The Siren Series 1: Ember (11 page)

“Idiots!” Ember seethed.

Huh, maybe she's not as dumb as she
looks,
Ruby thought with her tongue stabbing the inside of her
cheek. The call that came washed over her like gentle
bathwater.

It seemed to have the opposite effect on the
males; none stood except Madden. “Please,” he begged, “it is for
the good of the Mer, Ember,” he ground out of a mouth twisted in
agony.

The good of the males
, Ruby thought with
disgust. Ember's... whatever it was... was amazing.

Why couldn't she have that?
Ruby
wondered.

They weren't out of the woods, Ruby realized as
the young hottie and an older, insane-looking guy with black hair
and eyes came charging through the doors, the wood slapping the
wall and making a resounding echo inside the cavernous meeting
room.

Constantine took one look at the fallen
battalion and snapped his eyes to Ember's.

She wailed at him too but he pressed forward.
Her Siren's wail was water off a duck's back.

So to speak.

She shrieked and he grabbed her.

Ruby swung her gaze to Brandon, the arrogant
asshat. When fangs burst from his mouth she stopped thinking and
ran.

Using the fallen Mer guys like red cones and she
the luxury car, Ruby wove between their bodies expertly, the
flowing roman style dress catching on their seeking fingers as she
did.

When he caught her she felt something primal
well up within her and burst her skin.

Brandon dropped her with a yelling bark.

She whirled on him and his deep Mer eyes
glittered back with profound surprise. Ruby looked at the naked
palms he had thrown up.

They smoldered, blisters forming as he
watched.

“Demon bitch,” Constantine said pleasantly and
grabbed her.

He hissed as she burnt him then smiled through
the pain.

Oh shit,
Ruby thought as realization
struck her, I'm the same as the dude with the hot tongue,
Brolach,
her mind supplied
. Then
Constantine backhanded her and she lost her tenuous hold on the
world.

But not before Ruby saw Brandon grab Ember.

*

Brandon

“No!” Brandon shouted as Con delivered a sharp
slap to Ruby. His Druid instincts made him rash, talons burst as he
added a new scar to Constantine's back with a loping strike that
was as precise as it was powerful. Con hissed, staggering forward
with the girl in his arms.

“Cease and desist you insolent fucking pest!”
Con raged, swinging his leg out and cutting the young Druid down at
the knees. “We are fighting the same war, Druid,” Constantine
seethed, blood running down to soak the waist of his leathers.

Brandon swung his head to clear it, seeing Con
with a breeder in each hand: the princess on the left and Ruby
under his arm, unconscious.

“Well, you could have fooled me ya sadistic
prick,” Brandon replied, spitting blood and phlegm onto the wet
floor of the huge room.

Con grinned suddenly. “I have done away with the
opposition for the moment.” He gave a hard shake to Ember whose
teeth rattled and she gave a small whimper. “Her Siren's call does
not seem to effect me...” Con's eyes rolled upward as if he was
considering an important point. “So we are free to go.” Then he
paused, adding, “I do believe I have worn out my welcome.”

No shit?
Brandon thought, looking around
at the strewn bodies of the Mer.

“With Desmond now deceased...” Constantine
began.

“What? My brother...” Ember said, trying
unsuccessfully to tear herself from Constantine's hold.

“No,” Con said, shaking her once like a scolded
child and her head whipped like a flower on top of a fragile
stem.

“Hey...
stop that
,”
Brandon said, his eyes meeting Con's. “Or we're gonna go, pal.”

Constantine's smile widened. “Perhaps. But for
now, we get the breeders and take them from this place.” Con
glanced down at the lovely Ruby, putting his face close to her
temple, breathing in deeply of her fragrance.

“Let us go, Druid,” Con said and Brandon nodded
once, an uneasy alliance forged.

Ember was silent and sullen as the males
discussed the females like expensive cargo.

Brandon didn't trust the half-breed as far as he
could throw him but understood the importance of getting the
females to safety. They didn't look to be strong like his mother,
Aubree. He was going to kick the Faction's ass if he worked them
over like that again. There was subduing breeders to take them from
harm's way.

Then there was imparting harm with undue
force.

Brandon wasn't a fan of the latter.

Brandon wasn't sure what the full story of the
Faction vampire was, but he was a misguided fuck. Like a glass
fisherman's float, he followed wherever the current took him.

They left as the Mer Warriors were getting their
bearings, hauling a reluctant mermaid princess along for the
ride.

They broke out of the labyrinth of cavernous
mazes that housed the bulk of the Mer people. The moon rode high
above their heads, silvering the females' hair and paling their
faintly glowing skin.

“What now, bright one?” Brandon said and got a
talon under his chin for his trouble.

“First, shut the fuck up, Druid,” Con said
casually. He cocked his head as if he heard a sound that Brandon
didn't.
Unlikely as hell,
Brandon thought, his pulse pushing
against the hardness of that razor-like blade.

“Second,” he said slowly, “I think we may have
company.”

Fuck me
, Brandon thought,
what else
could go wrong?

Brolach exited the shadows, discovered by the
astute senses of a supernatural so mixed even he could not discern
what blood coursed through his veins.

However, it was not demon.

Of that Brolach was certain.

CHAPTER 9

Madden of the Mer

Madden rummaged through Ember's personal effects
until he found what he was looking for: the counter to her wail.
The warriors would be helpless against her, never to retrieve the
most important breeder of their century, if she was resistant...
and kidnapped by a traitorous Constantine.

Of course, Madden had been against his
assimilation from the beginning. He had tried to explain the
reasons behind that to Desmond. Who, in keeping with his character,
had ignored Madden's misgivings. And look where that had gotten
him?

Dead.

While the king and queen of the Mer roamed the
deep seas of the Mother, their prized prince lay cooling on the
floor of his own chamber, their daughter, virgin and unbred, had
been absconded with ruffians: two part-Mer and with intentions that
at the very best were suspect. And judging by Constantine's
behavior... Madden thought much worse.

The other warriors partook of the special
essence that would make retrieval of their special royal
obtainable.

They sheathed their tridents, Madden taking a
look around himself for anything they might be forgetting. Seeing
nothing he moved to the portal that would release them into a night
fraught with uncertainty. Then a thought occurred to him.

There was the issue of Brandon, the young Druid
hybrid... did he know? That should have been explained, in detail.
And Madden had not yet had time to do so. Did Brandon know that it
was the kiss that Madden had shared with his mother that awakened
his blood? It was an unusual combination. As a point-of-fact,
Madden did not think he'd ever come across it during war or peace.
He shrugged the thought away, throwing the task at hand before
himself once again.

He left, the other warriors following,
recovering their senses slowly after the dark dance with the
Mother.

*

Brolach

Brolach faced off with the vampire mongrel even
as he pawned off a sleeping Ruby to another vampire. Brolach's eyes
flicked to the other.
Druid,
his mind answered, scanning the
younger one quickly,
and some Mer,
he determined.

He refocused on the one in front of him, the
real threat in Brolach's estimation.

“We have to stop meeting like this, fire
breeder,” Constantine said, hands free as Brandon guarded the
females.

Brolach scowled even as he felt his horns burst
through his skull, his tail flashing like a tiger's behind his
body, barbs bursting the flesh of the tip in preparation for
battle.

“Bring it, demon,” Constantine said, his talons
and fangs at their fullest.

“We do not have to war, Exotic,” Brolach
tried.

“Ah, then you know the rarest of the blood I
carry?” Con asked, surprised despite himself.

Brolach nodded. “I but want the breeding demon
girl,” he said, evading the question of his uncanny discernment,
brought on by the part of his blood that was not demon.

Constantine instinctively moved in front of
Ember, hating his automatic protection of the spoiled Mer princess.
Knowing his goddamned Druid genetics got their dander up just when
he needed to lay it down. Like a cat's fur rubbed the wrong
way.

Brolach chuckled. “You are welcome to that
one... for she is better suited to you.” He pointed to Ruby. “She
is mine.” He closed a hand tipped in short black talons. “I have
tasted of her and know that she will breed true.”

Brolach stated this as if it was fact. It was
similar to the human game of poker, he kept the neutral expression
on his face with difficulty.

Brandon looked at the demon then at the tranquil
face of an unconscious Ruby. His eyes shifted to Con's. “Tell
him.”

Constantine smiled slightly at the dangerous
demon breeder. “Fuck off. We're not going to give up the females,
either one.”

He heard Ember give a soft sob behind him and it
squeezed that part in his body he ignored.

Where his heart lay.

Brolach got ready to take them on when a voice
from behind them said, “No one will touch Ruby tonight.”

A man with very light skin bled from the fringe
of city trees that hovered near the pier. He stood very tall, his
skin tinged with red, a slow and subtle smolder emanating from the
visible pores.

His eyes were like Ruby's, Brolach noted. His
hair was inky black, like Brolach's, but without that hint of
red.

He was demon, and other.

Constantine actually laughed. “Glad you could
join the party, demon spawn. And I hate to be repetitive but I'll
tell you what I told your comrade: The females are for us. Fuck.
Off.” Con gave his most charming smile. “I don't feel that I can be
much clearer,” he said, sliding a glance to each demon and giving a
small flutter of talons in an insultingly dismissive wave.

The new male demon clenched his fists as Ruby
came awake.

She was drowsy at first until her eyes fell on
the new male, missing Brolach entirely in her fear of
discovery.

“Father,” she breathed in abject horror,
scooting backwards until her back hit Brandon's shins.

He gave a low chuckle of such evil that it
slithered up the spine of all who were present.

“Yes... I have come, my Ruby.” His eyes bored
into her like deep blood red jewels of burning hate. They scorched
her wherever they landed. “And I have brought my minions.” He
snapped his fingers and Fred, her perverted, chick-beating boss,
came to stand behind him.

Ruby's mind tried to make sense that it was her
father... yet not. He was something new. It was as if the shell of
her father had been superimposed with the devil: complete with
horns, tail and smoldering skin of a light red.

“You have that little dollop of Mer blood that
allowed you to hide from me. Then you fell into the lascivious line
of work... so perfect for a demon female. Yet...” he looked up at a
sky banked by stars tossed into black velvet, “you are still the
virgin. Not that Fred did not try to remedy that!” Her father
clapped his hands together in glee. “No matter, we shall make quick
work of that pesky obstacle now that you are safely within my
sights.”

The men that had been poised to rape Ruby in the
seedy dance club came forward, seven men, masking their true
nature.

Now they stood before Ruby: seven pointed tails
with matching horns, evil expressions of hardened resolve.

They'd never been human, just demons waiting for
their opportunity to assault her. With the devil's blessing.

Brolach's voice broke the despicable spell cast
on the diverse group, “You do not follow demon protocol...”

“Damon,” Ruby's father supplied as she used the
leather pants of the Druid to climb to standing, her eyes following
the strange conversation between her horror of a relative and
Brolach like a ping pong match. Brandon's arms went around her
protectively and she stayed where she was.

All the while wanting to be near Brolach.
Consumed by him. His eyes sought hers as if he'd heard her.

Ruby knew he would fight for her. She felt his
burning regard of her like an unspoken promise, it heated her blood
to molten fire as he stared at her face with his crimson eyes of
flame.

“Damon,” Brolach inclined his head in a barely
contained mockery of acknowledgment.

“We do not hold to the standard of Demon
Hierarchy,” Damon said in a bored voice.

“Clearly,” Constantine said. “Now, I do fancy a
renegade, old meeting of the demon spawn and such but we have
females to take and later screw. So be off with you... or die.”

Con smiled in a come hither invitation of battle
lust that any warrior would be hard pressed to ignore.

The Mer warriors chose that moment to pour
themselves into the breath of battle as it exhaled between the
Druid vampire, former Faction and Demon breeders in a tumultuous
slide of fangs, talons, heat, barbed tails and an ocean called to
the forefront.