Page 4 of Song of Lorelei

The sirens wore arm and neck pieces fashioned from metal taken from past offerings of canned meat, unaware how ridiculous wearing the canned pork brand appeared to their two-legged prey.If he wasn’t so freaked out about having people-eating sirens crawling around on his boat, he would have laughed.

When they were all safely back on shore, he would have to tell Lorelei, and maybe then he could laugh with his feet planted on solid ground, and the only siren in sight more likely to kiss him than eat him.

The sirens just kept eating and eating, their bellies bulging from their gorging.

What about the rest of the pod? Shouldn’t they be leaving enough for them? And where was Undine? He didn’t think the leader of the sirens would approve of this. As he understood it, their regular potted meat tribute was meant to be shared, and it was supposed to keep the sirens away from his boat, not hosting a family dinner on deck.

Leave. Just take it all and go.

Why draw it out? It didn’t make any sense. Sirens disliked being above water.

Maybe this was a rogue group, or maybe Undine sanctioned this breach of their agreement to demonstrate her power, to show the humans who really held all the cards out in the open ocean.

A dull ache formed behind Killian’s eyes.

He waited until the seven sirens onboard slowed their eating. They sat back, lounging on deck, and patted their rounded bellies, making themselves at home. His temper flared. Switching off his mouthpiece, so he didn’t blow out the eardrums of his crew, he yelled, “All right, you’ve had enough. Get the fuck off my boat!”

They looked up in unison. He made a shooing motion to emphasize his point.

The amber-eyed one cocked her head to the side and smirked.

The nerve…he shot the crate next to the siren, sending splintered wood flying. They all jumped back, covering their ears and snarling.

“GET. OFF. MY. BOAT,” he repeated, pointing out at the water. If this provoked an attack, he had another magazine in his pocket. He didn’t want to have to use it, but he would.

Beneath his boots, the whole boat vibrated, the engines roaring to life. Branson must have found a way to pry the broken key out and used the spare. The sirens shrieked and hurtled themselves over the side. He watched their brightly colored bodies streak away before they dove down into the deep.

Why did the engines send them away and not the gunshots? Was it one loud noise too many? Or was it the continuous drone that bothered them? He sat heavily on the steps, Dawn Chaser chugging along at full speed. He didn’t get it, but whatever it was, he was grateful they were gone.

He switched his mouthpiece back on. “They’re gone. You can come out now.”

One by one his crew filed out onto the deck. He didn’t have to say anything. They just began hurling the remaining crates of canned pork over the side and cleaned up wood shards, empty cans, and splattered meat. In all their years together at sea, Dawn Chaser’s fishing crew had never seen anything that would make any of them even think the word “siren” or “mermaid.” But his dealings with Undine last year opened a door he could not close. And despite his best efforts to keep the siren’s hunger for human flesh in check, it only seemed to embolden them further.

Killian swiped a hand over his face. He failed his crew today and could lose them. Not that he’d blame them. Vicious mermaid attacks weren’t what they signed up for.

The sirens must have planned this. That they happened to be singing while Ian was wearing a faulty headset couldn’t be a coincidence. It made him suspect that they might always sing when his boat entered their waters, lying in wait for the moment he and his crew showed weakness, hoping for exactly what happened here today.

But then why hadn’t he heard their song when his own headset was askew? There was that weird ringing, but it hadn’t felt compulsory. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was attuned to only one siren’s song—the love of his life, his wife-to-be.

Lorelei.

He’d pulled her from these very waters almost a year ago, when the ship she was on sank, its entire crew devoured by her murderous kin. But as a Midwest transplant, who at the time had never been to sea, Lorelei hadn’t known what she was. The maritime tragedy awakened that dormant part of her, and with her transformation, came cravings for human flesh.

If it weren’t for Lila’s help, Lorelei might’ve been lost to him, irrevocably called to the deep, and unable to resist the carnivorous drive that turned loved ones into prey. She could have been one of the sirens scaling the side of his boat today.

Arms draped across his knees, he stared out over the water, wondering if they were still nearby, lurking, following, waiting for another mistake. This wasn’t the first time he’d had an unfriendly siren on his boat, but every day for almost a year, he’d hoped and prayed it would be the last.

A series of events led Killian, Lorelei, and a small knit group of their closest friends and family to live capture a mermaid—Undine—the siren’s leader. And they made a deal. Potted meat in exchange for safe passage. A “cure” in exchange for a siren to study.

Because the siren hunger for human flesh wasn’t innate. It was viral.

Every time, fisherman.

Undine’s last words haunted him. She’d said it with a wink that was a disturbing mix of flirtation and warning. No skipped meals. No tribute could mean retaliation. He’d been diligent, but maybe she was behind this, but whatever the case might be, he would be a fool if he thought this incident was just a fluke, and the last of their troubles with the sirens.

The prey animal that he was felt it down to the marrow with chilling certainty.

Dawn Chaser was marked. And so was he.

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