Page 22

Kai

T he sun sets along the horizon, tucking itself behind the storm clouds as I walk along the beach. I spot a tall figure in the shallows with a net in hand. As I draw closer, I see it’s Mathius.

The realization of who he is still so fresh in my mind, I stand there simply staring for a long moment.

How was it possible that this man was the spitting image of the lost King of Halvendor?

It has been hundreds of years since he disappeared, and my logical mind keeps saying that it is just someone who looks like him, but the pointed ears and the golden eyes are too rare. Mathius is the long-lost King.

“Mathius,” I wave, gaining his attention as I join him in the shallow pocket of the sea he is fishing in.

“Kai, it’s good to see you acclimating so well to the Island.” He smiles that big toothy grin, something he seems to do often, flashing the two sharper teeth as they glint in the light of the setting sun.

I smile back awkwardly, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything you want.” He bends, digging up a clam and placing it in the net.

“How long have you been on this Island?”

I watch his smile fall, and a dark shadow crosses over his face. He straightens and stares out at the stormy horizon. “I-it’s been…well, I’m not entirely sure,” he stammers, brows drawn together.

“Do you remember anything before coming to the Island?” I question him further, recalling how I had forgotten my own brother for an entire day. If Mathius had been here for two centuries, had he forgotten his entire life?

He goes very still, eyes glazing over as he searches for the memories. “I think it’s time for dinner,” he says suddenly. All of his unease seemingly melts away, and he smiles at me, as if nothing is amiss. He turns to head back to the huts, but Evelyn calls out both our names and comes toward us.

“Mathius,” She says. “Wait, don’t leave.”

Something unreadable passes over Mathius’ face as he looks at Evelyn. He is so still, frozen by some unseen thing.

“Are you alright?” I ask, reaching out and carefully touching his arm.

He shakes his head as if coming out of a daze, “Fine.”

“Please,” I try again. “It’s important. Do you remember anything from before this place?”

Mathius sighs, running a hand through his white locks, and then looks once more at Evelyn. “I don’t know.”

The look on his face of dejection mixed with confusion makes my heart ache for him. He has been here for nearly two hundred years with no clear recollection of his past. What must that feel like?

Evelyn takes Mathius’s hand and casts a sorrowful look at me before turning to him, “It’s okay. You don’t have to remember.”

He stares at Evelyn and then suddenly brings a hand up to her cheek, “You remind me of someone.”

Evelyn frowns, darting a quick glance at me. I just watch the interaction, anxious to hear what else Mathius is going to say.

“Sometimes I have flashes of people, places that I’ve never seen before.

” His voice is quiet, distant as his brows draw together with the effort to remember what he has forgotten.

“They are like dreams, but I am awake. So real that sometimes I reach out and try to touch them, but then it all disappears and I remember that I am here on the island.”

Evelyn nods, bringing a hand up to cover his larger one, which is still resting on her cheek. “Mathius, you need to listen to me. Do not drink the Elixir tonight.”

I walk toward them, opening my mouth to question Evelyn, but she holds up a hand and stops me.

Mathius frowns, dropping his hand from her face and taking a step back. “Why would I not drink the Elixir? It is forbidden not to.”

“You must pretend to drink it, but not actually partake.” She persists, “It’s causing you to forget.”

He shakes his head, and I can see the frustration lining his features. His shoulders tense, and he clenches his fists, making me go to Evie’s side, wrapping an arm around her waist protectively.

“Those visions you see, they are real. Those are your memories.”

“Impossible,” he scoffs, pushing past us and heading toward the Elder's hut.

“Please, Mathius! Trust me!” She yells out to him, “They aren’t dreams. Let the fog in your mind clear. Don’t drink it.”

He stops, turning his head slightly back toward them, and I hold my breath waiting for him to say something, but he only continues to walk further into the village.

Evelyn sighs next to me. She unwraps my hand from her waist and walks into the ocean, diving beneath the waves. Night has fully overtaken the sky, and the moon’s glow whispers across the water. I join her in the calmness of the night sea.

“They’ve been lying to me,” Evie says, and I can’t tell if the glistening in her eyes is from the water or her tears. “My mother…Florence, she’s been hiding everything from me.”

I swim to her, wrapping her in my arms, her tail shimmering beneath the waves. “What secrets?”

“We were right. The Elixir is what made you forget your brother. It’s why Mathius can’t remember his past. It’s why all the men have stayed here. They haven’t even attempted to leave in decades. The Elixir is training them to serve the siren’s in any way they require.”

I suddenly can’t breathe. I know my memory loss had something to do with the strange drink, but what Evie is saying would also explain the strange fog in my mind, and that unnatural need I felt to pleasure each and every siren.

“There’s more,” she says, and a fresh bout of tears well in her eyes. “There is a way off the island. I don’t know what or how, but I heard my mother talking about it. She doesn’t want me to know that it’s possible.”

I kiss away the tears falling down her cheeks, catching them before they ripple in the water. “Why would she hide something like that from you?”

“I don’t know!” She said, her violet eyes bright in the moonlight. “They are poisoning all of the men to keep them here.”

“But why? What gain do they get from it?”

“That’s something I intend to find out.” Her words are vicious, demanding, and they shoot a spike of arousal through me.

“We will find out together, but right now I want nothing more than to kiss you because I don’t know when I’ll get another chance,” I say, and pull her into my waiting lips.

She tastes of jasmine and honey. I devour her, pulling her closer, wanting to feel her against me, wanting her to let go of her pain and hurt, giving it all to me.

I want to replace her broken heart with pleasure.

Maybe I’d taken more of the drink than I thought, but I can’t stand for Evie to be in pain, not when I can fix it.

She breaks our kiss, and I watch as she slowly takes off her top, letting the lavender fabric be swept out by the waves.

Her breasts bob like plump, ripe apples and I growl, grabbing her and pulling her against me, sucking one of her delectable erect nipples into my mouth.

I bite down lightly, satisfied to hear her moan in delight, before taking the rest of her heavy breast into my mouth.

She lets out a strangled laugh and pulls me back to her lips, whispering against them, “Take off your shirt.”

Obeying, I release her, admiring her body beneath the starlit sky while I practically tear the wet shirt over my head and throw it as close as I can back to shore.

Her eyes grow heavy with lust, and a playfully sad smile tugs at her lips as she beckons me forward, swimming deeper out to sea.

The moon dances across the water's surface, making it look like liquid glass as she effortlessly glides through it.

A cool breeze whispers around us, carrying the salty musk of the sea, sending a prickle over me.

Evie’s skin shimmers in the gentle light of the night sky. She brushes her tail against my bare chest and my already hard cock throbs with need. The water is up to my neck now, and I lunge for her, but she only laughs, swimming just out of reach.

“I can’t stand anymore,” I say, breathless, my feet kicking to keep me afloat.

“I don’t see the problem.” She smirks and finally comes closer.

I reach out and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her flush against me, skin to skin.

Her scaled body is cool and slick against me, and I groan watching the look of need wash over her features.

It is a look I have come to know well in our short time together.

It holds an insatiable hunger, a promise of unimaginable pleasure.

“Are you ready to fuck a siren?” she murmurs.

I swallow hard, my cock growing harder with every saultry word from her mouth.

“I’ve already been with you multiple times,” my voice cracks, and I clear my throat.

“Not like this,” she says, licking up my neck, and I almost come right then as she rips my pants clean off my body, her tail wrapping around me like a snake before she pulls me beneath the waves.

I quickly reach into my pocket and pull free one of the Elder flower petals I plucked from the cliffs earlier. I eat the petal, saving the delicious taste, and then I begin to breathe blissfully underwater. The sensation is exhilarating.

Evie’s golden hair floats around us like a halo as she pulls me deeper still, my ears popping from the sudden change in pressure.

She kisses me again, her mouth demanding as her tongue dances with mine, urgent and insistent.

I let my hands rove down her scales, and then I pull her flush against me, her breasts grazing my chest. Reveling in the feel of her bare skin against mine, I drop from our kiss, taking a beautiful pink bud into my mouth, flicking it with my tongue, and grazing my teeth against it.

Tasting. Toying with it while the feeling of it dissolving radiates through me.

She arches her back, bubbles rising around us as I coax her pleasure further.

Suddenly, her mesmerizing tail is looping around me again, and I’m unable to move. I feel captured, yet utterly aroused.

She pushes me up against a rock covered in seaweed and her hand is around my cock.

Her scales feel different under the water, almost like silk, only adding to the sensation and my building desire.

I need to be inside of her. I trail a hand down to her waist to the front of her tail, searching for the spot where her wanting cunt would be.

She smiles at me, saying something in the water, bubbles billowing around her so that I can’t make out what it was, and grabs my hand, guiding me to my prize.

And then just there, low between two feather soft fins that kiss at my hand, playful and wanting, there is a spot between two scales. I touch her entrance, its warmth like that of the sand on a squelching day, and she grips a handful of my hair as her tail tightens around me.

Suddenly my cock is at her entrance and that beautiful, pulsing spot opens, wrapping around the head of my length and pulling me in, inch by inch.

I can feel each and every ridge of her sex as her pussy swallows me, squeezing and pulling until I’m sheathed to the hilt inside her.

I didn’t think the feeling could get any better than this.

I’m bound by her completely, her prisoner as she has her way with me.

I can feel her lithe muscles rippling against me, and I clench my jaw at the pure power I feel there, holding back, not ready for this to be over yet.

And then those sweet, delicate fins framing her delicious cunt swept against my balls, flicking, tapping, teasing, and rubbing.

I’m so close to coming, teetering delicately on the edge, desperate to hold out just a little bit longer.

Evie rocks her hips against me, and pure ecstasy pulses through me.

I gaze up at her, and the look in her eyes, hungry, feral, and possessive, sends me over the edge.

I come and ride the shockwaves of the most intense pleasure I’ve ever felt in my life.

She finds her own release with me, and her pussy pulses around me only making me come harder.

We ride our waves together until we are both spent.

Finally, she releases me, and I’m so drunk with bliss that I begin to sink. Evie laughs, and I can hear the reverberation of it around me. She takes my hand and swims us back up to the surface, where the shimmering moonlight leads us.

As soon as we break free into the fresh air I’m gasping, still riding the high, “Fuck, you are absolutely extraordinary. Th—that was beyond words.”

She chuckles, and I can’t stop staring at the way her skin shifts like gemstones beneath the moon.

“I like it when you take control,” I say.

She kisses me for a long moment and then says, “So how was your first time with a siren?”

All I can say is, “Can we go for round two?”