Chapter 6
It was Zephyr who heard the song first.
We were helping make final preparations aboard the ship Astraios would sail to the Isles when the quiet hit, as if the air had been sucked from the hidden cove within the cliffs that served as a dock.
The silence always came with the song, and Zephyr was the first to stop Astraios from prattling on with a hand to his wrist, her head cocked in concentration.
That was when I felt the tug.
Raw panic blasted down the bond between Marina and me, so sharp and startling that I clutched my chest as if my heart would pound right out of it.
“Ana,” Zephyr whispered, her panic a reflection of her mate’s.
“Marina.” I bolted down the gangway before anyone could stop me.
I took to the skies, flying out and around the cliffs with Zephyr, Astraios, and ten of his crew behind me. It was faster than running by only a few minutes, but those minutes could be the difference between life and death for my mate.
My mate.
If she didn’t already know, she would now. And I didn’t care what it would mean for us as her panic simmered to a dull thumping ache—as if she were biding time from whoever attacked her.
Siren song had no effect on other sirens, which could only mean the attack was directed at Marina. I wasn’t sure why selkies didn’t share our immunity, having shared our islands and supposedly our gods. It was one of the many ways our people harmed Marina’s, and one I would outlaw as soon as we were united again.
But if sirens were attacking Marina…skies, they could make her do anything. I didn’t give myself time to think about who might be attacking her as I soared above the cliffs to one of the library windows. I dropped into the cavern and landed with a crash as a table buckled beneath me. My eyes went straight to the teal-haired body sprawled at the feet of a siren male who was leaning down, his hands reaching for her.
I knew all of my people. This male wasn’t from the cliffs. Perhaps was one of my father’s exiled loyalists—although most of them died when he did—or a hired thug from Nordhavn.
Whoever he was, he’d be dead soon.
“Touch her and die,” I snarled, drawing my sword as Zephyr and Astraios landed behind me.
The male blanched as several other bodies thumped to the ground behind me, Astraios’ crew drawing their weapons as I let out a primal growl.
Running was the stranger’s final mistake. It took half a thought to capture him in a cage of wind, and seconds to drive my sword through his heart. He screamed as he died, blood burbling from his lips. Zephyr would likely scold me for not keeping him alive for questioning, but there was no way he was working alone.
“Find the others,” I snarled to Astraios. “And search the perimeter. I want to know how in the damned skies they got in here.”
Astraios nodded and took command of his crew, sending them to guard the doors and fly the perimeter while I knelt before Marina.
She was pale, her dark skin ashen. I cradled her head, and my fingers came away bloody. It took every ounce of my control not to go and snap any unbroken bones in that male’s body.
“Marina,” I murmured, stroking a finger down her temple. She didn’t wake, but I heard a groaned curse behind me and turned to see Zephyr helping her mate to sit up. Ana’s head was also bloodied and she was shaking as Zephyr ran a soothing hand down her back.
“What happened, Ana?” I asked as I scooped Marina into my arms.
“Give her a moment,” Zephyr snapped, her single sky-blue eye blazing in barely contained rage.
“I’m fine,” Ana protested weakly, lifting a hand to cup Zephyr’s cheek.
My first mate’s face softened instantly, and I clutched Marina a little tighter to me.
“Healing wing,” I said roughly, nodding to Zephyr. “Astraios can clean up this mess.”
Zephyr nodded, shooting into the sky with Ana in her arms. I caught Astraios’ eye, and he nodded in understanding, shouting orders as two additional siren males were dragged forward by his men, both unconscious.
I knew where to find him once Marina had been taken care of.
With a gust of my magic, I shot into the air. Marina stirred as we flew under the canopy of twilight toward the lower cliffs where the healers worked. I released a silent breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding.
“You do seem to find yourself in trouble a great deal, Urchin,” I murmured, kissing her brow as I sailed toward the sea below us.
“I told you,” she replied weakly, her eyes still shut in pain as she turned her face toward my bare chest. “Trouble finds me.”
Blood splattered across my chest as I brought the knife down over a third finger of one of the siren males who had attacked my mate. He screamed and wept as his iron shackles shook. I hadn’t used this dungeon in over a decade, but I knew we were deep enough in the cliffs that no one would hear his screams.
“This all ends when you talk,” I drawled, the mask of the nonchalant pirate king chafing. Breaking fingers would have been more humane, but it would take longer, and I didn’t have the patience for it with my mate in danger. “Or we can keep going, I suppose.”
The healers had put Marina to sleep to prevent her from injuring herself further while her head healed. Ana was in only slightly better condition. Zephyr stood guard over them while Astraios and his crew swept the cliffs for any other infiltrators. Otherwise, they’d have been enduring this right alongside me.
“What do you want with my mate?” I demanded as the male whimpered over his missing fingers. “How did you get in?”
When he didn’t answer, I took his hand again and raised the knife.
“W-w-wait,” the male sniveled, panic lighting his eyes.
I didn’t wait.
It had been fifteen years since I’d had to be this ruthless; since I’d had to torture or kill to secure my position. I hadn’t even hurt the selkie guards when I kidnapped Marina, and whatever lies her father spun, I hadn’t taken a selkie life except in self-defense in all that time either. No siren had, on my orders.
Not since my father had I been this type of king, and a part of me recoiled, just as a darker part reveled in it. What would my mate think of me if she could see me down here chopping off fingers?
But I needed answers. I needed to protect Marina, and I would go to very dark places to do so if I had to.
The male screamed as a fresh spurt of blood splattered us, and I swallowed my bile. Later, I promised myself, I would be thoroughly sick over this. I raised the knife over the male’s thumb.
“We were hired,” he wailed, shaking and sobbing, no longer looking at his mutilated hand.
“By whom?” I sat back in my chair.
“He—he’ll kill me,” he stammered, breathing heavily as he gasped through his pain. His healing had already kicked in to slow the bleeding in the severed fingers.
“I’m about to kill you,” I reminded him, leaning forward and toying with the sharp point of the knife. “Who paid you to come and kill my mate?”
“Not kill,” the male balked, meeting my eyes with abject terror as if this confession would be the difference between life and death. “Just take her.”
“Who,” I commanded again, teeth bared in a feral growl as I gripped the male’s throat and brought his face close to mine.
“Stormcrow,” he rasped. “Ilya Stormcrow.”
I stilled. “That’s impossible. Try again.”
“I swear it!” Snot and blood and tears ran down the male’s face, and I shook him again.
“The Stormcrow is dead. I watched him drown.”
“N—no!” The male scrabbled at my hands, trying to release my grip. “He’s alive. In Nordhavn.”
I cursed, dropping the man back into his chair.
“And why does the Stormcrow want her?”
“I don’t know!” the male screamed as I raised the knife over his thumb again. “I swear on the skies, I don’t know!”
I paused, considering, before I brought the knife down on his thumb amid a fresh wave of screaming and blood.
“We’ll have another little chat in a few days,” I promised, rising from my rickety stool and turning my back on the male. I sheathed the bloody dagger and looked back once as the iron bars of the cell clanged closed behind me. “Pray that I find the Stormcrow before he finds you.”
Upon leaving the dungeon, I allowed myself exactly two minutes to hurl my guts up before going to find Zephyr and Astraios.
Zephyr was where I’d left her, watching over Marina and Ana. In a stroke of good luck, Astraios had just arrived and was about to come find me.
“The Stormcrow?” Zephyr gaped, her voice hushed as I told them what I’d learned. “He’s alive?”
“He can’t be,” Astraios argued. “He drowned. We all saw him drown.”
“If it’s not him, then it’s someone using his name.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “And causing just as much trouble as he did fifteen years ago.”
“If it’s him, why now?” Zephyr asked, frowning slightly. “If he’s been alive all this time, why wait to strike?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed, glancing back into the room where Ana and Marina were sleeping. “Perhaps because he heard I’m to be mated. It would make sense to strike where I’m weakest. Or perhaps the timing is no coincidence and someone is helping him. I won’t know until I find out for myself if it really is the Stormcrow in the first place.”
“How do you want to play this?” Astraios asked, arms crossed over his chest. He would leave at first light, but he had refused my suggestion that he get some sleep before sailing to the isles. “Should I stay?”
“No.” I rested my head against the stone wall behind me. Fear and exhaustion dragged at me, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I knew Marina was out of danger. “We need that meeting. And we have even more reason to go to Nordhavn now.”
“You have to tell her, Cas,” Zephyr warned. “This has gone on for too long. If she’s a target, then you either need to secure the bond and the power that comes with it or get her the fuck away from here.”
“I know,” I snapped, my patience far too thin for my first mate’s scolding. “Skies above, Zephyr, I know that. I was going to tell her everything tonight.”
“That worked out well for you,” Astraios quipped, his smirk not faltering even under my growl. He put a steady hand on my shoulder and squeezed it once. “We’re with you, Cas. Just tell us what you need.”
I sighed again as my anger drained out of me as fast as it had risen. This was fucking exhausting.
“I need you to get Marina’s father to that meeting,” I said. Astraios nodded once, his jaw clenched. “And I need to take care of the Stormcrow or whoever is pretending to be him before that. I can’t fight a war on two fronts.”
“Agreed,” said Zephyr, biting her lower lip. “So we go north?”
“To Nordhavn,” I agreed, closing my eyes as the weight of far too much pressed down on me. “And this time, I’ll make sure Ilya Stormcrow stays dead.”