by Bo Reid
We walk down the stairs, and Javaraya meets us as we step onto the grass.
“Well don’t you know how to make an appearance,” he remarks as he leans in and plants a kiss on her cheek.
“I thought we already covered that the last go around,” she says with a smile.
“Indeed we did,” he says, extending his arm out and taking her from me. We walk towards the very back of the yard. The Forbidden Forest as our backdrop, a large table has been set up on a stage that elevates us above the others. Just in case they ever thought we were on the same level, we never tire of reminding them we’re not.
Javaraya walks to the center of the table and pulls out the center chair, motioning for Tanda to take her seat. He sits to her left, and I take my place on her right. The others join us, Kalavayan sitting on the left of Javaraya and Ajal on his other side. Arius sits next to me, and Dearil takes his place at the end. He is the last to show, his hair still wet from the sea, and he smells like saltwater.
Javaraya stands as the other residents take their seats around the vast back lawn set with tables. “Welcome residents of Hells Hallow; we have gathered here tonight to mark a momentous occasion. One that will be written into the town’s history books and be reminded of for generations to come. Tonight we gather here to welcome home the last Morass witch and to offer her, her rightful seat with the council.” He turns to look down at Tanda, raising his glass in a toast. “What do you say, Tanda, will you join the council?”
Chapter Twelve
Tanda
Well, that was fucking fast. Doesn’t a girl even get to eat around here before being presented with a fake-as-fuck declaration? I smile up at Javaraya sweetly, then out at the people gathered here tonight. Those that believe me to be someone I am not. I grab the champagne glass that is in front of my place setting, pushing my chair out and standing. I raise my glass to meet Javaraya’s.
“I accept my place on the council,” I declare as we clink our glasses in a toast, smiling at each other with nothing but contempt for the other one in our gazes.
The crowd rises to their feet, as do the other council members. The residents toast one another; I even see some hugging their neighbor. Who knew Morass blood coming back here would cause this big of a frenzy? I haven’t even done anything yet.
Well, I mean, not really.
I feel Ernesh place his large palm against the small of my back, allowing tiny sparks of electricity to once again freely flow over my skin. “Welcome to the council, Miss. Morass,” he whispers huskily in my ear, and I fight the shiver begging to wrack through my body. Pushing away the sparks shooting down my legs.
“Happy to be here,” I grit out, and he chuckles darkly as he presses close to my back, the deep rumbling from his chest vibrating through me.
Great, he doesn’t even need lightning to set me on fire. Fucking hormones.
We sit back down and suffer through an eight-course meal, seriously who eats this much anyway?
There is bread, soup, salad, and fish — would someone remind me to bring up that it’s rude to serve fish to a siren — there is wine, which I decline. And by the time the dancing starts, I can hardly even move I’m stuffed so fully.
We sit at our table, elevated above the crowd, and silently watch as people pair up and begin to dance. Suddenly Dearil pushes back from his seat; walking over to me, he reaches his hand out.
“May I have this dance?” he asks, his sultry voice washing over me like the waves of the ocean. Crashing into me and pulling me down under the surface. Of course, his voice sounds like a sultry melody; he’s the fucking siren king.
“You may,” I reply, reaching up and placing my hand into his. He pulls my chair out and offers me his elbow when I stand. We walk past Arius, who grumbles and sniffs the air like a fucking dog as I pass, and I can’t help the small chuckle I make.
“You’ve fucked him up,” Dearil says as he spins me around the dance floor.
“No one forced him to bite me that night, he did this to himself by being greedy,” I reply.
“I accept that,” Dearil says as he wraps his arm around me, placing his hand against the small of my back and gracefully leading me across the dance floor. I try to lead — I hate giving up control — but it’s simply no use. He is as graceful on this dance floor as I bet he is in the water. He guides me effortlessly without his eyes even once leaving mine.
His are a deep blue, so much like the ocean on a stormy morning. His blond hair is just long enough to run your fingers through, begging to be pulled on. Calm down, Tanda, put your fucking cat away.
“Like what you see?” he asks as he spins me out, then back in, catching me and pulling me close to his chest.
“How could I not?” I reply, my voice taking on a rhythm of its own.
He smirks at me, continuing to hold me close and spin me across the dancefloor. “I thought that might be what you had,” he comments.
I cock my head to the side, my brows furrowing in confusion. “What?” I ask.
He leans in close to my ear, his sultry tone whispering to me. “The song of a siren.” He pulls back, releasing me from his hold and taking a step back. We stand still in the middle of the dance floor, staring at one another, neither daring to move first. The people dance around us, no one getting too close.
“When a siren wants something, their voice takes on the melody needed to call for what they desire. It just happens, part of our charm. I’ve been wondering what it is you were given from me, you got fire from the devil, lightning from the dragon. I’m betting the vampire’s sight because I don’t see you ordering blood orange smoothies from the blood bank. The werewolf gave you hearing, unless you plan on growing claws during the full moon. A demonic power could be any number of things, but I’m betting yours matches Kalayavan’s glamor. Now, who did they steal that little healing power from?” he questions.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I cross my arms over my chest, and he smirks, biting down on his bottom lip as his eyes trail down my body.
“Is there a problem here?” Javaraya asks as he steps up to my side.
“No,” we both respond, but neither of us bothers to look over at Javaraya.
“Well then, I guess you won’t mind me cutting in, will you, Dearil?” he asks, but his tone leaves no room to question his actions.
“She’s all yours,” Dearil says, leaning forward he places a soft kiss on my cheek. “They might not have you figured out yet, but I do,” he whispers before pulling back and walking away.
Javaraya
I take Tanda’s hand, pulling her close to my chest and floating her across the dancefloor.
“Enjoying your time?” I ask.
“Immensely.”
“Good. You plan to give me my dog back anytime soon?” I ask. Yes, I’m still bitter about that, I hold grudges.
“Actually, it looks like he’s just joining the party,” she says and nods her head to the back door. I stop dancing to look over my shoulder and see Cerb standing in the doorway to the mansion.
“Ha! I knew he’d come back,” I tell her, feeling very smug. Now that she doesn’t have bones to lure him away from me, he came home.
“Of course, he would. I wasn’t holding him hostage,” she huffs and rolls her eyes.
I smirk at her, dropping her hands and walking over to greet my dog. Except as I reach the steps, Cerberus begins to trot down them and walks right fucking past me.
People clear out of his way, moving off of the dancefloor as he greets Tanda. My jaw drops to the fucking floor as she crouches down and pets him. He licks her face and hands. Nuzzling each of his big heads into her until she falls flat on her ass. She laughs as he stands over her and licks her.
“What the fuck?” I seethe.
You cannot just steal a man’s dog! It’s not fucking right.
I march over to them and grip one of Cerb’s collars, pulling him off of her. She laughs, a smile stretching across her pre
tty face, and pushes herself up to her elbows.
“He was fine,” she says as she gets up on her feet, misreading my reason for pulling him off of her. At this point, I wouldn’t really care if he tried to eat her face off. I pulled him away because he is mine.
“You cannot take my dog,” I growl.
“I didn’t take your dog,” she counters. “Cerb clearly came to me willingly, and everyone saw it. I did not take your dog.” She crosses her arms over her chest, a move that pushes her breasts up, and if I weren’t so fucking pissed off right now, my dick would be hard from the sight.
“Boss,” Kalayavan hisses. “Not here,” he orders, and I cut a glare at him.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” I seethe towards him.
“You are making a fucking scene, and it’s not going to end well,” he points out, nodding towards the audience.
Tanda smirks slightly, and I know she just fucking played me. Instead of responding to Kalayavan or me, she bends at her waist and gives Cerb more pets. Kissing each of his large heads and letting him coat her in slobber.
“I’ll see you later, buddy,” she whispers as she stands and turns to walk away from us.
I stand on the dancefloor with my demon and my hellhound as he whimpers at my feet and tries to pull away from me and follow her. I watch as the butler hands her a fucking broom, she gracefully sits on it and flies into the fucking night sky. To be honest, I’ve lived here all my life and have never seen a witch fly.
“You’re an idiot,” Kalayavan hisses.
“I know,” I grumble.
“Party’s over,” Kalayavan yells; the music cuts, and everyone files out of my back yard.
I drag my whining hellhound back inside the mansion as everyone vacates my yard and home. I have to force him into his large kennel as he continues to whine and paw at the gate.
“You are not her dog,” I tell him. “This is your home!” He barks his objections at me, three times, and very loudly. “Stop that, you are supposed to guard the gates of Hell, not hang out with witches!” I tell him, and he just keeps barking, clawing at the gate, and chewing on the latch system. “Damn it, Cerberus, you stop that right now,” I demand, but of course, he doesn’t listen.
“Why don’t you just let him out, you never put him in there,” Kalayavan says.
“Because he is my dog, not her dog.”
“Why are you so worried about him going over there? So what if she gives him bones, he’ll get bored and come home eventually, he always does.”
“It’s the principle, dogs are supposed to be man’s best friend. Hellhounds are supposed to be the Devil’s best friend; that’s just how it works. And clearly, my hellhound is defective,” I say, turning to Cerb.
“He’s going to chew his way out of that eventually.”
“I’ll figure something else out,” I grumble, walking away from my irritating pup.
“So, that went smoothly,” Arius grumbles as he stalks through the mansion and plops down on my couch.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I ask.
“Yeah, right here.”
“No, like your own house…”
“Way too far away, I’m just going to stay here for the night. I’m too hungover to walk all the way home,” he yawns and sinks deeper into my couch.
“Don’t you like, have a coffin somewhere…”
“I do, like I said, too far away. Plus, your house is closer to her. Untwist your panties, I’m not the one that made you flip out over your dog. Now please stop talking so fucking loudly, I have a headache,” he grumbles, pressing his arm over his eyes to shield out the light.
“Unbelievable,” I grumble, walking into my kitchen and pouring a glass of scotch. “I have a hungover vampire on my couch, a pissy demon in my kitchen. A whiney hellhound in his kennel. And a manipulative dark witch Hell knows where,” I mumble before taking a long pull from my glass.
“A broody werewolf in the backyard, an over-stimulated dragon in the doorway, and a grumpy siren on a beach somewhere,” Kalayavan adds. “Oh, and a bitter devil drinking scotch in his kitchen.”
“I am not bitter,” I bite out.
“You’re definitely fucking bitter!” Arius calls from the living room.
“No one asked you!” I yell back.
“Look, the bottom line is she figured out how to push your buttons, and you’re letting her do it. Your dog is not just going to go be her dog all of a sudden. You know, have you ever thought about the fact that you’re so fucking set that she belongs to you, that your damn dog also senses that? You are so fucking hung up on her that maybe your dog recognizes the shift, and that’s why he wants to be with her. Because he feels like she is also his owner. Because if she belongs to you, that makes her queen of the fucking underworld which would make her the secondary master of Cerberus!” he yells, throwing his hands up in the air exasperated.
“I… I never thought of that,” I say.
“Of course, you didn’t! Because you’re too fucking hung up on, well, everything! Pull your head out of your fucking ass, stop worrying about your dog, and start thinking about the bigger fucking picture here.”
“Fine,” I grumble.
Kalayavan huffs, rolling his eyes before walking out of my kitchen. I hear the front door slam shut, and I sink into the counter. We need to figure out what the hell is going on here. We need to find out what Tanda’s coven did to her when she was born. We need to figure out what she has been doing and where she has been for the last twenty-five years. And for fuck’s sake, we need to figure out how the fuck she got our powers.
The problem? There are no records, no way to figure out what happened to her without her telling us herself. And I really don’t think she is going to suddenly become forthcoming with her past. Considering she has been less than open since she first got here.
Maybe our best route is to just sign the fucking contract. I mean, it is as straightforward as it could possibly be, none of the soul-stealing, territory-converting loopholes that I personally would have dashed in there. If I’m honest with myself, she really doesn’t seem to want much to do with any of us.
Maybe all she really wants is to finish what her parents started. After all, even villains wish for their parent’s approval.
Dearil
I take my time breathing in the fresh air as I take the road that parallels the Forbidden Forest, towards Shipwreck Cove. When I reach the beach, I kick my dress shoes off and sink my feet into the sand, taking a few deep calming breaths of ocean air.
I walk across the beach and open the door to the rundown lighthouse. Walking up the unstable stairs to the top, I push open the hatch and step onto the top floor that is bound to give way any day now. I walk over to one of the broken windows, climbing through it onto the balcony that circles the building.
Half of the balcony fell off ages ago, and because the point of a lighthouse is to protect ships from crashing, we never fixed it. Protecting boats from crashing isn’t really a siren’s thing, we much prefer them to sink. Hence the name Shipwreck Cove. I’ve lost count of all the ships that litter the ocean floor around here.
My parents used to bring me up here when I was a kid — before it was a harsh breeze away from toppling over that is. My mother used to sit on this balcony with me, pointing out to the horizon and telling me stories of the waters beyond the edge of the barrier. There was a time, long ago, when the siren’s movements in the water were not restricted to the boundaries of Hells Hallow.
That all changed when a few of our sirens were nearly captured. Hooked in fishnets and hauled onto ships. The humans thought they scored the catch of a lifetime; all they ended up with were pissed off sirens.
The fish sent word back to my parents; I can still remember them calling to our siren soldiers. They left to save our people, and my mother never came back. The boats had already taken off towards the mainlands, but they caught up to them. My parents, forever good people, thought they could reason with the humans. But
humans are savage creatures that can never be trusted. They pollute our waters; they throw their trash into our oceans. They damage the coral reefs we need to protect our environment, and they murder without a second thought.
My parents offered riches beyond anything they could imagine to get our family back. The humans refused, and when they attacked my parents, my own mother jumped in front of my father, taking a harpoon to her heart. She knew our people still needed their king.
My father and the rest of the sirens lost it. Their queen had been taken from them, and there was no more room for negotiations. The sirens called the ship towards a jagged cliff, it crashed, decimating the vessel on impact.
Nothing would ever be the same after that.
In mythology, Sirens are told to be horrid creatures, but the truth is, you don’t become a siren until you have been wronged, and your heart turns as cold as the depths of the ocean. My mother was never a proper siren, she was a mermaid. Her heart was pure, and her pure heart is what thawed my father’s. She changed our people; she was a gentle queen. Always listening to others, always trying to help. The day she was taken from our people in such a harsh manner was the day we became unsavable.
From that day forward, the sirens set out to sink every ship within earshot. To drown every sailor and fisherman within one hundred miles of our borders.
The day we sank an entire navy battleship was the day our waters were closed for good.
My father didn’t last much longer after that; he died from heartbreak. I wanted to go with him, but our people still need a king, so I accepted my throne.
Never has the thought of a queen crossed my mind, not until she stepped foot into our town.
Chapter Thirteen
Tanda
“Hex, for Hells’ sake, please just stop,” I beg my cat as she incessantly meows and paws at the front door. “He isn’t going to let him come back; I’m sorry!” I yell from the other room as I press a pillow to my head.
