The Siren Series 1: Ember (3 page)

Con thought rapidly. Exotics were a fraction of
the vampire race that hailed from the deep Saharan deserts of the
northern hemisphere and as far east as the Orient. He had met few.
That he had a dollop of that ancestry within his own genetic
make-up was a mystery. He lifted his shoulders then let them fall
without comment.

Desmond ran a hand through the match of his
sister's hair in mild frustration. “You are Exotic, Druid and Mer
and you were not aware of your lineage?”

Con nodded. “I am very aware of the Druid bits,”
Con added with a sweep of a hand down his body, “the physical is
the tell.”

Desmond chuckled. “That and the random
protective urge with a female.” His eyes met Con's. “That you would
give anything not to have I presume.”

You presume correctly,
Con internally
agreed, saying nothing.

Desmond circled the table, his index finger
trailing the table top behind him. He stood behind his sister,
Ember staring at him blankly.

A female Con had taken blood from.

He swallowed, thinking of the bloom of flavor
her blood had made on his tongue and heard the dry click of his
swallow.

Suddenly, Desmond put his hands around his
sister's throat and Con reacted, his small palmable dagger, stood
under the tender spot of Desmond's chin. It had been so fast he
hadn't even thought to move, yet he had.

Another typical way that Constantine led his
life- reactively.

Their eyes met and Ember's breathing was ragged.
“Brother, what are you doing?” she asked with his hands around her
throat.

“Gauging his readiness, my sister.”

“Do it another way,” Ember said and a small
melodic note escaped her mouth and Desmond grimaced, his hands
falling away as Constantine stood down, a drop of blue blood
coating the very tip of his blade.

Desmond's eyes fell to that tip then his hand
went to his own throat, coming away smeared with navy-colored
blood.

Constantine hissed at the warriors that would
lay hands on his person. “You were slow, back off,” Con said in a
level voice.

Desmond gave a slow clap. After several tense
moments he stared at Con. “Very good, Faction. You were chosen
well.”

Desmond's eyes narrowed on his sister. “Do not
use your Siren's call against your own flesh and blood.”

Ember glared right back. “Do not make it so I
need to, brother.”

Interesting sibling interaction
, Con
thought, looking at the two.

Constantine liked the moodiness and animosity he
sensed between the two. It might prove useful later.

Desmond broke eye contact with Ember, turning
once again to Constantine, neatly changing the subject.

“This treasure has been stolen from the deepest
sea beds. It has medicinal purposes for our people. If it is not
retrieved...” Desmond spread his hands away from his body.

Con instantly switched mental gears. “Who is
taking it?”

Desmond's eyes shifted to his. “The human
robbers.”

Constantine palmed his chin, deep in
thought.

“Why does my Exotic blood matter?”

Desmond looked again at Ember. “We were hoping
that you could use the telepathic abilities of the Exotic to locate
this precious material and Ember would not need to leave the safety
of the caves.”

He sighed, raking his hand through his hair
again. When Desmond splayed his fingers and fisted his hand, Con
noticed the webbing was there as well. Constantine looked at his
own webless hands.
At least he'd been spared that indignity,
he thought.

“How am I to guard her? If she roams amongst the
humans?” Con said, pointing to the ridiculous breathing slits that
layered his throat three deep on either side.

Desmond smiled. “Yours may disappear once you
are inland far enough. And as for my dear sister,” he looked at
Ember and she scowled, “she can pass for human. She does not
possess gills outside of the seawater and only her feet have
webbing. And I may add, not sufficient enough to notice.” He said
that last on a sniff.

Con almost rolled his eyes. He was entirely not
interested in their bullshit Mer politics.

“Fine,” Con said in a curt voice, bored. “Ember
will locate the sea...”

“For you it is seaweed, for the humans it is
something to harvest illegally for their drug trafficking,” Desmond
clarified.

“Really?” Constantine asked, stunned. Some sea
plants were what? The next heroine?

“It is lucrative, difficult to trace and the way
they have been raping our ocean floor, exceedingly inexpensive to
harvest.”

“So the humans are getting high on your seaweed
and you're pissed? You'll use your sister as a divining rod to find
your crap.” Constantine met his eyes in aggravation. “Is it worth
her life?”

Desmond nodded but it was Ember that spoke,
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “I cannot heal my people without it
and our meat dies with its decimation.”

Constantine looked at the beings that he'd
aligned with. The trouble was not lost on him: the humans had taken
their sacred plant, the thing that the animals they ate for food
also consumed. It was a circle that was now broken.

Con folded his arms, however, some things never
changed. “What's in it for me?”

Ember looked away, clearly embarrassed. “You
will seek the maidens as well.”

“What?” Constantine stepped forward, suddenly
interested.

Desmond answered, “We have few maidens left.
Ember is the last that possesses' the magick of our people. She is
able to call forth the Mother with very little effort.

Constantine whirled on her. “It was you!” he
accused. “You are the one that called the ocean warrior!”

She grinned. “Yes, it was I,” she answered,
pleased with herself.

“Humph. I do not think we need more females like
her,” Constantine said then added in a dry voice, “even if she is
quite tasty.”

If looks could kill, he would have been a
smoldering pile of ash.

Constantine grinned and she turned to Desmond.
“Does he know? All of it?” she challenged.

“Your reward will be to partake in a literal sea
of feminine flesh, my Faction.” Desmond lifted his brows at
Con.

Constantine deliberated. “So I get to fuck the
fish women.”

Ember gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth
in shock.

The warriors surrounded Constantine.

“You will not speak of a blooded maiden like
that again,” a warrior at his left said.

“Females are for fucking. That is all,”
Constantine said.

Desmond laughed. “You will be difficult to
train, Faction.” His eyes bored into Constantine's. “Yet, I admire
your valor and your... unorthodox opinions.”

Ember huffed. “He is a crass imbecile.”

“Ah yes, our Constantine is very primitive in
his principles but I do not believe he is reckless with his
choices. As a point of fact, I think he very much uses a fine mind
that lays buried underneath that porcupine exterior.”

Con loathed that they were trying to puzzle him
through. He was not a game to be conquered.

“Excellent,” Con agreed, attempting to deflect
the direction of their scrutiny. “If there be female aplenty to
fuck, I will be cooperative.”

“Compliant?” Desmond queried.

Constantine just looked at him. “Never
that.”

“I thought not,” Desmond said.

A few awkwardly silent moments ticked by.

Desmond seemed to make up his mind. “Take the
warriors with you... and Ember. She can sense other females of Mer
blood, as the warriors can.”

“What of the seaweed?” Constantine asked.

Desmond made a clucking sound with his tongue.
“They will know when it is found. If we can but get back the spores
of the mother plant, we can propagate it into fruitfulness once
again.”

“What of the human scum that rob from the Mer?”
Constantine asked, striving for clarity.

“Do what you usually would, my warrior.”

“Death to all that breathe,” Constantine stated,
excited by the potential for violent simplicity.

Desmond inclined his head. “I knew that we had a
fiber of kinship between us.”

Constantine doubted that were true, but in this
one thing, he was right. Con loved war, fighting and fucking; the
great pursuits of his life.

*

“What do the spores look like in the seaweed?”
Constantine asked as they kept to the darkest streets. They were
about as inconspicuous as a herd of pink elephants. A group of men
with gills (Con's had yet to disappear), that were six and a half
feet and huge by human standards. Their bodies dripped weapons of
every caliber and size.

Yes, so subtle,
Constantine growled to
himself. The Mer did not act as the Faction. Constantine was having
more difficulty assimilating than he thought possible.

Ember looked up at him, the pearls in her
silver-whitish hair glowing like soft beads of the sea. “It is
called Poseidonia,” she clarified and Constantine rolled his
eyes.

“It is the maidens we look for, we have yet to
gain the spores of our Mother's plant back.”

“You do not have even one?”

She nodded, her hand moving up to the pearls
he'd been trying not to admire in the tinsel of her hair, the
shining strands distracting beyond measure. So vivid a picture it
painted that Constantine could imagine his hands twined in its
softness while he drove his dick home, using her hair to keep her
still beneath him. He swallowed past the thickness in his
throat.

“They remain here,” she touched one of the
pearls lightly, “safely encased in my hair.” She looked at
Constantine's odd expression, pausing. “They robbed of us of the
plants and the spores and now when our garden in the ocean grows
sparse, we plant one from my collection.”

“They did not get those because they were twined
in your hair?” Constantine asked in amazement, thinking that was a
stroke of fortune.

She nodded. “Even now we would be dead if it had
not been for the jewels of the sea plant I carry in my hair.”

“But that makes you vulnerable...” Constantine
said, stating the obvious.

Ember shook her head. “No one knows the treasure
for what it is, they think it is but an artifice of beauty.”

Someone might,
Constantine thought.

“Stay close to me so I don't have to
inconvenience myself with your protection.”

“Yes, whatever you say, brave Constantine. It is
more for my brother's benefit. After all, I am the last of the
maidens that have magick, so I must be protected, my virginity
secured until such time as I align with our sister nation,” she
said with clear resentment ringing in the tone of her voice.

Constantine stopped walking, the other warriors
plastering themselves against the rough brick of a city
building.

“What?” Constantine hissed. “That is strange
sibling love.”

Ember stared at him with a defiant tilt to her
chin. “It is not about love, it is about survival. I will wed with
whom secures our safety the best. I will carry the treasure of the
sea in my hair. And we will take on mixed-blood Faction to make our
protection more formidable.”

Con was struck dumb at first, as if slapped. He
regained his composure quickly.

Along with his age old companion, rage.

He took her by the shoulders, giving her a hard
shake and had to stop the feelings that laying rough hands on her
brought to the surface. Goddess how he wanted to pound his flesh
inside her, preferably tied and bound to assist him in her full
sexual degradation. The dark demon hovered inside him like a shadow
that would never see light.

“I will not be used!” he hissed as the warrior
closest to him laid a staying hand on his arm.

“Take your hand off me or I shall break it at
the wrist and shove it up your ass,” Con promised.

The hand was slowly lifted and Constantine gave
Ember his full attention.

“No one is used more than me,” she said in a low
voice. “You have choice, Con.”

Her unspoken statement,
I have none,
was
not uttered. Nevertheless, Con heard it and let his hands drop from
her.

He and Ember were not too far from each other in
the hierarchy of life. They were both pursuing freedom. Used for
what they were by others.

But like hamsters on a wheel, it went round and
round.

Without end.

CHAPTER 3

Brandon

Brandon stood staring at the vast blackness of
the sea through the very window that his mother did when the call
was strong. It didn't need to be for Brandon, each day it found him
as an unlikely sentinel, the yin to his yang. Drawn to the soothing
roar of the Mother.

His blooded mother had told him that it would
always be that way.

Somehow, when he'd been safely ensconced inside
her body, there'd been a suspended moment in time when her
interaction with one of the Sirens had brought his mixed blood to
the surface in an unprecedented magical mingling of the two
species.

For Aubree had a shared lineage: Druid enough to
be a breeder and Mer enough to be a maiden. She was mated to his
full-blooded Druid vampire father, his younger sibling twins still
babies.

Not Brandon.

His strange mix of genetics had accelerated his
growth and he entered his biology as an awakening teen, even though
only two years had passed since his birth. It had become apparent
that he might be a new species entirely.

It made for an uneasy coven.

It caused strife in his household and Brandon
was helpless to stop it. He wanted badly to be close with his
father but Beau harbored resentment. Where their familial blood was
uncontested, their natures were contrary.

Brandon knew his father thought there was a
small potential for Aubree to leave him for the Siren's call.
Brandon did not agree, his mother loved his father.