Chapter 4 #2
My brows pulled together slightly as I tried to follow the chain of events unfolding in his explanation. The names meant very little to me. Yet the way he described them made it sound less like mythology and more like some political arrangement between very powerful, very dangerous beings.
“And the Sirens were involved in this somehow?” I asked carefully, and his eyes returned to mine.
“They were used…” he said before correcting himself,
“Commanded to lure the girl beyond the protections that surrounded Olympus. To guide her somewhere she should never have been.” That didn’t sit particularly well with me.
“So, they were tricked or basically forced into helping kidnap her,” I deduced, feeling a strange spike of anger I didn’t fully understand. Of course, there was the injustice of it all, but this felt heavier, more personal somehow.
“Precisely.” There was no hesitation in the answer, no attempt to soften the truth of it.
“Yet when the girl was taken, blame fell not upon the god who ordered it, but upon those who carried out his will.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Of course it did, I thought bitterly, as that sounded depressingly familiar, and again, I couldn’t say why.
“And the punishment?” I prompted quietly.
Oblivion held my gaze for a moment longer before answering,
“Their wings were taken from them.”
For a second, the words didn’t fully register. My brain seemed to stall somewhere between confusion and disbelief before finally catching up with the image those four words produced.
“Wait… they had wings?”
“They were not creatures of the sea, that is another lie your world prefers to tell itself. The Sirens were closer to angels than monsters,” he said evenly, and I blinked slowly.
Eleven angel-like beings were stripped of their wings and cast out because a god wanted to avoid responsibility for his own decisions. It was crazy, and right now, that was saying something, considering all I had witnessed in the last few days.
“Well, that’s a truly spectacular abuse of authority,” I muttered under my breath. The corner of his mouth lifted, nearly giving me a full smile this time.
“They were cast out of Olympus and forced into the mortal realm,” he continued, his voice lowering slightly as though the words carried weight even now.
“Their wings taken, their power diminished, their purpose destroyed.” A strange heaviness settled in my chest as he spoke, something I couldn’t quite explain.
I told myself it was sympathy, the normal human reaction to hearing about something unjust. But the feeling ran deeper than that, almost like an echo.
“They became human,” he finished, and that finally snapped me out of the strange quiet that had settled over my thoughts.
“O… kay,” I said slowly, folding my arms again as I tried to process everything he had just dropped into my lap,
“I’m not saying your gods sound particularly pleasant to work for, but turning immortal angel-things into humans feels like a bit of an overreaction.” His gaze sharpened slightly.
“Indeed. But they didn’t simply become human,” he corrected.
“They became mortal.”
Something about the emphasis he placed on that word made my stomach tighten faintly.
“Their bloodlines continued through the generations that followed, diluted over time until most traces of what they once were became nothing more than dormant fragments.” And there it was.
The part of the story that had been hovering just beneath the surface the entire time. I felt it before he even said it.
“So, what you’re saying is what exactly… that somewhere out there, they are all walking around like completely normal people…” I began slowly, choosing my words carefully now as my pulse picked up again. My voice trailed off slightly at the end as the thought finished forming in my head.
“…there are descendants of these fallen Sirens.”
“Yes.” His answer came instantly and, for some reason, I found that even scarier. Silence settled between us again, thick with the weight of everything he had just explained, and I suddenly became aware that his attention had shifted fully back onto me.
Not casually. Not conversationally, but more like he was now studying me. Evaluating my reaction… the question was… why?
The slow way his eyes moved across my face made the back of my neck prickle. Because the longer that silence stretched, the harder it became to ignore the obvious conclusion sitting right there between us.
“And you think…” I said, finally, my voice quieter now despite my best efforts to keep it steady,
“…that… that I’m one of them?”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. Which somehow made the entire situation significantly worse.
The silence that followed settled strangely between us.
Not uncomfortable exactly, but dense, like the air itself had thickened with everything that had just been said and everything that had not.
I could still feel the echo of that story lingering in the room.
The image of winged guardians cast down into the mortal world, circling my thoughts in a way that was equal parts fascinating and deeply unsettling.
Sirens.
Ancient bloodlines.
Lost wings.
It was a lot to take in for someone who had started the evening worrying about an advertising pitch and whether the dress she’d been forced into made her hips look bigger than usual.
My brain really needed a moment to catch up.
Unfortunately, Oblivion didn’t appear to be the type of man who allowed moments like that.
No, instead, his gaze shifted slightly, returning to the earlier subject with the quiet inevitability of someone who had only stepped away from the problem temporarily.
“This Bo…” he said. The way he said the name made it clear that whatever patience he had managed to extend during the mythology lesson had now officially expired. I lifted my chin slightly.
“It’s short for Boruta,” I told him for no apparent reason, other than the hope it would stop my mind from spinning. A Siren… how could he think…?
“You trust him.” His tone brought me momentarily out of its incessant loop. But I wasn’t distracted enough not to know that it wasn’t phrased as a question.
“Of course I trust him.”
His eyes narrowed faintly.
“He is a Kobalos demon.”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“You mentioned that,” I added with a sigh.
“A race not known for loyalty.”
“And most demons are?” I shot back, which earned me a long look.
Something almost thoughtful passed through his expression then, though it was difficult to tell whether it was because of my answer or because I had actually dared to say it.
“You are remarkably defensive of him,” he said after a moment, and I crossed my arms again.
“Well, forgive me if I’m not immediately siding with the man who tried to magically imprison him five minutes ago.”
“He should not be in the human realm,” he stated firmly, and I was quick to counter.
“And yet, there he was. Existing,” I said, gesturing vaguely with one hand toward the door.
“That does not make it permissible.”
I scoffed at this.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Hell ran on such strict corporate policies,” I said, my voice dripping with exaggerated politeness, making his brows draw together slightly.
“Corporate policies?” he repeated with a frown, and I hated how good his biceps looked when they tugged at the material of his jacket as he crossed his arms.
“You know, the big, powerful boss at the top deciding which employees are allowed on which floors of the building.”
“That is actually quite an acute comparison,” he replied, and the calm way he said it actually made me pause.
“You’re… you’re serious?” I stammered.
“Entirely.”
I stared at him for a moment after he finished speaking, now trying to process the strange hierarchy he had just described as though it were the most normal thing in the world. The longer I thought about it, the more absurd it sounded.
“That is the most ridiculous supernatural hierarchy I have ever heard in my life,” I said at last, offended on behalf of all demons he deemed lower down the food chain than Mr. High-and-mighty here.
But Oblivion didn’t react to the insult.
He simply watched me with that same steady, unreadable focus before speaking again.
His tone was as calm as usual, and enough to suggest he had already moved on to the part of the conversation that actually mattered to him.
“This demon, the one you are foolish enough to call a friend, was manipulating you.”
My head snapped up immediately.
“No, he wasn’t,” I defended, despite not knowing for certain whether he was right or not.
“He attached himself to you,” he continued, the words delivered with a quiet confidence, as though this was not a suspicion but a fact he had already decided upon.
“He didn’t attach himself,” I corrected sharply, shifting my weight where I stood.
“He just… appeared.”
Something in his expression sharpened slightly at that, the faintest narrowing of his eyes betraying his interest.
“Explain,” he said.
The word landed with more weight than it should have, and suddenly the memory of how Bo had actually arrived didn’t feel nearly as ridiculous as it had earlier days ago.
“You’re going to think this sounds stupid,” I muttered, glancing briefly toward the floor before looking back at him again.
“I already think many things about this situation, none of them stupid but all of them serious,” he replied calmly.
“Comforting,” I muttered on a sigh.
His lips twitched as if he were fighting a grin but not willing to give me one.
Not until he had, obviously, gotten what he wanted, which was how Bo came to be here.
But regardless, he didn’t push me to continue, but the quiet expectation in his gaze made it very clear that the explanation wasn’t optional.
So, I took a deep breath and let it out after walking to the couch, deflating into it before admitting,
“It was the dress.”