Sirens revenge, p.1
Siren's Revenge, page 1
Contents
Siren's Revenge
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
SIREN'S REVENGE
An Urban Fantasy Siren Story
Sabetha Danes
COPYRIGHT
Siren’s Revenge
Published by Aconite Cafe
P.O. Box 63
Marble Falls, TX 78654
www.AconiteCafe.com
Copyright © 2021 Sabetha Danes
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
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Cover - Created by Aconite Cafe.
CHAPTER ONE
THIS WASN’T HAPPENING. It wasn’t real life. I had to be stuck in a dream, or maybe one of the other factions had cursed me. We were at war with Lykaios, and anything was fair game during war—not that any of them knew I existed. How would they? The last time I made a public appearance with my family was during my mother’s pregnancy announcement—pregnant with me, that is—thirty-six years ago.
Oh, Mom. Images of her mutilated body draped over her bed flashed across my mind. Half transformed, rib cage ripped open, heart missing. My father’s head across the room from his own corpse, as if the killer had slit his throat, then hit one out of the park with his dismembered head. The dried blood splatters on the wall, and horrific facial expressions were frozen in my mind for eternity. I let my thoughts grasp hold of my being, my chest tightening the longer I lingered in the space that had been their healthy lives.
No, get it together, Cordelia. You’ll be back in the water soon enough.
I couldn’t go down this road, not again. The walls of the dressing room closed in around me. Panic rose in my chest. I looked around for someone to comfort me, but I was alone. The white room, with only a clothing rack, a vanity, and a full-length mirror, echoed my lonely sobs.
Our faction needed me to be a pillar of strength, but I didn’t know how to be one. The only thing I was a pillar for was Nicole, the other half of my soul. Where was she? She said she’d be here. I pulled a tissue out of the box on the vanity, wiping my eyes, attempting to clean up the damage done to my makeup. Deep breath in, deep breath out. I could do this. I just had to get through this ceremony, then I could fall apart and mourn.
A light knock sounded at the small dressing room. “Come in.”
Alice, my mom’s—no, my—assistant, poked her head in the door. “We’re almost ready for yo—oh no, you’ve been crying again?”
I looked through her, barely registering her words. They were always nonsense anyway. Do this, Cordelia, sit here, blah, blah, no one wants you to be queen, but you’re what we got. She had a faux stroke when she saw what she was working with earlier this afternoon. My silver, chest-length, thin, damaged locks and sunken eyes from a sleepless night swimming around the coves did nothing to impress her. I didn’t help matters by spending the first few hours crying. It took miracles to revive my pale face, though makeup couldn’t fix my drawn expression.
She hurried over, shutting the door behind her to fix my face again. “You’re going to have to stop this. Tears are not for royalty.” Over the next thirty minutes, as she refreshed my makeover, she said the words “worst nightmare” and “how can this be Derya’s daughter?” multiple times.
While my family had spent their days attending to the court and duties of siren royalty, I had focused on simple pleasures in life. Friendship, exploration, living life knowing I would never ascend to the throne. But here we were, getting ready to walk into my coronation. My body wanted nothing more but to be out of these clothes and to be swimming carefree through the coves surrounding Lake Marble Falls.
“Snap out of it, Cordelia!” Alice slapped both of my cheeks simultaneously.
I looked up at her, shock written across my face—the nerve of this woman! A million things crossed my mind to say to her, but I could only mumble something that had nothing to do with anything she spoke of. “Where’s Nicole?”
“Who?” she asked as she pulled me to my feet, adjusting the wretched dress that had been forced on me. Someone had used at least five of their twenty-four-hour human-leg allotment driving into Austin and searching for a dress worthy of a coronation, and it made my heart hurt. Somewhere in my family’s estate, there had to be a suitable dress. It didn’t need to be hunted down. I winced at the memory of Alice’s cackle when I told her to find something in the closet for me to wear.
“Nicole. Where is she? I told the guards to let her through when she arrived.”
I squirmed as she adjusted the capped sleeves of the purple dress. The sequins itched my shoulders, and I couldn’t wait to get it off. How humans lived restricted to their modest mindset, I never understood. The thought of not having to worry about clothes or being embarrassed about the naked body left me longing for the lake.
Though I had to admit, as much as I hated it, the dress suited me perfectly. Floor-length, with sequins starbursting from the bottom of the lace top layer, thinning out as it reached my knees. Purple strips of ribbon ran from the waist to the floor, glimmering blue as the light hit them right. The base of the dress offered tribute to our watery home through the sequins and ribbon, as it resembled many of my favorite things in the lake: various fish and shell shapes with small pearls to accent throughout.
“Oh right, that must be the trollop I sent on her way.” Alice stepped back and gave me a once-over. “You’ll have no time for that foolery. You’re a queen now. It’s time you start acting like one.”
Without giving it a second thought, I raised my hand and slapped her across the face, backing up out of her reach once the connection caused her to stumble back. If I was truly queen, then I deserved respect. Who did this servant think she was, speaking to me that way?
I was the one who’d lost my entire family in one gruesome murder. I was the one being forced into a life I didn’t ask for. Me. Not her, not the guards, not any other person in our faction.
Alice looked at me with disdain, touching her face where a red welt spread across her cheek. I’d never resorted to violence before, but I’d also never had a reason to. My entire family dies, and this woman is stuck on what will the sirens think? I don’t give a shit what the sirens think. I am who I am.
“This is the last time you will speak to me in such a manner,” I said. “I am not your charge, nor am I a child. This is my coronation and my faction. Is that clear?”
She stared at me for an agonizing minute, blinking, but I didn’t relent. For the first time, I looked her over, taking in her disgruntled appearance, and wondered just how much time she spent out of the water. Did she only stay wet the required forty-eight hours, just long enough to get her legs back and continue to dictate the law around the estate? Her gray hair needed tender loving care from the lake instead of the tight bun she kept it in. I’d never seen such a dark and empty stare as hers. But I held eye contact for as long as it took her to let out an exacerbated sigh and agree to my terms.
“Good,” I said. “See to it that Nicole is located and brought to me before the ceremony begins.”
“Yes.” She turned and headed to the door.
“Yes, what?” I asked, just to spite her.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” She gave a curt bow and exited the room.
I let out a sigh and went back to the full-length mirror to admire myself. I was Queen of Drakos, of over one hundred sirens, spanning from the Gataki Dam to the Drakos Dam. I could do this.
* * *
As I paced the small room, I could hear the banquet hall filling up with members of our faction. With the ceremony being the only last-minute coronation our faction had ever performed, I did not expect that much of a turnout, but it sounded as if everyone had come out of the water to witness who exactly planned to take over.
Growing up royalty had been a different experience for me compared to my brother and sister. With two older siblings on their way to the throne, there was no need for my surprise arrival to change their lives. Thinking of them didn’t bring the gruesome memories bubbling to the surface, as it did with my parents. The guards had spared me from seeing their bodies and those of their children. Who would take out our entire lineage? If this was the direction the factions were moving to rid themselves of each other, I did not want to partake.
A knock at the door brought me out of my thoughts. I glanced over to see Alice step into the room. “Your Majesty, may I present Nicole of Drakos.” She spoke and bowed her head with more pomp and ceremony than I’d seen in my entire life.
What a farce, the absolute nerve of her. It took everything in me not to take my festering anger out on her by grabbing her bun and showing her exactly what that type of behavior would get her in the future.
As visions of slamming her head into the vanity toyed with my emotions, I said, “Send her in,” keeping my tone and face neutral.
Since discovering my new lot in life, Alice had been nothing but overbearing, from organizing the ceremony to dictating my schedule for the next few days to me. I thought she only ever dressed my mother, but it seemed like she ran more of the show than I realized.
Nicole walked through the door and froze upon meeting my eyes. Instead of stepping forward, sh
“That will be all, Alice.” I spoke without taking my eyes off Nicole, her giddy disposition close to explosion.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Alice bowed again before leaving us. “Ten minutes.”
We stood there frozen in the moment, waiting for Alice to close the door behind her. The pain of the day lessened the longer I took in Nicole’s appearance. She was a sight for tired eyes. I had missed her lavender locks that curled when they were out of water, and where had she been hiding this beautiful seafoam-green formal dress? It complimented her body perfectly.
“Cordelia,” she whispered, tears staining her eyes.
I ran over to her and embraced her. While less than six hours had passed since the intrusion of royal guards demanding I come with them, my heart said it was a lifetime ago. I longed for her comfort and supportive words.
“I’m so glad she found you,” I whispered in her ear. “I worried you went back into the water without me.”
She pushed away from me, giving my full body a once over. “And miss this? Never.” After another quick embrace, she continued, “After that witch tried to send me away, I parked myself in the seat closest to this door, so I would be the first to see you come out. She tried to tell me my services were no longer needed. Like she even knows you.”
I let out a sigh for the millionth time since meeting Alice. It was more than I’d sighed in my entire life, but words escaped me, my emotions were numb, and I just wanted to go back to the previous day when everyone was alive and thriving in their own lives. The many firsts for me overwhelmed my mind, creating too many threads of thought. Tears welled up in my eyes, and Nicole wiped them away.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “Don’t smudge your face before you have to face the faction.”
“Don’t remind me,” I groaned, attempting to blink away the tears threatening to push through. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Well, I know you, and I say you can. It’s in your blood. You’re Cordelia Drakos, Queen of the Drakos Faction, and you’re going to kick ass at it.”
“As long as you’re by my side.” I gave her a light smile and took her hands into mine, pulling her closer. She returned the smile and leaned her forehead against mine, whispering a barely audible “always,” allowing me to continue my train of thought: “Would you consider moving into the estate with me?”
She looked up at me in shocked excitement. “Is that allowed?”
“I’m Queen. Doesn’t that mean I can do what I want?”
“I’d say so, but what do I know. I don’t have the first clue about the laws of our faction.”
“Me either,” I said, laughing for the first time that day. “We can discover them together. If you’ll have me, that is?”
“A thousand times, yes,” she said, picking me up and spinning me around as I braced my arms on her shoulders. Once she slid me back down, and my feet touched the floor, I kissed her, letting the entire shitty day melt away from my bones, sinking into her embrace, and return kiss.
In our moment of ecstasy, we did not hear the door open or the few times Alice attempted to clear her throat. Finally, she half yelled, “Cordelia,” before I glanced over at her, and removed myself from Nicole’s arms, and smoothed my dress out. “It is time.”
I glanced back at Nicole, whose face had turned a bright shade of red, and we shared a smirk before I walked forward to follow Alice into the banquet hall. Because of the uncertainty of the killer and the current war we were in, Alice rented the event center along the lakeside of Marble Falls. No faction could use their magic outside of water, and there were extreme laws against displaying any type of aggression in front of the humans. While she was about the most unpleasant person I’d met yet, she knew a thing or two about keeping our people out of harm’s way.
Once I reached her, she whispered, “That is the exact behavior we will address this week. As the only royal, you will need to pick a male spouse from one faction we are not currently at war with. Unless your kiss can end five years of bloodshed? Your sisters couldn’t.”
Before I could respond, she opened the doors wide, and the rows of sirens turned back to see their new Queen. Many gasped and whispered as I walked the aisle, head held high, not letting them get to me. Their lack of knowledge only helped me, no prejudgment, and more time to better figure out my place in the lake.
CHAPTER TWO
TO MY HORROR, Alice informed me on our ride back to the estate after the ceremony that the guards had cleaned none of the estate from the massacre. She had delegated the royal staff to coronation duties, leaving the blood coating from the rooms and grotto for later in the week.
I stepped in the front door to an eerie silence. No laughter of children at play, no people bustling through the house with a faction to run. Just the wind howling from a looming storm and silence. It chilled me to my core as Alice pushed past me to get on with whatever else she had to micromanage. With Nicole gone to our bungalow—miles away from the estate—I could only stand awkwardly in the entryway.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Alice said, coming back into view. “Let’s get that dress hung up.”
I followed her obediently, unsure where to push back or go along with her guidance. Many things she said to me in the last twelve hours were out of line with my standards, but I wondered if she had spoken to my mother that way. I needed more information before dealing with her and a clearer state of mind.
The estate sprawled across five-thousand-plus square feet. Two main levels held the human living quarters and entertainment areas. Two more levels were sunken into the cliffside, the bottom level a grotto that fed back into the lake. The family had spared no expense when constructing the place, and from a boat's view, humans would never know the home held sirens. Since all sirens slept in the water, the house only featured two beds—a master and a guest—plus a bedroom-sized walk-in closet for the family. The other three rooms upstairs held offices for the family and staff.
We walked in silence from the entryway through the large room for entertaining, with floor-to-ceiling windows along the far wall and lush lounge chairs with side tables for eating in leisure as they discussed business or hosted parties. I followed her through the formal dining room, then into the industrial kitchen with a more intimate table. These rooms offered breath-taking views of the lake and woodlands across the way. It was still hard to grasp that I owned the house. Once on the other side of the kitchen, we went up the secret stairwell to the first room at the top of the stairs.
I thanked my lucky shells it was only the closet. The visions of blood splattered across my parents’ room crept back into my thoughts. A shiver ran through my spine, and I hurried into the room. I didn’t want to see it in person again, though pushing the images out of my mind proved to be more taxing than I could handle. I took deep breaths and stood still while Alice disrobed me, hanging the elegant dress in with the others. She placed the shell necklace worn by my mother at her coronation in the vault at the far end of the room, along with the matching earrings. Only having seen the jewelry in photos, having the pearl-filled pieces on my body added to the day’s dream state.
Would Mom have been proud of how I handled today? Did she even think of me in her final thoughts?
“You may go,” Alice said, not bothering to make eye contact with me. “Please stay in the grotto this evening. I will retrieve you early to start your lessons.”
“Lessons?” I asked through tear-stained eyes.
“Unless you think you’re informed enough to run the faction without assistance?”
I remained silent, unsure of how to respond or what lessons entailed. My school days focused more on math and language than on running the faction. Life skills, not negotiation skills, were my specialty. Lessons couldn’t hurt, especially if they shed light on whether I could find a new Alice.
“I thought not,” she said. She continued to organize around the closet as if my family would return from a long vacation any day now.
