“Listen to me, Gabriella, really listen to me. You have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to feel guilty about. As a Siren, no matter how you became one, you’re a force of the sea, just as I am. And like the sea, from which we derive our gifts, we are wild at heart, and deadly when angered. You say there were innocents aboard the ship you destroyed. How long were you aboard that ship?”
“Almost a week.”
“And in that time, did any of these supposed innocents attempt to free you or get a message to me or anyone who could come rescue you?”
He glanced in the mirror and saw her delicate brows draw together. “No.”
“Then they were not innocents, and they deserved their fate. You did what you had to do to free yourself. Had I been there, I would have slaughtered every last one of them, and their deaths at my hand wouldn’t have been as quick or as painless as they were at yours.” He met her eyes in the mirror and bared his elongated fangs. “I am a warrior of Calberna and a son of the sea, and I make no apologies for my nature. You shouldn’t either.”
“Easy for you to say. Their blood isn’t on your hands.”
“It isn’t on yours either. Their blood is on the hands of the Shark, Mur Balat, and the men who paid Balat to kidnap you and your sisters. Their blood is on my hands as well, before it’s on yours. Had I done a better job of seeing to your protection, you and your sisters would never have been kidnapped. You would never have spent a single moment in the possession of those vilekrillos.”
“I told you I don’t blame you for that, Dilys.”
“Don’t you? Alianashould be able to rely on herakuato keep her safe from harm, and I failed to do so.”
He had broken down the knot to its last few strands. With infinite care, he separated the last of the tangle and stared with aching sadness and a sense of vast emptiness at the smooth, vulnerable skin at the back of her neck, realizing at last what was at the core of the other tangle, the one wrapped around her heart.
“I failed you, Gabriella.”
He had come into the cabin determined to tear down the barriers she’d begun erecting between them again, determined to uncover whatever wounds her abductors had inflicted upon her so that he could help heal them. But if the root of the problem was that she had lost her trust in him—that she no longer saw him as a male she could rely on to be what she needed—then she no longer saw him as a male worthy of being her mate.
And, honestly, could he blame her? Twice now, Dilys had been measured on the most important scales there were, and twice now, he had come up wanting, unable to protect the females he loved. First, as a child with Nyamialine. Now, as a man with Gabriella.
Calbernan customs were wrong, it seemed. Not every male who earned theulumi-liawas truly deserving of a wife.
He picked up the brush and ran it through her hair, mostly to give himself an excuse to touch her one last time. He brushed her hair until it shone like smooth waves of black silk and the curls of it wound around his fingers and clung to his skin. Then he set the brush back down and took a knee before her, reaching out to clasp her hand as he looked into her beloved, beautiful blue eyes.
“Gabriella Aretta Rosadora Liliana Elaine Coruscate, I’m going to ask you one last time, and then never again. Will you Speak my Name? Wilt thou claim me as thine own?”
Her soft mouth trembled. The slender hands in his trembled. “Dilys—I-I...” She broke off, closing her eyes and clamping her lips tight. She took a breath, then a second. The fingers clasped in his squeeze him tight. Then they relaxed, her face relaxed, and her eyes opened, deeply blue and full of calm determination. She pulled her hands free of his. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry, but no, I won’t.”
He bowed his head, absorbing the blow to his heart, accepting its fatal finality. “Accepted.” Was that his voice? So hollow and raw? There was no blood spilling from the invisible hole in his chest, but he could feel it pouring out of him all the same. With great effort, he forced himself to stand. “Your pardon,Myerialanna.I will take my leave of you now, and set theKrackenon a course for Konumarr. I promised your sister and her husband that I would find you and bring you safely home, and that is what I intend to do.” He gave a final bow and started for the door.
“What?” Gabriella leapt to her feet. “Dilys, no!” She ran after him and grabbed his arm. “We can’t go back to Konumarr yet. My sisters are still out there. Mur Balat and the Shark took them, too! I can’t go home until I find them! Balat was planning to sell them, just like he did me. Everything the Shark did to me, he did to them. I can’t leave them to that. I have to rescue them! You have to help me rescue them!”
Her frantic fear beat at him. She might no longer trust him, might have rejected him as a potential mate, but he was still bound to her by the unbreakable ties ofliakapua.He had hoped to reestablish the closeness they had shared that day on the docks, when he set sail, hoped to use that connection to ease into the truth about her sisters’ fate. But that option was gone now.
He drew himself up and squared his shoulders. “Forgive me,MyerialannaSummer. There is no easy way to tell you this...”
She drew back, every part of her closing off in instinctive self-protection. “Tell me what?”
“Your sisters...”
“No.” She began to shake her head, backing away further still.
“We picked up the trail of the ship carrying your sisters over a week before your Shout. Every Calbernan vessel in the north Varyan joined the pursuit. We had them cornered. We were about to board them, when the ship... your sisters must have tried to use their magic to get free, and the ship exploded.”
“No.” She held up a hand as if as if to silence him, as if that could make his words less true. “No, Dilys.”
He couldn’t keep his distance, couldn’t stop himself from catching her hand, threading his fingers with hers as if he still had that right. “I’m sorry, Gabriella,” he said softly. “Your sisters did not survive.”
Chapter 24
“No.” Gabriella’s trembling lips pressed together. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision. “No, Dilys. My sisters can’t be dead. Theycan’tbe.” Her heart was breaking, the pain immense. They couldn’t be dead. Not Aleta... not Vivi. They were her sisters, her family. They were everything. “You must be mistaken. Maybe they weren’t on the ship. How could you be sure?”
Grief lined his face with deep furrows. “I’m sure. We found... we found—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “I saw the remains myself. There’s no mistake. They were aboard the ship when it exploded, and they perished in the blast.”
