Page 137 of Rise of the Siren Queen
“My mom and dad… four years ago,” she said, eyes locked on the Triton who dared to stand upright in her presence. “And now, my grandma.”
Power crackled around her like a coming storm, invisible yet suffocating. I felt a humming in my teeth, crawling across my skin. I wanted to reach out, to grab her hand, to stop whatever came next, not out of fear for her power, but for what it might cost her.
But, gods help me, sheownedthis moment. Even broken, she wasunmaking the chains that had bound her. She stood tall, unflinching, her fury sculpted into something devastatingly precise. Her gaze never left Draven.
“I hope you’re prepared for my wrath, Draven… because I’m doing exactly what I told you.” Her voice dropped, steel wrapped in velvet. “I’m feeding you to the sharks.”
And that’s when Ithra moved.
Too fast. Too close.
But before I could lunge forward, a shadow wrapped around her in a silent snarl, black tendrils, sleek and sharp, snapping tight around her limbs and yanking her back like a beast on a leash.
I knew those shadows.
Ronan.
But not the cocky bastard I’d first met in the cave. No, this Ronan was something else. Altered. Hardened. Whatever had happened here before I arrived had hollowed him out and filled the cracks with fury.
His presence radiated heat, not warmth, but the sear of controlled fire. A soldier reborn through pain. A blade no longer sheathed.
The shadows binding Ithra writhed with intent, pulsing withhiswill. They weren’t just power—they were extensions of his wrath.
“Don’t think for a second I’m letting you walk away from this,” Ronan said, low and dangerous, his eyes never leaving hers. And in them, I saw it:
Not anger.
Vengeance.
Calculated. Brutal. Earned.
I stepped further into the shadows, still cloaked by ruin and wreckage. No one had noticed me yet, and I wasn’t ready to change that.
Not until it mattered.
I reached out with my mind, my voice threading through the silence, brushing against Ronan’s thoughts like a ghost.
“Don’t kill her just yet, Ronan,” I murmured, sharp and cold in the privacy of his mind. I don’t want my presence known. Not yet.
“I have a score to settle with her.”
Let her feel fear. Let her wonder when the metaphorical axe would fall.
Because when it did, I want to be the one holding it.
Ithra hisses in the bindings while Ronan’s gaze switches from Elora and back to the vicious siren.
Another flicker in my peripheral.
I turned just in time to see it—
The older Triton, the one restraining Sienna, tightened his grip around her throat. His hand squeezed with practiced cruelty, and before I could so much as move, he forced something between her lips.
A sickly green liquid.
She thrashed, tried to turn her head, tried to resist, but he was stronger, and she couldn’t break free in time. He forced it down her throat. She gagged, choked, and then swallowed.
Not by choice. By violence.
