Savage Beauty(37)

I tugged at my hair.

I was losing my mind.

Nothing made sense. Nothing but Luna.

Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her at the stream? Naked…water sluicing over her skin…the moonlight making her glisten. Damn it all.

I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes tightly.

She would never believe me. But should she? I searched my memories for the morning Rolfe and I entered the dark forest and there it was. Rolfe was… pink. Had he even been with me? Had Blackheart? Was my horse really dead? The stag, the fog itself was tinted red; the color of roses and lies.

I sat at the table, bouncing my legs up and down and trying to puzzle it all out. Aura had been using me as a weapon against Luna, and I was the fool who let her. How did Luna have the strength to not snap my neck and get rid of me? I deserved as much.

“When you’re finished wallowing, bring my broom!” she called from outside.

I grabbed the damned broom and headed outside. If she was taking me with her, there must be a reason. She must need me for something.

Ember meowed from the porch as we settled onto the stick. “How is your hair already dry?”

She smiled. “Commanding the wind has its benefits.”

“Why are you taking me with you?” I questioned her. “You should send me home or...” I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to die.

“I told you that I would protect you.”

“For William.”

She looked over her shoulder. “For you. And for me. William has nothing to do with it or with us. I will keep you safe because I want to. The easiest way for me to do that is for you to be near me. With me. So, we’re hunting sirens this evening. Their song can lure you to a watery death, so with your permission, when I find one, I’ll take your hearing with a spell.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

She stopped me with a wink. “I promise to give it back.”

“Like you’ll give the eyeballs back, or return the spirit to her grave? What about the dragon’s egg?”

She rolled her eyes. “I need those ingredients for the spell, and your hearing is not on the list. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you talk too much.”

With that snarky reply, we took to the air, but she flew slowly, just above the canopy. The wind whipped her hair this way and that. I saw that Malex had marked her again, but tried to hide it behind her ear. “Why the mark?” I asked, hurt.

She tensed beneath my fingers. “It’s for protection.”

“From me?”

“From Aura... and you,” she shouted back at me. A few tense minutes passed and in no time at all, she said, “There,” and steered toward the ground.

As soon as I put my feet down, she waved a hand through the air in front of me and suddenly, the world went silent. I couldn’t even hear the leaves crunch beneath my feet. She motioned for me to come with her.

I could make out one word she mouthed. “Bait.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.



LUNA

I felt guilty using him, but at least I did so with his consent. Sort of. I knew he wasn’t thrilled with luring the siren, but I needed a human and he was the only one I happened to have at my disposal. Plus, despite the fact that it wasn’t his fault that he’d been working for my sister, he owed me. He probably thought my need for him and his help was the only thing keeping him alive right now, but it wasn’t. That wasn’t it at all.

He walked toward the great lake with me. Most sirens were found in the sea, but that was more than a night’s flight away. This lake was the largest inland, and there used to be sirens in these waters. I just hoped there still were.

I positioned him at the water’s edge and mimicked the motion of washing my face. He took the hint, rolling his sleeves up, while I hid behind the thick trunk of a nearby oak, the handle of my knife warming in my palm.

When he dipped his hands into the water, ripples spread out in great arcs, traveling over the water’s surface. The sound of frogs and crickets were the only sounds other than the splashing, watery ones Phillip was making.

He probably thought it was extreme of me to take his hearing; that he’d be able to hear the siren approach and have time to cover his ears, but they were stealthy beneath the surface, and hands over the ears wouldn’t keep her song from reaching his mind. No, this was the safest way.

My muscles were tense, but I was ready for her. I just needed her to sense him. I needed her to be hungry for him. The thought coiled in my stomach.

He looked back to me when a few moments passed and nothing happened. I pretended to unbutton my blouse and he got the hint, swallowing thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. But he removed his tunic, pulled it over his head, and then slowly began to unbutton his shirt.

I watched as, inch by inch, his chest was exposed.

And then his stomach.

The muscles across his abdomen flexed as he finished the job and shrugged the shirt off. He splashed water on his skin, his muscles rippling with every movement. He scooped a handful into his auburn hair and I watched it sluice down him.

My heart beat loudly in my ears. Everything in me hummed to go to him, but then I heard it: the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. He looked up to find a siren staring him right in the eye, only inches from his face.

Her hair was stringy with algae clumped in the strands, and her teeth were gray and rotten. However, Phillip looked at her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. That look is mine, I thought angrily. I would strip her glamour and shove it down her whore throat, right after I tore out her larynx.