“How come this call of mine doesn’t affect you?”
“Who says it doesn’t?” he purred, and I slapped his arm. The teasing smile never left his face as he shifted to look at me. The small light filtering in from the windows set the platinum in his hair aglow, and I held back a girly sigh.
“The truth,” I insisted, breath catching at the look in his eye. “Is it some witchy repellent you wear that makes you immune?”
Or a spell, maybe? Eryn said he liked his crystals, so possibly a special rock that strengthened his constitution?
“You’re already the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he proclaimed, as his rich, blue gaze took in my every reaction. That heated stare lingered on my mouth before continuing down my neck, my shoulders, all the way to my shitty pedicured toes and back up again. “The fact that you’re shiny now is just a perk.”
It took a moment for that to register, and then, “Shiny? I’m shiny?”
I glanced down at myself, but didn’t notice anything different. My skin was the same pale it always was, no chance of tanning it, but I wasn’t a fucking lighthouse beacon or anything.
“Like a cute little disco ball,” came Ezra’s reply, right before he booped me on the nose.
Static spark.
The tap stung, and I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose as I pulled away and rubbed at it. He watched me with amusement,his thumb running over the finger he poked me with, like the shock made his skin tingle as well.
No matter what happened outside these walls, and despite my now-itchy nose, for the first time in a while, I felt a stirring of happiness. The rage that smothered me day in and day out was now only a low simmer, easy to brush aside and ignore, and I wondered if I just needed something big enough to take my mind off it, or if it had something to do with the man beside me.
CHAPTER 4
Ezra
What a fucking day. I’d been on the receiving end of a siren’s call once or twice before, but the effects were subtle and from a more experienced siren. Their call was a gentle nudge, not this sledgehammer Rani whacked around campus. If I were anyone else but her bond, that call would have made me a mindless groupie like the rest of the horde. Only worse, because I was already obsessed with her.
I glanced over to where she sat curled against the opposite wall. After our brief moment of peace, she distanced herself once more and hadn’t tried to speak to me again. I wished she would. Her voice was my favorite sound, even when it was screaming at me, and the silence it left in its wake was smothering.
She had a faint, lingering glow, so her call was waning but still on. Probably because a few hours had passed since she touched the ocean. It was a working theory of mine thatanycontact with water, but especially the ocean, enhanced a siren’s power. There was no way to know for sure without testing it, or downright asking—and sirens were notorious for being secretive—but I’d come to this conclusion from watching Rani bumble around like a newborn foal. Poor girl, she really had no idea about anything. She hadn’t even recognized her own magick until she felt mine up close.
What the hell has she been doing these past few weeks?
Eryn said she was figuring things out on her own time, and I thought that meant at the very least she was explained the basics and then left to her own devices. But that out there was a cluster fuck of the highest level. So much clustering of fucks. Like, it was actuallyillegalfor a siren to use their influence like that. There were some humans still outside, scratching at the wooden door like hounds put out for the night.
Maybe it was a scent thing. Could sirens attract by scent, too? I covertly raised my nose but couldn’t smell anything over the ripped bag of mulch next to me.
“Did you justsniffme?”
“You’ve got some strong voodoo, babe,” I said, and watched closely for her reaction. “They haven’t set eyeballs on you in hours, and they’re still trying to get in.”
It was impressive, really. But she looked annoyed rather than proud of her strength. That’s fine, I would be proud enough for the both of us. I always knew my bond would be powerful, but seeing it firsthand was sexy as hell. Too bad her call didn’t work on me. It would have been fun to see her try and boss me around with it in bed.
“Maybe that proves it isn’t me,” Rani finally responded after staring at the barricaded door a little too long. “Maybe the djinn are behind it all, and it's a new plot to get back at us.”
She seemed both terrified and resigned to the idea. I knew she still had nightmares about the djinn kidnapping her, Eryn said they woke her every night, and I wanted nothing more than to scoop her up in my arms and reassure her that those assholes would never lay hands on her again.
“The djinn can set illusions but not control minds, that’s Eryn’s forte. And unless they set an illusion of you doing a naked jig on the roof, it's your very real, delicious ass that’s drawn them here in the first place.”
No giggle. Not even a smile. Rani glared at the door like both our explanations sucked, when clearly one was far superior. She put up that wall again. That’s what was happening here. Her anger was so potent I could almost see it in the air, like little fireworks.
“I’m just saying, maybe it's not,” she grumbled.
Denial. Stage one.
“And how would you explain what happened down at the beach?” I pointed at her arms in challenge. “Are those scratches from the tiki bar then?” She shrugged, but moved her hands to cover some of the more obvious marks. I sighed. “You’re going to have to accept it sooner rather than later. Nothing will even begin to go back to normal until you stop the fucking pity party, face this new you, and conquer her.”
Oh, I had her attention now. She glared at me, and I raised a brow. It may have been harsh, but she needed to hear it. The nightmares, her uncontrolled surges of magick, the ‘fuck you’ attitude she carried like a shield… she needed to get a hold of it all. She needed to let someone close enough to show her how.
