Page 45 of A Siren of Beasts

“Right, so your thing is more important so I’ll let you talk first,” Imp decided, sitting back in his chair and tapping his talons as he waited for Hisceas to share.

“What do you mean the wizard is back?” Moreth demanded. “How can a human still be alive? They can hardly make it to surviving fifty years, let alone hundreds.”

Hisceas shook his head. “I don’t know how it happened but there is no doubt in my mind the man who spoke to me on the shore was the man himself. He was powerful enough to project a ghost image of himself from wherever he’s been all this time.”

“How does he know about Zia? No one but us truly know who and what she is,” Rhun challenged.

“According to him, any offspring they have when they come into their power or magic the parent can feel it. It’s a way to know when to begin training or so he said, not that I believe much of what came out of his evil mouth,” Hisceas grumbled. “Jiti, one of the queen’s lovers and a naga, found me on the shore when I went to clear my head. I believe part of my problem was the madness trying to get its claws in my mind. I’d waited too long to reconnect with the water. It’s been so long since I’ve been on land like this that it’s going to take some time adjusting.”

Moreth snarled and snapped a vine in Hisceas’s direction. “No one gives a shit about all that, get to the part about the wizard.”

To my giant’s credit, he just narrowed his eyes at the ent, but turned his attention back to me ignoring the outburst. “One of the reasons the wizard could steal the queen was because he told her he’d slaughtered all her lovers. Since she’d never bonded with any of them there was no repercussion on her for their death, like there would be for you if something happened to either Grieth or myself. That is an important part of this, since Jiti should have been dead but instead, he came to confront me about you, Little Siren.”

“Me? Why? What reason would he have for finding me?” I asked, utterly confused at where all this was going.

“He was tortured and brutally beaten, to the point he should have died. His mate was stolen from him and he hid away from the world to slowly recover. Unfortunately, he didn’t really recover, his body might have healed but his mind was forever lost by the pain he went through. In his mind, you were a threat and proof that the queen must still be alive, so he wanted to find you and kill you,” Hisceas explained, leaving me shocked.

“Kill me…” I repeated, my mind whirling trying to figure out the logic in that choice. “But my mother isn’t alive, so what would be the point?”

“As I said, Little Siren, his mind was broken,” Hisceas reminded me. “Nothing about what he was saying or how he was processing things made any sense. So, to protect you and to put the poor naga out of his misery, I killed him. That’s when the wizard made himself known, stepping out of the shadows.”

“Why didn’t you try to kill that bastard as well the moment you found out he was going to come after our female?” Moreth snarled, shoving out of the chair to get in Hisceas’s face. “Why did you wait so long to tell her? You knew about this before you trapped her into bonding with you. Was this your plan? Keep this a secret then tell her when she couldn’t reject you for failing to take out a threat to her life?”

Shoving out of Rhun’s hold, ignoring his warning growl, I cut in between the two monsters glaring at each other. “Stop it, Moreth. I won’t let you speak to him like that, not when he is the one person I can say without a doubt always puts my safety first. I understand that you also want to keep me safe, but going at each other like this isn’t helping anyone, least of all me. If I can’t trust the four of you to be around each other then how in the hell are you going to be paying enough attention to protect me from something else?” I challenged, hands on my hips. “Well?”

The second I’d cut in Moreth retreated but he hadn’t taken his gaze off Hisceas until now. “How can you believe that when he’s just told us there is a threat out there looking for you he knew about and didn’t share with any of us?”

“Because I’m going to reserve judgment until I know why he did that,” I countered. “Maybe if you hadn’t just assumed he was at fault and let him share everything with us you would have your answer already.”

Moreth opened his mouth to argue but something in my expression must have tipped him off on that not being smart, so he shut it. With a growl at my guardian, he took his seat once more, then snapped his branches out to wrap around my waist and pulled me to him. I let out a yelp of surprise as I found myself in his lap. Struggling to sit up from where I was sprawled against him, I batted away his vines that seemed to be checking on me.

“What the hell?” I snapped, glaring at him. “If you wanted me to sit with you all you had to do was ask. It’s clear you have a solid concept on how to speak, so why the need for the snatch and grab?”

“You didn’t seem to mind when the mutt did the same thing, so is it just me you don’t like? Should I change to Milin, will that make you feel more comfortable spending time with me? Or do you not feel a connection with me like you do them? Am I to be like your mother’s lover that you keep around but don’t want to be tied to?” Moreth demanded, his words coated with self loathing and anger.

The whiplash and subject change had me reeling for a moment before I found my footing. “You know out of all four of you I wouldn’t have picked you to be the one to be so insecure,” I stated bluntly.

Moreth jerked back like I’d just slapped him. “I’m not insecure, what I want to know is if I’m wasting my time being here when you don’t seem interested.”

“Riigght,” I drawled. “Not insecure at all. Did you forget I’ve spent my whole life dealing with insecure men?”

“I’m not human,” Moreth muttered as he scowled at me. “Do not compare me to such inferior and brutish beasts.”

Letting out a sigh, I rested a hand on his chest. “Moreth, you’re going to need to give me some time, and I might just point out that you haven’t once really made your intentions known to me. Milin has expressed that there’s interest but he’s not pushing anything. When I said the two of you are so utterly opposite, I didn’t realize just how true that was.”

“I told you I found you attractive,” Moreth argued, as if that should have cleared everything up for me.

“So that should translate into I want to be your mate?” I asked, bewildered.

“Yes,” he stated. “Was there something else I should have said?”

“Gods, I think it might be possible that you are even more clueless about how relationships work than I am. How about we agree to work on getting to know each other better? The challenge with you is that it’s not just you, there is Milin too. Mating one of you means mating both of you and I need to know that’s what everyone wants. Milin believed he wasn’t going to be my mate but a guide and then my mother appeared out of nowhere and told him that wasn’t true. Plus, I feel like I need to trust that the four of you aren’t going to kill each other in your sleep,” I expressed, praying to the gods above that he would understand what I was saying.

Moreth released his hold on me and I slid off his lap. He seemed a little lost at what to do but nodded before Milin made an appearance. He blinked a few times and took in our expressions. “What did he do now?”

His tone was so exasperated I couldn’t help but smile. “Moreth is learning some new skills and he’s not enjoying being put in his place,” I shared. “Nothing for you to worry about, but I feel a conversation between the three of us sooner rather than later might be a smart idea.”

Walking over to the sofa I sat next to Rhun who put his arm around my shoulder and nuzzled my hair. “You okay, Zia?”