Page 12 of Ensnaring Him

“So, what was the last gift?” Dylan questions.

“You all as ours forever. Sirens are immortal beings,” Melodia tell him, sending his brow upwards as I hold my breath a bit. The thought of never losing Serenia floods me with a peace I never knew I needed. “Every soul that the Lycophron consumes, gives us more strength. Even if we didn’t do the actual killing or consuming, the strength is shared by all through the bloodline. Normally, when a siren mates, it’s to breed. When a siren has a man under her lure, it’s to kill, unless she’sready to breed. Once a siren knows she’s with child, she kills the man, so he has no chance of sharing a bond with the child.”

“That bond gives them strength and sirens hatred of men is as deep as the bloodlust that runs through them. But that strength was just that, strength, not immortality,” Serenia adds. Something in her tone hits hard, and I need to know what made her happiness dim this much.

“But it will be different with us, for us,” Melodia says to her, telling me I’m right that there’s something she hasn’t said. “Aphrodite told us that when we have daughters, they won’t ever have to fight the cold. They won’t feel it because of your hearts, and with our daughters’ birth, the bond will create a new one for us, where we’ll get to have you with us for eternity. They as well as all of you will share in the strength, her victory over the ones that use her gifts for evil.”

“They won’t be able to kill you even in the water then,” Serenia says to me, shuddering with the memories in her eyes that hurts deep inside me.

“Until then, you have to swear you’ll stay out of the ocean, away from the rivers or lakes that connect to them, because if our mothers do come, that’s as far as they can go,” Celestia adds.

“Can they try to hurt you?” Dane asks her, making my breath stall again, needing to know that Serenia can’t be taken from me.

“They can try, but it would only kill them as well. A siren can’t kill another siren, without killing all of her blood,” Serenia answers, her hand on my chest, right over my heart calming its racing beat. “If our mothers tried to kill us, it would destroy them, as well as our entire lineage.”

“Even if they tried to have Celestia’s mother kill me, and mine kill Serenia, and hers kill Celestia, it would still kill them as well,” Melodia adds giving Dylan a reassuring smile.

“There must be thousands of sirens out there then,” I say and Serenia shake her head no.

“Sirens can only have one child each, and sirens only have girls,” she tells me, and the fact that we can have a daughter fills me with happiness even if it’ll only ever be one.

“A little you that’s part me too sounds perfect, honey,” I return, making her flush, and her eyes soften more, the glow returning to them.

“Nothing wrong with having more of perfection in the world, that’s for sure,” Dylan agrees.

“I can’t wait to have a little piece of you and me in the world, baby,” Dane states.

“I wonder what our daughters’ powers might be,” Melodia says, bringing curious looks from all of us men her way.

“What do you mean powers?” Dylan asks.

“Well, sirens have powers to lure men,” Melodia states, and he nods. “We have different ways of achieving that, usually they’re enhanced based on who our father is. Mine was a musician, so my song is more powerful than anyone else’s. There was never anyone I couldn’t enchant if I tried. When sirens are pregnant, they can feel what the powers their child will have, and normally we’re named after them in some way.”

“Hence Melodia,” Dylan says, and she nods in return.

“My father was an astronomy professor, it left me with an affinity with the sky. Sailors used to track their positions using the night sky. Others with similar gifts would rearrange a star here and there to confuse them, draw them nearer to their deaths. With new machines, their abilities weren’t quite as useful, so when I was born with the ability to disrupt the force of the moon and stars, they realized I could mess with their machines as well,” Celestia adds.

“And men know to watch out for rocks as they bring a ship in, and while some of our kind can mask them, no one else could create an entire vision of land so true that men would leave their ship and fall into the vast ocean for the sirens to drag intotheir depths. My father was a geologist with the Army Corp of Engineers. He managed to escape my mother when she tried to kill him the first time. Found her when she was having me, and stole me, to try and keep me from her, keep me safe. I was four when we moved to a base near the ocean, and she found me. Despite his strength, he was pulled into the depths and drowned when my mother pulled me into the water so I would have my first transformation. At least now it’s not painful,” Serenia says, and the same sadness from earlier fills her eyes. I wrap her up tightly, holding her close, giving her a soft kiss to show her I understand. That I’m here for her. I always will be.

The others stay through lunch, before heading home and I take Serenia upstairs, kissing every bit of her, showing her my love hasn’t changed a single bit, only grown deeper.

“Promise me you won’t go near the water,” she says as we’re laying in bed, our bodies sweaty and touching one another entirely.

“What?” I ask, turning her to face me, lifting her face up to mine.

“Your lake here is fine. Pools are the same, but the ocean and any of the rivers that flow directly out to it aren’t. Most sirens won’t go too far up a river because it’s fresh not salt water, but some will, especially if they’re hunting one specific person. Modern dams will stop them, but there was lore that one siren traveled all the way from Argentine Sea, up to the Gulf, and up the Missouri River until she found the man that evaded her some two hundred years ago. He was a fisherman from the norther part of the US. What’s now Montana I think,” she says but I still don’t fully understand.

“Why should I avoid the ocean though, honey?” I ask her, seeing fear in her eyes as I run a knuckle down her gorgeous face.

“Because if my mother learns about you, that I’m here with you, staying with you…that I won’t ever become a full-fledgedsiren, she’ll take you from me and I’d die if that happened. I hated being a siren, being in the ocean. I wanted my dad back but because of me…”

“What? Serenia, what happened?” I ask because that pain from earlier is there but even deeper now, and I hate it.

“When I said my mother found me…my dad told me not to go near the water. That I wasn’t allowed. I kept feeling this pull towards it though and one night, I slipped out to figure out why. I know now that it wasn’t even the water that was pulling me, but my mother telepathically urging me to get to the water. That’s how we talk,” she adds as my brows lift at her news. “The closer to the ocean I got, the deeper the connection became, but it was actually her whispering to me to come to the water that had me so curious. As soon as I stepped foot on the beach she felt I was there and before my dad could get me and get me back home, she and the other sirens were there. She grabbed me, pulling me into the water while the other sirens held my dad under it. He was stronger but against a dozen sirens…he died because of me.”

“No, honey,” I state, wiping away the tears that fall from her sweet eyes. “He died because of your mother and the others who were completely taken by the cold, by the need to kill. He came to find you, to protect you because that’s what dads do, what I’d do if it was our little girl that was missing or taken.”

“I can’t lose you, Duncan,” she cries, the tears falling faster.

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