A wave roared before it crashed against the cliffs. It burst upward in giant plumes that dampened what little exposed skin she had.
She wiped away the water coating her lashes as, on the horizon, a ship appeared. Lexi’s heart leapt into her throat. Was some unsuspecting soul approaching their death right now?
As if they were reading her mind, the sirens lifted their heads and started singing. Lexi resisted running to the edge of the cliffs and waving her arms as she screamed at the ship to turn away.
While she bit her tongue, the siren’s haunting melody grew louder on the air. The song was so haunting and enchanting, tears sprang to her eyes.
How could something be so beautiful and awful?
One of the sirens rose from the peaks and soared out over the sea. Lexi assumed she was flying out to the ship, but the siren folded her wings against her back and plunged into the water. She remerged with a fish that she brought back to the cliffs.
Her claws tore the fish apart, and she used her talons to shove it into her mouth while watching them. The sirens lured their unsuspecting prey to Aerie but didn’t feed on them. They relied on fish from the sea to sustain them.
Another siren landed at the end of the pathway. With a shiver of motion, she transformed from a five-foot-tall woman/bird into a woman close to six feet tall. Feathers no longer covered her body… and neither did anything else.
The woman, completely unperturbed by her nudity, had a body that would make men steer their ships into a cliff. And she knew it as she stood with her shoulders back, her ample breasts thrust forward, and a smug smile on her beautiful face.
Lexi recognized her as the woman Cole danced with at the Lord’s ball. And if this woman was at the ball, then that meant she held a lot of power in this realm, if not ruled it. She wasn’t sure about the politics of Aerie.
“King Colburn of the dark fae,” the woman greeted in a sultry voice so filled with promises of sex it probably made many trip over themselves to get to her.
Lexi glanced at Cole, but his eyes remained on the woman’s face, and he seemed unaffected by her presence. Lexi knew he only loved her, but this woman wasgorgeouswith her honey-colored hair and eyes the color of an amethyst.
“We are at a disadvantage,” he said. “I’m unaware of your name.”
The woman arched an elegant brow. “And why would you know it? You last visited our land years before I became ruler of the parliament here. I am Celaliana, but you may call me Cela.”
Her striking eyes brimmed with curiosity when they landed on Lexi. “And you are Elexiandra Harper, fiancée to the king, a surprise to us all, and a bane to the Lord.”
Lexi forced herself not to squirm beneath the woman’s intense scrutiny. She didn’t know how to respond, and she was glad Cole’s next words spared her from having to reply.
“I assume you know why we’re here.”
The woman smiled at him. “You’ve come to grovel for help against the Lord.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
Cole kepthis smile in place, but there was no way he or Lexi would grovel for anything. He’d spend the rest of his life hiding on that rock of a prison realm before begging for anything.
This woman had to know that, but she was a siren, and they loved to play with others. She was playing with the wrong immortal today.
“Come with me,” the woman said.
Her hair swayed against her back when she turned and sauntered forward. Cole focused on the sirens above them as the ship drew closer to the rocky cliffs. It was only a matter of time before it crashed against the jagged rocks and broken boats decorating the purple sea.
Cela took a left, taking them off the cliff pathway and leading them between the mountains of Aerie. The rocky trail curved up a steep incline as the snow grew thicker on the peaks. The rocks vanished as the crunch of snow replaced the dirt and stone.
When they turned another corner, an entanglement of branches swooped overhead. The branches were easily the size of a tree, and the crisscrossing pattern joined the mountains.
The thousands of shiny objects tangled within the branches caught and reflected the sun so that light danced all around them. From his last visit, he knew those objects were the personal possessions of the countless sailors who lost their lives in Aerie.
The higher they climbed, the chillier it got as the shrieking wind blew up snow and whipped it around them. It clung to his skin in tiny crystals that froze his flesh, but he refused to acknowledge the cold as the shadows watched the sirens for any hint of an attack.
He draped his arm around Lexi’s shoulders and pulled her against his side to warm her when she shivered. Cela remained unfazed by the cold as her bare feet crunched in the snow and it melted against her bare skin.
They were almost to the top of the mountain when the sirens released a series of loud shrieks like a maniacal beast’s cackling laughter. Lexi shuddered, but this time it had nothing to do with the cold.
They both knew what caused the laughter; the ship had crashed.
