Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
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The Sirens living in Hefeta were sadists.
That was the only thing I could focus on as I realized that the only way for anyone to enter their home by sea was for them to suffer through a near-fatal feat that left the visitors waterlogged, traumatized, and shivering from head to toe.
Inala hadn't let go of my hand from the moment we entered the water, but being plunged into the dark and deep abyss with a Siren who transformed in a flash of light that illuminated the mysterious darkness below our bodies at the bottom of the Strait of Barron, I suddenly wished for a less bright and attention bringing companion.
Because as soon as her light from the magic that transformed her body into her full Siren form encapsulated the depths below, I almost forgot that I was underwater and couldn't suck in a gasped breath in shock at what I glimpsed through the murky lens below us.
Bones.
Hundreds of thousands of alabaster bones littered the ocean floor, and they weren't animal remains, either.
I had just come face to face with a waterlogged skull before Inala's hand wrenched me away from the disturbing underwater graveyard.
I kicked and kicked my aching legs tight with cold and near frozen from shock, but still I propelled myself further and swam and tired to keep myself from blacking out altogether, either from the shock of the cold or the fact that there was so much death bobbing all around, I couldn't be sure.
We had switched directions and were no longer headed straight, from what I could tell, and instead traveled toward the direction of the divide between the Strait of Barron and the Gold Sea, but as soon as I realized that the plan was to retreat into calmer waters, my body decided to betray me.
My lungs burned and ached and despaired for even the tiniest bit of air, and yet Inala seemed to have forgotten that she towed along a mortal with Siren powers that didn't include gills or allow me to breathe underwater as hers did.
My chest, tight without air, stumbled and struggled to keep me awake and conscious even as the black spots crowding out my vision begged me to close my eyes just once, just to rest, even as the panic ebbed and flowed inside of me like a wave cresting to shore and then retreating back out again.
Tendrils of light entered the water in bright shafts that broke up the large expanse of ocean and illuminated tiny white flecks of debris floating around, capturing some of the less dense pieces of bone that floated right alongside us as Inala's strong body swished and sailed through the water, bright tail fins glittering in that small space of brightness.
My throat clenched, the dread and terror at running out of air only imploring the voice inside of me to attempt to rise from its slumbering home down deep inside of me, simply awaiting for it's time to awaken and seek out men for it's one and only purpose—killing.
