Page 123 of Rise of the Siren Queen
I watched every moment. Feltevery scream. Each cry crawledunder my skin and nested in my bones until I couldn’t tell where her pain ended and mine began.
And then, silence.
When her voice frayed into a whisper and her body stopped flinching, they finally stepped back. For now, the monsters felt satisfied.
The quiet should’ve been a relief. It wasn’t.
It was the silence that comes before a ship breaks apart under pressure. The kind that waits for something worse.
I didn’t know how long we’d been here. Time had dissolved. Hours maybe? I knew it couldn’t have been long. Someone would come looking for her eventually. That’s why they chose the dinner hour. The perfect window. No one would notice the Queen was missing. Not right away. They would assume she had retired for the evening. It wouldn’t be until tomorrow that they noticed.
They were buying time, but they wouldn’t need all night unless there was more to this. It wasn’t just about the crown. Not about love. Or revenge.
This… this was something else. I just knew.
I forced the words past the rage clogging my throat.
“What else do you want, Draven? Why torture us? What are you really after?”
His face lit up as though I’d just handed him a gift wrapped in blood. “I already told you,” he said, voice honey-sweet and rotting underneath. “You need to learn your place. And your dear grandmother has unfinished business with my lovely mother.”
He glanced toward her motionless form and smiled as if it were art. “After tonight, we’re getting married. And maybe next time, you’ll think twice before trying to destroy me.”
I laughed. Laughed. The sound tore out of me like glass dragged across coral.
“I won’t marry you.”
His smile didn’t falter. He just turned toward Elora, lifting a hand laced with black tendrils, and chained her with his dark magic like it was nothing.
Coward.
He could’ve bound me with a flick, but he made Ronan do it. The bastard wanted a show. Wanted us to play his sick games.
“Ronan,” he said smoothly, moving toward me, “be a good pet and keep her still.”
The shadows moved before he could touch me—cold, familiar, choking. They coiled around my limbs like serpents obeying their master. Ronan dragged me back away from Draven. Kieran lunged to my side, his motion instinctive, protective, fierce, but Thalor was already waiting, one hand coiled tight around Sienna’s throat.
“Oh no, Kieran,” Thalor sneered, his grip tightening just enough to make her flinch. “You stayrightwhere you are. Or I touch more than her neck. You know I’ve beendyingto.”
His grin split wide, feral. I saw red.
Kieran froze mid-step. The water was heavy with tension, electricity arcing off his skin in angry sparks. His fists clenched, the bones straining against flesh, but he didn’t move.
Not yet.
Not while Sienna was still a hostage.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Thalor,” Kieran said, his voice a storm barely contained.
Thalor chuckled, a sound that made my skin crawl. “Dangerous? No, Petros.Youmisunderstand. I make the rules now. You, your little seer, your broken queen,yourprecious crown princess… all of you are pawns in a game I already won.”
Sienna locked eyes with Kieran. No tears. No fear. Just twisted with pain.
“Don’t,” she mouthed, barely a breath, but her meaning carvedthrough the room like a blade.
The room pulsed—the walls seemed to vibrate under the tension. I felt the magic in the air shift, volatile…unstable. A single spark could ignite it.
I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to scream. To boil. To rip them apart until the water ran thick with their blood.
