Siren - Hazel Grace Page 0,43
I’m used to it.”
Her brows furrow. “Only by my hand, Viking.”
“Are you saying you’re going to tend me?” I lean forward and cross my arms. “Because I’ll have to admit, I’d look forward to that.”
“I’m sure you would.”
“Is that a ‘yes’, Blood?”
“No.”
I shake my head. “You need to learn hospitality.”
“You need to learn manners.”
I straighten my spine with a smirk. “You’re probably right. My mama wasn’t able to teach me any.”
“She died,” she deadpans.
My jaw tightens. “Do you read minds too, Blood?”
She shakes her head, keeping her eyes locked on my blues. “Isolde doesn’t read minds, she just sees the past.”
“How?”
She shrugs. “She just does.”
“And what can you do, Blood?”
“How did your mother die?” she counters. I fix her with an exasperated look then avert my attention.
I don’t talk about my family, I don’t have one anymore. The closest thing I have besides my father are the people that rely on us to keep them safe. To do that, I need to procure the cuff that was stolen from my people. I don’t know why Davina has it, and I don’t have the opportunity to ask her either. The objective is clear, the mission has to be successful—I need to get back home.
“She was killed by an enemy clan,” I tell her. “Along with my brother and sister.”
I expect her face to fall, to look at me with sorrow and sympathy, but she just blinks, something I can’t say that I don’t appreciate.
“Did you kill them?”
I drag my attention to her. “What?”
“The people that killed your family,” she offers. “Did you kill them?”
“I think I’ve met my match with you, woman.”
That gets a smile from her. “There’s a speck of smarts in you after all, Viking.”
“If I was smart at all,” I allude. “I wouldn’t want to hear your voice over you in my head.”
She lifts a shoulder. “I can’t do anything about that.”
“Has it always been like that?” She shakes her head. "How did it happen?"
"A spell."
"A spell?" She tears her eyes from mine. "What did you do?"
"It's what I asked for," she offers.
"Why would you do something like that?" She doesn't respond, which pricks my curiosity. She's headstrong and stubborn, which doesn't make sense, I can't imagine her discarding her pride to have someone do something for her.
"I understand you not wanting to speak about it," I allude. "We're enemies after all."
She peers back up at me. "Are we?"
I shrug. "Seems like it, I guess."
"Depends on why you are here to determine if you are truly the enemy."
"I already told you and your father."
“But is it the truth?”
I sigh. “How can I prove it to you?” I don’t like how her brow lifts and her eyes glimmer with insight.
“I know a way.”
It’s the only way. The direction of earning her trust and possibly getting me off this island. Sitting on a hard bench made from rock of some sort, I stare into a pair of rose-colored eyes that have been staring at me intently with zero emotion dilating in them. Not to mention the other six of them surrounding her and me like we’re some sort of sideshow.
I’ve never seen someone so focused in my whole life. To the point where it’s slightly uncomfortable, but I guess this is how she can really “delve into my past,” as Davina puts it.
I don’t know what she can see or how far back, fully aware that all of this can bite me in the ass if she sees the conversation of my father and I talking about the golden cuff. I won’t walk out of this alive, definitely clear on that.
“Well,” Atarah carps. “What do you see?”
I keep my eyes still, fearless. Praying to gods I haven’t prayed to in forever that my secrets remain just that.
“He’s experienced loss,” Isolde conveys slowly. “A deep emptiness while he was a child.”
My jaw locks as she pries into memories I don’t want to hear. Those times were rough, dealing with a father who didn’t know a thing about raising a child on his own. How I didn’t know how to grieve my mother and siblings because I had no emotional backup or anyone to tell me it was okay to cry.
Until Edda.
Her hard exterior growing up with five brothers gave her an intimidating demeanor, but inside, she was kind and sweet. Opening up a side of her that not many people saw.
“We don’t care about that,” Atarah chides through my thoughts. “We want the important—”
“You know that’s not how it works,” Nesrine