Page 8 of A Siren of Beasts

Yes, it was better to sleep, to let time pass by. Maybe one day my soul would return to the sea where it had been created and given form. This would be a better fate than to be thrown into madness without our queen to soothe the monsters that we were. The day she was removed from our lands and taken on a ship, the sea fought to keep her. Never had a storm been so violent and filled with rage—until now.

The water pulled at me urging me to awaken, but I resisted. Having no concept of how long I’d been asleep, there was no way to know what the world above was like. Better to stay here in the depths where the madness couldn’t get to me.

As if the water knew my thinking it swirled around me and dragged me out of my cave, forcing air into my long dormant lungs. It tugged at my tentacles and forced the sand under my feet to shift, forcing me to take a ground shaking step. Begrudgingly, I opened my eyes and the world around me came into focus. The rock formations around me had changed, leaving my surroundings unfamiliar. Opening my mouth, I let out a high pitched sound letting it echo off the surfaces around me, giving me a map of my environment.

The gills on my neck fluttered as I took a deep reviving breath. My tentacles twitched and fluttered around my face, displaying my agitation. Clearly not appreciating my process of acclimating myself to being awake, the water shoved me in the back in an effort to keep me moving. Growling, my claws flexed at the tip of my fingers as I rolled my shoulders and neck after having been curled up in my cave.

Shoving off the sea floor, my webbed hands and feet helped to propel me through the water in the direction I assumed I was supposed to go. When I veered off track I got hit with a current knocking me on course. Never had the water been so demanding in its needs of me. I’d been its guardian since my first memory but without our queen, and the humans overrunning our lands, there was no purpose for me anymore. Clearly, this had to be something of utmost importance for it to pull me from my slumber.

As I journeyed, the water became shallower and the turbulence above was obvious. The water warmed from the near freezing temperature I’d been used to, being so far away from the sun. To most, this would still be far too cold for them to handle, but I was created from the deepest soul of the waters when the world was created. There was nothing about the water that could harm me aside from fellow monsters who lived in it as well. Most knew it was a fight they would lose and left me to my own devices. Being the only of my kind that I’d ever heard of, there wasn’t another true threat to my life, unless I was on land. Away from the power that created me I was hampered by the restrictions land put on me.

Moving swiftly through the water, I spotted a ship sinking and couldn’t help but smile knowing it would be one less vessel full of humans to destroy our lands. Not that they were close, but I cursed the day they’d discovered they could float across the water, invading every facet of our world. It wouldn’t have mattered but they came to our land and stole our queen, leaving us to destroy the world we’d created in our madness.

Catching a hint of an alluring scent I paused letting the natural current slowly pull me along as I searched for the source. Taking a deep breath, I caught more of the enticing scent that had me leisurely following its trail. It was lush like crushed amber, rich with a subtle musk, and silky like the petals of a lotus floating on the water. The more I smelled it, the more I needed it. A hunger built low in my belly, the likes of which I’d never felt before. It was as if I couldn’t decide if I wanted to eat whatever delectable smelling thing this was or free my cock from its protective pocket to fuck it.

Then in a flash of light, as if nature itself was ensuring that I could find what I was looking for, the water lit up for me to get a clear view of the scent’s origin. All thoughts of eating or fucking fled from my mind as I surged forward, understanding it was coming from the blood seeping out of her body. Gently, I caught her in one hand and used my control of the water to create a bubble around her and breathed air into it. We sank to the sea floor and I shifted her so she was cupped in my massive hands. My tentacles desperately wanted to reach out and touch her to know what her skin felt like under their touch, showing me just how possessive I felt about this stunning creature.

She wasn’t human, even though I could see how red her blood was as it pooled in my hands. Reaching out to her mind with my own, I caught flashes of her panic and fear that she was dying. Then I also caught the faintest sound of a song she was singing in the soft recesses of her mind. It was a song calling out to the water to save its lover, to claim her so she’d never have to return to the human world above.

This was why the water called me. It was heeding her wish, desperate to fulfill her pleas as it once had for our queen. Looking more closely at her, taking in the sight of her alabaster skin, stark black hair, and the power that hummed deep within her body, had my brain kick starting. I’d been asleep for so long my memories of when I’d last been awake were slow to surface, but now they came crashing to the forefront, it had me groaning in pain.

Images of our queen flickered in my mind’s eye and there was no mistaking it. This woman I held in my hands was an offspring of our queen. Where she’d had white hair to match her skin, her child had black. Yet the power I brushed against was what assured me this woman had our queen’s blood in her. Using my magic I did what I could to stop the bleeding, but ultimately all I could do was create a temporary barrier over the skin to stem the flow. She would need a healer and I wasn’t that. Worse off, I didn’t know where to find one anymore. It might be best to get her to one of the human villages and let them tend to her while I reacquainted myself with the world as it is now.

Using all my strength, I swam as quickly as I could back to the lands that I’d once watched over. It was odd to be returning now with this woman in my care, when what caused me to leave was her absence. Each time I checked on her it seemed her breathing was getting shallower and shallower. The beat of her heart slowed and I feared I’d been too late getting to her, having ignored the water’s call.

Desperate for her to hold on, I entered her mind once more and spoke. “Don’t give up now, Little Siren, we’ve been waiting for you to return.”

Her breath seemed to hitch as if she was surprised but a hand latched onto one of my fingers as if to prove she wasn’t giving up.

Returning to the waters around the lands I’d left was exhilarating, as much as worrisome when I saw how the landscape had changed. So many of the trees had been chopped down to make room for more villages. Ships docked in a port, making me grit my teeth and fight back the instinct to crush them all. As the water became shallower I accommodated my size so I went unnoticed until the last moment when I had to step out of the water. While still larger than a normal human, I wasn’t going to attract attention with the night casting shadows. My flesh was dark gray, making it easy to hide, but the woman in my arms was like a beacon.

Where my skin seemed to meld into the darkness, hers glowed with the touch of the moonlight. I felt my magic fading the further away from the water we got and her wounds started to bleed once more. Her scent was ten times stronger now it wasn’t diluted in the water. It made my cock press against its confinement even as my mouth watered to taste her. No longer did I want to eat her, it was more the need to explore every inch of her. The power in her blood sang and I yearned to take some for myself but I held firm, resisting the urge.

As I came to a large wooden wall where a village used to be, I paused. My sense of smell was almost non-existent here on land, but the rank odor of humans permeated from the other side of the wall assured me they were still there. As a cloud covered the moon I dashed forward and placed her at the entrance.

“Don’t worry, Little Siren, I’ll keep watch,” I assured her as I brushed the damp hair out of her face. “You have to survive, the sea finally brought you back to us.”

Tearing myself away from her, I hurried back into the shadows of a small thicket that allowed me to watch her as I promised. As I waited it seemed no one was going to notice her and I almost went back to get her but then a torch could be seen on the top of the wall as a man walked along it. That’s when the moon broke free of the cloud and shone directly on her. The man on the wall spotted her and rushed to the edge looking down. There was a shout and more people appeared. Finally, the wall opened up and two men came out with torches looking her over before more shouts and she was taken inside with the wall closing behind her.

It was time for me to get back to the water and take stock of our lands. It was clear I’d been asleep far longer than I’d thought with how the land felt under my feet. Trees were much older, the shore had been worn away, creating a deeper inlet than it’d been when I left. Back in the water, I enlarged my body so I was standing waist deep in the inlet. I gave into my previous urge to crack the ships in half, ripping the docks out of the ground, letting them join the ships they once moored.

If the queen was back then it was time I resumed my purpose in life. I’d failed the last queen, but I would do everything in my power to empower and protect this one.

five

Pain was my first thought as I seemed to come back up to the surface of my mind.

Why did everything hurt so much?

Even breathing hurt, but it let me know I was alive. Shifting, I groaned as licks of pain raced through my body at the movement.

“Shh,” a woman crooned above me. “You’ve been terribly hurt and lost quite a bit of blood. It’s a miracle you’re still alive at all.”

While the woman was speaking words I understood, she seemed to have a strange accent. Drawing out certain words and cutting others short, making my brain have to work harder to filter through what she was saying.

Something was pressed to my lips. “Here’s a bit of water for you.”

Opening my mouth slightly, I let the cool refreshing water wash away the salty grit that coated the inside of my mouth. It took far more effort than it should have to swallow and keep it from spilling out of the corner of my lips but the woman just dabbed gently with a cloth, drying me off.