by Jessa Lucas
I should’ve cared that I was wasting precious time in the sweet arms of what was an unusually tame slumber. I should’ve dragged myself from the bed and set about figuring out a new solution to this curse which didn’t involve possibly strangling my watchmen during the process of figuring out which one I theoretically might’ve loved, once upon a time.
But I couldn’t. Not when the sunlight brought with it a fresh wave of guilt.
“I don’t think I can rise and shine right now, Jabari. Rising sounds painful and shining sounds like something I’m not even capable of.”
He looked down on me knowingly, and I sighed with as much exasperation as I could. “What.”
“We will have you brush up on your siren capabilities soon enough.”
I buried my face in the pillow. “Sounds like the last thing I should be doing right now.”
“Saylora. It is nearly evening. Get up and you shall feel better.”
Before I could retort, a strong grip was wrenching me to a sitting position. I propped myself on an arm when Jabari released me, the covers twisted around my body, and wiped the sweat-coated hair out of my face.
“Let me mourn,” I said quietly.
“No.”
I glared up at Jabari, irritated that he wasn’t turning out to be as much of a pushover as I’d always assumed. “I would’ve expected this shit from Gilles, but not from you.”
“As Gilles seems the most personally acquainted with such profound stubbornness, I am happy to retrieve him for you.”
I don’t know why, but the thought of Gilles seeing me like this, especially after that look he’d given me in the hall two nights ago—
“I’m getting up,” I relented, throwing my feet onto the floor. “I just didn’t think you were going to be such an ass about it.”
“Then you have underestimated both my nature and my care for you,” Jabari said, meeting my low volume. I sagged at the edge of the bed and he kneeled in front of me so he was in my line of vision. “The weight of this curse is heavy, but you mustn't forget to live, Saylora.”
I swallowed, reluctantly dragging myself back from the sludge of a much preferred unconsciousness. Jabari patted my arm as he stood, offering me a hand. “I have drawn a hot bath for you.”
I looked up at him suspiciously. “A... hot bath?”
He smiled in confirmation, and even the sweet thought of never leaving my bed couldn’t suppress the joyous implications of such words. If this tower had a hot water heater, I’d definitely not figured out how to take advantage of it yet.
“How?”
Jabari lifted a brow as I grabbed his hand and pulled myself to stand.
Oh, right. I was talking to a Magic Man.
Jabari was a god.
I mean, not literally (obviously) but even still, the siren in me definitely wanted to get on my knees and worship.
After calming my gratitude to more reasonable levels of appreciation, I settled into the steaming bath and soothed my mind by idly flicking the thick shroud of bubbles with my toes. I knew, realistically or whatever, that being homeless in a dream hadn’t had any practical effect on my hygiene, but as I soaked, watching the tendrils of steam rise from the tub, I sure as hell felt like it would take many more of these to wash all the grime away.
Just as my skin was beginning to prune, there was a knock. I turned to see Dash loitering in the archway that lead back into my room.
“You’re alive.”
“For the moment,” I agreed. “How long have you been standing there, exactly?”
“Long enough that it was beginning to feel indecent even to me. I am sorry to intrude, temptress—”
“No you’re not.”
Dash did not look at all sorry as his eyes roamed my bare back. “Only a little.”
I let out a breathy laugh and turned my attention back to my toes as I buried myself a little deeper into the carpet of bubbles. Dash and nakedness seemed like the perfect recipe for coaxing out a repressed siren, which did not seem like the greatest recipe for life-preserving choices.
The grin was obvious in his voice. “Jabari said you were finally up and moving. When he mentioned you were bathing... well, I suppose I took the liberty of assuming that your previous offer stood.”
I sucked in a breath. I had flaunted my willingness to shower with him the other morning, hadn’t I?
Well… fuck.
As the sound of chair legs scraped against the stone floor, I glanced over at Dash hesitantly, only to find that twist of a grin plastered on his face. He was enjoying this way too much, and I could only pray to whatever gods this forsaken world had that I wouldn’t be finding myself doing the same.
“By all means pull up a chair, teen wolf,” I grumbled. I closed my eyes, steeling myself against the shiver that careened through my body despite the near-boiling water. I was so about to regret this.
Dash sat, eying the steam rippling from the tub. “That from the water or you?”
“Funny. Did you need something?” I asked, eyes narrowing.
“I don’t know that I need anything...”
His eyes wandered from my face to the thinning layer of foam separating him from a good view of my body. I cleared my throat, and his gaze snapped back up to my face. The tension I held in my look must’ve communicated that my earlier games of seduction were on hold for the time being, because the intensity of Dash’s look settled into something more somber.
“There was talk of an incident,” he finally said.
Great, now last night was an incident. I sighed. “Yeah, you kinda slept through my psychotic break. Real shame I’m just now finding out about this ability, too, Dash. Bet you could’ve done my job as an unconscious princess way better than me.”
“I am not a dainty little miss.” Those ice blue eyes looked at me pointedly, and something just below my stomach lurched.
“Dainty little miss?” I snorted. “No wonder I’m so threatening to a whole kingdom.”
“Women who seem innocent nearly always warrant more caution.”
“‘Lady in the streets, freak in the sheets’?”
Dash lifted a brow. “Picking up some wisdom in verse from the Reflection, are you?”
“Nah, that gem is from Earth.”
“Ah. I’ll be remembering it.”
“Oh, well,” I sighed, “delighted I got to introduce you to that double standard.”
I looked away from the curiosity burning in Dash’s eyes as he studied me for a moment like I was some sort of strange creature he’d just discovered. “Okay, why are you looking at me like that?”
“You are a strange enigma, temptress, even after all these years.” He grinned slowly. “That, and you’re naked.”
Oh god.
What the hell was I doing? Honestly, if the siren could keep it in her bath, it’d be a fucking miracle.
“In all seriousness,” Dash reached a hand to the lip of tub like he was mindlessly waiting for mine to join his there, “I am sorry I wasn’t there. Are you alright?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t worry, I had the other four helicopter moms with me.” I felt that gaze studying me again, and I hoped he was busy trying to visualize this literally as I made myself very fascinated with a hangnail on my pinky finger. “Really, Dash, you’re fine.”
“But you’re not.”
“I’m—” I eyed his hand accidentally, the lust thrashing inside me as I flirted with the idea of brushing my fingers against it, even just briefly.
I took a steadying breath and moved my hands underneath the water, clenching them between my thighs. I couldn’t risk touching Dash, not with all that raw sexual energy flowing off his body in near-visible heat waves. Not with the tempting thought of his hands all over my body sinking like claws into my resolve. I tried to channel whatever self-control he seemed to pull from out of his sleeve whenever in my presence, wondering for the first time if the potency of our attraction was what made him so stiff around me.
Stiff in
the not so relevant way.
“—I’m— just dandy,” I finally managed.
“You’re lying.”
Dammit. How was I going to rule a whole fucking kingdom with such an appalling incompetence for lying?
Dash shook his head. “You’re more... reserved than usual. What happened, temptress? Do I need to take a swat at Jude for you?”
I couldn’t help the laugh of mirth. “No. No need to defend my honor or whatever.”
“I am serious. If he did anything— if any of them ever touch you like—”
“Dash, no,” I said, my voice hushed in awe of the look simmering in his eyes. He was so ready to defend even the thought of a grievance against me, and I...
I didn’t even know how to respond to a man who saw any value in me worth defending.
I frowned, blinking away the strange reaction that was making my eyes wet.
“Good,” he huffed, seeming placated by my answer. “Come on then, tell me what I missed. I have a very lively imagination. I can come up with some excellent reasons why you were screaming, if you make me guess.”
“I’ll bet you can,” I muttered. My eyes cut to his fingers clenched against the edge of the tub and I swallowed. If only his hands could be on my hips like that. Then again, it was starting to look like the porcelain just might crack.
He finally withdrew his hand and I breathed out a sigh of relief. I mean, the fact that I was naked and he didn’t mind wasn’t exactly going anywhere, but small victories. Small victories for Saylor’s human half.
“Saylora, please.” Dash’s tone shifted to something that sounded like a plead masquerading as flirtation. “I am not interested in hearing their theories when it’s your story to tell. But it is good for us, to have equal understanding in regards to you.”
“You’re appealing to my sense of... what, exactly?” I raised my eyebrows. “Empathy? I don’t feel sorry for you, Dash. You haven’t seemed very sorry for what I’ve gone through, so I’m not sure why you think I’d believe you care now.”
“That’s not true--”
“And I quote: ‘I hardly think the deep sleep counts.’” Preoccupied as I was with restraining my siren, the words sounded severer than I’d meant them.
Dash let out a long exhale of admission. “Well, am I allowed to reconsider, or have you nailed me for a heartless brute already?”
Nailed.
Deep breaths, Saylor. Deep breaths so your siren doesn’t manhandle the very hot man.
I looked over at him, examining those electric eyes for any sense of whether he was playing games with me, and what I saw there made me squeeze my legs closer together to keep my hands from inching any higher.
“It wasn’t pretty. You should be glad you weren’t there.”
“I’d never take pleasure in seeing you distressed, but I am grateful for the honor to protect you and I regret that I was not there when protection was needed.”
“I didn’t need your protection,” I corrected. But those damn eyes had worn me down with their sudden softness, and the words came untangled slowly as I tried to tug meaning out of one hellish knot of a problem. “Have you ever had one of those dreams, Dash, where the thing you dreamt just kind of clung to you after you woke up?”
He cleared his throat. “Of course.”
“Not one of those dreams,” I said, inclining my head to him. “Like... the kind where you open your eyes and you’re unsure for a moment if you’re actually awake or asleep. All you feel is... grief.”
“They are only dreams, temptress.”
I exhaled, not so much frustrated as at a loss. Dash didn’t get it, and how could he? How could I, as a person cleaved between two internal realities, ever explain that kind of dissonance to someone else and expect any measure of understanding?
I shook my head. “All I need you to get, Dash, is that the things that happened to me when I was in the deep sleep— those things felt real. As real as this feels right now. In fact, most days this world feels like the nightmare.” I swallowed, thinking back on Sy’s words to me as I said, “Just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to your heart. Sometimes the head just takes a little while to catch up.”
A strange melancholy came over Dash. “You’re right, temptress. I don’t understand the things you have experienced… though, I would like to try.”
I nodded. “For what it’s worth Dash, I’m sorry I don’t remember. That I’m not what any of you bargained for when you were hoping I would wake up. Trust me, I’m highly aware how unqualified I am for this job.”
Dash’s eyes wandered to my back, where they lingered until he shook his head to himself. “In some ways we got something different than what we hoped for. And yet I can’t say any of us have qualms about who you turned out to be.”
I wasn’t convinced this was true for all of them, but before I could argue, Dash’s hand was on me, his surprisingly soft touch brushing against my shoulder blade. He shook his head again, mouth hanging open as if he wanted to say something else.
Smoke, blue eyes, what a smile—
I froze despite the invisible shiver bolting through me. “Please don’t touch me,” I said carefully, keeping my voice as even as possible.
His eyes moved from my shoulders back up to my face. “Something is wrong with you, Saylora.” He lifted his hand away from my skin. “Even the Saylora I knew before— she would never cower. This is wrong.” I looked down at myself to see that I was, in fact, recoiling from him, settling farther into the depths of the water until the rocking surface grazed my chin. “What is happening in that head of yours, temptress?” Dash asked quietly.
My breath hung in the air and he rested his forearms over the edge of the tub, leaning into me. I locked eyes with him, but didn’t answer.
“We’re the same, you and I,” he finally said into the silence. “It takes a certain type of power to live as a dual being, to house two spirits in one body.”
“The wolf and the man?”
His look was piercing, the cool sting of that wintry blue boring into me. “The siren and the woman.”
Something about the way he said ‘woman’ made it necessary for me squeeze my legs a little tighter. “Yeah,” I rasped, shaking off his gaze as best I could. “But I’m also a ruler, Dash. I mean how am I even supposed to—” The words got lost somewhere in the distraction and the building panic.
I cleared my throat and started again, trying for more composure: “I’m homeless, but I’m a princess! I’m a siren, but— psych!— I’m also part fae!” I threw my hands around, gesturing to all the things I apparently was. “And on top of all that I’m still just a person. I don’t have time for an identity crisis. I know that. But there are so many parts of me here, in your world, that I don’t recognize. And then there are the parts of me that I do recognize and I so wish I didn’t.”
I wasn’t ready to say the next thing out loud, but I knew I needed to. It had been coming for two days, willed by me or not.
“I think that I’m far more broken than I ever want to admit, Dash. And I have no idea what to do about it.”
Touches to Jude, confessions to Jabari, and now five tons of emotional baggage dumped on Dash. Giving myself away in pieces was not the best strategy I’d ever had for self-preservation, but there was a faint inkling in me that defied logic— a growing sense that I was safe, because these weirdo watchmen extended power to my voice.
Dash’s dark brows settled in solemn consideration over those occasionally inhuman eyes. I tucked my hands carefully back between my legs. “Stop thinking about who you are, temptress, and begin with who you want to be.”
His words gave me pause, and I frowned. “Has the wolf in you ever done something so terrible that you couldn’t believe such a thing was a part of you?” I peered over at him to see his brow crease, some unwelcome memory coming to him.
“I have many regrets, two of which have proven more exceptional than the others. The first comes from when I reali
zed what I was, and the second when I became head of my clan—”
“Wait, you?”
“Yes, me.” Dash frowned at me, those sharp features amused by my surprise. “I know you’ve suffered the loss of your memories, but you don’t have to seem quite so surprised.”
“An alpha werewolf. Figures,” I muttered.
“I did tell you this when I introduced myself at breakfast,” he said pointedly.
“A) I was in shock, and B) I was just trying to remember what to call everyone. Dashi, Jabarion, Gillesyn— I mean, what the fuck are these names?”
Dash smirked and then glanced down at his hands, which I noticed were clamped into fists. “My kind can be brutal,” he continued. “I have fed the wolf with many violences which my human side is ashamed of.”
“What’d you do?”
“I’ll tell you another time, temptress, when you’re wearing more clothes.” He nodded at me briefly, adding in afterthought, “Or any at all.”
I released the breath I’d been holding in anticipation of his story. “Why are you here, instead of with them? Your clan, I mean.”
“Sometimes family doesn’t make for the best company.”
I smiled. “I think that lesson’s somewhere in my archive of lost memories, along with the proper reaction to your alphahood.”
“Alphahood?”
“It’s a word I made up, just now.”
His eyes sparkled in amusement. “I might not understand everything, temptress— dreams, and curses, and sorcery— but I understand the burden of responsibility. And I understand your fears, perhaps more than you realize.”
My eyes returned to the steam snaking up from the surface of the water. “How did you forgive yourself?” I finally asked.
“You do not forgive yourself. Carrying the burden and doing better... sometimes that’s the only way to pay your debt.”
I looked at him, that natural intensity of his features softening with an emotional rawness that made my heart stagger. Dash leaned closer, eyes flickering down to the bubbles again and then back up to my eyes. My siren roiled.
“So did you tame your wolf?” I breathed.
