Page 68 of Song of Her Siren

Helian handed Aurora to Tari and took a tentative step on the top of the crumbling stairway.

“Be careful, Helian,” Tari called to him while rocking Aurora on her hip.

“I’ll try not to bust my bollocks.” Nervous-sounding laughter rang in his words. “But I can’t make any promises.” Then he slipped with a yelp, sliding down the stairway as it crumbled beneath his feet. He landed like a drunk squirrel jumping from a tree, dodging gravel that slid across the floor behind him. “You sure your friends don’t want us to die, so they can have more friends?” Helian called up to Ember, a sharp edge to his voice as he adjusted the shield that was strapped to his back.

Ember pulled her thumb from her mouth. “They don’t want you to die,” she called down to him. “That’s why they say to bring a sword.”

Helian’s eyes bulged as he grabbed the hilt of his sword.

“Why?” I asked her. “What’s down there?”

She grasped my shoulder, peering at me with eyes far too wise for her age. “The sentry.”

An icy premonition snaked up my spine and made my stomach roil and pitch. “The sentry?”

She trembled in my arms. “It guards the book and has horns and eats flesh.”

“Eww,” Aurora squealed while hugging Tari’s neck. “You shouldn’t lie, Em.”

Ember stuck out her tongue at her sister. “I’m not lying!”

Tari shared a look with me, projecting a question into my head.Do you believe her?

I repressed a grimace while smiling at my niece.She doesn’t lie about these things.

“Just great.” I heaved a frustrated breath, wishing my niece was prone to tall tales. I didn’t feel like going up against this sentry. But what choice did I have? Drae needed me to find that spell.

You’re not going in there, Prince.Radnor blew a plume of smoke with a growl, his eyes flaring as he fogged the air.I can’t fit through the door to protect you.

Tari blew the smoke back toward the dragons with a scowl. “He doesn’t need you. He has me.”

When Radnor snarled at her, she narrowed her eyes. “Now would be a good time for me to use that flatulence spell.”

Enough!Isa hissed, arching back while baring her fangs.The enemy grows stronger while we bicker.

“She has a point,” I said to them.

Of course, I do, Isa rumbled. I didn’t evade the demons for twenty-four years because I’m stupid.

Tari glanced from Helian to me, then at that iron door. “Who’s going in there?”

Helian faced the door, his expression grim. “I’ll go.”

Tari shook her head. “Not without me.”

“You’re jesting, right?” Helian clutched the hilt of his sword, his eyes nearly crossing. “Do you think I’d let you go in there?”

“Helian...” Tari pleaded.

Helian’s face turned as red as a dragon’s pecker. “I’m not allowing my mate and the mother of my child through that door!”

I was shocked by his assertiveness and wondered why Helian, as the oldest of his brothers and next in line to the throne, wasn’t the alpha.

Tari lifted her chin, her bottom lip quivering. “You can’t stop me.”

Helian closed his eyes, tension lines tightening his mouth. When he opened them, he looked up at my sister with a plea. “Tari, please don’t fight me on this.”

“I’ll go with him,” I blurted, the words that spewed from my mouth feeling like a death knell. I was absolutely insane to agree to go into that cellar, but what choice did I have?

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