by Bonnie Lamer
Blood of Sirens
Bonnie Lamer
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, dialogue and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©2015 by Bonnie Humbarger Lamer
All rights reserved.
No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the express written permission of the copyright holder.
Other Titles by Bonnie Lamer
The Witch Fairy Series:
True of Blood
Blood Prophecy
Blood Lines
Shadow Blood
Blood of Half Gods
Blood of Destiny
Blood of Dragons
Blood of Egypt
Blood of Retribution
Blood of the Exiled
Doppelganger Blood
Blood of Centaurs
True of Blood: Kallen’s Tale
Blood Prophecy: Kallen’s Tale
Blood Lines: Kallen’s Tale
Shadow Blood: Kallen’s Tale
Blood of Half Gods: Kallen’s Tale
Blood of Destiny: Kallen’s Tale
Blood of Dragon’s: Kallen’s Tale
Blood of Egypt: Kallen’s Tale
Blood of Retribution: Kallen’s Tale
Blood of the Exiled: Kallen’s Tale
The Eliana Brennan Series:
Essence of Re
Exposed
Homeland
The Secrets of the Djinn Series:
Marked
Bound
I love to hear from fans! Contact me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bonnie-Lamer-Author/129829463748061
For my sister LuAnn who helps me remember that not everyone in our family is crazy. Just most of them.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
Come to me, My Darling,
Waken from your rest.
Come to me, My Darling,
Lay your head upon my breast.
Come to me, My Darling,
Heed my loving call.
Come to me, My Darling,
Ere daybreak must fall.
Come to me, My Darling
Make a gift of your heart.
Come to me, My Darling,
Then we shall never part.
I am woken from my dream of the sweet lullaby by the nattering of two Tasmanian devils on the bed. “You bite her hand and I’ll bite her foot. That should wake her up.”
“She’s going to be mad.”
“So, we have to stop them!”
Pushing Taz and Felix from me, I say through a yawn, “Stop who?” Even in my sleep addled state, I know the two of them would never wake me in the middle of the night unless it was really important. Taz likes his beauty sleep too much.
“If you would get your butt out of bed you’d see who,” Taz informs me. Obviously, I’m not the only one unhappy to be awake.
It is Felix’s words which have me jumping out of bed, though. “If you do not stop them, a good portion of the male population will drown.”
Drown? I throw back the covers and stand up. “What are you talking about?” I ask, doing a quick assessment to make sure my pajamas are in place and covering what they are supposed to cover.
“Sirens,” Felix spits out as if trying to get the nasty word off his tongue before it eats through it like acid.
“Sirens? Sirens aren’t real,” I inform the Tasmanian devils. At least, I don’t think they are. Wouldn’t someone have told me if they were? Who am I kidding? My ignorance of the supernatural beings in the universe is grossly negligent. Why not Sirens.
“Shut up and listen then,” Taz snarks, making my foot itch to kick him in his round little belly to see if he bounces like a ball.
I glare down at him, but in the silence, I hear it. The song. The lullaby from my dream. Except, I was not dreaming it. It’s coming from a long ways off, but a beautiful voice is definitely singing it in reality, not in my head. I rush to the balcony to search the night for the body attached to the voice. What I see makes my heart lurch.
There must be at least a hundred of them. Maybe more. “Kallen!” I shout. I don’t wait for him to respond. I teleport down to the beach and position myself between the water and the oncoming Fairies. I call to them. I even know a couple of their names and I try calling out to them personally, but it’s no use. Whatever spell they are under has an iron grip on them. If I can’t push them back with words, I’ll use magic. A lot of magic. In front of me, I build a u-shaped wall of magic. The male Fairies continue walking until they run into it. I sense some of them backing up to go around my magic, so I close it off by turning it into a square. The Fairies are trapped. But this doesn’t stop them from trying. They begin to claw at the magical wall. They throw their own magic at it. The ones in back become impatient and they rip the others away so they can try. Fighting breaks out amongst them and blood begins to color the sand a deep red in the moonlight.
“Stop it!” I cry. They don’t hear me, or they are choosing not to listen. Hard to tell with all the noise they’re making fighting each other.
One Fairy climbs on top of another, seeking the top of my magic. He plans to scale it like a fence. I am forced to put a lid on the square walls. Sensing this, the Fairies begin to dig in the sand, trying to go under it.
“Xandra!” Kallen calls from the terrace.
“Here!” I shout back. He uses my voice to find me in front of the crowd of Fairies willing to kill each other in their attempts to get free.
Leaping from the balcony, Kallen rounds the corner of my magic. He stops suddenly. Now that he’s closer to the water, he can hear it over the pitiful cries of the Fairies. “The call of the Sirens,” he whispers.
“Um, you’re not going to go all crazy on me, too, are you?” I ask nervously. Fighting Kallen on top of these other guys would a bit more than I could handle after being woken at three in the morning, learning Sirens are real and trapping a hundred or so Fairies in a box of magic. Not to mention, I’d be pissed if my husband answered the call of Sirens right in front of me.
Kallen’s face is grim but he doesn’t look like he wants to drown himself. “No, I will not. But, they will not stop while the Sirens sing.” He points to the male Fairies in a box. “You must put them to sleep, Xandra. Knock them out cold.”
Does he mean the Fairies or the Sirens? “Who?” I cry out over the anguished bellowing of the Fairies trapped in my magic.
“The Sirens are impervious to magic once those called go willingly to them.”
“Go to them? These guys were about to walk into the ocean and kill themselves!”
Kallen nods. “I know. The Sirens call them to the sea where they reside. None survive the journey. It is the gesture, the intent, which gives them their power.�
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“I don’t think I like Sirens very much,” I mutter mostly to myself. I consider Kallen’s words. He said I must put the Fairies to sleep. But how deep of a sleep and for how long?
Reading my mind, Kallen answers my unasked question. “They must sleep until dawn. The Siren’s hold on them will be lost then.”
Isla’s voice travels over the male Fairies who are now whimpering with need. The need to drown themselves. “What the hell is going on?” she demands, hands on her hips and staring at Kallen and me like we’re out here just trying to annoy her.
“Sirens!” Kallen shouts back. Isla says some pretty nasty things as she leaves the terrace and walks toward us. I can’t hear her, but I can read some of the words on her lips just fine. Even Kallen grimaces at a couple of her suggestions about where and what the Sirens can go and do. I’m almost glad the Fairies are so loud.
Not really. It finally dawns on me that I don’t need to listen to the Fairies. I can shut them up with magic. Being careful not to pull any magic from the walls holding them, I take away their voices. The sudden silence surrounding us serves to make the Siren’s song much, much louder. I study Kallen for any sign that he wants to join the fish in the ocean. So far, he isn’t showing any.
“Xandra, these Fairies must be rendered unconscious or they will claw themselves and each other to death in their vain attempt to get to the sea.”
“Yeah, Kallen already said something to that effect,” I admit. I try to think of a spell which will only put the male Fairies trapped in my magic to sleep. The spell I recently used with the Centaurs and Sasquatch is too much. I’d put the whole village to sleep. After an agonizing minute, the words pop into my head. “Called from your beds by those who would do you harm, no longer heed their evil charms. Lay your head upon the sand, no longer know the Siren’s command. With dawn comes sanity and light, be safe in slumber this dangerous night.” Pulling magic from the cage I’ve made, I push it into the now groveling Fairies. Within seconds, they fall into a heap on the sand.
By this time, we’ve been joined by everyone in the house except Zac. The kid can sleep through anything. Kegan, Alita, Tabitha, Adriel, Raziel and Garren are standing on the terrace. Mom and Dad are floating next to them. Taz and Felix are sniffing the pile of Fairies. Felix is checking to make sure they’re okay. I’m pretty sure Taz is looking for food.
Turning to my family and friends, I ask, “Someone want to fill me in on Sirens?”
Chapter 2
“Why do all your disasters happen in the middle of the night?” Kegan grumbles as he sits down at the kitchen island counter.
“My disaster?” I ask incredulously. “How are Sirens my disaster? It wasn’t me trying to drown myself in the sea. And how come none of you guys were affected?”
Kallen wraps his arms around me from behind. “Because we are in love. The Sirens’ call cannot capture the hearts of those who have already given them away.”
Tabitha snorts. “Not the first night.”
Well. That’s ominous. “The first night? What do you mean?” I ask.
“She means the Siren call will grow stronger each night,” Alita says, gripping Kegan’s hand so tightly he grimaces and tries to pry her fingers loose. She doesn’t even notice.
Dread is pounding on the door of my psyche. It won’t believe I’m not home. “How many nights do they sing?” I do not like the uncomfortable expressions on all the male faces in front of me. I peek up at Kallen to see if he’s wearing one, too. He is. Narrowing my eyes, I ask again, “How many nights do they sing?”
A response finally comes from a full mouth somewhere near my ankle. “They sing until they get every love sick moron to rather be with them than whoever they’re currently slobbering over.”
Reaching down, I wipe the crumbs off my ankle that leapt out of Taz’s mouth when he spoke. Since he’s the only one who responded to my question, I don’t yell at him for being gross. “I thought guys in love don’t answer their call.”
“Not the first night,” Felix says, repeating Tabitha’s words. He waited to speak until after he finished chewing the bacon bits Tabitha has been feeding the two of them since we entered the kitchen. Felix is nowhere near as hefty as Taz, but he is a lot healthier looking than he was when he first arrived. He continues. “Each night they sing, their song grows stronger. With each soul surrendered to them, they grow more powerful. Eventually, no male humanoid can resist their call.”
I glare at the humanoids in the room. “Holding back a little information, aren’t you?”
Kallen’s grip around my waist grows tighter. “There is nothing to worry about. None of us even woke up when the Sirens began singing.”
“Tonight,” I clarify. “What about tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night, those weak of will become their prey,” Tabitha says. I don’t miss the fact that her eyes are locked on Garren. He ignores her. He also shifts in his chair a little bit. Did he wake up when the Sirens began to sing? The same question has popped into Isla’s eyes. Hmm, glad I’m not Garren at the moment. Okay, I’m always glad I’m not Garren. It would make my relationship with Kallen a little awkward.
Wiping his mouth with his paw, Felix says, “You probably have five or six nights before Kallen goes to the sea. His love is strong, hard to break.”
“Five or six nights?!” I exclaim.
“No one makes it past six nights,” Felix informs me regretfully.
“I’ll bet a week’s worth of bacon that he buckles in five,” Taz offers. He may be fat, but he can really move when my foot comes flying at him. I barely get his stubby little tail.
The awkward silence in the room is getting on my nerves. “So, these Sirens travel from town to town drowning all these guys and nobody thought it would be a good idea to stop them at some point?” I snark.
Isla drags her eyes from Garren and clears her throat. “The Sirens have been prisoners of the Merpeople for centuries. They were keeping them in a remote area of their realm under heavy guard.”
“Not very good guards, apparently,” I grumble.
The kitchen door opens and Dagda marches inside. “Who the hell let the Sirens free?!”
Isla turns cool eyes in his direction and says dryly, “That is the question we would all like answered. Perhaps contacting the MerQueen would be time better spent than asking the question of us.”
Dagda bristles at the chiding, but doesn’t respond to it. To me, he says, “I have no doubt it was you who saved the Fairies on the beach.”
I shrug. “For now.” Is that fear in the back reaches of his eyes? Makes sense. He just got Tana back. Bad time to be running off and killing himself for other women. “How do we get rid of them?”
More uncomfortable silence. I glance around the room and find no one wants to meet my eyes. Alita is about to cry. I suspect she is more concerned about Kegan dying than she is about my ignorance. Adriel is not about to cry. She is pissed. Not at me, at the Sirens. I zero in on Raziel and guilt pours from him. He knew this was coming but couldn’t warn us. But there is something else lurking in his eyes which are glued to the countertop. Something he doesn’t want me to see. “Damn it, Raziel. Does Kallen die?”
Raziel’s head shoots up. “Xandra…”
I hold a hand up to stop his words. I don’t want to hear the free will lecture for the millionth time. Nor do I really want to know if Kallen is scheduled to die in five or six nights. I never should have asked. The way Kallen tenses behind me, I don’t have to look at him to know he’s pissed. Whether at me for asking or Raziel for not answering, I’m not sure. Probably both. “Forget I asked,” I say to Raziel. I turn to my biological father. “How do we stop them?”
Suddenly exhausted, Dagda sits down on a stool and rests his elbows on the counter. He bows his head and runs his fingers through his hair. Finally, he answers my question. Sort of. “It took millennia for the Merpeople to find a way to capture and hold the Sirens. Isla is right, we need to speak to them and figure out
what happened. How they escaped.”
I am growing more agitated by the millisecond. It can’t be as impossible as they are making it out to be. “Why don’t Isla and I simply do a locator spell, teleport to wherever they are and take them hostage until the Merpeople build a better cage or whatever they kept them in?”
“I am afraid it is not that simple,” Kallen says, sitting down next to me and taking my hand in his. “Sirens cannot be found using a locator spell. When they sing, their magic is spread far and wide, making it impossible to pinpoint their actual location.”
“During the day, they sleep deep within the sea,” Dagda adds. “They swim faster than Merpeople and could be a hundred miles away by dawn. It would be impossible to chase them.”
“Are they half fish like Merpeople?” I ask. Maybe there’s something like a Sirens for Dummies book in the palace archives I could read so I don’t need to ask questions that show how ignorant I am.
Adriel shakes her head. “No. They have fine gills on their necks which allow them to breathe underwater.”
“Attractive,” I snark.
“From the pictures I’ve seen, they are barely noticeable,” Alita adds sadly. “They do not diminish the Sirens’ beauty.”
Good lord, whose side is she on? “Beautiful, powerful and evil. Why do the three always go together?” I complain.
Kallen smiles and brushes a stray lock of hair from my cheek. “Not always. You are beautiful and powerful.”
I try to let his words cheer me up. They don’t. “Thanks, but in four or five nights, you’re only going to like me if I have gills on my neck. There’s a good chance I’m going to become evil in response.”
My gorgeous husband chuckles. “I will always prefer you gill free.” Sobering, he adds, “No one can make me stop loving you.”
“I’m trying to digest my food, not throw it back up,” Taz grumbles. The way he’s still gobbling up bacon bits, I doubt his digestion is really an issue.
“We all want to believe that is the case,” Dagda says gently. The fear which was in the dark recesses of his eyes has moved front and center. There is not much that scares my biological father. Now, I’m truly afraid.