I’d done this before, but not many times. We Lugh Sirens tried to keep our lives among humans as uncomplicated as possible, but sometimes things arose, such as family, land, and politics, and you had to do what needed to be done. If anyone threatened my family, I had no problem making them disappear. Family came first, before all other things.
Making people “disappear” was easy in a town plagued by drownings, and in a bit of poetic justice, I was going to make Parker’s death look like a drowning-suicide over his broken heart.
When I pulled in, I saw Skye had left the door ajar, and my chest tightened as I imagined her fleeing the place, tears streaming from her bonnie eyes, pain shadowing all her features.
“I willneverforgive you for this.” Her words crept into my mind, sharpening the ache in my heart.
Why had I even come here? She’d asked me that more than once. What had I been planning to do? I wasn’t sure exactly. All I knew was that I wanted to make sure he never hurt her again.
When Sirens give their heart to someone, it’s as if a tiny part of it has been branded with that person’s name. We call it a Tidescar because the tug on the heart is akin to the pull of the tides.
I’d fought my feelings for Skye, but as everything unfolded here with Parker—seeing her pain, her strength—I had let my guard down and allowed my heart to swell with love. A violent pang tore through my chest as I walked out the door, and that’s when I knew I’d let her in.
A Tidescar can be torturous. It can form even when love is unrequited.The bond clicks into place once we open our hearts and never loosens its grip. Not if the person lies. Not if they cheat or hurt us. When we’ve given away a piece of our Siren soul, no matter what happens, we can never take it back. The good news? We can form more than one Tidescar in a lifetime. And with time, we learn to guard our hearts—to wait until we’re sure the love is returned before letting the bond take hold.
I’d slipped up when it came to Skye.
I rolled Parker’s body into the tarp and tightened the rope around it. Then I put on a pair of plastic gloves and shook out a garbage bag, picking up anything that suggested a struggle had occurred here.
I’d only borne one other Tidescar on my heart. It had formed ten years earlier, and though she was long gone, the scar remained—a subtle ache when I thought of her, like the tide pulling me from a distant shore where she still stood, to where I was powerless to return.
After that, I’d sworn off love. I was careful not to scar again. And it had worked until Skye had turned to me with tears streaming down her face, and the attraction I’d been fighting for her had exploded into something primal.
I threw the garbage bag in the back of my truck and returned with a bucket, kneeling on the floor to deal with the blood. It was everywhere and had congealed across the polished stone like spilled sauce.
I sponged away the blood, wrung the cloth out into the bucket, and then soaked up some more. I wiped my sweaty forehead with a gloved hand.
My legs were stiff when I finally rose and surveyed the stone floor for any traces of red. When I found none, I coated the space with bleach. Exhaling, I pulled off my gloves and loaded my stuff into the back of my truck. It was time for the setup.
I unlocked Parker’s phone and flicked open a music streaming platform.What would a douche like Parker listen to before committing suicide over a lass? I put the whiniest track I could find on repeat, blasting it from the stereo.
The music wound around me as I pulled Parker’s finest scotch from the liquor cabinet and emptied it down the sink, leaving the bottle and a glass on the elegant living room table.
I left the door leading to the cliff face ajar, padding into the expansive bedroom and walk-in closet where Skye’s things still hung, fighting against the feelings seeing her clothes and the bed they’d slept in together evoked.
I tossed Parker’s jeans and shirt near the doorway, making it look like he’d stripped them off in a rush before running toward the cliff. Then I sank into the couch and picked up his phone again. I opened the message thread with Skye—there was a heart beside her name, and her display picture was a photo of her blowing him a kiss. I had a feeling she’d set it herself, but the sight of it still twisted something in my gut. Had she unwittingly created a Tidescar for Parker?
The urge to scroll through their messages gnawed at me, but I resisted. Instead, I began typing the words of a desperate man—messages he might have sent her.
I love you, baby.
Come home, I can’t live without you . . .
It has been torture with you gone, a torture I can no longer endure...
I am sorry. I had to do this. I love you.
I wiped the phone clean of fingerprints before placing it beside the empty scotch glass on the coffee table. Writing the messages had come easily, like I was speaking to her, saying the things my heart yearned for.
I leaned back into the couch, allowing a bit of my allure to radiate through the house so that when the authorities arrived, they wouldn’t smell bleach or blood, just the faint scent of honey and heather. Then I gatheredParker’s tarp-wrapped body into my arms and hoisted it through the glass doors and onto the cliffside. The wind howled around me, my muscles straining under the weight. I took one breath, then dove.
My Siren form rippled to life, obsidian scales glinting across my chest and forearms, wings splaying before I hit the water. Gills flared along my neck as I dove deeper, my legs merging to become an onyx tail, which beat against the current.
I unraveled the tarp as I sank, laying Parker’s body on the ocean floor, my tail keeping me afloat. I tucked him between some worn rocks and tangled seaweed at the cliff’s base. I weighed down his drifting clothes with stones, anchoring him so he wouldn’t float to the surface.
Blood bloomed into the dark water, and a slow grin curled my lips. Soon, the sea’s wild beasts would come. And if anyone did find him, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to guess how he’d died.
What a night . . .
