Secrets of the Siren [Sirens and Sailors 5] (Siren Publishing Classic) (10 page)

“Well you’d have heard if anyone had been shot,” Dr. Jay said calmly.

Rechavia and Aitan weren’t feeling quite so calm. “Where are the cops?” Aitan snapped at Delmer.

“On their way. They’re coming from Eastland, too. None of them ventured out last night ’cos of the storm, otherwise they could have been halfway there by now.” Delmer sounded apologetic.

“Fuck!” Aitan fumed.

“We’ll get there before them at this rate.” Rechavia groaned.

There was a sudden loud commotion over the computer. “They’re coming!” Ademia shouted into the camera, “They’re on their way over the causeway, they’re coming to get us.”

Melantho and Sapphire appeared behind Ademia.

“We have to hide the computer,” Melantho said firmly.

There was a scream and the computer went black.

Captain Sivan woke to the sound of heavy snoring which permeated his throbbing head. He grunted and went to move. He couldn’t. He tried again. Nothing else for it—he had to open his eyes.

“We’ve been tied up, Captain.” One of his crew lay near him, wriggling like a worm on a hook. The sight of all that movement, on top of the bright sunlight, did nothing to help the Captain’s hangover, and he closed his eyes again with a groan.

Suddenly his eyes popped open as he realized where he was.

“The bitches!” he snarled, and started wriggling about himself. Those women had sure done a good job in the knot department!

“Wake up, all of you,” he commanded, looking around at his men, who lay like giant slugs scattered around the rocks.
If I can’t sleep it off I’m damn sure you’re not going to!

There were grunts and groans from the men, who objected to the noise and bright sunlight interfering with their pounding heads.

Sivan took in his surroundings and realized they were no longer on the island. He could see that it wasn’t far away though, and vowed they would soon be back there, wreaking revenge on the impertinent wenches. He nudged at his sleeping crew, hollering at them to wake up, as he tried to roll himself to the side of a jagged rock. He had to angle his wrists very carefully as the rock was overhanging an inlet, but he eventually managed to rub the rope enough times to cause it to fray and then he heaved it apart with his muscular strength.

“My gun’s gone! Who’s got a knife?” he snarled at his men. They all checked each other for weapons but quickly realized that they had all been taken from them.

“Damn those bitches!” Captain Sivan was furious. He kicked the men who refused to wake up and fetched sharp stones for them all to cut their ropes free, while he untied others.

Soon they were all liberated and making their way slowly toward the causeway, ready to unleash havoc on Refrainia.

The sun was already quite high in the sky and the rabble moaned as they clambered over the rocks on their way toward the sea. They could see from the top of Destiny Rock that the causeway was quite dry and they could foresee no problems crossing over to the island, even for those who couldn’t swim. Suddenly they all started bumping into one another as they realized that the people at the front of the queue had suddenly stopped.

“Fucking hell!” Captain Sivan yelled as the bright sunlight glinted off the knives and guns which several rows of women were pointing their way from the other side of the causeway.

“I don’t fucking believe it!” Jared roared indignantly.

“You’d better fucking believe it, assholes,” Ligia shouted over to them.

“You put one foot on the causeway and I’ll shoot it right off!” Kalliope shouted, waving Jasper’s gun around.

“She wouldn’t have a clue how to use that,” Jared sneered.

“That’s what worries me.” Captain Sivan sighed. He ushered his men back up the rock. “What do you want?” he called over to the women.

“We want nothing from you,” Ligia replied. “We were happy to offer you our hospitality and somewhere to rest from your journey. But look what you did. You ordered us about like we were your slaves and tried to take over our island. You have no right to be here.”

“Then let us cross and we’ll be on our way.” Sivan tried to sound reasonable. “Our ship is on the other side of the island.”

“Oh, we know all about your ship, motherfucker.” Kalliope was clearly in no mood for reason.

“You know nothing about my ship, young lady.” Captain Sivan wasn’t just an asshole, he was a
patronizing
asshole.

“We know you stole it, just like everything on board it,” Kalliope yelled.

“You know nothing,” Sivan said with a smirk. “But you will. I’ve got a surprise for you on board my ship. In fact, it should be arriving any time now.”

“If you’re talking about Jasper and Toby you can forget it,” Ligia gloated.

Captain Sivan’s face turned to thunder. “What are you talking about?”

“Let’s just say your two lovebirds won’t be arriving anywhere shortly, although they did
come
last night!” Ligia burst out laughing and Kalliope joined in. Blandon, who had reached the ship as the girls had come running out, frowned, puzzled at their hilarity, as did many of the women.

Captain Sivan flounced off angrily and joined his men, who were now sitting idly on the rocks.

“What do we do now, Captain?” Jared asked.

“Shut up, just shut up!” Sivan shouted.

As the men seemed to have made themselves comfortable sprawled over the boulders of Destiny Rock, the women decided to follow suit and sat down on the soft sand of Refrainia.

“Good job you two came back when you did.” Ademia smiled at Ligia and Kalliope.

“We heard Naida scream and guessed they must be waking up.” Ligia replied.

“They scared me. I was on my way to the sea to have a morning dip when suddenly this hoard of men came clambering over Destiny. I thought they were going to get me.” Naida was still trembling and Hebe put a comforting arm around her.

“Lucky you had the weapons ready,” Kalliope added.

“As soon as Sapphire called downstairs to say they were on the move, Melantho had the safe open. I was talking to our men at the time.” Ademia smiled. “They’re on their way home.”

“Good. Where is Mel?” Ligia asked, looking around for her friend.

“She’s still in the surgery. Marinos woke up so she said she’d better stay with him,” Sapphire explained.

“Do you think they’ll try anything?” Naida asked, nervously.

“Not if they know what’s good for them,” Ligia replied adamantly.

Kalliope grinned at her friend.

“I think I might get some breakfast on,” Ademia said after a while of sitting and waiting. “Will you be OK if I go?”

“Of course,” Ligia said, still staring at the mob across the water. “Take a couple of the girls with you. We’ll shout if anything happens.”

The pirates were getting restless by the time the girls came down to the beach with plates of hot flatbread and bowls of fruit. Captain Sivan stood up, expectantly. Ligia grinned at him as she took a large mouthful of fruit, which she allowed to dribble down her chin and onto her bikini. “Pity you were such assholes to us, you’d have enjoyed this,” she gloated.

“You’ll fucking pay for this, bitch!” Captain Sivan hollered across to her before slumping down angrily on a hard rock.

The girls laughed and tucked into their feast.

“Mel’s been talking to the men,” Ademia told them in a hushed tone, “They won’t be long now. The police have caught up with them, too.”

“Brilliant.” Ligia beamed. She couldn’t wait to see Aitan again. She had really missed him. Then she frowned, remembering that they would have to deal with his family’s wrath over their wedding. “I wonder if he’ll still want to get married when he’s been through all his messages.”

“You’re getting married?” Ademia jumped up and went over to give her friend a big hug.

“Shh. I don’t actually know yet.” Ligia shushed her, not wanting everyone to know.

“She’s worried about his bitch of a mother,” Kalliope said, crawling nearer to them. “Ligia reckons his mother will turn the whole family against her.”

It was Ademia’s turn to frown. “Why would she do that?”

“She thinks I’m a prostitute,” Ligia explained. “I’m not good enough to marry her son.”

“But she doesn’t even know you!”

“I know, but she knows what they wrote in the papers about us and she believes it all.”

“Then she’s stupid. Even
we
know that papers print a load of rubbish and we don’t even get any newspapers here!” Ademia scorned incredulously.

“I don’t think it matters to her,” Ligia replied gloomily. “She’s made up her mind and that’s it. Aitan still said he wants to marry me, but I don’t want to be the one to split him and his family up. He loves them.”

“He loves you, too,” Kalliope reminded her.

Ligia sighed.

“Well you’ll be able to talk it through once he gets here,” Ademia said, putting an arm around Ligia. “He won’t be long now.”

“Well I hope they hurry up, I think this lot are planning something.” Kalliope was watching Sivan and his men, who were huddled together talking quietly. There was a lot of pointing and nodding going on, too, which she didn’t like the look of.

“Some of them can swim so they might try to come ’round the island. We need everyone to be on the lookout.” Ligia stood up as she spoke. “We need someone at each of the windows of the big house, and someone to be a runner to pass messages on from them.”

Naida and Hebe shot up. “We’ll go,” Hebe said. “Sapphire, you can be the runner.”

The three girls ran up the island to take their positions while the others got up and tossed their dishes to one side.

“I wish I knew how to work this,” Kalliope said, gazing at the gun in her hand.

“Let’s just hope you don’t need to,” Ligia said. “I saw some men with guns when we were Sirens, but none of them used them, thank goodness.”

Kalliope already had the gun in her right hand and her forefinger placed on the trigger. “I think I just need to squeeze this,” she said, wiggling her forefinger.

“Doesn’t that bit at the top do anything?” Ademia asked as she glanced over. She pointed to the safety catch.

“I dunno,” Kalliope said with a sigh. “It looks like it’s supposed to do something but I don’t know what.”

“They’re coming!” Ligia screamed as the whole mob of angry pirates ran to the end of the causeway. Some jumped into the water while others ran across the rocks which led to Refrainia.

Kalliope aimed the gun at them en masse and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. “Shit!”

Ademia leaned over and pulled the safety catch back for her and Kalliope tried again with both her hands wrapped around the gun. Her eyes closed as she squeezed hard on the trigger. Her heart hammered. She held her breath.

Bang!

Kalliope leapt backward in shock. Ademia caught her.

“You got someone!” the blonde girl shouted excitedly.

The shot had stopped the men in their tracks and they looked around, horrified, to see one of their crew drop into the water, howling in agony. One of the swimmers grabbed him and they all turned back to Destiny Rock to help get him out of the water. The man was shouting, his arms flailing as he thrashed about in a blind panic. Another of the swimmers came to try to drag him out of the sea, and, between them, they managed to get him to the edge of the rock. The rest of the men gathered around him, shouting instructions at one another. After a few minutes, Captain Sivan emerged from the crowd and stood sternly at the edge of the causeway.

Ligia had her arm around Kalliope, as did Ademia. Although their hearts were beating ten to the dozen, they stood firm at the other edge of the causeway. Their chins jutted out adamantly and they stared at the foreboding creature opposite them.

“So you want to play dirty, eh?” Sivan snarled at them viciously.

“You stay over there and no one else will get hurt,” Ligia shouted in a voice which was an octave higher than she would have liked. She felt herself tremble. Fear and anger mixed within her.

“You think you can tell us what to do, eh?” He took a defiant stride onto the causeway.

Ligia snapped.
Arrogant bastard!

“Do you want to try us?” The redhead snatched the gun from Kalliope’s hand and pointed it in his direction. Her hand was shaking as she lined up the shot. The rest of the girls stared in stunned silence.

Sivan stopped in his tracks and stared at her.

“Don’t even try it, girlie.” A familiar voice shouted from the beach behind the women.

“Shit!” Ligia didn’t need to turn around. She knew who it was. She pointed the gun to the ground.

“All of you, drop your weapons!” Jasper was enjoying his position of power at last.

She carefully placed the gun on the sand in front of her, well aware that it was loaded and with the safety catch off. With a sigh, Ligia turned to face him. He was pointing a gun at them, a sneer across his handsome face. Toby had hold of Naida, and held a hand across her mouth. Her eyes were big and tears streamed down her face. Ligia’s heart melted for her friend. She must have been overpowered and they had taken her gun.
Whoever let Naida have a gun?
She smirked at the sight of the two men, dressed in nothing but a towel around their waists.