Maren’s pale, pinched expression made me pause, however.
“What is it, darling? Are you alright?” I came closer.
Her breath suddenly rasped in her throat. She jerked and grimaced as if punched in the stomach.
“Maren?” I grabbed her blanket and tore it away. It rained down onto the deck in a waterfall of glass shards.
The ropes of black pearls that densely covered her body tightened, digging into her skin.
“Kye...” horror flashed in her eyes.
“I’m here, Maren. I’m not going anywhere.” I hovered my hands over the pearls. Damned if I touched them, damned if I didn’t. “We’ll need to get Jahanam’s magic off you. But you’ll need to hold still, sweetheart. Very, very still.”
“Ahhh...” Air rushed from her chest.
She bent over, and I barely managed to jerk my hands away just in time.
“He...” she panted, “he won’t let me leave.”
Rage burned inside me. How dare anyone—a man, a fae, or a fucking god—even fathom that they could tear her away from me.
“He holds no power over you,” I growled. “Hecannothave you.”
She tossed her head back. Her neck strained. Blood rushed to her face. The two strands of black pearls looped around her neck just below the wide choker of white ones.
The white pearls allowed her to breathe underwater—a fairly harmless magic of siren hags.
The black ones belonged to Jahanam. He’d claimed her, as if she was his to claim.
“Get them off her,” I ordered the closest sailor of the group that had gathered around us.
The sailor happened to be a woman. With trembling fingers, she tried to yank at one of the many strands of pearls around Maren’s chest, but couldn’t even get a good grip on it.
“Who put them on her?” the sailor asked in anguish.
“One of the Ancient Ones,” I said, deliberately omitting Jahanam’s name—no need to send the crew into panic.
Still, the sirens around me gasped, then murmured in awe and trepidation.
“The divine magic cannot be manipulated,” Sagara said quietly on my left.
Of course if the god put the pearls on Maren, he certainly would’ve made sure no siren could remove them. Not anordinarysiren, that is.
Maren croaked, clawing at the pearls and her exposed skin alike.
“She can’t breathe,” the woman sailor warned in a trembling voice.
“If the Ancient One wants her to stay,” Sagara suggested, “I’m afraid the only way to keep her alive is to leave her in Lyrei. We’ll need to turn back before she dies.”
To leave Maren for Jahanam would be condemning her to a death more horrible than any of us could imagine. He’d use her in any way he’d find beneficial to him, then he’d suck her life force out of her, turning her body into one of his undead servants.
“I’m not leaving her,” I snapped at that preposterous idea.
I’d never give Maren up to anyone. She belonged to me.
Maren staggered to the side until her back hit the stump of the broken mast.
“Hold her,” I ordered the captain and his crew. “Keep her back pressed to the mast. Sagara, you hold her shoulders.” I pointed at the female sailor. “I want you to hold her head. You and you...” I picked two more sailors from the crowd. “Hold her arms and legs. I want her still. Perfectly still. Do you hear me? Use your fucking fae strength and don’t let her move a muscle.”
