Page 107 of Bind Me

“Lilia, we were never an item. You know this. I told you this in the past. We’ve always been close business partners, good friends. Why are you making a bigger deal of this than it is? I never led you on.”

The hurt in her eyes is raw. Her jaw clenches, and I see her struggling to contain the tears that threaten to spill over.

“You’re a fucking liar, or you’re simply too stupid to notice how I felt about you all these years.”

Oh, fuck!

“Lilia, I’m sorry things turned out like this.” My grandfather sighs, a heavy, weary sound that seems to carry the weight of the world. “I never intended?—”

“I don’t care,” she snaps, pulling away from him with a jerk of her shoulders. She turns on her heel, her steps hard and deliberate as she walks away, leaving him standing alone on the shore, the waves crashing quietly at his feet.

The scene shifts again, a dizzying whirl of confusion that leaves me breathless, and I find myself on the deck of a boat.

Nixi’s there, too, groaning in pain, clawed hands cradling her belly, her skin a patchwork of scales and flesh. Blood pools at her feet, and more runs down the middle of her legs, staining the deck.

I turn cold at the sight, at the implication that she lost her child.

My grandfather is a storm of fury, his face flushed with anger as he turns on Lilia, who stands nearby with a smirk on her lips.

“What the fuck have you done, Lilia?” he bellows, rushing to Nixi’s side as she collapses into his arms, her cries a piercing wail of despair.

“The baby,” she sobs, her voice a broken whisper. “It’s gone… I can feel that I lost my child.” Her body convulses once more, and her face is changing slightly, too—elongated features, thinner cheeks, sharper cheekbones, darker eyes… and pointed teeth.

A siren. For fuck’s sake, she’s changing into a siren.

Nixi cries frantically, and my grandfather cradles her, terror blanching his face, but fire burns behind those eyes as he glares over at Lilia.

I want to reach into the vision, to rip her apart for what she’s done, to make her pay for the devastation she’s wrought. But all I can do is watch, helpless, as my grandfather endures his own nightmare.

He sets Nixi down and lunges for Lilia, his hand closing around her throat in a grip that promises death, but she remains calm, her lips curled in a cruel smile.

“You fucking bitch,” he thunders so loud that the air around seems to shake. “Undo what you did to Nixi! Now! Change her back to a mermaid, or I’ll destroy you!”

“What are you going to do?” she gurgles. Her laughter is a chilling sound. She shoves against his grasp, loosening the chokehold. “Destroy me more than you already have? You know as well as I do, once a mermaid turns into a siren, she can’t go back. And, well, a small side effect is that she lost your baby. What a damn shame. Every decision has a consequence!”

The callousness in her words is like a dagger to my heart. My grandfather throws her against the wall of the boat with savagery, his anger a living thing.

Nixi cries out, and my grandfather rushes frantically to her side, taking her into his arms just as her expression shifts from one of pain to something more sinister, more terrifying. Her eyes glint with an unnatural light, a twisted grin spreading across her face as she reaches for my grandfather.

“Kiss me,” she whispers, her voice laced with the siren’s call, seductive and deadly. “Take me into the water with you. Please, I need this…”

“No!” I scream, though I know he can’t hear me. My grandfather’s hands tremble, tears streaming down his face as he turns back to Lilia, but she’s gone. And he’s left with the woman he loves, now lost to him forever. A tragedy is unfolding before my eyes, and I’m powerless to stop it.

The vision shatters, the world around me dissolving into a haze of light and sound. I’m thrown back into the present, the real world crashing down around me with a force that leaves me breathless.

I’m kneeling on the pavement beside Sasha’s car, the cold, hard reality of the world pressing down on me like a suffocating weight. Chowder’s frantic cries pierce the air, a desperate plea that slices through the fog of my mind, bringing me back to the here and now.

“Kaden!” His voice is a lifeline.

I blink, my gaze focusing on the small otter staring at me from inside the car, his paws pressed against the window, his eyes wide with fear and worry.

My mind is a whirl of emotions, a maelstrom of rage as I process the horror of what I’ve just seen. Lilia’s betrayal, the cruelty of her actions, the way she stole everything from my grandfather, just as she’s trying to do with Sasha.

I replay so many visions in my mind, trying to piece together the puzzle. Nixi turned into a siren and lost her baby, and now, Sasha’s fate is intertwined with the same evil. Is it because of me? Is that why Lilia has turned her attention to Sasha?

The realization hits me like a punch to the gut, the cold, hard truth sinking in with a finality that leaves me reeling.

Then I recall the one vision where my grandfather was searching through a secret room, sifting through papers, looking for something. A pendant, he called it. Was it the key to reversing the curse? Could it be the answer I need?

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