by Lora Edwards
She pried her eyes open and looked around. As her vision cleared, she felt fear replace the confusion. She was not in her room at the inn. She sat up and immediately regretted the decision as her head exploded and her stomach heaved.
It took all that she had to close her eyes and breathe deeply against the pitch of her stomach. She stood, wobbling a bit, saw an open door and through it, a toilet and shower.
Her stomach rebelled once more and she stumbled to the bathroom, emptying the contents of her stomach over and over until there was nothing left. She lay down on the smooth cold tile of the floor and opened her eyes.
Through the open door, she could see a form lying in the middle of the room. Blond hair cascaded down the back and as he moved, she could see the muscles ripple in his back.
She blinked once then twice. Erik. It was Erik. The racing of her heart calmed a fraction when she realized who it was. It allowed her to focus on what she could see of the room itself.
It looked like a room in one of those hotels Americans were so fond of, made up to look like a Victorian bedroom but with all the modern amenities.
A large bed sat in the middle of one wall draped with hangings the color of good red wine. The bedspread was of the same wine color, covered in a tumble of throw pillows in burgundy and a dull silver.
She could see part of a dresser and a large fireplace, sink-in-me chairs the same deep red color flanking the fireplace. She had briefly glimpsed a window seat covered in crushed velvet on her way to the bathroom in front of a large window.
A window we can escape through.
Ovidia shakily got to her feet, waiting for the first wave of dizziness to pass before walking into the adjoining room. She crossed to the window reaching out to touch it and her hand was met with the blue glow of protective magic.
Ovidia sank down next to Erik, who gave another low groan.
“Where are we,” he asked, his voice raspy.
“If I had to guess, Stanton Manor.”
“How did we get here?”
“That wretched innkeeper must have drugged us. That must be what he was intently discussing with that man while we were talking with his daughter. He must have delivered the sleeping draught in our last round.”
Ovidia cursed herself. They knew better than this. They knew better than to take things at face value.
“I feel awful,” Erik reported, sitting up. Ovidia watched as his face turned the same shade of green she was sure hers was before he lurched to his feet, stumbling to the bathroom and slamming the door behind him.
Ovidia’s stomach pitched as she heard the sounds of Erik retching.
Long minutes later, the door opened and a white-faced, shaky Erik rejoined her in the bedroom once more.
“Vid, we have got to find a way out of here. Why did they put us in here together, and where is Blackbeard?” Erik wondered out loud.
They did not have long to wait. As they sat there, a door opened, and Ovidia glimpsed a hallway beyond. Before she could get to her feet, the door closed and a man stood there looking down at them.
“Welcome to Stanton Manor. I am so very sorry for the rude way you were escorted here. That particular sleeping draught is powerful but has some nasty aftereffects. It is something I am still working on,” he said, standing casually next to the door. “Allow me to introduce myself: I am Albert Stanton, heir to the Stanton dukedom and your host for the duration of your stay.”
Ovidia looked at the man. Could he really be serious? He was acting like they had just checked in at some exclusive hotel, not been kidnapped by some wack job bent on collecting supernaturals.
“What do you want with us and where is the Siren,” Ovidia demanded, getting to her feet and feeling Erik do the same.
“I want you to die of course, and she is here with me,” Stanton said breezily.
“What did we ever do to you,” Ovidia asked.
“Your kind—the unnaturals—you ruined my grandmother, caused her madness. She drifted around this place calling out for that man, the Siren king. She hated him, told me stories when I was young of how he trapped her there on that island and how she was able to finally escape and come back to her own kind. Then at the end, they tricked her. Somehow they caused her descent into madness and made her think she wanted to be back there with them!
“When she died, wasted away from not eating, from pining for some unnatural thing, I vowed I would learn all there was to know about the unnaturals and how to subdue them. I would then make it my mission to destroy not only the Sirens but every last unnatural race I could discover—and it has worked. I have collected all sorts of your kind, and I have learned their weaknesses. Now that I have lured you here, my final mission can start. I will enslave and destroy your kind in vengeance for my grandmother.” He fisted his hands at his sides, the madness and rage shining from his eyes. “You will pay—you all will pay with your lives and the lives of your kind. You went after the wrong family. You destroyed someone I loved, so now I will return the favor. Enjoy your last nights on earth,” he said before turning to go back out the door he’d come in through. Ovidia lunged toward him, only to be knocked back by a terrible force.
He turned and smiled.
“Nice try, Valkyrie. Those pendants around your neck will prevent you from harming any humans here,” he said then turned and walked out the door, letting it softly click shut behind him.
Ovidia looked down. Around her neck was an ornate necklace with a bright blue jewel attached. She had seen it flash when she tried to escape.
“What fresh hell is this,” she asked Erik. She noticed he had an identical necklace strapped around his neck.
Knowing it was pointless, they spent the next few minutes trying to dislodge the stones, trying to pry the necklaces away, but it was no use. Whatever magic had forged them was strong. They would not be able to remove them.
Ovidia looked at Erik. “We will find a way out of this,” she said to reassure herself as much as him.
“Yes, we will, and when we get out of this room, we are going to kick that guy’s ass,” Erik said with a wry grin.
Ovidia felt her heart lift. “Dibs,” she said.
“Hey, you can’t call dibs on the bad guy.” Erik pretended to pout.
“Funny, I just did.” Her smile became more genuine. Even in the darkest of circumstances, he could make her laugh.
Chapter 15
Delphine stopped and put her ear to the wall of her room. She could hear voices; they were close, but muffled. In all the time she had been in the room, she had never heard another soul. She had seen others, of course; people came to feed her and clean her quarters, other supernaturals, all with variations of the same necklace she had around her neck, all prisoners of the same madman. She had heard him rage against her kind and others like her, calling them the unnaturals, blaming them, and her kind specifically, for the madness his grandmother had fallen into before she died.
In all that time, she had never been able to interact with any of the people who came to clean for her. She had tried once, and he had come back and blamed her for the death of that servant, an innocent selkie, a water spirit like herself, who he tortured and experimented on.
Since that day, she had not dared to interact with any of the others. She had looked at them with pleading eyes, and they had looked back, haunted and sad, but no words had been exchanged. She had learned much from these visits, had worked out that each different kind of supernatural had a different colored jewel. She instinctively recognized any of them that had come from the water; he had captured a mermaid and a selkie. There had been others she had not been able to identify, each with their own colored gem.
It saddened her to know that he had captured another set of supernaturals, and with each passing day, she lost more and more hope.
Delphine walked to the window and looked out at the blue sky, to the water she could see in the distance. She missed her family, missed the ocean, its rhythms and currents, the other life that sw
am there.
Turning away, she went to her only solace in that place. Slipping out of her clothes, she slid into water, her legs disappearing and her tail shimmering to life.
Thinking back on the other water spirits, she hoped the mermaid had such a place. Mermaids were the cousins of the Sirens, their beautiful and more peaceful relatives. They lived primarily in the sea, though they could sprout legs and live on land if they chose. They did not lure men into the sea as the Sirens did, but she had seen a mermaid’s other side, the creature they could become if necessary. Delphine shuddered and began to sing a song of loss and loneliness. As her voice poured out, the necklace around her throat glowed. Stanton, as he had called himself, had found a way to neutralize the power of her voice. It was how he had gotten past the Sirens of the rock, and how he kept her prisoner there.
She sang of loneliness and loss and let the sadness and terror drift out of her.
Ovidia opened her eyes. She felt Erik’s reassuring presence at her back, the deep evenness of his breathing. After Stanton had left, they’d made the decision to sleep off the last of the drug he had used on them. They needed to regain their strength and let their superior metabolisms burn the drug out of their systems.
Ovidia stretched and blinked, lying there as she woke up. Her mind was clear, and her body no longer felt as if it were being weighed down.
Sitting up, she looked down at Erik and let a small smile touch her lips. He had always looked so peaceful while sleeping.
Strains of music reached her ears; it was faint, but it was there. Who is playing music in a place like this, she wondered. Ovidia climbed off the bed and moved toward the source. It became louder as Ovidia neared the far wall of their room.
Now that she was closer, she recognized the sound: it was Siren song. After having heard the song while on the isle of the Sirens, it was instantly recognizable. This song was not the alluring come hither of the Sirens of the rock, but it was sad, and although it did not ensnare her, the emotion in it brought tears to her eyes.
They had found their Siren.
Striding over to Erik where he still lay sleeping on the bed, she shook him awake.
His eyes fluttered and then opened, still bleary with sleep. A tired smile crossed his lips as he looked into her face. “Vid, I always loved seeing your face upon waking.”
“Erik, wake up—I think I found Delphine.” She shook his shoulder again to remove the goofy grin from his face. Despite their tenuous situation, it was doing odd things to her heart.
The smile disappeared and his eyes popped open. “Where?”
“I think she’s on the other side of that wall. Listen,” Ovidia urged.
Erik sat up, listening intently. He nodded to indicate to Ovidia that he heard the singing and then he walked toward the wall. Ovidia followed, and again it was louder there.
“Should we knock on the wall, alert her that we’re here,” Erik asked.
“It’s worth a try,” Ovidia said then knocked on the wall.
The singing abruptly stopped.
“She can hear us,” Ovidia said excitedly. “Delphine, can you hear me?”
The faint sound of sloshing water could be heard. Then there was silence for several moments.
“Maybe she didn’t hear us,” Ovidia said to Erik after a few moments.
Then, a melodic voice came from the other side of the wall. “I heard you, but I had to get out of the water, dry off, and change forms so I could get near enough to the wall to communicate.”
Ovidia pumped her fist in the air. “Delphine, we’ve come to rescue you. We’re from the institute, have you heard of it?”
“Yes, I have limited contact with my father while in the water here and he told me you were coming to help.”
“Do you know how to get these necklaces off? We seem to be trapped in here.”
“Sadly no, and my particular one saps the power of my voice. I can sing, but the effects are muted.”
“Are you hurt,” Ovidia asked.
“No, he has not done anything to harm me, but there are others and he has done unspeakable things to them. I spoke to a selkie that brought my dinner. He tortured her and came to tell me of it. There have been others he revels in relaying the details of others of the water that he tortures and experiments on.” The sadness in her voice deepened.
“We will find a way out Delphine, and will free the others.”
Delphine nodded, though they could not see her. “Thank you,” she said, not sure if she should be excited that they had made it or despair that they had fallen into the trap.
She would listen and wait, and when the cursed necklace was removed, she would have her own revenge. She was a Siren, after all, and vengeance lived in her heart, was part of her nature. She was going to show Stanton what happened when one of her kind was crossed.
“Ovidia, Erik, is that you,” the Siren heard from the opposite wall of her new friends.
She crossed over to the other wall, where she had heard the man’s voice.
“Who are you?” she asked, wary that this could all be a trick of Stanton’s to raise her hopes and then dash them.
“I am Blackbeard, the pirate. Who are you? Friend or foe?”
“I am Delphine of the isle of the Sirens,” she replied. If it was a trick, she would find out soon enough.
“Yes, I sailed with Erik and Ovidia to your island and met your father and family. We will get you out of here, I promise. I thought I heard the voices of my friends,” he said.
“Yes, they are on the other side of me.”
“Good, we are all close. If I can figure out how to get this cursed necklace off then we can escape. Could you please relay a message to them,” Blackbeard asked her.
“Yes,” she said, still suspicious.
“Tell them where I am and that I have returned to my true form so when they come looking, I will not resemble the man they are used to seeing.”
“Are you a shapeshifter?”
“At your service, madam,” he said through the wall.
“The next time they make contact, I will tell them,” she said.
“Oh and Delphine, one more thing—tell them I have a mirror. They’ll know what it means.” He then fell silent.
Delphine leaned against the wall and for the first time since she had been taken from her island, she felt a flare of hope that she may one day be able to return home.
“Erik, we’ve tried everything we can think of. These things are not coming off,” Ovidia said, rubbing the now raw skin around her neck. They had spent the entire day trying to remove the necklaces. They had also spoke with Delphine, and she had told them Blackbeard was on the other side of her room and had a mirror.
Hopefully that meant he could contact the institute and have Teagan and the rest of the institute work on finding a way to get the necklaces off.
Ovidia had discovered in horror that the magic blocked her access to her sword. She couldn’t feel it’s reassuring weight at her side, and she felt as if someone had cut off one of her limbs.
“Vid, we will figure it out. Maybe Teagan and the crew at the institute will be able to help us,” Erik said, looking as defeated as she felt.
Eerily, they also hadn’t had any visits from their abductor, and other than their brief chat with Delphine, it had been strangely quiet. Ovidia knew better than to relax; in their current situation, quiet was not a good thing.
The servant that had delivered their meals also had a necklace, indicating that she was some kind of supernatural. She refused to speak with them or look them in the eye. The story Delphine had told them about the selkie explained why none of the people forced to serve would talk to the captives.
“Let’s get some sleep. Maybe by tomorrow Blackbeard will have gotten ahold of the institute and we will at least have something to try to get these off of us,” he said, leading her to the bed.
“Don’t think you’re getting lucky buddy,” she said, scowling at him. This was not the kind of re
union she wanted.
“That is the last thing on my mind. I just want to hold you,” he said softly, avoiding looking her in the eye.
“Okay,” she said, just as softly. “Erik?” She spoke hesitantly as they lay down on the bed.
“Vid?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t ready for marriage and a life with me?” Her voice was small. This was something that had plagued her since she’d found out he had not married for duty and instead had gone off on dangerous secret missions for the institute.
A sigh ruffled her hair. She was about to tell him to forget it, to say this wasn’t the time or place to rehash their relationship, but then he started talking.
“I was scared, Vid. It was like you had this whole life planned out for us. You knew exactly what you wanted—the institute and me, then later, babies—and you could see us all the way to a porch with rocking chairs. It was scary that you knew yourself so well and knew what you wanted when I just wasn’t sure.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?”
“At first when my father came to me and talked about duty and sacrifice, I was ready to do it. I was going to marry Alexandra. Then one night at dinner, I saw how she and Calder looked at each other, although they tried so hard to hide it.
“I went to him and he admitted his feelings for her, and then I went to her and she admitted the same. So, I did the right thing and bowed out of the way. He was always more interested in the politics and the ruling of the country than I ever was anyway. After I abdicated, I was trying to think of a way to tell you, and then Armand came to me and offered for me to go on the secret missions. There was always another mission and I thought I would tell you soon, but the time just slipped away. It was not right, and I know I hurt you.”
“You’re right—it wasn’t right. You should have told me, not just the part where you abdicated, but that you weren’t ready. I would have understood,” she said.
“Are you sure about that,” he asked, looking down at her.
Ovidia looked back defiantly. “Let’s get some sleep.” She then rolled over, turning her back to him.
She thought about what he had said. If he had told her he needed time, would she have been okay with it? Would she have understood his need to find himself? She realized she had never considered that he might not want what she wanted, that he might not want to be a team on missions and outside of them. She had just assumed.