Page 59 of Cursed By a Siren's Kiss

When she turned toward me, my heart skipped a beat as she worried her lower lip between her teeth. Her beautiful eyes scanned mine in the dimly lit night, and a sadness consumed her features as she stared at me as if I were something she couldn’t have.

“I know exactly how I feel, but it doesn’t change anything, Kipp. We’re only pretending at something that will never last, something neither of us can ever have. Prolonging it will only shatter us both more when we accomplish our goal,” she said, her voice soft.

I’d told her to stop lying to herself, and as she’d told me how she felt, I realized she hadn’t been withholding the truth from herself. Where I’d been consumed with the hunger of this moment, she’d searched ahead to the losses of our future.

“Bullshit,” I said, running my hands through my hair as I walked ahead of her. As I passed her, I added, “Denying this moment right now is stupid, Talia. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. It is only now that we have with any certainty.”

I continued further along the beach, my boots splashing in the shallow waves with every step. With the darkness consuming me from within, there was no telling how much time I had left with my mind left intact. I couldn’t afford to look to the future in the same way that she could.

Talia stopped, bending to remove her waterlogged boots without a word. Holding my hand out for her boots, I shoved them into the pack before buckling it closed again. She eyed me, the tension between us heavy and awkward.

“We need to swim to the ship. I can get us there faster than if we travel through the island,” she finally said as she untiedthe knot of her shirt, letting the fabric fall over her hips as she shimmied out of her pants.

I nodded, careful to keep my gaze on her face rather than all the skin bared to me. “Fine,” I replied, keeping my tone flat. “How do we do this?”

“Follow me,” she said, walking deeper into the water as she held the pants in her hands. “I don’t want to transform in these shallow waters.”

Once we were about waist deep, she paused, looping the pants around her waist and handing me the legs. “Hold onto these tightly,” she instructed as her tail began to take shape beneath the surface. Her body sank lower into the water and gills formed along her ribs. When she glanced back at me again, she looked at me with the cold detachment of a siren.

“Are you thinking of drowning me?” I asked, holding back the nervous laugh that threatened to fall between us.

She grinned, her sharpened bite on full display as she replied, “Not if you do as I say.”

The way her vicious eyes glittered with malicious intent had my heart thundering within my chest, and I smirked, unable to hold back my remark as I moved closer to her. “You know how much I like it when you tell me what to do, my vicious little creature.”

“I know how much you enjoy it when I make you bleed,” she taunted. Her hair floated on the water as she turned from me. “I’d hold on tightly if I were you,” she said, the only warning I received before she disappeared beneath the surface, pulling me along with her.

The Siren

Circling the island, I stayed near the surface, leaping from the water in dolphin-like arches so that Kipp could catch his breath as we sped through the sea. The fabric around my waist worked perfectly to tug him along with me beneath the waves, and I pulled him as deep as I dared, sharing a glimpse of my world with him as I swam close to the island. Every time we’d broken through the surface, his laughter in the night sent an electric thrill through my blood, and my heart raced with the desire I continued to deny us both.

Yet, with every swish of my tail, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. The water sluicing over our skin seemed to buzz with an energy, as if the entire sea watched my movements, ready to report all that it saw to my father. It was as if something came for us, something I couldn’t see but could only sense.

I brought Kipp to the surface, having traveled half the distance needed around the island. He treaded the water next to me as his lungs heaved for breath, but he didn’t lose the smirk until he caught the concern behind my gaze.

“I need you to hold your breath for as long as you can, Kipp. I need to go deeper so that I can propel us faster. We need to get to the ship now,” I said with an urgency in my tone. “I will not let you drown, Kipp. Trust me.”

He coughed, pulling in another gulp of air as his fists gripped the legs of the pants I’d looped around my waist. “Trust you?”

“Yes,” I whispered, sensing the approach of something farther out to sea. “Trust me. We are being hunted.”

Kipp’s eyes darkened, the inky hue I’d come to know as his own monstrous self swirling within the depths of his gaze as it awakened within him. As if he readied himself for the approaching threat, eager for the violence of mayhem that came our way. He nodded, pulling in a deep breath as I turned and dove into the water.

I pulled Kipp down as fast as I could, pushing through the sea at my top speed as my senses screamed that danger closed in on us. I spun, swimming on my back as I stared into Kipp’s face, watching as his skin stretched and tightened as I shot us through the ocean like a bullet. I refused to let this man drown, so I watched his eyes for sign of distress as I moved us closer and closer to where we’d left his crew.

Looking above me to where we headed, I noticed Kipp’s ship already sat right side up in the waters. His crew had worked efficiently these past two days, readying the ship for the final leg of our quest while we’d faced off with Scylla. When I glanced back at Kipp, his face reddened and his eyes bulged with fear. My heart stilled as I raced us toward the surface.

We broke through the surface with a loud splash that echoed in the night, and I didn’t slow our movements as Kipp sputtered at my back. I tugged him along as I swam closer to the surface, a massive amount of churning water frothing around Kipp as I pulled him toward his ship, where already his men lowered the plank to pull us from the sea.

We didn’t have time to wait for that though, so I dove into the ocean again, tugging Kipp along with me as I arced, swinging our momentum back toward the surface at heightened speeds as I carried us both from the ocean and into the air as we hurtledtoward the deck of his ship. Patton’s gaze lifted into the sky, his line of sight following as we traveled through the air until we landed with a hardened thud on the planks.

A loud wailing signaled our attackers’ arrival, and I shed my tail as I jumped to my feet. The ship had been surrounded, and I stood naked, balancing on the railing of Kipp’s rocking ship, as I stared down into the sea. I’d let several of my purple and silver scales line my legs, and the gills still throbbed along my ribs as I glared at the sirens holding various weapons as their tails churned the water around the hull of the ship.

“How dare you attack us” I screamed into the night. “I am your queen!”

A male I’d never seen before scoffed, a golden trident held firmly in his grip as he hollered back, “Not anymore.” He lunged forward, leaping from the sea like I had just a moment ago until he landed on the deck.

His feet formed instantly beneath him, and he jabbed the sharpened tips of his weapon toward me. I ducked beneath his swing, my hair flailing around my shoulders as I shifted sideways, my hand shooting out in a flash until I’d yanked the weapon from his hold, spun it, and sent it firmly into his chest. His eyes locked onto mine as the light behind them faded, his life trickling from him just as his blood dripped onto the deck as his body fell to my feet.

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