“He’s your father,” Whitley whispers. “There has to be a way.”
“My mother never cared about me. Why should my father be any different?”
“Just try!”
“You’re telling me the ‘King of the Sea’ can’t feel this massive battle waging in his territory already? He KNOWS. He just doesn’t care!”
A rumble simmers in the waves, deep below. Bubbles rise up.
“Oh, now you’ve made him mad,” Aunt Emil says.
“Good!” I yell, tired of all of this. “Maybe it’ll wake him the hell up.”
“Have some respect, young blood.” She puts her hands on her hips. “He will only fight when called,” she adds. “You must ask correctly. He’s ready. He’s waiting for the moment he can destroy this threat.”
“Why does he have to wait?”
“All beings have limitations, this is his. He moves the waves, and tides. He is the wind. The storms and the light trickling through the clouds. But he does not have a physical form but once a month.”
“Which isn’t until tomorrow night!” I yell. “Can we keep this up for days?”
“Or,” she continues, raising her eyebrows like she’s annoyed with me for interrupting, “he must be called.”
“I tried that already!”
“Well, you didn’t do it right, then.” Emil says through gritted teeth, but there is fear in her eyes as she says it.
“Then how?”
“What did you do before? What did you try?”
“I yelled out to the sea and asked for help to defeat my mother.” I shake my head, remembering how stupid that felt.
“When?” she says breathlessly.
I close my eyes, pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose. It’s hard to think when I’m pushing every ounce of power I have against my mother. “Days ago. I don’t know.”
Emil opens her eyes. “Before Whitley was awoken?” She sounds excited, her eyes wide.
I tilt my head. By awoken, I assume she means when I’d pulled her consciousness back to the surface. Before the night my mother caught us together. “Yes,” I answer. I hadn’t tried before that or after. “But then, Whitley tried not long ago and nothing happened!”
“Do it again.”
“What?”
“You, not her. You are the son. The heir. You must be the one to call—but why would he have come when you didn’t yet have the power needed to defeat her? Call him NOW!”
A clawed hand reaches through the water, ripping into my shoulder, and I cry out in pain as she digs into my flesh. Whitley hisses and moves between us, fire in her eyes as she tosses the creature back.
Whitley twists her fingers in mine. “Call him,” she whispers, eyes still animalistic and wild. She’s a siren. And I trust her.
I’ve been wrong about so much. Perhaps I’m wrong about this too.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to. I hate asking for help from anyone, and the fact that it’s my father, who’s been a magical sea-being my whole life but never once tried to reach out to me... My stomach clenches, my back burns.
“It’s the only way for us to win this war. Please!” she begs me.
My eyes fly open. I’d do anything for her. To save her, and me, from this awful fate. I don’t want to relive this. Ever. Let’s end it now, even if it means some legitimate humility on my part.
“Father,” I whisper. “I need your help. You have the power we need to defeat the Siren Queen. Now is the time,” I say, tears in my eyes. “We’re fighting. But we can’t do it alone.”
A rumble begins beneath my feet. I open my eyes to look at Whitley, who appears even more scared and awed than I feel. I pull her into my chest, pressing my lips to her hair. “I love you,” I tell her again. Because I can never have enough of telling her that.
“I love you too,” she tells me.
Then a crashing wave thunders over our heads and smashes into the wall between us. We all holler and tumble as our magic barrier disintegrates, sending our bodies flying through the waves. My hand is ripped from Whitley’s. I can’t see anything but water and white caps.
A moment later, I stop tumbling and push myself to the surface to figure out what’s happening. A wave smashes into the pirate ship in the distance with a roar that sounds like a literal lion.
A new massive wave appears, rising up over the rest. Only this water isn’t wall or a spiral—it’s in the shape of a man. “Fight with me,” he says, his voice like rushing water.
I look around, but Whitley isn’t anywhere to be found. Panic fills me, hands shaking immediately. I dip underwater and see her struggling with several sirens trying to subdue her. I dart towards them, teeth barred, a jolt of magic bolts from my hand and towards the sirens. They squeal and swim off as I grab Whitley and pull her to the surface.
She sucks in heaving breaths and wraps her arms around my neck. “What’s happening?” she asks.
I nod towards the battle raging before us. Walls of waves crashing down on each other. “Wow, is that what we looked like?” she asks.
I chuckle. From an outsider, yeah it probably did. “We must join now. Together we can kill her.”
“Finally,” she whispers. I can’t help but agree.
Whitley
Bluff and I dip below the water, his arms at my waist, mine around his shoulders, as we twist around and around through the water, spinning like an arrow shot through the water until it feels like we are one being. A weapon formed to latch together.
Our power explodes once more, attacking the wall of waves.
On one side of the battle is a wave covered in sirens. The other, water forming a massive man, his fist pounding on the siren wave with a fury that scares even me. Bluff and I attack the siren waves, intent on finding the queen, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
The sirens crumble quickly, their power dwarfed by Bluff and I’s explosion and the Sea King’s man-wave.
“Where is she?” Bluff cries out as we surface. The battle is practically won except that this war will never be over so long as she lives.
I suck in a breath. “There,” I whisper, pointing towards the Sea King’s massive form. He holds the Siren Queen in his hand, water rushing down in gallons but swirling back to keep his form strong. The Siren Queen’s tail thrashes as she tries to get loose from his grip.
“You are not fit to rule,” he says in his roaring voice.
“Wait!” Bluff calls. I jump at the sound of his voice right next to me. The wave in the form of a man looks down on us, and I shrink behind Bluff.
“You don’t want him to kill her?” I whisper. Confused.
“Let me, please,” he asks his father. The first gift he’s ever requested. I, however, shiver at the thought of him dealing the final blow to destroy his mother. Coming from someone who knows what it feels like. My heart sinks. I wish that was one memory that didn’t come back.
“I told her I’d kill her. I want to live up to that promise.”
The Sea King chuckles, sending water crashing down to surface level. “No,” he finally says, his laugher dissipating into a cool calm. “No child should kill their parent.” My stomach squeezes as I picture my father’s face— it seems the wave king notices. He grimaces, white caps like eyebrows pulling down in concern. “That is but another crime,” he tells the siren squirming in his hand, “to add to your sentence.”
He pulls in a loud thundering breath like an old man snoring. “It might feel good right now,” he tells Bluff, in his rumbling, inhuman voice, “but the memory will haunt you. You do not need it.”
Bluff’s lip curls.
He tightens his grip as the sound like an earthquake shakes through sea. Bluff’s mother screams in agony. She writhes as the water of the Sea King’s hand crushes her until she shatters—in blue and red water, cascading down to the sea.
I blink, watching pieces of the Siren Queen’s body fall into the sea beside us.
Bluff
I am a mixture of rage and glee, wat
ching my mother’s body fly into bits and reenter the sea. She’s gone.
Whitley is free.
I am free.
But my father took the satisfaction of killing her away from me. “How dare you,” I snarl at him.
The massive wave form shrinks until he is normal size in front of me. Still literal water in the form of a human, but no longer a giant. Whitley is behind me, holding my shoulder, out of terror or attempting to support me, I’m unsure.
“You are right, that I was never a father to you,” he tells me, his voice still the sound of flowing water but more like a trickle now. A river, more than ocean waves. “But you are wrong on other accounts.”
I clench my teeth. “You don’t need to talk to me. Go back to your whispering waves and whatever else you do, ignoring everyone. You did your job. We’re free. So thanks. I don’t need some paternal speech to make me feel better.” I pull Whitley in tighter. “I have what I need.”
His eyes bore into mine as he nods. “You do indeed.”
I let out a breath.
“But there is something I’d like for you to understand before I depart.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine.”
“My nature makes it impossible for me to be a real father to my children. I cannot take physical form, so I watched from afar. I thought it easier that way.”
I blink, thinking about the eager waves, the way the sea always pulled me. I assumed it was my siren blood, but maybe...
“You’ve talked to me before. Why not more?” I say, referencing the times I’d heard his voice on the wind or in the waves.
“I have sent messages occasionally, but you always cast them off as figments of your imagination, so I felt no particular need to continue trying. Unless it was something you desperately needed to hear.”
“You could have shown yourself some time, though, right?” Whitley asks beside me. “You take physical form once a month?”
I swallow.
“Indeed. I thought it easier if he didn’t know he had a father rather than one you could only see one night a month. Perhaps I thought wrong.”
“Damn right you did.” Though I’m not sure I believe that. I don’t know what to think.
He nods, his dark watery eyes haunted. “You may hate me, son. I will forgive you for that. But just know that I was always there. In the waves as you swam. The wind tussling your hair and guiding your ships. That will not change now.”
My mouth falls open.
“You are a good son. Brave and true and good, even despite the bad you have endured. If you ever wish to call me again, I will come.”
I blink as his form crashes back into the water, leaving only ripples in the smooth ocean as he disappears.
Whitley
Holy moly. We both sit there in the waters, watching the remnants of the powerful Sea King smooth out into nothing as the waves calm. I don’t know if I should speak.
That was... intense.
Bluff pulls me around to face him, and I wrap my legs round his waist. He looks into my eyes and whispers, “It’s over.”
I smile, unsure he’s right about that. Our biggest nightmare may be over, but there’s still a whole lot more to do. “What now?” I ask him.
“Whatever you want,” he says as he pulls me to his lips, crashing into me. I moan at how good it feels. To be free, with him. He and I just drifting in the middle of the ocean, no land to be seen in either direction—and no enemies either.
But the moment he releases me from his spellbinding kiss, a million questions bombard me.
“Where did the Sea Witch go?”
Bluff shrugs. “Ran off when the Sea King finally came? I’m sure we’ll see her again soon. We should go find Bingo, though,” he says, and as I react his smile grows.
“Bingo?” I ask in a hushed voice. The ship was smashed to bits, so even if he’d survived the attack after we fled, he wouldn’t have survived that.
“He’s in a longboat with Jasper. Somewhere,” he looks around.
“Who’s Jasper?”
Bluff smiles. “A friend.”
We begin a slow swim forward until a form rises from the water before us. I jump, heart racing as a red-headed siren blinks at us.
I freeze, and then look to Bluff whose mouth falls open. I wonder for a moment if all the sirens will want to kill me. Even with the Siren Queen gone—I’m the enemy, right?
“Master?” the red headed girl says to me.
I blink. Does she not realize the Siren Queen is dead?
But she pushes forward and places a webbed hand on my cheek gently. “Master,” she purrs.
What the hell?
“The old Siren Queen is dead,” Bluff says under his breath like he’s thinking this through. “They need a new one.”
I suck in a breath. “How did that become me?”
“You’re the most powerful... I suppose it’s natural.”
I shake my head. “No. I do not accept!”
Bluff chuckles at my reaction, but there is stress in his eyes. “We’ll find a way out of it. But perhaps we can use it to our advantage right now.”
I pull my eyebrows down. “How?”
“Order her to help us find the longboat.”
I pause, mind still reeling. “There is a boat with a boy and a man out in the open water somewhere. Find them and bring me to them.”
The siren nods eagerly. “But don’t harm them!” I cry out as she swims away, happy with her command.
Bluff smiles and grabs my hand. A few moments later, a new siren appears. His eyes are a pretty emerald green, his air blond like mine. “Come, master!” he says. Apparently the other has passed on my message because as Bluff and I swim below the surface following the blond siren, there are several more flanking us. Twirling around happily.
“This way!” the siren prompts us to go faster until finally I see the bottom of the boat bumbling in the water. I resurface and the boy in the boat jumps back behind an older man, holding a rusty uneven blade pointed at me with trembling fingers.
I hold up my hands to show them empty. Bluff surfaces beside me, and the older man chokes out in relief. “Bluff? What in the bloody hell?”
I ignore than man’s panic and peer over his shoulder to the little form hiding behind him. “Bingo?” I whisper.
Bingo lifts his head with hopeful but terror-filled eyes. “Whit?” he whispers.
I nod, tears stinging my eyes but he still seems unsure. I was a siren, full siren, the last time we met. I don’t blame his fear, but I hate it anyway. “I would never hurt you. I promise.”
Jasper’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say a word.
“All right,” Bingo whispers. I reach out and touch his hand.
“I’m sorry. Are you all right?” I ask.
He nods. His eyes dart all around, to Bluff then to Jasper. “What happened?”
I shrug. “We won.”
He nods eagerly. “That’s good.”
I give him a small chuckle.
“So,” Jasper says quickly. “Any idea how we get back to land? Our ship is gone and, unlike some people, we can’t swim for hundreds of miles.”
I smile. “I have an idea.”
Bluff
I can’t stop laughing as the team of sirens pushes the little dinghy boat through the water at breakneck speed. How strange would this look if we passed another ship?
Nearly an hour into our very silly, but convenient, endeavor, a set of sails appears over the horizon. We are very far out to sea, so the chances of finding a ship are somewhat small, but not astronomically. Still, I find it curious, so I ask Whitley to steer us close enough to at least see the flag.
My heart soars as the black flag with a red rose registers in my brain. “It’s Rosemera,” I whisper, not believing my luck.
“No way,” Whitley says. “It can’t be.”
“It is,” I say, standing and waving, though it’s likely too soon for them to notice me this far out. Their ship is a small fisherman’s
vessel, and from the looks of it their crew is very small. There are shouts as we’re sighted which quickly turn to whoops of joy— I assume, they realize who we are, and I can’t stop grinning. I leap into the water, unable to wait for us to get close enough to board. I climb up the ladder on the side of the ship and before I can even climb over the railing, Rosemera has me in her arms, Bear hugging me and pulling me over the side.
I cry out in pain, but laugh through it.
She pulls back. “What happened?”
“A lot,” I say. But she eyes my torn clothing and the lashes on my back.
“God, Bluff,” she whispers. “I thought you were gone forever,” she says with tears in her eyes.
I give her a small smile. “Almost. You can hug me, just be gentle.”
She wraps her arms around me and presses her face to my shoulder to hide her tears, but I can hear her sniffles.
“How did you find us?” I whisper.
“We’ve been sailing around looking for Stede for weeks, ever since they took Bingo. Last week we heard rumors of the massive whirlpools in this area, so we headed this way.
I laugh. “That’s quite risky of you.” I look over her shoulder to Knick, “I didn’t think Knick the kind to risk his life quite so insanely.”
Rosemera’s grin widens. “For that boy, he would.” She shakes her head.
My eyebrows pull down as I look around. “Where’s Robert?”
Rosemera purses her lips and looks down at her feet. “He... went back home.”
“Oh,” I say stupidly.
“Things weren’t...” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t belong out here with us. It was inevitable but fun while it lasted.”
I nod slowly, unsure what to think about that. I’ve always wanted her to find happiness, but then—the words of Captain Stevenson come back to me. She has plenty of life left to live. She’ll find both love and pain ahead of her.
Treacherous Love Page 23
