Unable to stop touching it.
What was that?
The question pounded through my skull like a drumbeat. I'd lived for centuries. I'd seen everything the ocean had to offer, storms that swallowed ships whole, creatures from the deepest trenches, the rise and fall of human civilizations on the shores above. Nothing surprised me anymore.
This girl surprised me.
I needed to tell the others.
I found them in the kelp forest, two leagues from where the ship floated above. Riven was hunting, I could see his crimson tail flashing between the fronds as he chased something too slow to escape him. Vale lounged on a rock formation, his silver hair drifting around him like a halo, his beautiful face tilted up toward the distant light. Thane was doing what Thane always did, fussing over a collection of shells he'd been arranging, turning each one to catch the light just so.
My pack. My brothers. The only creatures in this world I trusted. We'd found each other years ago, four alphas with no clan, no mates, no place where we belonged. We'd formed our own pack out of necessity at first, then out of something deeper. Something like family, though none of us would say the word aloud.
"Kaelan." Vale spotted me first, his blue-green eyes sharp despite his lazy posture. "You're back early. Did the ship move on?"
"No." I swam closer, and something in my expression must have betrayed me, because Vale sat up straighter. "Something happened."
Riven emerged from the kelp, a half-eaten fish in his clawed hands. Blood drifted from his mouth in lazy ribbons. His goldeneyes narrowed as he took in my face. "You're rattled. I didn't think that was possible."
"It shouldn't be."
Thane drifted over, his amber-brown eyes soft with concern. He was always the first to worry, the first to reach out. "Kaelan? What's wrong?"
I held up my hand. Opened my fist. The pearl caught the diffused light filtering down from above. It seemed to glow, even here in the depths. Such a small thing. Such an impossible thing.
"A pearl?" Riven's voice was flat with skepticism. "You're acting strange over a pearl?"
"A human gave it to me."
Silence. All three of them went still—that particular siren stillness that meant the predator inside was paying very close attention.
"Explain." Vale's voice had lost its lazy drawl.
So I did. The girl diving from the ship. Her strange fearlessness. The way she'd looked at me—not with terror or denial, but with something soft and wondering. The gift, freely offered, before she swam back to her world.
When I finished, the silence stretched longer.
"She gave you a gift," Thane said slowly. "A gift she found in the water. And she waved at you?"
"Like we were friends," I said. The word tasted strange in my mouth. Sirens didn't have friends. We had packmates and prey, and nothing in between.
"She initiated courting." Vale's voice was intense now, sharp in a way I rarely heard from him. "Kaelan. Do you understand what you're describing? She initiated courting."
I stared at him. "That's not—she's human. She doesn't know our ways."
"Does that matter?" Vale pushed off the rock, swimming closer. His beautiful face was alight with something I couldn'tname. "Among our kind, gifts given freely are the beginning of courtship. She saw you, found you worthy, and offered you something precious. That's the first step. The fact that she didn't know what she was doing doesn't change what she did."
"A human," Riven growled. He'd finished his fish and was cleaning his claws with sharp, agitated movements. "You're talking about a human as a potential mate."
"I'm talking about what happened. The ritual doesn't care about species." Vale turned to me, those shifting blue-green eyes piercing. "Did you feel it? When she gave you the pearl?"
I thought about it. The moment her fingers had released the pearl, the moment I'd caught it. The strange sensation that had flooded through me, like a hook sinking into my chest, like something clicking into place that I hadn't known was missing.
"Yes," I admitted. "I felt something."
"I want to see her." Thane's voice was soft but firm. "I want to see this human who gives gifts to sirens."
"As do I." Vale's lips curved in a smile that held nothing of humor. "A human female, diving alone in dangerous waters, who looks at monsters with wonder instead of fear. She sounds unusual."
