Page 44 of Siren’s Mark (The Siren’s Mark Duology #1)

AVA

When Jen suggested a night of ‘drinking and stranger-boning’ to help me get over my ex, ending up in the back of a private car with the aforementioned ex was pretty much the last possible result I had in mind.

But here I am, sitting in the back of a black SUV in awkward silence.

Someone kill me.

“So where’s the Challenger?” I ask, if only to interrupt the uncomfortable moment.

“At my place,” he said. “I got a ride here.”

“You left your car at home?”

“Yeah, I was drunk.”

That’s odd. Zane’s not much of a heavy drinker; I’ve only seen him drunk a handful of times.

“You were drunk and you got a ride to a bar?” I ask. “Doesn’t that seem a little redundant?”

“Yeah, well I’ve been drunk a lot lately,” he says. “Kind of comes with the whole fuckup territory.”

He leans on the window and his breath clouds the glass. Even with the sadness behind his eyes, he’s still incredibly beautiful.

Shut up, brain.

“So earlier, why did you say you thought I was in danger from you?” I ask, mostly in an attempt to distract myself.

“I uh,” he pauses and his eyes fall to his lap. “There’s this old wives’ tale of sorts in the Immortal community, that long-term exposure to Siren venom can drive humans insane. That eventually, they either lose their minds or die.”

“Oh.”

It’s never good to have an ex tell you they thought you were literally going insane.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “About your medication side effects. I thought… I thought I was killing you. I thought I had to…”

“Had to break up with me over the phone?”

I try to sound playful and not bitter but my tone definitely gives me away.

“Fuck,” he says, dropping his head into his hand.

“I’m so sorry about that, Ava. I couldn’t risk seeing you…

I knew if I could see your face, touch you, I’d never be able to do it.

I was sobbing; I could barely hold it together.

But I wanted you to be able to move on and just think I was a tosser and go have the kind of life you deserve. ”

Bullshit.

“Bullshit,” I say. “If you were so broken up about me, then why were you laughing at the bar with Kieran and some girl the next day? You didn’t look real devastated to me.”

“Kieran didn’t tell you?” he asks.

“Tell me what?” I ask.

“I er,” he sighs and looks out the window again. “I took something. It’s called lethe. It’s kind of a magical drug of sorts. It makes you forget.”

“Forget what?”

“It depends how much you take. For mortals, how much you drink determines how much you forget, and the effect is permanent.”

“As in, you never get those memories back?”

“Yeah…” he says with a sigh. “But for Immortals, drinking more can make you forget more or it can make the effects last longer before they wear off.”

“So you took this stuff to forget me?” I ask.

“I…” he says, then pauses a moment. “Fuck, I don’t even know.

I took it because I was in pain. I couldn’t bear the thought of having hurt you like that, it was miserable.

I just kept hearing your voice, seeing your face.

I just kept picturing a future without you and it seemed unbearable.

It felt like a snake eating a hole in my chest. I just couldn’t handle it. I was desperate.”

“So when I found you at Pike’s…” I say.

“I had no memory of the last five years.”

That explains a lot.

“So that’s why Kieran said you weren’t yourself. I thought he was just defending you being a dick.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m still a dick, but not in the way you thought.”

I don’t know what to do with this information. Deep down, I was hoping that we could still work things out, but I didn’t expect any of this and it’s overwhelming.

“I’m so sorry, love,” he says.

I melt hearing him say that, but I wish I didn’t.

“Don’t call me that.”

He cringes and pulls his lips tightly closed.

“Why didn’t you talk to me?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”

“I was worried you weren’t in your right mind and couldn’t reasonably make the choice. I thought you’d want to stay with me and I wouldn’t be able to say no. I was trying to protect you and it was the only way I could think of.”

I feel a wave of anger rising in my chest.

“So rather than try to talk to me about it or work it out with me, you decided without me . You decided my choice didn’t matter.

You can wrap that up in the excuse that you were doing it to protect me, but I never asked for that.

I never asked to have my feelings taken out of the equation.

You made the choice for me—and you made it without me.

Did you ever think that maybe the person who would know what’s best for me might be me ? ”

He stares at me wide-eyed and slack-jawed, like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

“I… I…” he stutters. “You’re right.”

He sighs as tears fall down his cheek. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen him properly cry like this.

“I panicked,” he says. “I want so badly to be able to protect you, but you’re right. You need a partner, not a martyr. I… I’m a bloody idiot.”

We both sit in silence for a minute as the car pulls up to Kami’s house. We walk up to the front door without saying a word to each other.

“So what would you have said?” he asks when we get to the door. “If I had told you everything?”

“I would’ve tried to figure it out and probably would’ve figured out it was my medication, like I eventually did. And then there would be nothing to work out.”

“Then what about now?” he asks. “What if I said to you that I’m a complete wanker who got everything wrong and breaking up with you was the biggest mistake of my 200 years of life?

I would do anything possible to make things right with you if you’d give me a chance to prove it.

I am so sorry. I won’t take away your choice again.

I’ll trust you to make decisions with me. I can learn—I can.”

I look at Zane dumbfounded, unsure what to say. All I can think is how much I want to kiss him, but I’m pretty sure that’s the Siren venom talking. But how can I trust someone who doesn’t show me that same trust?

“You broke my heart, Zane,” I say. “I don’t trust you anymore. You just threw me away.”

“I didn-”

“You did! How do I know that you won’t do it again?”

The large wooden door swings open to reveal Kami.

“Hey sleepover pals!” she says with a smile, but her expression quickly falls as she sees she’s interrupting a serious conversation. “I… uh… I can come back.”

“No, we’re good,” I say, avoiding eye contact with Zane.

If being in the middle of a really awkward relationship conversation is good.

Kami set me up in a guest bedroom larger than my entire apartment.

The room has a seating area next to a fireplace and panel windows overlooking the back yard and pool.

I put on the pajamas she set aside for me, a beige silk set that probably cost more than my car.

I look like I’m dressed to match the rest of the home: sleek, neutral-toned, and unreasonably expensive.

There’s a light tapping on the door, so I walk over to open it.

Kami is leaning on the edge of the door frame in a red silk nightie trimmed with lace.

“Hey hon, can I come in?” she asks.

“It is your house,” I say, offering a welcoming gesture inside.

She sits down on the sofa in front of the fireplace and hits a button on the remote that turns the fireplace on. I close the door behind her and join her seated by the fireplace.

“Could we talk?” she asks.

“I assume this is about Zane?”

“Yes,” she says. “I won’t pressure you into getting back together with him, I promise. I was just hoping you’d take a moment to hear what I have to say.”

“Okay,” I say. “I can’t promise anything.”

“That’s okay, I don’t blame you. He did some incredibly idiotic things. I just thought you should know the whole story before you make any decisions.”

I nod and hug a nearby pillow anxiously, unsure of what she has to say.

“When we were young, one of the first places we lived was in the Austrian Empire. I think it’s technically Hungary now but at the time it was all part of Austria.”

Of all the things I expected her to say, I didn’t see this starting with a geography lesson.

“When we were about 19, we moved to a bigger city after people in our small town started noticing that we weren’t aging like everyone else.

Zane and I were both young and relied on our powers a lot to get whatever we wanted.

Zane in particular was a bit wild, sleeping with every woman who caught his eye. ”

I feel an uncomfortable pang in my stomach at the thought.

“Do I really need to know this?” I ask.

“Sorry,” she says. “It’s relevant I promise.”

“Okay… Continue.”

“Anyway, there was this one girl in particular that drew his interest. She was young and she had a reputation in town because she had been engaged twice, but something had happened to both her fiancés. The first one was murdered and it was quite a scandal. The second just went missing and was nowhere to be found.”

“Wait, is this like, a black widow situation?” I ask.

“Actually, a lot of people thought that. Some people bullied her and spread rumors because of it, but as Immortals, we had a hunch about what was really going on. There’s a very well known, very powerful demon, one of the original seven of his species, named Asmodeus.

He has a long history of latching on to a particular woman and then killing his rivals. ”

“Wait… What?” I ask. “Hold on, so he had a crush on this girl and just… killed the guys she was engaged to? Why didn’t he just get engaged to her?”

“Well because Asmodeus is a Grade-A psychopath—all the original demons are. The originals aren’t like Kieran, they’re pure evil.

Everything you’ve heard about demons comes from them.

Asmodeus didn’t even meet the women he decided he was supposedly in love with, he just stalked them and spied on them and killed anyone who tried to marry them. ”

“So you guys knew that this guy was really the one behind the girl’s fiancés all dying?”