Chapter 13
Maren
It wasn’t a formal promise, but Kye fulfilled it all the same. We spent the morning together, then had lunch on the patio outside.
Kye ordered a huge platter of scallops for lunch, and they were the biggest scallops I’d ever seen, each bigger than my palm.
“I don’t think I can eat any more,” I laughed after polishing off two, which was more than I should’ve eaten judging by how stuffed I felt now.
“Are they not to your liking?” Kye frowned in concern.
“No, they’re perfect. Really, really good. I’m just too full to take even a bite more. Do you want to try?”
He was eating a shrimp salad, with all the pieces in it cut to bite-size.
He shook his head at my offer. “The bigger the scallops, the more succulent they are. But these are for you. I normally eat much smaller ones.”
I knew the reason for that. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
“Good thing I have just the right tool to make them smaller.” I lifted my knife before cutting a piece of my scallop for him. “Here. It’s really good, I promise.”
I got up from the table and walked to the other end where he was sitting.
“Open wide,” I instructed, leaning toward him with the piece of scallop on my fork.
His lips quivered with a barely contained smile before he obediently opened his mouth for me to deposit the scallop in.
I moved the fork slowly, careful not to touch his lips with it.
A flash of his tongue caught my eye, and I put the scallop on it, allowing Kye to remove it from the fork with his teeth.
It occurred to me that a tongue was covered not with skin but with mucosa. It didn’t turn things to glass, which allowed Kye to eat and drink, sparing him the torture of hunger and thirst. But that wasn’t the only use for his tongue that suddenly came to my perverted mind.
He licked his lips, studying my face.
“You’re right, my darling,” he murmured. “The scallop is delectable.”
“Your tongue can touch,” I blurted out because the many filters I normally had between my brain and my mouth tended to disappear in Kye’s presence.
A wide, lascivious smile spread on his face like honey, and I wished I could taste it. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t give for a single kiss from him.
“Yes, it could,” he said slowly. “And I would’ve licked every part of your body by now if I didn’t fear the risk of bringing my lips that close to your skin.”
“But...” I exhaled.
“Too close, my fragile butterfly. Way too close for me to risk it.” He adjusted his position on the chair, his hard-on perfectly visible to me through the glass table. “Believe me, not acting on it ails me more than I can tell.”
My mind reeled. I was so close to him, I could smell him. That warm scent of ocean spray and sunshine that didn’t come from the outside but emanated from his body—the scent of his skin, fatal to touch.
What made me crave him so much that I felt ready to throw all caution to the wind, even forgetting about the mortal danger? Was it some kind of spell? It had to be. Because nothing about this feeling was normal or ordinary. No one had ever had this effect on me before.
“Maren. Darling,” Kye’s voice vibrated with warning as I leaned closer and closer.
And even then, I found his voice incredibly alluring—the irresistible , all-consuming call of a siren.
It took me a gargantuan effort to step back from him. But with a long, bracing breath, I finally pulled away.
As horrible as it still felt to spend the night apart from him, maybe that was exactly what I needed? I needed some distance from Kye to find myself again. With him around, I just couldn’t think straight.
A shadow fell across the sky, accompanied by a soft swishing of wings. The sunlight was obstructed so suddenly, it startled me. I gripped the table, ready to run. How timid and jumpy the night attacks had made me.
“You’re safe,” Kye’s calming voice was the only thing that stopped me from bolting. “It’s just a messenger owl.”
A great, snow-white bird soared in a loop over our heads before landing on the table, next to my platter of scallops.
“A-an owl?” I stammered in shock.
Kye lifted a finger in a call for silence, staring at the bird intently. He didn’t appear alarmed or particularly surprised, just extremely alert with all his senses honed in on the bird.
“A message for His Majesty, King Kye of the Olathana Ocean,” the bird said, its big round eyes directed between us through the opening to the dining room into the depths of the glass palace.
A talking owl?
I glanced at Kye in confusion, but he seemed to be captivated by what the bird had to say, unperturbed by the fact that it could talk at all.
“I’m King Kye,” he said.
“Odine, the former royal hag of Olathana, wishes you to know that the silk you ordered has been delivered to her and is ready for you now,” the bird delivered its message in a surprisingly clear voice with perfect pronunciation.
Then it spread its beautiful white wings and took off, sending a wave of air around us in its wake.
Kye’s eyes widened. He pushed away from the table, getting up.
“It’s ready,” he muttered, looking more dumbfounded by what the bird had said than by its sudden appearance at our table or its ability to speak.
But of course, what was so unusual about a talking owl in a world where eyeballs grew on tentacles, a man’s touch turned everything to glass, and his voice easily charmed my pants off my ass?
“It didn’t take Leslo long at all,” I said softly, unsure how to feel about that.
Should I be glad that I would no longer be a hostage? Or worried that Kye would hand me back to Leslo to fulfill his side of the deal? After all, a fae could not break his promise.
Either way, my future in Nerifir remained uncertain, as it had always been.
WE DIDN’T GO SWIMMING that afternoon. Instead, Kye immediately demanded to see the captain of the royal fleet and ordered to outfit a ship that would take him to the shores of Sarnala to meet Odine and fetch his precious silk.
He clearly was delighted by the news, and it proved impossible for me not to be touched by his excitement.
He didn’t jump or scream with glee, of course.
The king of sirens conducted himself as regally as ever.
But I saw the burst of life in his eyes, the added spring in his step, and the determination in his actions.
New hope energized him, giving him a new purpose too.
The silk wouldn’t release him from his curse. But for the first time after the many decades of stagnation and deterioration, there was a prospect of true improvement in his life, and I could not remain indifferent to his happiness.
After the afternoon spent in arrangements and preparations, Kye joined me for dinner on the terrace in the evening.
A beautiful ship with tall masts rising high into the sky and the kingdom’s standard billowing in the breeze had been anchored on this side of the reef, a short distance from Kye’s favorite coral branch.
I couldn’t focus on the food, watching with rapt attention as the crew prepared the ship for Kye’s departure in the morning. The wooden loading dock they used was considerably thicker than a usual gangway, as was the wooden dais erected on the main deck of the ship.
Both the gangway and the dais were made of wood but with the fragility of glass in mind because as the king stepped on them to board the ship in the morning, they would turn to glass, and they had to be strong enough to support his weight in both their forms.
“Why do you have ships at all if sirens practically live in the ocean?” I asked Kye. “I mean, did you have the full fleet before the curse too?”
I knew that in his current condition, Kye couldn’t swim as far as Sarnala.
But normally, sirens preferred swimming to traveling by any vessel.
I read that they generally felt more comfortable when connected to water, which they normally did through touch.
That was the reason for the underwater parts of the palace and the many open pools inside it.
The sirens needed access to the ocean to feel fully at home.
“Olathana always had a fleet of vessels to use in both trade and war,” Kye replied, watching the preparations with an interest that matched mine.
“Not all things can be submerged in the ocean.
Not all people like it either. Werewolves hate water, for example, and their skills in shipbuilding aren't that great. They often prefer to pay for our ships to transport their goods or dignitaries.”
“Have you traveled by ship before?”
“No,” he admitted. “This will be my first time. But I know you’ll love it, my butterfly. It’ll be good for you to see more of Nerifir.”
The standard on the mast puffed out in the breeze like a miniature sail, displaying the crest of Olathana: the peak of a cerulean wave under a golden sun framed by a wreath of pearls and flowers. I watched the fabric play in the wind for a little while.
“And then what?” I asked, placing down my fork.
“What do you mean?” Kye squinted at me in the tapia light of the late afternoon.
The muted sunlight filtered through his brilliant hair like through a magical prism, casting an iridescent halo around his head. Now, he really looked like a fucking angel, though for better or for worse, he hardly ever acted as one.
“What will happen once we reach Sarnala?” I clarified.
“I’ll get the silk. Then I’ll have clothes made from it. Do you want to know the first thing I’ll order made from it?” He leaned toward me across the table, “I’ll order a pair of gloves, so I can finally touch you the way you deserve, my sexy little vixen.”
I didn’t expect my heart to thud as loudly as it did or for my cheeks to flush so hotly. But there I was, shifting in my chair as a spasm of heat below my bellybutton traveled downwards to the place between my thighs that apparently really, really wanted to be touched by him.
A wicked grin tugged up a corner of his mouth. He knew what his words did to me, just as he was well aware of his voice’s power over my body.
“But I won’t...” I ran out of oxygen before I could even finish the sentence. Taking a deep breath, I continued as calmly as I could, “I won’t be there for you to touch, Kye. Aren’t you supposed to return me to Leslo?”
The word “return” burned my tongue on the way out. It made me sick to my stomach to be speaking about myself like some unwanted purchase. But such was the language they used here, wasn’t it? “A purchase” was all I could ever be in this world.
Slowly, he got up from his seat and propped his hands on the table, leaning over it.
“Sweetheart.” His voice rumbled low, like a river running over sharp rocks deep on its bottom—seemingly smooth on the surface but with a powerful undercurrent. “No man, be he a fae or a brack, will ever take you away from me.”
I swallowed hard. “But that was the deal you made with him. I heard you. I was there when you made it.”
He pushed away from the table, getting up, then strolled toward me. With his hip propped against the tabletop, he folded his arms across his chest.
“And I will make another deal,” he replied firmly. “I’ll buy you back from him. You’ll spend the rest of your life here, in Lyrei with me. Isn’t that what you want?”
I dragged my eyes up to his.
What did I want?
Why was it so hard to answer that question?
Once upon a time, not so long ago but worlds over, I had a life filled with hopes, goals, and ambitions. Back then, I made plans, I followed them, and I always knew what I wanted.
I refused to mourn that life as something lost to me forever because I never stopped hoping to return to it.
I just had to find the woman I had always been.
I’d lost my way in the shimmer of the iridescent hair, in the heated glances of the otherworldly eyes, and in the beguiling voice of the siren king who wished to own me for as long as I lived.
Oblivious to my inner struggle, Kye beamed me a swoon-worthy smile and gestured at the ship’s gangway to my left.
“Look, they’re bringing a bed for you, like I told them. I know the journey is just for a few hours, but you may as well be comfortable if you decide to take a nap, right?”