Page 22 of Cursed By a Siren's Kiss

With each bite, I felt it. Every swallow, power flowed into me. I grinned, knowing I’d been right to choose him. He had played the role of a good man well, nearly concealing his true nature completely from me. He’d been a powerful enough man not to need to get his own hands dirty, and his heart tasted amazing..

I paused, the last bite clasped between my bloodied fingers. This bite would seal my power forever to me. Was this truly what I wanted? I could claim my power and return to Atlantis, wrestling the throne from my father’s hands, from his unknown son’s claim, but I knew I would constantly have to look over my shoulder.

Or I could claim this power and leave, starting a new life elsewhere. I could see more of the world, adventure some. Everything I’d learned while here had been thrilling and new. The game played fun and exciting. It had been terrifying, but I’d also never felt more alive.

In Atlantis, all I’d known was pain and betrayal and loss. The overwhelming weight of being royal, the burden of always having to put my people before anything I would want. The choices never truly being mine to make.

I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. It didn’t matter. This was the life I was meant to live, my destined path, and I wouldn’t fail. I owed my mother more than these doubts that plagued my mind.

Lifting the last bite to my lips, I tilted my face toward the light of the moon. As it passed my lips, I felt the power hit my veins and something took hold of me. The power spread through me, holding me within its grip as the final moments of the ritual kept me from acting. This moment of the ritual left me at my most vulnerable state as I was bound by the magics as they rooted themselves within me.

My eyes widened as something snapped around my neck. I couldn’t move, under the final throes of the transfer of power, but then a man stepped into view. I instantly recognized him from earlier. His hand held me by the throat as he smirked at me, a glitter in his dark eyes.

“Hello, siren,” he said, his voice deep and rough as he tightened his grip around my throat. “You cannot hurt me, you cannot fight. Your forfeited life is now mine by right. My bidding as your own, my command your only sight. Your life and mine are now bound tight.”

Fear ignited within me as I recognized the words he spoke. Words that ensnared me in their grip. The words of the gods, a spell of binding, one that tied me to this man, and as the final throes of magic from my ill-timed ritual, there was nothing I could do to stop this from happening.

I hissed between my sharpened teeth, trying to swipe my claws at him, but I couldn’t move. He’d found me at the perfect moment, preventing my shift back to my siren form from finishing. Panic consumed me as my fins receded back, my legs returning, my gills disappearing. My powers filled me, I could feel them humming just beneath the surface of my skin, but I couldn’t call them forth to drown this man. His magic over me bound me from harming him.

My eyes turned, and I saw what he held in his other palm. A siren’s kiss. He had used a siren’s kiss to curse me, to bind me to him. Rage hit me with such a force, I thrashed within his arms.I had been so close to achieving what I needed, what my mother would have expected of me. I had been so close to retaining the crown that had once belonged to my mother, to maybe gaining an ounce of respect from my father. This could not be happening. I wanted to scream, to rip this man into shreds.

He released me, his dark eyes claiming mine with a proud twinkle. With a smirk, he said, “You are mine now.”

Then something slammed into the back of my head, and the world went dark.

Chapter 15

The Shimmering Scales

The Siren

With a start, I awakened as I pressed my fingertips to the back of my head, wincing at the bruise that formed as I sucked in deep lungfuls of air between clenched teeth. I should be in the sea by now, but instead, I’m stowed away in a small room. I could feel it swaying in the sea, the water just meters below me, calling to me.

The bed I found myself in was small, the mattress thin and barely large enough for two people. A cluttered desk sat pressed against the far wall with papers and maps littered across the top. The steady swaying meant I had been stowed away on a ship, one currently sailing the open seas.

Dark wood made up the entire room, the smell of the sea overwhelming. Layers of soft blankets and pillows cushioned my body, but I flung them all sideways as I swung my legs over the edge. I glared at my wriggling toes, annoyed that I still held this human form.

“Good. You’re awake,” a familiar deep voice spoke from the doorway. The man leaned against the doorframe, his amused dark gaze dragging across my skin.

I felt his gaze as if I were naked before him, and I glared at him, unwavering beneath his scrutiny. “You’re dead,” I promised him, my words squeezing through my clenched teeth.

He looked different in this space than he seemed on the beach or in the street. A ribbon of red tied back his hair and a large hat sat upon his head, leaving most of his face darkened by shadows. He wore a simple white, billowy shirt, several buttons undone to show a sliver of his tanned chest, a warm shade of olive I knew would protect his skin from the heat of Apollo’s sun. He lifted a brow and quirked his lip in a half-smile, dimpling his cheek as he watched me.

I didn’t care that he found it amusing that I raked my gaze over him just as he’d done to me. I took my time. His dark eyes seemed to peer through me to my very soul as he looked down his long, straight nose at me. A scar sliced his jaw, but even that couldn’t detract from his appeal. In fact, I bet even Adonis himself would find reason enough to be jealous of this man who held a rugged handsomeness. I could almost enjoy looking at him if it weren’t for the fact that this man had declared himself my enemy by binding me to him.

He closed the door behind him and crossed the room, sitting in a thick wooden chair that matched every other surface of this space, and probably the ship beyond this room. He kicked his boots atop the corner of the desk and leaned back in the chair so that only two of the legs remained on the floor. He pinned me with those unnervingly dark eyes, and the fleeting thought that he might be cursed crossed my mind. No one had eyes that dark otherwise. A thrum of power cascaded off him, leaking from him like shadows that stretched.

“I’m not sure you’re in much of a position to do anything…” He let his words trail off as a devious gleam entered his eyes. Again, he let his gaze linger on my body, a hungry look flashing behind his dark gaze. “…too violent. But maybe we could play other, more fun, games.”

I pulled the covers up to hide my body. I wasn’t ashamed of my body. As a siren, I often used it to lure victims into my hold. But beneath his stare, with only the thin, sheer fabric of my chemise for coverage, I felt exposed in a way I didn’t quite enjoy. I was used to choosing when to use my charms.

Both of us were predators, assessing one another with watchful gazes. The creature within me knew he held a danger about him like a second skin. I didn’t understand why or how, but there was a strength my predator could admire.

“There she is,” he purred, his fingers running slowly along the hem of his shirt. I couldn’t turn away from him, my gaze glued to the slow, purposeful movements of his calloused hands. “I heard once that when a siren gains her powers, there is a certain period of…” He didn’t finish, he just smiled as if he knew I followed his line of thought.

“Uncontrollable lust,” I finished for him, a growl rumbling within my throat.

He wasn’t wrong. Once our full power ignited within us, we felt more, craved more, and needed more for a time. We usually spent the first several days island hopping, spending our time satiating our lust and consuming their hearts until we’d had our fill. I glared at him, both rage and want storming within me because he’d stolen this from me, trapping me somewhere I wouldn’t be able to satiate either need.

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