Zane goes rigid—stone, steel, sin and fury. His breath hits the back of my neck like he’s been sucker-punched.
His mom smiles with absolute certainty. “It’s rare. Very rare. Your vibration affects him. Anchors him. Pulls him. Sirens call to the bones, to the blood. They make warriors go to war, and kings go to ruin.”
Zane steps forward like he’s afraid someone else might hear her. “Mom.” But his voice is hoarse. “Mama?—”
“You’re vibrating again,” she repeats.
“Mama. Stop it.”
“He vibrates when he’s in high emotion.”
“NO, I DO NOT,” Zane barks.
She pats his cheek. “You’ve always been sensitive to frequency, honey. Buther?She’s tuned directly to you.” She turns back to me, eyes softening. “Be gentle with him, dear. Sirens don’t choose their warriors…but their warriors die for them.”
And with that, she sweeps out to the mini fridge like a benevolent hippie ghost.
Silence.
Then Zane grips the bedpost, muscles flexing under the ink, breath ragged. He looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time—and the thousandth.
He whispers it, half-prayer, half-curse, “I knew it.”
My chest tightens. “Zane, that’s…not…” I pause because I don’t want to insult his mother but this? This is fucking nuts.
Especially when his eyes blaze silver fire. “You’re not leaving me.” It’s a refrain he emphasizes on a daily basis now. And I sigh as he steps forward, jaw tense, voice thick with something wild.“You hear me? After what she just said? After what you do to me?”
I swallow hard. “I didn’t do anything. And you don’t believe that…do you?”
He shakes his head slowly, like I’m the one losing my mind.
I can’t breathe. I’m dying. I’m actually dying of secondhand embarrassment.
Mama Draven returns and clasps my hands gently. “We’ll have dinner, you and me, do a thorough cleansing, darling. But I’m here for my boy. I must realign his energy field before he combusts.”
Zane snarls, “Mom, this is Ruby. And she’s not going anywhere?—”
Mama Draven cuts him off with a glare strong enough to exorcise demons. “You combust ONE TIME at the Staples Center and I realign you,” she hisses, “and suddenly you think you’re above a recalibration?”
Zane rakes a hand through his hair. “Holy shitting saints, save me.”
I giggle. I can’t help it, this is so surreal.
He looks at me sharply at the sound, and goes still.
Still like the first time I hummed. Still like something inside him locks into place.
“You hear that?” Mama Draven whispers triumphantly.
“She laughed,” Zane murmurs back, eyes devouring me softly. “And yeah. I fucking heard.”
Mama Draven smiles and fuck me but it’s the same gorgeous, mildly-deranged glow her son gets when he’s about to ruin me with either a kiss or a confession.
Suddenly I know exactly where Saint Sin learned to be sanctified crazy. He got it straight from this stunning, woo-woo menace of a woman.
I wake up to screaming.
Not literal screaming.
