Page 5 of Siren Sins
Sweat gathered in places I didn’t even know could sweat as I desperately wished I had another option. A muse lost her powers when she was pregnant, and it was as good an excuse as any to win a sympathy card from good ol’ dad. It was also a lot easier to explain than trying to convince him that a human had manipulated a succubus’ powers to suck out my own and now I was a husk… or human… or something else entirely.
I flayed out my palm and shrugged. “You got me. Knocked up by one of your buddies.”
He immediately took my luggage and ushered me to his car. “Let’s get you out of this heat. Poor thing. Do you have any friends here? Did they ditch you? Tell me their names. I’ll have them strung up and beaten!”
He continued on in a slew of questions and threats for anyone who would dare leave me helpless and alone, not stopping for breath to see if I would have any answers. Ironically he didn’t berate his brothers, had I really been pregnant. Apparently ditching a muse they’d impregnated was standard practice.
It was just as well. I wasn’t good at lying. I’d never had to be. So I just let him fuss over me and guide me into a comfortable SUV.
After we’d dodged through traffic and he got the hint that I wasn’t in the mood for talking, he finally shut up. I took the blessed moment of silence to ask some questions of my own.
“So, what were you doing at the airport?” I asked as I crossed my arms. “I don’t find it a coincidence that you were just wandering around the baggage pickup when I arrived. Plus, you don’t have any bags of your own. How did you even get in there?”
He smirked. “I’m a muse, darling. And life as a male muse is entirely different than what you’re used to. I need sirens to help me find mates. Procreating isn’t just a necessity for our race, but a magical need I can’t get away from. They’re great at luring other muses here so I don’t have to travel the world to find them. In exchange, I bring them victims.” He glanced at me. “They told me there was a soul of great suffering coming today. They could smell you from miles away. And I’ve tuned my magic to find suffering as well. You reek of it.”
I frowned. It didn’t make me feel any better that my misery was so apparent to the supernatural community, nor did I like the idea that I was a siren’s idea of a tasty meal.
As if I literally reeked of sorrow, he rolled down his window and let in the salty air. The blast of heat and rust made me wrinkle my nose.
“How can you stand it here?” I asked.
He chuckled as his muse magic sparkled like blue diamonds in his eyes. He could have used his powers on me to force out answers, but he didn’t seem interested in compelling me to do his bidding. Instead he flashed me a charming smile. “Your mom hated it here too. She only fell for Helen’s song once, and after that, she never came back. I had to go all the way to Seattle to see her again.”
I snorted. “You act like you know her so well. You knew her, what, all of thirty hours of lust before you were out of Seattle and chasing sirens and muses again?” I wasn’t naive enough to think his “alliance” with the sirens was entirely based on an exchange of victims and mates. He was a muse and as he’d so grossly admitted, driven by the need to have sex. Sirens were sexual in nature, and I grimaced at the thought of my father having a harem of them.
His smile dimmed as he eased onto another road lined with palm trees that seemed to grow like weeds in this place. “It wasn’t like that. I cared about your mother.” His gaze shifted to me as he hesitated. “Didn’t Helen ever talk about me?”
I flinched at the name. My mother had one best friend in the whole world, and that was a siren named Helen. The fact that she’d lured my mother to Miami to mate with a male muse hadn’t been mentioned, but those were my mom’s skeletons. I wasn’t one to judge.
“No,” I snapped. “But mom told me everything I needed to know. You left us. She never cared about the ‘future of our race’ or how important it might be for you to impregnate others. Bottom-line was she fell for you, and you left her high and dry.” My lips pinched together at the grating memory of pain when mother had talked about my father. What I didn’t add was the festering hate I had for him that he’d left me, too.
He sighed and lifted his foot off the gas. We hadn’t arrived at a neighborhood, but eased to a stop at the edge of a long row of shacks lined in front of a beach.
“What are we doing here?” I asked as I crossed my arms.
He pointed at the closest shack that had a cardboard cutout of a pinup girl holding a fishing rod. “I’m not trying to read your mind, but I still sense primal cravings. You’ve been screaming for lobster the whole ride.” He flashed me a grin. “May not look like much on the outside, but they have the best.”
Frowning, I tried to silence my thoughts lest he was secretly reading them. Of course, that only made me think all my secrets louder. I was going to scarf down the biggest lobster I could find and then go get myself trapped by a siren.
His lips twitched. “If you want to sample the sirens as well, do be careful.”
I jerked the door open. “You said you wouldn’t read my mind!”
When I turned to glare at him, he cheerily waved from the open car window.
I scoffed and stomped towards the shack. “I’ll be here when you come to your senses!” he yelled. “If anyone gives you trouble, just let them know your daddy is Apollo, and he’s right outside.”
Apollo. My mother had never spoken his name, but now I knew why. What a ridiculous name.
When I gripped the splintered door to the shack that smelled of fish and beer, I took one last look at my father. He’d slumped down into the seat and had already closed his eyes. Didn’t look like he’d follow, but he wasn’t going anywhere, either. Whether I wanted it or not, I had someone watching my back.
Entering into the bustle of the popular bar that seemed to be more of a hut than a building, I immersed myself into the excitement and lazy chatter of a place where bathing suits were the evening wear and dogs obediently rested on their owners’ bare feet.
I found myself a seat in a shaded corner where I could watch the crowd. I’d always enjoyed people-watching. As a muse, I’d been able to blend into the shadows and control the world around me without notice. Now, I settled for being a stranger in a strange town.
A couple nearest to me swirled ice in their glasses. The guy with a tattoo sleeve and spiked hair flirted with the waitress while his girlfriend frowned. If I’d still had my powers, I would have made the waitress dump the entire tray on him—but now all I could do was mournfully watch.
When the waitress had gone with a shy giggle, I’d expected the girlfriend with luscious blonde hair to complain. But her frown disappeared, apparently having been caused by her drink going empty rather than jealousy sprouting its green head. The boyfriend pushed his glass to her that wasn’t quite finished and she beamed a smile. To my surprise, she eased closer to him and asked, “Did you see the size of her breasts? We should ask her out with us!”
