Page 1 of Ensnaring Him

Chapter 1

Serenia

My heart races a bit as we move into the park. It’s still early out and there aren’t many up and about right now, which I definitely don’t mind. I’m still trying to make myself believe that this is really happening. I have legs and feet again. Something I haven’t had since I was four and drug into the ocean by my mother to turn me into the very thing my father did his best to protect me from—sirens.

I was still so young that a lot of it didn’t make sense back then. Only the pain of everything truly registered. Especially the physical pain that tore through my body when my feet and legs merged into a tail, and the ice cold of the water sliced through my lungs. I swore I was going to drown, but then, somehow, I was able to breathe through the water just as if I were above it. The only difference was with every breath, ice attacked the rest of me, making me fight to not scream at the pain of it.

Even now, it still hurts to breathe underwater. Maybe that’s why I tend to stay near the surface as much as possible, and why despite being a morning person like Melodia, I missed hersneaking out to the ancient city to search for a way for us to avoid becoming killers—to stop from becoming full-fledged monsters.

Celestia on the other hand, is a night person completely, but that’s when her powers are most prevalent, so it makes sense. It also makes sense why I’m more drawn to the morning as well though. After all, what weary sailor wouldn’t love to find a beautiful sight in front of them after a long night on the open sea? And what better sight than them believing they’ve found land—or made it home to land?

That’s my power whereas Celestia’s are to manipulate the sky, the moon and stars, and disrupt even the best of the human’s tracking systems. Melodia’s powers are those that most would associate with sirens—a siren song. But unlike most sirens, no man can resist Melodia’s song, which is why our mothers and the elders in our Lycophron want us to use our powers so much.

Some men can resist the lure of other sirens, but none have ever been able to resist any of ours—mine, Celestia’s, and Melodia’s. That’s also why we wanted to find a way out though, because none of us want to be the reason men die. We don’t care about becoming more powerful, stronger. We’re immortal beings whether we consume the lifeforce of our victims directly or not. When sirens consume their victims souls, it strengthens the entire Lycophron, not just that single siren because we all share blood, and a bond that lets us communicate with one another without a word spoken aloud.

Our voices sound distorted under water and some words that sound similar can’t be distinguished easily there, so we communicate telepathically with one another.

For Melodia to have been able to keep her trips a secret, let alone keep anyone else from overhearing her thoughts regarding all of it took considerable strength. Something Celestia and I learnt the last few weeks since Melodia told us about theloophole that could potentially keep us from turning into full sirens.

On the surface it seems simple enough. Make a mortal man fall in love with us in a week and we get to stay a humanlike being. We’ll get to keep our feet and legs. Live as a human on the land, but if we ever feel the urge to go for a swim, we’ll be able to transform in the water into our siren forms, but the urge to kill shouldn’t exist.

The problem with all of that? We can’t use our powers to make them fall in love with us. Which means talking to a man. Something I haven’t done since my father died—was murdered by the Lycophron as my mother drug me into the depths of the ocean to turn me into a siren like her.

I’ve always hated her for it, but even more, I hated myself for it too. It was my fault he died. For four years he kept me away from the ocean, but something about it called out to me and I snuck away from our new house one night to see what was so special about it. We’d only been in that seaside town for a week after spending most of our time on inland army bases. My father was a geologist with the Army Corp of Engineers. He started out as a soldier but discovered his passion for geology and engineering while with them. He got his degree and became one of their experts in knowing whether or not a spot was suitable for building.

He managed to get away from my mother the first time she attempted to kill him, shortly after knowing she was pregnant with me. He came back as it neared my due date, finding her giving birth with just one other siren there to act as her birther.

Sirens have to be born on land, or at least fully out of the water, so we can breathe out of it. Sirens that are born in the water don’t receive the ability to breathe above the surface and they also don’t receive the gift of beauty that Aphrodite blessedus with, because it can’t penetrate the cold darkness of the water since it’s Poseidon’s territory.

My father managed to knock the birther out, then took me before my mother could reach the water with me and went as far inland as he possibly could. Since sirens don’t transform when on land, she couldn’t follow as there were no interconnected waterways.

Becoming a siren was my fault. I disobeyed my father. Got him killed and then became a monster in the making.

If this chance doesn’t succeed. If I don’t find someone to fall for me in the next week. I don’t know what I’ll do. The bloodlust is growing deeper. The urge of the cold to kill snakes through my body at all hours. It was the deepest I’ve ever felt last night and if it weren’t for Celestia and Melodia being with me, I don’t know if I could have resisted.

“So, do we just wander around until we find some men we like?” Celestia asks, bringing me out of the depressing and sad thoughts.

“I’ve no idea. Do you think we’re far enough away from the ocean to keep the others from interfering or should we keep heading further inland?” Melodia asks in return.

“There isn’t any way for them to get near us here. There aren’t any waterways in town,” I assure them with a glance at the trees ahead of us. “As long as we don’t go to the beach, they shouldn’t be able to bother us.”

“Alright, so what do you do you think, stick together at least for now?” Celestia says and Melodia and I nod in agreement. “Then which way do you think we should go?”

“I’m thinking we go through those trees,” I tell them, and Melodia lifts a brow my way curiosity in her eyes because for once, my tone isn’t hesitant. “I don’t know, I just feel drawn to head that way for some strange reason.”

“Then let’s see why you feel that way,” Melodia suggests, as we move through the trees and out into a space with more open fields.

My feet stop short, my breathing tightening as I stare at a man next to a truck. There are dozens of trees and plants in the back of it, but that’s not what’s calling to me. It’s him somehow and I have to fight to stay still as Melodia lets out a little giggle.

“Are you okay?” Celestia asks me as she and Melodia move up next to me.

“I don’t know. I feel…strange,” I admit glancing their way. “It’s…it’s like a memory. This feeling. Like I’ve felt it before but it’s not possible to be something I felt at home.”

“What about before that? When you were with your father?” Melodia asks, and I can’t stop the shocked gasp that comes as the man’s attention turns towards us.

“Oh yes, yes,” I whisper, as emotions and hunger flow through me. None of them are like the anger or bloodlust or cold that I feel in the ocean. It’s all warmth and hope and a hunger like I’ve never known that hits as the man drops the tree that he was pulling out of the truck down next to it, pulling gloves off his hands before he starts heading our way.

“What is it?” Celestia asks.

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