Page 24 of Song of Lorelei
“What makes you say that?”
She lifted her chin with a haughty expression that made Killian’s blood boil. If he didn’t need to hear her answer, to know what went wrong, what she had seen or heard, and what she was planning to do about it, he would have just told her to leave and not bother with explaining herself.
“I was at the research center. I’d just gotten out of an interview, and was heading back to my car, when I saw Lila, Lorelei, and that mermaid drive off together.” She pointed to Lorelei’s car and then Lila. “Here’s the car. There’s Lila.” She said it in this annoying, dramatic tone like she was building up to a grand revelation, a mystery solved, a conspiracy proven, but was giving them one last chance to fess up before she dropped the answer like a ton of bricks. “Where’s the mermaid? And where’s Lori?”
The group simultaneously exchanged incredulous looks. “Lori?”
She did another waist touch. “What’s wrong with you people? How are you not taking this seriously? They broke a flesh-eating mermaid out of the research center. And Lori. There’s something not right with her. Last year, with my leg…” She kept droning on and on. Red hair this. Green eyes that. The insinuation should have troubled Killian more, but he was distracted.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement in the trees—a flash of pale skin. When he turned to look, Lorelei’s gleaming, predatory gaze stared back at him from the dark shadows of the wood, her sea-drenched hair draped down her front.
As she began to move her lips, he heard his ex’s name whispered on the wind, each syllable long and drawn out. Carrie. Carrie.
Come into the woods, Carrie.
His ex rubbed her ears. “Who said that?” She took a stumbling step backward. And then another and another, reeled in by Lorelei’s song until she backed all the way up to the tree line. She tilted and shook her head like her ears had become waterlogged.
Lorelei appeared behind Carrie, green eyes glowing bright over her shoulder, a wicked grin revealing two rows of razor-sharp teeth. Killian hadn’t even seen her move. Staring at the reflection in the window of the nearest car, Carrie opened her mouth to scream. No sound came out, but she reached for her hip…
Eerie crooning filled the air. A wordless song as old as the seas, passed down from siren to siren. Lorelei barely moved her mouth, but he saw the muscles working in her throat. Carrie dropped her hand.
Everyone else reached for their noise cancellation headsets. Once Killian’s sat snug over his ears, he checked theirs. All secure. He’d learned his lesson after the incident with Ian.
When Killian turned back to Lorelei, she held his gaze for one long moment before glancing down at Carrie’s hip. It was hard to tell, but he thought he might see the faint outline of her phone. Could Carrie be recording all this?
Yanking Carrie’s head back by the hair, Lorelei ran a long talon down the woman’s throat. Carrie jerked once before freezing entirely. Not even a tremor. The most she could do was blink. “You were told not to come back here. But you didn’t listen, did you?”
Nireed flanked from the other side. Killian had forgotten about her. Nostrils flaring wide, the siren audibly sniffed Carrie’s hair. “Trespasser,” she hissed.
“You’ve an obsession, Carrie,” Lorelei crooned into her ear. “You did more than just come here for answers, didn’t you?”
The comms system crackled with static. “Killian, where did you hide it?”
“Hide what? What’s he talking about?” Lila’s voice was a mix of panic and suspicion.
“It’s a rouse,” Killian answered Branson.
“What?”
Lorelei met Killian’s eye as she slid a hand underneath the hem of Carrie’s blazer.
And removed a concealed gun.
Tears streamed down Carrie’s face. She mouthed, “I’m so sorry.”
Killian took off his headset.
One by one, the rest of the group did, too, none saying a word. They were all too shocked. Pointing the gun down, Lorelei held it out for Killian to take. He took it, checked the safety—Christ, that woman was carrying it around with it off—and promptly unloaded it.
A near soundless choked sob escaped Carrie’s lips, followed by a litany of apologies. Was she truly sorry? Or only sorry that she got caught? To bring a loaded gun around family, to even consider shooting Lorelei and Nireed…
Gaze hardening to flint, Lorelei swiped her tongue up the side of Carrie’s neck. “Go before the wicked sea witch eats you.”
A shiver ran down Killian’s spine. But not from fear. That’s my wicked sea witch, he thought, swelling with pride, and something else. The growing tightness in his groin was a surprising revelation he’d have to examine later.
Carrie stumbled back to her car, her movements stiff and jerking. She wouldn’t meet any of them in the eye. Shame and regret lived right beside her fear.
Snaking an arm around the tree beside her, Lorelei dug her claws into the bark, splintering the wood. She didn’t blink once, tracking Carrie’s return to her car with a predator’s focus. As a strong gust of wind blew off the sea, swaying the boughs of pine around her, Lorelei’s eyes flashed green bioluminescence. Her lips moved, but the words that spilled out were disembodied. Whispered on the wind. “Forget what I am, Carrie Prior. And never come back here. Never speak of this.”