by Eve Langlais
“The birds brought me.”
“You’re a passenger from the plane that wrecked?” The siren eyed me up and down. “Who else was on it with you?”
“The pilot, but he’s dead. And my bodyguard.”
The siren frowned. “Why were you on that plane?”
“I’m supposed to meet with the sirens. I guess that means you. I got a note.”
The gaze narrowed. “Not a note from us. You’re lying. Who sent you? What is your name?” the siren asked, and yet it was no request. The words rang with demand. I found myself blurting. “I’m Lana Periwinkle.”
“And I’m—”
“Of no consequence,” the woman interrupted before Conan could finish. “You’ve served your purpose. You delivered…” The siren trailed off, and she eyed me. “I don’t quite know what you are.”
“What’s your name?” Conan persisted.
The woman ignored him as if he’d not spoken. She stared only at me. “What are you?”
“Surely you read at least one of the letters I sent.”
The siren waved her hand. “As if we have time to care about mortal things.”
“Well, if you had, then you’d know I’m a siren-mermaid hybrid. More siren, though, since I can’t swim in the ocean.”
“You are claiming to be part siren?” The laughter tinkled, so obviously genuine that I wanted to laugh along with her.
“It’s true. I can sing.”
“Said many a pretender.” A sneer curled the siren’s lip. Her gaze took me in, from the tips of my toes—the shoes long gone in my flight over the ocean—to the roots of my green hair.
She shook her head. “You might not be human, but you’re no siren.”
“But my voice—”
“Is rather unremarkable and unattractive.”
Excuse me? I might not have had formal training, but there was nothing unremarkable about it.
I trilled a note, one that I used to express the term fuck off when I needed to be polite.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Who taught you to do that?”
“No one.”
“Are you wearing a magical talisman?” Wren—because her brown clothing and inquisitive nature made me think of one—ran through a series of notes. They didn’t hurt my ears, but they did make me tickle something fierce.
When Wren was done, she clucked her tongue. “Xylo will want to see you.”
“Who is Xylo? Who are you for that matter?”
“I am Cymba.”
“One of the last sirens in the world.” Conan stood once again, but he didn’t threaten Cymba. “Along with Chella and your other sister, Bella.”
“Bella’s been gone for over two decades. It is only me and my two sisters now.” Cymba led the way, her posture poised, at ease. She had us walking behind her seemingly without a care in the world.
Then again, she probably knew I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. Not until I got answers at least, and Conan didn’t seem the type to hurt a woman who didn’t attack first.
He hung back to walk with me, holding my hand.
Yeah. It took me by surprise, too, when he laced his fingers through mine. I couldn’t help a thrill of pleasure.
Should have known it was so he could pull his macho shit. He held us back, and leaned close enough to murmur, “Be careful.”
“Obviously.” I couldn’t help my sarcasm. Only a complete idiot would trust the siren strolling ahead of us. Because despite her claim that she knew nothing of me or my arrival, someone had sent those birds for a timely rescue.
A true conspiracy theorist would claim the sirens, working in conjunction with the mermaids, planned the elaborate attack, and the rescue by the reluctant and ornery siren was a plot to gain my trust.
I didn’t trust that easily. Not since Kyle Federman had asked Becky to the spring formal instead of me. And this after sharing my pizza lunch—with him eating most of it—for three weeks. He deserved to lose the deposit on his tux when the stomach flu hit him suddenly that night.
You ruined me, Kyle. I couldn’t trust Cymba. But, oddly enough, I’d believed in Conan when he claimed we’d make it out alive.
Now, stuck on an island that I might have been manipulated into visiting, I could only do my best to learn as much as I could. Not even an hour later, I made an important discovery. The island, while wild and beautiful, lacked some material comforts, such as a road.
“Aren’t there any cars on the island?” I asked as we huffed up a hill.
“We don’t believe in modern combustible mechanisms.”
“How about horses?”
“The slavery of innocent animals is abhorrent. As is the eating of their flesh.”
No surprise, the sirens were vegans. But the no slavery thing confused. “Hold on a second, I thought sirens were famous for singing sailors to their shores and enslaving them.”
“Sailors aren’t animals.”
A distinction she didn’t elaborate on. So I poked. “What’s that mean?”
“It means, they have the mental capacity to say no.”
“They can’t say no if you sing the will out of them.”
“Their will is still present. If they stay, it is because they want to.”
I wanted to argue some more. Surely, the sailors the sirens captured weren’t willing to be servants. To abandon their families and lives for the sake of, if not a song, then a woman about as warm as the Freezie stuck in ice at the back of my freezer.
We left the tufted green scrub grass of the hillocks, the crash of water against the rocks, and the caw of the giant birds circling in the sky for that of a quiet road that led into a town. A cute freaking village. The kind Claire would have loved.
“It’s like the Bahamas threw up on it,” I muttered. The houses bordering the winding road were quaint cottages, each a different pastel hue with thatched roofs and painted siding. The windows ranged in size and shape, large and small, round to rectangle. The streets were lined with seashells. Tourism kitschiness run amuck.
“Who lives here?” I asked. Because all my research implied the sirens preferred a solitary existence.
“The men who won’t leave.” Said with an exasperation I didn’t understand but which soon became apparent.
As we followed the path, a door opened, and a man exited—young, fit, his eyes shining brightly.
He dropped to his knees. “Mistress.” He bowed. “Let me serve you.”
I frowned. “I thought you didn’t condone slavery.”
“I don’t.” Disgust.
“But he’s…” I pointed at the man who stared adoringly at her.
Cymba scowled. “Do you hear me singing?”
No, and yet every man we saw dropped to his knees and showed some form of obeisance. Young to old and gray-bearded. Dozens appeared to live here.
A glance at Jory saw him frowning.
“Got a problem?” I asked.
“These men,” he said with disgust. “They are—”
I finished his sentence. “Pussy-whipped.”
A snort from ahead let me know Cymba heard my words. “None of these men have ever lain with a siren. But they all heard our song.”
“And what? Decided to come live here and worship the ground you walk on?”
“Yes.”
I blinked. However, that didn’t take the truth away from her statement. I skipped to catch up to her since she didn’t slow her pace. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Why would I jest about it? It’s true. These men are addicts to the song. They stay in the hopes of hearing it. They do chores in the hopes of earning an extra tune.”
It made me see the next one who knelt in a different light. Junkies who’d do anything for their next fix.
“I’ve never had that problem.” My discordant notes were more likely to drive a man to suicide than influence them to make me dinner and fetch my slippers. My attempt to join the glee club during my rebellious teen years ended when I was ordered to quit since
calls to the guidance office about suicidal thoughts spiked.
“Because you’ve never sung the right song.”
I wanted to ask what the right song was; however, we crested one last hill. What I saw in the bowl of the island, amidst a field of verdant flowers, stole my breath.
A castle, but not one made of mortared stone. Not even classic in appearance with crenellations. It more resembled something a part of nature. A natural stone spire jutted upward from the center of the deep vale, the thick column of it etched with a path. It possessed extended arms with the strangest ragged, brown balls sitting on them. Then, at the top, a flat platform upon which the giant birds nested.
Only as we drew closer did I realize the sheer size of the spire. The width of it as thick as a large house. Vines draped around the lower part, the stems heavy with colorful blooms. They hung like a curtain, and when parted, revealed a doorway carved right into the stone.
I hesitated rather than immediately entering. I peered upward and realized the brown balls I’d spotted were actually branches woven into shape, dense except for the occasional glinting spot. “Looks like a nest.”
“It is, of a sort,” Cymba replied.
“Nests with windows?” I pointed.
“We are not savages.” Because that totally explained everything.
“Are sirens birds?”
“No.”
Yet there seemed to be some kind of affinity between them. I could see higher up in the spire, a cluster of holes in the stone, some ragged with straw bits. More nests, smaller ones for the brown-feathered bird I saw perching on the lip of one.
While I ogled, Cymba disappeared inside. Having some sense of preservation, I didn’t immediately follow.
I stared upward. “Pigeons, just like the one sent with the note.”
“Pigeons are rather common,” Jory replied.
“She knew who I was.”
“More than likely,” he agreed.
“Then why pretend? Why set me up?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Guess, you’ll have to ask.”
To ask, I’d have to follow Cymba into the spire. Into the unknown. That didn’t seem prudent.
Yet the idea scared me a whole lot less than that moment when we were bobbing in the ocean.
A glance at Conan showed him watching me. “In horror movies, if the heroine enters the bad guy’s castle, she usually ends up captured and hating life.”
“I’d rescue you.”
“What if I don’t want rescuing?”
“Then don’t be captured. Or save yourself. Either way, you know you have to enter.”
I sighed. Yeah, I did know.
“You don’t have to come inside with me. This isn’t your fight.”
“Are you going to be selfish and hog all the glory?”
“I don’t understand.”
Conan smiled. “I’m one of Odin’s warriors. We never walk away from a fight.”
“Don’t you need a good cause?”
“To fight?” He snorted. “What a foolish idea. How would we keep our skills honed if we did that? To be a warrior, one must fight, it doesn’t matter where the battle is or who starts it. Constant practice either on the Elysian fields in daily skirmishes, or on the mortal plane, getting involved in human, and”—he cast her a glance—“not so human affairs.”
“You’re a battle junkie.”
“A warrior,” he corrected.
“You’ll be a drooling idiot like the guys we met on the road in if you don’t walk away. You saw what happened when the siren whistled.” Which just showed me how much I had to learn since my singing didn’t affect him at all.
“Don’t you worry about me. I can handle anything a siren sings at me.”
“Or you’ll screw me. Maybe it’s better if you stay outside. That way, Cymba can’t order you to turn on me.”
“You don’t have to worry about that happening. I would never turn on you. No matter how loud the sirens sing. Their song leaves me untouched.”
“But I saw you kneel and wince.”
A smile tugged his lips. “I faked it.”
Chapter 12
“Faked it?” The surprise in her reply was quickly joined by laughter.
He preferred this to the terrified Lana. A Lana he had a hard time understanding.
“Why does the ocean frighten you? You said something about your mother.”
A shadow crossed her features, and for a moment, he could have slapped himself for removing the smile. Yet he had to know because he had a feeling it was of great import.
“The ocean killed her. Well, technically, the eels that mobbed her and electrocuted her to death did, but the attack wasn’t an accident.”
A day or so ago, he might have scoffed at her claim, except he’d seen what happened. Krakens didn’t just appear and drag down planes, even in the Bermuda Triangle. As for mermaids, he’d heard of one or two appearing, never a whole school of them. It didn’t take a conspiracy theorist to realize that those two things were directly related to Lana. From the attack, to the rescue, to the island and the women running it. There appeared to be way too much interest in Lana.
She’d said it herself, she’d tried for months—years—to get a meeting. The mermaids couldn’t leave the water, Lana couldn’t bring herself to swim, the sirens wanted nothing to do with her and now had her visiting the heart of their demesne.
It made no sense. Just like the placating story that the sailors in the town stayed of their own will. If the sirens didn’t like having them around, then why sing to lure them in the first place?
“This is a trap,” he stated.
“Duh. Weren’t you the one who first pointed it out?”
He frowned. “Yes, and now I realize I should have tried harder to keep you on the mainland.”
“Too late for regrets now, Conan. We’re here, and we need answers.” She cast a glance at the spire.
Did she even notice her use of the word we? He did. “Might be a trap inside.”
“Might be. Is this one of those movie moments where I’m supposed to declare, ‘I’ll take the first hundred to the right while you handle the left?’”
“I’ll handle them all for another kiss.”
“Seems a low price for your life.”
“Price seems just about right to me.”
The pink in her cheeks did something to him. Not quite a carnal feeling, and yet it gave him pleasure.
Another thing he enjoyed? The way she squared her shoulders. “I can do this.” She entered the spire. The pert wiggle of her ass proved particularly fun to watch.
Following her through the jungle curtain, he expected shadows and was thus surprised to see the interior well lit. Crevices, not easily seen from the outside, spilled in enough daylight to dance off the crystalline interior.
The hollow interior.
Unlike the outside with the winding paths going up the spire and branching off, there was only one room in the spire. The walls glittered with refracted light, reaching high overhead. Underfoot, there were pebbles compacted into place and covered with a glossy glaze. Each step made a noise that reverberated.
It was Lana who made the connection. “It’s an auditorium.”
Her theory, whereas he noted the dais in the middle upon which stood two women. No throne, and yet he knew they entered the sirens’ main place of power, and it appeared Cymba was not its greatest leader.
Where the first siren they’d met possessed a tall, stately elegance, the other two sirens were vastly different. The woman dressed in vibrant blue had skin darker than the coffee he sometimes liked to drink. Round cheeks, a voluptuous figure. Full, pouty lips that appeared rouged and wet. Her hair haloed out from her head in controlled chaos, the black strands streaked with gray. A gorgeous woman in her prime.
By her side, a redhead, her features borderline gaunt, her tresses pulled back from her face but hanging over her shoulders and down her back. She didn’t appear as healthy as the others, but her
gaze proved strong and fierce.
Which was why he found himself surprised that it was the curvy woman in blue who barked first. “What is this? Why do you bring strangers here?”
Cymba, still standing a few paces inside the door, didn’t cower before the other woman. “Don’t get snippy with me. I found them on the cliffs.”
“You should have tossed them off. We don’t need shipwrecked strangers.”
“The girl might be a siren.”
“Impossible. Her hair is green,” exclaimed the redhead.
“Probably dyed,” snorted the woman in blue.
Lana stepped away from him to address the women. “My hair is naturally green. Part of my mermaid roots.”
“Then you’re not a siren.” The lady with the wild crown of hair waved a hand in dismissal.
“I am, too.” Lana appeared more annoyed than frightened as the siren challenged her.
“More like a false pretender,” sneered the redhead.
“I am telling the truth,” Lana growled.
“There are only three sirens left in this world, and we’re all present in this room.” There was no expression, no melody, nothing in the flat statement made by the matron in blue.
“Maybe I’m from some long-lost cousin or something, but I assure you, I am part siren. Ask your sister. I can sing.”
Cymba’s lips pursed. “I heard her sing one note. Enough to make me wonder.”
The lady in blue stepped off the dais and approached Lana. “Let me hear this note.”
For a second, Jory expected Lana to obey. He should have known better.
Lana’s shoulders drew back, and she grew at least an inch as she straightened. “How about you tell me who you are instead?”
“Perhaps rudeness is tolerated in your time, but on this island, it’s not.” The woman punctuated with a sharp trill. He pretended to wince.
Lana met the noise with a cool smile. “You’ll have to do better than that, Grandma. Or are you my aunt? Assuming all sirens are related to each other, then does that mean I’m somehow related to you?”
“As I said, since you’re obviously hard of hearing, we three are the last of our kind. None of our daughters lived to succeed us.”