Chapter 22
Mei
Iget up and force a cocky smile, but I don’t think I’m fooling anyone. My smile slips off when they don’t say anything right away. Six pairs of eyes just stare at me, I can feel each one like a physical touch, waiting for me to break.
“How are you feeling?” Canto asks warily.
I take a shaking breath. They probably hate me. I ran away, I know that curse hurt them as much as it hurt me.
“I feel good. I slept well, and I have rested.” My shoulders curl as guilt slices through me. I search around for something to say, but my mind comes up blank.
All my confidence is gone. The will to fight them is gone. I feel vulnerable and exposed, and they are still mysteries, still strong. They have each other.
All I’m doing is bringing down danger on them.
The urge to run again grows stronger. I think sometimes the words in my brain cause deeper wounds than anything I could experience from Deux. Running will not help, and those words aren’t the truth.
Lirin and Reed begin talking softly, but I can’t focus on their words, I’m so lost in my head.
It’s not until Canto touches my chin that I realise I’ve stopped paying attention to my surroundings.
“Whatever you are thinking, stop it.”
“We need to make a plan,” Brio says.
“Of course, let’s go sit and do just that,” Lirin says and laughs. I hear running and realise Brio is chasing Lirin around and that they are playing. Then Leaf joins in, and it’s so foreign, so bizarre to feel them happy.
Have I ever played with anyone before? No.
Canto grabs my wrist and drags me away.
“Go away, Leaf. I’m just talking to her.”
The dragon growls, but he stops and doesn’t follow.
I’m pushed up against a wall, my lungs and throat aching.
“What are you thinking?” Canto demands in a low voice. “Tell me, Mei, so I can kill it for you.”
I shake my head, not wanting to voice the words, but Canto starts to hum. It’s a low sound that works its way into me, and I open my mouth, and it all comes out.
“I don’t know how to be like you. You play, you laugh, you all fit together, and I am a half-dead witch with a monster chasing her. Everything I do is wrong. I can’t see, I can’t even feed myself. People fear me. I do everything wrong. I don’t fit.”
I clamp my hand to my mouth, cutting off the tirade.
“That was a dirty, dirty trick, Canto.”
Canto brushes his thumb over the spot at the base of my neck. My pulse flutters wildly.
Where has my confidence gone?
“You will fit in time. This world will be yours because I have never seen anyone more capable of survival than you. You are strong, Mei, not just in your body, but in your endurance, your willpower. You don’t need or rely on others, you are simply a titan all on your own.
Stop letting that voice get its claws into you.
You survived Deux, while blind, and you have thrived despite your injuries.
Jeez, you even have the devotion of the Leviathan.
You have the gratitude of the Sirens. And you have my respect as one warrior to another. ”
He leans in slowly until his lips are pressed against my cheek. What would happen if I turned my head just so? I want to so badly.
He pulls back, but then he leans in again, and his lips touch mine.
For a moment, it’s just a soft touch, a press of his soft lips to mine, but then he shifts, and he takes control, firm and confident.
His hands tangle in my hair, and he tilts my head back.
I open my mouth, and his tongue sweeps inside, stroking against mine, filling me with the taste of him.
He is so much better than I ever dreamed.
My fingers curl into his top, holding him close, refusing to let go. There is nothing uncertain or nervous about this alpha. Everything about him is skill. He’s kissing me because he wants to, and it’s not an accident.
It’s on purpose.
Because he respects me or because he wants me.
If I had eyes, I think I might cry.
He draws back and breaks our kiss far too soon.
“Do not let those voices in. You just remember that I think you are worthy of anything your heart desires.”
“And if what I desire is you?” I whisper.
He stills and then pulls away completely. “If I could…I would be yours, but it’s impossible.”
Disappointment crushes me.
He comes back, pressing his forehead against mine.
I see him snatched up as a child, taken to train in a war camp.
His skill with the sword and bow was unrivaled.
He excelled at everything he did. Rising higher through the ranks.
I saw respect replaced by fear in the eyes of the people around him.
He was kidnapped again one night and taken to the dungeons where he was thrown in with Ronit.
They knew of each other. And then they are swimming in the ocean, and I see myself sitting on the beach next to Lirin, saving him.
I see myself sinking into the depths, and I feel the deep, deep regret that he felt in that moment.
He didn’t want me to die.
That thought changes everything.
Before I can think of something, before I can stop him, he’s gone. Like the tides stole him away, and I get the impression that I might never be able to get him back.
I slip back into the house, letting my nose lead me back to the kitchen where Ronit presses something warm and dense into my hand.
“What is it?”
“Bread roll with chicken, mayonnaise, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and salt and pepper.”
I shift my weight.
“What’s wrong, Mei?” he asks, and he sounds tired, like I exhaust him. I wish I didn’t make their lives so hard.
“I don’t know what those things are.”
He pauses, and I get the impression that I’ve surprised him. What does he look like? What colour is his skin? Does he have blemishes and markings? What about his eyes? Are they expressive? Does the colour change?
“You don’t need to know what they are, try them, and if you don’t like it, I will find you something new to eat.”
“Is there something else to eat?” I ask, my mind boggling at the idea of having options.
“Yes, there are lots of things to eat in this house. Lirin went out and got groceries.”
“What are groceries?”
Ronit grumbles, and I lean back a bit, unsure what to make of his sudden temper.
“When you want something to eat, how do you get it?” Ronit asks with a carefully neutral voice.
“I follow the smells and eat what the others left behind, or I kill it and eat it.”
“To be fair, that’s how I used to do it, too,” Lirin says with a happy laugh.
“How did you become a Siren, Lirin?” I ask.
He stops laughing, the room gets cold and dangerous. I clutch my roll closer to my chest and get ready to run.
“I guess it’s fair she knows,” Lirin says with a mean laugh.
“Ronit was the most capable of war generals. He was told to go out and murder a family of evil spies, but when he got there, they weren’t traitors or spies, just a small family with tiny children.
Ronit refused and instead hid them. He went back, told them what he had done, was stripped of all his rankings, publicly tortured, then sentenced to life as a Siren. ”
“It’s a sentence?” I ask in a small voice, but he doesn’t hear me.
“Now, Reed is a different case. He thought he fell in love, but instead, the woman sold him out when they were caught. Since Reed was no one, and the woman and her Fae Lord were High Court, Reed got sent to the dungeons to rot for his crimes.”
“But-”
“Canto rose too fast, too aggressively. In short, he was too good. The very people who had trained him up suddenly were terrified he might turn on them. They drugged him, trapped him, and sold him out.”
“Lirin,” I protest.
His voice is aggressive and is rising in volume. I’ve never seen any of the Sirens this upset.
Leaf steps between us, growling violently at Lirin.
“Brio was a musician, all he wanted to do is play. But the Fae, they take what they want, and they took him, trained him all up, but when he refused to play for a particular person, she told everyone he stole from her, and voilà, he’s now got to spend eternity swimming.”
I flinch, no longer even trying to protest.
“Me? I said no. That simple. I did not want to fuck the Fae lady who crept into my bed in the middle of the night. I kicked her out. She tried to blackmail me and threatened my family. When nothing forced me into her bed, she decided she needed to ruin me. My dad interfered, and I was sentenced in his place to teach my family a lesson.”
He stops, breathing hard.
My head is reeling.
“So, you…should not be there?” I ask hesitantly.
“For fuck’s sake, Lirin, let her eat her lunch,” Ronit growls. “So distasteful.”
“No, we should not be there, and that is why we will do anything, whatever it takes, to get out.”
The aggression in his tone is unlike the Lirin I know, but it’s not unexpected, beneath even the most harmless-appearing monsters in Nightmare are some of the most dangerous.
“How did you get to Nightmare?” Lirin asks.
“I was born there,” I say quietly. “My mother tried to keep me alive, she died when I was…I don’t know. She just died. But I have always been there. I don’t know anything else.”
There’s a collective silence that sits in the room, something that feels heavy like guilt.
“You were born there?” Brio whispers in horror.
“But you can speak English and…” Lirin hesitates, stumbling over his words.
“Yes, my mother was human or part human. I don’t know how she got to Nightmare, only that she had me alone and kept me alive.”
“No more, Lirin!” Ronit snaps. “That’s enough.”
The tension in the room gets thick and violent.
Lirin stalks out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
“Come and sit down. Try the food while it’s still warm, and don’t worry about anything he just said,” Ronit says kindly. When I find the seat, his hand caresses the back of my head, soothing some of the unease.
“I thought you wanted to be Sirens. To be so free and strong. To sing such beautiful songs and have an entire ocean to yourselves. Nothing can kill you, nothing can stop you. I didn’t…
I don’t know, I just…I would give anything to have that kind of safety.
To be so powerful that you don’t have to fear what hunts you. ”
“Strega,” Ronit says, but he says the word differently this time; it's light and amused, affectionate, “eat your food and stop stressing about us and the past. It’s over. Today and here is the now.”
I lean on the table, listening to them move around. The whole time, I can sense Leaf right there, waiting, watching me. I don’t know what he wants, but it’s making it hard to think clearly. His presence is like a hand stroking the air just above my skin.
It turns out, I like chicken rolls, and I eat the whole thing while I contemplate all the information I just found out.
Leaf comes and sits down opposite me. His massive, looming presence a welcome balm. I want to curl up in his lap.
“Do you like your ocean?”
“I love my ocean, I love the chase, the thrill of hunting down whatever invades my territory. I would take you to experience all the wonders, from the currents through the canyons to the warm waters that cycle through the shallows. There are rays you can swim with and whales that sing the world’s songs.
Ancient things that people are too young to understand, even the Sirens. A world that is mine.”
“I would like that,” I murmur softly. “What is your favourite game?”
“Chasing the Sirens was my favourite. I’d do something to irritate them, start a battle, and we’d fight and fight, and it would amuse me and make me feel less alone.”
In a whole lot of ways, Leaf is just like me.
He’s alone, too. I know that empty feeling where any company is good company.
And then meeting someone who is so perfect, who gives you hope.
I listen hard for Lirin, my heart aching all over again as I remember that moment on the beach where I held his dying body in the palms of my hands.
“I would show you Nightmare,” I say abruptly.
Leaf’s tension evaporates. “Together?”
I nod, making a decision not to be alone anymore, to try and be more, to change. “Yes, let’s do it all together.”