Siren's Song: The Gray Court, Book 5 (3 page)

She had been the only bright spot in his life, and now she was dead. Raven wanted the Dark Bitch’s blood for that alone.

At least his father could keep Michaela safe, even in the shark-infested waters of the court. But he bit back his first, bitter reply, aware Robin was not fooled for a moment. The man saw far too much for Raven’s comfort. “I am honored, Father.”

Robin leaned forward, his gaze blazing with green light. “Find our king. Find out what that bitch is up to, and stop her. Bring him back safely to me, my son.”

Raven saw the fear in Robin’s eyes, and wondered. What was the relationship between Robin and Oberon? Rumors, thick and black as tar, had slithered through the Dark Court for centuries. “I will, my prince.” Raven shivered. The consequences if he did not find Oberon didn’t bear thinking on. His father had been kind…so far. But the Hob was not known for his kindness, and his son paled at the thought of failing him. “I will.” He closed his eyes, and finished the vow silently.

Or I will die trying.

Chapter Two

Gods above, she couldn’t believe it. She had Oberon in her car.

Oberon
.

How the hell was she supposed to keep him safe? He was the High King, more powerful than anyone, even the Hob. He could decimate whole armies, command even her parents to bow down before him. The Black Queen and the White both loved and hated him, not that he cared. From what she’d seen and heard, the Gray Lord was ice cold through and through.

Even now, when he was without his memories, that icy, regal air hadn’t diminished one bit. He accepted her commands simply because he wished to do so. If he’d fought her, refused to get in the car and allow her to take him to Shane, things would have been far different.

She shuddered, remembering the image Shane had once shown her. Oberon, his face cast in black glass, his expression ugly, hungry.

Fanged.

He’d had fangs, and she’d known. Two paths sat before the High King, and one of them led to him becoming the plaything of the Black Queen.

Cassie would do anything to prevent that from happening. Oberon, while cold, was a fair ruler, one who’d created a safe haven for those the other two courts had rejected. More and more White and Black Court citizens had turned to the Gray, giving allegiance to a king who would treat them the same as every other citizen. He had no favorites, unless you counted Robin Goodfellow, and had gone so far as to create the first clan run by a vampire, giving that race a clan they could finally call their own.

All of that paled beside the fact that the man was her truebond, the one being on earth who completed her. The contracted mating she’d been running from was null and void once she contacted her parents and let them know what had happened. A truebond
always
trumped an arranged mating, period, but only if it was completed. So until she bore Oberon’s mark, she was still bound by the contract.

Oh, she doubted her parents would be happy. They’d been far too eager to hand her over to the Pacifica court, the ugly duckling daughter who’d never fit in with the others. She’d overheard her father more than once accuse her mother of cheating on him, but Cassie knew the truth. She was the spitting image of her great-great-grandmother on her father’s side, the woman most of the court of Atlantis considered one of the most controversial queens to ever have ruled. It had been a truebond between the daughter of a selkie and the King of Atlantis. Confined to the palace, she’d been denied the ability to drop her Seeming and swim with the court, her lower status considered a blight on the royal family. She’d been shunned, mocked and attacked more than once. Only the love of her truebond had kept her in the underwater city of Atlantis.

In the end, not even that had been enough. She’d pined away, lost to the hatred of her court, taking the King with her. The court of Atlantis, who’d denied the truebond between them, had been shocked by the loss, but refused to grieve. The man placed in charge of raising her children and grandchildren had seen to it that they felt shame at their selkie heritage. Her children and grandchildren had denied her selkie blood until all but her immediate descendants forgot that she’d never been a siren at all.

Cassie refused to do that. She, and she alone, remembered the Selkie Queen, and honored her. She knew what it was like to be different, shunned, and refused to bow to the dictates of the court. It was why she’d run rather than accept the arranged marriage, willing to forfeit her immortality rather than become a pawn in her parent’s political games.

“Tell me what happened to me.”

Gods, the man was stubborn. “I can tell you a spell was cast on you, probably through something you ate or drank while you were in a weakened state.” And she knew exactly what had caused such a powerful man to become susceptible to that kind of spell. He’d gifted Robin Goodfellow’s mate with his own power, not only returning her to life but marking her as of his bloodline. She glowed now, her mortal shell shed, her silver hair and golden eyes standing out when she dropped her human Seeming.

As a healer, Cassie knew that what Oberon had done was only possible because somewhere in Michaela’s ancestry a fae had lain with one of her family members and gotten her with child. In truth, her whole family could become fae, with the right touch.

Oberon’s touch.

“You saved someone’s life, exhausting you. How the poison got introduced, I don’t know.” And she still wasn’t entirely sure it was poison. It could have been any medium. Breaking the skin could have introduced the spell to his system. She doubted he’d inhaled it, or there would have been more people cursed to lose their memories as he’d been. “Do you know if you’re wounded?”

He scowled for a second, before his expression once again became impassive. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“I’ll check when we find a place to stop for the night.” As a healer, it was up to her to make sure he was not only safe, but sound.

His brows rose. “I think I know my own body. I feel no odd aches or pains, only a lack of memory.”

“Still. I’m a healer. Let me check. The wound could be as small as a mosquito bite.”

“As if someone used some sort of dart?”

“Or a needle, yes.” She wouldn’t put it past a Black Court operative. “More curious to me is how you got poisoned. You’re extremely cautious, even around the ones you consider friends. So how did you wind up bespelled?”

“I thought you said I was poisoned?”

The distrust that shadowed his expression cut her to the quick. “You know you’re magical, Oberon. Did you think a simple poison would do this to you?” She waved her hand at him. “A normal poison wouldn’t work on a fae. It has to be bespelled, glamoured in some way. It’s possible it could be a fae’s natural toxin that would do something like this, but it would have to be introduced under the skin for it to be effective.” And that limited the pool of people who could have been the one to poison him. Very few fae had the ability to wipe a mind as powerful as Oberon’s. “Not to mention you don’t trust easily. Someone close to you had to deliver the toxin, either in your food, drink or by piercing your skin.”

“Someone I trusted.” Oberon’s gaze turned back to the passenger side window. His tone was thoughtful, but hardly surprised. He must have already suspected betrayal. “You called me fae.”

She grimaced. She was doing a lousy job of keeping the information she fed him to a minimum. “Yes. We both are.”

“What kind of fae am I?”

“I…” She blinked, prepared to lie her ass off. “I have no idea.”

His gaze bored into her. “And you? What kind of fae are you?”

“A siren. Some call my kind merfolk because we’re nymphs of the sea.” She didn’t see the need to keep what she was secret, only who. The less he knew about her royal heritage, the better, at least for now. They had bigger things to worry about than her family’s soldiers. “I can use my power to sing you well, but it will take time, and a delicate touch.”

“How will you heal me if you don’t know what I am?” His brows rose. “Doesn’t the healer need to know his patient in order to—?”

“Shit!” Cassie yanked the wheel to the side as a car dashed past them, the maneuver insanely dangerous on the wet, icy roads.

Oberon’s eyes flashed brilliantly silver. “Our enemies have found us.”

Cassie tried to ignore her terror as she slammed her brakes. The car in front of them had skidded sideways, blocking the road. “Stay in the car.”

“Cassie—”

“Your life is far more important than mine.” She undid her seat belt, prepared to fight for her mate. “Stay in the car.”

Cassie climbed out of the driver’s side, ready to do battle for the man who didn’t even know who she was.

“I don’t think so.”

Oberon was less than impressed when she ordered him to stay in the car like a dog. Hadn’t she understood him when he told her he could defend them both? Did she have so little faith in him that she would rather face their enemies alone?

There was no way in heaven or hell he would allow Cassie to face danger without him by her side. When she stepped out of the car, he did so as well, ready to confront whoever it was who’d attempted to stop them.

Three men climbed out of the sedan. One, tall, broad and hideous, smelled of moldy mushrooms and fresh blood. The second had the scent of rotten vegetation and stale, algae-laden waters. The third…

The third held the scent of old, clotted blood and death.

The brackish-scented one grinned at Cassie, showing a mouth impossibly wide and full of sharp, dark-stained teeth. “Give us the High King, and we will let you live.”

Cassie tilted her head back, that ridiculous puff of hair blowing in the frigid wind. “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin. Get thee hence, kelpie. You shall not have what you seek.”

Her regal tone, the way she tilted her chin, all spoke of a heritage that her appearance belied. There was something about Cassie that screamed at him, beyond the draw he felt toward her.

The kelpie merely grinned wider. “Lunk, Augustine, take the High King and place him in the car.”

The large man in the dark suit, the one that smelled of mushrooms, lumbered toward him. “Yes, Mr. Lochlan.”

The other, the one smelling of old blood, merely shimmered out of existence.

A chill took hold of him as the man disappeared. What was he facing? How could he defend Cassie from a man who could disappear like that?

He had no choice. He had to make sure he and Cassie came out of this alive, and that meant fighting with everything in him. Oberon took a step away from the car. He braced himself, his hands rising, something singing through his body that made the wind howl, the snow and ice swirl faster. “I think not.”

He heard a low, deep hum. Recognizing Cassie’s voice, he left the siren to deal with Mr. Lochlan while he faced the other two.

Lunk grabbed at him, but Oberon dodged, managed to stay out of the huge hands that suddenly seemed to have far too long a reach. He ducked back, skidding on the ice, barely stopping himself from roaring in fury.

“No.”

Shocked at the deep, rumbling timbre of his own voice, he nearly missed the reappearance of Augustine. The creature’s eyes flashed red, his fingers tipped in claws, and suddenly Oberon understood exactly what he faced.

Vampire.

Oberon knew what he had to do, how to kill the creature who kept popping in and out of sight. The other man was forgotten as Oberon closed his eyes, reached for that something inside himself, and
pulled
.

All of the hairs on his body rose as a brilliant flash blinded him even behind his closed lids, the sonic boom coming so swiftly on its heels he was surprised he wasn’t knocked off his feet. Oberon opened his eyes to find a blackened spot on the road, smoke still rising from where the vampire had stood.

Lunk was laid out on his back, his expression clearly dazed. The creature had been thrown by the force of the blast, the lightning striking so close it had burned him.

“You’ll pay for that.”

Oberon faced Mr. Lochlan. Cassie was nowhere to be seen. Rage filled him. “Where is she?” Thunder boomed once more, echoing the fury that rumbled inside him.

Lochlan flinched, his face pale. The over-large mouth had shrunk, his face once more human. “How are you doing that?”

Oberon glared at the creature. “Tell me where. She. Is.”

Lochlan’s gaze darted toward the side of the car Cassie had been driving.

Slowly, his eyes never leaving the creature, Oberon edged around the back of the car and peered toward the blacktop.

Cassie was slumped to the ground, her body twisted, her tail…

Tail?

He blinked. Cassie’s jeans had ripped, splitting at the inseams to make room for a beautiful, iridescent fish tail. Her hair had gone from non-descript brown to shining aqua. Her skin shimmered with pearly iridescence, paler than it had been, almost the same color as the snow but with a tinge of blue that had nothing to do with the cold.

Beautiful. His heart damn near stopped at the ethereal beauty of her form.

It took but a thought to send Lochlan to the devil, the lightning strike barely registering on Oberon’s consciousness. Lochlan had harmed Cassie, therefore his life was forfeit.

Careful of the slick surface of the road, Oberon knelt next to Cassie and turned her over. He cursed viciously at the large, purpling bruise on her forehead.

The healer needed her own healing.

He lifted her, cradling her in his arms, the feel of her there so right, so disturbing he almost groaned. He shifted until her head rested against his shoulder before standing, inhaling the fresh salt-water smell that permeated her skin. He ground his teeth, trying desperately to ignore the way his cock hardened at her scent, the feel of her soft flesh.

Hell, even the goofy headband was beginning to appeal to him.

She began to shiver, her fin twitching, her skin chilling even as he held her. “Cassie?”

She frowned, her brows scrunching together adorably.

“Cassie.” Overwhelmed by an impulse he didn’t understand, Oberon kissed her forehead. “
A thaisce
. Wake up.”

Her eyes snapped open, obeying his command. “Oberon. What…?” She blinked, staring down at her fin in disbelief. “Oh fuck me.”

He shivered hard. Now was not the time to daydream about doing just that. They still had Lunk to deal with, the creature just now gaining its feet. “Hush, Cassie.” He glared at the creature, ready to end its existence if it so much as glanced at the vulnerable woman in his arms. “Go. Tell your masters of your failure. Let them know what happens to those who threaten me and mine.”

The creature’s eyes went wide before it nodded its head so hard Oberon was surprised it held to its feet. “Yes, sire.”

Oberon blinked, but gave no other indication he’d heard the creature. “Go.”

Lunk spun, slipping and sliding on the ice before climbing into the driver’s seat and taking off.

“You can put me down now.”

Oberon glanced down at his companion and moaned. She’d returned to her normal, human appearance, draping her tattered shirt over her legs, her white bra her only garment. “You will be the death of me.”