“No. He promised to keep her safe,” Arlo said.
“He does, we both do. As long as we do asshesays. This is what I was trying to avoid, because now that will include you.” Calypstra, Catarina, whoever she was, stood so near Arlo it made me want to vomit.
She tried to kill me.
She killed his entire crew.
She was a monster.
But now she looked like a woman, broken before a man she ferociously loved.
Calypstra tore off a piece of fabric from the hem of the black dress she wore and brought it to Arlo’s mouth.
“I watched her kill you,” Arlo stammered.
“The sirens brought me back to life. But nothing could keep me from our daughter.” Her voice caught painfully on the wordour. “It wasn’t long until the queen caught me visiting her. She held Cate over my head. She made me use my newfound powers to help her manipulate the young siren leader into starting a war with King Eadric. Now her trap is set.”
Hylos would attack Oakhaven and fall into the queen’s trap. He would give them reason to take more sirens. But for what?
They gave her another chance at life, another chance to seeher daughter. Nymphaea saved her! She betrayed them all to do the queen’s bidding instead of trying to stop her. Instead of fighting.
I struggled against the water over my mouth, wanting to call her every nasty word I knew. The sirens saved her.
She turned on me, hatred burning in her eyes. With a movement of her hand and a sickening clamor of song, the water around my mouth swallowed my skull. I floundered under the weight. The water forced its way into my nose and mouth, swirling in my ears.
Arlo’s voice was distant and rounded. “Catarina, stop, please.”
The water fell from engulfing my head and splashed around me. The cold Oakhaven wind nipped at my cheeks.
She turned back to Arlo, “I didn’t know you were the captain of that ship, Arlo. Ced’s kept you a secret since the day you left. If I’d known, I never would have sent the sirens to it. Even if the queen told me to.” She hardened. “When I read the crew’s minds, I realized they knew your true identity. The queen’s son in hiding. I kept it a secret for as long as I could. Kept the other sirens away from their minds as well as yours. But Hylos, he was getting impatient, and it was only a matter of time before he sent someone else to wade through their thoughts if I kept coming up empty-handed. They would have learned who you really were. I had to—I had to kill them. To keep your identity safe.”
I almost felt sorry for her.
But the look on Arlo’s face was pure hatred. “You’re a fucking monster.”
Calypstra’s mask of misery returned. She nodded affirmatively, agreeing, and worked the fabric over his mouth.
He didn’t fight her, just glared as she tied it over his head.
She turned to me. “Stand up,Princess.”
I caught my breath and spat at her black-finned feet. “I am not afuckingprincess.” She turned and slapped me hard across the face.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
My cheek burned and I gasped while staggering to my feet, but her water seized me instead, pulling me inches from her face.
Calypstra smiled, exposing her sharp canines.
“That’s right. You’re not a princess. You. Are. Nothing.”
Through the pain and blood trickling from the corner of my mouth, I forced a smile. “Yeah well, at least I’m not a jealous fucking bitch.”
Hard-faced, Calypstra tied the gag around my face tightly.
Arlo and I rattled in the carriage at a repetitive tempo that drove me mad. Both gagged and bound, we couldn’t speak. But all I wanted to do was ask him question after question. An off-timed bump in the road shattered the percussive pace, slamming me into Arlo, who didn’t even look at me. As if I was the liar.
But he was. I’d told him exactly who I was. I was honest, and he still deceived me. I re-thought every interaction, searching for missed signs. Each time I’d known unsaid words lingered on his lips. How he flinched at learning Cedric was my betrothed. Maybe I was a fool for not piecing it together sooner, but he was in the wrong for not telling me. The most mind-bending piece was that I, of all people, would have understood wanting to be someone else.
