Page 11 of A Storm in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies #2)

Before I know what I’m doing, I slam a palm down hard on the bar beside him. The man jumps, and I lean so close I can smell his breath and see his eyes dilate in fear. “Listen, I don’t want trouble. Or, more like you don’t want trouble with me. Understand?”

He nods rapidly. “Understood.”

“Just tell me what you talked to the king’s sister about. What did she want?”

“A ship in a bottle,” he says quickly.

My eyes narrow. “Was there anything special about it?”

He shakes his head. “No, it was practically worthless.”

What the fuck? Why would Odessa want that enough to use her siren powers on this man? There must be something special about the ship that the shopkeeper didn’t notice.

I reach into my pocket and extract a handful of gold and count out five coins, passing them to the man across the counter. “I could just demand that you give me the ship, but this is for your delivery fee.”

“I don’t deliver,” he says in a quaking voice.

“You do now. Go back to your shop, get the ship, and bring it to me. It shouldn’t take you more than ten minutes. If you’re late, I’ll come over there myself…and you don’t want that.”

He scowls, but doesn’t seem willing to gamble on whether I would actually hurt him. He just nods and walks out of the pub, my gold clutched in his shaking hand.

“Do I want to know what that was about?” Daemon asks when I return to the bar.

I shake my head. “I don’t think I could explain it to you even if you did.”

He gives me a shrewd look, then goes back to eating his lunch. I lift my fork, but I’m thinking so hard that I can’t taste the food.

What was that about?

Much like everything to do with Odessa, I have no idea.

I clutch Odessa’s ship, carefully wrapped in brown paper, as Daemon and I make our way back to the manor.

The sky has turned dark, and the air is thick with the sounds of chirping crickets and humming beetles from the nearby meadow.

As we reach the courtyard, a distant splashing drifts toward me from the lake.

I pause in my tracks as an uncomfortable throbbing, like a phantom heartbeat, begins pounding in my chest.

“You coming?” Daemon asks, jerking his head toward the house.

I shake my head, casting around wildly for a good excuse. “I need to talk to Fox about something.”

Daemon lifts an eyebrow in disbelief, and I realize too late that I should have said Jett. No one ever talks to Fox about anything. Shit.

Daemon shifts his gaze from the package in my hand to the field behind me, beyond which is the lake. His forehead wrinkles, and I know he can hear the splashing too.

“You know what? I don’t want to know,” he grumbles. “See you later, mate.”

I shake my head, watching Daemon’s retreating back for a second before I turn and stride across the meadow toward the water, already knowing it’s a bad idea. If I were smart, I’d turn around and go back to the house, but lately I’ve turned into a fucking idiot.

It’s an undeniable fact that Odessa does not like me.

It’s also an undeniable fact that I’m obsessed with her. I can’t stop thinking about her—can’t just leave her the hell alone.

It sounds pathetic even in my head, and completely out of control in a way that makes me want to strangle something.

I can’t rationalize why I’ve developed this fixation on the one woman in the kingdom who seems to truly hate me, or why I keep inserting myself into her path when she obviously doesn’t want me there.

Especially when I shouldn’t want her either; when it should be impossible.

I ’m still yards away when I see Odessa’s silhouette in the center of the lake, lit up by a shaft of moonlight.

She’s floating on her back, eyes closed, almost like she’s sleeping. Even at a distance, I can tell she looks like her normal self—legs and all.

She must hear my footsteps because as I grow closer she lifts her head up and the serene picture shatters.

Quick as a blink, Dessa flips over and sinks into the water until only her eyes are visible.

After a moment, her eyes flash with recognition, and she rises just enough to speak.

“I should have expected it would be you.”

“Why, were you thinking about me?” I ask before I can stop myself.

She scowls. “I’ve just grown to expect that you’ll try to ruin everything I enjoy.”

I cock my head. Do I do that? I don’t think so.

Admittedly, I enjoy teasing her, and I might have used my magic to splash her a few times. I can’t seem to stop myself from trying to get a reaction out of her—even her contempt is preferable to indifference—but I haven’t ruined anything except my pride.

“Your definition of ‘ruining’ could use some work.”

“Oh really? Alix never asked you to find me earlier,” she accuses.

Fuck.

I keep my face expressionless. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I asked her, you ass. Why would you ruin my afternoon?”

That is a good fucking question, and one I have no answer for. I can’t tell her I just wanted to know where she was because then she’ll ask why, and I truly don’t know how to explain it.

Dessa swims toward me, stopping where the water is still deep enough that I can see her arms moving just beneath the surface as she treads water. “What are you doing here, Kastian?” She calls, annoyance in her tone. “Whatever you came to say, spit it out.”

I open my mouth to tell her about the ship in the bottle, then stop, realizing what a painfully stupid idea that is.

If I give it to her, I’ll have to explain how I got it.

Somehow I doubt Odessa will take: “I don’t know why I did it, it was like a compulsion,” as a reasonable explanation for threatening the local shopkeeper—even if he is a prick.

I shove the small paper-wrapped package in my pocket and cast around for anything else to say. “Just wanted to see if Jett was right.”

Her eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”

“Everyone knows sirens are monsters in the water, but I’ve never actually seen one.”

Her glower intensifies, and she swims closer. When she reaches the edge of the lake, where her feet must reach the bottom, she stands straight, water raining down from her in waves.

For the love of the fucking gods.

Odessa is unusually, overwhelmingly beautiful. It’s not an opinion, just an undisputed fact.

She’s wearing a long white nightgown, which is soaking wet and sticking to her curves in a way that leaves no question that she has nothing beneath it.

Her skin is practically glowing. Her long hair—which sometimes looks red and sometimes blonde depending on the lighting—is soaked to a dark cherry red and hangs down over her chest, barely hiding her nipples from view.

Her hips swing as she walks out of the lake and stops in front of me, close enough that I could reach out and grab her in an instant.

She looks up at me from beneath her eyelashes. “Do I look like a monster to you?”

I blink and shake my head, mostly to clear the fog suddenly clouding my rational mind. Odessa misinterprets the motion as my saying “no,” and sneers at me. “Then you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are. Be careful, Kastian, or one of these days I won’t be able to resist drowning you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Back at you.”

Dessa stops and glances over her shoulder at me, but instead of being annoyed, her expression is hard to read. She looks conflicted before she turns back around and walks away without another word.

I have to physically hold myself back from chasing after her. I feel bewitched. Possessed. Insane.

This isn't like me at all, and I have no idea what it means.

Of course, Odessa is beautiful, but I don’t think that’s the reason for my fixation. If her appearance were the only draw, I would have gotten over it months ago.

I think it must be the fact that she’s a mystery.

Despite knowing each other for a year, I don’t really know Dessa that well. She won’t let me know her, because she’s been standoffish from the very moment we met. With literally everyone else in the kingdom, she’s all smiles and sunshine, but with me it’s like a storm suddenly rolled in.

Yet, I don’t care. She can be as sullen and ill-tempered as she likes, and I can’t get enough.

Usually, there could only be one explanation for this sort of inexplicable fascination: A soul-bond.

Soul-bonds are unbreakable connections that only form once. There’s debate among the Fae whether the connections are predestined or form organically. Some believe that they are fated connections, but most think that bonds are triggered, usually in a moment of heightened emotion or trauma.

Everyone agrees, however, that once a bond forms there’s no breaking it.

If one partner dies or is somehow lost, the other often dies. Males tend to feel the connection first, and once bonded they will never leave their partners—ever. That’s why there’s nearly no such thing as infidelity among the Fae.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

If things were different, I would assume that my inexplicable obsession with Odessa was a sign of a bond forming, but I know that’s impossible.

Odessa can’t be my soul-bond because a bond only forms once, and I already found mine. I found her years ago and lost her just as quickly before the bond was ever able to flourish.

It’s still there, though. I can feel it in my chest, taunting me, making sure I never forget.

As if I ever could.

Bonds are supposed to be permanent and unbreakable. I shouldn’t want anyone else—I shouldn’t be able to want anyone else.

So what the fuck is wrong with me?