One Step Closer
Celeste must have been mad. She should let it go, find some way to clear the hatred from her heart, focus on Kimber’s care ... but two weeks later found her run-walking to her car from an illegal meeting between herself and a lesser siren. The woman had lost her ability to compel humans, or hadn’t had much power to begin with, but she could pour her lure into objects. And apparently, she could reverse the polarity, making a charm that repelled compulsion rather than causing it.
There were other, more illegal charms that made a human—or lesser siren—more susceptible to compulsion, used in human trafficking if her brother was to be believed. Not that she believed everything Benji told her. But he was probably right about this one. If there was money to be made, there’d always be someone depraved and soulless enough to take advantage of it.
Celeste slammed her car door shut and jammed the locks down, breathing easier now she was safely inside her Toyota. Benji had warned her the meeting could go wrong, that the siren could try to compel her or sell her out to the traffickers, but Celeste had ended the call the second he told her where to get a resistance charm. He could try to talk her out of it all he wanted. Celeste had been visiting Kimber every day, and every day her heart iced over more, her will like barbed iron.
The siren royals would regret fucking with Kimber. And Celeste she had all the pieces to make the revenge happen: the fake identity of a dead siren princess she knew for a fact had never visited the palace (through one of Benji’s inner circle); a charm to help her fight the compulsion; and a map of Sirendale and plans of the castle that she’d already memorised (also from one of Benji’s inner circle, a dodgy man whose breath smelled like armpits but who could procure anything.)
All she needed was to go home, prep and preen herself until she looked like a perfect siren princess, put on the flouncy gown she’d bought, and walk into a den of vicious, ruthless, morally corrupt sirens.
Easy.
But first, she wanted to see Kimber one final time.
Shock To Fury
“Hey, Kim,” Celeste said, using the soft voice that didn’t freak her best friend out as she sank into the padded chair opposite her. Kimber looked completely ordinary, her pale hair glossy and her clothes familiar, but her eyes were glassy and she was mumbling. It was too quiet for Celeste to hear, but she knew Kimber was still pleading to return to the palace.
Celeste didn’t dare mention her own plans to visit the palace, even if she desperately wanted Kimber’s advice, her old friend the best agony aunt she’d ever known—and sharp enough to come up with a solution to the most complex problems. But this Kimber couldn’t help Celeste. More doubts crept in, her arrival at the palace looming closer and closer. Benji thought she could do this—he wouldn’t have helped her set it up if he didn’t, and he’d only agreed to help with what he called ‘the insane plan’ because she was ‘the best liar I’ve ever known.’
And coming from a conman, that was pretty high praise.
She could do this. She just had to stay strong—for Kimber. For justice for every other human suffering and vacant-eyed in Brighter Days.
This was the final thing Celeste had to do, and then she would stuff herself into the dress she’d bought and make herself into a completely different person. She’d become Aloisia White, siren princess of the distant Blach River, who went missing ten years ago. Benji had neatly doctored Aloisia’s records, removing her post mortem and death certificate so it looked like she’d simply vanished off the map for a decade, giving Celeste an opening to use her identity. In reality, Aloisia had washed up near a loch in Scotland, bloated and brutalised, and while it made Celeste feel queasy to steal the identity of a dead woman, it was for a good cause.
A necessary evil.
“I need to go back,” Kimber uttered, staring unseeingly at Celeste and picking at a scab on the back of her hand.
Celeste’s smile wavered, but she kept it on her face for her best friend, reaching across the space between their chairs to squeeze Kimber’s hand. “It’s okay here, though,” she said soothingly, careful to not mention Kim getting the help she needed. She’d said that yesterday and triggered a wild, desperate frenzy that had taken an hour to calm her from. Help for Kimber equalled transport to the palace, and when she didn’t get it ... she’d thrown herself at the windows in the hope of breaking them and fleeing to the sirens, not caring when she bruised herself, when she drew blood. “The people are nice, aren’t they?”
It felt wrong to talk to Kimber like this, like she was a wild animal who could easily spook, like she was a child in need of careful handling and easy words. Kim was one of the most intelligent people Celeste knew.
Kimber mumbled something, but Celeste doubted it was in response; she didn’t reply to people anymore, didn’t hold conversations, just begged and pleaded to be taken back to the palace. But her memory of it had already begun to fade, and the nurses had warned her that the rest of Kimber’s memories would fade too, leaving her with a constant, desperate need to go somewhere but unable to figure out where.
Celeste stayed longer than she should have, sitting with Kimber, making idle talk that her best friend barely responded to, and only in quiet whispers about the sirens and the palace. Celeste sighed as the sun began to sink, pushing out of the chair with a smile for Kimber. “I should be going, Kim. I’ll be gone for a while, but I’ll come back, okay? I’ll fix all this, I promise.”
Kim’s eyes dragged up and locked on Celeste’s. “I need to go,” she whispered fiercely, and Celeste’s stomach sank. She hadn’t expected to have her quick witted friend back, but ... she’d hoped Kimber would say bye at least. “I need to go back,” Kim hissed, and lurched out of the chair.
Celeste braced, thinking Kimber was aiming for her, but instead her friend went straight for the doorway, her voice getting louder and louder until she was shouting, and nurses and medical staff came rushing towards her from down the hallway.
Celeste froze in the middle of the room, her shoulders hunched and arms wrapped around herself. Her stomach became an empty hollow as she watched a needle prick Kimber’s arm and her go limp in the arms of worried nurses. Grief, she realised—it was grief curling like poison through her body, sapping her strength.
“Can you tell me what triggered her reaction?” a male nurse asked, pulling Celeste aside and giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze.
“I just ... said I had to go because it was late,” Celeste breathed, her throat clogged with emotion as Kimber’s body went limp and unconscious. She looked calm, her eyelids closed and her face slack, but the second she woke up, she’d be frantic and pleading again. Would she ever know peace? Would she ever stop wanting to return to those bastards at the palace?
Shock gave way to fury quickly.
“Are you alright?” the nurse asked, and Celeste nodded, sucking in a long breath, her nostrils flaring.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied evenly, not showing an ounce of the feeling gathering inside her, big enough to form an explosion. Benji had said she was a good liar, and he was right. The nurse looked relieved, squeezed her shoulder, and stepped back, believing the calm facade she pulled on over her seething rage. “I just need to go home.”
And become a different person, so she could lay a trap that would destroy every siren monster in that palace.
Now Or Never
Two hours ago, ‘Aloisia White’ had sent a message to Windermere Palace telling them she was in the area, needed somewhere to stay, and to expect her soon. Celeste had used the time since to shave and exfoliate every area of her body until she shone like a newborn, dye her hair a golden red colour to match Aloisia’s description, and paint her face with makeup, following a series of youtube tutorials until she looked like a stranger. The dress was low-cut and made of a shimmering, see-through blush pink material, with flowers artistically placed to protect her modesty. And with her hair a different colour, her face made up and contacts replacing the glasses she’d worn si
nce she was fourteen ... Celeste looked like a stranger.
Perfect.
She hated it, could see nothing of herself in her own reflection, but it was perfect.
She could have used her car to reach Sirendale, but she didn’t want anything connected to her identity as Celeste Hahn. So she walked to the outer edge of the town and called a taxi from a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile she’d picked up a few days ago. Along with the phone, she’d collected a thick padded envelope from a guy she’d called uncle for years but who wasn’t actually family, just some guy her mum had done a few jobs with. It contained her Aloisia White starter kit: fake passport and birth certificate, polaroid photos of Celeste with strangers, her hair toned a watery red colour like Aloisia’s, and letters from supposed friends she’d left behind containing hints to her whereabouts these past ten years, all to back up her story.
It was useful, having a criminal mastermind of a brother. It was even more useful being part of a prolific family herself, and being raised to bend the law to see what she could get away with. It had taught her to lie and cheat and be clever—the most important tool in Celeste’s arsenal.
As she stood there waiting for the taxi to show up, a million doubts rushed through her head. If the sirens didn’t believe her story, if they realised she was human ... she’d end up in a bedroom at Brighter Days right beside Kimber’s. And she’d care about nothing except returning to the palace, to the bastards who’d broken her mind and compelled her to worship them.
It was bad enough entering that den of horrors as a lesser siren, one they’d no doubt want to compel and play games with—if the stories about sirens were true, at least—but she had the resistance charm. Celeste wouldn’t lose her mind to them. She just had to make them think she was a lesser siren under their sway.
If the palace was full of humans, she could scheme her way into and out of anything. She’d been born knowing how to get out of sticky situations, and had a whole wealth of experience doing just that. But sirens ... it changed things. Her heart raced and she turned, a step away from calling the whole thing off, but then headlights swung over her hunched form and the taxi rolled up to the curb in front of her.
She could run. She could change her mind. Nobody would ever know.
But how many more humans would the sirens break? How many more residents would move into Brighter Days? How many more victims would the royals create, while going unpunished for their crimes? Celeste wasn’t a stranger to crime, and normally she’d let law breaking slide—even encourage it—but this ... this wasn’t theft or running cons. This wasn’t even breaking someone’s kneecaps when they let slip a few details to the police.
It was ... horrific. To strip someone’s will from them and then leave them a broken, babbling mess of a person ... Celeste couldn’t allow it. And she had enough hatred and fury in her right now, mere hours after seeing Kimber hanging, sedated, from the hands of the nurses, to propel her into the back of the taxi. She threw her bag onto the seat beside her and slammed the door shut, breathing hard and fast.
“Sirendale,” she told the driver, ignoring the flash of a look he gave her. “As close as you can get me.”
Into The Palace
Celeste assumed when she arrived at the palace, she’d be whisked away to a room for the night and introduced to the sirens of Windermere Palace in the morning. But after a ten-minute walk up the winding lakeside road to the white fairytale palace—holding her dress up so the hem wouldn’t get caked in mud—a footman in gold and seafoam-green livery who’d clearly been expecting her took her bag, guiding her through a vast, dazzling foyer of marble and gold and luxurious, heavy fabrics. With a quick “This way, Princess,” he led her past sweeping double staircases with carpets of vivid teal, and down a short hallway to a powder room so she could freshen up before her announcement to court.
The entire siren court. Who’d been gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the town’s gruesome founding, which just happened to fall on Valentine’s Day. And who now eagerly awaited her appearance. To them, Aloisia White was a decade-long mystery that was about to be solved. To Celeste, Aloisia White was a very sudden death sentence. The whole court...
If she’d been able to pull it off, Celeste would have bolted out the ornate front doors and ran until her legs gave out. But the footman waited outside the bathroom door, and even though he was a lesser siren, he was still more powerful than a human. Than her. And the window in the powder room was too high up and too small for her to fit through.
But a whole court full of sirens scrutinising her... Celeste had planned to be introduced to a few at a time, not thrown into the viper’s den. What if someone accused her of being a fake already? What if they knew instantly that she was human?
Staring at her reflection, pretty and polished if a bit stressed around the eyes, Celeste gulped. She looked like a stranger, her glasses exchanged for contacts, her hair a glossy red-gold, and the features of her face accentuated with contour and highlighter. But she didn’t look terrified, and that was the main thing. As long as they couldn’t see her fright, she could bluff her way through this. She was a talented liar and fake; she held tight to that fact as she assessed her options.
If she ran now, the footman would know something wasn’t right. He’d give chase, even if only to make sure she was okay. And if he found out her secret, he’d take her to the high sirens—the royals—whose compulsion could ruin her if they discovered the resistance charm beneath her bodice and ripped it from her. Whose status and power could probably ruin her even with the charm still safely around her throat.
No. She had to stick it out. Play the game as she’d planned. Even if facing a whole court ... her hands shook at the thought. She took control of the movement, stilling them. One breath through her nose, held for the count of four, and let out through her mouth. She was a siren. She was a princess. She was as much a predator as the court full of monsters.
She could do this. She didn’t have much of a choice.
Celeste flattened flyaway strands of her red hair, pasted on a polite smile that looked genuine even to her, and stepped out of the relative security of the powder room. She kept her shoulders squared and chin up, her thoughts fixed on Kimber, limp in the nurses’ hands.
Remember why you’re here.
Justice.
Revenge.
She’d done as much research as possible about the key players of this palace, using the few pieces of information Benji could buy or blackmail for her. She might have felt bad about using blackmail for her plan, but it wasn’t as if her brother got his information from reputable sources. She didn’t feel sympathy for them, especially not as she ran over that info when the footman led her down a glamorous warren of hallways, each more beautiful and glittering than the last, diamonds and velvet and luxurious silk, crystal and marble and stone so luminous it was like opals and moonstone.
She marked several familiar faces as the footman, who’d somehow disposed of her bag while she’d touched up her appearance, led her over to an archway mostly hidden by the swag of a thick teal curtain. Through the slight gap, she could spy the ballroom beyond, elegant figures waltzing as a quartet played in the corner, full skirts swirling like explosions of colour across the polished floor and the men impeccably dressed in pastel colours and tailcoats.
She recognised a few faces, mentally running over what she knew of those people, but she froze as she glimpsed Konstantin Morozov, first in line for the Sirendale throne, moving throughout the clusters of people at the edge of the ballroom. He was taller than she’d anticipated, not physically powerful but ... there was an intensity to him, a wound-tight energy that made her want to flee. Predator, her hindbrain screamed. This man, with his sharp eagle face, short dark hair, and beady eyes was unfathomably dangerous, the second most powerful siren in the room. Second only to the king, who Celeste was relieved to see didn’t sit on the throne on the dais at the far end of the ballroom.
“Ready?” the footman asked,
eyeing Celeste at her sharp intake of breath.
What would a siren princess do?
Celeste—no, Aloisia—gave him a dignified nod, keeping her back straight, her head high. She gave herself entirely to the role, but kept her wits about her, marking everyone around her, noting all the exits.
He gave a signal to an announcer, and suddenly the curtain was rolled back, putting her on full excruciating display as his strident voice declared, “Aloisia White, Seventh Princess of Blach River.”
Excited muttering broke out in the ballroom beyond the archway, the sound like a swarm of wasps, and the hundred eyes on Celeste were suddenly excruciating. But she mentally retreated, letting her Aloisia persona guide her as she slowly descended the three steps to the ballroom floor, all the while her heart raced like an antelope trying to escape a lion. She kept her breathing even by sheer will, but it was slippery, almost darting free a few times.
Twelve doors, at least two dozen windows. No weapons in sight, but why would sirens need them? They were weapons.
“Aloisia White, is that you?” a thready female voice asked as Celeste reached the ballroom floor, and Celeste’s eyes locked on the narrow, white-haired woman approaching, everything about her posture and speech screaming I’m a dignified noble. “Merin Harte; we met once when you were four.”
Celeste widened her eyes, even as she watched people edge closer from the corner of her sight, ready to defend herself if necessary. “Really? I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t remember much from my early childhood.” Ma’am and sir, Celeste had learned from her brother’s source, were non-negotiable ways of addressing strangers. “My memory’s atrocious,” she added with a self-deprecating wince, really getting into the act of Aloisia.
Merin laughed indulgently, even that sounding refined. “Well, I do hope your memory of the last ten years isn’t quite as murky. We’re all on tenterhooks—where have you been Aloisia?”
Celeste faked a violent shudder, thinking about Kimber and great heights and full dark nights broken by thunderstorms so her eyes filled with fear. This was her cover for Aloisia’s absence, and a way to keep her story believable—a fake traumatic experience. That way, she wouldn’t have to lie. She wouldn’t have to come up with a single story to ward off the questions. She’d just look haunted and terrified and watch people become awkward with her strong show of emotion; it usually worked for her, anyway.
Hearts of Darkness: A Valentine's Day Bully Romance Collection Page 45