Shaking my head, I push her back and mime a choking gesture. The weight of my soaked cloak and boots makes it difficult to tread the water, and when Aria says to wait, panic begins to set in despite the way I try to push it away.We’re trapped here.
“I think they might be testing us to see if we’ll break the surface,” she says, her gaze holding mine.
I’m trapped here. The thought makes my lungs contract, every sensation abruptly feeling like it’s too much as I again struggle to kick upwards.
“Remember when I told you not to fight me? Now is that time.” She moves closer to me, keeping her hold on my wrist as she gets close enough for her chest to brush against mine. I jerk back, tugging on my hand as my heart flails in my chest, those spots in my vision growing while darkness creeps in along the edges. “I’m not going to hurt you.” It’s Aria speaking, I know it is. I watched her lips move. But her voice… it comes out like a song. A melody of notes that is as pleasing to my ears as any I’ve heard sung in the palace by performers. “I promise,” she adds, her eyes glowing brightly.
Then her mouth presses onto mine.
Her thumb gently slides along the sensitive skin of my inner wrist, eyes still boring into me when the tip of her tongue pushes against the seam of my lips.What the fucking stars above is happening? I keep them clamped shut, Aria’s face in front of me almost fully blocked out by the darkness invading my vision. My kicks become lazier, the weight of my body heavier as the thumping of my heart reverberates in my skull.
“Please, Myla,” she says against my lips, her own panic reflected in that ethereal voice. I don’t know if it’s her fear or my own that motivates me, but I submit and open my mouth to her.The moment her tongue sweeps in, caressing against my own, my lungs expand. There is no breath of air—there isnoair atall—but the sensation of breathing fills my chest anyway, the stars in my eyes slowly vanishing.Thisis the magic of the sirens. More than just luring males to them, they have the ability to keep themalivebeneath the water.
As the oxygen rushes into my system, it heightens everything around me. The coolness of the water at my back and the warmth of the siren at my front. The softness of Aria’s lips—the slickness of her tongue—each sensation bottoms my stomach out while simultaneously filling me with the primal urge formore. Aria makes a soft sound as her fingers twitch around my wrist, her lids lowering halfway while her body arches just slightly towards me.
This is survival, and I am only acting on my instincts when I plant my hands on her hips and tug her closer to me. It’s onlyhermagic that drives my tongue deeper into her mouth, desperate to know if that slight sweetness that lingers is how she tastes everywhere. It’s a lapse of judgement, one that blurs reality until there is only the feel of Aria in my hands. On my lips.
Suspended in the cold waters of this cave, time itself halts, bowing down to this moment between us that should be impossible. And then, like a punch to my gut, it all rushes back in. The palace guard and the dragon. My distrust of the female in front of me. My eyes fly open—I’m unsure of when they evenclosed—and I rip myself away from Aria, ignoring the way her eyes flutter open too as I kick my way up, gasping for a breath the moment my head breaks the water. She doesn’t stop me, surfacing a few seconds after I do, her gaze heavy on the side of my face as I scan our surroundings.
“Myla, I—”
“They’re gone,” I interrupt with a relieved exhale, kicking until I reach the platform.
“Do you need help—”
“I think you’ve done enough,” I snap, my back muscles contracting in pain as I hoist myself up, my clothing waterlogged and boots squishing as I come up to stand.
Aria is silent as she exits the pool, her transformation back to her mortal form happening behind my back as I ensure the cavern is empty on the other side of the platform. But when she speaks again, it’s the anguish in her voice that sends tension rippling over my shoulders.
“Myla, I’msorry. My magic— I didn’t mean to make you—” She exhales in frustration from behind me. “I thought I was only using enough to ensure you could breathe beneath the surface. Just enough to keep you alive.”
I press my palm into the curved blade at my thigh as I turn to face her, recoiling at theshameI see on her face. But on land,Iam the weapon.Ihave the advantage.Iam the onesheshould fear. Not pity.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, and my restraint falters.
“That is enough!” I brush past her as I barrel towards the rocks to climb down to the sand.
“No,” she rasps, rushing to keep up with me. “I stripped you of choice, and that was never my intent. I promised you could trust me and then—”
“I was never going to trust you, Little Siren,” I interrupt, jumping the last few feet despite the way my body protests. The salt from the pool has settled into the tender wounds at my back, and I breathe through the sting of it with gritted teeth. “We are done discussing this.” When I turn to face her again, her mouth is open as if she is poised to discuss it further, but a nearby roar silences her protest, her hand diving into the bag still strapped around her and producing the dagger I saw before.
I slide my own blade out of its sheath as we both peer to the sky above through one of the holes in the rock above. Whenthe skies remain clear, I step back from the opening and put my blade away. Aria still holds hers in her hand, her shoulders hiked towards her ears. I study it in her grasp, noting the longer, more slender blade that is similar to the one I lost in the Hiravar’s leg. “Never would have pegged you as a female who carries a weapon.”
She exhales an incredulous laugh, holding the blade out in front of her to show me. “I’m not usually.”
A line forms between my brows as I stare at the hilt, the off-white color tugging at a memory in my mind. I have seen a weapon like this before, down in the vaults of the palace where relics and treasures are stored. “That is a dragon bone hilt,” I whisper. It’s an item that was made before the war. Swallowing at the sudden tightness in my throat, I lunge for the dagger, easily taking it from Aria’s grasp. My gaze flashes up to hers as I spin it in my hand, pointing the blade at her while my next words come out as a low growl. “Care to tell me why thefuckyou have a dagger that belonged to my father?”
Chapter Fifty-Four: Bahira
Growingupasprincessof the Mage Kingdom, I never believed there would come a time I had to sneak around my own home. When I looked at guards and the council that surrounded my father with suspicion. When Iliedto keep another kingdom safe because the traitorous thing beating behind my ribs was more loyal to a male hundreds of miles away than it was to the people I had vowed to keep safe here.
Perhaps that is a hyperbolic way to describe the situation I find myself in—sneaking through darkened hallways that Ishouldn’tknow the location of behind the council and my father’s back—but unfortunately, the woman I once pictured myself becoming truly was nothing more than an illusion. A storybook character created by a younger me that thought if I worked hard enough, I would get everything that I wanted. Reality had a way of crushing dreams faster than anything else, and mine had officially died the moment I came to terms with the results of my experiments.
I, Bahira Daxel, am well and truly magicless. At least, according to my blood. I trap my breath in my chest at the silent declaration just as a figure emerges from the shadows cast by spelled flames flickering in sconces on the wall. That thought, as well as ones of Kai, gets pushed as far from my mind as possible, to be dealt with at another time.
“I know I shouldn’t be surprised that you were aware of the archives’ location,” the familiar voice says, mirth woven into his tone.
“Then don’t be,” I retort, adjusting my pack’s straps on my shoulders.
