Chapter 4
Kye
For the first time in over a hundred years, the royal palace of Olathana was abuzz with activity. Instead of feeling annoyed or disturbed by it, I found the commotion rather stimulating. The palace hadn’t had this many people since...well, since that ill-fated birthday ball.
At the thought of that day, darkness threatened to spread through my mind like spilled ink. And it would have, had I been alone. Thankfully, I had plenty of distractions this evening.
The guards had managed to find a few servants brave enough to enter my cursed dwelling, at least for the time it took to settle my new acquisition in.
They brought in a bed for her and put it in the drawing room that I had long claimed as my bedroom because my former rooms remained underwater and the mere thought of diving into the ocean filled me with terror I could not conquer.
The human watched as the servants placed her bed by the wall opposite my bed that I’d long turned into a solid slab of glass, of course.
Shaking in her wet clothes with scruffy chopped-off hair and bare feet, the human presented a sorry sight, though the hard, defiant look in her gray-blue eyes didn’t invite any pity.
“What’s that out there?” she asked suspiciously.
“My bed. Why do you ask? Does it not look like a bed?” I smirked. Of course it didn’t.
She walked to what had once been a luxurious four-poster bed.
A slight depression remained in the middle where my body had laid the last time it was still capable of depressing anything.
That night, drunk out of my mind and exhausted by vigorous lovemaking, I had fallen asleep on top of the blankets.
By morning, they had fused with the mattress into the solid thing the bed remained today.
Neither of the four posts had survived my rage that followed.
Only the sharp, broken stubs remained of them now.
“Is that where you sleep?” The woman frowned, looking disturbed.
Did she feel sorry for me? If so, I’d rather she remained angry or even scared. I far preferred her anger to fear and her fear to pity.
She proved entertaining when she was angry, exciting even, when so few things excited me lately.
Her outburst back in the great hall had sparked emotions I hadn’t felt in a very long time, if ever.
She looked calm now, but the fire didn’t completely leave her calculating gaze.
It lay in embers, dormant but ready to spark at any provocation.
For now at least, she seemed to have chosen learning and observing over threatening and raging. Smart little thing.
“Yes, that’s where I sleep, and you will sleep right there.” I pointed at the bed across the room where the servants had finished fluffing the pillows and straightening the blankets on her bed.
“I’m not sleeping here. I’m not sharing a room with you.” An anxious note tinged her voice. Her clutched hands betrayed the nervousness and fear that she so diligently tried to conceal.
“Why not? It’s not like I’ll make you sleep on the glass with me. And look.” I pointed at the carved wooden screen that the servants positioned in front of her bed. “You won’t even have to look at me. Unless you want to.”
An unintentional tendril of seduction slipped into my voice with my last words.
It was utterly unnecessary. Like I’d said to the brack, the human was useless to me as a bed mate.
I needed her cooperation, not her body, as appealing as her curves might be.
Yet apparently the siren hadn’t completely died in me, and my voice had slipped from conviction into seduction with no effort on my part.
The stubborn little thing proved more resilient than she looked, however.
A gentle blush colored her cheeks at the alluring dip of my voice, but instead of melting with desire at my feet, she folded her arms across her chest and chewed on her thumb in contemplation while watching the servants set up a shell tub of steaming fresh water.
My people bathed in the briny waves of the ocean just as well as in fresh water if they wished. But I heard that tender human skin became irritated if exposed to saltwater for too long.
“Why can’t I have my own room?” she insisted. “It’s not like there’s a shortage of them in this place.”
She dropped her arms from her chest. Humans lacked the magic to drain the water from their clothes and had to suffer in discomfort, waiting for the fabrics to dry naturally.
The thin white blouse and the stiff gray pants she wore were still damp.
The wet material clung to her chest, outlining the lace of her undergarment and the two hardened buds of her nipples.
I knew they weren’t standing to attention on my account but simply reacting to the cold, yet a curious jolt shot through my body, waking things in me I didn’t wish to awake.
The sight of her full breasts with nipples straining against their confinement brought the uninvited memories of such long forgotten sensations as the taste of warm female skin on my tongue, the delicate give of a woman’s flesh gently pinched between my teeth, the silky slick of her arousal coating my fingers or my cock.
All those achingly sweet things that I used to revel in long ago meant nothing but pain now.
I didn’t know if I welcomed even the memories of them, but there was a certain appeal in this human, despite her sorry state. A hundred years ago, I would’ve already turned her scorned questions into moans of ecstasy, but I forced those useless thoughts out of my mind now.
“You’ll have to stay with me,” I explained patiently. “I made a deal with the brack. I’m obligated to hand you to him upon his return from the Sky Kingdom. I can’t risk you getting lost or being stolen while in my possession.”
“I’m no one’s possession.” She tossed me a glare, and there it was—a hot flare from the embers of her anger surging high again.
Keeping her in my bedroom carried the risk of being stabbed in my sleep, no doubt. But hopefully, the brack’s attack had taught her how useless an attempt on my life would be and how dangerous it could be for her to touch me.
“Regardless, I’ll have to keep you safe until his return,” I insisted. “Which means you’ll have to stay close for me to keep an eye on you but not close enough for me to touch you. So, please refrain from climbing into bed with me,” I added with a half-grin. “For your own safety.”
She scoffed, “I’d sooner jump into the ocean with my hands tied behind my back.”
I breathed slowly for a moment or two, trying not to imagine what she’d just said. I was the only siren in my kingdom who knew the horror of drowning firsthand.
But the human didn’t know about that, of course.
She didn’t mean to torment me. She wasn’t the brack.
So far, her presence proved more entertaining than irritating or infuriating.
Deprived of any kind of pleasure for so long, I reined my temper in, determined to enjoy her company for as long as it lasted.
The servants carried dresses past us, then arranged them into the trunks next to her bed.
Deep below the surface, I used to have several rooms allocated for housing all my clothes, and jewelry.
I had no use for any of that now, but that didn’t mean I’d lost my good taste or the ability to appreciate a beautiful outfit.
“This one.” I lifted a finger to stop a servant with a gown in the color I thought would look lovely on my human guest. “Have a bath, my dear, then wear this dress for dinner.”
“Mint?” She made a face, staring at the dress I chose. “Who between the ages of eight and eighty would wear this color?”
“Not mint. Sea foam,” I corrected. “One of the most beloved colors in Olathana. I used to love wearing it too.”
She gave me an unimpressed look. “Since you’re older than eight and younger than eighty, you—”
“Aw, my cute little human, I’m much older than eighty,” I cooed, knowing that my condescending tone would vex her.
So far, anger had been the strongest emotion I’d been able to evoke in her. If given a choice, I’d prefer something else of course—affection, adoration, awe maybe? But if she felt any of those toward me, they weren’t nearly as strong as her anger. So, I took what I could get.
Right now, she seemed more stunned than angry, however.
“How old are you?” she asked, gaping at me in astonishment.
“I’m a hundred and twenty-one, which brings me well outside of your silly, arbitrary range. And since I can’t wear clothes myself, you will have to wear the sea foam color for me.”
She remained staring at me with her jaw slackened and her eyes wide open .
“One hundred and twenty-one...” she muttered under her breath, then rubbed her eyes. “How can it be?”
She swayed on her feet, and I stepped away quickly, afraid she’d fall and I’d try to catch her, inevitably killing her.
“A fae’s expected lifespan is five hundred years,” I said. “Many live even longer than that, if they’re not actively trying to get themselves killed with reckless behavior, that is.”
“A-are you a fae?” she managed, stunned and tripping over her words.
I believed that fact was clear from everything she had witnessed in my palace. But then again, most humans had no idea about our existence. And if no one had sat down and explained anything to her yet, she must be feeling pretty confused still.
“All of us in Nerifir are fae. Sirens, gargoyles, werewolves... All inhabitants of the three planes of existence in Nerifir are beings with magic. As opposed to humans.” I gestured to her with a flip of my hand. “The creatures void of magic, like yourself.”
“Somehow, I was still hoping for a more logical explanation than that,” she groaned, spearing her fingers through her hair in anguish.
A pinch of a feeling I didn’t immediately recognize twisted deep in my chest somewhere. Compassion, I finally found the name for it. Just like this woman, I knew the devastation of having one’s life changed drastically in the blink of an eye.