Page 10 of Siren Problems

CALDER

I shouldn’t have come here.

The Sip & Spell is loud. Lit. Magical residue clings to the air like perfume and electricity. The ley hum pulses beneath the floorboards, drunk on spell-shots and potion-infused happy hour specials. People are laughing. Dancing. Touching.

I don’t belong in places like this.

Especially not tonight.

But Rin cornered me after the council briefing— “Show your face, remind the town you’re not just a shadow on the cliffs,” she said—and I didn’t have the energy to argue.

So here I am. Grumpy, damp, and perched at the end of the bar like a warning sign nobody reads.

“Someone looks like they regret every decision that led them here,” Kai drawls, dropping a neon-blue drink in front of me.

“I didn’t order anything.”

She smirks. “It’s water. You’re welcome. Although, if you want to feel things, I’ve got a cinnamon potion that unblocks repressed emotions. Like Draino, but for the soul.”

“Hard pass.”

“Coward,” she sing-songs, already moving on.

I sip the water. It tastes vaguely of starlight and judgment.

The door opens again.

I know it’s her before I look.

Luna.

Hair loose, cheeks flushed, wearing a black leather jacket over one of those scientific-rebel T-shirts. She’s scanning the room, looking for me.

Of course she is.

She spots me. Her eyes narrow. Then, to my surprise, she walks straight to the bar, grabs the drink someone abandoned next to me, and throws it back.

“Probably cursed,” I mutter.

“Definitely cursed,” she says, licking her lips. “Tastes like trauma and lime.”

I shouldn’t be here. With her. Not now.

Not after the dive. The boat. Her hands on mine.

But she leans in anyway.

“You avoiding me again, Sea Grump?”

“Trying,” I grit.

“Failing.”

She’s too close. Her elbow brushes mine. Her aura sparks at the edge of mine, fizzing, friction-filled. It smells like rain and stubbornness.

Kai reappears with a tray of glowing shot glasses, one already cracked and smoking. “Oh. Oh no. ”

“What?” Luna says, already reaching for another.

Kai yanks it away. “That wasn’t lime trauma potion. That was the shelved one. The... oops batch.”

Luna blinks. “Oops?”

“It amplifies whatever you’re already feeling. And, um, makes it impossible to lie. Or shut up.”

“Wait, what?”

Kai leans over the bar. “You’re about to be real honest, real fast, and possibly ruin someone’s entire emotional coping strategy.”

Luna turns to me, eyes wide.

And then she laughs .

“Oh no,” she says. “That’s... that’s not good.”

I can feel the shift before she even speaks again. Her aura flares. Her voice dips.

“You’re hot, Calder.”

I freeze.

She keeps going. “Like, really hot. In that broody, emotionally repressed, haunted-by-sea-ghosts kind of way. I should be annoyed by it. But I’m not.”

She grabs the edge of my shirt. “I think I like it.”

I grab her wrist before she pulls me closer. My grip is gentle. My pulse is not .

“Luna,” I warn.

“Yeah?” she breathes.

“Stop.”

“Make me.”

And that’s the moment I break.

I don’t know who moves first.

Maybe her.

Maybe me.

But suddenly, we’re crashing together in the narrow space between bar stools and bad judgment. Her mouth finds mine, hot and sweet and desperate. Her hands are in my hair. Mine are gripping her waist like I’ve forgotten how to let go.

The noise of the bar fades.

All I hear is her.

All I want is her.

But just as suddenly, I pull back.

Hard.

She stumbles, blinking.

“What—?”

“I can’t.”

The words hurt.

Her expression shifts, from dazed to something like hurt.

“I didn’t mean to—” she starts.

“No,” I say, softer now. “I wanted to. Too much.”

She swallows. Her voice goes quiet. “Then why?—?”

“Because if I fall for you,” I whisper, “the curse doesn’t just return. It finishes what it started.”

She stares at me.

And I leave before I say anything else that could kill us both.

The night air hits me like a wave of ice.

Sharp. Punishing.

It should help. It doesn’t.

I don’t get far—just around the corner of Kai’s bar, into the alley that runs along the bluffside. My palms hit the wall. I lean there, chest heaving, hands braced like they’re the only things keeping me upright.

She kissed me.

I kissed her.

And gods, I wanted it. I still want it.

Her taste lingers—wild, electric, like ozone and adrenaline. Her scent’s on me, subtle and sharp: citrus and skin and something I’d let burn me alive if I wasn’t so damned afraid.

I press my forehead to the stone.

“Stupid,” I mutter. “Stupid, stupid?—”

Because I’ve been careful.

For years.

No voice. No touch. No room for want.

And then she shows up with her storm-colored eyes and her defiant little smirk and her cursed questions , and suddenly the silence I’ve clung to doesn’t feel like protection anymore.

It feels like a prison.

I exhale hard. Try to ground myself.

But the guilt slides in anyway.

Heavy.

Smothering.

Because what if this is how it starts?

The curse didn’t just strip my voice—it marked me. Tied every fiber of my magic to the part of me that feels . That desires . That loves .

If I give in... if I want her too much...

She could drown in me.

Literally.

I feel the tremble in my fingertips before I register it’s not cold anymore—it’s magic. Thrumming just under my skin, aching to reach for her again. To call her name and watch her come .

That’s the danger.

That’s what the curse wants .

To destroy.

My breathing’s ragged now. I slide down the wall and sit on the wet stone, arms braced on my knees, head bowed.

I should’ve pushed her away the moment she stepped into this town.

Should’ve let the sea take the relic.

Should’ve never let her touch me.

But gods...

I remember her hands on my jaw. Her breath at my throat. That whisper of Calder like she knew me before the silence.

No one says my name like that anymore.

Not like a question.

Not like a prayer.

And it makes me hate myself a little more.

Because I wanted to answer.

I wanted to sing.