Chapter 34
Mei
Two blissful days have passed. We’ve defeated five of Diablos’ monsters, which means they get their wish, we’re just waiting for Diablos to come and make it official. Canto rang and left a message for the demon. I’m sure as soon as he gets it, we can get this over with.
I’m straddling Leaf, torturing him as I slowly ride him to completion. He holds me tight, his lips pressed to mine, swallowing every cry I make.
Diablos walks into the room.
“OH, holy hell! How many times am I going to have to see this? Get off his giant dick, we need to talk.”
Diablos turns to face the door. Leaf carefully lifts me off his cock and sets me aside, the whole time, letting out this menacing growl that is pure threat and promise.
The Sirens launch into the room, ready to kill.
“Wait!” I say because we want this wish. We need it. “Let’s hear him out first.”
Diablos gives me an approving grunt. “Smart girl.” Diablos hums, and I hear his claws scratching on something as the silence builds. Just as suddenly, he breaks it. “Right, I wish I could help you, but sadly, Deux is still alive.”
The blunt information falls into the room around us and drops like a bomb. My body trembles, and I put my head in my hands, letting out a little sob.
“I’m sorry, what? We killed him!” Lirin shouts. “His body was splattered on the cliff.”
“I’m sorry to tell you, but reports are that he’s alive and having fun murdering innocent people.”
Ronit groans and turns away. “We have five days left. Five.”
I jerk my head up and study them with what senses I can. “Five until what? What does five days mean?”
They all freeze, and they don’t say anything. Leaf is just as confused as I am and moves up beside me. Why are they keeping secrets? What do they have to hide?
I reach until I feel my robe and pull it on over the long t-shirt I was wearing when Diablos walked in. I feel like I need more clothes, more protection.
Why aren’t they speaking?
Becky slams through the front door, her scent filling the space and making everything almost intolerable. I don’t want her in this space. It’s mine, but before I can say anything, she’s across the room.
She slams into Ronit, hitting him hard. When Lirin tries to stop her, Puppy appears with a growl, startling me.
His rage erupts between us and grows in a dangerous snarl.
I can feel the air move as he sweeps my alphas back, hurling them towards me and pulling her protectively behind him.
She lets out a murmured protest that everyone ignores.
The whole situation is downright alarming.
“You lying snakes. You pieces of shit!” Becky shouts.
“Becky!” I say in an icy voice, stalking between her and my alphas.
She snarls, but it’s lost some of its heat.
“Do you know what they’ve done?” Becky shouts, and I think she’s almost in tears.
I shift my weight uneasily. “I know about the deal.”
“Do you know about both of them?”
Both? What both? A sinking feeling opens up in my stomach. Both? What does that mean?
“The wish?” I ask hesitantly, but I’m unsure now.
“And what they get out of it!” Becky roars. “You’re not doing it. I won’t let you.” She shouts at them with no fear.
Unease spears through me. “What is she talking about, Canto?”
He inhales and exhales, but he doesn’t say a word.
“Cowards!” Becky howls. “Well, I won’t let you spring this on her uninformed. I’m going to tell her everything. All the things you should have, you damn snakes!”
“Becky! It’s not your place. She can’t survive here on her own,” Diablos growls. “She’s not like you.”
Hearing those words from a place I didn’t expect them hits hard and strips all the confidence away again.
I flinch. I am a monster. Of course, I’m not like Becky.
“She is exactly like me. She is me!” Becky howls, and I hear a thud of flesh meeting flesh.
“Becky, if you do that again-”
“You’ll what?” Frost says with icy disdain. I didn’t even hear him appear. “What will you do to my omega, Diablos? Honestly, I would love to hear it in detail.”
Diablos snarls.
“Mei cannot survive here. She was starving. I was constantly having to cover up her mistakes and fuckups. This world is not the place for her. She has to go back where she can survive.”
I can’t stay?
Becky growls low and deadly, but it’s full of pain. “That’s what everyone said about me, too! I was a foster kid who would never make it. I’d never be good enough. It doesn’t matter what they say, they’re wrong. She belongs here. I am queen. I DECIDE!”
“It’s different, you’re human,” Diablos dismisses. “And it's a done deal.”
“We’re omegas!” Becky roars, and the house vibrates with her rage. “Above everything, we are omegas!”
“He’s right,” I say bitterly. “I can’t exist on this planet without help. He is right, Becky. Thank you for trying,” I say in a small voice. “So, I have to go back? When?”
“Mei, no!” Reed moans.
I turn to him, but I feel so far away from them right now.
“Were you going to send me away?” I ask Reed quietly.
“We made a deal at the beginning, when we hated you. Five bad guys, and our wish would be that we could stay, and you would go back to Nightmare.”
The room is so quiet you could hear a claw flaking the paintwork.
“You want me to go back there?” My voice is tiny, and I can’t hide the hurt.
“No!” Brio says urgently. “We didn’t know, it was stupid, we can change it.”
“Deals with demons can’t be changed. They must be fulfilled. You didn’t say I could return here, did you?”
“We didn’t say you couldn’t either. What if you step foot there and come back?” Lirin suddenly says.
“I’m afraid the intention of the deal is the important part. You wanted her to be gone,” Diablos says.
“So, she goes?”
“Yes. If you get this wish and kill or sort out one more bad guy, then she goes to Nightmare, and you stay here, with legs, never to be Sirens again.”
The weight of that fills the air. The horror of that.
“You would give up who you are? You’d stop being Sirens?”
Leaf explodes and slams Ronit into the wall. The aggression is so violent and vicious that no one reacts.
“So, what happens if they don’t? If they fail to get five?” I ask quietly. I’m falling into the dark, and there’s no way out.
“We can’t fulfill the original deal with the creature that gave us twelve months. It’s not possible. So, we will go back to the Black Death Oceans and guard the places between the worlds,” Canto says tonelessly. “Diablos was a back-up plan. One that was supposed to save us.”
“So, you’re going or I am?” I ask flatly, my heart thudding hard, trying to understand how my world has just shifted so violently.
My heart is hammering, and I can feel the food I ate coming back. I want to scream at them; I want to rail and roar. But he was right. We did hate each other. I hated them.
I would like to think I would have done the same thing.
“But you can come back, right? You can just change and have legs. I can open the door?” I suggest hopefully.
“No, Strega,” Lirin whispers. “We can only walk as men on one island. We are stuck in that world.”
“But-”
I frown, thinking about it. One island.
“You can’t ever leave? And when I set the air on fire? I trapped you under the waves? Is that…I did that?” I whisper in horror, suddenly realising why they have hated me for so long.
“We know you didn’t mean it, Mei. You are our scent match. We didn’t realise that it was you we were smelling,” Brio murmurs.
My legs give way, and I fall back, only to be caught by Reed, who pulls me into his arms, hugging me hard.
“You are ours. No matter where you are or we are. You will always be ours.”
“If Deux was dead, I would be in Nightmare right now,” I murmur. “I’m not yours,” I say hysterically. “There’s no way for us to be together. We are trapped.”
“We’ll find a way,” he says confidently.
I shake my head. “There is no way.”
“Leaf will stay with you,” Ronit announces.
Leaf roars, wordless, pained. A protest.
“He loves you,” I say, “you can’t ask that of him.”
“And he’s bonded to you. He can survive a separation from us. You need him. I know you will be amazing in whatever world you find a home in,” Ronit says and cups my cheeks. “You are a survivor, and you have people here who will help you.”
“How long?” I ask, feeling weak. How long until my life ends? How long before this all is gone?
“Five days,” Ronit whispers. “Just five days.”
“And then you’ll be gone? Forever?”
“Yes. Then we will go home, and you will become everything you were meant to be,” he whispers and cups my face, I can feel him staring down at me. “You will be amazing, Mei, and I will be glad to have known you.”
How can I be everything I was meant to be without them?
I don’t know when the others leave, but we sit together on the couch, none of us talking.
Five days.
Five days to figure out how to say goodbye.