“Hi,” I greeted the woman, keeping on the brightest smile I could manage without pulling a facial muscle. “The children are safe. His Majesty entertained them with hisgift.”
I figured framing the curse as a gift would make it sound less threatening.
“Oh, they entertained me too,” Kye chimed in good-naturedly.
“Your Majesty...” The woman bowed quickly, clearly torn between showing respect to her monarch and getting the hell out of here and away from him.
She turned to me and stopped, clearly unsure how to address me.
“I’m Maren. How do you do?” I introduced myself, offering her a hand that she didn’t take.
Instead, the woman lifted her daughter into her arms and clutched her to her chest tightly, as if she had just wrestled her free from some ferocious beast.
“Mommy, do you want to see my rock?” Leela twisted in her mother’s arms.
But the woman wouldn’t take her eyes off Kye, as if doing so would unleash his curse on her and her family too. Pressing her daughter to her, she carefully backed away from us.
“Later, baby,” she said. “We’ll look at it later. Come on, boys. Your parents are expecting you home too by now.”
Ushering the kids with her, the woman fled without even saying goodbye.
“Women used to flock to me instead of fleeing from me.” Kye lamented dramatically. “I must’ve lost my charm. Or is there something wrong with my looks?” He turned to me with an impish smile that failed to mask the sadness in his eyes.
The dying sunset streaked his hair with gold and burgundy. His brilliant eyes sparkled with the magic he was born with as well as with the one he’d been cursed with. A soft shimmer highlighted the dips and valleys of his perfect body, making his pale skin appear nearly translucent, ethereal. His appearance was unusual, without a doubt. But to me, it had the allure of a dream, far from the horror of a nightmare.
“I really wish there was,” I attempted a joke, but it came out too earnestly to be funny.
It disturbed me how easily I’d learned to read him, how deeply I sympathized with his sorrow, and how much I was drawn to him.
Running a hand through my hair, I turned toward the ocean to break the spell that looking and thinking about him tended to put me under.
A group of male sirens ran past me toward the water, laughing without a care in the world. The last of the group suddenly hugged my waist.
“Dance with me, beautiful,” he said in a soft, melodious voice that instantly put me at ease.
A low growl rumbled from Kye’s direction. But it only made me focus more on the other siren’s offer. He was a distraction. Someone who could possibly pull my mind out of the haze created by Kye.
I turned to face the man at my side. He had bright cerulean eyes, sun-bronzed skin, and an unruly mop of arctic-blue curls mussed by the ocean breeze.
“I can’t dance like that.” I tipped my head toward the siren’s friends who already twirled and jumped in the waves.
He narrowed those insanely bright eyes at me. “Ah, you’re not a siren, are you? A werewolf? I’ve never been to Sarnala. Only merchants risk going there now after Prince Kye’s carnage.”
“What carnage?” I blinked.
His eyebrows sprang up in surprise. “How do you not know about that? Prince Kye...I mean the current king, but he was a prince back when Queen Cordelia was still alive. He sent his friends to Sarnala on a full-moon night.”
“Why would he do that?”
He shrugged. “To test their courage? To prove to him how brave they were? They killed many werewolves that night. But the prince lost all his friends too.”
“That’s... That’s terrible.” Stunned, I could hardly find the words to express the horror rising in my chest.
Was that what Arnon was talking about in the great hall of the glass palace? Kye sent his friends to Sarnala on the night when the werewolves shifted to their deadliest forms. And for what? To prove their courage?
It made no sense. He wouldn’t do that.
Would he?
