With taunting slowness, Santino then drew his fingers back out, raised them to his lips, and licked my flavor off his skin. A groan rose from his chest, so primal and intense that the sound seemed to reverberate straight through the earth beneath me.
As I was still spellbound by the sight of the divine, primal pleasure dancing upon his features, Santino slipped one hand beneath the small of my back, raised my hips, and buried himself inside me.
I cried out as I sheathed him, as he filled every inch of me and began to move. Languidly, carefully, so that I could accommodate his thickness and length. His hands wrapped around my hips and kept me steady as he built up the rhythm, the sensual melody of flesh against flesh rising through the surrounding woods in tune with my ever-growing moans. I raked my fingers down the hard wall of his chest, my nails leaving little reddened paths on the tan of his skin, trailing across the spill of silver curls and writing out how badly I wanted him. How right it felt to have him buried inside me so deeply I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
As his thrusts became more urgent, more fervent, I wrapped my fingers around his arms, afraid that if I didn’t have a tether, I would drift from this world on the currents of pleasure he pushed into me, again and again.
He was a surging tide, a storm, darkening the sky with the promise of release.
And I wanted nothing more than to surrender myself to his destructive embrace.
“I can’t hold on much longer, piccola,” he warned as his rhythm faltered.
I felt him throb inside me, pushing against those intimate walls with the sweetest of pressure, and met the silver of his eyes.
Somehow, I found the voice in me to whisper, “Then don’t, Santino.”
The instant the words fled from my lips, he groaned, a shuddering, rolling sound that swept across my skin and tightened the muscles of my core around his steel. I sensed him quiver, sensed that accumulation of pleasure graze against my walls ever harder as he thrusted one last time, casting me over the edge and into oblivion. His entire frame shook as he spilled his seed inside me, the ripples of orgasm dancing through us both and binding our bodies, our minds, in the ribbons of absolute rapture.
Even as he still fought for air, Santino lowered himself on top of me and kissed me. He kissed me so thoroughly and lovingly, with such hunger and care that I knew… With him, I would always have a home.
I would always belong.
13
“Here you go.”
Santino handed me a cup of freshly brewed coffee I’d smelled all the way from the kitchen, and the instant he made sure I wouldn’t spill the steaming brew all over myself, his lips found mine. I smiled into his kiss, marveling at the taste of pine, moonlight, and man that was Santino. The tender demand tightened my body, stealing away my breath. I leaned closer, then remembered the coffee in my hands.
With a throaty chuckle, I pulled away and nestled myself deeper into the love seat, instead. Still, the sudden loss of his touch hit me like a blow to the stomach. I curled my legs up on the cushion while Santino made himself comfortable by my side. He draped one arm across my shoulders, engulfing me in his warmth once more.
Through the large window stretched out on the wall before us, I observed the gentle, puffy clouds reflected in the surface of the lake, my senses consumed by the untamed beauty of the serenity and power it carried. The water had been right.
While there were bleak, dark pockets of the world, my reality didn’t have to be anchored within them.
And tucked next to Santino as I was, feeling the heat of his body pressing against mine, I knew I would fight to the very end to keep the grimmer side of existence from sinking its talons into me and whisking all this away.
I took a sip of the fragrant coffee, rolling it across my tongue until this newly found determination settled in. Once it felt as much an inherent part of me as my power, I placed the petrol-blue cup on the wooden club table and ran my fingers through Santino’s hair. His eyes blazed with silver as he looked down at me, a slight curl appearing in the corner of his lips.
The sight was so stunning, warmth flushed my skin, my core, infusing me with life I’d once believed to be lost. And yet as much as I wanted to sink into the oblivion of his silent offer, I made certain to keep my kiss guarded. I couldn’t allow myself to be swept into this fairy tale when there were so many threads still left unresolved.
“Has Caz told you anything more?” I asked.
My question seemed to crumble and break apart in the sheer force of Santino’s hunger. It electrified the air, making me lick my suddenly all too dry lips. For a moment, I thought—perhaps even hoped with that treacherous part of me that refused to listen to reason—that his desire would spill over and snatch us away.
But as his chest rose with a deep inhale, the energy subsided.
Santino leaned back, the arm he had previously kept around my shoulders now draped over the headrest. The other, however, he placed on my knee, his fingers drawing intricate patterns across my exposed skin. I shuddered, and a flash of approval brimmed in his eyes before it died down, giving way to something more rational. Something darker.
“I’ve looped Caz in on the specifics of your problem,” he said carefully.
My breath whizzed from my lungs. That fragment of my being, the lingering essence of the Rusalka not even my transformation had the chance to eradicate, protested violently at the thought of a Perelesnyk knowing about my existence.
None of their kind had come after us in all the time I’d spent in the morass, but stories—especially ones based on tragedy that bordered genocide—were hard to get rid of. Once someone did their best to implement them not only in your mind, but your heart, even rational thought did little to stem the fear.
But I was adamant to escape its clutches. I’d lived in a perpetual state of terror and fright for long enough.
Perelesnyk or not, Caz was police, legitimate police, as well as a source of vital information. Without him, we wouldn’t have even known who the PI was—or about his abundance of less than savory associates headed my way.
Slowly, I nodded. “And what did he say?”
Displeasure slid across Santino’s features. “That we have a far better chance of going after the Rusalkas than bringing down Kauer’s entire organization.”
“Shit,” I whispered.
Somehow I’d sensed it would come to this, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.
Although the magic of the Rusalkas, originating from a rigid, patriarchic time, meant they could only harm men with their power, they were dangerous even without the lethal magic backing up their wrath. The painful, bitter, and indisputable proof of their ruthlessness lay with Iza’s death. And Angela’s vicious capture.
But despite it all, there was something else bothering me. I chewed on the inside of my lip, feeling my brow furrow. I wanted the Rusalkas to leave me alone. I even wanted those responsible for the bloodshed to pay with their lives.
It was just that I didn’t want to kill all of them.
The single thing some of my former sisters were guilty of was falling in with the wrong crowd. Yes, they—we—were predators, but that wasn’t a crime in itself. I understood that now. It was merely the way of nature, a way to keep the world in balance—much like within the animal hierarchy.
Every hunter had its prey. And nearly every predator could become it.
Yet the distinction between being a hunter and being a murderous sadist was profound. One was nature, the other evil. And it was the latter who should suffer for their crimes, not my former species as a whole.
I sighed. Somehow, seeing the angry glint in Santino’s eyes when he mentioned the Rusalkas made me believe that convincing him of going after only a select few might prove to be a more difficult task than the actual execution of the plan. I placed my palm on top of the hand he still kept on my knee, squeezing gently. Where this sudden courage was coming from, I couldn’t tell.
But I accepted the gift it was and said
, “Santino, maybe if I practice more, I could use the water to contain the Rusalkas while I slip in and save Angela.”
If she’s still alive…
“And the rest?” His voice was even colder than that night in Moon Bay.
I swallowed, hoping my nervousness wouldn’t show. “I don’t want all of them to die.” My fingers tightened around his hand to stifle his oncoming argument. “I’ll do it. I’ll kill the ones responsible for all of this, but the others deserve a chance—they deserve to make a choice, decide if they wish to stop this ridiculous animosity and go on with their lives, or let their hatred carry them into the underworld.”
Santino snorted, but his tone was gentle nonetheless. “Porca miseria… Are you actually paraphrasing me?”
I shrugged. “Guess you shouldn’t spurt out wisdom if you don’t want people to take it to heart…”
Santino shook his head, then cupped my face in both his hands. With a long exhale, he pressed his forehead against mine, the heat of his breath laying phantom caresses on my lips and filling my trembling body with warmth. With certainty.
“They are all guilty, piccola. Did any one of them even try to stop the others when they attacked you? Did they hesitate?”
When I didn’t answer, Santino pulled away, hands still on my face and silver-blue eyes alight with conviction. “When you see as much death as I have, you realize there are no innocent bystanders. Only aggressors and victims. Someone may turn a blind eye now, but the next time, it could just as well be them, meting out the final blow.”
I sighed. I couldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t.
I might not have liked my sisters, but who was to say their actions—or lack of them—hadn’t originated from fear? Santino didn’t know what it was like in the morass, the constant threat weaving through the murky water, just waiting to lash out at the first sign of disobedience. While I’d been the only one actually walking a thin line of defiance, luring men to their deaths when needed but flat-out refusing to participate in any of the more gruesome activities the ringleaders liked to busy themselves with, I couldn’t have been the only one who’d felt this way.
Damn it, we had been living under a dictatorship… If we were guilty of anything, it was not stepping up as a group and overthrowing the sadists. But that was a darkness I shared.
I opened my mouth, but any further protest was shot down as a single sentence punched every last atom of air from my lungs.
“I’ll go after them.”
Wide-eyed, I jerked away and stared at him. He was serious.
For a long, long second, I was perfectly immobile. Then the shock swelled into a festering, seething mass of fear, ever so lightly tinted with anger.
“You’ll die, Santino,” I half shouted and threw my hands up. “You’re a man! There’s no way you’ll get close enough to the morass to harm them. I can’t—I won’t let you go there alone. Even if I have to use magic to compel you to stay, even if you hate me for it, I swear on all the gods that I’ll do it.”
A beep cut through the room. The words still waiting on the tip of my tongue withered as Santino sprang from the couch in an explosion of movement and urgency, then opened a slick, black panel on the nearby wall. Tension bunched in his shoulders, his posture turning predatory—and when he spun back around, his face was a stone-cold mask of a man who had walked through thousands of battlefields. A man who had emerged from them alive.
I shrank into the love seat, unable to comprehend this sudden change.
Not until he said, “Stay here, piccola. It appears we have some uninvited guests on the way.”
14
“What?” I hissed, trepidation sliding down my spine and stirring nausea deep in the pit of my stomach.
But Santino was already halfway across the room. He fastened his shoulder holster, then secured another around his waist. His work was seamless, effortless. He slipped extra clips into his pockets with the skill and speed of a man who had gone through the motions hundreds of times before.
By the time he was done, there were more weapons on him than I had thought possible for a civilian to possess, and Santino carried them all with utter confidence.
He walked over to me, his face set in hard edges, but the kiss he placed on my brow was light, an echo of the tenderness we shared.
“Whatever you hear, Liana, stay inside. There’s a panic room hidden behind the pantry. Press the button concealed under the iron sun and get in there. I’ll reach you via the comm unit when it’s safe.”
I wanted to speak but no words came. Santino kissed me again, brisk and passionate, then ran out the back door.
Fighting the tremors that weighed heavily on my limbs, I glanced at the pantry. As Santino had said, there was a wrought-iron sun perched on the wall, its opaque orange-tinted glass undoubtedly keeping the button well out of sight. I crossed my arms, rubbing away the chills. I wanted to go. I really did, but there was something—a prickling at my instincts that carried me towards the panel on the wall instead.
What I saw there hit me like a punch in the gut.
About two dozen dots moved on the small screen, encircling the rectangular shape that could be nothing else but the home. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the dots were closing in. Fast.
I thought I spotted Santino—a lone, flickering circle moving in the opposite direction than everybody else—but in the wave of panic, I could hardly be sure. My vision blurred around the edges from the tears I was unable to hold back, my breath coming out in painful, too-quick rasps.
Police or not, Santino was still only one person. And if these were Kauer’s men, they certainly weren’t lacking in murderous skills.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Santino might be able to surprise some of them, but as soon as the shooting started, they would know he was there. And they would swarm him. Even his silencers and years on the force couldn’t spare him from that.
I let out a strangled cry, focusing on that flicker of anger that started to spread through my veins. Damn it, I wasn’t about to let him die. Not at the hands of assassins, gunning for me. And especially not when there was something I could do, even if the mere thought of it terrified me out of my mind.
Without giving fear another second to settle and hold me down, I sprinted out the front door.
Hoping to the gods I wouldn’t get shot before I even had the chance to set this crazy plan in motion, I jumped over the porch stairs. I ignored the pebbles biting into the soles of my bare feet, battling the long seconds.
One.
Two.
Three.
Just as shouts broke the calm of the surrounding nature, I propelled myself headfirst into the water.
The warmth of magic enveloped me at once, sweeping around my legs and seeping into the very structure of my body. I swam towards the darkness, hoping to use the lake’s depths as a barrier until the power assessed itself inside me and granted me what I sought. I broke through the surface the moment it did, a translucent shield already erected in a tightly knit circle around me. The shaped currents seemed thicker than before, as if my magic had influenced the very density of the water, changing it into an actual shield that not only reflected light in a way to throw the shooters off course, but slow down any bullets headed my way.
Or so I hoped.
Mercifully, despite hearing the distinct, sinister crack of gunshots coming from just beyond the cottage, no one had opened fire on me yet.
My heart heavy and lungs tight, I poured every inch of my will into the lake, taking hold of the water without revealing my intentions to the outside world. If my time with the Rusalkas had taught me anything, it was to never show your hand before the right time came.
Right now, that meant using myself as bait to draw the hitmen out.
Nausea swirled in my stomach, and I silently cursed myself for not testing the extent of my abilities when I had the chance. Shaping water into beautiful structures was one thing, but using it as a weapon…
A part of
me was repulsed by allowing violence to taint this unique connection the element and I shared, but the clear, cooing currents didn’t seem to mind their darker destiny. If anything, I felt their protectiveness slithering around me, infusing me with strength I knew I would never have had otherwise.
Please let this work, I prayed, then opened my mouth and let my voice bathe the restless nature.
The melody was haunting. It spilled out of me not from any kind of rational thought or knowledge, but through ancient instinct that gently curved around my core with its empowering touch. The notes flowed from my lips in a magnetic call that rustled the leaves and rolled over the blades of grass, seeking out the men’s foul hearts.
Only Santino’s was left untouched. Like a gleaming jewel, prominent and wild in its beauty, he remained clear in the ocean of lilac mist.
Once the harmony took hold of the men, I could feel another mermaid’s compulsion pooling within them. Angela’s order to hunt me until their lives ended, or mine bled out at their hands.
The spell battled with mine, but I quickly realized that as long as I didn’t counter it directly, the lilac tendrils were able to find cracks in the ethereal surface through which they could slip, bringing the hitmen closer without touching the implanted intents still burning in their hearts.
I didn’t care what they wanted to do with me. As long as I drew them within my sight, that was enough.
More shots erupted—some Santino’s, some belonging to the assassins who had been affected by Angela the most and were able to counter my melody. But even as a sliver of doubt gnawed at my mind’s edges, bodies started to take shape between the hulking brown trunks of the vegetation. I counted the seconds in my head, feeling the men as vividly as I was now seeing them.
Then lashed out with all I had.
Sirens and Scales Page 82
