His fucking body on her.
I paced to the window, knife flipping in my hand. Then turned on my heel to cut across the hall again. It wasn't as though I wanted to stand here and imagine them together. But the way he’d danced with her, hungrily, as though he’d set out to seduce her as much as she had him. And the way she’d braced that switch so easily, the way her eyes had locked onto his, gone from handling a plaything to handling her prey.
Here I was, burning slowly in the dark, unsure which of the two was worse.
I’m using you to catch the King’s eye. As long as I don’t crawl into your bed, Thaan’s happy to use my body as a means of strategy.
She would have made a skilled drone, so adept at harnessing her emotions. I glanced at the King’s door, still closed. Theia above, the entire hallway suddenly elevated in temperature as my body licked the angry kindling in my blood, and everything in this moon-forsaken hall from the glass window to the wooden beams became so punchable I had to walk with my fist cocked and cradled in my hand.
A noise broke the silence.
Quiet and distant, like the mewl of a kitten. But sharp.
Here it came. I’d been waiting for it. The cloying sound of blended voices, of a mattress shifting, the scent of heavy lust and want and need.
I turned into the wall and let my fist connect to the stone hard enough to summon blood. The pain blinded me for an instant, and I sank my back against the wall, knowing later I’d regret it. But the relief was like nectar. Indulgent. A sweet smear across a pallet soured by pathetic jealousy.
She wasn’t evenmine.
Even if she wanted to be, I couldn’t have her.
Prizivac Vodesdidn’t waste their time on disposable gnats. And even if they did, it was only for a quick tousle between pillows after a true love hadcome and gone. Something fast and thoughtless to flame out the wick of desire.
I’d let Thaan call me from the mines for my own reasons. But I’d be cheating myself out of truth if I ignored all the nights between that moment ten years ago and now.
The moment I’d looked into those burning sky eyes, any chance I had at a future unbridled by Thaan shattered.
I’d been informed, before landing on Cypria, that the sisters were important. Valuable. Hive heirs before they’d even seen their tails. But I hadn’t realized how closely they’d be tethered to Thaan. I should have, of course. Where would he keep them, train them, hone their abilities, if not close to himself? But I’d been young and foolish. Reckless. And perhaps a bit angry.
Was it those eyes alone? Or was it the breath we’d shared, the air she’d sent into my blood, that held me prisoner to that memory? Why had I spent years holding onto it? It surfaced without fail, each night in the dark. Taunting and cruel.
This is the siren you stole from her home.
This is the siren you couldn’t save.
This is the siren who probably still hates you.
This is the siren—
That sound again.
Sore fist pressing into my skull, I cursed my sharp Naiad hearing. This time it wasn’t brief. A long pull, high-pitched and feminine. I paused in the servant stairwell, frozen as I hunted for its source, the hair at the back of my neck standing on end.
Nothing else came.
Had it come from outside? Down the stairs? Was my mind playing tricks on me?
I flicked my knife shut, shoving it into my pocket and lighting up the stairs to the King’s door, tapping a split knuckle against the center.
Nothing.
I knocked again. The veins of the oak door twisted and curved, a knot in the wood parallel to my gaze. It was ancient, as hard as stone, perhaps petrified. So heavy it didn’t even rattle against my rap, the dull thud under my hand soft and solid even on my side of the door. I turned the knob. It revolved in my palm, stopping at a quarter turn. But the door wouldn’t budge.
The sound came again, and I pressed my ear to the wood before it ended.
A scream.
It curdled my blood, laying ice between my bones, whipping every muscle in my body taut. I stepped back. Reared my foot. Stomped.
