Chapter 16
Mei
Isit up, confused about where the hell I am because I’ve been in a different location each time I wake up. But before I can say anything, Reed lifts my legs and sits down, pulling my legs back onto his lap.
I sit up a bit, and he passes me a mug. I sniff at it cautiously, but when I find water, I drain it and sigh in relief.
“I wasn’t sure where I was.”
Reed makes a sound of agreement, but his fingers are biting deep into my aching muscles, rubbing out the knots and pain, and it’s just so quiet and unexpected that I don’t know what to say to it.
“You kept singing.”
He pauses, and I hate that I stopped him, but after a moment, he resumes his ministrations again. “I did.”
“I tried to come back-”
“Mei, it’s okay.”
“No, I need you to know I tried-”
Reed grips my nape and pulls me towards him.
Our lips crash together, but when I gasp, his tongue sweeps into my mouth.
I’ve never felt anything like this before, but it’s my new favourite thing.
I tentatively move my mouth against his.
He groans and pulls me up until I’m sitting sideways on his lap.
He makes another groaning sound that has me squirming to get even closer to him. I want, no, I need to be closer to him. The feel of him, so hard, pulling me towards him, like he wants to climb inside of me, has a heat building that I don’t even want to stop anymore.
“Reed?” I whisper-moan his name.
He pulls away, leaving me gasping, and slides me onto the couch as he gets up. Without a word, he walks out of the room, leaving me sitting there confused and wondering if I had done something wrong or something right.
I lift my fingers to my lips and touch the tingling flesh.
“What was that?”
“Mei?”
Lirin shouts so loudly and suddenly that I jump halfway across the room. I land on the island and crouch there, ready to attack.
Lirin laughs and pads over to me before he lifts me off the island and sets me down. “You are so adorable with your bouncing and hissing.”
“I am not adorable,” I say in real affront.
“Oh, you are the cutest little button that ever was.”
I poke a finger into his shoulder, the tip of my claw a direct warning. “You take that back.”
“Nope. Nu-uh, never.”
I growl.
“Cute little growls, too.”
“I am a fierce survivor. I am not cute or a button.”
“You are a warrior; you are amazing.” Lirin says the words with such serious calm that I can’t help but believe that he means it.
What is going on?
I shrug myself free of him and put the island between us. “What do you want? Why are you being nice?”
“Aww, that hurts my feelings. I’m always nice.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Mei!” he whines, and I feel a smile tugging on my lips.
Lirin somehow manages to get close to me. He runs his finger up my spine and moves away laughing while I whirl around, claws extended.
“Come find me,” he sings.
I snarl and stalk towards him. Within seconds, the half-hearted effort becomes a real game. I chase him around the house, refusing to give up, staying right on his trail.
“You have to always find me,” Lirin whispers. “I can’t fix it and make it work. I don’t know how, but I can’t not see you. So, you have to remember that when you can’t see me, you have to find me.”
And then, he just disappears.
I turn in a huge circle, wondering if the beetle left some remnants of poison in them and is lingering and making them insane. Reed kisses me, and Lirin doesn’t want me to go. What does that mean?
My stomach tenses, and I get this horrible foreboding. Something terrible is going to happen. I know because everything I've ever loved has died. I’m not allowed to have good things. Those are for other creatures. I’m not allowed to be happy.
My mum dying was one thing, but every creature that I managed to befriend died, too. Most often, it was Deux, but sometimes, it was something else. I am always hunted.
I don’t want the Sirens to be hunted.
I don’t want to see them dead.
Aren’t they my enemies? I hate them. They rejected me, they chose another.
But she’s dead, I killed her a long, long time ago. Can they have another mate?
One kiss does not a mate make, I remind myself.
I huff and crouch down, stroking my claws along the carpet. Wondering where in the house he led me and why this room smells strongly of Ronit.
I shouldn’t be in here. Ronit would be a terrible Siren to meet in the dark. His brand of anger is aggression, and he is not happy with me, not in the least.
How do I know that? That’s a strange insight to have with no basis. I try to think, but I get lost in the smell of him. When the door opens, Ronit walks in and sits in a chair right in front of me. My muscles tense one by one as I wait for him to speak.
“You saved us all yesterday, Mei. I didn’t listen, and I went into danger, and I let the others down.
” He exhales like he’s in pain. “I was arrogant, cocky. I wanted it done, and I underestimated the enemy. No, don’t interrupt; I know it was my mistake.
Thank you, Mei, for getting us out. It was unexpected, and I am very grateful. ”
He sounds angry and cold. I long to creep closer to feel his skin or his body and see if it’s really as hard as his voice is.
“Did…did I do something wrong?”
Ronit exhales roughly. “No, Mei. I’m angry with myself, I almost got everyone killed.”
“You didn’t know. Bugs are dangerous. Even in Nightmare, everyone avoids them. They are feared.” I trail off, not sure what else to say.
This is awkward.
I would rather he tried to kill me or hit me or something.
“Well, um. Yes, thank you.”
I stand up and step back, but he’s passing me, and we collide heavily. I crash against something, end up bent over with him collapsed on my back. The door opens.
“Well, then, I didn’t know it was like that,” Diablos giggles. “I thought you hated each other?”
Ronit snarls, and it has me trembling, like light bugs dancing in my belly. When he’s up, I put the entire room between me and him, needing the space, wishing the heat that has filled me would go away.
“I know you think you’re funny, Demon, but enough is enough. You cannot just walk in here and-”
“I have a job for you-”
“Absolutely not,” Ronit snarls in fury. “Mei is just recovering. We are not doing any jobs or risking her until she’s back at one hundred percent.”
“Why do you care?” Diablos says with a laugh.
I wince.
“Watch it,” Ronit says in a low tone.
Diablos says something that I don’t hear. Ronit explodes, and suddenly, there is a wave of water in the house, and I’m floating up near the ceiling.
I float there for a while before I hear a soft sigh.
“Ronit?”
There’s another small sound, and then someone grabs my ankle, gently but firmly, and tugs me under the water. I take a deep breath before I’m submerged and wait while whoever it is pulls me through the water and to the front of the house.
I break through a wall and fall to the wet sand.
“Lirin?”
“You looked lonely floating there all on your own,” he murmurs. “I would have come for you always.”
“What am I supposed to do about that?” Diablos shouts. “You turned the house into a cube of water. All the electrics are fried. Everything is ruined. Damn it, Ronit. You need therapy and, like, I don’t fucking know, a mood stabiliser for your damn temper.”
Ronit growls again, but Lirin just tugs me towards the ocean.
“Wait just a minute, where are you all going?” Diablos protests.
None of the Sirens answer him. Lirin pulls me out into the water until it's chest deep before I realise what he’s doing and resist.
“No!” I panic.
“We’re not going to drown you this time, Mei.”
No, but you might feed me to the giant Leviathan that you have with you.
I remember the terror of those moments in the dark, feeling the massive creature’s consciousness turn to mine, how small I had felt.
The rage and fear were almost more pressure than the water was.
The cold was icy and went straight to my bones.
I couldn’t tell which way was up and which was down.
I shake my head. “No, I don’t trust you.”
There is a heavy silence.
The air thickens and fills with bitter anger and regret.
“Fine. Then stay here.”
And he lets me go.
I stand there in the ocean with it crashing into my chest, trying to shove me off my feet.
“Leaf,” Ronit snarls.
“No,” Leaf hisses, but though he fights, he can’t resist the might of the shiver.
Their song starts once they are below the waves. It sends goosebumps over my skin. A song of such intricate beauty, so much stark and haunting emotion that I’m frozen in the water, listening to something I will never be a part of.
In the cold, I can admit how much I want to be part of that song, how much it hurts to hear it recede. A deep bass joins it, more like a long and deep growl that somehow winds with the music of the Sirens.
I let my hands float on the surface of the ocean, swaying in time. For a moment, I want to walk out until my head is under water, until my lungs are bursting. I just want to be with them.
But that can never be.
With effort, I pull myself out of the enchantment of their melody.
It takes me a few minutes to orientate myself so I don’t walk out deeper. I stumble up to the beach.
“Diablos?”
There’s no answer. He’s gone, too.
I go to the house and feel the wall of water. There is no space in there. I turn aside, my shoulders slumping.
Alone again.
Is this what it’s going to feel like? I wrap my arms around myself, shivering as I walk with my wet clothes until I find a road. I walk along the edge of it, trying to make sure I use the side where it turns to dirt to keep me walking in a fairly straight line.
“I can do it. I can make it here.”
A truck horn screams, and I bolt, heading away from the city, towards the only thing that feels like home. A massive park. I find the thickest, most scary tree, climb up in it, and wrap my arms around myself.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
What happened?
I drift into a light doze. The sky rumbles and rain pours down. Even hidden in the canopy, I’m still getting saturated.
I let out a soft sound, imitating the song I heard Brio sing the other day. It’s such a pretty melody. It distracts me for a long time, long enough that I don’t realise there’s someone beneath my tree.
“Who’s there?” I whisper defensively.
For a moment, I think it might be Deux.
But then his voice comes through, loud and sardonic.
“You’re singing my song.”
“It’s a song, it doesn’t belong to you, Brio.”
“You have a beautiful voice, Mei.”
I don’t want to talk about voices or otherwise. I’m angry with them. With him.
“You all left me alone.”
“We did, because we were trying to find somewhere that would allow us to live in a home where that demon can’t just walk in and out of all the time.”
“You didn’t say that, you just dragged me out to drown me!” I snarl.
“We’re not going to drown you, Mei. Not anymore,” Brio says and then starts climbing the tree.
“You’ll fall, and I’ll laugh,” I warn him.
“I won’t fall.”
“You might. I will laugh really, really hard.” I shift back, making room, my fingers biting into the tree trunk. My stomach flutters, and I have this urge to both smile and run away.
“You are cruel.”
He gets closer and closer. He finally stops with his breath fanning my face.
“When did you learn to sing?”
“I can’t sing,” I protest.
Brio touches my throat and rubs the sensitive skin with his thumb. “Yes, you can, and furthermore, you are incredible.”
I snarl, trying to get more room to get some space between us, but that just shifts me closer to him. Brio reaches out and taps my chin.
“Are you ready to come home?”
What?
He grips my jaw, holding my head still, his thumb stroking over my chin.
My breath whooshes out of my lungs. Brio is the most mysterious, the Siren that the others protect.
I have the least to do with him. He’s like hearing the Grim in the distance.
Dangerous, wild, and untouchable. A creature so far above me that we shouldn’t even exist in the same space.
Yet, here he is, touching me, calling me incredible.
“Monster, you are thinking too hard.”
Yes, because I shouldn’t be wanting them, I shouldn’t be forgiving them, but I’m falling back into their song, losing myself. Who am I kidding, I was lost the moment I heard it.
“What do you want from me?” I say harshly.
He’s silent, but then he lets go of my jaw. His hands disappear before they return, pulling off the material tied across my face. I cry out but don’t stop him.
A second later, something cold and hard is pressed to my face. It fits perfectly. I reach up, and he grips my fingers, gliding them across the cold mask.
“It’s stone, very rare, you can only fuse it with magic. I made it for you.”
“You hate me,” I protest.
There’s a silence. “Yes,” he says, but it sounds confused. “But you are uneasy; this is your wound, your weakness. I would make you strong and give you a shield. You don’t need one, but you should stop hiding. Lift your head up and…” he trails off.
I listen intently, needing to know what he’s going to say.
“Lift your head and sing, Mei, don’t let them crush you. Don’t let us ruin you.”
With that, he snatches me into his arms, and we fall out of the tree.
I’m too shocked to fight him.