“Why especially mine?”
“Because. You might be the only one able to stop our mother,” Lyre says, her smile tight.
I shake my head, eyes wide. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Sade asks, swimming until she’s right in front of me. “There is a reason you have this magic, beyond whatever sad excuse you’ve tried to tell yourself.” Her eyebrows arch as mine lower. “Practice feeling it in your throat. Calling it quickly. You don’t have to lure anyone, but youneedto ensure that it’s at your disposal when you do want to use it.”
Her gaze is hard until I relent with a nod, and since there isn’t much I can say after that, I bid them both a good night and swim towards my room.Surely, they don’t actually believeIcould control my mother. What I had done in that cavemusthave been a fluke, but even as I think the words, another voice within whispers that it wasn’t. I hadfeltmy magic in my throat. I felt it when I screamed at them to stop.My magic can control sirens. I hadn’t let myself think about it, let aloneacknowledgeit, since that day.
I continue down the dim hallway, my thoughts racing. Maybe Sade has a point. My experience with Myla when we were hiding from the dragon is evidence of my need to practice. I had thought I was only pulling on enough power to keep her alive. Then something had shifted within her. Her hands had gripped me harder, and the kiss changed into something…more.
But no. That wasn’t a conscious choice made by her, and the distance she is insisting stay between us is evident of that. Even so, I can’t deny that I’m excited at the thought of seeing her again. Of continuing my training. It feelsniceto have somethingto actually look forward to. I don’t notice the smile tugging on my lips until it falls when I come to an abrupt stop, my eyes connecting with a familiar pair of yellow ones, her matching braids floating around her head.
“Aria,” Lore says, her voice deceptively soft from where she is waiting in front of my bedroom door. “Where have you been?”
Panic thrums beneath my skin, kicking my heart rate up to a sprint as she approaches. “What are you doing here?”
She laughs, but the sound is edged with something dark. I move to slide against the wall, Lore at my front as she reaches out to tug at a handful of my braids. “What a silly thing to ask,” she says, her hand sliding down to the bare skin of my shoulder. “I’m here to see you.”
“I don’t—” I push away the knot of fear that threatens to make my voice tremble as I pull away from her touch. “I don’t want to see you.”
“Aria, don’t be ridiculous.” Moving in again, she pins me against my door with her body, one hand pressing into the glass by my head. “It’s been a long while since we’ve had some time together. You’ve been sobusylately.” She leans in closer, smirking at the way I draw back while her gaze traces over my face. “Don’t you remember how well we fit? How hard I can make you come?”
Heat rises to my cheeks with her words, but whatever embarrassment I feel from them is not enough to let her use me again. “Lore.” With a hand pressed to her chest, I push her back. “No. I do not want you to come near me again.”
“Is that right?” she grits out between her clenched teeth, canines gleaming beneath the light of the crystals on the walls as her shock morphs into something bitter. Maybe it’s the newfound defiance that Lore sees in my eyes or simply that I’m putting up a fight at all, but with a roll of her shoulders back, she nods. “Fine. Have it your way.”
I waste no time making my exit, turning to open my door into the darkness of my room. Except, I should have known that Lore wouldn’t give up so easily. She shoves me hard from behind, propelling me forward as her hands close around the outsides of my arms, talons pricking the skin.
“You think you can justleaveme, Aria? That you can cut me from your life?”
I jerk against her hold, spinning us around so I’m facing the open door.
“Let mego,” I growl, bending my arm and sending my elbow back until it connects with her gut. She lets out a grunt at the impact, and I dart towards the door, moving fast enough to pull one arm free of her grasp. The other isn’t so lucky. Her talons slice through my skin, the tearing of my flesh making me scream as she yanks me back towards her.
“You aremine, Aria.” Dark blue blood taints the water as I snap my tail furiously against her tight hold. “Yourbodyis mine.” I gnash my teeth at her, tears beading at my eyes as I retract my own talons and form a fist with my free hand. “Everything about you belongs tome!”
“No!” My cry vibrates along my chest, calling my magic to pool at my throat. It’s instinct—or newly formed muscle memory, maybe—when I turn and crash my fist into her jaw. The drag of the water weakens the impact, but the surprise that I’ve attacked her at all is more than enough to get her to release me. I lift my arms up in front of me, bending at the elbows as Myla’s voice screams in my head.Keep your guard up!My magic pools at the base of my throat, making it tingle despite how I try to swallow it down. I’ll be damned if I give Lore any more of me than she already has.
Her eyes are wide as she takes me in, the question written on her face before they leave her mouth. “How did you—”
But I don’t give her time to ask it before I lunge again. She dodges my first hit, my fist brushing across the tip of her nose, as the daze of her shock fades quickly. Lore is well-trained—even if she isn’t officially in the Queen’s Legion, her mother has ensured she can fight like them—but her growing anger fuels her movements. There is no finesse to her attack, just feral swings and swipes until she grows tired of the way I elude them. With a furious growl, she wraps her arms around my torso, pinning my own to my body as she begins to swim backwards, dragging me towards my bed.
“Stop fighting me!”
My bravado in this fight falters as terror pierces my chest. How can I get the advantage when she has me so easily in her grasp?Who are you willing to become? Gods,anything. Fuckinganything.I transform my lower half to legs, bending one at the knee as I lift it in front of me and then send it crashing back into her. Skin meets scales, and she growls at the impact, her hold on me slipping. So I do it again and again, our bodies propelled by my momentum away from my bed. Bubbles surround us from the flips of her tail and kicks of my own legs, and then her arms loosen, just enough for me to move one of my own.
I claw at her scales, sliding my hand up as high as I can to reach the soft skin of her belly. She bellows as my talons puncture her, pushing me away as her hand clutches her gut. I return to my full siren form and dart to the bag laying by my bed, quickly pulling the dragon bone dagger free and spinning to face her. Our chest both heave from our efforts, a veil of dark blue clouding the water between us.
“Go, Lore,” I manage to say, every muscle tense in anticipation. “Before I tell the queen you attacked her daughter.” We both know my mother holds no love for me, but then again,shehadspared me from death a few days ago. And Lore knows that too.
She studies me with her lips peeled back over her teeth, her fingers still curled in an attack position. Her eyes linger on the dagger before they travel over my body, not in the same lewd way as before but like she is searching for an explanation as towhothis version of me is in front of her. But then she winces, blood leaking beneath the hand covering her stomach. “This isn’t over,” she snarls before swimming for the door.
The moment she is in the hall fully, I close the door and lock it, my bottom lip trembling as I float in the water, momentarily bewildered by what just happened. For a long while, I don’t move, sure she’ll attempt to come barging back in. But when enough time passes that the muscles in my shoulders begin to ache, and the gashes at my arm stings in discomfort, I finally swim towards my bathroom, and search for something to wrap it with.
“Gods above,” I whisper while reaching for some gauze. I had fought off Loreand won.Ihad done it. Without help.Me.
A hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat. I defended myself, and as a pair of fathomless dark eyes flash in my mind, I realize that there is only one person in this world that I can’t wait to tell.
