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Storming out the door, Lune raced back to where he’d last seen his Intended.

And stared at the scattered layer of rumpled clothing.

Narsus’s fears circled around Lune’s resolve.

Maybe he wasn’t immune to the poison after all.

But his fury was stronger than both their doubts combined.

Because Narsus was immune to his siren’s song.

That alone gave Lune the courage to place even greater faith on the Compass-magic that bound them.

He gathered the clothes strewn around on the beach and folded them with care. He left them on a nearby rock in plain sight, so Narsus would find them with ease.

Within minutes of handling the garments, his hands tingled.

Red and itchy spots appeared. His hands went numb.

Lune groaned and refrained from scratching and screaming.

Against his better judgment, he fell to his knees and thrust his hands into the layers of cool, gritty sand.

It only made the itching flare up into fire.

The sand began to puddle into glass shards .

Lune gasped, leaping to his feet as the infancy of green flames flickered here and there. The friction of the sand combined with the oils from Narsus’s clothing had been the perfect combination. He felt the heat rising. He was on fire!

Wheezing and holding back screams, Lune’s first thought was of his compass. He fumbled for it, holding it tightly with both hands. Clinging to it. Believing in it.

The flames seemed to abate, but the pain was still too intense. He needed Narsus, but self-preservation and instinct won out.

The water. His element would fix this. He’d hoped.

Lune raced into the surf, batting at the fire. The green flames thrived under the water, and the intense pain was rising. Panicking, hyperventilating, and thrashing, Lune wasn’t aware of anything. Just the acute pains flashing through his entire body.

When Lune woke up, he was lying on the beach with the surf ebbing and flowing up to his gills. He gagged, pulling the hair away from the neck-flaps, and twisted the sopping wet strands into a loose pony-tail. He pinched his nose shut and blew sand from the gills to avoid further choking.

From the sun’s position, he hadn’t been unconscious for very long. He quickly checked his compass for confirmation. Yes. It was still just the seven days.

Lune pulled himself up and took stock of his hands.

His skin was unblemished. With scales slowly fading back into the preferred husk of his human form.

With an anxiety-filled look over his shoulder, he staggered to his feet.

His legs felt like overcooked noodles, forcing him into a lurching, side-to-side gait until he regained his equilibrium.

He stopped to catch his breath, hands braced against both knees.

His blouse and vest were slightly charred, and he had no trousers.

Lune looked down at his legs. They were a pale, kind of glittery gray-purplely-mauve and blue.

With scales. His elongated feet were quickly shrinking, turning back into toes instead of sturdy fins.

He’d…shifted into his siren form. And he’d been walking on two tails.

Two legs. Two tails.

Lune felt his mouth split into a stupid, ear-to-ear smile. He’d shifted! Old expectations immediately crumbled. Maybe he had been missing out, having tails. He wanted to try shifting again.

Lune settled down on the warm, dry sand to steady himself while he concentrated. Biting his lip, he took a deep breath and held it precariously in his lungs. He thought about his legs reverting back into tails. Pictured it. Felt a warm heat building in his limbs.

His entire body violently twitched and bowed.

A sharp pain rocketed through him. The sensation mirrored the agony of smashing his elbow against the table.

Only it was everything going limp, numb, and tingly.

Following that, his gills burned, and he gasped for breath he couldn’t catch.

All the while momentarily losing his vision.

Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes into more minutes before his body stopped torturing him, leaving him in a heaving, clammy sweat.

Fuck. That was unpleasant.

Maybe it’d been too soon. Maybe shifting had a cool down period. He didn’t know because he never bothered or cared to learn. But now he wanted to .

Examining his hands and legs again, he mulled over the experience of being in his natural state.

Wondering if Narsus’s flame had triggered his transformation, as some sort of defense or self-preservation.

Wondering if the shock of this first shift had caused him to pass out from the stress, or if it was the panic of being on fire. Or maybe both.

But there was no evidence now of being burned.

Or poisoned—ah, other than his missing trousers and torched blouse and belt.

It was possible sirens had some measure of regenerative power.

He wouldn’t be surprised. Many other races had some ability to heal themselves or others.

It wasn’t anything that special. Calico’s Breese phoenix forge had various levels of the healing gift.

Lune ran fingertips over the faint scars from the shark attack in his youth.

What Calico hadn’t been able to fix after that terror, Great Grandpa Acanthus had healed.

Great grandpa had actually saved his arm.

Lune let out a low noise and shook off the flashback.

His excited mind had traveled too far back. Time to reverse and rethink.

Narsus’s poison-fire. Then the sudden and unexpected appearance of his siren heritage.

Scales that negated any burns. And toxicity.

This just had to be even more evidence towards the truth of their Compass-paring.

Lune shivered and giggled with anxious hope.

They could do this. They could. None of this had been a dream.

Now, if only his fated mate would come home. So they could test this discovery. Together.

But first, trousers.