To Seduce A Siren

by Cousins, Jane

  “So how did you come to be C.Hariss, the crotchety old reclusive seadog painter?”

  “By complete accident of course.” She popped the top of her own can and took a small sip. “I’d been painting for a while, to please myself mostly and just pass the time. One day I had several of my cousins over to my place for drinks; they saw some of my work and dared me to show it to a gallery. Next thing you know my work is selling and the whole C.Hariss persona is born thanks to an accidental smear of paint and the fact that I like my privacy. Rumours began circulating and before I knew it, I was an ex-fisherman in his retirement years who liked to paint.”

  “You wear your years well.” Nate commented raising his can in a toast.

  “Thanks.” Charisse laughed. “So what are you doing up at Great-Great-Uncle Maurice’s place?”

  “Renovating it.”

  “Yes I can see that, but why?”

  “Because it’s crumbling down around my ears for a start and I really needed a project and a distraction. Though I hadn’t quite realised what a fixer upper’s dream it was when I bought it.”

  “Wait… you bought Kaleidoscope Folly? The Council knows right?”

  “Of course. I went before them in an emergency session last Saturday; ten minutes later I was a home owner.”

  “That seems kind of fast.”

  “Let’s just say I needed a threshold to call my own rather urgently. I’m hoping my petition to have your cousin issued with a restraining order is put into effect just as speedily, they’ve promised it will be served by midnight tonight, if it doesn’t, well then I’m not sure how much work I’ll be getting done if I have to keep diving off cliffs.”

  “Are you insane? Tell me you didn’t request a restraining order against Darcy?”

  “What else can I do? She’s proving to be annoyingly tenacious.”

  “Goddess, I don’t know whether to be in awe of you or scared for you.”

  “Definitely be in awe of me, Cyd.” Nate quirked up an eyebrow casting a sexy come hither smile her way for all of two point five seconds before he seemed to recall who he was talking to. The smile disappearing in a flash, the twinkle in his whiskey eyes likewise was history.

  Was it the damn muumuu and rat’s nest hair or was it just her, this so called serial flirt, wouldn’t lower himself to waste his energy on? “A Council restraining order, that’s kind of huge and extremely binding. Darcy won’t be able to get within a mile of you without your permission or else there will be exceedingly painful repercussions for her. Why don’t you just talk to her? Tell her what she wants to know and she’ll leave you alone.”

  “Problem is, I don’t know anything more than what I’ve already shared with Hadleigh. Do you think Darcy will believe that?”

  “Maybe after she tortures you for a solid straight week… or two, she might.”

  “Exactly and quite frankly, I like all my most important bits non-singed and non-fried… I’m kind of particular like that.”

  “You’ve heard of Darcy’s reputation?”

  “I wasn’t aware of the lengths and breadths she was prepared to go to until she began targeting me. She’s left some breathtakingly inventive threats on my voicemail. Don’t tell her, but I’m writing them all down and intending to use them against my fellow warriors sometime in the near future.” Nate finished his drink and looked around. “Speaking of which, I suppose I’d better get a move on, Darcy’s probably renting a speed boat about now.”

  Nate had no more said the words when the sound of metal striking rock reverberated through the air. Nate shot out of his chair lightning quick and rounded the shack. Charisse close on his heels. Oh Goddess, well the good news was, it wasn’t Darcy, the bad news was, it was two lovesick and from the looks of their sunburnt faces and blurry eyes, drunk fisherman, in a dinghy. No wonder that bitch Bettina had been quiet for the last five minutes, she’d known these two inebriated fools with their inhibitions lowered would be lured here.

  Damn, how could she have been so inattentive? She’d been singing whilst she’d been looking for Nate’s body hadn’t she, after he’d dived off the cliff.

  The two men stumbled over one another as they clambered out of their damaged boat. Honestly, how stupid were these guys? She’d lined that side of the rock with bumpers and fenders to prevent this very type of accident from happening.

  “Hey fellas.” Nate moved forward to help the pair. “You guys okay? You look like you’ve had a little accident.” Nate was staring into the dinghy as it slowly began to fill with seawater. “Fellas?” He turned around, surprised to find the two guys ignoring their sinking boat. One was now kneeling before Charisse, the other stood next to his friend, swaying drunkenly. Okay the dinghy was kind of small and old but still, Nate was surprised the twosome weren’t a tad more worried about their vessel and fishing gear.

  Walking back to the centre of the rock he noted that Charisse’s full lips were compressed into a thin line as she studied the unexpected visitors, so it wasn’t like she knew them, or if she did, she certainly didn’t like them. Hmmm, the whole incident was kind of strange.

  Weirder still, the invisible to everyone but him black scaly demon, encasing Cyd’s psyche, had lessened its grip on her ever so slightly. Through the retracted tentacles he caught glimpses of deep peaceful greens, simmering hot pinks and bold golds. Wow, this woman really was stunning inside and out, well, if you could ignore the insidious dark shadow that all but encompassed her soul.

  The drunken guy standing finally found his voice. “You’re so pretty.”

  “Dude, your boat’s sinking.” Nate studied the two men with a frown, was the guy on his knees crying? How much had they had to drink?

  “Er... that’s okay.” The drunk took a step towards Charisse. “You know your skin is like freshly… poured milk.”

  Nate winced, this guy had to be kidding, Charisse was covered from head to toe, in fact the only visible skin was her paint splattered hands and zinc covered nose.

  “Umm.” Charisse shifted from foot to foot, Goddess this was embarrassing. Two half-drunk accolades worshipping at the Siren altar whilst Bettina slurped down on the unexpected buffet. Urgh, she hated that feeling of their emotions sliding through her, travelling down the bond. Tomorrow the two would wake up with massive hangovers and feel strangely empty and a little bit dazed for a day or two. Thankfully, their memory of having met her would take on a dream like quality.

  In the meantime though, she had to suffer through the guy who was standing listing off half-baked compliments whilst the guy kneeling seemed to be content to just silently weep, his gaze never shifting from her. She wasn’t fond of the weepers but at least they were generally quiet.

  “You’re eyes are like the deepest, bluest pools of ocean.”

  Nate snorted a laugh.

  “Hey!” Charisse felt kind of offended. Nate might not think her up to his high standard of women to flirt with, but he didn’t need to rub it in.

  “What? Sorry. It’s just bozo here can’t even see your eyes behind those sunglasses. Their green my drunken friend, at least get your facts straight if you’re going to play the bard.”

  Nate had remembered her eyes were green… hmm, what did that mean?

  “Green!” Her admirer jumped on the word and ran with it. “Eyes the colour of freshly cut grass…”

  “Maat, what are you, a farmer? First with the milk and now with the grass. Look snap out of it, your boat is still sinking.”

  “That’s okay… not my boat… borrowed it.” He shuffled forward, his hand now clutched over his heart. “I love you, I don’t think I can live without you, I don’t want to live without you.” Her admirers eyes fluttered shut for a moment. Him being inebriated meant Bettina was having a much easier time of siphoning off his emotions. He’d be falling into a deep sleep soon.

  Nate swept past the drunk, placing his arm protectively around Charisse. The moment his hand came to rest on the small of her back she jumped on the spot. Ouch, that
had hurt. A sharp jolt of pain had coursed through her, rather like being bitten by a snake. Nate must have felt something too as he was rubbing his hand and glaring at her … breasts? No slightly lower down… weird. Well she’d already guessed Bettina wasn’t fond of Nate but until he’d tried to touch her she hadn’t figured out exactly how much.

  “Sorry.” She tried to shrug off the incident. “Must be some static electricity in the air.”

  “Yeah right.” He glanced over at Charisse’s admirers, the one on the ground had curled up into a ball and appeared to be fast asleep, the remaining one just stood there swaying, hand outstretched towards Charisse, a thin line of drool dripping down his chin. Maat, anyone and their sister knew that boating and drinking were not a good combination. Here were the poster boys for abstinence if he’d ever seen them.

  Sighing, Charisse brushed past her visitors, picked up some rope keeping one of the fenders secured to the rock and tied up the sinking boat. At least this way the insurers could collect the wreckage and the motor.

  “What do you want me to do with these two?” Nate gestured towards drunk and drunker.

  Goddess, it was nice for once to have someone else offer to clean up Bettina’s mess. Still, these men were her problem, her responsibility. “I’ll put a call into the marina. They’ll send a boat over to pick them up.”

  Nate nodded, that sounded like a sensible plan and it wasn’t as if either of these two were a threat to Charisse’s safety, not in their condition. Glancing towards the horizon he tensed, noting the low position of the sun. Where had the day gone? “Well it’s been… interesting Cyd. Thanks for the drink. I’ll catch you around.”

  And just like that he dove into the water, trousers, boots and all. Striking off in the direction of… well, she supposed it was his beach now since he’d bought Kaleidoscope Folly.

  “Umm, bye.” She muttered, though he was long gone. She looked over at the one guy still awake. “That was weird right?”

  “Pretty…” Was all he managed to mumble before collapsing to his knees and then onto his back.

  “Typical man.” Charisse glared down at him. “When I’m finally ready to talk all you want to do is sleep.”

  Then she directed her glare at Nate’s retreating form, the real person she was angry at. Why had the Council allowed him to buy property in the Sanctuary? Oh sure Vaughn and Drum may have recently married into the family, but that didn’t give the rest of Maat’s warriors the right to just move in, buy up homes and roam the countryside and seas being all buff, half-naked and frustratingly distant… did it?

  Chapter Five

  For the fourth morning in a row Nate watched the sun rise. He didn’t sleep much these days, often he found himself working deep into the night on whatever project he’d chosen to keep his mind off his problems; sawing, hammering, stripping, sanding, ripping, destroying. Anything that would keep him physically occupied as he slowly went out of his mind, driving himself to exhaustion but then, instead of climbing the stairs to the reasonably habitable master bedroom, he would find himself settling into an old, uncomfortable, dusty armchair that someone had forgotten to throw out. He’d positioned the chair at the bay living room windows, it was a perfect spot, as it afforded him a view of the town and beach off to his right and Charisse’s little artistic rock habitat directly out to sea in front of him.

  The top half of the sun had barely cleared the horizon when he caught sight of activity on the beach to his right. Charisse was leaving her beach front home, moving across the sand, no paddleboard this time as she waded out into hip deep water before diving under a medium sized breaking wave. Then she struck out to sea, using a quick, clean, economical stroke that she made look effortless. In hardly any time she was at her rock, pulling herself out of the water with ease, this close, he could tell she wore a sunshine yellow bikini. And knowing her, she probably wore it damn well.

  Maat, what he wouldn’t give for a pair of binoculars. He had some in his kit. For a moment he was tempted to fetch them but that would take this habit he’d recently picked up of checking up on Charisse’s well-being every ten minutes or so, to a whole new uncomfortable stalking level that his pride wouldn’t let him succumb too.

  Okay, she was safe on her rock painting for the day, what he needed was a distraction, something that he could preferably take a sledgehammer too. During daylight hours he made it a rule to find a project working outside under the hot Australian sun, loving the feel of the warm rays as they sank through his skin to recharge his very soul. Maybe he should consider clearing away some of the overgrown greenery that surrounded the house. Of course, doing so would allow him an even better view of Charisse on her rock, just happenstance, he assured himself.

  But first, something to eat.

  He’d no more had the thought when the cloak room door located just under the main staircase slammed open and Marcus backed out, wheeling a trolley loaded with supplies. Gotta love the Southern Sanctuary portal system Hadleigh had set up for them.

  “Good timing.” Nate strode over to help his friend and fellow warrior.

  “Love what you’ve done with the place.” Marcus drawled, noting that despite all Nate’s hard work the house continued to look a daunting project, especially now that it had been stripped back to its barest bones.

  The majority of furniture, old, dusty and beyond repair had been thrown outside, waiting for Nate to have a spare minute and a desire to visit the local dump. Faded worn sections of carpet, ripped up and torn into pieces were piled high in every other corner of the house. Bare lighting fixtures dangled from the ceiling. Several large gaping holes appeared in walls where electrical junctions met. Wallpaper and paint alike peeled off in flakes and long strips from various walls and cracked ceilings. And the floorboards under foot were fractured in several places, many sagging in the middle.

  Everywhere there were signs of Nate having started on a project, ripping up a few floorboards in one corner, stripping off several rolls of wallpaper in another, sanding almost a third of the right hand bannister of the main staircase. Considering the size of the place the amount of work Nate had managed to achieve in just over a week was quite impressive. Even more so when you factored in that during daylight hours he worked on the exterior of the house.

  “It’s not like I have anything else to do.” Nate grumbled, leading the way into the out-dated but still functional kitchen. Grabbing the coffee pot he poured two mugs, handing one over to Marcus. “What’s the news on Vivian?”

  Marcus took a seat at the wobbly old kitchen table that had been left behind by the previous occupants. “Good, but slow. Nell’s pleased, but says it will take time... a lot of time.”

  “Damn that vamp’s - catsuit wearing - hide. Any sign of her?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. There haven’t been any more gifts arriving so we think she knows you’ve moved out.”

  “I still say I could help with tracking the bitch.”

  “Hard to be bait and track at the same time, besides you’d only get in Drum’s way. And though thanks to Nell’s influence the big man is slightly - and I do mean by an infinitesimal degree - more tolerant these days, he still wouldn’t pull any punches if he thought you were letting emotions cloud your good judgement.”

  “I’m fine… my judgement is fine.” Nate assured him.

  Marcus gave him a dubious electric blue look. “Okay, so you meant to pull that kitchen bench off its supports?”

  Nate glanced down, damn. “Sure, ripping out all the fittings in here is next on my list.”

  “Yeah right.” Marcus sipped some more coffee. “You’ve spoken to Serena?”

  “First thing I did after the Council approved that I could buy the house. Advised her and Locke to lay low.”

  “Good, it would be beyond stupid for us to go to all the trouble of faking Serena’s death only for vamp Queen to bump into her and decide to tell her former employers that she isn’t dead.”

  “Locke quite happily
overshared with me that he would tie Serena up each night until this whole thing with the vamps is resolved.”

  Marcus winced. “The man always knows just what to say to press our buttons. Are they getting married… melded, or whatever, any time soon?”

  Nate shrugged. “They’re trying to come up with suitable date. Serena says Spring is the most optimal time for an Earth witch to meld.”

  Marcus smiled. “Well Serena usually gets what she wants.”

  Nate shook his head. “Not this time. While I was there Locke was working on some very persuasive arguments. I think his winning front runner was something along the lines of, no child of his, was going to be born out of wedlock.”

  “Serena’s pregnant?” Marcus blinked.

  “No, not yet according to Serena but I draw your attention to my earlier comment about Locke being willing… eager even, to tie her up each night to keep her off vamp Queen’s radar.”

  Marcus shook his head. He’d seen Locke’s gorgeous immaculate home, the cream sofas, the carefully chosen fragile knick knacks, pristine wooden floors and decorated rooms. It did not strike any one as being baby friendly. “How the mighty have fallen.”

  “Yeah.” Nate grinned. “He still winces every now and then, you should see the number of pot plants Serena has in the house. But it’s pretty clear he loves Serena more than he loathes, and let me quote here; those bug infested nightmarish pots of dirt and disease.”

  Marcus laughed, raking his overlong fringe out of his eyes. “So what’s it like living at the Southern Sanctuary?”

  “How would I know? I’m basically a prisoner here.”

  “Which is self-imposed. It was Vaughn’s decision to get you out of Atlanta and send you here, but this whole idea of isolating yourself from everyone was your choice.”