Page 54 of Cursed By a Siren's Kiss

My jaw dropped and I slammed it shut as I stared at her. The siren queen, the siren queen goddess. It all made sense now. She wasn’t just a demigod. She was a deity in her own right.

“I mean,” she choked out, her voice trembling with the weight of her loss. “She was, but that was a long time ago.”

I smirked, not understanding. “Gods and goddesses do not die,” I stated.

“They can if another god or goddess more powerful than them want them dead.” Talia shrugged. When she glanced at me again, her gaze held unshed tears that damn near broke my heart. She tore her gaze from me, turning toward the edge of the beach to where a fallen log lay. She took a seat, her shoulders rounding in on themselves as she rested her elbows on her knees. “I was supposed to take her throne, it’s mine by right of birth, but it seems my father has other plans.”

“What plans?” I asked, trying to digest everything she’d shared as I took a seat next to her.

I’d thought I’d chosen the perfect siren to help me break the curse of the sea witch, but now I realized how incredibly poor that choice had been. I couldn’t explain what had pulled me toward her in the first place, but I knew I would never be able to control her. Yet, even now, the thought of letting her go struck terror within me, and that bit of darkness fighting to take control of me expanded within me, telling me that we would never let her go. That she was ours to keep.

Goddesses couldn’t be kept by anyone though. They were meant for Olympus. My heart stilled at the realization. She could never truly be mine. It was a fact that I had always known at the back of my mind, but until now…

I’d refused to accept it.

Chapter 32

The Emotion Building

The Siren

The realization dawned across his face like a dagger to my heart, and I didn’t know if I could bear it. The way his body had tensed at my words, how he now understood just how dangerous I truly was, and how he now knew I’d been more than capable of murdering him and his entire crew on multiple occasions. His handsome face hardened as he sat next to me, even though he couldn’t know that my powers were still developing.

As soon as his crew had joked about the gods fighting, I’d known it to be true. I could see it in the set of the storm that Poseidon had found me. Everything I had done to keep that ship safe and out of the reach of Poseidon had drained me, and I knew I didn’t yet have the power to fully take him on. I wasn’t sure if I ever would be strong enough.

I couldn’t bare to look at Kipp now that he knew. He knew I was the worst kind of monster imaginable, a goddess of the sea. Poseidon’s daughter. He would never look at me the same again. I didn’t know why that troubled me so much, but as I brushedmy fingertips across the sensitive skin of my neck, where he’d claimed me with a bite, I couldn’t deny that it didn’t bother me.

“I think it’s best if we split up. You and I can travel the rest of the distance to Scylla while they repair the ship. They will meet us somewhere safe afterward,” he announced as if the revelation about who I truly was meant nothing, but I knew different. I’d already seen the shock cross his face, the way his jaw had hung with my confession.

Emotions plagued me that I’d never worried about before, doubt, shattered hope, disappointment. When I’d been in Atlantis, none of these emotions crossed my mind. I had a duty, and that was all I’d thought of when I’d been deep below the sea. Now, though, every time I looked at Kipp, my heart raced. I should have been clawing his heart out, not thinking about how his hands had felt when they’d roamed my body.

Kipp didn’t wait for me to respond, and I watched in silence as he walked away to inform his crew of what he’d decided. Patton glanced my way as Kipp spoke to him, and I watched Camilla wander off to search in one of the crates they’d pulled ashore. She walked back toward her captain with a bundle of fabric in her hands.

I felt my lips twitch as he returned, presenting me with new clothes. The ones I wore now had been torn as I’d shifted forms when Kipp’s ship hit the reef and tipped.

“Put these on,” he said gruffly as his gaze scanned over my body, his fingers gripping the strap of the pack Patton had given him onto his shoulder.

I fought the urge to turn from him as I pulled off my damp, torn clothing to step into the damp clothing still in one piece. Even though I knew everything had changed between us, I relished beneath his gaze as it traveled up and down my body as I obediently followed his orders. I tied the shirt at my hip so that it didn’t hang down my hips, and I pulled my hair out frombeneath the collar, layering the still wet locks over my shoulder as he watched every movement I made. Did he watch me with lust still? Or fear? Perhaps a mixture of both…

Kipp shook his head, his untied hair swinging around his jaw as he said, “You are going to be the death of me long before this darkness takes me.”

A smirk lifted across my face as I swayed my hips seductively, letting the tips of my fingers brush along the sliver of skin left showing of my waist.

“I can see it now,” he said, tilting his head toward the heavens above. “You’re a damn temptress goddess. Are you sure you’re not also related to Aphrodite somehow?”

I shook my head, pressing my lips together to hold back a laugh. I was her cousin, much like Dionysus, though we’d never met. He didn’t need to know that though.

We left his crew along the beach to repair the ship and spent the last fading hours of daylight traveling across the island. The journey on land seemed never ending as we walked in tense silence for two days, only occasionally speaking when the need arose. Talking to Kipp now, with everything he’d learned, was difficult. He was like a magnet, and I was constantly pulled into his orbit even as I tried to drift away. It felt like an impossible task, something I needed to protect myself from if I wanted to save my people, and so we walked without breaking the silence forming around us.

Besides, he wanted to break the curse, the darkness that called to me from within him would not be a factor for long. It was that wickedness that had drawn me to him, not the man himself. When our quest completed, would I be left here shattered and broken, or would it make it easier to breathe and deny whatever it was that had grown between us.

As much as the both of us tried to stay away from the other, we failed. Our shoulders would brush while we walked, ourfingers grazing as we stepped carefully through the forest. Even when we’d sleep, with ample room in the bed between us, we’d still wake in the morning with me tucked perfectly in his arms.

Kipp cut through the forest, trampling the overgrowth to create a path for me as I trailed behind him. My gaze watched the sway of his hips and the swing of his arms. It lingered on his wide shoulders and the way his hair clung to the nape of his neck. I’d caught him shooting looks over his shoulder at me too, but only to ensure I hadn’t fallen behind. Still, desire pooled in my core at the wicked thoughts of my lustful siren nature. If he had been thirsty, I would have gladly offered him something to drink.

“Shut up you wanton hussy,” I uttered under my breath as we trudged on through the thick canopy of trees, hoping the other side of the island would soon present itself so we could finish this everlasting walk through the muddied woods.

“I’m sorry?” he said, his deep baritone voice sending shivers up my spine as he shot a glance back at me.

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