Siren's Serenade (The Wiccan Haus) (11 page)

It was only when the sun began to peek over the edge of the windowsill that he realized that he had spent the entire night reading. And he still had half the handbook to go. There were more Paras in this world than Kaleb could have imagined, and now he wondered how many he had dealt with on a regular basis.

He skipped breakfast to take a much needed nap. Life on the island was significantly better when he wasn’t trying to follow their rules, but was able to just
be
. He was lounging in a chair on the porch of Serena’s cabin when Yavonka came to the beach at her usual time, looking for Serena, but she refused his offer to assist in her swimming lesson. They were in the middle of a conversation when she looked out over the water and turned white as a sheet and bolted back up the hill. Concerned, Kaleb chased after her. Following her, he was shocked to see that the woman’s arm, which originally had been cut at the shoulder, now seemed to have grown to just above the elbow. He made a mental note to ask someone how Yavonka had managed to regrow a body part.

Entering the lobby, Kaleb watched her slip into the elevator. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t have kept following her; the second elevator only worked for Paras, according to the handbook. As seemed her way whenever she was needed, Sage was there, and she came walking down the hall toward him.

After alerting Sage that she might want to check on Yavonka, Kaleb turned to head out when Myron stopped him. “Where’s Rekkus?”

“No idea. Why?”

“Dana’s in danger.”

They both turned to the door just in time to hear a tiger roar echo across the island.

Chapter Eight

S
ERENA
S
WAM
A
ROUND
the island, heartbroken. Kaleb’s face as she had begun singing burned in her memory, the look of devotion searing her soul. She couldn’t go back and face him now. Her mother had turned her out. Serena was adrift at sea. She
had
nowhere else to go. Bracing herself, she was just coming in to shore when she spotted Kaleb by the water, bag over his shoulder.

He cursed her and threw something into the ocean. As soon as it hit the water, Serena knew what that something was, their bond broken in that moment. He had thrown her tear back into the sea. She hadn’t expected any less and really didn’t blame him for it, but it still hurt. Whatever connection they had was severed, and she felt like she was bleeding out. Cemil had been right; unlike a Para, he had free choice and he had made his choice to turn her away.

She spent the rest of the night just swimming. She didn’t go to the other side of the island for fear that the boat would be gone and so Kaleb. Instead, she just wandered around the sea floor, angering more than one lobster and picking a fight with a sword fish. But in the end, Serena was drawn back to the island. She stayed well outside the protective fog wall, not that it mattered; the wall was easy enough to push through underwater—the one true weakness in the island’s outer defenses.

Debating whether to go through or not, Serena spent hours arguing it out in her mind. The pros and cons of never going back, versus standing up and fighting for what she wanted. She wasn’t even sure he was still there. And if he was gone, she wasn’t sure how she would manage the long trip to Alaska. If that was where he had gone.

Diving deep where the barrier was the weakest, Serena waited on the edge. She wished the Fates would make her decision for her one way or another. Something to tell her she belonged somewhere.

And then she felt the ripple: fear, anger, hatred—all coming through the water. So much confusion. But one thing was pure and clear: Dana was scared and she was in the water. Bursting through the barrier, Serena ignored the sting that came from pushing through the magic. Her only thought was that if Dana was in trouble, she had to help.

Coming into the bay, Serena saw two sharks circling around the outer edge. Serena moved quickly, calling to her sisters. She had sensed them in the waters around her last night and they couldn’t have gone far. As much as they didn’t agree with how she lived her life, no mermaid would stay away when a woman was in need. And there was a definitely need now. Serena could smell the blood. Not much more than a few drops, but the sharks were getting edgy. The Were-sharks at the beach were in human form, with their pet bull sharks circling as guards in the deep water, two inside the underwater protective barrier of the island and three outside the entrance the school had used.

“Serena?”
Serafina’s voice sang in her head.

“
Were-sharks have attacked a woman. I can’t get close enough to find out why; there are too many pets.”

“My favorite sport,”
came the voice of her youngest sister

Serena moved through the water toward the circling bull sharks. They were dumb, but extremely aggressive and mean; she needed to be careful. But she had to lead them out of the barrier. If her youngest sister was out there, then there were others; she never went anywhere alone.

“We have the three out here pursuing us. Now get us the ones in there,”
Serafina said with a bit of a smile to her voice.

Serena knew the best way to get their attention. She swam to jagged rocks in the deepest part of the alcove and scratched her hand across the sharp edge until specks of blood drifted into the water. She was unprepared for the first bull shark ramming her in the side with its blunt snout. Shaking it off, she just got her bearings back when the second shark aimed its attack at her. Pushing to the surface, Serena crested as the beast snapped its jaws. With an upshot of her tail, she knocked the bull back a few feet before diving deep again to move through the barrier. As expected, the fish followed only to be sideswiped by her sisters, knocking the sharks unconscious. Two more mermaids pushed the animals to safe spots to avoid them flipping over.

“
Thank you
,” Serena said, heading back through the barrier
“Stay close. I’ll be bringing some Were-sharks you don’t need to be as careful with.”

“We can come in and just kill them there.”

“No, no one must die in the Wiccan Haus.”
Serena knew enough about Cyrus to know he had seen too much death, and she would do what she could to keep the island a kill-free zone. That was, if the sharks played nice.

As she swam away she relayed her memories of her chats with Yavonka, assuring her that these Were-sharks would never make it much past the barrier alive. Time was running short to prevent disaster from happening either by shark or tiger.

Swimming close to the shore, Serena bided her time. In human form, Were-sharks’ senses were weak, but their bodies were physically strong. Rekkus was just reaching the beach. Lifting her head just enough to see what was going on, she saw a war about to erupt. Eight Were-sharks in human form guarded their alpha, who had Dana in his grasp—the same brute who had ordered Yavonka’s arm removed. The asshole held a large shark’s tooth to Dana’s neck. Already, trickles of blood dripped down her fragile skin.

“Well, well, well, the great Rekkus. It seems we each have something the other wants. Come on, kitty, face me like a man.”

Rekkus, normally never one to take an order, shifted back into human form, his rage radiating from him through the water with every step he took deeper into the surf. Serena could feel his anger growing into a storm of its own, pushing two of the Were-sharks back a step. “Let go of my mate.”

“You give me mine and I will give you yours. No?”

Serena sank back under the water; too many people on the beach now, someone was bound to give her presence away. She could still hear the conversation, but one of the un-shifted Weres had moved deeper into the water. She could sing to an unmated Were and still affect him. Coming up just behind him, she started to hum softly so only he could hear. He tried to struggle, but her song stayed the shift, leaving him defenseless and human. Pulling him along, she used her powers to allow him to breathe—something she had never done before. These powers were ingrained in her as a mermaid, but Serena had never used them, too frightened that she might kill someone. Now it didn’t matter if these Weres died; after what they had put Yavonka through and the fear they were causing Dana, she was going to let her family at them. Keeping the Were entranced, she led him to her waiting sisters.

“Seven more.”

Kaleb stood behind Rekkus, waiting for the word for him to strike. Rekkus was focused only on the creature with his wife. But Kaleb and Cyrus were watching the others around them. Lakshmi, the massage therapist, had shown up and shifted into her lioness form—that should have surprised him, but it didn’t. Sage and Sarka had stayed back to ensure Yavonka wouldn’t come down and put more people in danger. Cemil was at the other end of the beach, heading off anyone that came that way.

“Weren’t there eight of them?” Kaleb whispered.

Cyrus nodded and looked off to the side for a split second. Following the direction of Cyrus’s gaze, Kaleb saw her then: Serena. She came up, got the nearest man-shark’s attention, and within seconds, the man was gone. Kaleb shuddered to think where. But all Kaleb knew now was the numbers were even. Six to six.

“Perhaps, tiger, my aim is in the wrong place.” Dana’s eyes grew wide as he moved the tooth from her neck to her abdomen. “Perhaps if I threatened to remove your cubs and feed them to my pets, that would motivate you to bring what is mine.”

And then all hell broke loose. Rekkus shifted and lunged at the shark’s neck. Rekkus and Dana fell in the water with the Were-shark in a splash, while the other sharks moved onshore, each going on the attack. Their only thought seemed to be getting to the Haus to get their alpha’s mate. Kaleb had no idea what everyone else was doing, but he did know that this big freak before him didn’t have a brain cell to spare.

“You might be king of the sea, but this is land, asshole,” Kaleb said as the creature with hands the size of blacksmith’s mallets moved in to pulverize him. The Were-shark was slow and awkward, but Kaleb knew if the man hit his mark, he’d put a hurting on Kaleb.

Kaleb managed to out maneuver, until finally the taller man paused for air. Kaleb punched him in the chest, following with a roundhouse kick to the face. The man looked at Kaleb for a minute before his eyes rolled into his head and he fell with a
thump
.

Looking around, Kaleb took in the chaos surrounding him. Everyone was involved. One of the Wiccan Haus guards was severally injured and the other was doing her best to fight off the Were-shark coming at her. The Rowan brothers were holding their own scattered across the beach, and there were more Were-animals fighting the “sharks” than he had been aware were on the island.

In the distance he could see one of the thugs trying to sneak up on Rekkus, not something that would normally work if his attention weren’t on his wife. Kaleb was just about to jump in after the Were trying to get to Rekkus when a large tail came out of the water and smacked the shark almost hard enough to knock his head off.

Serena surfaced and looked at him. “Help Lakshmi.”

Kaleb turned to see the lioness backed into a corner. Her dark eyes were the same in both human and lion form. Grabbing a piece of drift wood, Kaleb pulled back and swung at her aggressor. One strike took him down, the board cracking in two.

Only then did he see Cyrus pulling Dana from the water. She was bleeding, pale, and looked ready to pass out. Rekkus and the shark leader were nowhere to be found. The water was eerily quiet for the next few seconds as everyone held their breath. Then Rekkus surfaced in human form, hitting the surface with a fist. “Damn it!”

“Get out of the water!” Cemil yelled.

But it was too late. Everyone saw the gigantic dorsal fin surface with the caudal fin swishing behind. Rekkus closed his eyes, bracing for the impact. What happened next seemed to play out in slow motion: the shark rammed into Rekkus, pushing him through the water as the big man beat the shark on the head. But just as Rekkus was pulled under, two mermaids jumped out of the water like dolphins in an amusement park show and dove back in. One was Serena, and the other Kaleb recognized from the lake the day before. The water churned wildly, pink with blood. Kaleb was waist-deep in the water before he knew it, the only sounds seeping in were Dana’s screams as she fought to get free of Cyrus and back to Rekkus.