Page 5 of Siren's Treasure

A thunderous crash interrupted her words. Something large plummeted through the sea—a ship’s wheel, splintered and trailing bubbles. Thessa darted sideways as it smashed into her collection, sending golden coins scattering across the grotto floor.

She straightened with a gasp, her chin tilting up. Dark shadows of ships moved above her. A muffled boom of cannon fire resonated through the water. More debris rained down like deadly snow. Cries of men were followed by more gunfire.And then, quite horribly, bodies fell into the water, swimming. Bleeding. Some sank.

The humans were warring again!

Another consequence of her father’s illness. Poseidon wasn’t there to bring order to their seas!

New anger gripped her. This violence she could end, at least! Even Nephele would approve of her asserting the might of the Sea Sovereignty upon those warmongers above. No one could stop her from using her siren’s voice now.

Setting her starfish friend safely in a small, protective outcropping of smooth coral, she shot upward through the cenote’s throat. Let them hear what a daughter of Poseidon could do!

Chapter three

There wasn’t enough gunpowder to fight off Circe’s magical hordes! The acrid smell of smoke mixed with sea salt as another cannon boomed uselessly against their otherworldly ships.

All around Raggon, his men were dying, and it was all his fault. The soldiers from the Land Witch’s ships were formed of some substance that was more than man—part brute, part animal. The hulking beasts were more numerous than ants with the joints of grasshoppers, their guttural roars drowning out the creak of the straining rigging. They’d flown from their ships in great leaps, growling and tearing apart any flesh they could find with their bare hands.

Raggon stabbed one attacker through, his blade meeting resistance like piercing leather, only for another to come at him with a bone-chilling shriek. The deck boards groaned beneath their massive weight.

“Beware! Beware!”

Hearing the cry of the parrot’s shrill warning cutting through the chaos, he turned to see his brother cornered by three of these lumbering monsters against the ship’s scarred mainmast. The parrot danced from foot to foot in a show of distress.

“Stand together!” someone bellowed from the quarterdeck. “For the love of Poseidon, stand together!”

Shouting out, Raggon cut through his attacker and dissolved into a spray of seafoam—that peculiar sensation of becoming nothing but water and air coursing through him. He materialized at the mast in a swirl of mist, his blade already singing through the air as he dispatched another of his brother’s attackers, followed by another.

The creatures fell with inhuman howls that made his skin crawl. They carried nets in their clawed fingers, the hemp ropes gleaming with an unnatural sheen. The cursed creatures reached for Tobias and stumbled over their feet when the lad disappeared and materialized behind them, leaving nothing but the scent of salt water in his wake.

Why were they trying to catch his brother?

Could it be that Circe had another plan for the princes instead of killing them? Raggon wasn’t about to discover the truth the hard way. His brother might be protected by using his inherited gifts from the royal curse of Undine, but there were only so many places Tobias could go.

The sea trapped them aboard the ship. Number one rule—never shift in water! The seafoam they’d become there would instantly disperse, losing them forever in the vast depths. To make things worse, the upper and lower decks were crawling with the enemy. The ship itself seemed to groan in protest at their presence, its timbers creaking like it was trying to shake off parasites.

That meant Raggon had to exterminate every last one of them!

He ran through the invaders, disappearing in and out of the air in a spray of mist that left droplets glittering in the chaos. Each time he materialized, his blade found another mark. He hardly cared that he wasn’t fighting fair—he meant to save as many of his men as he could. Through the haze of battle, he noticed the Duke was at the helm, shouting orders that the men no longer heeded over the cacophony of steel on steel and inhuman screams.

A shout alerted Raggon from behind. “Ho! Mangy mudskippers! Fall back!” This one sounded more human. “You’ll never catch the royals that way! Get the manacles. Bring water!”

Twisting on his heel, Raggon groaned at seeing that Captain Maddox had boarded their ship, his boots leaving wet prints on the blood-slicked deck. A slight breeze moved his greasy black beard, carrying with it the stench of unwashed leather and gunpowder.

A large man in his own right—though nothing compared to these strange beasts—he moved with a smoother gait, jingling with weapons as he walked. Three flintlock pistols were thrust through his sash, and two cutlasses hung at his hips, one already drawn and dripping red.

His eyes were fixed on Raggon, a sneer curling against his thick lips. “Ready to pay for what you did to my ship, you highborn brat? By the darkest trench, I’ll have satisfaction!”

Seeing his brother had gone to the rigging, Raggon turned his attention to his newest foe. A beast came between them, its shadow cutting across the deck. Before he could dispatch it, a smoking hole was blown through its chest with a thunderous crack. The beast dropped with a wet thud, revealing Maddox behind it, pistol still smoking.

“Who knew the dread Shadow of the Tide was nothing but a craven prince hiding behind magic?” Maddox shouted. “I’d drown you like the rats you are if I had the freedom.”

Raggon stepped back, salt spray stinging his eyes as he readied for the fight. “You don’t have the guts to finish this?”

“Circe wants you alive.”

Raggon would die first, and he’d take Maddox with him! “You turned against my family,” he said, voice raw with rage. “You destroyed your own people.”

“You betrayed us first!” Maddox shouted, spittle spraying from his lips. The ship lurched beneath them as another cannon found its mark somewhere below the waterline.

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