Sirens and Scales

by Kellie McAllen

  Min grinned at Leo as he stood.

  “What a great honor you offer her,” Min proclaimed. The whole room silenced to listen in on their conversation now. “My own sons haven’t chosen mates yet. I can assure you King Longray will be happy at your choice.”

  As Sam suspected, Min was graciously taking the news. Leo didn’t even glance at the hand clasped in his own. He was sure Zia wasn’t going to take the news well. They didn’t have time to tell her about the plan and the slight risk that binding might transfer the magic to Leo. He was fine taking the risk. If they didn’t get Zia home to the Siren, Leo wouldn’t have a life to live anyway. Now he just needed to get her to see that. Zia squeezed his hand tighter.

  “We would love for our little Zia to be taken care of by the Siren. It’s a great honor you offer her, right, Zia?” Min directed his gaze at Zia, and Leo finally looked down at her by his side.

  “Yes, a great honor,” she replied, her voice dead and there were tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

  “Good. Then let’s do this all tomorrow since the boys only have two days left here. We don’t want to make him come back. Do you think your father would mind if I was the one overseeing the mating ceremony?” Min asked Sam.

  “I can go ask him, but I’m sure he will agree that it works best this way so that we don’t have to come back,” Sam agreed with the older man.

  “Then it’s settled. We will celebrate the mating of my adopted daughter, Zia, to Leo of the Siren clan tomorrow,” Min told the room. Cheers erupted around them.

  Zia dropped Leo’s hand before leaning in close to him.

  “I have to go,” she said, her voice on the verge of crying.

  Leo wanted to say something, or at least chase her, but Min was already moving and making a seat next to him as he waved Leo to sit down.

  “Girls always get nervous about this stuff. They want everything to be perfect and feel like if they can’t plan it out for months that it won’t be what they dreamt. Don’t worry about Zia. I’m sure she’s just stressing about everything,” Min explained.

  Leo looked across the way at Sam. Smiling, he nodded like Min was correct. Leo wished that he could have told Zia, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t like their plan. She didn’t seem to truly understand that his life was over if they came back without proof of something going on with the Mavkas. She still clung to the thought that Leo would be forgiven for wanting to leave. What she didn’t seem to get was that Leo would certainly not stick around the Siren now. He wasn’t going to bind to anyone when he turned eighteen unless it was Zia.

  Zia spent the remainder of the day without Leo. At first, she ran because she was going to cry. She had no explanation for Leo or Min about why she was crying, or at least a reason that she could speak aloud. Then, when she was finally composed enough to go back and see him, the plans for the binding were already in order. Zia was forced to sit through a manicure, a haircut, eyebrow plucking, and a pedicure which was pretty pointless because the ceremony would be in the courtyard, and she’d have no feet. Zia tolerated it all, just waiting for a moment to find Leo.

  With all the planning and prepping, Zia didn’t get a chance to see him before she went to sleep for the night. And sleeping was a hard thing to do while her mind kept racing, trying to find a way to get him out of it. There was no reason for Leo to be trapped as a slave to the Mavkas, too. Already Zia had been forced to make dozens of Mavkas bend to Min’s will. She was sure Leo would be in the same boat. He would become a servant to the Mavkas leader alongside her.

  Zia couldn’t condemn Leo to the life of a Mavkas. They didn’t seem to mind communal living and never seeing the sun, but Leo was a Siren as Zia had been. He would miss the sun and swimming freely. The small courtyard was nothing compared to the whole ocean. While the mer clans kept to their own waters, Siren were the highest-ranking clan and could go anywhere. Now he would be in a cage.

  When morning finally came and the mer all started their day, Zia was free to walk around. She had only hours to get Leo to leave and she planned to do just that, even if she had to be mean to him.

  It was easy to find Leo. He was staring at the breakfast buffet, just as he had every morning. This was one more thing she didn’t need to force on him—the weird, limited Mavkas food. Zia missed the Siren island—every last part of it; even the boring, bland vegetables that she couldn’t eat now.

  Zia planned to march up to Leo and tell him she refused to bond to him, but watching him poke each item before deciding what to eat was too cute. It made her smile instead.

  “They only save the live food for dinner, not breakfast, right? People are never awake enough in the morning to have to fight their food to eat it,” Zia teased.

  “You shouldn’t ever have to fight your food,” Leo replied as he went to grab a spoon.

  Reaching forward, Zia stopped him. “Not that one. I don’t know if it’s animal or vegetable, but it tastes like it came from a toilet,” she added. Leo pulled back at that comment and Zia took her hand in his. “You can’t do this.”

  Leo turned, smiling at her. “Yes, you’re right. I can’t eat food if it’s that bad.” He pretended like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “Le-O.” She made his name into two syllables to emphasize that she knew he was avoiding the real topic.

  Reaching up, Leo brushed back the stray hairs that fell around her face now as she couldn’t fit them in the lose ponytail at the base of her neck. Zia froze as his thumb touched her cheek.

  “Let’s have breakfast, and we can talk later,” Leo suggested.

  Zia wanted to say no to him, but her stomach rumbling reminded her that she didn’t eat the night before. She had been too upset to eat anything.

  Grabbing a plate, Zia quickly added food to it to keep up with Leo. She had to be sure he remembered not to eat the gray-and-red-colored one. It really did taste horrible.

  Zia found the meal was exactly what she needed. It wasn’t just that she was hungry, but listening to Leo talk about his life on the Siren island and growing up with Sam was calming to her. Studying him as he talked, she found that he was confident and relaxed even though she had told him the day before that the Mavkas planned to bind him to her to make him stay. Zia tried to figure out why he was so calm, but his story made her laugh again. She had to cover her mouth so food didn’t fall out. Leo and Sam had been quite the children. She had grown up a Siren, but she had lived on the other side of the island from where Sam and Leo had been.

  When the meal was finished, and Leo led the way to their little alcove. That was exactly what Zia was thinking, too, and she couldn’t wait to pull him back to her spot.

  “What the heck are you thinking?” she asked, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

  Leo smiled at her anger and just leaned down to kiss her instead. Zia momentarily forgot she was angry and kissed him back. She was going to miss him when he was gone.

  Pulling back triumphantly, Leo smiled at Zia.

  “We have a plan,” Leo said.

  Of course, they had a plan, but neither Leo nor Sam had run it past her first. They didn’t know the Mavkas like she did. They could easily be making a mistake.

  “I showed Sam the memory of how you were turned by magic. He used his voice to question Cate and get answers from her. He said the plan will work, and we just need to follow the steps exactly.” Leo wrapped his arms around Zia to hold her close.

  She wasn’t falling for his distraction this time.

  “How about you tell me the plan, and I can tell you if it will work,” she replied, giving him her best “I-mean-business” eyes.

  Grinning wider, Leo bent down to kiss her again. Zia turned her head to avoid the distraction that was Leo’s lips.

  “The plan is for you to do what we ask and trust me,” Leo replied, removing a hand from her waist to allow him to turn her face toward him instead.

  “Really? Trust you? Leo, you’ve been down here for what, five days n
ow? You don’t understand them. You don’t get how much they hate you and will do everything to trap you here for their use. You don’t know what it’s like to be in this cage. I don’t want you caught here.”

  Zia could feel her anger melt into tears as they gathered in her eyes. She was trying her best not to cry, but it wasn’t going to work. Zia really needed to know Leo was off free somewhere. She couldn’t keep him in the Mavkas world with her. She just couldn’t.

  “They will use magic to do this to you, too. They can’t let you leave. You and Sam are too valuable.” Zia was desperate to get Leo to understand he couldn’t go through with the bonding.

  Suddenly, Zia felt the pull of Lan close by. She wasn’t finished with Leo, but she didn’t want Lan to know about her quiet corner.

  “We have to go back and sit down.”

  Leo nodded and led the way back to the two seats facing the ocean.

  “Zia, you need to get ready,” Lan said from the doorway to the outer room.

  Zia sighed. She wasn’t done with Leo, but she was being pulled away. Regretfully, she stood to follow Lan. Leo stopped her before she was too far and pulled her in for one more kiss, surprising her. Leo laughed as she pulled back and hurried past him.

  “Can’t wait to see you in a few hours,” Leo called to her as he made his way to the hallway where his room was.

  Zia could wait. In fact, she was thinking about how she was going to refuse to do the bonding. Leo would be hurt, but he would be safe. That was all that mattered. Maybe she would even have to push him out of the Mavkas home. He had said Sam was excellent with directions and finding his way home. Zia kept her thoughts to herself as Lan waited for her.

  Lan led the way to the first hallway where Min’s family lived. He walked past the outer waiting room and over to Min’s office. Zia wasn’t surprised to find her adoptive father sitting there with his maps. He had been obsessing about the ocean as long as she had been there. Every once in a while she had heard him mumble about territories that should be split between different clans, but she had no idea what he was up to.

  “Oh great, my daughter, Zia,” Min said as she followed behind Lan.

  The way he said daughter gave Zia the creeps. There was nothing about their relationship that was anything like father and daughter. He was the man who had planned and orchestrated her kidnapping. He wasn’t her father.

  “You, my dear, seem a little worried about today. Don’t be. Soon you’ll have a mate and be a happy little mer. I can’t wait to see if your babies will need to be converted or if the magic will transfer to them also.”

  Zia had told Leo there was one dead spot in the whole pod, but she had left out the second one. No one coming near would hear a word Min said as he spoke freely. Unfortunately, the magic that made her a mer bound her to him, and he forbade her to speak anything that was said within the room either.

  “I won’t do it,” Zia replied. “You can’t force him to stay here. He’s a Siren and free to leave.”

  Min smiled at her. “He won’t leave you. I’ve seen how that boy looks at you. He wants to be your mate. And you don’t get to refuse. You won’t stop this ceremony, do you understand? My word is final.”

  Zia glared at him. She had no control to go against his word. Her last-ditch plan of pushing Leo and Sam out to sea wouldn’t work now. Without waiting for him to say more, Zia turned on her heel and marched out of his office. It was likely she wouldn’t be able to ask Leo to call it off now. She had lost her chance to convince him otherwise.

  Standing in the silent alcove, Leo listened to his own heart pounding. His life was going to change, and even if their plan worked, his life would be forever altered. He was ready for it, but nervous at the same time. He had never wanted a mate, and all he could do now was pray she wouldn’t do something to screw up their plan. Leo wanted to tell her everything, but Sam forbade him to. She needed to react the way they expected, or they would be following her around closely.

  Sam had assured Leo he was almost certain a real bond would break the magic, but there was always the chance that the magic would go across the bond. If that was the case, then Leo would be stuck forever in the underwater Mavkas world. Leo didn’t like that idea, but he’d be stuck here with Zia. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be that bad. And that was if the bond didn’t break the magic.

  The whole key to it wasn’t just breaking the spell on Zia. It was getting her out alive. Sam had been in Cate’s head and found they had multiple contingency plans in place to kill her off if she were to break free. The Mavkas knew that what they were doing was big enough to start a war over. They couldn’t let her leave.

  And there was the problem of the knife. If that was the magical object, which as far as Cate knew it was, they needed to be sure that the Mavkas didn’t get to keep it. Sam didn’t have the slightest clue how magic worked, but he wasn’t about to let other Siren fall into the same trap.

  Zia appeared before Leo, and he took her into his arms immediately. He had wanted to share their plan all day but couldn’t. Now he was free to speak with her.

  She opened her mouth and then shut it again. Her smile at seeing him turned into a frown.

  “I’ve wanted to talk all day, but we didn’t have time,” Leo explained. Time was a better reason than keeping her in the dark on purpose. She’d know soon enough he was telling a white lie, but he didn’t care.

  “Please tell me you have a plan you’re sure will work.” Zia was finally able to speak.

  Leo grinned. He was as sure as he was ever going to get. At least the next part he could wholeheartedly say he was sure about.

  Taking Leo’s hand, Zia tried to pull him to the chairs facing the wall of water. Leo stayed in his place. The Mavkas pod was mostly empty. They didn’t need to hide.

  “Cate is coming,” Zia told him and tugged harder.

  “Yeah, I know,” Leo replied, staying where he was.

  Sam stepped into the doorway.

  “We have like two minutes to do this. I have Cate ready to lie to her father,” Sam told Leo and Zia.

  Zia peeked out at Cate. She stared straight ahead like she didn’t know what was going on. “What did you do to her?”

  “I made her my puppet … just like they were going to do to Leo. She doesn’t have the slightest clue what’s going on. I have her ready to play her role and not remember a thing. But we need to get this show on the road before someone comes back to check on you guys.”

  Zia turned to Leo. “What’s the plan?”

  “We bind for real, and then you leave,” Leo explained as short as he could.

  Zia opened her mouth to protest, but no words came out.

  “I get it, it’s chancy. But you have to understand, if I become a Mavkas, then I’ll be alive here with you. If I leave without you, I’m a dead man.”

  Zia eyed him over.

  “Yes. My father plans to kill Leo if we don’t bring back proof that the Mavkas are up to something,” Sam interjected.

  “But he can’t kill someone for thinking something,” Zia stated, gaping at him.

  Leo nodded. “Yes he can, and he will. Please trust us and do this.”

  Brow furrowed, Zia seemed to think it over for a moment. “Okay, let’s say binding works, and you don’t become a Mavkas. What do we do then?”

  “You leave, and we have Cate call the alarm that you slipped and fell out that wall,” Leo explained.

  Zia’s mouth hung open.

  “I get it. Leaving through the wall means death to you. And it would if we weren’t already bonded. Once we bind our lives together, I can find you anywhere. Sam and I will save you no matter where you end up.”

  Zia glanced at the wall of swimming fish behind them and back at the two guys standing there, waiting.

  “But we don’t know how to do a binding,” she added.

  Leo was glad to see it wasn’t taking much to convince her.

  “I know how,” Sam replied. “You only have to drink each other’s blood w
ithin a certain time frame, and if you truly love each other, it will bind you. It’s that simple. The complicated stuff is to bind two people who aren’t in love, and even then it isn’t really a binding.”

  Tugging on Zia’s hand, Leo pulled her closer to him. “I never wanted a mate. I never wanted to be a Siren. I never wanted to stay, but now I do. I want a life with you. I want all of that for myself as much as I want to save you. Siren aren’t meant to live this way. Come home with me. Please be my mate.”

  Leo held his breath as he stared at the light green hair flopping on Zia’s cheek. He wanted to reach down and move it, but he was frozen in place. He never considered that she could say no, but now the thought was there in his mind.

  Zia tilted her head, exposing her neck. Leo was stunned.

  “Um, a little faster now, buddy,” Sam instructed Leo as his friend stood there, staring at Zia. “We need to get this done and out of here like yesterday.”

  Leo wasn’t exactly sure what to do, so he pulled Zia to the seats. They needed to be in their mer form to feed on another person. After transforming, Leo pulled Zia into his lap. She seemed surprised by his fin.

  “I didn’t know you could transform in here,” she commented. “I can’t without water.”

  Leo smiled at her. Lots of mer needed water, which was probably why everyone was outside in the courtyard waiting for them.

  “You don’t need to be a mer to drink blood,” Sam replied from the doorway, still waiting for them. He was a little impatient.

  Leo smoothed the hair from Zia’s neck. She sat absolutely still as he leaned forward and bit down. When he pulled away, Zia looked shyly at Leo as he put his own wrist to his mouth and bit down with his sharp night human teeth. He held up his bleeding wrist to Zia. Now was her chance. If she wanted to bolt, she could. Leo wasn’t going to force her to mate to him.

  Holding Leo’s wrist, Zia’s gaze seemed fixated on the blood. It was only a second, but Leo sat frozen in his spot, his heart beating as loud as it had been just moments before as he waited for her. Zia didn’t make him wait any longer when she leaned down and licked the blood off his arm.