The Silver Siren
Authors: Chanda Hahn
Tags: #romance, #adventure, #fantasy, #magic, #young adult, #ya, #sirens, #denai, #swordbrothers
The Silver Siren
By Chanda Hahn
Copyright © 2014 Chanda Hahn
Morningstar Books
Cover artwork and design by Steve Hahn
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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All rights reserved. Except for use in any
review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in
part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system is
forbidden without the written consent of the author, Chanda
Hahn.
This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are either the creation of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events
or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
“
She’s getting stronger. Did you see what she did? Never seen
anything like it.” A raspy male voice rang painfully in my ears
even though he whispered.
My body was sore, battered, and my
skin felt like it was on fire, but the cool earth I lay on soothed
me. My hands were bound painfully behind my back, and my feet were
tied together at the ankles. I was having problems focusing my
thoughts.
“
She’s crazy, that’s what
she is. Have you seen her face? She’s not like the others, I tell
you,” a second man answered uneasily. His voice had a slight whine
to it.
I willed my crusted eyes to open, and
I saw a flicker of torchlight illuminate a cave wall and a flash of
red robes.
The Septori.
I groaned silently and wiggled my
hands in their bindings.
“
Here. Put a bag over her
face, and don’t let her look at you. She’s got the evil eye,” the
raspy voice said.
I heard a loud shuffling and quickly
closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep. I felt my head lifted and
the scratch of a rough burlap sack over my face. It took all the
control I had not to fight them, but to lie still. What had
happened to my face? They kept saying something was wrong with my
face.
“
With that eye, she looks
like a demon,” the whiner said.
“
Shut up! I’m warning
you!” said the first.
“
What I want to know is
how are we supposed to outrun
him
? He’ll follow,” Whiner
continued.
“
That’s the plan. The
Raven wants them both,” a louder angrier Septori interrupted,
obviously the boss. “Now be quiet and watch her. Make sure she
doesn’t wake up.”
Even under the burlap, I felt the gaze
of the three men and tried to keep my breathing deep and even as if
I were asleep.
“
Nah, she hasn’t moved
since she passed out in the barn. She’s probably dead,” the whiny
voice alleged, obviously forgetting the boss’s warning.
“
Dead people don’t
breathe, stupid,” said the raspy voice.
“
Well, I doubt she’ll wake
up. So don’t call me stupid.”
They paused in their speaking. Even
blinded and bound, I could still feel the heaviness that permeated
the air.
“
We lost Vulture and Heron
back there,” a new voice chimed in.
How many were in the
cave?
It was tough to keep
track.
“
We lost a lot more than
that.”
“
I told you idiots to be
quiet,” the leader snapped at them.
Lying as still as I could, I tried to
see where we were without moving or alerting them to what I could
do. Stretching my senses outward, I sought out my surroundings. All
I could see was the cave. I was drained and snapped back into my
consciousness. I had reached my limit and hadn’t recovered yet. I
doubted I even had enough strength to steal their power.
I began counting to one hundred,
hoping to distract myself and soothe the incessant pain, but it was
hard to concentrate. How had I ended up here bound and imprisoned
in a cave? I could only remember leaving Skyfell and traveling
toward Haven a few days ago. Slowly and painfully, I forced my mind
to retrace my steps—to recall everything that had happened—up to
that moment.
~~~
We’d been on our way back to the city
of Haven with the prisoner Mona. We had just left Skyfell and had
been only on the road for a few days. Our traveling party consisted
of Hemi, my honor-bound clansmen, a giant of a man with a giant
heart; Fanny, a copper-haired woman from Skyfell who was the
original inventor of the machine that made me what I was today,
although her creation had a different intention. Also, she had
proven her alliance by healing me and accompanying us on our
journey to speak with Queen Lilyana and the adepts.
Also with us were Darren Hamden,
inherent rover and Joss’s godfather with a penchant for fashion and
jokes; Joss Jesai, the rather good looking Denai that I was
pretending to be engaged to in an attempt to search for clues for
his missing sister. As crazy as the idea was, we were able to save
Gloria from being manipulated by the deceitful Mona and to uncover
a huge Septori plot all under the Jesai family’s nose.
And of course there was Kael, the
SwordBrother, a silent, deadly, broody, manly, confusing,
irritating man who was unfortunately magically bound to me because
of what the Septori had done to us. We were a ragtag band trying to
make the journey to the city of Haven as quick as possible and
trying to stay one step ahead of anyone tracking us. But I couldn’t
shake the disappointment of not finding Joss’s sister, Tenya. She
was still out there somewhere.
Joss rode over to us. “We are stopping
up ahead for the night.” His blond hair was getting long and
starting to brush the collar of his cream-colored shirt. Why was I
fixating on his hair? And when had it gotten so long?
Glancing up in surprise, I tried to
catch his gaze, but he purposely looked over me and turned around
to ride back to the front of our group. My fingers dug into the
reins of my horse angrily.
Great! Joss and I were having our
first fight and I couldn’t blame him. He was still upset over my
kiss with Kael. And Kael! He’d gone back to wearing his
expressionless mask, void of any emotion. For all I knew, he had
completely forgotten about that very kiss in Skydown. Gritting my
teeth at the stubbornness of both these two men, I mumbled angrily
to myself. By the time we were finally settled and had set up
dinner, I had given myself an intense headache.
No one spoke, and dinner had been
eaten in record time. I noticed that Mona cast me knowing glances
and smirked at me whenever she thought I wasn’t looking.
Thalia?
Faraway, my horse and constant companion, sensed
my mood and spoke straight into my thoughts. I was beginning to
understand the bond between my Guardian horse and myself. It was
still confusing, but he was quickly becoming a permanent fixture
within my mind. I didn’t know how I could ever live without
him.
Yes?
I thought to him.
There’s a river nearby. I
think you should go and relax a bit.
That sounds wonderful. I’m
going to tell Hemi.
And I did. Hemi looked at me in
surprise, but I politely explained that I needed some time alone.
And even though he was uncomfortable with the idea, Fanny persuaded
him to let me go.
“
That horse of hers is
protection enough. She’ll be fine, ya big oaf,” she said. Her
copper-colored hair was pulled back off her face with a blue scarf.
She slapped him on the arm, and Hemi grunted dramatically as if he
were in a lot of pain.
Grabbing a bar of soap, I took off
with Faraway. I placed my hand on Faraway’s neck and walked with
him while he led me to the river. By now the sun was setting and
the sky was turning dark, twilight. Looking at the calm,
slow-moving river made me shake unconsciously. Joss had rescued me
the year before from a river much like this one.
I took off my boots and rolled up my
pants before creeping to the water’s edge and stepping in, letting
the coldness of the water shock my system and clear my head. Using
the soap, I scrubbed as much dirt as I could from my hands, face,
neck, and arms. It was the most I could do without taking a full
bath, and truthfully, I didn’t feel at all comfortable taking one
in the open.
Once done, I was in no hurry to head
back to camp, so I waded out to an outcropping of rocks and climbed
upon them as if I were playing the old child’s game King of the
Mountain. I stood on them with my hands on my hips and watched as
the moonlight reflected on the waters.
It wasn’t until a hand grabbed my
ankle and pulled that I realized someone was in the lake with
me.
Chapter 2
I was
yanked backwards into the water, and I came up gasping for breath
and sputtering like a doused cat.
My black hair covered my face,
blocking my vision while loud guffaws alerted me to the direction
of my attacker.
I recognized the laugh as belonging to
Joss.
Pulling my hair to the side, I saw his
grin. He tried to hide it when I glared at him. Hastily, I glanced
to the embankment to see Joss’s shirt and boots lying on a log. No
other clothes were removed and I breathed easier. Not by much,
though, because my eyes kept looking down at his masculine
chest.
When Joss still was unable to silence
his mirth, I got revenge. Pulling the water to me I made two huge
waves rise up on both sides of him and immersed him, I also made
sure that the waves soaked his shirt and boots that he’d left on
dry land.
Now it was my turn to laugh
mercilessly. I was rewarded by a physical dunking that turned into
more splashing. I tried to run out of the water for safety, but
Joss was faster, scooping me up around the waist. He threw me,
screaming, back into the cold, dark water.
Only I didn’t come up. I held my
breath and swam as low to the bottom as possible. I held still,
lying in wait. Paddling backward with my hands, I closed my eyes
and searched with my other senses through the water. Sure enough, a
frantic Joss shouted my name and dove back in after me.
