Page 4 of Enchanting Him

“I don’t know. I feel…strange,” she finishes glancing our way. “It’s…it’s like a memory. This feeling. Like I’ve felt it before but it’s not possible to be something I felt at home.”

“What about before that? When you were with your father?” I ask, bringing a little gasp to her lips as the man’s attention turns towards us.

“Oh yes, yes,” Serenia whispers as the man drops the tree that he was pulling out of the car down next to it, pulling something off his hands before he starts heading our way.

“What is it?” Celestia asks.

“What we’re here for,” Serenia states giving us a grin before she moves towards the man who seems to grow larger as he approaches.

The way he looks at her is something we’ve seen before, but usually when one of the others uses their powers. There’s no way that Serenia did to draw him towards her. This has to be from Aphrodite’s offer—the chance to find a different way.

Celestia and I watch as the man stops directly in front of Serenia, speaking softly to her so that neither Celestia nor I can hear them, but the way that Serenia moves closer to him, it’s almost as thoughhe’sputherunder a spell. His large hand slips around her waist, pulling her fully against him and the only thing that stops Celestia and I from interfering is the way Serenia’s body leans even more into him

He says something to her, and she glances back at us with a little look, her eyes clearly needing to know we’re not upset that she’s leaving us here.

“Go,” I whisper and Celestia nods, giving her a grin in return, and before we know it, they’re at his car where he lifts the tree into the back after putting Serenia inside, before he moves around to the other side and joins her. He leans towards her for a moment then they take off, driving past other cars that are standing still with no one in them.

“Guess it’s just us now,” Celestia states as we continue down the path through the park and out onto a busier one where lots of cars are zooming past us.

“Yeah, hopefully we both find what Serenia just did though,” I muse, and she nods again as we make our way through groups of people moving quickly into buildings. Neither of us have been this deep into human lands before and without Serenia’s basic knowledge of them, we have no clue what we’re doing.

“Mmm, something smells amazing,” Celestia sighs a bit later, but my nose scrunches the same as it did earlier when I tasted the coffee. It was far too bitter for my liking.

“I don’t know about that,” I state as she turns us down a new path instead of crossing the one ahead of us with the other people.

“No, it’s like heaven,” she argues, her feet moving faster before she turns into a smaller path between two buildings and then pushes open a door making me hiss at her.

“What are you doing? This doesn’t look like…” I stop when a deeper voice from inside calls out to us.

“We’re not open to the public back here.”

“Sorry,” Celestia says, drinking in a deep breath while all I want to do is get far from the heavy smells in the place. “Something just smelled so good.”

“That’s the newest coffee roast we’re making,” the man says coming out from behind a wall, his feet stopping when his gaze lands on Celestia and a little gasp slips from her mouth. “Would you like to try some?”

“If we’re not supposed to be here,” I begin, and the man’s eyes slip to me for a second before they go straight back to Celestia.

“I own the place so I can make an exception,” he says to her, and a smile slips onto her face that pulls a deep sound from him.

“You make coffee?” Celestia asks him and he nods. “I would love to try it.”

“It’s this way,” the man offers, holding out his arm to point through the space.

“I’m not a coffee fan, sorry, but you should stay,” I tell Celestia with a grin as she glances from me to the man whose eyes haven’t left her again. “I’m just going to check out the rest of town.”

“Are you sure?” Celestia asks and I nod, backing back out the door leaving them alone.

“Well, that’s two down,” I mutter to myself, my feet leading me back down the paths and across the one with another group of people when the image of a person appears on a sign across it. We quickly learned earlier that you don’t move forward unless that sign is lit—at least on paths that have them. Some of them even have little buttons to push so they’ll eventually light up, but most of them do it on a set schedule it seems.

I move around the town as the day progresses, getting a little more anxious and a little more jealous with every minute that passes. As quickly as Serenia and Celestia seemed to have found someone, I’d hoped I would too. But what if they get Aphrodite’s gift and I don’t? I’d rather die than have to go back to the depths of the ocean and lose the warmth that flows through me. To spend eternity watching others kill—or eventually giving in and joining them.

I’ve never known a siren to die. When one kills a man and consumes their soul, it strengthens all of us, even more so if it’s our blood that’s done the killing. I have nearly a hundred and fifteen generations in my lineage. The same with Serenia and Celestia. Each siren gives birth to one daughter to bring new powers to us, grow our numbers. Our families live in the same Lycophron nearest to North America, while other Lycophrons live around the world, but we all have one place that holds our history. It’s located at the deepest point of the Mediterranean Sea, so while the on the surface it might be warmer, it’s cold as ice where the sirens dwell.

The thought of going back to our home, especially without Serenia and Celestia hurts me deep inside. I’ll never survive if that happens, which means, I need to find a man and make him fall in love with me. Maybe it won’t be a man that puts me under a spell like it seems Serenia and Celestia have been, but it’ll bebetter than returning, especially if our family knows I’m the one that learnt of the loophole in the first place.

I continue walking around the town as the sun begins to move across the sky and when it dips along the horizon, my feet hurt, my stomach rumbles, and my heart is sad. I need something like the pancakes to perk me up and my nose twitches smelling something while not sweet, seems to still be delicious ahead of me.

There’s a sign that says ‘Open’ on the door and I move into the building, my mouth watering as a hundred new scents hits. There’s something so savory about them that I don’t even mind that it’s not as sweet as the syrup’s scent, and when a girl asks if it’s just one tonight, I nod, hoping soon I won’t be able to say that.

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