The Pirate and His Siren

Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LUARNA

A s I swim through the Bay of Udira back to Sieren, Kynan’s words continue to plague me. Am I really in love?

Kynan’s right. He doesn’t fight fair. That last kiss still lingers on my lips, my fingertips lightly tracing over them.

I haven’t been apart from him since the day we met. Well, except when I ran from him, but he’d convinced me to go with him soon after. Had I already begun falling for him then?

Three months doesn’t seem like a long time apart, yet why does my heart ache at the idea of being apart from Kynan for that long?

But who can I talk to about this? My mother will scoff and say it’s merpeople nonsense.

I thought a lot about Ikina and our conversation before we parted, and it made me think she might not judge me for wanting to discuss my possible love for Kynan. But when I went looking for my friend at her home, she’s no longer living there.

Where can she be ?

It’s taken me nearly the entire three months to search the Bay of Udira, but I have finally found her.

Guilt swamped me when I realized I hadn’t thought of my friend the entire time I was with Kynan and the crew of Deadly Destiny .

But coming upon the scene now, I guess I shouldn’t have felt so guilty.

Ikina lives on the edges of a shared community, Aqualis, of both siren and merpeople. I once thought these colonies to be myths, but as I watch my friend, she appears relaxed. Unlike the last day I saw her, singing to herself as she swam around a building. Then a merman with tawny skin, and like all merpeople, his tail a simple design with no dorsal or hip fins, edged with midnight blue and orange running down the center, joins her, winding his arms around her waist, kissing her.

Bubbles escape my mouth, and my eyes widen.

The conversation we had made more sense now, and I knew why she’d been all fidgety that day. She’d been harboring a secret love.

“Ikina,” I call out as I approach them.

She pulls her face back and gasps. “Luarna.” She pushes the merman behind her. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“I came searching for you.”

“Luarna… I…”

The merman slowly swims out from behind to her side, placing a protective arm around her body, his brown gaze probing me. It makes me think of Kynan and how he was with me—protective and possessive—and my heart shudders.

I flick my tail back and forth. “You’re mated.”

Ikina sighs. “I am. I know you don’t understand, but please know I’m happy here. ”

“Good.”

Her head snaps up. “What?”

I whisper, “I think I do understand… I think I may have found someone too.”

“But you don’t know?”

“How can I? We sirens aren’t meant to believe in mates and love.”

Ikina peers at the merman, who nods before releasing her, and she glides over to me. “Luarna, do you think that maybe we’re not born with the inability to love, but we’re actually taught it?”

“Taught it… why?”

“Sirens can only produce females… there are no male sirens. Yet the merpeople differ from us in that they can sire males. They love.”

“Why were we taught to be like this?”

Memories of my childhood flood my mind of my mother hovering over me, lecturing me.

“Love is for the weak-willed merpeople. They’re different from us. If you want happiness, you take it.”

“I think long ago, one of our queens decided we shouldn’t strive for love because there were no males within us. The sirens’ conquest drives us to find mates, but we’re so ingrained with our disbelief of love that we don’t allow ourselves to truly become attracted to anyone. We miss the signs. But Jackur, he never gave up on me. He kept pursuing me. He knew we were fated to be together and proved it to me.”

Jackur sounds like Kynan. How many times did he try to show me?

“Sirens are capable of love,” Ikina continues. “Maybe it’s all a lie concerning the siren’s conquest being about fulfilling a siren’s inner urges as our nature. But is it more about our bodies looking for our true mate? My siren’s conquest led me to Jackur. At first, I didn’t want to believe it, but he showed me the truth. We are meant to find mates. To fall in love.”

“It started with my siren’s conquest too…” I say quietly. “You mean to say it was leading me to my mate when I just thought it was about fucking?”

“I believe it was.”

But when would I have fallen? I don’t think it was any pivotal significant moment. It was a series of little things that I hadn’t realized when he’d wormed his way into my heart.

Ikina’s right.

Jackur swims forward, and she winds her arm around the merman’s waist, her body turning in toward his, gazing at him with a soft expression on her face. His own reflects the same love back at her. Their tails complemented each other’s.

“We’ve been taught that their race is weak, but love isn’t weakness. Love is strength. It emboldens you to be the person you’re meant to be. Love is everything.”

I place my hand over my chest, rubbing the spot over my heart.

Kynan was constantly touching me like Jackur is doing to Ikina.

Is that why sirens are driven to fuck all the time? Are we starving for affection, for someone’s touch, but we misconstrue it as pleasure mating instead?

“Did this happen on Velade ia cietra ?”

“Not this one, but the year before. But Jackur proved his love during the year leading up to the most recent merpeople’s day of love.”

Up until this point, the merman had been relatively quiet, but when he spoke, it was with a wise and confident voice. “ Velade ia cietra isn’t a magical day as you sirens are led to believe. It’s only a day when merpeople celebrate love.” He gazes at Ikina with a soft, loving expression. “It’s also a day we woo potential mates or celebrate matings that have already occurred. There are no spells cast upon this day.”

I continue to rub my hand over my heart, where it keeps hammering against my chest the longer we talk of love. “So, everything I feel is real?”

“I believe so,” says Ikina, her eyes shining. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Then I’m in love,” I scream joyfully. “I’m a siren, and I’m in love.”

“That’s nice. It’s a wonderful thing to be in,” a voice calls out, making heat creep up my cheeks.

Trust a merperson to be happy about it.

Ikina’s eyes light up. “Is your mate another merman too?”

“No, he’s a human.”

Her face drops.

“But he lives on the sea. So, we’ll still be able to see each other often.”

I hope. Before I left, there had been talk of him and his crew becoming land pirates sailing the river and traversing the lands to rob merchants.

“Oh, I can never tell my mother about this.” I press my hands to my cheeks.

“You don’t even like her much anyway.”

I tap my hand on my chin. “True, I haven’t even spoken to her since I’d gone on land.”

“Maybe then it’s best if you don’t tell her.”

“She’ll find out eventually…”

“And by then, it’ll be too late. You’ll be mated. The worst she can do is disown you, and would that be such a bad thing?”

“Honestly, it would be a boon not to have her toxicity in my life anymore. Besides, I have another family now… my mate and his crew.”

Ikina squeezes my hand. “You’ll always have me as family too.”

Jackur bows his head at me. “You have my friendship as well. Any friend of my mate is a friend of mine.”

“Oh, Ikina.” I hug her and shake Jackur’s hand. We’ve only just met, and we’re not at a hugging stage yet. Also, it feels wrong to hug another male at this time.

Kynan would be jealous and do wicked things to me if I told him I hugged Jackur.

Maybe I should tell him I did anyway when we meet up…

Realization strikes, making me jerk back a little. “Oh, no, the deal! I have to go. I need to tell Kynan I love him.” Otherwise, there will be no wicked sex at all, jealously driven or not.

“I must go. I need to see him. Otherwise, he’ll think I don’t love him.”

Caedor is a day’s swim from here.

Ikina laughs and playfully pushes me in the direction of Wasatell. “Then go and bring him back to the sea so I can meet him.”

“I will,” I call out, having already spun away and flicking my tail to begin my long swim.

Sirens are fast in the water and capable of great speeds.

But will I make it in time?