Standing in front of Kye, I wrapped the beads around my left wrist when someone suddenly bumped into my legs frombehind. Caught off guard, I lost my balance and would’ve probably fallen forward and died on Kye’s lap had he not jerked his arm aside, yanking at the string and changing the trajectory of my fall from forward to sideways.
I fell on my hip onto the sand. Slightly bruised but alive.
Kye jumped to his feet in alarm, then quickly sat back on the rock again and crossed his legs to hide his “magnificent cock” from view.
“Sorry, my lady,” a thin voice sounded above me. “He tripped me.”
“No, I didn’t!” another almost identically squeaky voice argued.
I sat up, finding two little sirens standing over me. They were like two miniature porcelain figurines with identical shoulder-length golden curls and white knee-length sarongs. The only difference between them appeared to be that one had minty green skin, and the other one was of shimmering dark gray, like a black pearl.
“She’s just clumsy, that’s all,” the minty-green little creature accused.
“I’ll tell Mom you pushed me,” the pearlescent gray girl sulked.
“Are you siblings?” I asked.
The girl giggled. “No. He’s my cousin.”
The kids looked like they were about five or six. A bit too young to be wandering on their own this late, if they were humans. But maybe it was acceptable for sirens? Either way, there didn’t seem to be an adult nearby who would claim them.
“Why don’t we all move a little bit that way?” I shooed the children away from the king with his deadly touch, shifting a bit farther from him myself as far as my “leash” allowed.
The girl eyed the string of beads that stretched between Kye and me.
“Are you selling him?” she asked.
“What?” I choked out in shock, while Kye laughed.
“Father bought a kelpie the other day. He brought him home on a rope like that,” the boy explained.
I glanced back at Kye. “You have kelpies?”
He nodded. “Farmers and merchants sometimes use them as livestock, to gather seaweed or transport goods underwater.”
“Well,” I smiled, turning back to the children. “Kye... I mean King Kye isn’t a kelpie. And no, he isn’t for sale.”
At the sound of Kye’s name and title, the kids’ eyes grew almost as big as the pearls in the great hall.
“The cursed king!” they exclaimed in unison.
“True, but he doesn’t mean harm.” I expected the kids to run away in horror anyway.
To my surprise, the girl shoved her hand into the pocket on to the side of her sarong and produced a striped rock.
“Is it true that you can turn things into glass?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
The evidence of that was the rock he was sitting on. It’d turned to glass the moment his naked butt touched it, but he didn’t mention it. Probably not wishing to bring the children’s attention to his naked ass.
“Can you turn this rock into glass?” The girl thrust her hand his way.
Nervous for her safety, I stepped forward to stop her from coming too close.
“It’s a very pretty rock,” Kye said, leaning forward for a better look. “See all these colors? They’ll be gone when it turns to glass, just like these beads.”
He lifted his arm with the string of beads in demonstration.
