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Raziel swallowed the lump in his throat and switched off his grief. Someone had hurt the girl. Her clothes had been torn off. He stared at her bare leg, his mind finally noticing that something wasn’t right. Leaning closer, he examined the striped pattern that ran up and down her legs. It wasn’t a tattoo. Had she painted it herself?

He moved to the hand he was holding, looking at her nails. All were torn and broken. Like she’d been clawing to get away from her attacker.

I’m sorry.

“Raziel.”

He lifted his head and met Mer’s solemn gaze as she continued to work.

“What?”

“Look at this.” She nodded to Coven. “Her ears.”

Raziel lifted a strand of Coven’s hair away from her face, where her ears should have been. She had little siphons like an octopus instead of ears. They were covered with the orange goop that still clung to the wound on his chest.

“What am I looking at?” he rasped.

“Later. I can hear people. Isla is bound to be with them.”

Raziel gently laid Coven’s hand on his shirt that dwarfed the girl. “I’m sorry,” he whispered before standing.

Reef, the tallest Sirenidae, rounded the house first, followed by his sister Avalon.

Then came Isla. She caught sight of her daughter and released a guttural wail.

The older woman sprinted toward them, her hair tumbling from her bun. Raziel caught her up in a hug. Isla wailed again, bending over his arm, tears streaming down her face, straining toward her daughter.

“It can’t be possible.”

Reef and Avalon took over for Mer, murmuring in their lyrical language to each other as they checked over the girl. His wife sat back on her haunches, watching them with her lips pressed thin. The two Sirenidae siblings locked gazes and Avalon finally turned to Raziel and shook her head no.

Isla screamed and he released her. She scrambled to her daughter and fell to her knees, pulling Coven’s head into her lap. She cried harder, rocking back and forth.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Isla chanted, soul-wracking sobs shaking her frame.

Avalon moved to the older woman’s side and sat beside her, combing her fingers through Isla’s loose curls, a soft hum falling from her lips.

Mer slowly stood, swaying on her feet and stumbled back a step. Raziel broke from his stupor, tapping on Reef’s shoulder. “Bring Isla’s husband and a few men. We’ll need to move her,” he whispered.

The Sirenidae jerked his head up and down once, then climbed to his feet and ran toward the village.

Raz reached his wife and stood beside her. He lifted his arm and Mer pressed into his side. Raziel found himself wrapping his arm around her shoulders as she leaned into him.

“This isn’t right,” she said, her voice wooden.

“No. It isn’t.”

They waited.

Mer sang with Avalon.

Isla’s grizzled husband arrived and the devastation on the older man’s face just about brought Raziel to his knees. He held Isla and his daughter, crying until snot and tears mingled on his face.

More men arrived with Reef.

They all waited until Isla cried herself out. Her husband helped her to stand. Reef made to pick up Coven but her father held out his hand.

“No. I will carry my daughter home.”