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My heart seizes.
“Sisters?”
20
Harlow
“Sisters?” I ask again, the salty tears brimming in my eyes.
Poseidon cackles, he’s cold and in that dark reply, I know he doesn’t feel love for me. He wants the curse broken, but I’m not such a fool to believe it is with good intentions.
“Breaks the curse?” I ask. “How? Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it. For you. For our family.”
“I thought you didn’t need any more family or any more answers?” He says moving closer to me. His eyes search mine and I hate to think what he might see. He may be the villain, but he also holds the answers.
The answers I want so badly. Sisters.
“Then let’s say I do. I want to know who my mother is, who my sisters are. What do I need to do to break the curse?”
He shakes his head. “You are such a foolish, gullible child. I have no reason to break that curse. I have no reason for you to know any of that.”
My blood goes cold
He’s not trying to help me with anything. He doesn’t need anything from me. Except... Why is he so intent on luring me into his cavern? So set on gaining my trust?
Terror seizes me as I realize how right he is.
I am a fool.
“Don’t you see,” he croons. “I wanted you, so I could bind you back forever. Just like your lover right here. If you’re lost at sea, you’ll never be found, and your mother will never find you.”
“She’s looking for me?” I ask. Everything within me trembles.
He lifts the trident, pointing it directly at me, ready to conjure something that will keep me tied up forever.
I shake my head. Because I can conjure something too. Something stronger than the sea.
I reach inside.
I’m not propelled into action because of hate. I’m not working against good.
Poseidon is.
But my father will never win this war.
I reach deep inside myself, searching for all the love in my heart.
Love fueled by my friends and family and my men. Fueled by the love they have shown me, I push all that I have toward Poseidon.
I offer him all the love. Only love.
All-consuming love.
I thought the love the men had for me was too much, too strong, too fast. But I needed to feel that kind of power, that kind of passion, in order to understand what I could harness.
So, I could understand what is possible.
A soft and gentle love would not work right now.
The love inside me needs to be supreme.
I close my eyes and make a Siren’s call, letting my love burst forth from my soul.
It envelops Poseidon in a way he can’t handle because he doesn’t understand.
Because he doesn’t know this kind of love and maybe he never will.
He certainly won’t have a chance at understanding until I find my sisters and we decide, together, what we want to do with our father.
For now, love binds him. Just like the nest, Gaia built to surrounded West and me in our moments of vulnerability, I encircle Poseidon.
But this is no nest of light. This is a cage.
One from which he cannot break free.
His face breaks into a rage, and while he screams with ferocity, I can’t hear him.
No one will be able to.
He is my prisoner now.
He pounds his fists against the cage that he can’t penetrate. No one can hear his cry, and the orb that holds him begins to float away.
I don’t chase it, I don’t swim after him.
I don’t need him now.
Right now, I know what I need most.
Eric.
Then I will prepare for what comes next.
I’m not only a Siren, I am the daughter of Poseidon and that means the blood coursing my veins is eternal.
I don’t see Gaia, but I do hear her, or maybe I just feel her warmth around me.
As I swim toward Eric, her light pushes away the seaweed, breaks through the tangles wrapped around Eric, helping me to reach the man I am here to save.
I pull him into my arms, clinging to him. But he’s so weak, so broken. We have been under the water for so long.
Too long.
I cry, kissing his lips. But they are so cold, and his eyes are empty.
He is gone.
The hollow in my heart, the one I’ve sought my entire life to fill, is emptier than ever. Eric is gone, and he was mine and if I can’t hold onto him, then there’s only one thing I want.
Poseidon did this, and he will pay.
I will avenge Eric’s death if it’s the last thing I do.
21
Harlow
As I break through the water, I want to scream, but as I try to raise my voice I find that it is gone.
I try to shout. To say something; anything, but I can’t.
I wave my arms in the air, needing Crew, West, and Kai to find me, but all I see are numerous flashing lights from a rescue boat.
