Page 1 of Waves
Chapter 1
Avia
Poor, innocent Stavros stared at me with wide and wondering liquid blue eyes—no doubt shocked by my admission that I couldn’t love him.
Sweet as he was, it just wasn’t possible. Not with the shadows swimming inside of me, that dark evil looming, waiting for its chance to eclipse my humanity.
I would only drag this poor siren under—ruin him as I’d been ruined.
Corrupt his innocence in unspeakable ways.
We floated on the surface of the sea, our heads and shoulders just below the waterline. The moonlight draped across one of his cheeks and part of his neck, turning his golden skin the palest yellow. He was so beautiful he made my chest ache.
Until I registered each minute change in him as he swallowed hard, and his jaw tightened.
He was upset. As he should be. One night of camping in the wilderness of the sea—which had begun with bonding between tournament competitions—had turned into disaster. Stonefish had arisen from beneath the ocean floor. Lionfish had surrounded us, some enchantment guiding them all to assault our traveling party.
The hollow space where my heart should have been clenched tight.
It had been a deadly attack.
One my magic hadn’t been able to stop.
As everyone else had cleared away the final debris of the vicious event, Stavros and I had come up here to gather Julian’s body, which had floated to the surface. Julian, whose life was stolen by the rebels and their violence. Ripped out like a page torn from a book. Ended too early. Story unfinished.
Sharp grief had cut into both of us. And here, on the silver laced waves, the siren and I had allowed our pain to give way to impulsiveness. We’d shared a kiss.
A bland, dull kiss that was clearly a mistake.
A wave smacked into my shoulders and sent a tremble across my skin. It seemed the ocean was rebuking me.
Unable to stand the forlorn look on his face any longer, I broke eye contact with Stavros. Then I unwrapped a belt from my waist and tied it around Julian, tugged on the body, and ducked back beneath the waves.
I glanced down through the shifting water, eyes drawn to the others dealing with the debris far below. Our square tents bobbed on their anchors as if nothing happened. The lavender campfires still flickered merrily. But there was no more singing, no more laughter. The posture of each and every person was slumped with the weight of grief.
Silhouettes merged and split as mer soldiers carried the injured to the mage tents for treatment. More people dragged giant nets to capture the lifeless enchanted fish from the attack, hopefully to be examined to determine who had charmed them into mindless violence. Closer to us, Sahar and other sirens from my entourage were gathering the bodies of the dead that had drifted up to the surface like snapped strips of seaweed, limp andlifeless. I needed to bring Julian’s body there, so it would return home for burial rites.
Stavros joined me, holding on to Julian’s other side. The sea wrapped us in a solemn sort of silence that fell like a shroud, making the underwater world and everyone in it a bit hazy. Winding tight and binding us together in grief.
I found it hard to believe I was here. That this was my reality. And that I’d been such a careless fool as to kiss someone amidst this calamity.
Dismay smashing through my gut—no doubt guilt would eat at me later—I felt compelled to be honest. To do the right thing by him.
Before the last event of the Syzgos Tournament, I’d scoffed at men who’d wanted to turn tail and leave, but with this recent attack…how could I even allow this matchmaking farce to continue? How could I hold decent men here knowing the dangers?
Keelan had been permanently injured. Julian was gone. It was all too much.
These rebels were out of hand.
I needed to protect an innocent like Stavros. He would be safer far from me and all of the violent hatred that my reign attracted.
Safer from my heartless self.
Even now, little sparks of irrational fury danced within my throat, vengeance flickering and begging for me to breathe life into it. I couldn’t seem to stomp those tiny embers glowing inside me, and I had to carefully choose my words lest I alert him to my madness. To the fact that my humanity was a tenuous thing.
Haltingly, I managed to say, “I’m going to release you from the tournament.”
“What?” His whisper cut through the water between us as he blinked and one lone tear that must have been lingering on his lower lid fell and spun through the waves, blurring his face for a moment.
