ℤ𝕒𝕟𝕖
Ava's eyes are wide and she hangs up the phone.
"Were you eavesdropping the whole time?" she asks.
"It's not eavesdropping if you have superhuman hearing," I say.
"So you heard about Pike's?" she asks.
"Yeah, still trying to wrap my head around it. I'll text Kieran to see what he knows."
I pull out my phone and send Kieran a message.
Me: Hey mate - Call me
"That's so creepy," she says, sitting back on the bed and wrapping herself in the plush white comforter. "We were there last night. Do you think it's related to the other Siren?"
My fists clench and my nails dig into my skin at the thought of another Siren targeting Ava. Sirens don't usually kill—especially since they can get what they want without needing to. But one targeted Ava, and they did it by dosing her drink. Despite my arrangement with Kieran, that's not the usual way a Siren lures a human. They're usually more hands-on, approaching and charming their mark.
"It would be one hell of a bloody coincidence," I say.
A tapping sound turns our attention to the door.
"Z," Kami's voice calls. "What did you break this time?"
Ava slips on her pajama bottoms and buttons up the top.
"You can come in!" I say.
Kami barges in to inspect her guest bedroom. She pauses upon seeing her fractured coffee table and her hands move quickly to her hips.
"Z, you destructive man-child!" she screams. "That table was white Carrara marble!"
"I don't know what that means," I say. "But I'll replace your bloody table, okay?"
She huffs in frustration and mumbles obscenities under her breath.
"Morning Ava," she says, turning to her. "Would you guys like some lunch?"
Ava looks to me and then to Kami again and blushes.
"I guess you can tell we've, uh..." she shrugs, "worked things out."
"Yeeaaah, hon, I kinda got that when you guys woke me up at 5 am with yo-"
"Oh my god!" Ava says, cutting her off.
A deep shade of pink fills Ava's cheeks and extends to her ears. She raises her hands to her face to hide.
"It's okay, Ava," Kami says. "We're 200-year-old Sirens. I've personally hosted my own orgies. I don't get squeamish about much."
Ava takes a pillow and holds it up to bury her face in.
"This morning is officially too much," she says, muffled slightly by the pillow.
I move over to sit with Ava on the bed and pull the pillow away.
"Alright, love, let's get some food," I say. "No more awkward conversations."
"If we can just avoid any more big revelations or embarrassing moments, that would be great," she says.
"Big revelations?" Kami asks, giving me a curious look.
"I told her about being soulmates," I say. "And about the mark."
Her eyes nearly pop out of her head and she gives a look that tells me that she's already filing away questions for me to answer later.
"Wow," she says, swallowing hard. "That is a lot of revelations for one morning."
"Yeah and then Jen calls and tells me they found a body at Pike's," Ava says.
"What?" Kami asks, rapidly turning toward Ava.
"Yeah, we were just there last night and I somehow got dosed with Siren venom," Ava explains. "Who knows what could've happened if I had stayed."
"Who was the victim?" she asks.
I'm surprised Kami glossed over the Siren venom so quickly. Does she know something I don't?
"I don't know," Ava says.
"I know who I'm personally rooting for," I say with a smirk.
Fucking Dave.
The scent from that lumbering oaf of a man still lingers in Ava's hair.
"Not nice," Ava scolds, narrowing her eyes and scrunching her lips in the most adorable way.
"I'm not a nice guy, love," I say with a smirk.
"Okay lovebirds," Kami says. "I'm gonna make lunch and then I need to go over to Pike's and look into this."
She gives me a suspicious glance that I can instantly read. It's obvious she's immediately expecting the worst of Kieran.
*****
Finn sits across the table from me perusing the menu.
"Man, I've missed proper food," he says with a longing sigh.
Kieran walks up to our table in a maroon leather blazer over a barely-buttoned red dress shirt and jeans so tight it hurts just to look at them.
"Long time no see, my man!" Kieran shouts, gripping Finn's hand and pulling him in for a hug.
"Yeah, what's that all about?" he asks. "Everyone seemed to drop off the earth for a while there."
Oh. Yeah, we last saw Finn shortly before Halloween, when everything went straight to hell because I'm such a bloody idiot. Finn has always been a great voice of reason—maybe if he were there he would've stopped me before I broke up with Ava.
Finn chokes on air and his eyes go wide.
"Fuck, mate," he says. "What the hell happened on Halloween?"
"Ooh did you read his mind again?" Kieran asks. "Was he thinking about the lethe?"
Fuck.
"Lethe??" Finn asks, his hand covering his mouth. "A'right, mate, the bloody hell is goin' on?"
"Oi, okay," I say with a sigh. "Long story short, I'm a total wanker. I thought that maybe the myth about Siren's venom was true and it was making Ava go crazy. It wasn't. But I broke up with her because I'm an idiot. Then I downed a bunch of lethe. That, expectably, made things much worse."
"Don't leave out the part where I tried to save your ass but you had to go say something stupid to Ava," Kieran says.
"And you tried to kill me," I add.
"Oh yeah, that too," he says with a chuckle.
Finn's jaw drops.
"Anyway uh, it's fine. We're back together, but I-"
"What now?" Kieran says with a shocked expression. "Shit dude, you just drop that on me like that?"
"Yeah uh, last night."
"And you're out to lunch with us?" Kieran asks. "Why are you not home, cashing in on that sweet, sweet makeup sex?"
I would've dropped this lunch in a heartbeat to spend more time with Ava, but she had a client meeting and work to do.
"So that's how it is, ay?" Finn's voice says in my head.
"Sorry mate," I say with a chuckle.
"What was he thinking?" Kieran asks. "Why'd he apologize?"
Finn shrugs and smirks at me.
"Man, Finn, you're no fun," Kieran says. "This power is so bitchin' and you won't even share it."
"You wouldn't find it so great if he could read your thoughts too," I say.
Luckily for Kieran—and more so really, for Finn—demons are immune to a Selkie's telepathy.
"It's not my fault I'm so complex and mysterious," he says with a smirk.
Finn rolls his eyes.
A waitress approaches our table. She has brown hair wrapped in a braid to one side and olive skin.
"Hi there! I'm Shandi," she says.
"Well, hello there, Shandi," Kieran says, taking a mere half of a second to decide he wants to have sex with this woman.
She reads off the drink specials and asks us what we'd like to drink. Finn orders a Guinness and I do too, Kieran orders a coke that he's undoubtedly going to spike with whatever alcohol is in the flask he has tucked in his jacket pocket. As the waitress leaves, Kieran's eyes follow her lower half.
"I'm personally relieved I can't read your mind," Finn says with a laugh.
"Hey man!" Kieran says. "With you two being boring housewives now, you know you want to live vicariously through my sex life. You just don't know what you're missing. You're not going to get that kind of dirty from Mr. Straight-Laced over here."
Finn looks awkwardly down at the table, avoiding eye contact with me.
Oh god. That's right, I completely forgot about the other night at the club. Finn certainly got an earful from my wandering mind.
Finn pinches his lips together, trying not to laugh.
"What's that look for?" Kieran asks.
Finn and I both shrug and silently exchange looks.
"Hey now, wait a minute," he whines. "Did Zane do something I don't know about? Is sweet little Ava a freak in the she-"
Say the words and eat your tongue for lunch.
"I wouldn't," Finn says, stopping Kieran.
"See what I mean?" Kieran says. "He's so sensitive."
This lunch has already gotten wildly off-topic. I was supposed to be getting more info about the body at Pikes and yet I'm busy trying not to kill Kieran. Again.
Finn's eyes flick toward me and I realize he's wondering about what I've just thought.
Well, here goes nothing.
"So er, I wanted to talk to you about the body they found at Pike's," I say to Kieran.
"Body?" he asks. "What are you talking about?"
"You're telling me you don't know anything about the dead body they found last night?"
Kami is currently at Pike's investigating the scene, so part of my job is to keep Kieran away. I don't suspect him, but I do agree that his presence would be a nuisance.
"Shit," Kieran says. "That's gonna bring a lot of attention onto me. Just what I need."
His response seems genuine.
"Who was it?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"Pike's is Kieran's bar, right?" Finn asks.
"Yeah," I say. "I was there with Ava last night, too."
"Uh, technically she was there wit-" Kieran starts to say.
"Say it. I fucking dare you."
Kieran takes a heavy gulp.
"So um," Finn says in an attempt to change the subject. "You think this dead body is anything to worry about?"
"I don't know," I say. "There have been some suspicious deaths around. We think there's another Incubus in town. Not sure if this is related."
"Why do you think it's an Incubus?" Finn asks.
"Because they have that classic, drained Incubus-victim look."
"But I thought Incubi don't have to drain their victims," he says. "I mean, Kieran doesn't."
"We don't have to," Kieran says. "But we can. If I drain any random person on the street I can knock them out, or kill them if I take it a little further. But you get caught real easy that way."
"Wait, then why do you need to have sex with them? If you can just drain anyone."
"It's a lot easier to feed off sexual energy and there's a lot more of it to take. It sustains me a lot longer. Plus I can get off."
"I'm sorry I asked," Finn says.
My phone vibrates in my pocket as the waitress arrives with our drinks, setting them down on the table.
Kami: We have a problem. This is definitely an Incubus kill. But that's not all.
As I read her message, another comes through.
Kami: We know the victim.