Page 18 of The Blood Crown

The song.

Whatever creatures possessed those beautiful, ancient voices were using their song to cloud his mind. Aurelia had only fallen under their spell for a moment, but Karro was deep in their thrall, and by the time Ven reached the banks of the river, he was neck-deep in the current.

The water must have been near freezing, but nothing except the drowsy look of pleasure crossed Karro’s expression.

Ven dove into the water. The otherworldly faces of the females turned at the sound and their sensuous lips parted to reveal flashes of razor-sharp teeth.

Aurelia stuffed her fingers deeper into her ears. Whatever song those creatures were singing, she didn’t want to hear.

The three females tugged the Wraith further out into the current, but Ven reached him before they could pull him under completely, struggling to keep his head above the water. He looped an arm around Karro’s waist, trying to pull him back toward the shore—but the females were much stronger than they appeared, and Karro’s sense of self-preservation had all but evaporated.

Slender opalescent fingers wrapped around the Wraith's wrists and arms as he was finally pulled under the surface of the water.

Biting out a curse, Aurelia sprinted into the clearing, toward the river.

Ven’s dark hair was halfway across the raging current as she leapt into the water with a clumsy splash.

The sting of the cold punched the breath from her lungs, the noise distracting one of the females into releasing Karro for just a moment. His head bobbed above the surface again as he sputtered out river water with a dazed look on his face.

Now that the females had stopped singing, whatever spell they had cast over Karro seemed to be broken. He wrenched the fingers from his wrist, kicking at the chest of the female in front of him as she hissed in anger. The second female was dodging Ven’s dagger point as she snarled and fought to grasp his wrist. The third—

Aurelia spun around, treading water in search of the last female.

Cold fingers encircled her ankle as she was yanked under the surface.

Chapter 9

The air exploded from her lungs as Aurelia was swallowed into the icy depths of the Kesh.

Nails sharp as talons sank into her ankle and drug her deeper, the shimmering moonlit surface of the water fading further and further out of reach.

The water darkened. Air, breath, life drifting out of her grasp with every passing moment. She kicked out blindly, making contact with a satisfying crunch, and the grip released.

Kicking hard for the surface, her lungs burned with the ache to take a breath, her instincts raging against her mind to gasp for air.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

With one final kick, she breached the surface, the breath tearing through her.

To her left, the water churned with movement. A flash of black hair caught her eye as one of the females pulled Ven below the current. The creature’s pale face was sharpened into a sneer of frustration, so focused on trying to keep Ven under that she didn’t notice Aurelia.

The black blade in her hand glinted darkly in the moonlight as she shoved the point between the female’s slender white shoulder blades.

A scream of fury tore through the night, threatening to burst Aurelia’s ear drums as she realized the moss and lichen had fallen out of her ears. The creature released Ven, and Aurelia hooked her hand under his arm to drag him toward the shore. Scanning the surface, relief flooded through her when she saw Karro making his way toward the riverbank, the moon-white faces of the other females nowhere to be found.

Panting, she stumbled from the water. Drenched. Half-frozen. But alive.

A strong grip circled her arm, dragging her past the riverbank. “We can’t stay here,” Ven said, shaking out the water from his dark hair.

“I killed one,” Aurelia gasped, coughing out the last of the river from her lungs. “I injured another.”

“Silver sirens do not die easily.” Ven glanced over to where Karro threw himself onto the forest floor, yanking Aurelia further away from the water’s edge.

“I stabbed one in the back—”

“Ravenstone blades are harmless to them.” Ven’s mouth tightened into a thin line.

Karro coughed, spitting out silty water as he caught up to them. “I thought the Yrsa died out centuries ago.”

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