Page 124

The doors slam open, and water rushes through first. It pours across the threshold in a wave that should soak the floorboards, except it never touches them. It rolls into the room several inches above the floor, curling around table legs and boots while every King backs away from it.

Nobody needs telling twice.

Last time they followed her song into the water, they damn near drowned for it.

The wave curling through the clubhouse suddenly pulls back toward the doors, gathering around a figure taking shape beyond the threshold.

Dark blue appears first through the mist, the long sweep of a dress untouched by the water moving around it. Pale hands follow, hanging loose at her sides, before Thessaly steps out of the fog with enough water rolling at her feet to flood the entire fucking clubhouse.

It never touches her.

Each step draws another swell beneath her, lifting to meet her before falling away, while mist curls around her ankles and her gray hair shifts gently over her shoulders. Thessaly takes her time crossing the threshold, her pale eyes drifting over the brothers already reaching for weapons, as if their fear is exactly the welcome she expected.

She knows every one of them remembers what her voice made them do last time.

And judging by the faint curve of her mouth… she likes that they remember.

Two Conclave enforcers follow her through the doors, tall women dressed in fitted black, silver blades riding low against their thighs. Their hair is braided tight away from faces that give absolutely nothing away, but it’s the thin line of iridescent scales running from beneath their ears down their throats that gives them away—Sirens.

Carnage reaches back without looking, his hand finding mine and pulling me in behind him.

Thessaly’s attention drops straight to our joined hands.

The faint smile already sitting on her lips deepens as her gaze moves up Carnage’s body, taking in the wall of pissed-off hellhound he’s planted between us before finally meeting my eyes.

She understands exactly what he’s doing.

Around her, weapons come free as the brothers close ranks, bodies shifting into her path until there’s a wall of Kings between her and the rest of the room.

Thessaly looks almost pleased by the welcome.

Then, she opens her mouth. “Kings.”

The word doesn’t come out in one voice. Harmony wraps around it, layer upon layer, somehow spilling from the same throat, some notes low enough to vibrate through my chest. In contrast, others climb higher, soft and beautiful, curling around the word until ‘Kings’ sounds less like something she said and more like something my body wants to follow.

Every muscle in me locks.

Carnage’s fingers crush around mine as the harmony spreads through the clubhouse, sweetening as it goes, pulling at something deep and instinctive that wants me closer despite every fucking thing I know about the woman singing it.

Across the room, Ruckus’ eyes lose focus, and I shake my head. “Don’t listen to her, cover your ears!” I snap.

Raze’s jaw clenches. Scar grips the edge of the table. Across the room, Wreck physically shakes his head like he can throw her voice back out again.

Thessaly’s smile widens. She hasn’t even fucking tried yet. And every person in this room knows it.

Raze is on his feet before she takes a second step. “We already told you—”

“This isn’t a request.” Her voice cuts clean through the noise, layered underneath with something that sets my every instinct on edge. “The Conclave has invoked siren birthright law.”

The words land in my chest like a fist.

“Under Conclave statute…” she continues, and I can hear how carefully she’s rehearsed this, every syllable sharpened before she ever walked through those doors, “… a siren’s voice, once identified as an asset of political significance, becomes property of the Conclave upon formal invocation. Echo’s voice was identified thirteen years ago. It has simply taken this long to find her.”

Property.

Carnage’s hand tears out of mine—for half a second, I think he’s pulling away from me—then he steps forward. His hellhound hits so hard beneath his skin that black floods his eyes, his shoulders widening as his hands curl into fists. His mouth opens, and I see the words form even though nothing comes out.

She’s not fucking property, he mouths.