by Hazel Grace
Which was what my father wanted Edda to be for me. I just wasn’t fully sold on the idea yet.
“He’s too big,” the blue one drones, and as soon as she speaks the words, a sudden rush of fury sprints through my body.
It sends a wave of exhilaration rippling along after it, and I can’t stop it before my feet are pounding the slated floor, right for the woman in white.
My irises aim in on her petite frame as my right hand goes to my hip to grab my blade, but I’m still tied.
I don’t need it—my head will do just fine.
I’m at least four steps away before the rage is sucked out of me. Calmness replaces my animosity as I stand dazed and breathless from the intensity of it.
What the fuck...
“Stop playing with him, Nesrine,” my target decrees, still staring at me. I glimpse over to the woman highlighted in black, breaking from her companion and strutting toward me with confidence announcing every move of her hips.
“A woman dressed as a man?” she repeats, beginning a slow circle around me. “How does that work exactly?”
“She’s dirty,” the noisy and all-too-knowing woman, Isolde, continues. “Tall but skinny.”
“Skinnier than you?”
She shakes her head, a piece of pink hair falling over one of her eyes. “No, but she’s pretty.”
The soft graze of fingertips brush my lower back, and I fight the urge to flinch and snap at the dark, alluring Siren that’s circling me like prey. Taunting me with the caress of her skin along the fabric of my shirt.
“Pretty, you say?” Nesrine wonders then drops her voice. “I’d like to see what that looks like. I can’t imagine these strong arms grasping on to a woman who isn’t more than dazzling.”
“He doesn’t like it when you talk about her,” Isolde bleats again, brushing her bottom lip with her tongue. A satisfied quirk playing off her mouth.
“I wouldn’t want to talk about her either,” Nesrine digresses. “Such a beautiful man to drop down before a woman who isn’t just as lovely.” She stops in front of me, her dark eyes leveling with my chest as she peers up, shards of silver now glimmering in them like the stars that twinkle in the sky.
Lifting her chin, her lips twist into a smile. “But maybe that’s your problem. You lay with humans.”
I grit my teeth, remaining silent because I won’t be giving answers to any of their feeble-minded questions. Nor will I play into whatever little mind game she’s attempting to act out.
“He isn’t going to answer any of our questions,” Isolde rattles off matter-of-factly.
“What do you do read minds?” I snap, my eyes boring into her.
So much for that.
I can’t help the incapacitated feeling of being surrounded by women who have some sort of mental advantage over me because I can’t fight that. I can’t stop them unless my hands can be wrapped around their throats to get them to cease prying into my brain for their own personal use.
Isolde looks unaffected, giving a slight shrug of her shoulders. “Something like that.”
I glare at her. “Then read this one, you little—”
“I knew he’d be positively delicious,” Nesrine beams, rising and falling on her toes like a small child. “He looks like too much man to be easily intimidated.”
“Let’s just kill him and get it over with,” the snow-colored one suggests.
“We don’t make any decisions without all of us here,” her twin voices. “You know that.”
“And I also know that this is a waste of time,” she hisses. “He’s a Viking, they don’t speak.”
“Relax, Atarah,” Nesrine exhorts, taking her own liberties and touching my forearm. “There are always ways of making a man talk.”
I jerk away. “Don’t touch me.”
“How about shutting him up?” Atarah croons, raking her hand through her colorless hair. “We’ve wasted enough—”
“Not until we’re all here,” repeats the blue woman.
“I heard you, Brylee. Do we need to take a vote now on clamping his mouth shut?”
Nesrine grips my shirt and yanks me forward, my chest knocking into hers. But she doesn’t budge from the impact, standing still as a stone wall.
“We could have a little fun while we wait,” she offers, tone dripping with ideas I’m sure I’m unwilling to participate in.
Looking back down at her, raven hair cups her face twinned by eyes that are bottomless pools of darkness. Her ample breasts are barely covered in an equally dark-colored top that cuts down between the valley of them.
She is every man’s fantasy that would quickly turn into a nightmare. The gorgeous she-devil in disguise that could lure any weak-minded man into bed, which would ultimately result in his death—the last fucking thing you see.
Nesrine bites her lower lip, her irises softening as she looks deeper into mine. “What do you say, Viking? How about I—” Her head suddenly snaps in the direction of the doorway.
Actually, all of theirs do.
Striding through the room now are two more women, one an exotic shade of orange and the other purple. But it’s not until a third walks in that demands all of my attention.
In fact, she sucks it from me.
Long hair, the color of blood, cascades past her slim shoulders, reminding me of the bright shade of a flesh wound. It’s a hue I wear frequently in battle that coats my face and clothing as I slice and thrust my sword into my enemies.
Her brilliant green eyes slam right into my chest before they roam up and lock onto my blues. A gold bustier covers her breasts with a string of pearls that dips down to her torso. A teal, see-through skirt shows off the curve of her hips, down her thighs to the floor. Each footprint exposes a piece of her legs as she comes to stand in front of me with the others.
“Glad you could join us,” Nesrine muses, still next to me. “You almost missed all the fun.” Red doesn’t speak, just stops next to Atarah and moves her attention to the woman still in front of me.
Nesrine scoffs loudly. “Why?”
I look around the room for a statement I must have missed because silence still permeates through the space. Except for the humming my body is experiencing in response to the latest newcomer in the room.
I clench my teeth, aggravated all to hell, reminding myself that I have control over my being all the time. Careful not to lose my temper too much, not to make rash decisions, but it seeped from my bones the moment she walked into the room.
And I’m torn between wrapping my hands around her throat or ripping the rest of her skirt off her hips.
It’s the Siren devilry. Nothing more or less.
I may have never met a Siren before, seen one in real life, but it does nothing to my rationality of being a warrior except keeping placid, on guard, and ready to fight.
“Just do what she says,” Atarah conveys, rubbing one of her temples.
To my surprise, Nesrine moves and steps in line with the redhead who just entered the room.
Seven—fucking hell.
The seven points of the sea.
The seven temptresses of Lacuna standing in front of me as a united presence, and the undercurrent of the room just changed the moment the new one walked in.
The seven daughters of King Triton.
My mind fuddles around as my eyes ping pong off each of them.
All different.
All dangerous.
All going to make my life a living purgatory.
I’m at a disadvantage because my people don’t know much about these creatures, just folklore that has been passed down through the centuries. I’ve heard how they use their voices to sing men to their deaths. How pirates purposely ward off these waters. My clansmen don’t listen to legends and myths from raiders who are already dishonest in the first place, with their manipulative nature. However, walking onto this island, I only expected to face some trouble.
Not seven women who obviously possess powers that I’ve never experienced and
no known defense to protect myself from.
Storm blue hair flips over Brylee’s shoulders as she says defiantly, “We’re not going to leave you alone.”
“We’re in this together,” adds the creature with golden burnt eyes that are currently burrowing into me.
My own zero in on the new visitor.
It’s then that I realize she’s the leader. The moment they all stood alongside her, showed their loyalty and support, I knew she’d be the one I’d speak to about where we go from here.
“Who are you?” I ask her, clenching my hands that are tied behind me into fists.
Silence—from all of them.
It leaves an eerie and unsteady prickle wisping up my spine. The unknown, that’s what I’ve just walked into. I’ve always been familiar with my enemies, learned their weaknesses and strengths to protect my men in the throngs of battle.
But they are beings I know nothing about bringing to their knees so I can escape from here.
I never thought I’d die in stillness. Always thought it’d be in the ruptures of combat with men screaming and howling on a grassy valley surrounded by mountains.
Not in a place that looks like paradise with women who aren’t really the definition of what I’m used to.
“Now that she walked into the room you all don’t know how to speak?” I challenge, looking down the line of them.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Brylee snaps.
“We’ll decide later what to do with you,” Atarah announces. “But first, we have questions.”
“I don’t have any answers,” I reply.
“You do, and we will know them.” I glance at the new arrival, but she stays quiet.
“Can’t help you,” I deadpan. Atarah’s shoulders tense before she flexes her slim fingers.
At my defiance, the late arrival steps forward. Her head cocks to the side as her leaf green eyes fixate on me. They don’t match her hair like the rest of her sisters, her skin is fair in contrast to the different shades of the others.
My knees start to tingle as her scrutiny draws up the length of my legs, hitting my abdomen then my chest again.
I’m not scared, I wasn’t when I walked in here, but my breathing quickens suddenly as sweat starts to form on my forehead and palms. I can feel the graze of her irises swift over my broad shoulders, then I feel a jolt from my hips.
Instantly, one of the hidden blades from my pants is in her small hands while she holds it up in front of her face, studying the engravings that Edda had done for me, to keep me safe.
So much for that...
She turns her head over her shoulder, listening to something, but no sound emits through the room. Then her eyes abruptly land back on mine.
I perk a brow. “Don’t know how to talk to a man, wench?” She remains emotionless, passive. Maybe she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
Her index finger brushes the tip of my blade, and I’m hoping it draws blood, but it doesn’t. A few of the women giggle behind her, but I’m too centered on the woman in front of me.
I don’t trust her next move.
I don’t know what kind of role she plays with all of them, but she’s something different from the rest. They obviously all speak, but she doesn’t need to apparently.
Shorter than the rest, more beautiful, but more miserable. I can see it, hiding behind the tints of all those greens in her eyes. Yet, she stands firmly in front of me, alluding no fear as I tower over her.
“He’s Dagen the Blood Axe,” Isolde announces. “The son of their leader.”
“Really?” Nesrine marvels. “I thought he was just a myth.”
“He will be soon,” another one says. My concentration doesn’t break from the she-devil in front of me, twisting my weapon around as she gapes at it like it’s a treasure of some kind.
“Know how to use it, Princess?” I taunt, leaning down a tad closer. “Because I don’t have all day if you’re going to kill me.”
She flicks her gaze back to me, unamused, with a speck of rebelliousness glinting in it.
No, she’s different—something doesn’t feel right about her.
“We have somewhere to be,” another one of them speaks up, but the red Siren doesn’t move, still gawking at me.
“Davina,” adds another. I smirk, now knowing her name. Perhaps I can coax her to my side so she’ll set me free.
The tip of my blade suddenly appears, pressed into the side of my face, near my left eye.
Blood, that’s what I’ll call her.
After all, she wants mine, changed her mind that quickly from being the mute bystander to holding my own weapon against my skin.
Slowly, my blade creeps downward, creating a dull pain from the steel etching into my flesh.
“Don’t mess his face up too badly,” Nesrine muses, her voice already one I recognize from her big-ass mouth. “We don’t want his blood staining our floors.”
She doesn’t stop, transfixed on my face; looking for distress, to see how human I am. I ball my hands into fists to keep from headbutting her pretty little face. Any sign of violence on my end and it will quicken my death.
“Enjoying yourself?” I provoke, feeling my skin ripping open.
Nothing.
Not a flicker of amusement or even a slight smirk to announce her contentment. It’s only then that it slowly starts to sink in, this isn’t a normal capture.
I won’t be held a prisoner for information about who I am and what I can do for them.
I’m here to quench their thirst for humans.
“He has to die,” my eldest sister, Atarah, decides, pacing in front of the long table in our dining room. “He’s too much of a liability.”
Nesrine scoffs, flipping her raven hair over her shoulder. “Liability to whom?”
“To us,” Atarah snaps. “To her.” She points at me, almost convicting. Almost forgetting that I’m more powerful than her and all my sisters combined.
What doesn’t work in my favor is being the youngest of seven daughters, and being treated as such while I’m the one who's given up the most for them.
“Davina can take care of herself,” Nesrine counters. “We need to know how he got through the veil.”
“There’s only one way,” Isolde decrees, strumming her fingers on the polished wood table. All eyes fall on her as she pushes her black-rimmed glasses over the bridge of her nose. “He’s a siren.”
Some of my sisters laugh, one of them scoffs, to me—she’s right.
The spell that was cast down around this island was so only our people could walk on it freely without restraints of water. A protective veil which made the island invisible to anyone that wasn’t a siren.
“Unless someone forgot to put the veil back up,” Brylee alludes, leisurely bringing her attention to Kali. “Someone has been forgetful as of late.”
“I have not,” Kali snaps, her amber eyes turning into slits. “And even if I did, Davina always covers for me.” Now I’m under six pairs of eyes, and I narrow mine.
I double-check the veil over two dozen times a day, and it hasn’t needed covering in days.
Unless the Viking has been here for days.
I try to think back on when I last had to secure Kali’s inattentiveness, but it’s hard when the days blend together. Each day on Merindah, our island, seems like a lifetime, and it was never supposed to be or feel like this.
It was presumed to be heaven, an escape from being under the sea. To experience what it felt like to have the sand under our feet and the sun beaming on our faces.
That’s how it started until we learned the price we had to pay for it.
“Regardless,” Atarah counters. “He’s a waste of time and space. A waste of food, which we are limited to in the first place.”
“Regardless,” Nesrine opposes back. “We need information, to know for sure how he got past the veil and to make sure no one else does. Especially since Davina is here alone.”
“We can take turns staying with
her,” Brylee offers. “I mean, we kinda do anyway.”
“No.” I don’t say the words out loud, but they hear them. They hear them because I chose for them to.
One of the sacrifices I’ve made to allow my sisters to be free from this island.
“Davina,” Atarah soothes gently like a motherly figure, a position she’s taken up since ours was murdered. “It’s too dangerous with him here. He’s a Viking.”
Nesrine begins to fan herself with a smirk. “And holy mother of the sea, he’s handsome.”
“I’m fine.” I counter.
“But—”
“She’s not going to let you kill the man,” Nesrine voices, with a slice of her hand through the air. “I’m sure she has ideas of her own.” She peers over her shoulder at me, the corners of her lips curving into a devious smirk.
“I’m sure it’s not what you’re thinking,” I rebuke.
Nesrine shrugs. “You’re loss, little one.”
“Do you have a plan?” Brylee asks as the sea breeze blows through the window and picks up her blue hair, wrapping it around her forehead.
There’s only one that I have in mind, and I prefer to do it when my sisters leave the island, but knowing them, one will stay.
“I’d like to question him,” I convey. “He might have some—”
“He isn’t going to speak,” Atarah retorts.
“You don’t know that,” I quip.
Actually, I do.
The man looks like he’d rather be tortured to death than respond to anything I’d want to ask him.
I don’t mind having my sisters tear into him. In fact, it may give him a reality check of the dangers he ensued when he brought it upon himself to come here. And my fear is that I know why he came.
“Your Majesties.” We turn to look at one of our enforcers, Sullivan, standing a few feet back. “Captain Tobias Nathaniel is here to see you.”
He’s bombarded with simultaneous demands, ordering him to make him leave, to bring him inside the castle, what did he bring this time—the same sort of chaos that always brews when you have seven women trying to make a decision and never agreeing on one thing.
Except once—when we all decided to go to the sea witch, Taysa, and obtain this island as our own.
