Page 1 of Enticing Him

Prologue

Celestia

Serenia and I break the surface of the lagoon at the same time, and I stare at Melodia curiously asking her, “Okay, what was so urgent you’d risk sending a message to meet you here through someone else?”

“Yeah, my mother almost got to it first and you know that woman would have flipped her fins to know we’re still speaking,” Serenia adds, her gold-green eyes slipping around the space with a smile. Of all of us, Serenia loves this place the most. Says it reminds her of the time she spent with her father before her mother found her. She’s the only one of us that ever knew a father’s love and maybe that’s why she’s been able to resist the pull of the cold so well, even beyond Melodia and me.

“What would you all say if I told you I found a loophole that could keep us from becoming full-fledge sirens? That if we do this, we can leave the ocean entirely behind us?” Melodia asks and I can’t stop the hope that hits hard and fast, but I quickly squash it down, not about to get my hopes up too much just yet.

“I’d say if you’re lying it’s the cruelest joke ever,” I reply and Serenia nods in agreement.

“I’m not lying,” she promises, her sweet turquoise eyes not holding a hint of a lie as her pink hair with its pops of white floats around her body and the hope comes back fast and hard. “I’ve been sneaking over to the records hall in the mornings before anyone else is awake,” she explains, and I nod in understanding as to how she’s gotten by unseen to have possibly found something the others wouldn’t want us to know.

Sirens are generally more nocturnal than other beings. It stems from ancient times as night on the ocean was most dangerous, and sirens could easily lure men to their deaths. Some sirens are attracted to the morning dawn as sailors would be tired from long nights, and most susceptible to believing that what they saw on the horizon was true, there really was a landmass just ahead and they were nearly home.

I’m even more so a night person than the other sirens in our Lycophron, whereas both Serenia and Melodia both love the morning dawn. When it breaks, I’m usually headed somewhere dark and quiet to get some rest. A lot of times I’ve been out spying on humans, wishing for what they have, and only part of it is their legs. I want someone to want to hold me the way humans I’ve seen do on the beaches—at least the nice ones. I’d be more apt to give into the bloodlust and kill someone if a man treated me like the mean ones.

“I hoped to find something in the histories that would show at least one other siren managed to stop the cold from overtaking them, but I didn’t,” Melodia states and my eyes turn to a glittering silver mist and the clouds begin to block out the sun without truly meaning to. Our powers are affected by our emotions, especially the ones that fill us with cold like anger and fury. The bloodlust rushes in though when we use them so we do our best to limit our intentional usage, but the accidental ones like this, we can only try to minimize afterwards.

“You said you weren’t lying about finding a loophole,” I state trying to tame the flash of anger deep down again.

“I’m not, I promise. In my research I found a single line of text that I think will help all of us though. It said that if a siren passes their twenty-first birthday without taking a mortal life, they are allowed one chance to find love, given to them by Aphrodite.”

“That’s it?” Serenia asks when Melodia stops, the hope in her eyes fades as quickly as what’s in my heart is.

“That was all that was in that text, but I finally found another mention of Aphrodite in the ancient texts,” she answers us. “It said that after the sirens were plucked out of the sky and plunged into the water, that Aphrodite offered them a chance to find love once more. She gifted them with beauty to go along with the original sirens’ sweet songs and allowed them to transform when on land back into women.”

“But they ended up luring men to the water and killed them instead,” Serenia says, and I stare at Melodia for more because all of that is common knowledge amongst our kind. The only reason that Hera and Athena couldn’t chase the sirens further was because they were in Poseidon’s territory then, and they couldn’t fight their way through it. Aphrodite didn’t try to fight him to gain access to the sirens, instead, she had them lift their heads above water to grant them the gift of beauty and gave them the chance to have legs again when they touched the earth as it was no single god or goddess’ territory.

“Yes, that much of what we were told is true,” Melodia says, her tone calming as she continues. “What they never told us was that the men that they first killed were the same men that threw them into the water. Aphrodite was angry that they wasted their chance, that they allowed the coldness to consume them so easily, but she also understood the desire to avenge against the men that made them that way. Which is why she didn’t take back the gift of beauty she gave them. Instead, she offered the chance to those who didn’t have a cold heart to find happiness.”

“Meaning what?” I ask sharing a confused look with Serenia that makes Melodia smile a bit.

“Meaning that if a siren doesn’t kill a mortal man before the end of their twenty-first birthday, when our powers reach our full peak, that siren gets the chance to find love. For seven days, the same time that our ancestors had been on land, we will transform completely. We’ll have seven days to find a man, have him fall in love with us, without the use of our powers. If he does, then we cannot become full sirens. Our mortal half will not die and turn to stone inside us, and we’ll get to keep our powers, the ability to transform back into a siren when in the water, but the cold won’t drag us to the depths with the others,” she states and Serenia’s jaw doesn’t fare any better than mine as they drop hard.

“So, when you say transform completely on land, you mean have legs for real and not just the mirage that men see when they’re lured to the shore to mate,” Serenia asks, and she nods. “I could go run through a field of flowers again? Go deep into the forest and breathe in the untouched air?”

“And not just for the seven days if we find love,” Melodia says, making the deepest hope flood through me entirely, so deep I don’t think it’ll be possible to stamp it down again, which is dangerous, especially if I go near my mother who never wants me to be happy.

She’s furious that I’ve refused to kill, threatened me with harm if I don’t learn to give into what I am. There’s not much that can hurt a siren. We’re immortal so most injuries heal without any lasting damage. It takes immense strength to kill a siren, most humans don’t possess that strength, although other sirens and even god offspring might. Sirens only kill another siren as a final course of action. They’ll gladly injure others if they’ve stolen their intended victim, especially amongst members of different Lycophrons, but most of those injuries are recoverable.

The only other option beyond killing a siren to keep them out of another’s waters is to cause enough injury that would keep a siren from being able to swim. I’ve only heard of one instance of that happening before and while that siren is still alive, she’s now become infused with the rocks that she lies on in a cave. She’s more stone than anything as they’ve spent thousands of years forming around her. Even with all of that, she still somehow manages to lure men to her and kill them. That’s how bad the bloodlust of a full-fledge siren is and why I want to avoid the risk of turning into a monster if there’s the slightest chance of it.

“We’d be able to go swim whenever we want but we’d always return to mortal form when on land,” Melodia adds with a dreamy smile

“Sounds great, expect in order to maintain it, we have to make someone fall in love with us in seven days,” I say a bit sarcastically to ignore how desperate for it I am. Probably more than Serenia or Melodia, since I spend so much time watching humans fall in and out of it. I’ve seen some deep love though and that’s what I want the most. Especially since we’re facing an endless life of cold bloodlust running rampant through our bodies.

“I know it’s not much time, but it’s not impossible. We’ve seen real couples fall fast when we sneak up to the beaches at night. It can happen,” Melodia assures us.

“Except we have to get through our birthday to get the chance, and you’ve heard that the urge that day is greater than anything else. It’s why we’re encouraged to kill before then, so the thirst isn’t as great and we don’t do something stupid and draw real attention to us,” Serenia warns.

“Which is why we’ll need to do this together. We’ve made it this long without giving in,” Melodia states calmly. “Our birthday is in three weeks. It should be easy to get to then ignoring the others urging us towards it and if we come here or to the other lagoon early on our birthday, together we can keep the cold from finding us.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we all have the same birthday, isn’t it?” I suggest when Serenia agrees it’s the only possible way to manage it.

“Really lucky for me since it meant my dad was able to find me before my mother made it into the ocean,” Serenia says with a sigh. “Although I think it’d be better to not remember that first transformation and I seriously hope it doesn’t hurt that much to do it now.”

Melodia gives Serenia a little hug, sensing her pain that we’ve agreed likely came more from seeing her father die than the physical transformation into her siren body.

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