Chapter 18
Ididn’t see Audrey for several days. I texted her to check in, and all I could get back were quick responses.
A thumbs up. A simple, “I’m alive.” Nothing else.
I jumped in my seat on the couch when she burst through the front door four days after she and Liam ran off to my boat, flushed, rushing to the kitchen to grab water.
“What happened to hello?” I turned around on the couch, digging my knees into the cushions so I could rest my arms and head on the back of the furniture, facing the kitchen.
Audrey grinned before filling a glass with water and draining it in three gulps. She sighed dramatically before leaning against the counter.
“Hello.” She laughed, fanning her neck. “God, I’m so drained.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her. “Why?”
She shook her head and pulled her hair back in a ponytail, before rummaging in the pantry for food. “The heat.”
I frowned at her. “What?”
“The heat.” She leaned out from the pantry door to tell me, before hiding behind it again. The sound of bags and boxes of snacks rustling accompanied her explanation, “The mating heat.”
It took every muscle in my body to mask my facial expression to a normal one, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What are you, farm animals?” Audrey cackled before kicking the pantry door shut with her foot, her arms full of boxes of cookies and popcorn and other snacks she unceremoniously dumped on the folding table.
“I mean, I’d heard about how intense it was.” She waved her hand in the air before she ripped into a box of cookies and started shoving some in her mouth, letting crumbs spill out of her lips as she continued, “But I had no idea it was like this.”
“So, like…” I waited for her to finish another mouthful of cookies before I finished my question, “I take it the sex is good, at least?” Audrey’s eyes widened as she nodded her head enthusiastically, her cheeks puffed out with cookies before she swallowed.
“I can’t put into words how good it is,” she breathed. “It’s like everything I’ve been doing before doesn’t even count as sex.”
“Goddamn.” I grinned at her. “I’m happy you and Liam are having a good time.” Her cheeks flushed at the mention of his name, and she rested her hand on her chest as she took a few steady inhales of breaths.
“He had to run back to Enhavenn to tell his sister about us, and why he’s been so MIA after the robbery, but he should be back soon.
” Audrey ripped open a bag of chips before shoving a handful in her mouth and swallowing.
“The heat should subside in a couple of days, so I’ll be back around then, probably.
Also, we hired a cleaning service for your boat.
That’s all I’m going to say about that.”
My jaw dropped as I asked, “Are you deadass?”
“I’m so sorry.” She started fanning herself.
“I—” she hesitated, lifting her gaze toward the door.
I waited for her to finish her sentence, but when heavy footfalls sounded outside our door, I realized she wouldn’t.
Two quick knocks were all the warning we had before Liam let himself in with the key Audrey had made for him.
Somehow, he looked even bigger. He reminded me of the bodybuilder bros at the gym who took enhancements.
His eyes had a similar look in them when they were hopped up, and his muscles all seemed to be flexing.
Liam’s cheeks were just as flushed as Audrey’s, and when he saw her, he immediately strode toward her before realizing I was also in the room, and halting.
“Sorry, um—” Liam awkwardly tipped his chin toward me in acknowledgement. “Hi, Van.”
“Hi Liam.” I held my fist out for him to bump, and he skeptically returned it. “Also, nice.” I winked at him, determined to embarrass him for the sudden surge in hormones he and Audrey were experiencing, but he took the jest in stride.
“Thanks,” Liam deadpanned, before turning to look at Audrey again. When his attention was back to her, Audrey bit her bottom lip, and her eyes flickered completely black.
“What the hell was that?” I asked. I stood straighter on my knees, pointing at her face right when her eyes flickered back to their normal, light hazel color.
“Sorry.” Audrey rubbed her eyes. “Did they do the thing again?”
“Yes.” Liam sounded amused by it. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Why did her eyes just do that, though?” I asked. I had only ever seen Drustan’s eyes flicker to black like that. I thought that was a Drustan-specific thing, fighting against his true siren form.
“She recognizes me as her mate,” Liam spoke the words reverently, before turning to show me when his eyes shifted to black, too. “It’s a common mate recognition sign in Hyvenmere, especially between interracial mates.”
I froze with his words.
What.
No.
What?
“Everyone’s eyes do that when they, um, recognize their partner?” I started picking at stray lint on the back couch cushions.
“Not everyone’s,” Audrey explained. “But it’s a symptom that’s becoming way more common than it used to be.”
I couldn’t move. My hands were stuck on a stray thread on the couch. I absorbed this revelation with a racing heart and a twist in my gut. But Audrey was half-fae. Half Hyvenmerian. That’s probably why she triggered it so smoothly.
Drustan’s eyes always seemed to fight against the shift to black. It was a slow transition. It was different than what Audrey and Liam just did. Probably because I was human, and not really his—
“You should bring those with you.” Liam stepped toward the table and scooped up Audrey’s snacks with one arm, holding his other hand out for her to grab.
“Do you need anything from us, Van?” Audrey asked, wrapping both of her hands around his arm instead. I held in a scoff when I saw her hand not so subtly squeeze his large bicep.
“Absolutely not.” I shook my head and frowned. “I don’t expect to see you back until this…” I pointed between the two of them. “Has cooled down.” Audrey laughed as Liam led her toward the front door of our condo.
“Hey, real quick,” I asked right when Liam’s hand landed on the doorknob. “Did your sister find out what the sirens stole?” Liam frowned as he looked down at Audrey, who preened under his gaze.
“No,” Liam sighed. “She also can’t press charges against anyone except the adolescents, since we were only able to detain them when they targeted the vaults.
They are claiming the crime as their own, denying Ilia or Drustan’s involvement.
All security systems were taken down before Drustan and his minions even set foot on our estate.
We have no proof that the Mad Siren Prince or Ilia were responsible for the robbery.
Yours and Audrey’s word are not enough.”
I gave them both a thumbs down. “That sucks.” They both looked painfully uncomfortable as they stood in the entryway. “Now get out of here.” I shooed them away with my hands, while Audrey mouthed a silent thank you to me over her shoulder before they disappeared through the front door.
I settled back on the couch, replaying Liam’s words in my head.
She recognizes me as her mate. Then I thought about the first time Drustan and I met, at Fergus’s ball.
Mine, he had said. I shook my head.
“Nope.” I lifted the remote and switched the TV to something else. Desperate to change the environment enough to move on from that conversation. To pretend like I wasn’t hypothesizing something absolutely crazy. “Nope. Nope. Nope.”
Audrey and Liam didn’t return to society until three days later, and while they were clearly in some type of honeymoon phase, desperate to hold hands or touch each other as much as possible, they weren’t nearly as obsessed with each other as they were before.
However, the recent development in their relationship soon took a back burner, because Hush had reached out to Liam to meet up again.
It’s how we ended up in my back office a week and a half after I visited Enhavenn with them, and Drustan pinned me against himself and sniffed my hair.
Only days after, I gained newfound knowledge about Hyvenmerian’s eyes shifting to solid black.
But I refused to waste energy hyper-fixating on the silly hypothesis I had, so I locked in when Hush entered my office with an object in her hand, lifted in the air for everyone to see.
“This is the former Siren Queen’s private journal.” She let her gaze flick across all of us in the room. “Before I share more information, you, halfling, need to read the passages I marked.” Hush dropped the worn journal on my desk without flourish, making Audrey jump. “Now.”
My friend lifted an eyebrow at Hush before tentatively taking the journal in her hands, gazing at the page Hush flopped open to. The room was silent and tense as Audrey’s eyes quickly began skimming the pages filled with a beautiful written language I still couldn’t interpret.
“This…this is about me.” Audrey’s face paled with her whispered words. Liam immediately stepped to her side, protective instincts kicking in.
“What does it say?” I asked, shifting my weight from one leg to the other.
Audrey shook her head as she held the journal closer to her face. It looked like she was reading the same line again and again as she whispered, “I’m not fae.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. Liam’s eyes widened before he snatched the book from her hands and read the pages more intently.
“I’m—” Audrey shook her head again, her gaze looked distant as she stared at a spot on my desk. “I’m not half-fae…”
“So then, what are you?” I asked.
Audrey’s hazel eyes locked on mine, the sun setting outside shone through the window at an angle that illuminated them just right, brightening the warm undertones of the hazel in them. The gold streaks in her irises gave me the answer before she could.
My lips parted in surprise. The room’s silence was thick, and when Liam read the same passage, his whole body stiffened. His gaze also kept scanning the pages, reading and rereading the language I couldn’t.
“…I’m half siren…” Audrey breathed.
Oh my god.