Page 52 of Siren's Treasure

The brute shoved him aside, barreling for Thessa. The pirate captain’s lips pulled back in a yellow-toothed smile that sent a shiver of revulsion down her spine. “Ah… the mermaid has legs.” His forehead creased as his bloodshot eyes took in her attire. “Is that my banyan!” His sneer was colored with dark amusement. So, this was the fierce Maddox! The stench of his unwashed bodymade her stomach turn. “What else have you stolen from me, maid?”

Thessa shrugged, fighting to keep her face impassive. “There was nothing else of value in your cabin—only moldy curtains and plaster painted over with cheap gold.”

“Perhaps I should take you back there,” his threat carried the sour stench of rum and cruelty. “I could show you an appreciation for the finer things.”

A guttural roar tore from Raggon’s throat as he lunged to his feet, charging at Maddox with a storm in his eyes. A tentacle shot for him, stopping him mid-run and pinning him against the trunk of a massive ceiba tree.

“Raggon!” Thessa cried. Terror seized her heart at seeing his face contorted in pain. She rushed for him. Another tentacle found her, wrapping around her ankles and sending her crashing to the dirt. The scarlet mass dragged her up from her knees, coiling around her torso until her arms were pinned to her sides, Undine’s Blade trapped uselessly in her imprisoned hand.

She felt something wet and glistening patting against her cheek. The stench of decay filled her nostrils. Each of the witch’s tentacles pulsed with nauseating life, the mottled skin rippling with muscular contractions that left slimy trails across her cheek.

“Ah my! How sweet! Could it be you love the enemy of your people, sea creature?” Circe’s voice dripped with false sympathy. “After all your foul intentions to run your blade through his heart?”

A gasp pulled from Thessa’s lips at the lie.

Circe turned her attention on Raggon, her smile widening to reveal sharpened teeth. “You can thank me later… for saving your life, my charming suitor. You see, this lovely sea creature needed to kill the prince of the Sylphorian kingdom to save herown people.” She glided closer to him, one pale hand reaching out to stroke his cheek while her tentacles held him immobile. “Poor girl, she seems to have developed a fondness for you—quite the moral dilemma, I’m sure.”

Thessa’s heart lunged through her throat in panic. Did Raggon believe what Circe had said? Their eyes met across the clearing, and she saw confusion warring in his expression. “You’re the enemy, Circe!” Thessa shouted, struggling against her bonds. A tentacle slithered across her face, wrapping around her mouth. The taste of salt and rotting flesh flooded her senses, making her gag.

The witch giggled, her shoulders quivering delicately under her rippling tentacles. “No, no, that’s the beauty of it—in order for you to break the curse, you had to finish what your ancestor Undine began. It is Raggon who must die!”

But it wasn’t true! He was nothing like Circe! And yet… the blade had hungered for him. No matter! Everything this dreadful woman did proved the opposite.

“Unfortunately, we can’t have you stabbing a Sylphorian prince, maid—he belongs to me.” Circe turned back to him, sighing happily under his helpless glare. “Our wedding will be beautiful—Oh! Our children will be beautiful.”

She’d tear out that woman’s deceitful tentacles from their roots! No matter how Thessa attempted to wriggle free, she was stuck. The creepy appendages holding her in place jiggled as Circe approached the massive dragon. Pointed fingernails ran down the scaled neck. “A magnificent beast!” The muscular crimson throat rippled in agitation, but Tobias wasn’t going anywhere under his bonds—enchanted or otherwise. “He will be perfect for my collection,” she purred, leaning forward to plant a kiss on the dragon’s muzzled snout. “I shall chain him in our grand ballroom, Raggon. What conversation piece could be finer than dancing around a prince turned monster?”

Raggon’s blue eyes glittered with rage at the final insult.

Her smiles were maddeningly cheery in return. “If your brother isn’t too naughty,” she whispered to the dragon, “then I will take good care of my new pet.”

Raggon tried to kick free from her tentacle’s grip, but he was well and truly stuck. His fist ran angrily into the ground.

“Listen to me…human,” Circe had reached Thessa next, whispering into her ear. Her voice turned melodic, hypnotizing, using Thessa’s former powers in ways that she’d never known possible. “Return you to the sea with your blade unused and your curse unbroken, and there, meet my sister Scylla and dissolve into seafoam as Undine did long ago!”

Thessa inhaled a deep panic, even as the spell of her own voice wove through her and tightened her limbs… to obey!

Past the crushed trees in the jungle, the sun continued its inevitable descent, dipping closer to the moving canvas of blue waves, the molten rays dripping and glistening against Undine’s Blade in Thessa’s hand—a sublime, unspeakable beauty that would only bring her death.

A cold dread spread through her chest, numbing her fingertips even as her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. The hilt carrying the mermaid hair of her ancestors murmured despondently under her grip.“Enemy… is near. Sunset is upon us. Do not forsake us as Undine did.”

Time was running out.

Circe glared at the dagger—perhaps for refusing to fall under her spell—and released Thessa from her tentacles with a flick of her wrist. “Go, go, go…!”

Thessa gasped for breath, her lungs squeezing in agony as she tried to struggle against the order. Undine’s Blade answered to no one—even the stolen treasure of the siren’s voice. Her fingers tightened on the hilt, hoping to draw from its strength, willing herself to turn it on the witch. Instead, her traitorous legsbegan to move of their own accord, caught by the Land Witch’s spell. They carried her past Raggon, whose face contorted with anguish and desperation. He strained against Circe’s tentacled grip and those wicked chains she’d placed over him, veins standing out on his neck as he fought to reach her.

“Thessa!” Her name tore from his lips. “Fight it! You’re stronger than her magic!”

The witch’s spell didn’t even allow her to spare him a glance, and how she wished she could one last time—to gaze upon him, search for what she hoped was forgiveness in those blue eyes, even to feel his arms locked around her before she felt the sea’s final embrace.

Instead, Scylla left her nothing but broken dreams and the hint of betrayal lingering in the air.

Morris’s kindly face was drawn in sorrow as she passed him too; she was forced to follow the broken pathway left behind by Circe’s beastly army through the jungle. The sea sparkled like distant stars beyond the pristine white sands. The golden hour was well upon them as heavenly rays painted a burnished glow across a home that no longer felt like her own.

Her heart sank deeper than her kingdom’s underground caverns. She’d failed her father. The thought sickened her, but knowing she’d never see Raggon again filled her with unmeasurable grief. The coin from his home country settled against her throat. They’d had a love that transcended the ancient hatreds between their people, a love that might have healed old wounds had fate not been so cruel.

The dagger pulsed against her palm, its magic resonating with the human body that had been her curse… and her gift. Undine’s Blade raged against sparing her people’s enemy, begged her to reconsider, to turn around, to avoid her fate, because in mere moments, Thessa would reach the hungry sea, and her chance to love him would be lost forever.

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