Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Theo didn't even register the sound of Emmett’s voice.
He was completely consumed by the face of the woman in front of him.
He didn’t notice the frustration and fury in her expression or how she turned towards Emmett and snarled.
Her long white fingers emerged from the water, sharp claws wrapping around Theo’s neck as she prepared to drag him into the depths.
Theo smiled.
Emmett crashed into the shallows, bellowing and swinging his axe as the water crashed around them.
He leaped into the air with his weapon raised.
The siren released Theo at the last second, disappearing as fast as a blink.
When she vanished in the wake of Emmett’s waves, Theo snapped back to his senses.
He had been perched on his knees and fell over, crashing into the water.
“Theo!” Emmett shouted. He reached under the water and pulled Theo to his feet by the scruff of his neck like a kitten, which was rather impressive seeing as Theo was not a kitten but a grown fae male, well over six feet tall.
“What the f-fuck was that?” Theo started to shiver as the siren song’s effects wore off.
“Out of the water,” Emmett commanded, “and cover your ears!”
Theo opened his mouth to ask why, but Emmett was already shoving him towards the shore. There was a ripple on the surface of the water, and Emmett choked up on his grip on the axe.
“Now!” Emmett hollered again, his eyes rapidly scanning the water. “She’s coming back around. Pippa!” Theo fumbled through the water in wet jeans, clamping his hands over his ears.
He caught sight of a blur of blonde hair speeding past him, presumingly Pippa on her way to join Emmett. The sweet sensations of the woman’s song were still hanging around in Theo’s bones, the aftermath taking its sweet time to fade out entirely.
As he stumbled to land, he could only hear vague shouting and shrieking noises from the commotion in the water behind him.
Theo managed to get out of the water and turned around, trying to make sense of what had happened.
Pippa was completely underwater, and Emmett was swinging his axe into the shallows.
Pippa resurfaced with a war cry that would’ve even put Emmett to shame, holding the woman in a headlock. Theo’s jaw dropped as he realized the creature had a tail, and he saw her clearly for the first time.
“What the fuck?” Theo screamed towards the mated pair. “That’s a mermaid!” Theo dropped his hands from his ears and pointed.
Emmett turned around, and his face went red. “Theo, your ears—”
It was too late. The siren opened her mouth and launched into song.
Theo was under her spell again in moments, throwing himself into the water and paddling through the shallows to get to the siren.
Emmett dropped his axe and scooped up Theo, holding him around the waist. Theo started screaming as if in agony, scratching at Emmett’s arms and hollering until spit flecked his mouth.
“Pippa!” Emmett looked to where Pippa was still feuding. “Get her to stop singing!”
While Emmett dwarfed everyone in size and strength, Theo had been consumed by an unnatural desire to get to the siren by any means possible.
“I’m not exactly at an advantage being in the water, Emmett!” Pippa hissed back, bobbing up and down in the water as she pivoted her head, constantly looking for the siren. Her song permeated both the air and the water, keeping Theo in its thrall.
“Is she gone?” Emmett scanned the shallows as Pippa stabbed fruitlessly at the waves.
“I don’t think so.” Pippa sounded tense. The water had stilled, but the siren song continued as Theo started to sob. He begged Emmett to let him go, and Emmett screwed up his face in pity.
“Oh, prince!” The siren’s voice rang out through the air. “Come to me!”
She poked her head out of the water, only a stone’s throw from Pippa. This time, Pippa was ready, and as Emmett tightened his grip on Theo, she launched a knife in the siren's direction.
“Don't kill her!” Theo wailed, wriggling and throwing his body weight around in Emmett’s arms. “You bitch!”
“Theo,” Emmett started growling, his chest reverberating against Theo’s back, “watch yer fuckin’ mouth.”
“He’s under an enchantment, you protective oaf!” Pippa hissed back. She pivoted in the water as she followed the shining glimpses of scales, the siren’s serpentine tail breaking the surface of the water.
“Behind you!” Emmett shouted.
Pippa turned around and reacted without thinking.
She paddled back towards knee-deep water and stood up, anticipating the siren’s next movements.
The scales of her tail reflected in the light, and Pippa jumped on top of her.
There was a wall of splashing, and the water obscured their view, but through the churning water, Emmett and Theo watched as Pippa wrapped her legs around the siren and began rolling it towards the shore.
“Atta girl!” Emmett cheered excitedly as Theo kept wailing about his discomfort.
As Pippa successfully rolled them onto the shore, the siren’s song stopped.
She started flailing like—quite literally—a fish out of water.
Theo sagged like a puppet with his strings cut in Emmett’s arms as he walked them out of the shallows.
Pippa was straddling the siren’s waist and had a knife to her throat in seconds.
“Can I let you go?” Emmett murmured, and Theo nodded weakly, panting like he had run a marathon. Emmett slowly helped Theo sit down on the ground and made sure he wouldn’t fall over before he made his way towards Pippa and the siren.
“How come you… You weren’t affected?” Theo gasped out, still trying to catch his breath.
Emmett jerked his thumb in Pippa’s direction. “We’re mated, so the siren song does not affect us. You can’t seduce someone who’s already found their fated mate.”
Behind all of the chaos in Emmett’s eyes, there was a hint of something softer. Theo only nodded, feeling a sharp pang in his chest.
“If you start that damn siren song again, I will slice your throat and carve you up with a fucking white wine sauce for dinner. Got it, bitch?” Pippa hissed, pressing the blade to the siren’s throat.
The siren hissed but nodded, refusing to say anything else.
“I love when you start threatening people, baby.” Emmett smiled widely, but his mirth vanished when he looked at the siren. “It doesn’t take a genius to understand that you’re working for Cliodhna, am I correct?”
The siren hissed, but again, she said nothing.
“Answer him when he speaks to you!” Pippa’s lip curled.
The siren looked at Pippa with an expression that could only be described as seething hatred.
“C-can’t talk,” she stuttered the words out. “b-blade!”
“Oh,” Pippa flushed momentarily and slightly eased the pressure on the siren’s throat. “Sorry. Now, answer the question.”
The siren wriggled a little underneath Pippa’s bodyweight, her gaze still livid.
“Yes,” she admitted with vitriol in her eyes. “Cliodhna approached me.”
Her answer was short and sweet. Theo found himself staring at the siren with unabashed curiosity.
It has to be the siren song still fucking with your brain. He tried to remind himself, trying to keep his eyes off the mermaid’s bare chest. Although siren song or not, she is beautiful.
“Are you working for her?” Emmett repeated. “Or she approached you, and then you decided to go after Theo for your own reasons?”
The siren looked back and forth between Pippa and Emmett, only sparing the quickest of glances at Theo. For a moment, Theo thought she looked almost guilty, but then her face was stoic again. She seemed to think for a moment and then sighed heavily.
“Cliodhna approached me and asked me about fetching Theo for her as a bounty. The reward was good. It’s not personal.”
Her voice was clipped and short. Theo tried to understand what she wasn’t saying. He got the sense she wasn’t telling the truth.
She did try to capture you with a siren song, so maybe you aren’t the best judge of her character right now.
“You only did it for the bounty?” Pippa pressed, also looking equally unconvinced of the siren’s motives.
“What’s your name?” Emmett walked into the water and started looking for his axe, finding it and hoisting it over his shoulder. His tone was colloquial, as if he were the good cop to Pippa’s bad cop.
The siren looked like she wasn’t going to answer, but after nearly a minute of silence, she nodded in submission.
“Lyra.”
“Lyra,” Emmett repeated the name. He sat down in the sand and started looking over his axe meticulously, studying it for any new scratches or chips. “And you did this for money?”
“I’ve never known sirens to be bounty hunters.” Pippa raised an eyebrow as she looked down at Lyra. “I’ve also never known sirens to care at all about money.”
Lyra looked nonchalant. “Maybe she wasn’t offering me money. There are other things to motivate someone.”
“What did she offer you?” Emmett pressed.
Theo found himself with an undeniable urge to defend Lyra from their line of questioning, but he continued to assume he was under the aftereffects of the siren song.
Lyra took her time to answer once again, her voice shaky.
“There are things she could offer me that no land dweller could understand.” Lyra’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and it was clear she wasn’t going to elaborate any further.
“That’s fair enough.” Emmett nodded. Theo was impressed; Emmett seemed to have an innate sense of when to push Lyra and when to back off.
“So, for your own reasons, you decided to work for Cliodhna,” Emmett continued. “We can’t allow you to get in the way of our transporting Theo to the Minch. Do we have to incapacitate you in some way, or do you think we can agree?”
“Emmett!” Pippa turned around and stared at him, her eyebrows flying upward. “There’s no way we could trust her.”
“If she doesn’t have a personal vendetta against Theo, I don’t see why we can’t buy allegiances as easily as Cliodhna does.”
“He’s not wrong,” Theo chimed in to support Emmett without fully understanding what he was saying.