WOKEN
I was dreaming. I think.
The sea wrapped around me like silk, warm and weightless, but it wasn't water. Not really. It shimmered with the same magic I felt inside myself sometimes—when they touched me just right. When I gasped and it burned beneath my skin like starlight trying to break through flesh.
I drifted through the dark like a pearl sinking slowly. I wasn't afraid. Not until I saw them.
Eyes.
So many of them. Gold. Violet. Crimson.
Not my mates. Not yet.
They watched me from the depths, patient. Waiting.
Something ancient called my name—not "Noelani," but the name buried under it. The one I'd never spoken. A name made of moonlight and salt. My lungs burned. My legs kicked. I tried to swim upward—toward the surface, toward the familiar—but the pull beneath me was stronger.
A voice whispered in my ear.
"You are more than siren, little songbird. Much
More."
My heart stuttered.
"Awaken."
I opened my eyes to find Rowan holding a cool cloth to my forehead, the scent of cedar and crushed spice settling my pulse. His crimson eyes narrowed, soft and searching.
"Easy, sweetheart," he murmured, brushing my damp hair from my cheek. "You passed out after the ceremony."
Right. The academy event. Power. The way I'd sobbed out my safeword, trembling and shaking with too much need, too much everything.
I blinked up at him and felt—
My scalp tingled. Something was... different.
I sat up to quickly. "Wait—my hair..."
It spilled down my back. Longer than before. Silky and silvered at the tips, faintly glowing.
Rowan didn't flinch. In fact, he smiled like he expected it. "You're changing again," he said, voice low. "It's beautiful." His gaze darkened. "You're beautiful."
My cheeks burned. I pulled the covers up to my chin like a shield. "I—I cursed last night, didn't I?"
He chuckled. "Several times. Quite colorfully. You also called Caeden 'Daddy' when he made you come on his tongue."
I squeaked and buried my face in the pillow.
He leaned down, breath brushing my ear. "He liked
it."
Sera wore a green leather jacket embroidered with tiny thorns. She plucked a flower off a carnivorous vine and offered it to me without looking.
"Everyone's talking about the siren in the ballroom," she said. "Want me to punch them?"
I giggled. "I think most of them want to sleep with me."
"Then I'll punch them harder."
She winked. There was something oddly familiar about her magic. Something buried. But I couldn't place it.
I tucked the flower behind my ear, its petals curling toward me like it knew who I was. "You're really violent for a florist."
Sera shrugged. "My mom always said diplomacy is for people with worse aim."
I snorted.
We walked along the outer courtyard, the sky above shifting with slow clouds and shimmer-threaded sunlight. Everything felt... brighter. Sharper. As if my senses had turned inside out.
Magic sparked faintly at my fingertips, my skin still sensitive, still echoing from the things they'd done to me. My legs trembled sometimes when I walked too fast. I haven't even tried using my voice again yet. I was afraid of what would happen when I did.
Sera studied my sideways, then hooked her pinky through mine.
It wasn't romantic. Not exactly. But it made my throat ache all the same.
"You okay, lani?" She asked softly. "You seemed a little... haunted."
I hesitated. "I think I saw something in my dream. People. Or... beings. They were watching me. Eyes like galaxies. One of them said I wasn't just a siren."
She blinked. "Do you believe them?"
I nodded slowly. "I think I'm starting too."
Sera didn't press. She held onto my pinky until the breeze tangled our hair together and we laughed trying to separate it.
I liked her. A lot.
And I had no idea that deep in the archives, hidden in a blood-sealed family ledger, was the name of a boy I hadn't met yet—one with those same green-silver eyes as her. One who would one day claim me just like the others. But not yet.
Not yet.
I was back in my room before dusk.
The walls shimmered with faint runes—protection magic, courtesy of Caeden—and the air smelled like jasmine, wine, and old books. I dropped onto my bed and let my limbs splay in every direction. I didn't even realize I was crying until the pillow beneath me felt damp.
Not from fear.
Just... overwhelmed. Touched-out. Full to bursting.
I flinched when the mattress dipped.
But then I heard the low, familiar murmur. "Shh, dove. It's just me."
Lucien.
I didn't turn around. I couldn't.
He climbed onto the bed behind me anyway, fully dressed, all dark and command. His heat wrapped around me like armor.
"You were so good last night," he whispered, stroking a hand down my spine. "So beautiful. So brave."
I shook my head. "I safeworded."
"And we stopped," he said gently. "That doesn't make you weak. That makes you wise."
I bit my lip. "I wanted to keep going. I wanted more."
His hand paused, then continued lower—over my hips, smoothing, grounding.
"You will have more. When you're ready. When we are."
I turned my face toward him, slow and unsure. "My magic's changing again."
His gaze moved over me like velvet and steel. "I know. I felt it. Before you even woke, I felt it singing. Like a thread tugging against fate."
I flushed. "My hair's silver now. Rowan said it looked beautiful, but it's weird. And I can't stop thinking about the dream. The eyes. The voice."
Lucien's hand curled in my hair, gentle but possessive. "You're becoming what you were always meant to be."
My lower lip trembled. "And what is that?"
He leaned in, lips brushing mine, barely there.
"Power. Wrapped in sweetness. The last song of an extinct bloodline."
My breath caught. "That's a lot of pressure."
He smiled, so soft it broke something in me. "Then let me help you carry it."
Later—when the tears had dried and the ache had dulled— I fell asleep with my head in Lucien's lap and his hand petting my hair.
He didn't try to take anything from me.
He just held me.
And somewhere in the dark, just beyond the veil of dreams, I felt a pulse of magic again.
Another heartbeat.
Not mine.
Not theirs.
Something new.
Something coming.
The world shifted again as I slept.
Not the soft driving from before, not floating—falling.
This time, I knew I was dreaming.
I stood barefoot on an endless ocean, but the water didn't move. It was still as obsidian glass, and beneath it pulsed light like stars. My reflection didn't match my body. Her hair was longer. Her eyes were glowing.
She looked like me, but older. Wilder. Her skin shimmered faintly with silver markings that curved like ancient script.
She opened her mouth and sang.
No sound came out.
Still, the sea shuddered.
I took a step toward her. So did she.
We reached for each other—and the mirror broke.
The sea shattered into shards, and I fell again, tumbling through stars and moons and the bones of things long dead.
And then... they came.
Not my mates.
Not Rowan's molten crimson, not Caeden's cold gold. Not Lysander's storm-silver, or Aeryn's moonlit emerald, or Lucien's endless night.
Others.
Eyes that didn't blink. Some with slitted pupils, others shaped like suns. A thousand shades I couldn't name. They watched me without moving. No bodies. Just...presence.
One of them stepped forward, and I realized—it wasn't stepping.
It had no legs. No form. It was shape and shadow and whisper.
But I could feel it smiling.
"You are not ready," it said, voice like thunder and glass.
"But soon. Soon, you will call to us."
My throat tightened. "Who are you?"
"The rest of you," it answered simply.
"The forgotten. The forsaken. The bound."
Another voice joined. Softer. Female.
"You were born of tide and night, but not only.
Your second blood is older than stars. Sealed to keep you safe. Hidden."
Another eye opened in the sky. Pale blue. Sad.
"But the seal weakens.
When you begged to stop, when your body broke with pleasure—
That was the key turning."
I fell to my knees, trembling. My hair floated around me like silver threads, and I could feel it growing even here.
"Why me?" I whispered. "Why all of this?"
"Because you sang first.
Because you survived."
A shape emerged behind me. Tall. Broad. Wrapped in shadowed flame.
Not one of the five.
I felt his hand touch my throat. Gentle. Possessive. Dangerous.
His voice rumbled through my bones.
"Wake up, little siren.
Wake up before I decide to keep you here forever ."
My heart stopped.
And then I did wake—
Gasping, sweating, aching with something I didn't understand.
The sheets were twisted around my legs.
My hair was longer again.
And somewhere in the room, I could swear I heard someone laughing.
Low. Dark.
Hungry.
But when I looked around...
No one was there.
~