Caroline turned her attention back to the siren. “I’m afraid I’ll also have to pass on your offer.”
“The human then,” the siren tried.
“Absolutely not.”
I no longer sounded anywhere close to friendly. A promise was in my voice as to what would happen if she continued to push.
She wasn’t the only one with sharp teeth.
Courtesy went out the window when you targeted one of mine.
“That won’t do,” she crooned, her voice rising and falling to an unheard melody. “At least one of you must remain behind as entertainment for me and my siblings.”
There was a barely detectable humming that underpinned every word, making it hard to concentrate. If my mental barriers weren’t so developed or my other sight hadn’t shown me what she was doing, there was a chance I might have fallen prey to the web she was weaving.
As it was, it took effort to martial my focus.
“I said no,” I snapped, sinking power into the statement.
The gossamer strands of the song she’d been trying to twist around me fell away as if they’d been snipped in half by an invisible pair of scissors.
Her sharp indrawn breath warned me she’d felt what I’d done. As did the outrage that bled away her beauty to reveal the monster underneath.
“I wouldn’t,” Nathan drawled.
He waited for the siren to look at him before gesturing with the bottom of his yard drink to Connor standing half concealed by the foliage, unnoticed until now.
His body was coiled and tight. His weight shifted just slightly forward as if waiting to spring. A notched arrow sitting on a bow string, anticipating the moment it was let loose.
“He gets a little irrational when it comes to her.” Nathan smiled, the tips of his fangs denting his bottom lip. “Then there’s what I’ll do if you lay a finger on so much as a hair on her head.”
I wasn’t sure the siren heard the second part of his threat. The fear on her face at the sight of Connor consuming all else. She dove beneath the water’s surface. A flick of her tail and she was gone.
“That was easy,” Caroline said, impressed.
Deborah looked around in confusion as the siren’s enthrallment dissipated. “What just happened?”
Nathan straightened from the railing. “You almost ended up as lunch. I suggest you be more careful next time.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a playground,” Caroline complained.
“It is. But I never said who it was for.”
In other words, this place was intended for the biggest, baddest monsters. The ones mostly whispered about for fear that speaking their names too loudly might draw their attention. Everyone else was just fodder for their amusement.
“Come on. Anton went ahead and procured us a table. We don’t want to be late,” Nathan instructed.
“More and more, it feels like we’ve put a paw in a hunter’s trap,” Caroline complained.
“Really? You’re just now getting that?” I asked.
I’d figured that out the moment we stepped on the plane to find Thomas waiting for us.
“Stuff it, Lena.”
I chuckled lightly, enjoying her sharp retort before turning my attention to Deborah. “You okay?”
The human was still staring at the pond where the siren had disappeared.
