Blood of Sirens: Book 13 of The Witch Fairy Series

by Bonnie Lamer

  Naja’s eyes widen in shock. She’s considering if I’m serious or not. She must decide I am because words start flowing out of her mouth. “Princess, there were thousands of them. They had the village surrounded. When they left, the left in all directions. I can tell you which direction the Prince was taken from the village, but I cannot be certain they did not double back to throw us off the trail.” She pauses for a second then pushes forward. “I am afraid that Kegan was foolish in his attempt to follow them. He was most likely caught and either dragged to the sea or left for dead.”

  Where is the sugar coating when I really need it? Left for dead? Yeah, it does make sense. I still need to look for him. Alita needs to know one way or the other. “I appreciate your honesty. Now, which direction did Kegan go?”

  “North,” Naja says softly. There is pity in her eyes and I don’t like it.

  “Want me to gnaw on her shin until she stops looking at you like that?” Taz offers.

  I’m tempted. “Thank you, Naja. Go back to what you were doing.” I spin on my heels and start heading north.

  After a few moments of walking in silence, Felix says quietly, “She is correct. You should prepare yourself for the worst.”

  “I know.”

  “Saying you know and actually believing it are not the same thing in your head,” Taz claims. “You like to ignore reality a good deal of the time.”

  I glare down at him. “With all your confidence building words how could I ever fail?”

  A rustling in the trees just ahead and to the right has us all stopping. I pull magic and my Familiars move into attack positions. Slowly, we move toward the spot. At this point, I hope it’s a Siren. I have a lot of pent up aggression I would love to release. My hopes are dashed when we are a few feet away from whoever is hiding there. The childish whimpering can’t be coming from a Siren or one of their warriors. “Come out of there,” I order. My voice is stern but not mean.

  The bushes part and a boy around the age of eleven shows himself. He is a Fairy boy, not the enemy. “Princess,” he says shyly and does an awkward bow.

  “What are you doing out here?” I ask, glancing around looking for any trace of warriors.

  “I wanted to help. I followed them for a while, and then I got scared.” The boy hangs his head in defeat.

  He is breaking my already broken heart. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “You tried. That is more than anyone else did.” Except Kegan. Why did he pick now to be brave? “Do you know which way they brought the Prince?”

  The boy lifts an arm and points east. “They went that way.”

  Frowning, I ask, “Are you sure?” The quickest way to the ocean is north or west. Headed east, it would take at least an hour of walking. It seems like the Sirens would want the quickest escape route.

  He thinks for a moment. “Maybe it was that way.” This time, he points west.

  While the boy and I have been talking, my Familiars have inched closer to him. The young Fairy backs away from them until his back hits the bushes where he was hiding. “Um, guys…”

  I don’t have time to finish my statement. Felix lunges for the boy, knocking him into the bushes. Two other well hidden children scramble out. “They are scouts,” Felix informs me.

  Children? The Sirens use children as scouts? The other two kids turn to run but Taz can move pretty fast when he wants to. He cuts them off. The two consider splitting up, but I don’t let them. I cocoon them in magic. I take a minute to remind myself these are kids, not seasoned warriors. Torturing them for information is out of the question. Which is probably why the Sirens use kids as scouts.

  “You were waiting for me,” I say to the one still lying in the bushes with an extremely irate Tasmanian devil on his chest. I’m not certain Felix shares the ‘we do not torture children’ sentiment. His face is mere inches from the boy’s. “Why? Were you supposed to get word back to the Sirens if you found me?”

  “N-no,” bush boy stammers.

  “Then what?” I mean, it was a given I would try to find my husband. There must be more to this little game.

  “We’re supposed to lead you astray. Make you search in different directions.”

  Sirens are so damn annoying. Before this is through, I really may kill one of them. “Okay, that plan failed. Now, tell me which way they really went and I’ll let you go.”

  All three kids remain tightlipped now. I try to wait patiently, give them time to come to their senses. I expect the boy with Felix’s foaming saliva running down his neck to be the first to crack. What I don’t expect is Taz to start doing a happy dance.

  “HA!” my Familiar shouts. He is hopping up and down and moving this way and that. I’m starting to get worried. Is he having a nervous breakdown?

  “Taz, are you okay?”

  “Okay? Nah, I’m great. I know which way the numnuts went. Let these runts go, they aren’t any use to us.”

  I consider Taz for a moment before deciding to trust him. Dropping my magic, I tell the kids, “Go back to your parents.” They don’t move. “Go on, we don’t need you.”

  One of the boys I trapped in my magic shakes his head. “We failed. We cannot go back now.”

  What is that feeling crawling up my spine? Oh, it’s just my complete and utter hatred of Sirens. “What will happen to you if you go back?” Please tell me you’ll get grounded.

  “We will be ostracized.”

  I have to know. “Meaning?”

  Bush boy responds. “Meaning we will be turned away if we are able to find our way back to our clan. The clan,” he corrects. Because it’s no longer their clan.

  “If you were successful in deceiving me, how would you have found your clan?” I ask.

  “If the war was successful, they would have found us,” the third boy says. My head is going to explode. These kids will soon be covered in my brain goo. I hope they have strong stomachs. How does a Queen of any race get so twisted she is willing to sacrifice children for her own safety. I hate Sirens.

  “Xandra!” a voice calls from up ahead.

  I turn and my mouth drops open. Garren is walking toward us. Slung over his shoulder is what I assume is an unconscious Kegan. I can only see his butt and legs, but I’m pretty sure it’s him. I rush forward. I don’t even care that the three kids scramble off into the woods. I’ll worry about them later. Hmm, there’s a lot of stuff I’m putting off worrying about until later. I may want to look into some antianxiety meds between now and then.

  When I reach them, Garren relieves his shoulder of Kegan’s weight. He lays him gently on the ground. “He put up a good fight,” Garren tells me. “If Kallen had not rendered him unconscious with magic, he would have taken out more than the seven warriors he did.”

  All I can do at the moment is repeats parts of what he said. My brain is having trouble processing anything at the moment. “Seven warriors? Kallen rendered him unconscious?”

  Garren studies me for a moment. “I believe you are suffering from shock.”

  Coming to my senses, I snort. “I’ve been suffering from shock since the Sirens showed up.”

  “Nah, it was way before that,” Taz says unhelpfully. “How has that been working out for you?” I ignore him as I so often do.

  “How did you find him?” I ask.

  Anger begins to ooze from Garren’s pores. “Despite the doubts some have about me,” he means Isla, of course, and maybe a few others in our group, “I have yet to be tempted by the Sirens. I have been searching for them. I caught the end of this fight.” He cocks his head in Kegan’s direction. “Kallen was being wrapped in the Sirens’ magic so he could be transported to wherever they are hiding. I do not believe he saw me fight my way to Kegan.”

  My heart skips several beats. Then several more. Kallen was wrapped in the Sirens’ magic. Did Urim give me false hope? To be fair, he only told me to believe in what I already know. I took that to mean Kallen’s love is too strong for the Sirens to turn his heart against me. He could have just as easil
y meant I need to accept the fact that every male is susceptible to Siren magic. After all, he wasn’t smiling when he told me this. Whatever I thought I saw in his eyes could all have been in my imagination.

  “Xandra?” Garren reaches a tentative hand toward me. He rests it awkwardly on my shoulder. “I am sorry. For what it is worth, I thought he would be the last to go.”

  I try to smile at is kind words. My lips refuse to cooperate. They tell my brain to stop sending them such stupid commands. “He surrendered to them. He gave himself up to save everyone else.” The words come from my mouth but they sound so far away and hollow.

  Garren swears under his breath as he witnesses my struggle with sanity. “That foolish, idiotic, self-sacrificing moron.”

  Taz growls a him. “Only I get to insult the wanker.” Huh, I didn’t know he really likes Kallen.

  Garren takes a step back and holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, now can you call him off?”

  “He called the wanker a moron. Let me bite his lips off,” Taz pleads, completely missing the irony in his words.

  Too tempted to say yes to Taz’s kind offer, I ignore it. None of this is Garren’s fault. “You saw the Sirens and their warriors leave?”

  Garren nods but his eyes do not leave Taz’s growling form. “From the look of things, they were using some sort of spell to allow Kallen to breathe underwater. The warriors, too. They all disappeared into the ocean.”

  Great. Just great. At least I accomplished one goal I set out to accomplish. I found Kegan. Well, Garren found Kegan. “We need to get him back to the palace.”

  I reach out to grab Garren’s arm but he steps out of my reach. “No, I still have work to do. Tabitha and I have been taking shifts patrolling the shores with Adriel and Raziel. I need to get back to it.”

  He and Tabitha are working together? And so much for Isla’s belief that Tabitha was at home out of harm’s way. “Okay.” I suspect he doesn’t want to see Isla. I can’t blame him. Here he is unfazed by the Sirens despite her lack of faith in his love. I kneel next to Kegan and lay my hand on his chest. His heart is beating strong underneath the magic Kallen wrapped him in. With an appreciative glance in Garren’s direction, I teleport Kegan and my Familiars back to the palace.

  Chapter 21

  Alita’s surprised scream is deafening. She had her nose in a book and our sudden appearance obviously scared her. As soon as she sees Kegan, though, her fear morphs into something else. “Is he dead?” she asks in a voice so quiet, I can’t be certain she actually said something.

  I shake my head. “No, he’s just under Kallen’s magic.” I reach out with my own magic and sweep Kallen’s away. It doesn’t give any resistance making me suspect Kallen didn’t want Kegan to be disabled for long. I heal the cuts and bruises he received during his fight with the Siren warriors.

  Kegan takes in a deep breath and then starts coughing. It takes him a minute to orient himself. “How did I get here?” he rasps. He could use some water but I don’t have any handy. His cotton mouth will need to wait.

  “Garren was bringing you to the palace.” At least, I assume Garren was bringing him to the palace. I wonder if he would have just rung the bell and left him on the doorstep to avoid running into Isla. “I ran into him on the road and I teleported you here.”

  “Kallen?” he asks hopefully but he already knows the answer.

  “Gone.”

  Alita and I help him to his feet. “How are you?” Alita asks, inspecting him for any damage I may have missed in my assessment of his wounds.

  Kegan pulls her close and wraps his arms around her. “I am fine.” Over her head, he says to me, “I tried to stop him.”

  “I know you did. Thanks for that.”

  The door to the conference room bangs open and Dagda comes flying into the room with magic drawn. “I heard you scream, what happened…” His words trail off when he sees Kegan and me. Letting his magic go, he asks, “Do you know where they have taken him?”

  Tana was hot on Dagda’s tail. She barrels into the room and runs into her husband with an ‘oomph.’ Dagda reaches an arm behind him to steady her. Her eyes scan the room looking for the danger just as Dagda’s had. “Are you alright?” she asks no one in particular.

  “We are fine,” I assure her. “Kegan and I startled Alita with our sudden appearance is all.”

  Dagda skips over any niceties. “I want to know everything you know right now,” he orders.

  Kegan runs his hand through his hair like Kallen often does. The cracks in my heart deepen as I watch the familiar gesture. He takes a deep breath and breaks the bad news. “I do not know much. Kallen knocked me out with magic before I could learn anything.”

  “That may be what saved your life,” I blurt out, refusing to believe anything but the best of Kallen. All eyes turn to me and I explain. “If Kegan knew where they were going, they wouldn’t want him coming back here to tell us. By keeping him ignorant, Kallen made sure he wasn’t a threat to the Sirens.”

  “Was Kallen under the Sirens’ spell?” Alita asks Kegan.

  After a quick glance in my direction, he shrugs helplessly. “Honestly, I do not know. He was agreeing to everything they wanted. Whether it was because of magic or not, I cannot be certain.” I need to rescue my husband. So I can kill him.

  “Kegan, thank goodness,” Isla says from the doorway. She walks to her grandson and embraces him. It’s kind of awkward. Isla’s not usually a hugger. Stepping back, she does her own assessment of his wellbeing. “How did you get away?”

  Guess she didn’t catch the story the first time around. I give her a brief recap. “Kallen knocked him out, Garren found him and I brought him here.”

  Isla’s brow crinkles. “Garren found him. He was not asleep?”

  I shake my head. “No. He wasn’t even near the palace when I did the spell. He and Tabitha have been taking shifts with Adriel and Raziel patrolling the shoreline.” I pause briefly before adding, “He said he hasn’t even been tempted by the Siren song.”

  Isla’s face turns an interesting, iridescent shade of greenish red. I can’t tell if it’s from embarrassment, shame or anger. Maybe all of the above? “Where is he now?” she asks.

  “Um, he went back to patrolling.” I do not divulge my suspicion that she is the last Fairy in the universe he wants to see right now. She already knows this. Instead, I urge the conversation forward. “Can we talk about how we are going to rescue Kallen now?” I ask.

  “We still have the problem of uninvited guests,” Tana reminds me.

  “Kegan, Xandra, come with me. We will round the intruders up and dump them into holding cells.”

  It would take way too much time to do it his way. “It’ll be faster if I teleport them. I already know where they are. You guys get the cells ready and let me know which ones you want to use.”

  “Are you really volunteering us to walk all over the palace again? I’ve already walked off the pads on my feet. Pretty soon I’ll have nothing to walk on except nubs,” Taz whines. Now that there is no immediate danger, he’s back to himself again.

  “Suck it up, tubby,” Felix advises.

  “Each cell can hold approximately ten,” Dagda informs me. “There are only three cells. I am not concerned about overcrowding. We will pack them in as tight as we must.”

  There’s an evil glint in his eyes. He wants them to be uncomfortable. No, that’s not strong enough. He wants them to be absolutely miserable. “Okay. You and Kegan head down there and I’ll start bringing them to you.” I teleport to the first place I found intruders, the Great Hall.

  Dagda is surprised to see them dressed as guards when I begin teleporting them to the cell area. “How could Cowans get their hands on guard uniforms?” he wonders. Good point. It’s not like they could use magic to create them.

  “My guess is there are several naked guards under their blankets in the Great Hall,” I offer. He grimaces while not so gently lifting the latest warrior and literally throwing him into
the cell. There is a growing heap of warriors covering every available space.

  I go back to locating the warriors I disarmed earlier. I leave them on the floor of the hallway and Kegan and Dagda take it from there. Most can be lifted by either one of them without help. A couple of the Warriors are big enough Dagda and Kegan need to work together to shove their unconscious bodies into cells. There are about fifty total. No wonder my bag of swords was so heavy. After the last warrior is in a cell, I bring the bag of weapons to Dagda. Kegan’s eyes light up when he looks inside. He is seriously coveting a few of them. I doubt Dagda intends to give them back, so Kegan will most likely be able to choose a couple to keep. There is a really pretty, ruby encrusted dagger I have my eye on. I don’t know what I’d use it for. Maybe to cut cheese.

  I am exhausted by the time I’m done. I’ve never teleported so much in a short period of time. I didn’t realize what a toll it would take on me. I do not dare to rest, though. Giving myself over to sleep would bring on nightmares I’m not willing or able to face yet. “Now can we talk about how to rescue Kallen?” I ask my biological father who is busy inspecting one of the larger swords.

  He tears his eyes from the steel. “Of course,” he says.

  His face and his mouth are saying two different things. His face is saying ‘I don’t have a freakin’ clue how to get Kallen back.’ We need to try something. “I’ve done breathing underwater spells. I can start where the Sirens and their army went into the ocean and start searching.”

  Shaking his head, Dagda replies, “That would be a waste of valuable resources.” I’m a resource now? I’m insulted regardless of the valuable part. Placing the sword back in the bag, Dagda continues, “I do not believe the Sirens are done with us quite yet. I believe you will have the opportunity to face Irena on land.”

  Where she wants and when she wants. All of the advantages are hers. “That gives her too much power,” I disagree.