The Heart
The Siren Series
Book Three
By Rachel Higginson
Copyright@ Rachel Higginson 2015
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Copy Editing by Carolyn Moon
Cover Design by Caedus Design Co.
Other books by Rachel Higginson currently available
Love and Decay
Love and Decay, Season One, Episodes One-Twelve
Love and Decay, Season Two, Episodes One-Twelve
Love and Decay, Season Three, Episodes One-Twelve
Love and Decay, Season Four, Coming December, 2015
The Star-Crossed Series
Reckless Magic
Hopeless Magic
Fearless Magic
Endless Magic
The Reluctant King
The Relentless Warrior
Breathless Magic
Fateful Magic
The Redeemable Prince
The Starbright Series
Heir of Skies
Heir of Darkness
Heir of Secrets
The Siren Series
The Rush
The Fall
The Heart
Bet in the Dark
The Five Stages of Falling in Love
Every Wrong Reason
To Holly and Kari,
The Best PR Girls in the Biz.
Chapter One
“How are you so long?” I growled into the mirror. I took chunks of my hair with my fists and tugged as hard as I could. “Ow!”
Okay, so pulling my stupid hair out by the stupid roots was not going to work. I glanced at the cheap scissors I’d picked up at the market with longing, but knew they weren’t an option.
I’d already been down that road.
More than once.
Almost a year ago, I’d hacked away my hair and changed up my look to escape a world that terrified me. Since then, my hair had taken on a life of its own. I couldn’t keep it short.
I couldn’t keep it choppy or massacred or anything short of shampoo-commercial worthy.
“I hate you,” I growled into the mirror at my shiny, golden-red locks. When my eyes dipped to meet my own gaze, I felt my heart stutter and then stop.
My frustrated words bounced around in my chest and resonated in my ears. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Who was I talking to?
I swallowed through emotions I was too stubborn to deal with and fear too bitter to taste. I would deal with those things later.
When I wasn’t already late for work.
I spun around and hurried through my little beach bungalow, swooping up my purse and abused paperback. I shoved my current read into the oversized silky bag I’d bought beneath a palm tree from one of my favorite beachside vendors last week and skipped through the front door.
The cool, salty breeze sailed over my skin with a tingle of pleasure. I lifted my nose to the sky and closed my eyes against the pure taste of ultimate freedom. I had escaped.
I was lonely. I was bored. I had left whatever pieces of my heart still beating with life back in Omaha. And I had abandoned everyone that counted on me.
But I had escaped.
I turned around to lock up my house. It wasn’t exactly foreign to live alone. I had my own place when I was sentenced to Arizona for rehabilitation. When I moved back to Omaha, my mother and I had fallen into the same routine as usual. We tried to keep as opposite schedules as possible, since neither one of us could stand the sight of the other.
But it was different here.
I wasn’t just alone, I was utterly alone.
I had no one watching me constantly or demanding I do things I didn’t want to do. I also didn’t have friends that actually cared about me or cared about what I was doing.
And worst of all, I didn’t have Ryder.
My hand shook as I lifted my keys to the deadbolt. I blinked away fresh tears as the lock clicked into place. Ryder was another thing I needed to bury. And quickly.
I couldn’t do this right now.
Or ever.
I bounded down the steps that led out to a quaint but chipped sidewalk. My tiny rental sat right on the beach. Golden sand spread out in front of me and led straight to shimmering aqua ocean that was so transparent, the coral beneath the surface glittered in the sunlight. The salty breeze constantly surrounded me and added soothing character to magnificent sunsets and miles and miles of white-topped waves.
I had found paradise. And yet it felt empty.
I slung my purse across my body and walked down to the road. I had set up my new life in a tourist village that catered to foreigners. I mingled with natives that spoke fantastic English and thought I was strange because I had come to the island and never left. They asked me every week when I would be headed back home. I avoided answering with pretty smiles and flirtatious laughter.
The main road in the village was filled with pedestrian traffic and the occasional taxi. American and English voices blended together, asking for directions or bargaining over souvenirs. I weaved through sweaty bodies with my eyes on the ground and my hands clutching my purse.
I hated the walk to work. I hated that I had to leave the quiet safety of my house and venture into populated places where anyone could see me.
I hated staying home too, though. I hated the stifling silence and the ache in my chest that sometimes grew so sharp I thought it would split me in two. Home was a necessity I put up with for my survival.
I worked at a café at the end of the main street. White awnings billowed over open windows and small tables clustered together on the front patio, filled with tourists and locals alike. They sipped inky espresso out of dainty cream cups during the day and cheap wine once the sun set.
Fleur De Sy, a Belgian national, owned Café Callisto. She retired to my island ten years ago after having some unspecified legal trouble. She never explained exactly what happened, but it was clear she could never go home.
I felt a kinship with her, even if I never confessed my own reasons for running away from home.
Fleur frowned at me when I swept into the café. “You’re late,” she grumbled. She wiped her wrinkled hands on her frilly white apron, and then ran them through her curled, snow-white bob.
I threw a smile her way, “I lost track of time.”
In her thick, French accent, she demanded, “Again?”
“Again,” I confirmed.
She shook her head and let out a puff of air. “The water will always be there, Ivy. You must remember this so that I do not fire you.”
“You won’t fire me.” I patted her shoulder as I squeezed through the tightly spaced tables and chairs inside the stifling restaurant. The windows were opened, but
the breeze had died down and there were too many people inside. Sweat dotted my forehead and slid through my hair.
“How can you be so sure?” She raised thinly arched eyebrows at me, never breaking her frown.
“Because I’m the best server here.” I didn’t wait for her to reply. I knew her mood would only get worse.
My theory was confirmed when I heard her grumble, “What does that say for the rest of my employees?”
This time when I smiled, it was mostly genuine. I was a terrible waitress. I couldn’t remember orders, I dropped food and broke glasses regularly and I was never on time.
I had never been forced to work a day in my life before I fled. I had been pampered and spoiled. I had been imprisoned in a gilded cage where I was force fed the finest foods and expected to wear the nicest clothes. Work was beneath my mother unless conning some poor schmuck out of his fortune counted. And Nix would never have allowed it.
I stowed my purse beneath the coffee counter and tied an apron around my waist. Energy started to buzz beneath my skin, igniting something inside of me I couldn’t explain.
I had found early on that I liked to work. It was my only consolation for the life I’d exiled myself to. I liked doing something that yielded tangible results and rubbed callouses into my palms. I liked the achy feeling in my feet and legs at the end of a long shift and the weird mixture of coffee and gravy I came home smelling like.
This job and the ocean were the only reasons I’d been able to hang on this long.
The ocean.
I hadn’t lied earlier when I told Fleur I’d lost track of time. I had been stuck staring at the water.
I’d felt a calling to it lately that I couldn’t explain. Or maybe I could, but I didn’t want to.
Just like my hair continuing to grow, the pull of the ocean strengthened significantly lately. It had become so intense that I often found myself barefoot and knee deep inside of it before I realized what I was doing. The waves would brush against my thighs and the taste of salt lingered on my lips.
And I would be home.
The ocean possessed a power like I had never known. It ignited something ancient in my soul, something infinite. I felt it well up inside me until my heart ached from the force of it and my eyes stung from emotion I held back.
I didn’t understand it, but I couldn’t tear myself away from it either.
A soft hand landed on my shoulder, “You’ve got a table.”
I looked up and met the kind eyes of my coworker, “Thanks, Maria.”
I surveyed my section until I found the newlywed-looking couple huddled together over menus. His hand rubbed a sweet pattern over her back and she tilted her head to him, attracted to the newness of their happiness.
This job had the unexpected benefit of making me very good at reading people. I had always been too self-absorbed in my own drama to notice others before or I had gone to the concerted effort of avoiding them. Men always wanted something from me and women were turned off by the aggressive competition they felt in my presence.
Not now though.
Something had broken inside of me when Nix attacked Ryder and me. Or maybe Nix wasn’t to blame.
Maybe it had been Ryder.
The Fates had prophesied that he would break me. That he would ruin me.
And looking at everything from their point of view, maybe he had. But to me, it felt like I had been fixed.
I was no longer the object of every male’s desire. Females no longer wanted to cut my throat just because they didn’t like the way their men looked at me.
When I said I was free on this island, I meant it. I was free from all of it, all of my old life and the people that filled it.
I just wasn’t convinced that it was a good thing yet.
I walked over to the couple and wrote down their coffee and scone orders. Another table filled in my section and soon enough I was as busy as the other servers.
My shift flew by. Afternoon coffees turned into early dinner specials and then late night wine and spirits. My apron filled with meager tips and my neck ached from carrying trays of food for hours on end. But by the end of the night, I felt a rich kind of satisfaction.
It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning when all of the patrons had finally cleared out that I’d been able to clean up my section and start closing down. I paused after setting chairs upside down on one of the patio tables and stretched my back.
The moonlight glistened in the sky, cascading milky light over the quiet streets. Most of the population had gone to bed for the night and the tourists had wandered back to their resorts by now, ready for free booze or other evening entertainment. I could hear the lapping of the waves against the nearby shoreline and my heart picked up speed, thumping energetically in my chest.
My fingertips buzzed with anticipation and I felt the telltale skittering along my spine.
The magic of the water called to me. It wound its way into my soul with a quickness that took my breath away. I didn’t understand, but I knew that I was bound to the ocean, to the waves that could pull me under and push me every which way. The vastness of it claimed me. The depth and mystery owned me.
I shared a bond with the salty water that etched into my bones and tattooed me in ways ink could never touch.
I couldn’t deny it anymore. Called by the song that should be familiar to me, but wasn’t, I quickly finished up my duties, waved goodbye to Fleur and hurried back to the beach near my house.
Smith had outfitted me with plenty of cash and a new identity and I used both as if my life depended on them. And it did. I knew Smith had intended to help me and I wouldn’t have made it out of the country if he hadn’t.
I turned eighteen a few days ago and technically had access to my trust. But I doubted I would go back for it. I had enough to set up a life here and if I kept working hard, it would be enough forever.
It was ironic to me that I had waited my whole life for that money… that before Smith had given me support to get out, that money was the only way I had imagined I could escape. Yet, I’d survived without a penny of it.
This island had remade me. I was a different person than I had been at home. I was a person I liked better. I was a person I could tolerate.
And I could almost pretend that this new person… this new girl was really me. That I’d had some kind of mountaintop experience and saw a new light. I could almost pretend that this was the person I was supposed to be.
Almost.
Because as soon as I slid off my flats, rolled up my black pants and stepped into the cool water, the girl I used to be screamed her truths at me. The water wouldn’t let me pretend. Or escape.
The water wrapped around my skin and forced me to remember who I was.
Ivy Pierce. Eighteen. Siren.
Slave.
I inhaled a deep breath, one that felt like it was the first true breath of my life. I had the same reaction every single time I touched this water, every time the ocean met my skin. I closed my eyes and momentarily got lost in the blissful relief from everything else. The cool air mingled with the warm water on my feet. Tropical paradise described this place perfectly.
Which was a good thing since I had been sentenced to live out the remainder of my days here.
A sharp, cold breeze tumbled over my back suddenly. I sucked in a surprised breath and tried to settle my heart after the jarring, frozen pulse of air receded.
I spun around, waves tangling with my abrupt movements, and prepared my body to fight to the death.
My murderous reaction was premature. “Hermes,” I growled. “You nearly scared me to death!”
His eyes flashed with awe, “You felt me arrive.”
“I probably have frostbite!” I hissed at him. I took in his tailored suit and golden hair, unruffled despite the ocean breeze. He stood in the sand several feet away looking like Adonis come to life. His olive skin glistened in the moonlight, his amber eyes lit with a supernatural intensity. The sand scuffed up
his shiny loafers and I felt a small victory in that.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be able to find me.
I had done a great job of flying under the radar and remaining undetected. I had banked on my new ability to blend in.
He watched me with a calculating expression. His eyes were narrowed suspiciously, as if I posed some kind of threat to him. I could feel something building between us, something he wanted to say.
But I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear what brought him all the way here or what he could possibly want with me.
And I especially didn’t want anything to do with the world he came from. I had made this choice. As hard and lonely as it was, I had found freedom and I would do anything to keep it.
Even if that meant that this future was just as miserable as the one Nix had planned for me.
“That’s the mountain,” he explained.
I jerked back, “Olympus?”
A small smile twisted his lips, “The one and only.”
Pride lit up his expression. It wasn’t just pride though, it was entitlement. Nix looked the same way whenever he mentioned Olympus.
I got that it was their home, but it was more than that. Olympus to them represented so much more than the place they came from. It defined them. It set them apart from the human race and gave them infinite power and endless authority. Olympus made them what they were- soulless, selfish bastards.
“Mortals aren’t supposed to notice it,” he went on. “But then again, you’re not exactly mortal.”
I wasn’t in the mood. “As far as I know, I am. Unless you have something you’d like to share with me? Maybe fill in some very large blanks in my life?”
He shook his head and his awestricken expression turned amused. “Don’t be angry with me. It’s not my place.”