Page 28 of Love Bites Extra Hard

I frowned.

“Most sirens aren’t as strong as you. You said so yourself. It wouldn’t make sense to expect them to use their magic all day long every day if they needed to feed to keep it up. It’s not that you’re lazy, it’s that you’re powerful enough to deny expectations. So, no one would expect you to have that kind of power, even if they did know much about sirens. And most people don’t.”

I didn’t respond immediately.

She added more granola to the pile in my hand.

“How do you know that?” I finally asked.

She shrugged. “Talon’s been researching sirens since Hale mated with Blair. He keeps me informed.”

“What resources even exist for researching sirens?”

“I don’t know. I refused to be our representative for the sake of avoiding that shit.”

“What’s your role, then?”

“Oh, I run the guards. Make the schedules and stuff. Ensure that we’re safe and protected here, and that we have enough people at the Manor to make them think we live there. You’re not allowed to tell anyone otherwise, by the way. Though I think the other kings already know.”

My sisters would put it together when they realized they couldn’t text me. Especially if they stormed the dragons’ wing of the Manor and found the place pretty much empty.

But all of themdidthink Talon was going to force me to mate with him. So even their kings couldn’t have known him all that well. He was grumpy, and maybe a little violent, but I already knew him well enough to be sure that bastard wouldn’t try to force anyone to mate with him. Even if he wasn’t waiting for his fated mate.

“I’m going to need to message my sisters soon to let them know I’m okay,” I said. “They’re not going to stop obsessing and worrying about my absence until I show them that Talon isn’t forcing me to mate with him. We all thought he was going to try.”

“There’s no phone service here, but I’m sure he can fly you out to a place where there is sometime in the next few weeks.”

A few weeks was a long time to go without talking to my sisters, but I’d survive. Hopefully, they weren’t letting my absence affect their lives too much.

“Do you have any juice left to hit Sylvester with?” she checked. “Even just a little would work.”

“I’ll let you know after I choke down some more granola. It’s disgusting, but it’s helping.”

She laughed, and handed me a big, dented water bottle. It had definitely seen better days, but I didn’t care about the germs, so I opened the top and drank deeply.

“Talon will show up with more food eventually, and I’ll bring more snacks tomorrow. We can fill him in on the new plan after he has time to cool down.”

“We should probably ask him to stay away from me while we’re enacting the plan, if we’re going to avoid a repeat of what happened earlier. Unless you think he’ll get over his possessiveness.”

“He’s not going to go for that. We’ve got a better chance of convincing him to keep his distance if we don’t say anything at all. The representative stuff keeps him pretty busy.”

“Alright.” We ate granola together in silence for a few minutes.

“Do you like audiobooks?” she finally asked me.

“Sure.”

“We listen to a shit ton of them down here. We charge them to Talon’s account.” She lifted a finger to her lips, telling me to keep it quiet, and I smiled. Money was far from a problem for anyof the kings, so I was positive he didn’t care. I didn’t say that, though.

She turned on a high fantasy audiobook, and we both relaxed as we listened.

When I’d recovered enough, I pushed a small amount of my magic through the air.

“Can you feel that?” I checked.

Stella confirmed, and we both went back to listening.

She peeked at Sylvester after a while, and her grin told me that he was feeling my power.

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