“I never knew it would feel like this,” Seth said in awe.
She could feel their souls tangle with hers, as if the world had stopped and it was only the three of them. While she would have stayed there, letting the bond settle as she got to know her men all over again, someone cleared their throat from beside them. Then the reality of where they were and what had happened with the queen settled into her.
She turned toward a group of thirty people or so and swallowed hard as they each knelt in front of her.
“My queen,” one of the men in front said. “I am David, a siren of a different line. We…we wanted to say thank you for freeing us. The former queen held our lines hostage for far too long, and none of us were powerful enough to stop it.”
Her men stood on either side of her, though they didn’t hold her hands. It was enough that she could feel them at her sides and in her heart.
That was something she would have to get used to, but hell, she loved it. She loved them.
Wait. “Did you just call me your queen?” She shook her head. “I’m no queen. I’m just me.”
“There’s nothing just about you,” Tristan said softly before addressing the others. “Because she killed the former queen, are you saying she is the new monarch?”
David nodded. “That’s how it’s always worked.” He frowned. “I know you’re new and have no idea about our realm, but we need a king or queen. It’s not just for decisions, but how our songs work. There needs to be order, and frankly, we have been in chaos for too long with the former queen.”
Amara shook her head and licked her lips. Seth put his hand on her back and she settled ever so slightly. “I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’ve been in the siren realm for all of a day. I’m not fit to be queen.”
“That makes you the perfect queen,” David insisted. “We don’t need someone to rule with an iron fist. We need a voice, a song of reason.” He held up his hands when she opened her mouth to counter. “I’m not saying you should jump on the throne right now, but when you feel ready to come back to the realm, we will be here. And when you do come back, if you still feel you cannot be here as a presence of hope for small amounts of time, then we will see how we can move the crown to another. We aren’t a fighting people, Amara. We just need some form of order for our songs to be melodic.”
It was all too much for her, but she knew if she said no right then, she might hurt the others in the room that had such hopeful expressions on their faces.
“I…I need time to think.”
“Of course,” David said and nodded at the others around them. As one, the sirens stood up and smiled at her.
It was all so surreal. She was a siren, a mated siren. And now, a freaking queen? Not to mention the fact that the dead body of the former queen lay a few feet away and no one had done anything about it. No love lost there, apparently. Maybe one day she would wake up from the dream, but if that meant she would lose Tristan and Seth, then maybe she wanted to stay asleep.
“We’ll figure it out,” Seth said softly. “We have time.”
“We have all the time in the world,” Tristan added, and that calmed her.
Yes, they had all the time in the world to figure out the next step. That was how she’d made it this far; how she’d become a siren in a world where she’d always thought she was alone. She might not know what to do next or what her life meant in the siren world, but she had her family, had her soul.
She’d found her home, and now she could be whoever she wanted to be.
She was Amara. Siren. Mate. Queen. And home.
ELIANA
The pink line mocked her. It screamed at her even though it was just a damned pink line on a home pregnancy test. It had never occurred to Eliana that she would be the last mateless lightning-struck of the seven. It also had never occurred to her that she’d have her heart broken by someone she’d thought would make being with a human, and being mortal, okay.
Not to mention, she’d never thought she would end up pregnant and alone.
But the seven positive pregnancy tests that littered the floor next to the bottles of water so she could actually take said tests didn’t lie.
Malik had dumped her like she was yesterday’s trash, and she should have been over it already. She’d gotten over the men in the past that had broken up with her for one reason or another easily, yet this seemed different.
Yeah, he hadn’t been her true half or whatever since he’d been human and all, but hell, she’d thought he was the one.
And now she was pregnant with his baby and he wasn’t answering his phone.
Eliana, the last lightning-struck female and human in her own right, was royally screwed.
And the others didn’t even know the half of it yet.
Well, shit.
Epilogue