Kaia. I just wanted you to know the truth. The truth about what happened, and the fact that I love you.”
Tommy strode into the room, the knife he clutched glinting in the firelight. “They’re here,” he announced. “Swimming towards shore.”
Kaia shot up from the couch as Sam stood, palming his gun in both hands. “I’m guessing it’s gonna be a fight,” he said.
“Probably.” Tommy’s sharp blue eyes zeroed in on Sam’s gun. “But try not to use that thing, if you can help it. Their numbers are dropping and I don’t want to feel responsible for cutting them down.”
“Listen,” Kaia said, holding up her hands to both men, who looked poised to fight with each other instead of the real threat that was approaching from the sea. “I want to try to negotiate with them. If they come up to land, we can at least talk. I need to tell them about the wind farm and the Davis.”
Tommy made a questioning noise.
“When I was in town buying groceries I ran into a friend of mine and she said construction starts this spring,” Kaia rushed to explain. “They’re building a wind farm in Wapomeq Bay and the Davis is on their building grounds. They’re going to pull her up. The siren clan is going to lose their home.”
Tommy’s brows lowered into two straight dashes. “I don’t know what the hell a wind farm is, but pulling up the Davis is going to be a big problem.” He nodded to Sam. “You hear about this?”
Sam nodded. “It’s not gonna be good for me, either,” he admitted grimly. “Fishing’s gonna be screwed while they’re building, and who knows how long after.”
“There are a lot of people in the area who feel their voices weren’t heard about this project,” Kaia said. She drew in a shaky breath. “I’m going to spearhead a protest committee to stop the wind farm. In return, the sirens leave me alone and let me swim where I want.”
A shriek pierced the air. Though Kaia hadn’t heard anything like it before, she instantly knew that it was the call of the sirens.
“They won’t want to to leave the water if they can help it,” Tommy said. “They’re going to wait for us to get in, then attack. But if we don’t get in, they’re going to come to land. Believe me, if they do that, they’ll be out for blood.”
“No,” Kaia said. “We don’t want that. Let’s meet them in the water, see if we can get them to communicate peacefully.” She strode to the hall.
Sam was right behind her, putting a heavy hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t go out there,” he said. “Kaia, please.”
The truth was, she didn’t think she could live without the ocean. She wasn’t sure she could live without Sam, either, but she had no control over that situation. And it wasn’t just that she wanted to be able to swim free of the fear that someone might assault her—she truly didn’t want the sirens to lose their home. If there was something she could do to make good with them, she’d do it.
She pushed past Sam and through the kitchen with Tommy at her heels. The cold air burned her face as she entered the winter twilight. The pines and hemlocks howled in the wind. The ocean slammed itself into the black rocks of Foley’s Point, sending up hissing fans of spray unfurling into the air. It was a dark, violent sort of night. The kind that would have usually made her want to stay at home, curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and a bingeworthy show—but here she was, walking out into it, about to strip down to nothing but her bare skin.
The sirens’ calls grew louder as she made her way down to the water’s edge. It would be hard to get in with the water as rough as it was, but if the sirens really were hell-bent on a fight, there was no way she’d be a contender in her human form. Tommy and Sam appeared at her side as she peeled off her leggings and underwear, leaving her in nothing but a bra. Awkward, to say the least.
Tommy didn’t seem to notice—he was too busy undressing himself—but Sam gave her a glance so sorrowful and woebegone that it almost made her regret the way she had dismissed him inside.
No time to think of that now, though, she told herself, and turned toward the waves. The iron-blue water was illuminated by half a dozen pairs of eyes, faces phosphorescing under the surface. At the sight of them, before the water hit higher than her knees, Kaia felt her skin begin to tingle with the change.
You were born for this, she told herself.
Chapter Fifty
Sam felt helpless watching Kaia plunge into the water, surrendering her delicate, pale body to the furious waves. Tightening his grip on his handgun, he centered his gaze on the sirens’ glowing eyes. Her wild-eyed, jumpy friend Tommy dove in after her, his wiry frame glimmering in the wintry moonlight as his body began to shift even before he was fully submerged.
Sam had to admit it: he was jealous. Jealous of both Kaia and Tommy and their ability to be in the water. Also jealous that they could share that, and whatever else they had clearly bonded over. Of course, he had no right to be jealous. No right to even ask what their deal was. After what he’d done—what had happened to him—it was understandable that she’d put some distance between them. Besides, right now there was more than his wounded ego at stake.
He turned his focus to the action in front of him. His heart pounded, sweat prickling his skin even though it was far from warm outside. The water in the cove on the northern edge of the point churned as the sirens fought. Sam gritted his teeth, the bitter wind stinging his eyes, drawing salty tears from them.
“Dammit!” he cursed, nearly throwing the gun down on the rocks.
There was nothing he could do to help her, n
ot from here. As he hung his head, about to turn away from the water, a hard, cold hand grabbed him by the shoulder. Sam whipped around, confronted with a massive, bearded, naked man with glowing eyes, and a fist connecting with his cheek.
Chapter Fifty-One
This was not the negotiation Kaia had planned when she’d been walking on two legs on dry land. Tommy had been flanking her in the water the whole time, doing what he could to defend and not maim, and she’d tried to do the same, but it seemed something else had taken over her—a primal need not only to fight, but to kill and consume.
Her mind was a blissful blank, her heart wild with blood ecstasy as she bit into a siren’s arm and tore with razor-sharp teeth. The siren screamed in agony; then Kaia felt a blow strike her back. She doubled over, surrounded by a swath of silky, white hair.
Zoe.
Her enemy.
Her sister.
Kaia whirled around, teeth bared, and met Zoe head-on. She had her hands around Zoe’s throat when a cutting shriek shot through the water. The sirens stopped fighting, backing off from Kaia and Tommy as their leader, Frances, appeared.
Stormed was the word Kaia would use to describe Frances’s entrance into the cove. Frances’s eyes blazed with white-hot fury, glowing in the dark water as kelp bands swirled around her, disturbed by the powerful fan of her tail as she pulled herself to a halt. In a single, unmistakeable gesture, she pointed upward.
Kaia followed the others as they ascended, breaking the surface into the air. Their heads bobbed around Frances’s, waiting for her command. Kaia looked over her shoulder, landward.
Sam was there at the shore break, fighting a huge, naked siren with a body like an ancient Greek olympian’s. She had never seen this siren before. Sam was big, but this guy was bigger. He landed a heavy punch to Sam’s face, causing him to drop his gun. It clattered to the rocks as the siren dragged Sam toward the water.
Feeling a surge of possessive, protective instinct, Kaia dove under again, fanning out her fin and pulsing once, twice, three times until she was right on them, in the breaking waves. The siren was pulling Sam into the water with him, transitioning into a form that could respirate in water even as Sam was beginning to drown.