Page 25 of Rise of the Siren Queen
I jolted as his body lurched, water spilling from his lips in violent coughs. Relief slammed into me so hard I nearly collapsed, my grip on him tightening as if I could anchor him to this world.
“That’s it! Come back to me!” My voice broke with raw emotion, urging him forward, away from the abyss that had nearly swallowed him whole.
The suffocating darkness receded, unraveling in the wake of his returning strength. The invisible pull of Thanatos loosened its grip, and I sensed it, his will to live, to fight.
His eyes fluttered open, locking onto mine. Confusion swirled in their depths, laced with fear… and something else. Something I couldn’t yet name.
But none of it mattered. Only that he is alive.
7
She knew
When a hybrid is born, its true nature lies dormant, hidden from both men and merfolk. It is said that their essence remains hidden, veiled by the guise of humanity, until the fates themselves intervene. Only when their life hangs by a thread, when the shadow of death lingers near, does the dormant power within stir.
Scrolls detail that an attack on their lives during their time as humans will awaken an inner power, changing them into merfolk.
Thus, their true heritage reveals itself, and the sea claims them. They shed their mortal coil as the ocean’s power surges through their veins, marking their transcendence of both worlds.
* * *
Adrian
I awoke, gasping for air as though something had dragged me from the depths of an abyss. My chest ached, each breath a battle, as if the entire ocean had settled there.
The taste of brine still clung to my lips, a cruel reminder of what had just happened. For a moment, everything was chaos. Disoriented, Istruggled to remember where I was, how I had survived.
The pond. The siren.
Cold, unyielding hands like iron shackles yanked me under. Darkness, the water crushing in from all sides, the terror of limbs gone slack, useless as my body surrendered to the inevitable. I had known, in those last moments, that death was closing in. There had been no escaping it.
But I wasn’t dead.
The rough feel of rock beneath me, the coarse, gritty texture digging into my skin, told me I had made it back to shore. I blinked, dazed, struggling to adjust to the light, my lungs burning as they filled with the unfamiliar but welcome air. My head spun, still clouded with the remnants of panic, but there was something else. A warmth. Familiar. Reassuring.
Iryen.
Her name flashed through my mind, grounding me, bringing me fully into the present. Slowly, I turned my head, my muscles protesting with every movement, and there she was, kneeling beside me, her face pale, her breath shallow, her skin luminous even in the soft glow of the sunlight. The sight of her, the sheer relief etched into her features, hit me harder than the chilly hands of the siren ever had.
Her expression was fierce, yet underneath, there was a vulnerability I hadn’t expected to see. Faint remnants of tears streaked her cheeks, and her hands trembled slightly where they rested on my chest, as if she feared I might slip away if she let go.
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat, my voice a raw whisper. “You—” I croaked, barely able to form the words. “You saved me… again.”
Iryen’s eyes, those deep emerald pools I knew, flickered with a storm of emotions, anger, fear, relief, all fighting for dominance. Herlips pressed into a thin line, her nod sharp, almost too controlled.
“You’re damn right I did.”
There it was, the fire in her voice that matched the blaze in her eyes. It cut through the haze in my mind, sharp and clear, reminding me of who she was, of who we were.
But beneath that fire, I could hear something else, something far more vulnerable. Fear. Fear she was trying so hard to mask but failing to hide from me. She had been afraid for me. I could see it, feel it, in the way her hands refused to stay still, the way her breath caught ever so slightly when she exhaled.
I forced myself to move, to push past the weakness clawing at me, but the moment I tried to sit up, agony tore through my chest like a bolt of lightning. A sharp, searing pain stole my breath, and I collapsed back onto the sand with a strangled gasp.
Before I could even process the failure, her hand was there, steady, grounding. Firm yet careful, as if holding me together when my own body threatened to break apart.
“Easy,” she murmured, the warmth of her touch seeping into my skin, chasing back the cold that clung to me.
Grievance coiled in my gut, tangled with something else, something raw and unspoken. I hated this vulnerability and helplessness nagging at my insides.
