Sister of the Sea: A Reverse Harem Witch Series (Winslow Witch Chronicles Book 2)

by Lena Mae Hill

  “She’s lucky,” Sagely said honestly. But she didn’t feel jealous anymore. Shaneesha was her friend now, too, and so was Gale, and Fox, and maybe even Raina, if they ever got her back.

  “What do you think she’s doing out there?” Shaneesha asked, toying with her snake as they passed the lighthouse. “You think she’s alive?”

  “She has to be,” Sagely said, though she wasn’t sure. Raina may have been a water witch, but she wasn’t a fish. She couldn’t breathe underwater. And she’d been gone so long…

  “I’m going to meditate and see if I can still feel her magic,” Shaneesha said. “But I’d feel it if…if she was gone. Her magic would find its way back to us.”

  “Unless Viziri has it,” Sagely said quietly. “What if the siren took all her magic and gave it to him already?”

  “Then I’ll find her, and relight her flame,” Shaneesha said, frowning.

  Sagely stopped and turned to her. “You can do that?”

  “If it’s just been snuffed, sometimes a fire witch can rekindle it,” Shaneesha said. “But it hardly ever happens. We’re careful to protect that seed of magic.”

  “Then we need to find her soon,” Sagely said, turning back to the water. As she did, something caught her eye further down the beach. At first, she thought it was a blackened piece of driftwood, or maybe a charred log left from someone’s beach bonfire. But then she saw a lock of hair blowing up from the crumpled form, glimmering gold in the last rays of the evening sun.

  “Raina,” Shaneesha whispered, and they both began to run.

  Thirty-one

  Raina

  Raina didn’t know how long she hung there like forgotten sack of clams. At last, when evening had shrouded the water in shadows, she heard the splash of a boat approaching.

  And then, as if from some other life, she heard a familiar voice. “How can we help?”

  But no. It couldn’t be her first love, her ex-lover, the one who had taken her in and then cast her off for someone new. He hadn’t even come on the trip with them.

  And yet…it was her one hope. Her only hope.

  “Quill,” she called. “Help me.”

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s the siren.”

  “I’m not a siren,” she screamed. “I’m Raina.”

  There was a long pauses. “Can I see her?” Quill asked.

  “Are you enchanted, man? I thought you came to help.”

  “We don’t need to see her,” Shaneesha’s voice said. “We know she’s not Raina. We have Raina.”

  “Shaneesha,” Raina cried, her fingers gripping the coarse rope. “Help me. It’s me, I promise. I’m not enchanting you.”

  “Never trust a siren,” River said. “They’re built of deceit. Learned that the hard way.”

  “Don’t worry about her,” a vaguely familiar voice said. “Our coven will blow you back out to sea.”

  As heavy footsteps tread over the deck below, Raina twisted around. Four of the people who had come aboard were standing below, looking up at her. One of them was…her.

  No, not her. Yvonne.

  “Sagely,” Raina said, her eyes fixing on the fourth figure in the group. “I can tell you something that only Raina would know. You have to believe me. That’s not me down there. We were tricked into trading bodies.”

  “Let her down,” Sagely said. “I want to talk to her.”

  “What? Why?” Yvonne asked. “You can see who I am. I’m obviously Raina. Look at me.”

  “Oh, get lost,” Raina snapped before turning to River. “You were swimming with sirens. I saw you. I thought…how are you not a mer?”

  “What’s she talking about?” Quill asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, man,” River said. “Sure, I flirt with sirens sometimes. Can you blame me? They’re good-looking demons. And sometimes, I’ll get bits of information from them.”

  “We’re not concerned about the company you keep,” Sagely said, rolling her eyes at his excuse. “Raina saw you in the stone. And if this is her…”

  “It’s not,” River insisted, but he began to lower her, anyway.

  “We need that stone,” Sagely said. “If she knows something about it, we have to know.”

  “I know all about it,” Yvonne said. “Why are you listening to her?”

  “She does have Raina’s magic,” Shaneesha said, though she looked askance at Yvonne.

  “I know more,” Raina said. “I know how it feels, what it does, who it belonged to, where it is now. Ask me anything. I swear to you, I’m Raina.” With that, she spilled her tale—how she’d been enchanted and thought she was in love, how she’d been too stupid and blind to listen to the Sea Queen’s warnings, how she’d changed bodies with Yvonne.

  “She’s lying,” Yvonne said. “You can see I’m Raina, you can feel I’m Raina. Why are you even listening to this crazy siren?”

  “Was this your plan all along?” Raina snapped. “Steal my life?”

  “You’re the one who wanted to be a mermaid,” Yvonne snapped back. “I loved you. All I wanted was to be with you.”

  “See, I told you. She just admitted it,” Raina said, gesturing to the others. But they just looked at her like she was crazy. It took a moment for her to realize she’d communicated telepathically with Yvonne at last—something she had longed to do as a human so many times. Now, when it did her no good, she could do it perfectly.

  “What’s something only Raina would know?” Sagely asked.

  “Are you sure you want to know that?” Shaneesha asked, giving Sagely the side-eye.

  “I think I can handle it,” she said. “I want to know who’s the real Raina.” With that, she planted her feet, clad in her red boots, and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Why are you doing this?” Raina asked Yvonne. This time, she paid attention to the fact that Yvonne’s lips weren’t moving. At last, they could communicate without talking aloud. Now, when it was too late.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Yvonne asked. “I’m nothing. I wasn’t even human until today. Where do I go? Where do I sleep? What will I eat? I can’t live out here. I can’t even walk right!”

  “You could come with us.”

  “If they knew the truth? Ha. See how they’re treating you, now that you’re a siren? See how much people love mermaids? I’m a parasite.”

  “I’ll talk to them. Tell them to let you come with me.”

  “Where?” Yvonne asked. “You’re a siren. You can’t go anywhere.”

  “You’re wrong,” Raina said. “I have the whole ocean.”

  “You have a net,” Yvonne sneered. “And as soon as they figure out who I am, that’s all I’ll have, too. What’s the use of trading places with you if I don’t get your life? You get the whole ocean. You get my life. You’re a mermaid. But I’m a witch now. Why shouldn’t I get your life?”

  “Because I’m not pretending to be you,” Raina said, exasperated.

  The others were standing around, looking at them suspiciously as they conferred silently.

  “You said you loved me,” Raina said. “You said you wanted to be together. What if I can get them to accept you, even if you’re not me, and we can be together?”

  “Really?” asked Yvonne.

  Raina felt a twinge of guilt for her deceit. Yvonne hadn’t asked for this, either. They’d wanted to be together. But she had also enchanted Raina into loving her, and it wasn’t Raina’s fault that once the spell was broken, the love wasn’t real.

  “Really,” she said. Then she turned to the group. “I’m Raina,” she said. “This is Yvonne. But neither of us have what you want. The stone is already gone.”

  thirty-two

  Sagely

  Sagely felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Her one chance at finding the coven was gone. Whichever one of these people was Raina, neither had the stone. And the stone was the key that unlocked the secret to Viziri’s location.

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?”
Sagely asked, barely able to breathe. “Where’d it go?”

  “I gave it to the Sea Queen,” Raina said. “In exchange for…turning me into this.”

  “You did that voluntarily?” Shaneesha asked. “Girl, you’re nuts. I figured you were cursed.”

  Raina shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “You and me both,” Sagely said. Suddenly, all her work trying to find the coven, everything that had happened over the past few months—hell, since she became a witch—seemed to drop onto her shoulders at once. It was as if a giant weight were crushing her.

  She sagged against Quill, who slid a protective arm around her. “You all right?” he murmured, his scruffy chin brushing her ear.

  A soft shiver went through her as she held onto his arm. “I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like it’s over. There’s no way we’ll ever find them now. This was it. Our chance. And we lost.”

  “We lost a battle,” Fox said, stepping up on her other side. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “This is a war. Viziri has been collecting magic for twenty years. You’ve just started. Trust me on this, I’ve fought a few times. It won’t be easy. We won’t win every battle. And there might be casualties. If we’re going to wage war on the most powerful warlock in the world, we have to be willing to accept that.”

  “I’m not sure I am,” Sagely said quietly.

  “We’re here, too,” Quill said. “You won’t be going it alone. We’re all in this together. This has gone on long enough, though. It’s time to put a stop to what Viziri is doing.”

  “I’m in, too,” River said, stepping from the shadows, his long hair blowing in the wind. “I’m nothing special, just a man. I was going to be a warlock once, but I never had the chance. When I was a kid—when we were kids…” He trailed off and gestured at the old Raina, then the siren, as if he weren’t sure which was his sister.

  “A woman came and took me to the sea. She said she was a sea fae, but I later learned that she can take many forms, at least for a short period. She took me here, and had one of her sirens suck out all my magic before I even grew into it. I never had a chance to use it. When she had taken everything, Viziri came to collect the only thing that remained—the ember of my magic.”

  Though she’d known it was coming, Sagely swallowed hard, feeling a little sick.

  “That’s why you couldn’t sense me,” he said to Raina. “It’s why the sirens don’t care about me. I can swim with them and they don’t bother to enchant me, because I have nothing they want. I’m no use to anyone, really. But the mages took pity on me and let me join their crew. I can’t speak for them, but I’ll do anything a mere mortal can do to defeat that black-hearted bastard.”

  Sagely could imagine what it took a tough pirate to admit something like that. She shuddered to think of anyone in her coven being put through that—losing everything, even their internal flame. And he’d been just a boy, one who never got to use his magic before it was stripped from him.

  “That’s nice of you,” she said quietly. “But I think it’s over now. We can’t find him without the stone.”

  “Then we’ll lure him here,” River said. “I’m prepared to be the casualty if it comes down to it. It would be worth one measly human life to make sure that asshole never snatches another child.”

  “As far as I know, we have nothing he wants,” Sagely said. “I already gave him all the void magic the faeries had, and all that I had.”

  “You have void magic?” River asked, taking a step back from her. He didn’t look as if he didn’t believe it, but rather like he was in awe of her for it, and maybe a little wary, too.

  “I did,” she said. “Now I only have a tiny bit.”

  “I can’t promise the whole crew will want to fight, but I’ll ask the mages,” River said. “They’re tired of the threat of Viziri, too. I bet at least some of my men will stand and fight with you.”

  “We have to protect Sagely first and foremost,” Quill said quietly. “She’s the only one who can fight the void magic in him.”

  “But he doesn’t want me anymore,” she said. “I don’t have enough to bother with.”

  “Then we’ll have to think of something he wants,” River said.

  “I know what he wants,” the girl who had been Raina piped up.

  “You do?” the girl in the mermaid’s body asked.

  “Yes,” Yvonne, the girl in Raina’s body, said. “And I’ll tell you how to get your coven here if you let me come with you.”

  “How do you know he’ll send the coven?” Quill asked.

  “Because he never does his own dirty work,” Yvonne said. “He sends his minions to collect what he wants from us.”

  “You share our magic, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re one of the coven now,” Sagely said. “So what does he want?”

  “Easy,” the girl said. “He wants the stone.”

  thirty-three

  Raina

  Raina’s job was simple. She had to go into the sea and rally the mer.

  She’d never met a single one, so that was a slight disadvantage. But still. She could do this.

  Steal the giant conch shell from the queen, then swim around blowing it until the mer started to gather. Nothing to it.

  Taking a breath, she dove beneath the water. Her lungs didn’t feel their usual ache when she’d gone a moment too long. She could hold her breath forever, she realized. Her gills would take in oxygen from the water. And as she descended, she barely felt the cold. Though it registered, it brought no discomfort. The pressure that would have crushed her as a human without her suit felt like nothing more than a slight and comforting squeeze. And best of all, she could see.

  She wasn’t tagging along blindly, with Yvonne toting her by a strap. She could see exactly where she was going, and not just in a tiny cone of light Yvonne had given her. A school of silvery fish swept by, parting like a cloud around her mermaid’s body. Twisting in a spiral, she sank through them, marveling at their beauty and number.

  And then she saw something farther away in the water, a dark shape moving towards her, and her joy evaporated. Sharks didn’t discriminate between mermaids and any other meal. To them, she was nothing but a giant piece of meat.

  Turning, she dove through the water, flipping her tail as hard as she could. She shot through the water, hoping she would reach a depth where sharks didn’t go before it caught her. But she couldn’t help looking back. And there it was, shooting towards her with its blunt nose aimed her way and its tiny eyes fixed on her. Just as it reached her tail, she screamed and whipped it around the side of the animal.

  It had missed her by inches. Her heart hammering in her chest, she exploded through the water as the shark circled back. In front of her, she caught sight of the hull of the ship where the queen lived, her deep-sea palace. Raina threw every bit of strength she owned into her arms and her tail, streaking through the water like a rocket. The shark’s jaws opened as it came for her again. With a cry of fury, she lifted her tail and brought it down on the snout.

  When she’d seen Yvonne do the same, she’d been above the water, though. She’d had leverage. Now, the blow pushed Raina as far as it did the shark. But it bought her a few more seconds. She followed the curve of the boat, diving frantically down along the side until at last, she felt the edge.

  Once more, the shark dove at her. But just as it was about to reach her, a streak of black bulleted towards it, slamming into the shark’s side and knocking it off course.

  Seeley! Raina screamed his name under water, in her new telepathic language. She couldn’t tell if he heard her, but she threw an arm around him and heaved herself under the edge and then turned and shot up, surfacing in the chamber where she’d given so much to the queen. She wasn’t about to die here, too, and leave the queen the body she had fought so hard for. Not knowing if the shark had followed her, she streaked to the side of the pool and emerged, out of breath and shaking.

  Seeley flopped up beside her and grinn
ed, rolling over onto his back so she could scratch his belly. Tears wet Raina’s cheeks as she folded onto her tail and scratched him, stroking his sleek pelt with trembling hands. He’d come back to her. Even without magic, without her body, he knew her. She heaved him into her lap—he was growing bigger by the day now that he’d been released from the spell of being her familiar. For a minute, she rested her cheek against his. His whiskers tickled her chin, but she didn’t pull back. She wished she could stay forever.

  But she had a job to do here. Looking around, she saw that the room was empty. The queen didn’t even leave guards around her treasure hoard.

  Or did she?

  Raina shivered. The starfish glowed softly on the walls—how? Some kind of sea witch magic that a siren had harvested? Or was it a power the goddess possessed? And if she could make starfish glow, who was to say she couldn’t see what was happening in her lair while she was gone? If nothing else, she had the stone. She could see through that, even without magical abilities of her own. And she had plenty of those.

  Setting Seeley at the edge of the platform, Raina hurried to the throne, hoping against hope that the queen had left the seeing stone carelessly lying in her chair, like she left her other treasures. But it was nowhere about. Her heart sank as she scrambled over the throne and flopped onto the floor. Pushing herself up on her arms, she spotted the conch shell exactly where Yvonne had told her it would be.

  She didn’t especially want to go back out, but she didn’t want to be here when the queen returned, either. Gripping the shell in one hand, she dove back into the pool. When she reached the bottom, she hesitated only a moment. Whatever a shark could do to her, it was nothing compared to what a goddess could do.

  At the edge of the ship, she pulled herself under. She was out in the sea again. Seeley dove under and over her, looking happier than she’d ever seen him. Maybe they weren’t bound by magic, but surely he’d come visit her and they could play in the water together. That was more than enough, more than she’d hoped for.