But I also wasn’t going to press the issue. “Don’t worry. Consent is key, cutie. I know you want to wait until I’m older. I may not make it easy for you, but I respect the no.” I held out a hand, and he joined me in the nest, cradling me in his arms.
He sang for a few minutes, his voice possibly the sexiest thing about him. It was low and smooth, and the vibrations of him singing against me had my thighs going damp. I’d suspected his voice was magical. Of course, it was.
He’d revealed that he was the first siren, the one who taught the merfolk and the sea witches how to use their voices to make sailors forget they’d ever seen the magical sea folk, as a means of protection. He’d punished the ones who’d used that power to lure sailors to their deaths and had demonstrated the song to me the day after the pirate incident.
Which had been a mistake. I rubbed at my breastbone where the song had somehow connected us. Now, even when he only moved a few feet away, the place ached to be closer. No, hungered, like only he could satisfy me.
When his song ended, I placed a hand on his cheek. “I have to go, Lusca. You know I’m not done with my work.”
“Of course,” he said softly, pressing one hand on the place that ached. “But I will need to go with you. I cannot let you suffer.”
Now it was my turn to blush. “Ah, I’m not sure how that would work. It’s really hard to keep my hands off, cutie. And I need to be able to focus on finding and helping the rest of the Omegas.”
“You would not be able to resist me?” He smiled. “I feel the same.”
“No. I mean, it hurts. The farther you get from me. Even a few steps feels like my heart is being scraped over sharp rocks.”
He winced. “I had no idea my voice would cause that, beloved.”
“Of course not. But we can’t complete the bond, and we have to be apart. So I had a thought.” I almost hated to say it aloud, but I needed to. I’d been hiding how intense the connection had grown, but a few days ago, it had become apparent it wasn’t going to get better. He’d gone to find some casks of rum from one of his shipwreck collections. He’d only been away for a few hours, when he’d raced back, feeling me wading into the waves after him. Crying, like he’d died.
“A thought?” He pressed a finger to the corner of my eye, where a tear had welled without my permission.
“I need to forget you. I have around six years until I’ll be ready”––not ready, but out of time––“to settle down and be the Omega I’m supposed to be.” If She still wanted me. I’d been in some tough spots over the past few years, and Her absence hadmade me feel alone in a way I hadn’t since I was a child on the streets of Rimholt.
He frowned, though the expression somehow made him even more handsome. “The only way I was able to let you walk away when I first saw you was because I knew the Goddess walked with you and within you. Protected you. I do not like that you have struck a bargain that leaves you defenseless for so long. That you have been unprotected for years already. If I’d known, I would have been at your side much earlier.”
The sea began to swirl angrily, and I knew he was thinking about Goran. He’d gotten really pissed when he learned that Goran had let me go alone to Mirren, even when I’d explained that I’d asked to be let go. I’d told him about cutting my braids. He’d rolled his eyes.
“I cannot believe your human Alpha was such a fool to let you go alone across the dry. Someday, I will teach him what being a mate means.”
“All right, calm your waves. I don’t want my blankets getting salty.” He let out a small breath, and the waves softened, like he’d pressed them with a giant, invisible hand. “Is there any way you can protect me from a distance? When I’m far away, in the middle of ‘the dry.’”
I had to go back to Northern Mirren to finish planting apothecaries there. Lusca had told me that he’d spent so long in the ocean that separation from it was intensely painful, and weakened him quickly. After a few hundred years, he would be able to stay away from the sea for weeks or months at a time, but now he was stuck in saltwater, or very close to it.
“Perhaps,” he said slowly. “But the feeling you have, the need to be close to me… that would not fade, unless I?—”
“Unless you made me forget you? Used your voice on me? I kinda figured,” I said softly, looking around at the cove the two of us had built into our own little dream beach. He’d broughtup dozens of treasure chests from his collection, draping the trees around us with gold chains, ropes of pearls, and bangles of rare metals I’d never even seen. One side of the cove had a grouping of tables he’d made from driftwood, where I’d been able to spend time perfecting some new poisons using the small, brightly colored frogs he’d brought me, as well as some oddly shaped fish from a nearby trench.
If I didn’t already know there were Omegas being abused, suffering, while the Goddess made it harder and harder for them to hide, I could have been happy to live the rest of my life right here, with my magical kraken mate-to-be.
Although I was having a harder time keeping it “to be” by the hour. He was ridiculously sexy, and his siren allure wasn’t the only reason. He was kind and thoughtful and loved sinking pirate ships almost as much as I loved poisoning people who deserved it.
“I don’t want to forget you. I want to have these memories. I want to know you’re out here waiting for me, even if no one else is.” Memories of Goran felt like arrows striking my heart. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again, or if he’d even consider reconciling. “If you could make me forget these months, make the ache go away somehow… but only for a while. I have less than six years to get everything done. That’s not that long, right? Then I could come back here, with you.”
“And your other mates, beloved. You know you will have more.” For some reason, when he said it, it didn’t make me want to run screaming to another island. Or swim screaming. Maybe it was the voice, or the way the word “beloved” seemed to hold promises of a love we would discover together.
“Yeah, but none as powerful and sexy as you, right? Who can bring me all the gems I want, and honeyed cakes, and the very sharpest knives?” I lifted an eyebrow and glanced to thechest where he’d had me put my obsidian blade, far from where we slept.
“There aren’t many blades in the world that could kill a creature like me, but that is one of them,” he’d confided. “I don’t like the way it feels. Like it hungers for something.” With him by my side, for the first time in my life, I hadn’t felt the need for a weapon, so I’d taken it off. Of course, I still had plenty close by. I ran a hand over my cloak. And all my poisons, of course.
Lusca pressed a kiss to my forehead, then rose and bowed to me. “I told you, Empress, that anything you ask and that I can provide is yours.”
“With the exception of tentacles and other parts,” I teased, though my eyes were watering again.
He nodded and walked to the water’s edge, reaching down for a long moment. When he rose, he had a shell and something gold in his hand. He returned to my side, sitting cross-legged next to me. “This may take some time,” he said after a moment, his tone grave. Then he sang one word. “Sleep.”
When I woke up, Lusca was beside me as usual, but this time, he was asleep. He’d never actually slept in the past weeks, saying he didn’t need any more after the last thousand years or so. In his hand, he held the shell. It was attached to a chain that looked sturdy, but not fancy. It was actually hard to look at, my gaze sliding off the necklace like it was hiding.
