Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Seraphina
If Laszlo thought I was just going to sing some nice song and go quietly into the night, he was very much mistaken. A servant appeared at my side, asking what the band should play to accompany me. I had no idea if these fuckers were hip to pop culture from my world, but we were about to find out.
The servant nodded when I gave him the song, and a few minutes later, I heard the first notes of Billie Eilish’s “Six Feet Under.” It was a somber choice, a song about loss and love dying.
But there was hope in it, that maybe it wasn’t truly gone, that love was only lost. As I sang, images of my princes filled my head and the bonds between us pulsed with life.
It was the hope I needed, the reminder that this was far from over. That I would find them again.
When the song ended, I opened my eyes to find the crowd mirroring my own melancholy mood. The musicians continued to play, and the guests swayed slowly, their eyes glazed as if in some kind of trance.
Belial watched from across the room, his eyes glowing red, and some emotion I couldn’t place crossed his face. Laszlo suddenly snapped his head up and stalked angrily in my direction. He grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the cage.
“Get in,” he demanded. “Take off your dress and dance for them. Touch yourself and let them see how much you want to please me.”
I snarled at him, my claws extending slightly as my power rushed to the surface. Before the oath could send it away, I slashed at my arms and chest with my claws, blood oozing from the cuts.
“There, I’ve touched myself,” I growled at him. “Next time, be more specific.”
Laszlo slammed the cage doors and left without a word. The cuts on my body were already healing. Unfortunately, the stupid oath began coaxing my mind into taking off my dress and dancing as the music continued.
As I did, a male creature approached the cage. His aura felt more pleasant than most of the others, and curiosity had my eyes locking with his dark-green gaze. He dipped his head in the slightest of bows, and my eyebrows shot up.
The male brushed his fingers across his lips. “Don’t speak. Just dance as if I am not here.”
His eyes darted to Laszlo and back, and I, for some reason, trusted this creature. While I danced, he circled the cage, a bored expression on his face as he watched.
“I am Halphas,” he muttered, barely loud enough for me to hear over the music. “A…friend of your father’s. They are coming for you, but you must remain strong. Do not give in to Belial.”
I scoffed. As if that would ever happen.
Halphas shook his head. “He is more clever than you realize. I can see his influence within you already.”
My brow furrowed, but I continued to dance. No, that couldn’t be right. My mind was still my own.
“But I don’t think even he could have predicted you would be a cancatier.” Halphas chuckled. “How curious.”
“A what?” I couldn’t help asking, the word completely foreign to me.
He smiled, eyes roaming my body in a way that began to cause discomfort. Was this part of his act? “It’s quite rare and comes from your lumen blood. Cancatiers are what humans think of as sirens. A creature who can lure others to their call with a song.”
Halphas pressed in closer to the bars, his skin sizzling against the stellatium when he got too close. “You can make them feel things, even do things against their will when you spell them with a song.”
My feet stumbled at his words. This was most definitely not something I had ever heard of before.
Even with the training Michaela and I had begun to do with the Phen and Morax, they never mentioned a power like this.
Neither had Delphine. And yet…when I sang, the mood of the people in this room shifted, almost at once. Could I sing them into a rebellion?
“Tread carefully, Seraphina,” Halphas whispered. “This is a great power that not even you know how to control.”
Before I could respond, the stranger drifted away, his tongue flicking out once as his green eyes lingered on my curves. It was a complete mindfuck. He said he was a friend, but his eye-fucking of my body did not feel friendly.