Page 25 of The Pirate and His Siren

I thought a lot about Ikina and our conversation before we parted, and it made me think she might not judge me for wanting to discuss my possible love for Kynan. But when I went looking for my friend at her home, she’s no longer living there.

Where can she be?

It’s taken me nearly the entire three months to search the Bay of Udira, but I have finally found her.

Guilt swamped me when I realized I hadn’t thought of my friend the entire time I was with Kynan and the crew ofDeadly Destiny.

But coming upon the scene now, I guess I shouldn’t have felt so guilty.

Ikina lives on the edges of a shared community, Aqualis, of both siren and merpeople. I once thought these colonies to be myths, but as I watch my friend, she appears relaxed. Unlike the last day I saw her, singing to herself as she swam around a building. Then a merman with tawny skin, and like all merpeople, his tail a simple design with no dorsal or hip fins, edged with midnight blue and orange running down the center, joins her, winding his arms around her waist, kissing her.

Bubbles escape my mouth, and my eyes widen.

The conversation we had made more sense now, and I knew why she’d been all fidgety that day. She’d been harboring a secret love.

“Ikina,” I call out as I approach them.

She pulls her face back and gasps. “Luarna.” She pushes the merman behind her. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“I came searching for you.”

“Luarna… I…”

The merman slowly swims out from behind to her side, placing a protective arm around her body, his brown gaze probing me. It makes me think of Kynan and how he was with me—protective and possessive—and my heart shudders.

I flick my tail back and forth. “You’re mated.”

Ikina sighs. “I am. I know you don’t understand, but please know I’m happy here.”

“Good.”

Her head snaps up. “What?”

I whisper, “I think I do understand… I think I may have found someone too.”

“But you don’t know?”

“How can I? We sirens aren’t meant to believe in mates and love.”

Ikina peers at the merman, who nods before releasing her, and she glides over to me. “Luarna, do you think that maybe we’re not born with the inability to love, but we’re actually taught it?”

“Taught it… why?”

“Sirens can only produce females… there are no male sirens. Yet the merpeople differ from us in that they can sire males. They love.”

“Why were we taught to be like this?”

Memories of my childhood flood my mind of my mother hovering over me, lecturing me.

“Love is for the weak-willed merpeople. They’re different from us. If you want happiness, you take it.”

“I think long ago, one of our queens decided we shouldn’t strive for love because there were no males within us. The sirens’ conquest drives us to find mates, but we’re so ingrained with our disbelief of love that we don’t allow ourselves to truly become attracted to anyone. We miss the signs. But Jackur, he never gave up on me. He kept pursuing me. He knew we were fated to be together and proved it to me.”

Jackur sounds like Kynan. How many times did he try to show me?

“Sirens are capable of love,” Ikina continues. “Maybe it’s all a lie concerning the siren’s conquest being about fulfilling a siren’s inner urges as our nature. But isit more about our bodies looking for our true mate? My siren’s conquest led me to Jackur. At first, I didn’t want to believe it, but he showed me the truth. We are meant to find mates. To fall in love.”

“It started with my siren’s conquest too…” I say quietly. “You mean to say it was leading me to my mate when I just thought it was about fucking?”

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