Page 38 of A Siren of Beasts

And I—would not fail again.

The moment my foot landed in the sea sending a tidal wave of water crashing against the shore, my mind cleared. Could it be that the madness was trying to dig its claws into me? Was that overwhelming rage what it felt like to lose control over my mind?

Standing there knee deep in the sea under the light of the full moon I turned up my face and soaked in the magic of my surroundings. Maybe I’d been away from the water for too long, I knew that was going to take some time to adjust to being on land after slumbering for centuries. Cupping my hand, I scooped up a hand full of water and lifted it so it shimmered in the moonlight. As I stared into it, I thought of my Little Siren and needed to check on her, to assure myself she was okay. When her face appeared in the water it was full of sadness and longing as she was cradled in Rhun’s arms. He was reassuring her about something, but scrying never gave me more than a picture and I would have given anything to know what she was thinking. While I was gifted in telepathy, it wasn’t possible from this distance unless I shared a deep connection with the person.

A tentacle reached out towards her face as if to stroke her cheek reassuringly but all it did was ripple the water, ending the spell. With a heavy sigh I let the water flow out of my hand and return to the sea. I’d put that look on her face and I would have to fix it, but I knew the choice I’d made was the right one. The wave of jealousy, rage, and need had been warring inside so strongly that if she’d come any closer I would have lost all reason.

My Little Siren didn’t know how to be cherished, valued, and dare I say, loved. Those were things I wanted her to have, and me slamming her to the table and shoving my dicks into her wouldn’t have shown her any of that. The raven got to her first, he’d been obnoxiously vocal about his desires for her and when a raven picks his mate that’s it. Same with the hell-wolf, but in his situation there was already half a bond. In his maddened rage the bite that could have killed her ultimately saved her life. The instant he felt that first cord of a mate bond snap into place it had freed him from his madness, restoring him.

Now Milin and Moreth seemed to have wormed their way into her good graces. Not that any of us trusted either personality to have pure intentions towards Kezia. Even if she’d alluded to the fact they might be one of those she’d called to her, I wasn’t planning on leaving them alone together again any time soon.

“The guardian hasss returned,” a voice said, the tell-tale hiss on the S’s giving me an idea of what, if not who, was speaking to me.

Glancing over my shoulder I spotted the naga, his glittering eyes trained on me from the shadows of the forest. He could try to capture my mind with his gaze, but I was far stronger than him. It would be easy for me to turn his spell back on him if I wanted to.

“It seems much has changed since I was last standing here on the shores of our land,” I commented.

As one of the original creations, as well as one of the most powerful, it wasn’t odd for this naga to know who I was. Only those who were extremely young would think of me only as a story, if they knew about me at all.

“Yesss, but you brought even more changesss with you on your return,” the naga commented. “Isss that where you went, Guardian? Looking for the queen’sss heir?”

Now he had my attention and I turned to face him and adjusted my size so I could interact with him more easily. “What do you know of the queen’s heir?”

The naga let out a hissing laugh that filled the night air with the sound of it and made my tentacles twitch restlessly. Something about this particular naga pulled at my memory, but I couldn’t seem to place it.

“Hasss the madnesss taken your mind from you, Guardian?” With that he slithered out from the darkness and I saw the gruesome and ravaged body of one of the queen’s lovers. “I might not know about the girl, but I certainly know plenty about her mother.”

“Jiti,” I said, trying not to cringe at the sight of him. “What happened to you? The man who took Queen Lixera boasted he’d killed you all. It was what stole all the fight out of her, allowing the man to get the binding cuff on her.”

I might not have been able to stop what happened to the queen but I’d witnessed most of it. The queen had given me an order not to interfere and that things needed to happen as they were. She’d made me give my oath on the matter, making it impossible for me to do more than watch and fade into the sea.

“That bastard wizzzard did kill the other three of my brothersss and if it weren’t for the fact that I could ssslow my heart enough to make them believe I was dead, I would be too,” Jiti informed me.

The scars and warped skin where he’d been burned made him almost unrecognizable. If it weren’t for his distinctive colored scales in an iridescent green he could have been anyone. He was missing an ear, and one eye seemed cloudier than the other, making me wonder how well he could see out of it.

“How have you survived all these years?” I asked, frowning at the sheer willpower it must have taken to cling to life.

“Like you, I went into hibernation and healed ssslowly. When I awoke like thisss I knew it wasn’t all a bad dream. My Pearl wasss taken from me and the wizard left his damn curse behind to ruin usss. He’d warned her that if she made him take her by force he would make it so she never had anything to come back to,” Jiti snarled, his hands balling into fists. “That girl isss hisss offspring isn’t she.”

Shaking my head, I reached a hand out to him. “I don’t know, Jiti. She was left with humans on another continent and had no idea about monsters, magic, or who she really was.”

“If she’sss alive that means so is my Pearl,” Jiti muttered, looking around wildly. “We need to find her, my Pearl isss out there somewhere waiting for me to find her.”

My heart shattered for him. Not only did he lose his lover but his mate brothers as well who he’d spent over a century with living as a family. All of them loved the queen and supported each other, unlike what I was witnessing with the mates Kezia was gathering. Even still, I had to hope that over time things would get better so Rhun and Grieth could find a way to exist together.

“Jiti, the queen is not alive. She gave her life performing a spell that altered the future and placed her daughter ahead of her time on the steps of a whore house. Queen Lixera had seen how to fix all that had happened with the arrival of the humans. Her daughter is the key to freeing us from the madness,” I tried to explain.

The naga hissed at me, bearing his fangs so I could see the venom dripping from the tips. “Do not tell me that filthy human is going to save us. It’s because of them that all of this happened. If my Pearl gave her life for that thing then it just proves how far under the wizard’s spell she was. Tell me, Guardian, where is it that you’ve hidden her away, hmm? I will do it if you can’t, I will smile with glee watching the life drain out of her eyes, and know my Pearl would be pleased.”

White hot fury exploded within me hearing him threaten my Kezia. I didn’t give a shit if he was her mother’s lover at one point, the creature standing here before me was nothing but a twisted lost monster who needed to die. My hand snapped out grabbing the snake by the throat, and I grew until I was three times his size. Jiti’s eyes widened as he realized the danger he was in and tried to struggle, clawing at my hand, trying to free himself so he could bite me. His efforts were futile, he’d threatened my Little Siren and no one lived after doing that. She was mine to protect and I wasn’t going to be him. I wouldn’t play dead to save my own skin, because if I didn’t have Kezia there was no point in being alive.

“Your body isn’t the only thing that’s been destroyed since that day. That you could stand here and tell me that you’d slaughter your mate’s child with glee gives me more than enough reason to end you. Kezia is mine, and I will keep her safe from the likes of you,” I roared into his face as I squeezed tighter. “I think it’s time you left this world and found your mate in the afterlife. Tell her that you were going to kill the child she gave her life for, I’m sure she’d happily send you to hell.”

It didn’t take much more pressure to squeeze tight enough that the naga’s head popped off and landed in the water below. Chucking the body as far as I could into the sea, I knew his body would at least do some good feeding the scavengers. His life needed to end but it wasn’t good to be wasteful.

The sound of a slow clap had me returning my gaze to the forest. A figure stood there covered in a cloak with the hood up, hiding his face from me in shadow. When I reached out to test his power to see if I could tell what he was, I got nothing. Not the null feeling I got with humans, but a literal void, as if this being had no presence on this plane of existence.

“I’ve been searching for that snake for far too long. If I’d known finding my daughter and bringing her back to this hellish place would have done the trick, I could have saved myself some time and effort,” the phantom said.