The Siren's Eyes (The Siren Legacy Book 2)

by Helen Scott

  “Well, I have to go back to the Underworld to be trained in being a fury by my aunts, my birth mom, and my brother.” Thad’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “I know! I have a crazy amount of family all of a sudden. I also have to work for Hades here in the mortal realm, help wrangle souls that need to get to the Underworld for punishment. It’s what Ben, my brother, does, so he’s going to show me the ropes for that. Lastly, and this depends on you, he wants you to sing for me, whatever that means, and prove that we belong together.”

  Thad became very still under her.

  His eyes cut away from her, as though the thought of singing for her somehow made her terrifying. She tried to laugh or smile or something, but the lack of expression on his face made her feel cold.

  “Thad, what is it? I thought the conditions were fair. I mean, he could have kept me there, never let me see you or Aster again!”

  His hands tapped her thighs, and she got off his lap. He got up and started pacing. It was like watching him do lengths in the pool again, except this time, his body was taut with tension as he cut a path backward and forward across the patio.

  “Thaddeus! Talk to me!” she finally yelled at him. If there was one thing she couldn’t take, it was being completely shut out of a situation that involved her.

  “Singing for you . . . it isn’t singing a lullaby or something. He knows that! He knows I wouldn’t want to sing for you, that it would be the one task he could set that I would almost certainly refuse, which is precisely why he chose that!” Thad’s voice was so loud by the time he finished speaking that it boomed around her.

  “Thad, please calm down!”

  “Cin, I love you, but you don’t understand! If I sing for you and we aren’t soulmates, then it will force you to be under my control forever.”

  “Hades said that he could reverse the effects, and if that was the case, then I would have to live with them.” She took a deep breath. “And don’t think I didn’t catch that you said you love me.” She looked up at him, and he stopped in his tracks.

  “What?” He looked at her, thoroughly confused.

  “You said ‘I love you, but you don’t understand.’” Cin did her best impression of his voice. She was quite proud of it, if she was honest with herself.

  Thad brushed it off. “You’re missing the big picture. If I sing and we aren’t soulmates, then you have to live in the Underworld.”

  “I feel like you’re missing part of it, too, Mr. Smartypants. If you don’t sing for me, I have to go live in the Underworld!”

  Thad let out a grunt of frustration. All the joy that Cin had felt at seeing him again evaporated, along with the feeling of being where she was supposed to be. Wrapping the towel around her, she went into the house, straight through to the master bath, and locked the door behind her. She’d take a good shower, grab her bag, and get out of Thad’s hair.

  It wasn’t like she had any other choice if he wasn’t going to sing for her. She knew it had been a big deal the way that Hades had said it, but she’d hoped that being together would be worth it for Thad.

  Apparently, she was wrong.

  Chapter 30

  She tore the bikini off. It wasn’t like she’d need it in her new home, which was also a cave. Turning the shower on, she stepped inside. The hot water scalded her, but she didn’t care. Now she could let go. Let the disappointment overwhelm her as the tears ran down her face, mixing with the water from the shower.

  How could she have been so stupid? He didn’t mean love; he just meant that he cared for her. He wasn’t going to sing for her to keep her around. They’d only known each other a little while; it wasn’t like it was sane to think she’d met her soulmate.

  After her shower, she sat on the side of the tub with the towel wrapped around her once more, trying to put off the inevitable. She hoped the cave that was her room was decent.

  What did they even do down there all day? Cin had no idea what was about to happen. All she knew was this was the opposite of what she had wanted when she came back.

  She sighed and started to towel off. Might as well get out of here. She didn’t want to, but it wasn’t like she had a choice. There was a knock at the door.

  “Cin?” Aster’s voice sounded from the other side.

  Cin couldn’t rush to the door fast enough. Her sister was alive and well, even if Cin did have to spend the rest of her life in the Underworld. For that she would be forever grateful to Thad and his brothers.

  “Aster!” She wrapped her arms around her sister’s slight frame. “Oh, sunshine, you’re okay.” She pulled back and evaluated the injuries she’d last seen on her sister. The bruises were fading, and with the exception of what had obviously been a broken nose, she didn’t look too worse for wear. “You’re okay,” she whispered more to herself than anyone else as tears began rolling down her cheeks again, but this time, it was a mixture of thankfulness and sadness.

  “Are you okay?” Aster’s voice was on the edge of tears.

  Cin knew that her little sister was more worried about her than anything else right now since Aster knew she wasn’t exactly a crier. The more Cin cried about Aster being okay, the more she cried about everything with Thad going to hell in a handbasket. Although, she’d be the one going to hell soon enough.

  “Listen, Cin, everything’s going to be okay.”

  “I’m moving to the Underworld. How is that okay?”

  “Maybe you won’t have to. I’m sure we can figure something out. We’ve always been unstoppable together, right?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “You know, I tried to convince Thad to keep you from coming after me.” Aster paused, as though debating whether or not to say anything else. “I saw you die, big sister. I had so many visions. It was like an alarm clock going off in my head. Nothing I did stopped it, though, did it?”

  Cin shook her head, the knot of tears burning her throat. “I’m sorry, but you know I couldn’t leave you there.”

  “I know,” Aster whispered before perking back up. “Will you get dressed and come and sit with me for a bit?”

  “Can’t we sit in here?” Cin did not want to go out into the living room and sit with Aster and Thad. She didn’t want to have a reminder of the life she could have had, right before she had to leave.

  “No. You’re naked except for that towel, and it’s hotter than a Florida summer in here. Get dressed and come out.”

  “Fine. But I’m not going to be happy about it.”

  “Didn’t ask you to be.” Aster stuck her tongue out at Cin before slipping out of the bathroom and leaving Cin alone with her thoughts.

  She hurried as she got ready, making sure everything she had was together and ready to go. As soon as Aster left, so would she. Hades would be thrilled to see her. That thought alone made her almost want to make a run for it, not that she had any delusions something like that would work.

  “Aster?” Cin called, unsure where her sister had vanished off to.

  “In here!” Aster’s voice came from the back of the house. She hadn’t been back there before. Turned out Thad had a small sitting room hidden back there. Cin recognized the area as where she had come through into the kitchen as Thad was talking her down from her fury state, and just past that was a sitting room with a door to a wine cellar.

  “Very fancy,” Cin said as she walked in.

  “Thanks,” Thad’s voice sounded from behind her.

  It was a shock to the senses, like taking an ice-cold shower. She could handle this, though. She knew she could.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Cin went and sat by Aster. Thad was close on her heels, which bugged her to no end. He had to know that she needed space right now. If he didn’t, then the man was oblivious.

  “So tell me how you’re feeling,” she said to Aster, pointedly ignoring Thad’s presence.

  “I will in a minute. There is something Thad wants to say first.” Aster smiled at her with all the cunning of a master manipulator.

>   Thad was perched on the edge of a chair opposite her.

  “Hyacinth, I want to apologize for my reaction earlier. I wasn’t expecting that request, not that it excuses my behavior. It took me off guard.” Thad reached forward and tentatively took her hands, turning her to face him head on. The sincerity in his eyes made her heart ache. “Cin, I meant what I said. I love you. I hadn’t admitted it to myself, not truly, until I said it out loud. You deserve more than I can ever give you, but if you’ll let me, I would like to sing for you.”

  Cin took a breath to say something, but Thad cut her off.

  “Aster has been prepped by both myself and Hal. Plus, we’ve been in contact with Ben, so if this all goes south, he will be able to take you to Hades for the effects to be removed. If you don’t want to risk it, I completely understand.”

  He squeezed her hands, and she knew he was almost done with his speech. “I want you to know that in the time we have spent together, I have felt more alive, more human, than I have in my whole life. You mean so much to me that the thought of losing you, again, terrified me. When you died a few days ago, I thought I had died too, and I certainly acted like it. Let me show you how much life there is once we know we are meant to be together. Let me sing for you and prove that my heart is yours and yours alone.”

  Cin felt like he’d proposed. She gulped air in as her chest felt tight with hope, with a fire that burned only for Thad.

  “Sing for me.” She whispered the words and kissed the knuckles on his hand.

  Thad glanced at Aster and then opened his mouth, and the most awful screeching started coming out. She tried to listen, to pretend that it was okay, and even not to wince at the sound. After a few seconds, though, she wrenched her hands from his and covered her ears, her eyes narrowing at the sounds coming from Thad. Such ugly sounds should not come from such a beautiful man. It wasn’t right.

  “Stop! Please! For the love of everything holy, stop!” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to take one more second of the noise.

  When the offending sound stopped, Cin tentatively uncovered her ears and opened her eyes. Thad was sitting across from her with a stunned smile on his face.

  “What the hell was that noise? I thought you were supposed to sing for me?”

  “I was singing.” A grin spread over his face.

  “He was singing! It was beyond beautiful.” Aster sighed dreamily as she stared off into the distance.

  “What I heard could not be classed as singing, or even music, for that matter.”

  Thad was suddenly on his knees in front of her. “That’s because we are soulmates.”

  He kissed her hands. Each and every knuckle of each and every finger. Looking up at her, his eyes shined like a kid’s on Christmas morning.

  “We are?”

  “The thing that both Hades and I apparently forgot to mention—a siren’s soulmate is repulsed by their song. If you hadn’t been my soulmate, you would be completely under my thrall right now.”

  The knowledge settled into Cin like a cup of hot chocolate, warm and slightly magical, and hers. “We’re soulmates!” The smile that spread across her face made her cheeks ache and feel like they wanted to split open, but she couldn’t stop it, not that she wanted to.

  He kissed her then, and it was one of those amazing, toe-curling, heel-kicking kisses that made her want to melt into him.

  “I’ll, uh, leave you two to it,” Aster said as she awkwardly made her exit before things got PG-13. “Congratulations, you two.”

  Cin pulled away from Thad and stood up, wrapping her sister in a bear hug. “Thanks for getting me out of the bathroom, little sister.”

  “Any time, big sister, any time. I’ll expect a full report soon.” Aster winked at her before she exited the room.

  “A full report?” Thad chuckled from behind her.

  “Since we’re so close in age, we’ve always compared notes on boys. She just wants to make sure that you make me happy.”

  “Well, let me start on that right now.”

  Cin turned back to him and was startled to find herself staring into a pair of the palest ice-blue eyes. It wasn’t that they didn’t look like Thad, just that they fit him so well, it was unnerving.

  “Um, babe, you’re eyes—”

  “Are blue?”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “My grandmother told me it would happen when I found my soulmate.” Thad grinned at her as he spoke.

  She couldn’t stop staring at those beautiful barely-there blue eyes. He scooped her up and jumped them both back to his bedroom. As he began peeling her clothes off and showering her with kisses, Cin sighed. She had never known a happiness like this before. It was so complete that it was almost scary.

  “I love you too,” she murmured against his ear, responding to his speech from earlier, as he began to show her exactly how happy he could make her.

  Epilogue

  Four weeks later

  “You comin’, babe?” Cin shouted over her shoulder as she wandered toward the beach, carrying two perfectly cooked burgers.

  “Right behind you,” Thad’s voice sounded as she heard the clink of bottles settling against each other.

  She had never had a true beach to barbecue on and was loving every second of it, even forcing Thad to grill out now that the weather was turning. He had installed a fire pit on the beach for her to relax at while he cooked, which was where she was heading now.

  The thick blanket on her chair seemed to welcome her as she sat down, the fire crackling merrily in front of her. The wind whipped tendrils of her hair around her face and brought the salty scent of the ocean to her nose. She sighed and glanced upward.

  Stars. They were the other thing she’d never really known before Thad. She’d always lived in a city, or at least the outskirts of one or another, so the lights usually drowned them out. Here, staring upward, she felt the smallness that people often talked about, and reveled in it.

  Cin felt Thad’s presence behind her before she heard him, and held out the plate with his burger on it.

  “You might want to put those down for a bit. There’s something I want to do first.”

  “Oh yeah?” She grinned at him lasciviously.

  It was still surprising to see him with short hair, but damn if it didn’t look good. When he’d cut his hair, all he’d said was it was time for a change. The way his brothers reacted, though, it was like he’d grown a second head or something. The short hair showed off his pale blue eyes, and Cin could never get enough of losing herself in them.

  “Not that. At least, not right this second.”

  “Okay.” Cin pouted.

  “Come on, up off the chair.”

  “What are you up to, mister?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Thad wrapped his arms around her and launched them into the air before she even had a chance to draw breath. The sensation of wind rushing over her caused her wings to pop out without her command. She would forever marvel at how they felt.

  “We’re going to teach you how to fly.” Thad beamed at her.

  “Couldn’t we have started from the ground?”

  “Nah, that’s too easy.”

  Thad dipped and rolled like a dancer, distracting Cin with the sensation of wind on her wings. She sighed. It was the lightest tickle and the firmest touch all at the same time. She hadn’t tried to fly yet, mainly because she didn’t want to fall on her face, but also because she tried to ignore her wings most of the time.

  “Come on, follow your instincts.” He was underneath her, moving them through the air, so she was upright. The muscles in her back twitched in anticipation of use.

  “Don’t let go,” she begged.

  “Never.” He kissed her quickly. “Now flap, baby.”

  Cin laughed at how utterly ridiculous he sounded, and yet that little bit of relaxation made her feel more connected to her body than she had a moment ago. Focusing all her effort onto moving them, her wings gently moved up a
nd down. They were mainly going with the current of air that Thad was creating, but it still felt amazing.

  “Okay, you crawled. Now walk.”

  Cin moved her wings more forcefully, using muscles in her back she hadn’t even known were there. Her red, leathery wings trapped the air currents and moved them now as Thad’s wings slowed.

  Powerful. Strong. Graceful. All these words barely scratched the surface of what Cin felt as they sailed through the sky on her wings. She could conquer anything with this feeling.

  “I’m going to let go now.” Thad’s voice was calm as he interrupted her thought process. “If you start to fall, I’ll catch you. Don’t worry.”

  She was a kid learning to ride a bike again. Breathing deeply, she said, “Okay.”

  As her wings continued to move in a steady up-and-down rhythm, Thad disappeared underneath her. Her whole body felt alive, as though flying put energy into her, instead of using it up. The rush of the wind and the dark sky made her feel more at peace than she’d felt in a long time. She was connected to the earth in a way she never had been before.

  “Lookin’ good.”

  Cin turned her head and found Thad flying alongside her. Their wings beat together the same way their breath aligned when they lay together in bed. It was like they became one being, connected by their movements.

  “Let’s try something. Follow me!” Thad arched vertically, and Cin followed.

  The change in the air and perspective left her feeling dizzy for a moment, but she soon adjusted. They spiraled together, going higher and higher into the night sky. Her heart raced as she tried to catch up with him. Every time she inched closer to him, he would dart away.

  They were playing chase. In the sky.

  “Come on, Red, I know you’re faster than that!” Thad called over his shoulder, using his new nickname for her.

  She’d never had a nickname given to her by someone else before. It made butterflies dance inside her. Her heart clenched with happiness as she darted forward and tapped him on the foot.